Action Comics #22 review

Big-brained supervillain Hector Hammond is floating in Earth's orbit on an assignment for new allies the H.I.V.E., examining a massive death ray they have aimed at the planet. A self-proclaimed space knight appears and destroys the weapon. Any enemy of Hammond's is surely a friend of Superman, but can Clark be sure, when Hammond summons him via telepathy? What if he's not against the H.I.V.E. because he's a good guy, what if he's simply a different threat to Earth and is disabling the competition?

Man of Steel and Knight of the Pax Galactica battle, and seem fairly evenly matched, until new combatants enter the picture.

As well as Superman and Hector Hammond in space, this issue sees Clark come across a mystery on a night out with Cat Grant - a film star with more than the usual cosmetic enhancements. And while I'm glad to see the pair working towards making tragically named website Clarkcatropolis.com a success, I'm not down with Clark using heat vision to melt folk's iPads - sorry, Q-Pads - in order to get Cat a chat with a starlet. That's not a fun bit of business, it's vandalism, and a crime.

Plus, Clark continues to be rather snotty about Cat's contributions to their news and entertainment blog, as if a) he has no understanding of how readers use journalism sites and b) he's not a great friend. Weirdly, Clark is far nicer to the mystery knight, approaching him with grace and politeness (click on image to enlarge).

I do like seeing Hector Hammond here, as well as in current issues of Superman, as it makes the two comics seem more part of the same world. Hammond is a hoot, deliciously arrogant. And his presence allows the knight - eventually named as Straith - to refer to Hammond as 'Cranius Maximus'.

Superman's over-shaggy hair and an under-dressed female warrior apart, Tyler Kirkham does a splendid job on the artwork, going large with his layouts for the sake of grandeur and impact. His Hammond, as also seen on the cover of last week's Superman #21, is disturbing, while new character Straith has real heft to him. What's more, Kirkham draws a mean party scene.

The rich hues of space and more mundane colours of Earth are beautifully conjured up by Arif Prianto, while Carlos M Mangual evokes the differing voices with his bag o'fun fonts. The scorching cover, which implies that the Pax Galactica are a take on old DC property the Atomic Knights, is the work of Kirkham and colourist Barbara Ciardo.

The World of Krypton back-up continues and I continue not to care, especially when we get to a Lara who blasts a spaceship full of army personnel out of the sky. Sure, they were threatening Jor-El, and yes, they're busy running a planetary coup, but Superman's mother as a woman who kills without a second thought?  No thank you. And no Jor-El worthy of being Superman's father would countenance a machine that brainwashes the population of Krypton into a state of peaceful scientific curiosity.

I don't blame writer Frank Hannah who is, I believe, working from someone else's outline - Scott Lobdell, if memory serves - and the script is more than competent. And the art by Tom Derenick is attractive and serves the story well. It's just that I grew up on World of Krypton shorts that were tales of wonder, moral fables that fired the imagination; this is just more DC New 52 'everything's a war' stuff.

All in all, a fair-to-decent issue. The Superman story is pure fill-in as Lobdell steps into the breach created by Andy Diggle's sudden departure, but taken on its own terms, it's fine - big, daft fun. I'd rather a whole issue of this than the super-serious, mildly depressing, Krypton tosh.