Comic Review: Action Comics #957

Writer: Dan Jurgens
Artist: Patrick Zircher
There were a lot of swirling thoughts as to just how exactly DC Comics planned on rebooting Superman to his pre-Flashpoint status. Examples here and here. Whatever was going to come from Rebirth, I knew I could trust Dan Jurgens. I haven’t read too much of his work, but his run on the Superman: Lois & Clark limited series was spectacular and I knew if anyone was up for the challenge of the status quo shift, it would be Jurgens.

However, I neveAction Comicsr got too swept away with all the speculation. I figured that it all seemed fairly standard. After all, this is basically a company wide reboot. Wiping away the history of The New 52 Superman would be easy.

They chose an alternate route. Spoilers ahead, folks.

They left Superman’s New 52 continuity completely alone. They chose instead to reboot only the character of Superman, himself. Trippy, right?

It took me a while to wrap my mind around this. So I found myself trying to explain it to a non-comic reading friend of mine. He was confused by the premise of the character being rebooted, so I found myself creating an analogy to try and explain to him.

Imagine that the Supergirl television series was about to get axed. But exec’s had a bright idea to save the show. Take the Superman from ABC’s 1990’s series, Lois & Clark, and import him into the Supergirl series. Supergirl dies saving Metropolis in the season finale — and Dean Cain returns as Superman the next season!

It’s sounds so crazy. Yet, it works. Quite well, actually. DC Comics is literally swapping out what doesn’t work and replacing it with what does. That’s what Rebirth is all about. And it’s in full effect here. We have our old Superman back. And he remembers everything we do. But now we have him in a younger DC Universe. The rivals he defeated years ago are back. But everything’s different this time.

Lex Luthor

So what happens in the issue? Lex Luthor wastes no time mourning the death of Superman and quickly announces to the citizens of Metropolis that he will be taking over Supes’ duties as the new Superman. We end up watching a perfect confrontation between Lex and (Dean Cain) Superman. It also sets up what I assume will be the new status quo, with a mystery man Clark Kent showing up and a shadowy figure pulling the strings behind the curtain.

Lastly, for a book shipping twice monthly, I was concerned about the art. Maintaining a consistent look for the series as well as portraying a general emotion for each story would be difficult enough. Add on the strain of doubling your work load and I honestly don’t know how Zircher is going to maintain this. But for as long as it lasts, Action Comics is beautiful. I hope he can keep up this momentum, I would love to see Zircher on this title for a long, long time.

Review 7 (Out of 7) – Jurgens is mixing together a brew worthy of both your time and interest. The title is already shipping every other week and that’s simply not soon enough. I eagerly await to see what comes next.

David Rose

David Rose is an artist, writer, thinker, and the contributor of this article. Follow him on Twitter @DavidRose92 and view his work on Tumblr at DavidRose92. To view the rest of his articles, click here.

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