The House of Brainiac storyline wrapped up this week with the last two chapters released on the same day. Interesting choice. The arc has really been very entertaining up to now, building up some mysteries and momentum, throwing characters together to fight the bigger threat, and amping up Brainiac as a mad villain.
Here in Action Comics #1066, part 5 of 6, writer Joshua Williamson keeps the momentum going. One thing that I like about this story is how we see the breadth of the super-family and even see people like Lobo and Luthor joining in to stop the Brainiac Queen from annihilating everything. There are some interesting possible callbacks to other stories as well that keep a veteran like me happy.
That said, I still don't 100% know what all the mysteries in Brainiac are about. The glitches, the hole in his memory, the gathering of other Brainiacs, the whole goal of the thing is still a little vague in my head. I keep puzzling about the 'why' and I don't get enough answers to be satisfied.
And there are a couple of confusing moments in this issue that also had me wondering where this would all go.
The art remains fantastic as once again Rafa Sandoval and Miguel Mendonca team up to bring us some incredible action. This is a sort of horror/sci-fi setting and it works well. Laura Braga pencils a Lex/Lena backup and brings a very different style but it works for a story looking back at young Lena.
In the end, I think this was a solid book but perhaps not up to the excellence of the prior issues.
On to the particulars.
The book bursts out of the gate with the Brainiac Queen powered up by eating the Czarians. And Brainiac hopes to continue fueling her by having her eat all the supers on board as well as those in his cities.
You know me means business if he is willing to sacrifice his collection of cultures to this beast.
Such a fantastic double page spread to, looking into the potential future of this monstrosity, the curved lines of the panels drawing you into the present of Brainiac and his queen. Powerful art and words.
The idea she will gain strength from eating these beings as well as her overall look has to be inspired by Neon Genesis Evangelion and Unit 01 eating an angel. But maybe that's just me.
Reminding me of Neon Genesis is always a good thing.
Here is one of the confusing moments and where a good editor can help. Lobo shows up and helps free the Super-family to help fight Brainiac.
One of the people he frees is ... Supergirl?? Isn't she with Lex??
Turns out that is supposed to be Lana as Superwoman. But it sort of stopped me in my tracks as I had to remember what happened last issue and to make sure this wasn't Kara.
Next moment of confusion.
Brainiac finally explains the glitches he has been having by saying that his system is over-taxed by all the knowledge he has gathered and all the things he is doing like mind-controlling his drones.
The answer is to plug Lena and her incredible mind into the ship and have her run it and relieve him. This will kill her.
If plugging her in would ease his system and help him why did he wait so long to do this? Why did he bottle her? Wouldn't he want to be at top efficiency immediately?
This didn't make much sense unless I am misreading things.
Despite the sheer firepower of Superman, New Super-Man, Superwoman, Superboy, Otho, Osul, Silver Banshee, Livewire, and Lobo, the heroes are losing.
Conner thinks the best thing he can do is use his TK to basically attack the entire Brainiac ship. It is a good moment for Conner who really hasn't had much opportunity to shine in recent years. And leaning into him learning that he can stretch his powers from 'The Chained' was a nice callback.
This is, perhaps, the most important moment in the book as his destabilization of the ship leads to everything else tumbling down.
But it led to the next confusing moment. We learn that the Brainiac Queen needed the ship to be in complete working order to maintain her power. She begins to lose power and falls down. I don't mind surprises in stories but this seemed to come out of nowhere.
One of the things that has been a mystery to me is this 'hole' in Brainiac's knowledge and his thirst to fill it. I thought it was his historic brush with creation in
Action Comics #544.
Others have thought is was some nagging of something missing in his life. While they physically brawl, Superman seems to hint that it was Brainiac's longing for family.
Indeed, the title 'House of Brainiac' seems to say that the villain was longing for something more than knowledge, something akin to the 'House of El'. Seems more human than robot.
That seems to be it because Vril Dox arrives with Lysl and you get this somewhat tender moment between husband and wife.
Is the secret to defeating Brainiac love???
But this was another confusing moment. Because this felt like a sort of pivot point. This seemed important. Alas, the story just sort of moves on entirely like it had been going before this moment right after.
Was this an important moment? Why include it if Brainiac is just all hellbent on destroying everything after? Was I misreading it?
Despite their unbelievable strength, the Brainiac ship falling down around them, and the Brainiac Queen off the board, it actually looks like the heroes might lose. Is the Brainiac army that tough?
