DC Comics and Action Comics #1041 Spoilers and Review follows.
Midnighter Gets Authority Spotlight!
Can This Killer Co-Exist With Superman To Free Warworld?
The promise of the issue can be discerned from its solicit.
ACTION COMICS #1041
Written by PHILLIP KENNEDY JOHNSON and SHAWN ALDRIDGE
Art and cover by RICCARDO FEDERICI and ADRIANA MELO
Cover by DANIEL SAMPERE and ALEJANDRO SÁNCHEZ
Variant cover by JULIAN TOTINO TEDESCO
$4.99 US | 40 pages | $5.99 US Variant (card stock)
ON SALE 3/22/22REMATCH! Superman puts what he’s learned on Warworld to the test as he faces Mongul’s unstoppable, reanimated warrior known as the Unmade. But it may be too late for Mongul to salvage his empire before an ancient prophecy is fulfilled. One of Superman’s inner circle will fall, another will be resurrected at a terrible cost, and the Authority’s traitor will be revealed in the conclusion to part one of the Warworld Saga!
While Superman has gotten the spotlight for the first several issues of this arc, the Authority’s Midnighter has been doing his own work in the issues, in the background, working to foment an uprising by the slaves against Mongul and his ruling elite of Warwolrd.
Midnighter does not like hero-worship or to be confused with Superman whose symbol appears to be inspiring the slaves of Warworld.
Midnighter has been derided as a Batman clone since his inception, but this issue does much to differentiate him from Batman.
Midnighter kills if the cause is righteous which contrasts him not just with Batman, but his Authority ally Superman.
However, he and Superman have the same objective.
They put their differences aside to help the people of Warworld rise up.
In the back-up Martian Manhunter tale J’onn J’onzz continues to tangle with the Court of Vultures (not Owls)…
…who also have some kind of telepathic or physic powers to rival our hero’s even causing a past person of Bloodwynd to appear and flicker aware.
As an aside, while Infinite Frontier means that the complicated history of Martian Manhunter and Bloodwynd is in-continuity, Multiversity also establishes that another Bloodwynd resides on Earth 16 of the multiverse
The Pulse:
This arc remains dark for a Superman tale, but reminds at times of gladiator Superman of Warworld from the late 1980s. However, beyond some minuscule cosmetic similarities, this arc feels more epic and touches on sociopolitical issues that seem more impactful with Russia’s current invasion of a neighboring sovereign nation in Ukraine. Midnighter serves as a good contrast to the Man of Steel. The back-up remains an ill-fit to be paired with this Warworld arc with the Court of Vultures not being relevantly differentiated from the Court of Owls. Was cool to see the Bloodwynd nod. On the strength of the main story and art this book is a 7.5 out of 10.
