Action Comics #1052 – Enter Metallo!

Momentum and pacing are necessary components for getting serialized comics right. Lackluster story momentum and wheel spinning can often turn great ideas into points of ire, driving readers away from a series. This can come quite naturally to a series the longer it goes on. With 23 consecutive issues now on Action Comics, Phillip Kennedy Johnson is at the precipice in which cracks could form in the foundations of his run. New Arc. Large Cast. With so much to juggle, does issue #1052 stick the landing as the next step in his second act?

Heck. Yes.

Action #1052 does a lot within its page count as Kennedy has balanced out all the Super-family members, the new Super Twins, and Clark in a way that keeps the story at hand clear while maintaining a main character for the narrative to weave itself around. That character isn’t anyone wearing an ‘S’ on their chest; it’s Metallo. A lot of work has gone into building up Metallo’s motivations and showcasing the Super-family as a unit, and I’m happy to say all of that is beneficial to the book’s quality. The way Johnson uses different narrative techniques to explore Metallo is fresh and creative. Johnson is working to portray Metallo as understandable but still in need of stopping. Crafting a villain with motivations deeply rooted in small-town America and gun violence to explore extremism’s sympathetic and vile aspects is both contemporary and challenging, but Johnson keeps it poignant and subtle.

Focusing on the Super-family sets the book apart from its sister title, Superman, and helps keep the book fresh following The Warworld Saga. The team manages to sneak in a great moment between Clark, Lois, and the Super Twins that showcases their personalities, worries, and motivations beautifully. It contrasts Metallo’s understanding of family, highlighting the similarities and differences between his small-town life and that of Clark’s. While not done directly, a layer of developmental subtext goes unmatched. Even with all the characters abound in this title, the team keeps true to their spirit. Action #1052 exemplifies how to maintain momentum in serialized storytelling. Nothing is rushed, and how our narrative weaves in and out of plot and character is impressive.

Rafa Sandoval is on art duties and gets the job done with an excellent balance of well-drawn action and conversation. While some faces and figures may be a tad weird sometimes, it doesn’t take away from his solid visual storytelling skills. They can make any talking head scene visually interesting, an undervalued skill in the modern era.

The backups are OK. Home Again from Dan Jurgens & Lee Weeks continues to be a fun return to the now long-gone Super-Dad era. It’s just a fun, warm story, but it deserves to be more than a backup story. Jurgens should have the clout and respect to have an account like this done in a limited series where it would get the chance to shine, but that would take some admittance on DC’s end that the aging up of John Kent was a mistake.

I’m not a huge Power Girl fan, to begin with, and with the plot focusing on her past and a new status quo, it’s not doing anything for me. On the flip side, the second backup story, Head Like a Hole, is perfect for a backup story, even if it isn’t for me. Both backups set out to clean up characters that have long struggled to find their footing in recent years, which is commendable.