Action Comics #858

Spinning out of the "Justice League of America" and "Justice Society of America" crossover event "The Lightening Saga", "Action Comics" 858 begins the reintroduction of the Legions of Superheroes into the Superman mythos. I grew up reading "Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes" in the 70s and really enjoyed those adventures. During the 80s I read everything DC put out that had the Legion in it. However, after the excellent "Crisis on Infinite Earths" John Byrne was brought on to restart Superman. One of the big mistakes that he made was the elimination of Superboy from Superman's past. This totally negated any adventures that Superboy had with the Legion. Since then there have been many attempts at jump starting the Legion with varying degrees of success. With "Action Comics" #858, Geoff Johns begins his attempt to clear up this mess. I'm very excited to see both Johns' retcon of Superman's first introduction to the Legion and Jim Shooter's run on the current "Supergirl and the Legion of Superheroes" monthly.

Johns has brought a couple of other changes to book as well. John Byrne set Clark Kent up as a football playing "with it" guy and Johns takes Clark back to his origins here as a somewhat goofy "mild mannered" reporter. You can see Donner's influence as Clark comes across much like the Christopher Reeve take on Superman in "Superman: the Movie". It will be interesting to see if Johns' take on Clark migrates to its sister comic "Superman".

I wasn't really impressed with penciller Gary Frank's cover and promotional art for this comic. However, after reading the book I'm excited about his run on the book. Frank captures emotion fairly well and you can see the giddiness in the Legion trio that come back to meet a young Clark. By the end, I was loving Frank's take on the icons of DC presented within.

Superman #668 & #669

Superman #668 kicks off "The Third Kryptonian" story line and writer Kurt Busiek is going very SciFi. Superman is on a search for the third Kryptonian on Earth that he found out about when the Auctioneer came calling. He has ruled out Power Girl and, with the help of Batman, is going X-Files searching for the truth. Busiek provides a brief interlude to futher flesh out the Chris Kent character. Chris' interactions with both Batman and Robin are nicely done. Along the way we get to meet the protagonist of the story, Amalak, who has an interest in all things Kryptonian. The art by penciller Rick Leaonardi and inker Dan Green good with capturing both the youth of Chris and Robin and the maturity of Superman and Batman.

Issue # 669 introduces Kristen Wells as the third Kryptonian and she packs quite a wallop. Busiek takes the reader on a tour of post-Infinite Crisis Kryptonian history and I think he does a fine job of melding the John Bryne Utopian version with the Geoff Johns/Richard Donner military versus science of the Zod era. Busiek really cuts loose with the SciFi in this issue and weaves a very interesting tale of how Kristen Wells ended up on Earth. She does not have the morale center of Superman or the innocence of Supergirl and provides a stark contrast to Superman's ethical code. The issue ends with Amalak finding both Superman and Kristen and threatening the end of all Kryptonians. I'm looking forward to the next issue and seeing where this all goes.

Action Comics #857

Writers Geoff Johns and Richard Donner conclude the "Escape from Bizzarro World" three parter in Action Comics #857. Johns and Donner really capture the whimsy and humor of Bizarro. Eric Powell's art is pitch perfect as well. The three parter has been a fun read and the final chapter had some good twists and turns in it. You can feel that Johns and Donner had a good time with all of the characters. If you can get parts 1 and 2 I highly recommend this issue.

Action Comics #856

Writers Geoff Johns and Richard Donner continue the "Escape from Bizarro World" in "Action Comics" #856. The "three months ago" beginning is a very nice homage to "Frankenstein" and I found colorist Dave Stewart's use of muted greys a good capture of Bizarro's view of our world. Bizarro's loneliness is captured in just a few pages with Bizarro building his own world. The Blue Sun affecting Bizarrow allowing him to populate his world is also a nice touch. I thought the characterizations of all of the Bizarro versions of DC mainstays - Luthor, Lois, Perry White - were all done very well. However, as my son pointed out, the Bizarro-Doomsday was a little off. Wouldn't he be nice and intelligent on this backwards world?

Eric Powell's art is the center piece here and while I don't think that his style would lend well to a traditional "Action Comics" tale, it fits quite nicely here. I laughed out loud at the arrival of the Justice League satellite and the final page reveal of the Justice League. I look forward to how Johns and Donner are going to tie this up in the next issue.