In 2024, “Action Comics” is acting as, essentially, four miniseries, written by some of the biggest creators in comics. ‘Superman Superstars’ launches with Jason Aaron behind the keyboard, doing his first major in continuity work at DC. For his first story, Aaron will be featuring not only Superman but Bizarro in “Action,” which is a decision that could go either way, as the character can be a frustrating one to read at times. With John Timms on art, the book has a chance to be something dynamic and interesting, or fall to the standard Bizarro fare.
Which will it be?
Written by Jason AaronCover by John Timms
Illustrated by John Timms
Colored by Rex Lokus
Lettered by Dave SharpeSUPERMAN SUPERSTARS BEGINS! JASON AARON WRITES SUPERMAN FOR THE FIRST TIME, JOINED BY FAN-FAVORITE ARTIST JOHN TIMMS! THE WIZARD, BIZARRO! Jason Aaron writes Superman for the very first time, teaming up with all-star artist John Timms to present a startling new vision of the Man of Steel’s strangest foe. When Superman’s doppelgänger discovers a dark secret about himself, it unleashes the most dangerous version of Bizarro the world has ever seen.
Aaron instantly gets the book off on the right foot by doing something brand new for Bizarro, which makes total sense for the character but is still feels totally fresh. Because Bizarro is the converse of Superman, and because Superman is susceptible to magic, Bizarro can master it. This instantly changes the character in really interesting ways, making him an adversary that isn’t just a physical duplicate but someone whose powers stand a chance against Superman and his intellect.
This is what Aaron has done in his time at Marvel; he takes characters and looks at them in a slightly askew way, allowing a new way of seeing them to emerge. This is a hard thing to do for a character like Superman who, not only has been published for 80 years, but at one point was the star for five monthly books (counting “Justice League”). Finding a new way into the character can be tricky, but Bizarro is a tabula rasa in so many ways. While he’s not always an easy villain to read, in part because of the Bizarro speak that Aaron also manages to cleverly sidestep, this story gives Bizarro a focus that also gives the reader a new glimpse into Superman.
This is all amplified by John Timms’s art. Timms emerged a few years ago and became one of DC’s go-to artists, but he’s never been better than when he’s handling stories in the the Superman realm. The word ‘kinetic’ is the one that keeps coming up in my writing about his work, because Timms suggests movement and the chaos that is implied in a world with superheroes in every page. It is impressive how that chaos plays with other elements. When Timms draws a cabal of sorcerers, they are as stiff and poised as a royal guard, and this is where Timms reveals his 90s image influence, with high colors, meticulously detailed costuming, and Jim Lee-esque 100 yard stares coming out of these characters. But on the same page is a cackling Bizarro who is in such a state of movement that there are bits of debris flying all around him.
In the hands of Timms and Rex Lokus, magic really does look dangerous, the speed at which Superman and Bizarro move looks overwhelming, and the violence looks painful and catastrophic. Timms takes very human, real emotions and pushes them into the stratosphere, allowing the action in the book to jump off the pages and punch the reader in the maw. There may be people who prefer a different style of art to what Timms does, but the effectiveness with which Timms executes his work is impressive, especially considering how the book never really lets up. Timms never lets off the throttle, even in more calm moments; his work is always pushing forward.
What keeps this issue from being really great is its last few pages, which sets up the rest of the arc. It introduces a story that is old hat for superhero books, even if we’ve never seen this particular iteration before. For a book that managed to do so much new early on, this feels like a let down of a story beat. Knowing that this is a three issue arc, it also maps out how those issues will likely play out in order to set things right for the next writer to come in with issue #1064. With a truly limited set of issues, Aaron and Timms were always going to be under the gun to tell a ‘big’ story, and this turn of events may be large in scope, but feels like small potatoes.
That seems directly in opposition to what ‘Superman Superstars’ is supposed to be about, and that’s a shame, because the first three-quarters of this book are quite good and present Bizarro in a really interesting light. There’s still hope for this arc, obviously, but the last few pages really did throw a wet blanket on what has been an exciting start to the new era of “Action.”
Final Verdict: 6.5 – A strong start and a weak ending lead to a mixed bag that always looks great, but sometimes lacks the punch the early pages suggested.
