Action Comics #851

Writer: Richard Donner and Geoff Johns

Penciler: Adam Kubert

Colors: Dave Stewart

Two books on-shelf in a comic store, and I—

I took the one that made barf fly,

And now I have to clean it up.

My butchery of Robert Frost doesn’t refer to the story or art of Action Comics #851. Both are the best on stands this week. No, dear reader, I refer to the

3-D GLASSES

included in the issue. You heard me right, 3-D glasses. DC has printed two copies of Action Comics #851, one normal, and one 3-D. It’s gimmicky. It’s intriguing. It’s a fun idea—but it gets old very quickly (and may make you pray to the porcelain god).

Action Comics 851 finally continues the Richard Donner/Geoff Johns storyline that began months ago. Thankfully, the story maintains its imaginative freshness. Face it: Superman is kind of boring. He’s too perfect. He doesn’t have any believable problems. Countless authors have tried to give him problems, but they’re never convincing. No one understands you? You’re the only one like you on earth? Cry me a freaking river. You can fly through the sun and bite through titanium.

This fact makes Donner and Johns’ work even more impressive. In their hands, Supes’ fear of loneliness isn’t a pointless gripe, it’s a legitimate existential funk. Clark Kent’s personality is also unusually compelling. This is Superman as he should be, capable of a full palette of emotions, and idealistic despite a life spent cleaning up humanity’s messes.

Adam Kubert is similarly magnificent. Nifty though they are, the 3-D glasses sadly they divert attention from Kubert’s work. In the first three issues of this storyline, Adam Kubert transformed Metropolis, comic-dom’s most lifeless burg, into an animated landscape. He continues to shine with his realization of the Phantom Zone (a kind of Kryptonian prison) and his transformation of Metropolis into an alien war-zone. Best of all, his Superman is doubly virile and sympathetic (and his Parasite is genuinely creepy).

Worth the money? Heck yeah. Now please excuse me—I have a street pizza to clean up.