The first pages of Mark Waid’s Superman: Action Comics: Phantoms have a breezy hipness, followed by a rather pulse-pounding action sequence, that made me optimistic Waid’s upcoming Action run could stand beside what is probably DC’s best, coolest book right now, Joshua Williamson’s Superman.

The problem that emerges, as it often does with 12-issue weekly comics runs, is that what’s here eventually feels like it could have been 10 issues, or six. There are moments of brilliance, moments of pathos, moments of humor, but so much is revisited so often that it all eventually grows stale. No doubt this book is peppered with references to historical Phantom Zone figures from the Superman mythos, we’d expect no less from Waid, but the basic inability to make any of the villains interesting or nuanced weighs the story down.

Main series artist Clayton Henry impresses in those beginning sequences, but he’s dropping backgrounds by the end and filling the pages with nondescript Phantom Zone prisoners, and co-artist Michael Shelfer’s work trends even more cartoony than Henry’s, which is not what the book needs. Again, Phantom has some great moments, but not enough to make the book itself great.

[Review contains spoilers]

Waid kicks off with Jimmy Olsen hanging upside down from a lamp pole, trying to get pictures of a corrupt city official; Superman drops by and some good-natured ribbing takes place. Jimmy is cool, and Waid’s got the right mix of hip Metropolis and Silver Age, as when Superman asks when Jimmy wants for his birthday and then reiterates, he’s not giving Jimmy an invisibility ray. Trouble strikes, Superman and Supergirl are beaten nearly to death, and then there’s a chance someone will lose their powers to gold Kryptonite, before Jimmy at the last second saves the day. It’s a heck of a start to the story.

But Waid cannot keep it up. Superman’s eventual jaunt through the Phantom Zone becomes formulaic — fight a monster here, fight some Kryptonian criminals there. Villain Aethyr wanted to make the Phantom Zone more hospitable but the criminals weren’t sufficiently thankful, so now he wants to make it worse; more than once, Superman and Aethyr bicker mainly along the lines of Superman tells Aethyr to stop it and Aethyr refuses, only across panels and panels of dialogue. There’s promise in the idea that Mon-El has had to make some mercenary choices in the Zone, but Waid only hints at this, never confronts it directly.

Among bright spots is a three-issue sequence in which Superman lands on Krypton before its destruction and must seek help from his parents, Jor-El and Lara, to get back to the present and the Zone. There’s a great bit at the end with Jor-El and Lara as a crackerjack team a la Clark and Lois, but also the fascinating science-and-politics of Krypton as Waid imagines it. Notably all this improvement is when Waid’s story takes a break from the Zone itself and Superman worrying over Aethyr.

I’ll admit to chuckling somewhere in the eighth chapter when Conner Kent swiftly dispatches a Khund fleet and is dubbed “Overadmiral Khuperboy”¹; I’m reminded the writer who brought us Kingdom Come also brought us Impulse. But Waid’s seven-part jaunt in space for Superboy and New Super-Man is not always that funny, sometimes dragging when it breaks into the middle of the Superman story, and only tying minimally into the conclusion. New Super-Man Kong Kenan is the responsible one here, which doesn’t quite match his character, and Waid’s Superboy is a goofball who gets lectured at one point by Superman for suggesting they let the Phantom Zone criminals die(!). It is another instance where less, far less, would have been more.

Coming out of Phantoms, we’re meant to understand that Jor-El intended the Phantom Zone to be a way to save the Kryptonians from Krypton’s destruction, and that it was usurped by greedy politicians as a cost-cutting measure for punishing criminals. This frees Jor-El from a certain amount of historic culpability, not that it keeps the Phantom Zone criminals from blaming “the son of Jor-El” anyway.

This feels like Waid’s squeamishness — surely Superman’s dad wasn’t OK with cruel and unusual punishment! — and I don’t like it. As it is, Waid’s Jor-El and Lara are back to being a warm-hearted couple — just like the Kents, basically — and Jor-El’s perhaps sole flaw isn’t even his anymore. Precedent over Superman’s long history is not on my side, but I still prefer John Byrne’s alien Jor-El and Lara. I'm sooner gripped by seemingly stoic Els who maybe felt a bit more emotion than your average Kryptonian, but whose morals, as with the Phantom Zone, weren’t exactly our own, than cuddly Els who are basically earthlings with a penchant for headbands.

In Phantoms, Waid has to tiptoe around the Clark Kent “Superboy” question; Mon-El arrived in Smallville and the Kents let Clark “wear the suit we’d put away for the future so long as I promised to stay out of sight.” Of course, with Waid’s upcoming Action Comics run, he’s set to reestablish Clark’s time as Superboy in Smallville. I’ll be interested to see if this is a retcon that immediately gets retconned again (he’s Superboy in general, not just with Mon-El) or if Waid finds a way to integrate this bit into his new story.

As I’ve said elsewhere here, I’ve yet to feel Mark Waid’s had a real blockbuster outside Justice League Unlimited since his return to DC, and neither is Superman: Action Comics: Phantoms it. Bringing back Clark Kent’s youth as Superboy is a needle to thread real carefully, that line between expansive and goofy being thinner than ever. Joshua Williamson’s got a good thing going on Superman; let’s not let Action fall behind.

[Includes original and variant covers, character sketches]