Mild Mannered Reviews – Action Comics #1009

Action Comics #1009

Scheduled to arrive in stores: March 27, 2019

Cover date: May 2019

“Leviathan Rises” – Part 3

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Penciller: Steve Epting
Inker: Steve Epting
Cover: Steve Epting
Variant Covers: Francis Manapul

Reviewed by: Mario Bennese

Amanda Waller wakes to find herself in the Fortress of Solitude. Lois begins tearing into her for potentially outing Clark. Waller explains that she had no choice but to turn to Superman after the trap she and Sam Lane fell into. Clark flies off to look for Sam. Lois continues to berate Waller before punching her. Jimmy, also transported to the Fortress, wakes from his sleep. Superman finds Lane in a hospital under the watchful eye of The Question. Clark asks him to dig into the Leviathan situation and mentions he’ll get the Wonder Twins to help.

The Man of Steel then flies to the former base of Talia Al Ghul where he finds a note. He then brings this note to the Batcave. Bruce is out, so Clark gives the evidence to Alfred. Superman makes one last stop at the ruins of the DEO building. There, he finds Director Bones searching for people in the rubble. He offers to help the DEO, but Bones is not interested. Back at the Fortress, Amanda, Jimmy, and Lois try to unravel the Leviathan mystery. Clark returns and Lois suggests the two go undercover using a piece of Kryptonian technology.

Story – 3: After reading last month’s issue of Superman, I get the feeling that this is the book Bendis is putting all his effort into writing. Then again, I’d probably be more interested in telling a new story than tying up threads to a story that happened almost a year ago.

This issue was better than the last, but I still have some issues with it. For starters, it’s kind of hypocritical for Lois to go off on Waller for exposing Clark’s secret when she did the exact same thing. Maybe this is part of a character arc and this is her expressing guilt, but it’s still odd. Sometimes it’s weird writing reviews for issues that do and don’t exist inside of a vacuum.

I also felt Clark made one too many stops in this issue. The sequence of him flying from one location to the next in such a brief span of time felt like the narrative equivalent of a run-on sentence. It didn’t ruin the issue for me, but the time between locations could have been lengthened. A sequence of Clark trying to come up with answers while flying between destinations would have broken the sequence up nicely and naturally.

I was a little thrown off by the undercover disguises bit. For a moment, I wondered if I had forgotten about this Kryptonian technology until I discovered this was an entirely new concept introduced in this issue. That’s perfectly fine, but Bendis introduced it in a way that made it seem like it had always existed. I’m not faulting him for the concept, I’m faulting him for having the development happen between issues.

Art – 2: Alfred, Director Bones, and The Question were the best looking characters in a Superman book. I’m still trying to process that.

Cover Art – 3: Clark looks pretty good, but I really dislike the color palette. Where is this taking place, near a volcano?

Variant Cover Art – 4: I love this variant. It’s sleek, it’s dynamic, it’s colorful. I’d probably ditch the heat vision, but all in all, this is the superior cover for this issue.

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