Review: Superman: Action Comics Vol. 3: Warworld Revolution trade paperback (DC Comics)

Again, if I’d never read that Phillip Kennedy Johnson’s “Warworld Saga” was the best thing since “Death of Superman,” if DC hadn’t seemingly rushed out a Superman: The Warworld Saga compendium (and good on them for doing so either way), perhaps my expectations for this story wouldn’t have been so high and it would have landed better for me.

Superman: Action Comics Vol. 3: Warworld Revolution and the books that preceded it are certainly good Superman, absolutely nothing to be ashamed of, and I still look forward to Johnson’s run on a more Metropolis-based Superman. But I can’t say that I thought “Warworld Saga” showed me a lot about Superman that I didn’t already know, and particularly Johnson doesn’t seem to be able to do much with Superman’s supporting cast in this series (whether or not Johnson chose them or they came by editorial fiat).

None of the volumes have lived up to the exemplar Superman: Action Comics Vol. 1: Warworld Rising, but again I’m hopeful maybe being earthbound again will do the trick.

[Review contains spoilers]

Though this is very much trees for the forest, I’d be remiss at the top if I didn’t recognize that in the otherwise-unnecessary “World Without Clark Kent” backup story that DC includes here, Johnson brings back Kenny Braverman — Conduit! Last seen in 1995’s “The Death of Clark Kent,” Braverman was a snarling, melodramatic villain of his time, but he’s become something of a cult classic for me given that no writer has picked him up again in almost 30 years (and even despite that he got an action figure!). Johnson’s portrayal does nothing really to redeem Conduit — whether the “kewl” slang Johnson gives Conduit is a nod to his original portrayals or Johnson’s own bad judgment, I’m not sure — but having the villain in play again was a great surprise. There’s nowhere to go but up.

[See the latest DC trade solicitations.]

As I mentioned in my review of Superman: Action Comics Vol. 2: The Arena, Johnson doesn’t do much to complicate the “Superman goes to disaffected civilization and teaches them about hope” trope — indeed Superman arrives on Warworld, indeed they’re unmoved, but the more Superman talks, the more they fall in line. At least part of what feels missing is that, for all the Warzoons call Superman “the Unbloodied Sword,” Johnson skips over how Superman manages to be peaceful and set an example for the Warzoons on a planet trying to kill him (are we meant to have looked to some of the Future State books for this? I vaguely remember).

In this volume too, after Mongul’s deposed, the Warzoons will apparently just govern themselves peacefully after centuries of warfare. Johnson doesn’t have the pages for all the political ramifications (and who knows, maybe that’s waiting for me one issue hence in Superman: Kal-El Returns), but I was surprised we didn’t get at least a hint of what happens next. As I’ve felt through much of this, Johnson focuses more on the broad strokes than the fine details, when what we need is a balance between.

Take, for instance, that among key conflicts is the early death of Lightray Lia Nelson (Tangent Earth doppleganger, thanks Grant Morrison) and how that turns OMAC to Mongul’s side in hopes of bringing her back. I recall we got something of an origin for the new Lightray in Morrison’s Superman and the Authority, but I’m stymied who this OMAC is. One of Mongul’s minions suggests there’s some significance to OMAC’s identity, and I’ll likely go see if there’s any hints in Authority after I finish this writing, but given that Authority isn’t included in the Superman: The Warworld Saga collection, it hardly seems fair that it should be this book’s required reading. As such — Johnson means for us to feel deeply for Lightray and OMAC, we’re meant to be engaged in OMAC’s transition from good to bad and back again, but the characters are complete ciphers to us the whole way through.

Central to the “Warworld Saga” is the chestnut that Superman does not kill; it is verily the point of the “Unbloodied Sword” battle cry. But though Superman doesn’t kill, his allies very much do, including Midnighter, who even in the end of this book kills a foe while quipping, “I’m not actually Superman.”

There’s some interesting complication here, from the fact that Superman brought allies with him whom he must have known would kill when his back was turned to the example set to the Warzoons when Superman doesn’t kill but then all the other Earth heroes do. I had hoped that Johnson might make something of this by the end, a confrontation between Superman and Midnighter or something, but he does not. Again, the pieces are all here, but they never come together into something more than the most surface-level Superman adventure, if still expansive and exciting.

I appreciate that seemingly DC includes a lot of “extras” among the “Warworld” books, including here the Action Comics Annual 2022. It’s another where Johnson does well, and with a powerhouse art team of Dale Eaglesham on the Mongul parts and Ian Churchill on the young Clark Kent parts. All on its own, Ma Kent’s struggle with cancer in Clark’s childhood is gripping enough, though again I think Johnson lets the needs of the plot outweigh sense, as when Martha apparently gets her chemo treatments in the middle of the night. Also good was the “Myth of Mongul” short with art by Will Conrad, proposing an origin for Mongul with appealing similarities to other mythologies of the DCU.

All told, despite my criticisms, I’m a fan of Phillip Kennedy Johnson’s Superman. I’d like to see more like the first volume with Superman getting in between the U.S. military and Atlantis than this, but equally at the end of Superman: Action Comics Vol. 3: Warworld Revolution, Johnson suggests some political trouble among the United Planets, and I’d be all for that, too. A fine jaunt, probably a good series as someone’s first or casual Superman reading; let’s see how things look after Dark Crisis.

[Includes original and variant covers]

Rating 2.25