Action Comics #1050 discussion WITH SPOILERS

[superduperman]

This was clearly designed to set up future stories more than an actual story itself and of course it sets everything back to zero. I found Luthor's excuse rather weak. But I guess they had to come up with something. This issue was more a sales pitch for upcoming series.

[manwhohaseverything]

I think Clark was angry because he'd just recently turned one of his rogues into an ally, and now he's dead at the hands of another villain.

See this is what i am talking about.."superman didn't turn" manchester black into anything.Their goals aligned.That's it.Morrison run was cool cause manchester and clark would and should be at each others throats..still find common grounds.Clark wants to make a difference..So does manchester.Because they both believe somethings are wrong.

[Thundershot]

I enjoyed this. I was a loyal Superman reader from his death to around Superman 150. It was still the triangle era. I popped back now and then to see if the book was for me again, and even tried New 52 and Rebirth, and while Convergence gave me hope, Rebirth just didn’t do it for me. Let’s see what happens this time…

[Quinlan58]

I think I read the whole deal with Manchester Black a bit differently from what it seems other people did. When Lex accuses Chester of now being one of Clark's followers, it read more to me like Chester was just not contesting it out of both a lack of desire to engage Lex in that conversation (because anyone who knows Lex knows that would be useless, and he doesn't need to prove anything to Lex anyway), and to better troll Lex afterwards. When Clark got angry at Manchester Black's death... I mean, the dude himself said it. He got angry because, when all his closest allies refused to help him, Manchester Black did. I liked that he seemed to have no reaction to Chester spying on him, too.

Now, as far as the issue overall goes, while I enjoyed it a little more than I know some did, in the end, it didn't really achieve that much, did it? As a culmination of what came before, it doesn't work. It doesn't have anything to do with the plot threads or themes explored by PKJ, and it barely has anything with Jon and Jay. As a jumping in point for what comes later, it has nothing to do with the Super-Family angle of Action Comics, almost nothing with the Daily Planet angle of Williamson's Superman, nothing of substance with Jon besides an admittedly great page of him enjoying his anonymity... So besides resetting the status quo, the only thing it does is introducing us to Williamson's take on Lex... which is bad, IMHO. This sort of nakedly stating his emotions and childhood trauma is completely wrong for the character.

[JAK]

Not gonna lie, I actually really enjoyed this issue!

Looking forward to what's coming!

[The Frog Bros]

I liked how the issue was bookended with Lex and his plans with Manchester and Metallo.

Alpha and omega.

[manwhohaseverything]

I think I read the whole deal with Manchester Black a bit differently from what it seems other people did. When Lex accuses Chester of now being one of Clark's followers, it read more to me like Chester was just not contesting it out of both a lack of desire to engage Lex in that conversation (because anyone who knows Lex knows that would be useless, and he doesn't need to prove anything to Lex anyway), and to better troll Lex afterwards. When Clark got angry at Manchester Black's death... I mean, the dude himself said it. He got angry because, when all his closest allies refused to help him, Manchester Black did. I liked that he seemed to have no reaction to Chester spying on him, too.

Now, as far as the issue overall goes, while I enjoyed it a little more than I know some did, in the end, it didn't really achieve that much, did it? As a culmination of what came before, it doesn't work. It doesn't have anything to do with the plot threads or themes explored by PKJ, and it barely has anything with Jon and Jay. As a jumping in point for what comes later, it has nothing to do with the Super-Family angle of Action Comics, almost nothing with the Daily Planet angle of Williamson's Superman, nothing of substance with Jon besides an admittedly great page of him enjoying his anonymity... So besides resetting the status quo, the only thing it does is introducing us to Williamson's take on Lex... which is bad, IMHO. This sort of nakedly stating his emotions and childhood trauma is completely wrong for the character.

You are right.. that's a better reading.I suppose the whole "'good' guy turning/redeem 'bad' guy" just irks and the story kinda had a emphasis on it..So my annoyance got the better of me..