Action Comics #893

Overall: Lex Luthor's seemingly never ending quest for Black Lantern power takes him to Uganda, and puts him directly at odds with Gorilla Grodd. Grodd doesn't like the idea of Lex poking his nose around his base, so he sends some gorilla warriors out to capture Lex's Lois Lane robot, figuring that would cause Lex to act irrationally. Sure enough, Lex and his team run through the jungle hunting for robot Lois, falling right into Grodd's trap. Upon seeing Grodd, Lex challenges him to a one on one battle, which leads to Grodd lopping Lex's head off with a giant spoon(!?!). Grodd goes to eat Lex's head and discovers that the head was actually a robot's head, and Grodd is shocked unconscious. With Grodd out of the way, the real Lex sneaks into Grodd's base, rescues robot Lois and gets a reading of the Black Lantern power that he had been looking for. This issue ends with Grodd shooting at Lex's departing helicopter, causing Lex to crash to the ground where he was met by Death.

Hmm... First off, I hate talking monkeys. I really do. I always have, and probably always will. So needless to say, I wasn't thrilled that Lex was going up against Grodd and a bunch of apes. With that said some of the Grodd parts were so over the top that I couldn't help but chuckle at them. Come on, Grodd killing “Lex” with a giant spoon was funny. I'm still not enjoying the main storyline of Lex searching the planet for residual Black Lantern power, but at least there were a few times over the course of this comic where I did have a good laugh. As for the Jimmy Olsen Second Feature, you can be SURE that I skipped it! I mean really, a Jimmy Olsen co-feature?? You have all of these interesting characters in the Superman family and you pick JIMMY OLSEN for the co-feature?! What about Steel or Guardian or hell, even Krypto would be better than Jimmy Olsen... I mean what exactly is the appeal of Jimmy? He's just an annoying hanger on who Superman obviously took pity on. Yeah, I am obviously not a big fan of Jimmy Olsen.

Score: 7 out of 10."Kneel before Grodd"?? That's ALMOST as good as "Kneel before Todd"!

Dr. Doom VS Lex Luthor.

Hey there X-Maniacs, I'm taking a momentary break from studying to try out a different type of post... We'll see how things turn out, and if there seems to be any interest in this sort of post, then maybe I'll do another one someday. So, here's the plan... I'm going to take two characters(or two teams)and pit them against each other in a no holds barred fight to the end. Each character will have access to any of their usual weapons/equipment(so Thor will have his hammer, Hal Jordan will have his GL ring, etc.)and the battle will take place in a neutral site with no chance of interference. I'll give my reasons as to why I think each character would win said battle, and then I'll pick a winner. From there it'll be up to you guys to comment to give this post life. As comic book fanboys(and fangirls), we're always wondering/debating over who would win certain battles, so I figured why not make a post about that!? Okay, not very original, but humor me... All right? All right! And away we go!

Dr. Doom

VS

Lex Luthor

Why Dr. Doom Should Win:
-Doom has that funky armor of his, with all sorts of built in weaponry. Not only does Doom's armor have the standard energy blasters and stuff, but it also contains a personal force field AND a built in time machine!
-Unbeknownst to many non-Fantastic Four fans, Dr. Doom is a master sorcerer. Doom's mother was a powerful witch, and it seems he has inherited some of her magical prowess.
-Doom is a master of manipulation and scare tactics, and rules his home country of Latveria with a literal iron hand.
-Doom is acknowledged to be one of the smartest characters in all of the Marvel Universe, if not THE smartest. It's Doom's massive intellect which prevents his various enemies from bringing him to justice.

Why Lex Luthor Should Win:
-Sure Doom has his suit of armor, but Lex is no slouch in the armor department. Lex's battle suit contains the standard flamethrowers, missile launchers, and energy blasters, but Lex has also been known to fire radioactive Kryptonite blasts as well, something Doom wouldn't have in his vast arsenal.
-Lex is one of the smartest men in all of the DC Universe, and has used his intelligence to amass a large fortune. Lex is at least a multi-millionaire, and could very well be worth billions. Not only does Lex have business savvy, but he's also very well versed in biology, physics as well as several other scientific disciplines.
-Lex has repeatedly butted heads with arguably the most powerful super-hero in the DCU on several occasions, and although Lex has never managed to kill Superman, he almost always manages to stay one step ahead of his mortal enemy, and has(for the most part)avoided being imprisoned for his various acts of evil.
-While Doom rules over the minuscule Eastern European country of Latveria, Lex managed to get himself elected President of the United States. 'Nuff said!

