Review: Action Comics #12 - Return of the Forgotten Superman

Action Comics returned to its disappointing run of form in issue 12, as the Man of Steel ended his battle with the forgotten Superman.

Following on from the previous issue, the book opens with a daydream sequence of the life Superman wishes for before returing to reality to find Lois dying and the people of Metrpolis under the thrall of his opponent beginning to attack him. His chances of victory are further complicated by the Forgotten Superman's talent to control his thoughts, though he does learn a surprising revelation and connection between the two.

I've heard the Grant Morrison's work can be, for the most part, hit or miss and I have to admit that, despite hoping for the best after the last two issues, this series from him is definitely miss. The story was difficult to follow (a "previously in Action Comics" page wouldn't have hurt), with no real explanation as to the reasons behind what was going on. Even worse was the handling of the Death of Clark Kent story, which is poorly resolved in this issue. I was interested to see how Morrison would deal with resurrecting the character (metaphorically speaking) and was expecting a very interesting an compelling method. Sadly, what was given was a "we'll just have an alien change reality and pretend it never happened" answer. I think that is a cop out, I didn't like it with Spidey's marriage and so there's no chance of me liking it here.

The art was, as usual, very good by Rags Morales, although some of the panels were very dijointed and crowded, which didn't help with my inability to follow the story. Despite the talent which goes into the art, it does sometimes feel as though too much needs to be provided that can fit into an individual panel.

This doesn't neccesarily mean that the entire issue was mithout merit, because there were still some good parts, like Superman reading the entire medical library and then performing surgery, which I thought was funny and inspiring. Sadly, this isn't enough to save the book.

This issue has left me very curious as to who that little man is and what he wants regarding Superman. Unfortunately this is barely enough to keep me invested in this title. The numerous problems that show up do not keep me invested and I now find myself very uncertain about coming back for next issue.