Action Comics #967

Writer: Dan Jurgens

Artist: Tyler Kirkham

Colourist: Arif Prianto

Publisher: DC Comics

In the previous issue, having come face to face with the new, unpredictable Superwoman, Lois begins to question her on where the current universe's Lois Lane is, stalling for time until Superman can arrive. He manages to calm Superwoman down, allowing her to power down and revealing herself to be Lana Lang. Lana informs them that the current universe's Lois Lane died in an explosion of energy, worrying the same thing will happen to her due to the common origin of their powers. Lois accesses the other Lois' computer, playing a video will where she reveals that she had suspected that her powers may have been killing her, and urges our Lois to take her place, finishing her story about Superman, which Lois agrees to in her memory.

This issue picks up in the future, with Parademon's having taken over the world and at their front, a man with a red cape. Seeing this future, a man calling himself The Godslayer vows to go back in time and prevent this future from taking place. In the present, we meet up with Jon and Superman having finally found the missing Geneticron building, going inside and discovering not only Doomsday's cage, but two broken pods as well. Meanwhile, Lois is beginning her interview with Lex Luthor when he shows her his improved Superman armour, Lois recognizing the box floating in front of it as a Motherbox. Before she can really react to this, however, the side of the building explodes out from them, Lex quickly changing into his battle suit to fight whoever had attacked them. After taking several more hits, Luthor finally manages to draw the attacker out, revealing him to be the Godslayer, here to kill Lex to prevent him from becoming the heir to Darkseid. As the beginning to an arc, I quite enjoyed this issue and I'm always happy to see a little more of Darkseid and the New Gods.

The artwork in this issue has once again taken a bit of a shift, and I still believe that Kirkham is probably the best of the rotating artists on Action Comics. The consistency is high, the artwork is crisp and clear, and he generally can stay away from unusual facial expressions and poses, which is something that I usually find myself taking issue with.

Ultimately, I quite enjoyed this issue and look forward to seeing this arc through. It was fairly obvious where they were going with the revelation about who the mysterious red caped despot of the future was, but it seems more like a means to an end than an actual mystery. With hints of Lex possibly returning to his roots as a supervillain, I am excited for what will come next and I have high hopes that they will pull off a satisfying story.