Who Would Win?
-Good question! Intellectually both villains are well matched, as well as being pretty similar physically. Armor-wise I wouldn't be able to pick a winner, although the fact that Lex leaves his head exposed could very well come back to haunt him. I'm sure both characters would have a great strategy for facing the other, but in the end I would have to think that Doom's magical abilities would be the deciding factor. A few well placed magic spells and I could very easily see Dr. Doom emerging victorious against Superman's greatest enemy.

Adventure Comics #2

Unfortunately this is going to be the only book I review tonight, I just finished typing up a paper on "The Epic of Gilgamesh", and needless to say I'm tired! Tomorrow I should have reviews up for Magog #1 and Booster Gold #24... Hopefully!

Adventure Comics #2: Writer- The comic book GOD himself, Geoff Johns. Artist- Francis Manapul.

What Happened: Lex Luthor and Brainiac make their escape from Project 7734. We learn that Brainiac intends on killing Superman for defeating him and re-bottling Kandor, while Lex Luthor will be given the Earth for his assistance in Brainiac's escape. Lex also has some kind of experiment on Brainiac's ship called Project: Alien Farm, which Lex calls very "personal" and "family". Wonder Girl and Superboy have a date, and SB reveals to Cassie that he still has feelings for her and that he'd like to pick up their relationship from where they left off, prior to his "death". Cassie reveals that while SB was "dead" her and Robin(Tim Drake/Wayne)wound up dating for a while. SB forgives her since everybody thought he was dead anyway and the two share a kiss. This issue ends with Lex Luthor catching up on the news while he was locked up by Project 7734. Lex seems genuinely pleased by most of the bad things he reads, however he is struck speechless when he gets to the article about his "son", Superboy, returning from the dead. This issue also had a Second Feature story starring Lightning Lad from the Legion of Super-Heroes and his evil brother. The story was pretty good, but I just can't fully enjoy these Legion stories... I want MY Legion, the Three-boot Legion!

What I thought: I definitely liked this issue more than the last one, the main story, as well as the Legion back-up were both way better than last month's installment of "Adventure". Lex Luthor stole the show as usual for me, but as most of you probably know, I'm a big fan of Lex, and Geoff writes Lex better than anybody else IMO. The SB story was nothing more than an extended date between SB and Cassie... Although I did enjoy the date and the dialogue was very well done, I was a little letdown that nothing really happened on the date. Sure, SB and Cassie got back together and kissed and all, but I was hoping for something more. Now, next issue has the potential of being VERY interesting... Red Robin(Tim Drake/Wayne)and SB are set to meet up for the first time since SB's return from the dead(well, besides FC: Legion of Three Worlds #5). I'll be interested to see how SB reacts to Tim concerning his new moniker/look, as well as the fact that Tim, SB's best friend, was all over Cassie after SB's death.

Score: 8 out of 10.You've got to love Lex's definition of "good" news.

Superman vs. Lex Luthor.

Well, I hate to say it, but Lex kind of had that coming for a while! On a side note, I love Lex's reaction to the whole situation.

Retro Review: World Without a Superman TPB(1993)

For the record this trade collects all of the "Funeral for a Friend" Superman issues from the early 90's. With the exception of JLA #70... Why JLA #70 isn't included I have no clue, since the first page of this trade starts off by saying "Before you turn the page, read JLA #70"... Well, I'd have read JLA #70 if it was included in this trade!!!

Before I read this trade, to get myself in the right mindset, I re-read Superman #75, the issue where Supes kicks the bucket(kind of). The last time I read that comic was probably about 15 years ago, and I hated DC comics back then(I was a stupid kid!). The only reason I even have that comic is because my mother brought it for me one Christmas. Anyway, Supes #75 is one of the most unusual comic books I've ever read. Every page was just a full page picture, there were no panels. It consisted of 26 full page pictures, with some sporadic dialogue thrown in... I don't remember noticing that as a kid(once again, I was a stupid kid)but it just seemed weird to read a comic book with no panels. Anyway, here's my review for the World w/o Superman trade.

Overall- Basically, I really didn't like this storyline. At all. There, how's that for a review! OK, I guess I should add a little more than that. Reading this TPB really made me dislike, to flat out hate many of the citizens of Metropolis. I HATED that frigging Bippo moron. Whenever he was on a page, I wanted to rip the page out! UGH!!! Then there was Jimmy Olsen... All he did was whine throughout the whole trade! I don't care who Jimmy Olsen sells his Superman/death pictures to! I just don't care!!!

