Broken Frontier

Grant Morrison takes Action Comics to a strange yet familiar place.

Action Comics has become anything but typical. It started with a same-but-different version of Superman and changed some key relationships and characters for the Man of Steel. At the end of issue #4, Metropolis was bottled by Braniac and Superman decided to join up with the U.S. Army to try and foil his plans. Readers might not have noticed that the issue ended with “Continued in issue 7,” leaving everyone wondering what would be covered in the next two issues. Well, I just read the first of the two and it is hard to answer that question.

It starts with a beautiful retelling of the last moments of Krypton. Many people often ask why Jor-El did not build a spaceship large enough for the family, and Grant Morrison answers that by explaining how the ship was merely a smaller prototype of something meant to be much larger. Makes sense. Over the years, Krypton has been shown blowing up more times than I can count, but here artist Andy Kubert makes it look as stunning as ever. The planet cracks straight down the middle with an arc of green energy blasting outwards as the tiny spacecraft streaks through space to safety; you can even see little baby Kal-El in the window.

What happens next is the curious part. Instead of going on to show the baby grow up to be Clark Kent and then Superman, Morrison shows what became of the craft some time in the future. An unknown group of villains with different sets of glowing hands are out to steal the ship’s power source, which leads to a puzzling reveal of the New 52’s Legion of Superheroes. Seeing how the New 52 is supposed to be all about retooling characters for a modern age with little confusion and lots of great stories, this turn of events is worrisome. Most of those new to comics would obviously gravitate to the familiar image of Superman, but those reading Action Comics might have put down the comic to scratch their heads. Having a mystery and a complex plot is okay, but here Morrison goes too far by having little to no clues about what exactly is going on. The reveals are confusing instead of surprising, which weakens the overall story.