The Legion of Doom is attacking Metropolis, tearing down Superman and the Justice League along the way. Spoilers for Action Comics #1018 follow.
Coming off the wake of Superman revealing his identity to the world in Superman #18, it was going to be interesting to see how this would affect Action Comics. As of now though, the series is taking place before that reveal, 41 hours to be exact, so it isn’t being directly yet. However, it does seem that it won’t be long until it does begin to affect this series and that’s where this issue falters. The script for this issue is incredibly messy and really suffers from a lack of focus. It tries to tie in the future, past, and present, but it doesn’t do it well.
The script for this issue is uncharacteristically messy for Brian Michael Bendis. There are multiple flashbacks as well as a central conflict consisting of only a large fight scene. If the issue was focused solely around the fight and the flashback with Fire Chief Moore, it may not have been as messy. These two storylines end up intrinsically tied together and do make for a decent flow. It’s unnecessary to have the issue flow as it does, but it still at least flows well.
However, the part of the issue that focuses on the flashback with Red Cloud completely doesn’t need to be in this issue. Like, at all. She’s off the side of the battle in the first place, says something about how this is her fault, and this cues a flashback for her. Instead of showing how this situation could possibly be her fault, it flashes back to how she got her powers. The origin story of Red Cloud is not important in this issue and it takes away valuable page space from the actual important things. It’s a mind-boggling decision to include it in this issue. And because of its inclusion, there are other aspects of the issue that don’t have enough time to breathe when they needed to.
As for the art, if you’ve been reading comics for any time, you know John Romita Jr.’s art. And, by this point, you either like it or you don’t. I’m somewhere in the middle when it comes to Romita and, surprisingly, I fall onto the more positive end with this issue. As messy as the script is, Romita does his best to keep the issue as coherent as possible. He tries to make he transitions between flashbacks as smooth as possible, even if the transition on paper isn’t good. Basically, he saves this issue in parts and makes it readable.