I did feel bad for the Kent's(Supes adopted parents). Out of everyone in this trade(well, except for Lex Luthor, and I'll get to him later), I liked them the most. How couldn't you feel badly for them? They couldn't attend the funeral of their only son and he was being buried far away from them, in a very public park. That has to suck. Lois Lane had me torn for most of this storyline. On one hand, you feel for her because she had just lost her fiancee, but then, on the other hand, she was mourning more for Superman than the missing and presumed dead Clark Kent. Most of this trade, she would start crying about Superman, and then remember that she should actually be mourning for Clark, NOT Superman. How she didn't give away Superman's secret identity in this story was totally beyond me.

Then there was Lex Luthor. For the record, I love Lex Luthor. The guy is just the quintessential villain. He always has an evil plot brewing, but he's also trying to make it look like he's really one of the good guys. I've always stated that I enjoy reading about the smart villains(Lex, Dr. Doom)as opposed to the crazy villains(Joker, Sabretooth). Lex made this story readable for me. The scene where Lex comes face to face with Doomsday's corpse and attacks it with a chair for "robbing" him of his "right" to kill Supes was pretty cool. I also enjoyed when Lex killed a woman who he felt wronged him and then went to Supes crypt and confessed his crime to Supes casket, telling Superman that there was absolutely nothing Supes could do about it. That was a neat little scene, because it was so true. Lex could basically work with impunity in Metropolis with Superman out of the way, and he knew it.

The other heroes didn't really add much to this story either. Guardian didn't really interest me, and those Newsboy kids at Project Cadmus were some of the most annoying characters I've ever had the misfortune of reading about. I wanted to strangle them! Gangbuster didn't seem that interesting, and the Justice League members who showed up didn't really do anything to help this story out... A few war stories about their time with Superman would have been nice, but we didn't even get that. With the exception of Batman. Batman's part was really well done. We see Batman talking to Alfred in the Batcave, where we discover that Batman has placed the Kryptonite ring Superman gave Bats in one of his glass memorial cases, ala Jason Todd's Robin outfit. I loved that part, because it fit Batman's character SO perfectly. Whenever someone close to Batman dies, a part of them goes on display in the Batcave, to always remind Bats about that person, as well as reminding Bat's why he does what he does. Batman's part was good, but the rest of the heroes just stood around and took up space.

Another real problem about this story was the fact that honestly, it seemed like the writers behind this didn't really have any idea as to what they wanted to do. The first 4 or 5 issues basically had a bunch of characters wandering around doing nothing of note. Then suddenly Project Cadmus stole Superman's body, just so SOMETHING would happen! The Project Cadmus stuff seemed ill conceived and rushed(first Guardian is 100% against cloning Superman, then he's fine with the idea? Wha-huh???)and just didn't add anything to the story. Yes, I know the Cadmus stuff was necessary for Superboy's future backstory, but it just didn't fit THIS storyline. Then we close this TPB with Jonathan Kent suffering a heart attack and meeting his son in the "afterlife" where they have a few adventures, which ends with Jonathan believing he brought Supes back to life.

If someone asked me what exactly the 9 comic books in this trade were about, I wouldn't really be able to answer them. This was just a mess. Personally, I get the feeling that DC knew people were going to buy ANYTHING they published after Superman's much publicized "death" and just threw out a bunch of(very)loosely connected stories surrounding Superman's funeral. This storyline had the potential to be SO much better if DC would have just stuck with a few major players(Lois, the Kent's, Lex, the JLA)and cut out the rest of the junk. Oh well, there's no use crying over 16 year old spilt milk. For a score, I'm going to give this entire trade a 3 out of 10. The only saving grace here were the scenes with Lex Luthor and Batman. Everything else was really bad.

Lex Luthor and the Joker, NOT best friends.

I'm sorry, the sight of the Joker backhanding Lex Luthor brings a smile to my face everytime. DC should really give these two a buddy comic book, I would buy it in a heartbeat! Oh, these scans are from "Salvation Run", which was a great mini-series that I would totally recommend!

Classic Lex Luthor.

This took place when Lex thought Superman was Supernova, a masked hero. It gives me a chuckle, because it goes such a long way in showing what an egomaniac Lex really is! EVERYTHING has to be about him!