Action Comics 18 (review)
Grant Morrison’s Action Comics finale, “Superman’s Last Stand,” begins as Lex Luthor attacks Super Doomsday to save him for the purposes of his own revenge. This gives Superman the breathing room he needs to recover. Superman begins to take the upper hand, but is then attacked by the rest of Vyndktvx’s gang.
In the hospital, the Legion of Super Heroes bring Mr. Mxyzptlk up to date. In walks Ferlin Nixly, Mxy’s son with Ms. Nixly during their foray into three dimensions. Saturn girl senses that he is actually an “edge” or limb of 5d Vyndktvk, and the LSH seize him.
Captain Comet returns with the Wanderers to rescue Susie Tompkins and Krypto and dispose of Vyndktvx’s revenge squad. Then the Wanderers turn their attention to Vyndktvx. “The 5-D entity is tangled in matter,” says Captain Comet, “he’s stuck–outmaneuvered–he had no idea it would feel like flypaper.” It turns out that Superman wasn’t Mxyzptlk’s greatest trick after all. Instead, the “greatest trick” was the physical (or karmic) law of the three dimensional universe, that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So that as soon as Vyndktvx moved against Superman, the 5D being lost his battle in every time period that he contacted. Vyndktvx is banished when everyone on Earth speaks their names backward; you can even read the backmasked names of the Action Comics creative team: Nosirrom Tnarg, Hplar Selarom, and Hcsif Yllohs.
Vyndktvx is arrested in the fifth dimension, and Mixy and Nixly are reunited, only to be separated again when she dies in childbirth, bearing sons and a favorite daughter for Mxyzptlk. Before she dies for a second time, Nixly reverses the Mars tragedy detailed in issue 14. Possibly the greatest reveal in the whole epic comes when we see that the fifth dimension and its mighty inhabitants were conceived as a story told by Lara to baby Kal-El. This complicates the task of deciding where this tale of metafiction truly begins. And are we to believe that Lara is a daughter of Krypton that dreamed up this story, or that she is a daughter of Mxyzptlk narrating her family history? Which would, of course, complicate Superman’s family tree.
It’s not unusual for Grant Morrison to give a number of loose ends to the creators that follow him. Another interesting gift he leaves is that Lois Lane was paying attention during Vyndktvx’s backmasked banishment and may now know that Le Lak and Tnek Kralc are one and the same.
The back up story, “Never-Ending Battle” is a brief fable on the power of heroes to move others to heroic acts. Equally adept at silver age and modern age Superman concepts, Sholly Fisch’s name should be considered as DC looks for someone to take the reins from Andy Diggle.
Action Comics 1-18 is an excellent run and a sure candidate for the omnibus treatment. With all eighteen issues collected in a single volume, Vyndtvyx’s ability to step through time and space from issue to issue will be easier to see. Until then, you can find this immaculate run of issues on comiXology or at your local comic shop.
March 25, 2013
This run by Grant Morrison was a huge letdown. While he weaved an immaculately put together story, it required too much note-taking to follow along and it spread out so far (18 issues!) that there was little to no momentum. Waiting an entire month between issues in this type of story, and still expect them to understand it, is quite a burden to ask of the reader.
Overall I’m impressed with Morrison’s storytelling ability but I think this would work better in a compendium than it would spread across a year and a half of monthly releases. Once I sit down to read it all at once I may appreciate it more, but this run was not a good start for Superman in the new 52.