Since Mark Waid and Henry Clayton boarded Action Comics with their weekly “Phantoms” saga, they’ve pitted Superman against the forces of the Phantom Zone, reunited him with his old friend Mon-El, and seen him hurled through time by the malevolent Aethyr. Action Comics #1074 takes it one step further, as the Man of Steel finds himself on Krypton – and it’s starting to suffer from the earthquakes that herald its end. With his powers rapidly dwindling, Superman turns to the one person who can help him: his father, Jor-El.
While this isn’t the first time that Superman has traveled back to Krypton or met his birth parents, Waid and Henry manage to find a new angle since this is such a pivotal time in Krypton’s history. It also lets Waid bring new aspects to Jor-El and his wife Lara that we haven’t seen before; Jor-El is growing more and more frustrated with Krypton’s Science Council, while Lara taking care of a baby Kal-El somehow reminds Clark of his own relationship with Lois Lane (which is…questionable, but I’ll roll with it).
Henry’s art jumps from the splendor of Krypton to the desolation of the Phantom Zone, with the former populated by shining buildings while the latter is full of bloodthirsty criminals. Even Matt Herms gets in on the action; while the Phantom Zone still has the perpetual midnight running throughout its background, Krypton has a constantly pulsing red sun – both a reminder that Superman is powerless under its rays and an omen of what’s to come.
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If only the Superboy and Kong Kenan story was as affecting. Again, I don’t mean to pick on this story element – or Michael Sheffer, who’s clearly having fun drawing the different alien races that populate the DC Universe – but it’s becoming clear that this should have been a backup story. That way, more pages could be dedicated to the “Phantoms” story, which is genuinely more interesting.
But even then, this pales in comparison to the Supergirl story by Mariko Tamaki and Skylar Partridge. Tamaki has been sending Kara Zor-El on her own wild journey, and this week’s installment finds her in the center of an intergalactic black market. This lets Partridge go wild, drawing creatures who feel like a mass of tentacles and others who look like mutant angler fish. Add in the fact that Supergirl’s powers are still fluctuating after Absolute Power, and you have a backup story that continues to draw intrigue.
Action Comics #1074 uses time travel for a touching reunion between Superman and his parents, and is all the better for it. It also provides quite the intriguing contrast to Absolute Superman #1, which is proof that Superman comics are firing on all cylinders.
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