Superman: Action Comics vol. 2 — Leviathan Rising

How does the better of Bendis’ two “Superman” titles follow up a pretty great first volume?  By putting almost everything it started there on the back burner in order to build hype for “Event Leviathan.”  It’s why this volume starts off with Jimmy Olsen infiltrating the Kobra cult only to become a firsthand witness to its demise.  It’s not the only secret organization being snuffed out here:  The D.E.O., A.R.G.U.S., Cadmus, Spyral, Checkmate are all wiped off the board here and only one name links them all.  Leviathan.

Melody Goode and her boss Leone get a couple good scenes towards the end, but we’re going to have to wait a while to find out what they’ve got planned for Metropolis.  In the meantime there’s still some fun to be had here.  A lot of the individual scenes work well, like Lois Lane confronting her dad over the fact that she’s actually married to Superman, Lois and Clark comforting Jimmy while he’s hiding under a desk after the Kobra incident, and Amanda Waller revealing that she knows Superman’s biggest secret.  Which of course she does, because she’s Amanda Waller.  It’s things like this, along with the mystery of Leviathan’s identity and why they’re taking everyone out that keep this volume interesting in spite of this abrupt change in focus.

Helping things out even more is the art from Steve Epting.  He clearly had more time to work on these five issues than “Hell Arisen” and it shows here.  Bendis is telling a more grounded spy story within the DCU and Epting’s noirish style fits the tone of the story perfectly.  He also manages to frame Superman’s actions in a way that still keep them superheroic in this context, which is also an impressive feat.  Guest artist Yanick Paquette also provides a nice looking lead-in to the big event with his pages from “Leviathan Rising” that are included here to fill things out.  So with all this successful buildup, it begs the question of just how the main event is going to turn out.