Action Comics Annual #1

Superman's most deadly foe cannot be a man in a purple and green leotard with a bad stache. He kind of looks like one of Jack Tripper's friends down at the Regal Beagle. Or maybe a more current pop culture reference.

The first thing this story explains to the reader is that it takes place after the events of Action Comics #8. I have no idea what was going on in issue eight so I check the cover. Looks like that was the issue where he fought Brainiac, cleared the satellite, rescued Tiny Metropolis and Kandor, and received his Super Suit. At least this annual isn't part of the current Action Comics story arc.

Forgive me if I don't put any great effort into commenting on any of these annuals. It just seems like extra work for extra long half-assed stories. With Sholly Fisch writing, it's like I'm paying five dollars for an extra-long back-up story. They're not even worth the extra dollar they normally cost. Plus this one is about Superman and I've never really been a fan of Superman. Why? Because he's Lawful Good, that's why! Although if I were writing Superman stories, the conflict would probably revolve mostly around ethical dilemmas since he can overpower anything that comes into physical conflict with him. And when he has trouble battling a foe, the writer has twist logic into a pretzel to make it any way believable.

Unless Superman's foe has Kryptonite Fists!

Unless I'm completely wrong. Like I said, I've never been a very big fan of Superman. I guess he could be attacked by magic and mind-raping antagonists. He always gets fucked over by those guys.

I guess being crazy helps as well. What the hell is a "bopuifs"?

This everyman hates Superman because Superman put him in the hospital while taking away his wife and his home. He doesn't offer any details to this story. I'm pretty sure he's leaving out the details that might make him seem like the bad guy and make Superman look like Wonder Woman.

Project K-Man needs test subjects as they try to create a defense against Superman. Their first plan is to irradiate some poor volunteer with Kryptonite to see if it'll give him any powers. That poor jerk is, of course, the guy with the mustache. Ramsay. The process is supposed to take weeks but being that this is their first trial and I'm really beginning to suspect that nobody involved on the project is an actual scientist, the process is completed in a few seconds.

Science! Fucking with things we don't understand since, well, never you mind since when. It's been a long time, okay? And how do you expect science to understand things if it only fucks with things it understands? Get off our back!

The brand new K-Man immediately makes his public debut and begins beating on Superman. Superman recognizes him instantly which means I should probably recognize him too! Turns out he's a wife beater from Action Comics #1 that Superman took care of. See? I knew he was fudging his story earlier and leaving out the parts that made Superman look like a hero and made Clay Ramsay look like a pile of dog shit.

Unless you're Clay Ramsay or some other wife-beater. Then Superman just looks like a holier than thou jerk butting his head into business that doesn't concern him. Although I do have to wonder about Superman's choices in stopping the abuse. He throws Ramsay out of a window and into the river. He tells Ramsay that he knew the fall wasn't enough to kill him. But it was enough to break both of his legs. Isn't that one of those decisions that keeps Batman up at night? Superman has all the power in the world to stop one normal human being (yes, he's a dick but that's beside the point right now!) and he chooses to risk that human's life while capturing him. Superman may have figured the fall wasn't high enough to kill the man but every injury has the possibility of ending a person's life, especially broken legs.

I don't really see what Superman did as that much of a problem. He is still young and reckless and his ideologies and beliefs are still greater than his control of his emotions. Hopefully he'll learn from this, though. No matter what Superman tells himself or Ramsay, he was careless with Ramsay's life. Whether or not Ramsay deserved any care is a completely other conversation that will probably end with everyone believing he deserved a little bit of his own medicine. And by medicine I mean fists in his face.

Now Ramsay is the great K-Man! And he and Superman are both realizing that K-Man's proximity to Superman is making Superman weaker and weaker. So Superman is lucky that Metropolis has another hero that I don't particularly care for!

Steel is basically Cyborg that can still fuck.

Steel hands Superman a bag and then continues to beat on K-Man. But it looks like the Kryptonite infusion didn't just make him powerful against Superman. K-Man actually seems to be as strong as Superman even if his Kryptonite Radiation wasn't making Superman weaker. So Steel doesn't really stand a chance. He's just there to buy some time while Superman puts on the radiation suit Steel brought him.

And have I mentioned no wonder I though K-Man's look was so trashy? It's because he's a fucking wife-beater! I tend to forget to tie up some of the comments I make! Like in Batman Incorporated #4 when I began the issue wondering who Wingman was and if the alias was for a recognizable DC Hero. And then Damain begins wondering who he is as well! And then everyone learns that Wingman is...well, I won't spoil it here! I should really only try to spoil the comic in the title of each commentary, just in case someone hasn't read any of the others from this month. Lazy!

By the way, Superman knocks out K-Man. And then he and Steel hang out on the corner resting from the fight and getting to know each other better.

Yeah, two boring heroes! Metropolis sucks!

Steel, being much smarter than Superman, realized immediately that K-Man's powers were derived from Kryptonite. But why does everyone know what Kryptonite is? Has Superman revealed to the public that he's from the planet Krypton? Did he even know at this point? I know when he ran into his rocket, it spoke Kryptonese to him but he didn't have any idea what that was. And Luthor seems to know about Krypton before he should as well.

I guess I'll just have to believe Luthor knew about Krypton since nearly 700 comic books later, I just can't retain every little bit of every single book I've read!

The issue ends with Steel, having been inspired by Superman, traveling the world and helping people with technology. Luthor and Abernathy, having discovered the Kryptonite is Superman's weakness, move on to bigger and more deadly things. And General Lane, Lois's father, has K-Man in custody and has offered him a deal to be the defense against Superman that they've been searching for. But he'll only work with them if they find his wife so he can beat her up and love her some more.

A short back-up story follows that shows the origin of The Atomic Skull. He's also a wife beater except he beat his wife to death before escaping onto an experimental STAR Labs submarine which crashed and exposed him to some kind of radiation which led to him being able to yell purple until his face eventually falls off. The end!

Action Comics Annual #1 Rating: This was a good Annual that does what annuals are supposed to do. It showed off some of Action Comics main characters and told a stand-alone story for potential readers. I also like how it shows some important parts of the history between Luthor and Superman so it makes the Annual worthwhile for regular readers of the series as well while not forcing it to be mandatory because it's tied in to the regular series story arc.