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Action Comics #894

Action Comics #894

Scheduled to arrive in stores: October 27, 2010

Cover date: December 2010

Lex Luthor in "The Black Ring" Part Five

Writer: Paul Cornell
Penciller: Pete Woods
Inker: Pete Woods

"Jimmy Olsen's Big Week: Day Two"

Writer: Nick Spencer
Penciller: RB Silva
Inker: Dym

Cover: David Finch, Batt & Peter Ringwald
Variant Cover: P. Craig Russell

Reviewed by: Adam Dechanel

Click to enlarge


"The Black Ring: Part Five"

Lex Luthor's body lies lifeless, but his spectral self and a young teenager, Death are standing outside of time watching. As Lex struggles to believe he is dead he interacts with the young girl in a hope she well allow him to return to life. Death seems to enjoy the interaction and Lex's evolving through a series of emotions.

She makes Lex an offer of eternal bliss but he flatly refuses it wondering about catches, but it's then that Death reveals that he isn't dead just yet, that this meeting was for her to check on a few things about Luthor. With a start Lex awakens and realizes he has been given a life lesson.

Meanwhile 1,000 or so years in the past we see a tarot reader reveal to Vandal Savage that sometime in his future a 'Hanged Man' who is an enemy will meddle in Vandal's affairs and when he does it will set a chain reaction in his favor! Savage looks out of his castle windows to see two large spheres of residual Black Lantern energy and proposes building a monumental city using the spheres as foundations...

To Be Continued...

1Story - 1: Ugh! The hype, the ads, the DC Nation Blog, Tweets and press releases... Ooh Death is stepping out of Vertigo into the mainstream... Big Whoop! I can't tell you how much of a let down this issue was on all possible counts... It's a story that amounted to two pages of progressive story. The two pages show Lex turning away from the light and being a tiny blip in the afterlife compared to the big 'I AM' he is in Metropolis. The fact it's mostly mouth music throughout the book either makes it extremely clever or incredibly dull. I picked dull.

4Art - 4: The art is solid, it remains very stable and in line with the past few issues which is nice. Indian ink overdrive on many pages and Death looks pretty stunning, you know for... Death. The art of Pete Woods really is the only shining light.

"Jimmy Olsen's Big Week: Day Two"

Jimmy and an alien girl are onboard a spacecraft that smashes right into the Daily Planet globe. We flash back a little to see that the alien invasion Jimmy was supposed to stop was in fact a Dalwythian diplomatic envoy that has come to Metropolis to see if it lived up to its name as "The City of Tomorrow" and to celebrate their four year anniversary of independence. We then flash forward a little to see Olsen and Mallory arguing with Mayor Fleming over the pros and cons of allowing Dalwythians to celebrate in Metropolis. As such Fleming appoints them as the official Welcoming Committee.

Chloe and Jimmy interact over the phone, agreeing that something about the Dalwythians doesn't add up but being an online Blogger Chloe can work on the go and is already at Cadmus Labs checking on leads. While Chloe does some digging Jimmy and Sebastien are escorting the Dalwythians around the nightclubs. They have a Princess sweet on Jimmy and Sebastian a big hulking brute of a soldier. Chloe calls Jimmy and reveals that our atmosphere acts as an intoxicant to the alien visitors - that's why they wanted to party on Earth!

The Princess and an unwilling Jimmy carry on partying and jump aboard a spacecraft and we loop right back to where the chapter started.

Perry of course is not amused at the cruiser embedded in the Daily Planet globe and is about to chew Jimmy to pieces when Chloe calls again to reveal that planets Dalwythians celebrate on are decimated as an aftermath of the event.

Jimmy smiles as he thinks up a plan to save the Earth.

2Story - 2: It's an odd story, in one respect it's great to see Jimmy being fun but in another he's proving to be a pretty crappy journalist and photographer. So question is, is this an out of continuity comedy story? Is it a Chloe Sullivan being a cow story? Or a ridicule Jimmy story? I'm really puzzled as to what angle they're working towards.

2Art - 2: Cartoony in places and downright silly in others RB Silva's art fits the tone superbly if in a bit of a busy style. The heavy outline makes everyone look like they have a Black Lantern aura, but with the visuals as busy as they are I guess it can help draw the eye to the important focal points.

3Cover Art - 3: A great close up of Death herself. Not sure I'm a fan of mask layers in photoshop to dull the background though without them the cover might be too overpowering. Overall an atmospheric depiction of Vertigo's finest just in time for All Hallows Eve.

3Variant Cover Art - 3: A nice depiction of the light and dark, the roads to take for Lex... well at this fork anyhow! It nicely depicts the meat and bones of the story, I just wish Russell had had more to play with than two pages of development.

Mild Mannered Reviews

2010

Note: Month dates are from the issue covers, not the actual date when the comic went on sale.

January 2010

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