Some things I noticed about Action Comics Weekly #602

That George Perez character, a real good drawer, was a real good drawer back in 1988, too. Goodness, look at this swell cover. Coast City isn't even a real city, but the way Perez drew it, with, like, every single building and car in this fictional city appearing on this cover, it looks more real than most 21st century comic book appearances of New York City.


Maybe John Stewart's just in shock, having just come home to find his wife murdered by the insane, possessed-by-an-alien-gem ex-girlfriend of the guy who's been freeloading at his apartment for a while, but he sure talks awfully callously about his dead wife.

When Jordan flies back to Stewart's, he finds Katma dead, and Stewart standing there, tapping his foot and berating Ha, as if Hal had come home drunk, cooked a bunch of omelettes and then left the kitchen a mess. Stewart refers to his wife as "hacked to pieces" and, when Jordan suggest they, like, call the police or something to report the murder, Stewart responds, "Too late for help, m'man. The lady's dead."

After enduring Stewart's three-page rant, a rant that's that's part exposition, part complaining about the whole getting-his-wife-killed thing, Jordan decides he needs to get out of that apartment. To which Stewart responds: Jeez. I know everyone deals with grief differently, but Stewart deals with it weirdly.


Stewart must have eventually gotten sick of the smell himself and called the police and the funeral home and got everything straightened out enough to have a memorial service at the cemetery. Despite feeling guilty about/being blamed for Katma's death, Jordan shows up. Not wearing a nice suit, of course, but in full superhero costume, complete with his mask and, perhaps in some sort of weird gesture in the direction of etiquette, a trench coat over his costume.

What a jackass.

Even Kilowog, the orange space hippopotamus man, knows what sort of clothing Earth funerary customs call for.


My favorite part of this issue's Roger Stern/Curt Swan/John Beatty two-page Superman strip is the way the Man of Steel sort of lingers for a few panels, making sure the guy he just saved from a hail of gunfire is okay.

Superman's pretty relaxed about having to chase down a carload of fleeing crooks, to the point that the victim is questioning why Superman hasn't flown off yet. Superman's not worried though, what with his super-senses and super-speed. He probably has time to run a few errands and go make a sandwich and still have time to catch normal human bad guys driving away in an automobile.


Once again, the highlight of the issue was the Mike Grell/Rick Burchett/Pablo Marcos Blackhawk strip. Above is a detail of the very first panel. It is followed by about four pages of Blackhawk brawling with a bunch of dudes while wearing nothing but his gunbelt and a day's stubble. There's a lot to like about the scene, from the crisp action to the way Burchett hides our hero's penis to the "Well, you don't see a naked guy beating up a roomfull of men in the pages of Action Comics very often" nature of it. But reading it in 2010, I was particularly struck by the fact that this is the sort of thing you see happen to superheroines rather frequently—the same day I read this I read a trade in which Misty Knight went right from a shower scene to a fight scene—but superheroes rarely engage in fisticuffs in the buff.