Originally published on Patreon
The second issue of the new Action Comics set-up definitely makes an improvement in quality over what was already a decent start, and begins to make each of the three stories within its pages more interesting.
The main story, 'House of Metallo', picks up where the last one left off, with the Super Family rushing into battle as Metallo destroys the newly opened Steelworks, and having already beaten Superboy unconscious. The team take the cyborg on the best they can, though have some trouble thanks to his new upgrades and improvements. The fight ends with Superman sending him into orbit, leaving him to freeze in the vacuum of space.
Whilst the team discuss what's happned, the connections Metallo has to War World, and enjoys some domestic bliss, Metallo returns to Earth and begins to prepare to take the Kryptonians on again, preparing his own 'family' in order to fight them.
So, after an enjoyable start that didn't really have anything that grabbed me, this story has me invested. We get to see how strong the new Metallo is, we learn that the Unmade technology from War World has played a part in his newly created form, we discover that Luthor isn't the one pulling his strings as we first thought, and now Metallo is going full body horror and turning people into machine killers like him.
Whilst all of that is great, there are a ton of tiny details that also make this a hugely enjoyable read. I loved the moment when the team are talking about what's happened and Jon just whispers over to his 'aunt Kara' with his hand open so that she'll hand him one of her chocolates. It's a tiny moment, but one that reinforces how this isn't just a super hero team, but a real family with strong bonds and connections. This gets reinforced with the twins, who really bring a lot of the domestic touches to the book. Things like them getting used to brushing their teeth at night before bed, or getting bedtime stories. Though the moment we see how they're still struggling to adapt, with them sleeping on the floor, and Otho tying her blankets around her arms like the chains she wore on War World is a heartbreaking moment. These kids really do need this family's help, and I hope it goes well for them, because they deserve a happy ending.
The second story, 'Home Again', continues our tale set in the past for those who're desperate for more young Jon stories. Here Jon meets an alien princess who has crashed to Earth looking for Superman, and the two of them come under attack from robots out to capture the young woman. Meanwhile, Lois gets a knock on the door in the middle of the night as the man who was recently transformed into Doombreaker has come looking for help; midway through being transformed into a Doomsday creature once again.
This story is okay, there's nothing here that's really grabbed me or wowed me so far, and things seem interesting enough. There's potential for this to be a really decent story, but so far it just seems to be coasting a little. Hopefully the next instalment will give us a little more and we'll be treated to something cool.
The final story once again takes us to visit Power Girl in her new position as a psychic counsellor for the hero community. This time her patient is Supergirl, who's unable to talk in English, and is speaking an alien language whenever she tries. PG heads into her head to try and fix the problem for her, and the two of them have a pretty emotion fuelled confrontation.
I love Power Girl, but I really wasn't sure about this issue. Her and Kara have a lot of issues to work out here, and it's hard to really understand it all because we don't really quite understand what Karen's origin is now. I'm going to have to go with her pre-New 52 origin, where she came from the original Earth-2, because anything else feels too messy now. And if that's true it's kind of a shame that she's now sort of on the outs of the Super Family as she really wasn't back then, and she had a good relationship with Kara. But here she feels left out, unloved, like she's not really one of them, and she butts heads with Kara a lot. There are hints a bigger things to come with this back-up, of something or someone working in the background, but so far it's failing to really impress.
Overall, this is a decent issue, with three very different kinds of stories with three distinct art styles. Whilst the overall quality does seem to go down as you move through the stories, with the strongest definitely being the first, it's still a good read.
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