Action Comics #1031: Fire Falls from the Sky to the Sea

When last we met, Warworld ships came to Earth over the North Atlantic Ocean, forcing Clark and Jon Kent to confront them. Though at first they seemed to be met by an attacking army of smaller ships led by a single, massive vessel, on further inspection it became evident that the smaller ships were actually attacking the large one. Before Clark could process this, his attention was snatched by a whispered prayer from inside the largest craft – a prayer spoken in a long dead Kryptonian language.

Now, we arrive at Part Two of Warworld Rising with Clark meeting the source of that whisper – a chained woman brandishing a sword. Seeing Clark through her eyes is fascinating; he is a blurry silhouette of primary colors, surrounded by blinding sunlight, promising her safety. Suddenly there and then just as suddenly gone.  Elsewhere in the sky, the situation has only deteriorated, with the largest ship buckling under the weight of so many attacks.

Because this is Clark and Jon, priority one is saving as many lives as possible. One of those saved is, of course, the woman in question. But little does Superman and his Superfamily know, her knowledge of ancient Kryptonian languages may be just the beginning of the mystery she poses through her presence alone.

I mean, really… just wait until they see her palms.

Last issue Phillip K. Johnson began to bring his epic worldbuilding powers to Warworld, revealing some of the edges of Warworld’s culture, and filling in gaps that I doubt many people even realized needed filling. Now he’s starting to do the same with Krypton, establishing the existence of different languages and periods of language dominance with all that implies. Of course this doesn’t mean relenting on the building of Warworld either – in one sequence, Clark attempts to communicate with Warworld troops and the consideration put into the Warzoon perspective is evident, as is the clash between their perspective and Clark’s.

Just one example: the troops consistently wear chains around their wrists – something which calls back to the opening scene of Action 1030. To Clark, chains are an absolute negative – they mean slavery or imprisonment. To remove them is an unquestioned good. But to the troops they mean… something else. Clark doesn’t understand what, and we don’t quite know either, but the question is raised.

What do the chains mean?

What are they saying to Clark in their thus far impenetrable language?

What are the true barriers that separate Clark from the men with whom he seeks to communicate?

It prickles the spine with intrigue!

Of course, we can’t begin to talk about the story, the culture, the characterization without talking about Daniel Sampere, and the beauty, the sense of scale brought to every page. Sampere’s Clark is majestic, imposing and yet gentle with a calm presence. Last issue, Lois referred to Clark as a constant, and that’s really what comes to mind when I look at Sampere’s Clark. He is a constant, a foundation of the world, with a presence so large even the panels themselves can’t hold him. It’s just beautiful stuff, supported and enhanced by Adriano Lucas’ fantastic color work.

Lucas is quickly becoming a favorite colorist of mine. It can at times be difficult for me to put words to the power of a color artist’s work because… I don’t know what to say, I’m just not that visual a person.  But one of the things I love about modern comics coloring is how evident individual styles become due to the flexibility allowed to the palette and techniques used. With Lucas you can almost feel the sun on your face, the thinness of the atmosphere, the weight of water. Adding to this, Dave Sharpe’s lettering just melts into the page beautifully.

Basically just… a great run so far with the entire team hitting every goalpost for awesome.

And in our backup, we have 10 pages of Midnighter magic coming from Becky Cloonan, Michael W. Conrad, Michael Avon Oeming, Taki Soma and Dave Sharpe. As we know, the Midnighter of today has been time swapped with the Future State Midnighter, who currently has Andrej Trojan – a sentient AI that used to be a techno billionaire, implanted in his head. His goal? To stop Trojan from advancing his plan to phase out humanity in favor of human-derived AI, a plan that ultimately brought Trojan to Warworld during Future State.

If it sounds complicated, it is. Even so, Cloonan, Conrad and Oeming keep it easy to follow with the help of Trojan’s irritatingly likeable internal narration as it taunts, cajoles and challenges Midnighter, his intentions and his assumptions. This has the effect of progressively breaking down the relationship between Midnighter and his longtime partner, Apollo, who has been left out of the loop on Midnighter’s time displacement, not to mention left out of the conversation between Midnighter and Trojan 2.0.

Meanwhile, inside Trojan Solutions Inc the Trojan of today continues his vision, despite what that journey demands of him.  Though he remains a rather mysterious figure, we begin to see a bit of what drives him, adding new layers to what is already an intriguing character. I’m really interested in seeing all of this come together, especially with the surprise endind.

Which I am, as always, not going to give away!