Action Comics #871 Review

ACTION COMICS #871
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Pete Woods

When I found out this was actually Part 4 of the New Krypton storyline (didn't realize the Guardian Special was Part 3), I was afraid I may have missed out on the conclusion to the Doomsday fight that was promised at the end of Part 2.

Thankfully, the numbers don't matter because this is the true Part 3 and it picks up right where we left off with Doomsday interrupting the Kryptonian welcome party.

As expected, Doomsday is a push over and is promptly beaten into mush by the army of Superman-level Kryptonians, who all fly him to the Moon and pummel him into paste.

If the entire issue had been devoted to just this fight, I'd be a little disappointed with the book. However, Johns plays it smart and knows this fight lacks any real impact and gives it just enough pages to get the point across without dragging it out too much.

The rest of the issue is devoted to setting up the real conflict of this storyline - that of General Lane and Lex Luthor as well as the growing conflict between Zod supporters and the rest of the Kryptonians.

Regarding Lex and Lane, it looks like we got a repeat of the ending of the New Krypton Special with Lane recruiting Lex, again, before dragging him off to work on Brainiac as Lane explains the arrival of Kandor and the thousands of Kryptonians on Earth.

From here, we had some interesting insights into the minds of the Zod supporters that were trapped in Kandor. I really enjoyed the way they handled the car accident in the opening pages of the books and it goes to show that being super and being Superman are not the same thing as the two just ignore the primative humans and their problems, opting to simply fly away.

Finally, the issue ended with the two Zod supporters attempting to free Zod from the Negative Zone only to be taken down by Nightwing and Flamebird, who may be the original Silver Age versions or new Kryptonians taking up the mantles in their new home. One used tactile telekinesis to take guns away from the two Zod supporters (why they were using guns when they have Superman level powers is a mystery to me), so maybe they aren't Kryptonian if they have different powers than Superman.

I think the only real complaint I have for this issue is the art. After months of Frank's artwork, this decidedly inferior artwork was like a slap in the face and robbed the book of a lot of the impact it usually has.

Verdict - Check It. Another solid addition to the New Krypton story. It's a bit of a slow burn for the storyline, so I'll leave it as Check It, but I suspect it will quickly turn into a series of Must Reads by the end of this.

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