Action Comics #1014 Review

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis / Artist: Szymon Kudranski / DC Comics Ok, Bendis. I’m going to need you to stop making me root for the villain. Action Comics #1014 turned the Black Girl Magic up a notch right out the gate. The book starts with Perry White, editor of the Daily Planet (I was this close to writing “Daily Bugle”), meets his new boss. Marisol Leone has been a fantastic addition to Superman’s world. It has been known for quite a while that she bought Superman’s paper but that hasn’t been super relevant to the story outside of her employment/ partnership with Robinson Goode. In this issue, she has her first interaction with Perry White. In a deliciously curious creative choice, the criminal Queen Bee of Metropolis comes off as the ideal owner of a newspaper. She asks Perry what he needs to make the paper better and without either of them skipping a beat he tells her he needs money and editorial control and she agrees. Later in the comic Clark Kent gets a chance to meet Miss Leone. After stopping a rampaging monster, he writes an article about it quoting himself as Superman (I’m not sure about the journalistic ethics here) shedding light on wrongdoing on the part of S.T.A.R. Labs. Perry is excited to introduce Kent to Leone, but he is appropriately skeptical of her intentions.

In the Bridgeport, CT portion of Metropolis we’re reminded that Miss Leone is indeed a villain. The violent alternate personality of Rose, aptly named Thorn, is tearing up the hang out spots of …