Action Comics 1021 Spoilers/Discussion

Alright, so I have a huge problem with this issue but I want to talk about the good first, just for fairness sake. I like basically all the Conner Kent stuff, the fact he saves Superman and the fact that he’s back in Clark’s life, I started out reading Superboy and I’ve always enjoyed their family relationship as it’s developed so to have them finally together again as it should be is nice. I guess I also like that at the end of the day Superman can still inspire people to be somewhat good with Red Cloud, even though that’s not likely to stick.

Now onto the bad. Look someone needs to get Bendis an editor who can have him make sense of time and story. Because if I read this issue right, this is set before Superman #18 or before Superman revealed his identity to the public. That means that in other series we have seen an upset Luthor looking as though he’d retaliate, we’ve seen in the past few issues him upset gathering allies to attack Metropolis. And now we learn that he did this before the identity reveal so that means...Lex did this for no good reason. He just decided to team with Leviathan and attack metropolis just because. In fact, the issue sets this before Doom War and Hell Arisen. Now while that may make some sense time line wise for when this takes place, but I’m not sure if anyone else feels this way however I’m confused what the point of this was if it had nothing to do with the identity reveal. It just feels wrong and backwards that the big attack/retribution against Superman had nothing to do with Lex mad at Clark.

Personally, I’m not a fan of this issue except for the Superboy stuff and looking back besides some build up, conversations and fights I’m not sure how I feel about this whole arc if it had no big connection to what’s going on now. All that’s happened is an attack on the city, leviathan left a floating future city and talked down to the Justice League. All around very meh.

Is it me or Romita Jr. art has improved in this issue?

From what is said in the issue, the reason Lex is doing this is because before Doom War goes down he wants to stop messing around and kill Superman and "liberate" his people and his world from under Superman. He teamed up with Leviathan specifically because he was impressed him taking over the intelligence community right under everyone's nose including Superman's. He teams up with Red Cloud because he sees potental in her, and he even planned on leaving her whatever was left of his fortune (implied to still be pretty vast by Hell Arisen)

Him being pissed off at the end of issue 18 doesn't actually get messed with. Apparently we'll be seeing Lex again during House of Kent (which is set after the reveal), so whatever his reaction is will be there.

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All in all, I actually had a good time reading the issue. Conner and Clark were good, Clark getting through to Red Cloud for a moment was great, and the prospect of rebuilding the city has me very interested in what the future holds. Still have my issues with the art, but it is what it is.

[QUOTE=Superlad93;4905789]From what is said in the issue, the reason Lex is doing this is because before Doom War goes down he wants to stop messing around and kill Superman and "liberate" his people and his world from under Superman. He teamed up with Leviathan specifically because he was impressed him taking over the intelligence community right under everyone's nose including Superman's. He teams up with Red Cloud because he sees potental in her, and he even planned on leaving her whatever was left of his fortune (implied to still be pretty vast by Hell Arisen)

Him being pissed off at the end of issue 18 doesn't actually get messed with. Apparently we'll be seeing Lex again during House of Kent (which is set after the reveal), so whatever his reaction is will be there.

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All in all, I actually had a good time reading the issue. Conner and Clark were good, Clark getting through to Red Cloud for a moment was great, and the prospect of rebuilding the city has me very interested in what the future holds. Still have my issues with the art, but it is what it is.[/QUOTE]

I understand that it can be before Doom War, and honestly it fits more on the timeline, but it feels wrong to me. It feels poorly timed in grand scheme of thing with what Bendis has shown in other Superman stories recently. Again I can believe it but it just feels off.

[QUOTE=sifighter;4905870]I understand that it can be before Doom War, and honestly it fits more on the timeline, but it feels wrong to me. It feels poorly timed in grand scheme of thing with what Bendis has shown in other Superman stories recently. Again I can believe it but it just feels off.[/QUOTE]

Outside of like two or three other appearances, Lex hasn't shown up in this run, and there's downtime implied between the forming of the UP/Jon leaving for the Legion and the events in Superman 18, so in terms of timing or space that's a fine pocket to put it in.

The only bit of confusion is the end of issue 18, being printed before this, but with how this ends that doesn't actually contradict anything.