Action Comics #968

Writer: Dan Jurgens

Artist: Tyler Kirkham

Colourist: Ulises Arreola

Publisher: DC Comics

In the previous issue, after seeing the future caused by Lex Luthor replacing Darkseid as the ruler of Apokolips, a mysterious entity known as the Godslayer travels back in time to kill Lex before he can destroy the world. Attacking Lex while he is conducting and interview with Lois and the powerless Clark, Clark activates his emergency signal watch to call for Superman. Over with Superman, him and Jon are investigating the disappearance of the genetics building that Clark was investigating and Doomsday emerged several issues ago, discovering mysterious egg pods sitting next to Doomsday's cage. Hearing the signal, Superman rushes off to help Clark when he is intercepted by the Godslayer's ally.

This issue picks up with Zade, the Godslayer's ally, still in the midst of his battle with Superman. Realizing that Zade must be a diversion, Superman looks for the source of the signal watch, his x-ray vision being distorted for some reason. Racing off to stop the Godslayer, Superman arrives to the scene as the Godslayer launches a suprise attack on Luthor, taking out his main power source. The Godslayer shows Superman an image of the future, with Lex having destroyed the world, but Superman rejects it, saying it is only one possible future, and he won't let that happen. The Godslayer stabs Superman in the shoulder, preparing to perform the finishing blow when Jon calls for him to stop, crying as he sees the man about to kill his father. The Godslayer stops, deciding to leave Superman and take Lex with him to finish the job. It seems a little weird for me to see Superman taken out this easily by an unknown foe, but there is clearly something going on with his powers here that will be shown in a future issue.

The artwork is okay, nothing really stands out as being aggressively awful, but nothing really stands out as exceptional either. Some scenes with Jon are particularly well done, and it's interesting to see that Luthor's armour has a force field around it's head, which may have been shown in a previous issue that I've forgotten, but other than a few neat scenes, this issue was fairly middle of the road.

Overall, this wasn't the best issue, being devoted mostly to a few fight scenes with antagonists that we are given very little to care about. While the issue wasn't bad, it really didn't stand out at all either, being generally pretty bland. I enjoyed the ending, even if it was a little cliche, but unfortunately that one moment of good was not enough to outweigh the rest of the book being just okay.