Naomi has arrived in Metropolis, so what else is Superman going to do other than take her under his wing.
Action Comics took a turn at the end of last issue with Bendis’ creation Naomi crashing into Metropolis. The story had been incredibly dark due to the nature of Leviathan over the several previous issues, so the story seemed to be moving in a brighter direction. As this issue plays out though, it becomes clearer that it’s combining both. The darkness of the previous issues is still previous in the back-half of this issue, while there’s a lot more fun to be had in the first half. This creates both a good, and a bad, situation for this issue.
With Naomi being introduced to Action Comics, this issue essentially recounts her origin story for those who haven’t read the first six issues of her solo series that Bendis co-wrote. Which you should read, it’s pretty good. That said, what feels like the entire purpose of this issue is to bring Naomi into the larger DC Universe, rather than have her doing anything to inject her into it. There’s a lot of fun banter with Batman and the similarities between her and Superman are made apparent, but nothing really happens. It just feels like there could’ve been a more exciting way to introduce her properly rather than have her sit in a med-bay.
The back-half of the issue though is the action heavy portion, which seemed like it could’ve been a good place to fully bring Naomi into this world. Alas, it’s another fight between Red Cloud and Superman. This time though, Red Cloud is now powered by the gift that Lex Luthor had given her. This makes for a much more interesting fight than previous ones between the two. One thing is still the same though, Red Cloud simply isn’t an interesting villain. She really doesn’t have much of a personality and there hasn’t been much done with her secret identity. So, while the fight is good, the character isn’t interesting enough to build it up to its full potential.
Even though there were some missed opportunities to tie the story together, the art throughout by Szymon Kudranski is great. He makes everything in this issue compelling, no matter what’s happening. There’s nothing in this issue that feels like it was phoned in. Everything feels like it has immense effort put into each page, making the small details that change from panel to panel exhilarating. There are a few times when faces look weird, but those minor discrepancies don’t take away from his excellent work in this issue.
[…] CHECK OUT: Action Comics #1015 Review: Naomi is Introduced to the DCU […]