Action Comics Weekly was a noble, but ultimately disasterous, experiment. Each week it featured a two page Superman story surrounded by a number of characters who couldn't quite hold their own book. There were definately some good stories in the run, but overall the rush to get the book out on time smothered most of the content. As the book was about to end its weekly run and return to a monthly status, editor Mark Waid thought a great idea would be a final, single story that included most of the characters from the book. He turned to a then little known writer by the name of Neil Gaiman. Gaiman had just completed the Black Orchid mini series and set to work on the story. Somewhere between the time that it was approved and turned in, there was a change in continuity status. This was, after all, the era just following Crisis On Infinite Earths and no one was really certain just what the continuity was. So the story was shelved and forgotten. Now, Gaiman is a star and isn't doing much comic work, so any of his scripts are worth their weight in gold. This one was, after a bit of a search, found, dusted off and illustrated by a handfull of top artists. Continuity be damned!
Hal Jordan is going through a personal crisis of his own. Lost and directionless, he shows up in Metropolis to whine to Clark Kent. In the course of their conversation, they stumble across a duplicate Green Lantern power battery stored in a museum. The lantern is magical in nature, and when Hal attempts to make contact with it, both he and Superman are zapped into the afterlife (in various incarnations). Along the way they meet Deadman (illustrated by John Totleben and the Phantom Stranger (illustrated by Matt Wagner and Jim Aparo). The Blackhawks also appear in a fairly pointless prelude.
This would have made a nice, charming story in its originally intended form as the last Action Comics Weekly. It is a pleasant, if not particularly substantial, diversion. Unfortunatly, what would have been a story by an largely unknown writer in a regular comic for $1.50 is now a prestige format one shot by a superstar writer with a hefty $5.95 price tag. Its' shortcomings are minor, but it still doesn't live up to expectations. The artists all do a fine job. They seem to be working very hard to make a lightweight story seem more important. The sections by Matt Wagner and John Totleben are particularily interesting. Mike Allred, an artist that I really like, is inked here by Terry Austin, and the results are pretty flimsy. Likewise, the Eric Shanower pages are somewhat overdrawn. I don't know whether to blame Shanower or Art Adams, who provides the busy inks. Books that employ a number of artists can often have mixed results. The book still succeeds, if just barely, as a nice story of one hero finding strength to go on within himself. You can't help but wonder how Gaiman would write the story today. It might look the same, but it most certainly would be a different read.
