No sooner had I written about Superman deviating to lesser characters mid-way through a story arc, than I picked up and read Action Comics #847.
Action comics has been a pretty solid title as of late thanks to the combo of Geoff Johns and Adam Kubert. Unfortunately these two greats have nothing to do with issue #847, which was instead written by Dwayne McDuffie and illustrated by Renato Guedes.
Last issue (#846), a host of Kryptonian criminals escaped from the Negative Zone, and were being led by General Zod in an invasion of Earth. At the end of the issue Superman was apparently banished to the Negative Zone by one of the criminals.
In Action Comics #847 we join Martha and Jonathan Kent as they obsesses about their missing child. Jonathan tells Martha about a time he and Clark lied to her, saying they were going on a fishing trip. In reality, Superman brought Jonathan to his incredibly creepy fortress of solitude where they boarded a Kryptonian space craft and had an epic adventure in the outer reaches of space.
This wouldn’t have been a horrible issue, but the fact that it was just a filler was glaringly evident, being that it interrupted to the flow of the main story. Overall it felt rushed, as though it wasn’t thought out in the least.
I’m not happy with DC right now. They keep building up these great epic stories with some of the best talent in the comic book industry, only to pull the rugs from under us for several months at a time (it appears the next issue will be filler as well).
I’m ready for more Kubert, DC… stop screwing around!