Action Comics #6

What makes Kryptonite so poisonous to Kryptonians?

I don't know who this little guy thinks he is and neither do the Anti-Superman Army.

The Anti-Superman army have stolen the Kryptonite power source of Superman's baby rocket and taken it to this little man. Now the little man is asking the Anti-Superman Army what they'll give him for it! You know, even though they just stole it. Perhaps it was his idea and he had all of the intel to make the plan work. Or perhaps he's the only one who knows what to do with the Engine to make all of the different colors of Kryptonite. Whatever the case, he's going to give them all one sliver of Kryptonite to do with as they please but they must all do one thing for him. Probably something nasty and perverse.

Superman and the Legion of Super-heroes have just come back in time to a point just past the Terminaut story arc which will be ending in another issue or two. They are actually on the Terminaut's spaceship and Superman remarks that it was his original "Fortress of Solitude", a place he could come to be alone. The Legion need to figure out how to keep the Rocket's Brainiac AI from dying now that it's lost its power source. If it dies, the Collector's Virus that took over all of the military robots and stuff a few issues ago will be released back into Earth's computer systems and destroy everything.

See? Superman already has it all figured out! It all works out. No need to worry.

The Legion of Super-hero members never answer Superman's question. They just change the subject. That's probably because everything about the way they time travel is ridiculous and breaks every law in the books and causes tons of paradoxes and.... Hey! What about that whole Flashpoint barrier thing? Are we pretending it hasn't happened yet? Somehow? Whatever. I give up trying to understand DC's concept of time.

On board the satellite is a man named Erik Drekken that can evolve and devolve at will. For some reason, he knows where the Anti-Superman Army went with the kryptonite. Superman beats him up a little bit and when he asks him where the Army went, Erik doesn't answer. But since Saturn Girl is there and can read his mind, she gets the answer as soon as Superman makes him think about it.

So Superman has the kryptonite inside his head right now?!

The pellet inside Superman's brain is pressing up against some important stuff and causing him to have flashbacks. He remembers the day he first met the Legion when they were all just children. And he remembers a conversation he had with Pa about the 'S' on his cape and how he'll never know what it stood for. So Pa suggests that he make it stand for something good when he begins to use his powers to help people. I guess being farm folk, that's the obvious choice. As opposed to robbing banks and shit.

Being a telepath and sensing your future or past self doesn't cause any problems? That probably means anybody can go back in time and make out with themselves, right?! I mean, you know, if you were, um, weird or something!

Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad, and Saturn Girl hop into their Time Bubble and blast into Superman's brain where the big Kryptonite Auction is being held. Now Superman just has to wait and probably not shake his head around too much.

Inside Supes head, the little man conducting the auction realizes that the three people dressed in full robes must be imposters! So he has his secretary turn the air around and inside them into knives, killing them. But they were actually three of the Anti-Superman Army with a forced telepathic disguise on them. Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lad were disguised (again, by Saturn Girl's telepathy) as the Anti-Superman Army. Once the little man's secretary has put down some of the Army, Saturn Girl drops their disguises and Cosmic Boy takes control by threatening everyone saying that he has control over all the iron in their blood.

Oh yeah? Well what if one of them is anemic!? Or is an alien without iron in the blood! Like Mr. Spock who has Copper in his blood! Oh, I guess that's still a metal that Cosmic Boy could manipulate.

The threat must just be a bluff because their enemies just keep doing what they want to do and Cosmic Boy doesn't do anything. I think it's because he has to be ready to secure the kryptonite! But even then, he basically fails! The little man's secretary turns the lead box into glass again to flood Superman's brain with Kryptonite.

That's going to cause a killer migraine. Forget I said that.

The Legion only save a piece of the Kryptonite as it flies outside the tesseract space they're in and into Superman's brain. Superman is now dying. But he realizes what he must do! He crawls over to his rocket ship (with that devolving guy jumping all over him as a jelly thing and trying to stop him) and shoves his hand under the rocket's hood. The engine sucks up all the Kryptonite from his body and regains its power! Everyone is saved! And the Legion reappear and say, "We knew you would do that!" which is probably why they avoided answering his questions earlier.

And what about Superman learning to fly? Well, he doesn't. Not really. He just gets to fly around with a Legion Flight Ring on the first day that he met these three Legionnaires when he was a young boy.

The back-up story is a cute little story about Clark leaving the family farm to friends and heading to the big city. It doesn't say which big city he's going to though! And that's that!

Action Comics #6 Rating: Remains unchanged. Look. It's already Ranked #2! And unless Action Comics does something really spectacular, it isn't going to pass up Batman. Not any time soon, anyway. Although Batman can really pull a couple of disappointing issues and unforced error its way out of the top! Still, Action Comics is still better than 50 of the other titles! Although it's probably about on par with Aquaman and Wonder Woman.