Action Comics-Starring: Lana Lang!
Superman can be a difficult character to really capture properly; but Greg Pak has been demonstrating an incredible adeptness at this task. His opening arc of Action Comics demonstrated some seriously impressive character work for the Man of Steel, and he's quickly made Lana Lang into a genuinely compelling character. But the plot for that arc was a little lackluster at times; and then the art started to get wildly inconsistent. But things are back on track. I'm still not completely sold on the plot here, there's something bugging me that I can't put my finger on, but especially the end of the issue give off a genuine sense of haunted eerieness that drives things along well. And of course the character work continues to be very strong.
There is one thing that seriously bugs me though. I've defended Superman's "wearing glasses" disguise when he reverts to being Clark Kent; BUT SUPERMAN AND CLARK KENT CANNOT GROW IDENTICAL BEARDS AT THE SAME TIME! SERIOUSLY! COME ON!
Whereas the first arc Superman didn't want to fight out of sympathy, Greg Pak knows how to write to Superman's strength's, giving him a story where he's facing something he truly can't fight with fists alone. It was really tense to see Superman's frustration as he tried to smash something that just kept teleporting him away. I feel like a little more of that could've really moved things into heart-wrenching.
But the real star of this issue was Lana. For the longest time Lana Lang was just a relic, Clark Kent's love interest from back in Smallville. But Pak has really transformed her into a fantastic bold character who goes through a serious emotional journey in this issue.
Also, I'm super happy to see Aaron Kuder consistently on this series again. He makes such a great partner for Pak. His facial expressions needed to, and did, have elegant subtlety to them in this issue for a range of tough emotions. Plus he always does a great job with Superman's high ability action; and on top of that, there's some creepy elements here that he absolutely nails. I hope we don't have a bunch of fill-ins like before because Kuder is working great.
IN CONCLUSION: 4/5
Ultimately this issue felt like it was holding back a little bit. This arc looks very promising, the ending was particularly unnerving; but this issue by itself didn't have quite enough oomph to it, even with the powerful character work especially in Lana. I'd also like to see Steel get a little more prominence. Either way, Pak is writing one of the best Superman/Action Comics runs in the entire New 52, and if you're a Superman fan you don't want to miss out on it.
