REVIEW: Action Comics : War World Part One

C.V.R. The Bard

3 years ago

DC has been making some bold claims within their solicitations in regards to “WarWorld”, going so far as to drag this story straight from “Future State” and essentially to write this tale from front to back like Fabolous Sport used to claim he wrote his rhymes in the early millennium. Kennedy Johnson’s “Warworld Saga Part 1” is just that – an introductory tale that puts Superman and his new Authority crew square in the middle of WarWorld – a world ruled by Mongul that is not exactly asking for foreign interference due their differing ideas of what truly is liberation.

The first page features a storybook-observer opening that can draw comparison to tales with omniscient beings such as The Watcher’s to The Fuginauts. Except , instead of the typical stoicism expected of their ilk, reader’s are treated to a cosmic tantrum at the mention of the race of Phaleosians ( the Kryptonian derivative where the obvious new edition to the Superman Family in Thao-La comes from) from one of these beings, which moves directly into a scene of space travel as The Authority descends on WarWorld; in where (even though the world is a hellhole at best) there are some eye catching spreads that bring out the best of Sampere & Lucas’ new art direction for this leg of Action, that by all allotments should have the green light to continue.

One thing that should not be included in that allotment though is that backup story with The Guardian. Some things that were in the nineties should have stayed there. I could not bring myself to read a solo Guardian story, so that very inclusion within the pages here of Action No.1036 is a major detriment to what overall could have just been an okay filler issue that only barely accomplished it’s job to build action for Kennedy Johnson’s new epic. This is because Action No.1036 came out only a week after the mind-bending entertainment that was the Batman/Superman Authority one-shot, and only weeks directly off the heels of Grant Morrison putting a cap on the pen he used for this Authority’s intro.

If Kennedy Johnson thinks competition for having best chapter in this storyline is Superman revealing he’s in desperate need for some rogain in front of some boastful villains who were just reiterating the same spiel Thao-La was saying issues ago, he’s dead wrong. What Kennedy Johnson & Co. released here is not enough for DC to try and solicit this as a storyline that could stand shoulder to shoulder with “Death of…”. I call blasphemy.

Score: 2/5