Lex Luthor #1

Here is the last of the small batch of comics I picked up this past week at Newbury Comics. I recently reviewed Forever Evil #1 and wasn't that impressed, certainly not impressed enough to buy the zillion crossover comics needed to get the whole story.

However, hype is hype, and the holographic covers for this "Villains Month" event certainly got plenty of hype. So I figured I'd at least check out one.

Title: Lex Luthor
Issue: 1
Date: November 2013
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Charles Soule
Penciler: Raymond Bermudez
Inker: Dan Green
Colorist: Ulises Arreola
Letterer: Dezi Sienty
Editor: Anthony Marques, Eddie Berganza

Apparently, this is actually Action Comics #23.3. No, really. We've gone to fractions.

I picked this issue up, somewhat at random, from among the 3-d holographic cover versions of the Villains Month comics that were in stock at the store I visited last week. These have been selling quite well, so a lot of titles were sold out, and I just went with a character that I knew reasonably well.

The cover itself is the most impressive 3-d effect I've seen on a comic, one of the best I've ever seen in print. It is also headache-inducing to look at.

The story is pretty straightforward. Luthor gets out of jail and immediately manipulates a bunch of evil schemes, all of which fall into place perfectly because we are supposed to believe that he is an evil genius. Some of the details were fairly clever, and the pacing of the writing was good, but there really was never any doubt as to the outcome of anything. And like most stories of this type, the more you think about it the less impressive it is, because really, Luthor needs to have ridiculous amounts of luck on his side for his plans to actually work. This is always my gripe with stories like this one, and given that, this particular issue did a better job than most with the evil scheming.

This issue also turns out to be a very direct prequel to Forever Evil #1, which made it a good choice if I was only going to read one crossover comic. The story here is actually pretty nicely self-contained, which I also took as an added bonus, considering what I could have been getting into.

Not terrible if you want to see Lex Luthor behaving badly, but nothing especially insightful either.

Rating: 5.5/10 



 

Action Comics #894

Title: Action Comics
Issue: #894
Date: December 2010
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Paul Cornell, Nick Spencer
Art: Pete Woods, RB Silva, Dym
Colorist: Dave McCaig, Brad Anderson
Letterer: Rob Leigh
Editor: Wil Moss, Matt Idelson

Yup, that's Death on the cover, straight out of the pages of Neil Gaiman's Sandman. And she's here to have a little conversation with Lex Luthor. Lex: "And I suppose you're claiming to be Death. You don't even look like him." Death: "Are you looking for the scythe? Or the skis?" Ha! First of all, kudos to Pete Woods who does a gorgeous rendition of Gaiman's classic character. Luthor, as might be expected, tries everything he can think of to get out of the plight he's in, right down to playing for sympathy. Death, as might be expected, greets all of this with mild amusement and a touch of curiosity. Paul Cornell does the best he can in a story where he's basically handcuffed. He can't actually kill Luthor, he can't really have Luthor defeat Death like she's some rival super-villain, and he can't even really answer even the most obvious of questions because DC comics isn't in the business of giving definitive answers about the existence of God, the nature of the universe, and what happens to souls (if there even are such things) after death (or, in this case, after Death). Along the way we do get Lex admitting that he's an atheist, which makes reasonable sense. He's forced to admit that Death is what she is, but he's not ready to acknowledge any supreme being (aside from himself, of course). While the plot doesn't really go anywhere, the dialogue is quite good throughout, and it's refreshing to see these familiar characters having a chance to talk philosophy for a bit. The discussion of what Luthor would want in an afterlife was quite interesting.

Backup story has Jimmy Olsen playing escort to a group of aliens who are scouting Metropolis for a location to hold a massive party. Why come to Earth to party? Well, as it turns out, oxygen gets this species drunk. Jimmy really should have taken the keys to the spaceship from the cute alien girl before she started driving. Some aspects of the story are a bit over-the-top. It would have worked just fine without it turning into a planet-threatening (but still played for laughs) scenario. But that being said, it was pretty funny, and I enjoyed this depiction of "Superman's Pal". Nice mix of hip, nerdy, cocky, and clever. Good silly fun to balance out all the deep philosophy in the main story.

Rating: 7.5/10