Luckily, Supergirl shows up with Lex. And he built in a backdoor into Brainiac's core that he can access to take control. I do think it is funny that the device is a version of the Brainiac head. Did the he carve this??
It did remind me of the Luthor/Brainiac 'team-up' in Alan Moore's famous 'Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow' storyline. I wonder if intentional? Or just my mind.
For Lex to gain control, he needs to be protected from Brainiac's army.
Love this action pose panel of the trio of protectors. And love that Supergirl is there. Shows the respect this creative team has for her.
In the back-up, we see Lex link into the system and interact with Lena who is also linked in.
As someone who was hit-or-miss with the Superman books in the Brainiac 13 story, I was happy to get some backstory for Lena and Lex.
What is clear is Lex's love for Lena and how that love has made him try to be a better person. It led to him working with Superman. And has led him here.
Within the system, the two have to have a Matrix-style brawl with the Brainiac 13 version of the villain which was also a nice callback to that time.
So we are at the cliffhanger moment. Lex plugged into Brainiac to try to kill him from the inside. Superman, Supergirl, and Lobo trying to fight off his drones so Lex can do what he wants. The Brainiac Queen is depowered and on the ground.
I do feel that the overall plot has moved to a good spot to be ready to conclude. I still don't think I know what Brainiac is desiring or planning here. As a result, I puzzled a lot and was occasionally pulled out of the story while I tried to think these things through. Great art and great action made it entertaining and a good read.
Overall grade: B-
6 comments:
Two things bothered me, one current and another ongoing.
The first is what a noncharacter, boring horror trope the Brainiac Queen is. No nuance, nothing special, just all teeth and destruction.
The second is Luthor being redeemed. He can't be. He has oceans of blood on his hands and there is no redemption arc that could cover all that. It's like Star Wars claiming Darth Vader's one act of saving Luke balances out murdering children and blowing up inhabited planets.
Does ‘redeemed’ mean his sins would be forgotten, though? He could see that he’s been so very, very wrong and try to atone for his crimes, using his intellect to improve life for millions; he’d likely have to do it from prison, but every good deed would mean SOMEthing.
Excellent spot on the helmet callback Anj, that has to be deliberate.
I guess I wasn't the only person confused by all the blonde-haired women - Alejandro Sanchez on colors messed up redhead Lana in that panel you point out. In prior issues, it required a magnifier to figure out who was in some of the bottles. (Again, one of the difficult ones was Lana - could barely make out the S insignia in that case.)
If you've seen Green Arrow this week, just try and figure out all the Arrow Family members in their civilian clothes sitting around the kitchen table! Most of them unnamed, but I guess there's Mia, Cissy, Emiko, Sienna (I think that's Red Canary), Lian.... whew. Maybe more I've forgotten, And later add Cheshire (Jade) to the mix. Williamson is writing all these group scenes, and it's hard to always know who is who. And we are people who generally do. But it's not all that reader-friendly.
And yet - it's fun. I'm okay with it.
I'd agree, the story gets confusing. I'd ask, is Brainiac trying to offload some of the tasks that have been overwhelming him, onto Lena? If it would kill her, how much does he gain by doing that? A few minutes? An hour? Or, is his only goal to overload her and murder her? I find it ambiguous.
BTW Action was originally supposed to come out last week. They didn't plan on having it the same week as Superman.
T.N.
"The second is Luthor being redeemed. He can't be. He has oceans of blood on his hands and there is no redemption arc that could cover all that. It's like Star Wars claiming Darth Vader's one act of saving Luke balances out murdering children and blowing up inhabited planets. "
Hasn't Marvel done this probably a couple hundred times now with Magneto? He kills a bunch of people but then he helps the X-Men so it's OK. Then he turns bad again, ad nauseum...
This was basically fine, but it was definitely the worst issue in this arc. I really wish there was an explanation for why the twins and Kenan suddenly got their powers back after apparently being completely depowered when they were stuck in bottles, but I suppose that's ultimately a relatively minor background point. Combined with Kara's sudden repowering from the last installment in this arc, it feels like Williamson's whole handling of powering and depowering is sloppy and nobody on the editorial side either noticed or cared to point that out. The obvious art error you noted of making Lana look like Supergirl that you pointed out was also off putting. None of this was enough to make the overall issue bad, but along with some other elements of the plotting that you pointed out it contributed to a sense that this story was cobbled together too hastily and arbitrarily.
Yeah, Magneto's on the list too but writers don't tend to pretend he didn't do evil and vile shit and won't in the future. It's always felt to me less like redemption arcs t han his goals align with the heroes and he cuts back on the murdery stuff.
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