Four words that sums up the Superman universe today:

I miss Gary Frank

Now he isnt gone, like dead or anything. But man….I would wish to see Frank back on any of the Superman titles right now. Cause the artists for the two main Superman books could use a lesson on how to draw for once in their lives.

Gary Frank just made the entire run of Geoff John’s Action Comics work. If it wasnt for his pencils, then I dont think we would be praising anything of this series as much as we do now. Frank knew how to convey emotions and knew to make everything have such fine detail in them. Just look at the faces and anatomy for the characters. That should be more then enough to tell you Frank his special. He knew how to draw any type of scene; whether action was involved, or how to make a joke work, or just set the tone for any panel you see. There’s a little cheesecake in his art, I mean his Cat Grant should just be naked at this point….Seriously the outfits he put on her just made your eyes roll. But other then that little nitpick, the pencils are great.

You know who else should get praise for the classic Action Comics run? Jon Sibal the colorist. He’s been with Frank and Johns since the beginning and his colors help provide the realism to Frank’s pencils. Sometimes the colorist could ruin the beautiful pencils of an artist; sort of in the same vein of Jack Kirby when you see his pencils get colored in. But no here, somehow Sibal’s colors make Frank’s pencils look even more gorgeous then they already are. If it werent for these two artists working on board, then again John’s run I dont think would be popular as it is today.

Now this is where I gotta bring it down a little, but only for a moment. I confused some people with my earlier reviews of this in issues and discussions about it. Dont get me wrong here, I like this arc. I do! I think Johns did a great job revamping Brainiac and made him more of a menace then ever before. But…..it really didnt need to be five issues in my opinion. It’s the dreded ‘F’ word for some, but a lot of what happens here seems to be filler. You could’ve compressed this down to maybe 3 issues at the most and still get a great story out of it. Other then that, again I like this arc. It might not be as fast paced like the amazing ‘Legion’ arc, but it still gets the job done. Everything from Brianiac’s plan to the fate of Pa Kent? Beautiful.

So yes I might not be on board with the Superman titles now. But this arc and the previous ‘Legion’ arc proved just how great Superman stories can be now a days. If only Johns didnt decide to do the ‘New Krypton’ story….I really think we could’ve made some head-way into make Superman even more of a relevent figure again if we didnt get that lame ‘event’ all the Superman titles suffered from. Oh well, at least I got ‘Superman: Secret Origins’ to look forward to.