Action Comics #1064 review

Oh, now this is great!

Not enough review for you? OK, a few details. It’s Saturday in Metropolis, Lois is having a rare day off and she has yoga on her mind.

Yep, Superman is on patrol but soon he’s on the scene as Clark, the epitome of Hot Dork.

He’s ready to show off his downward Superdog. Sadly, we don’t get to see it, as it begins to rain… Czarnians!

Which is weird, as the one thing everyone knows about the Czarnian race is that it’s extinct, murdered by one of their own, Lobo.

What’s more, they’re not alone. Those robotic drones can have only one master.

And that’s your set-up. For more details and what happens next, snap up this first part of the House of Brainiac, a three-month crossover between Action Comics and Superman. Joshua Williamson, writer of the latter series, has taken a berth in Action to give us a brief update on the Triangle era of Superman – I mean, that cover banner isn’t accidental.

One of the key aspects of the ten or so years of weekly Superman stories in the Nineties was the excellent use made of the supporting cast, and here Williamson checks in with everyone – the Super Family, the Daily Planet staff, the Supercorp gang, villains trying to be better. And it is wonderful to see them all – if this is Williamson in backdoor pilot mode for a regular gig as Action writer, and a fortnightly Superman series, I am so down for it. He provides a terrific overview of the current Metropolis, which artist Rafa Sandoval brings to vibrant life.

Jimmy, Silver Banshee, Luthor… it’s surprising how many characters Williamson manages to service with great little moments in the course of the chapter. I hope to see everyone come together to beat the bad guys by the end of what looks set to be an epic story.

The opening sequence of Lois dancing from the Kent townhouse to Centennial Park – to a ‘Pete Ross Mix Tape’, no less – is huge fun as Sandoval shows us how at home the Planet’s current editor is in the packed streets. To quote Charlie Brown, it’s a bit ‘too peopley’ out there for me, but even Lois isn’t happy when the thousands of unfriendly extraterrestrials drop in. A fine storyteller, Sandoval, partnered with colour artist Alejandro Sánchez, evokes a sense of chaos and dread. Mind, the Czarnians – captured and bottled by Brainiac, we learned in last year’s Superman Annual – look surprisingly attractive.

Also looking good is Supergirl, here recognised by Superman as having more experience with the robot conqueror than does he. Previously the very idea of Brainiac, who terrorised her Argo City home, freaked her out. No more.

The respectful way Kara is treated, and inclusion of the wider House of El folk, evokes the recently curtailed Phillip Kennedy Johnson run. I hope it continues – and that we learn just who Kara is heading for a date with at the start of the issue. Other little mysteries – why is this Lois’s special day? What’s on Pete Ross’s mix tape. If we have to wait until the Brainiac threat is over to find out, let the dangling plot points be addressed in a nice quiet issue-long epilogue, because I was really enjoying Saturday in the city before those rotten aliens arrived.

The lettering is by the ever-reliable Dave Sharpe, while Sandoval and Sánchez provide the busy cover which looks to me like it’s going to prove part of a bigger picture. We shall see.

Meanwhile, I’m off to re-read this supremely well-plotted, brilliantly executed Superman comic which, I must tease, closes with a massively intriguing splash page.

If there’s a better DC book this week I shall be very surprised.