Action Comics (1938-2011) #598

Action Comics (1938-2011) #598

by John Byrne, Paul Kupperberg, Petra Scotese (Colorist)

Featuring the First Appearance of Checkmate! The Man of Steel teams with the Checkmate agency to stop a terrorist organization.

Genres: Dc Comics, Comic Book

23 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 12, 2013

About the author

Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

John Lindley Byrne is a British-born Canadian-American author and artist of comic books. Since the mid-1970s, Byrne has worked on nearly every major American superhero.

Byrne's better-known work has been on Marvel Comics' X-Men and Fantastic Four and the 1986 relaunch of DC Comics’ Superman franchise. Coming into the comics profession exclusively as a penciler, Byrne began co-plotting the X-Men comics during his tenure on them, and launched his writing career in earnest with Fantastic Four (where he also started inking his own pencils). During the 1990s he produced a number of creator-owned works, including Next Men and Danger Unlimited. He also wrote the first issues of Mike Mignola's Hellboy series and produced a number of Star Trek comics for IDW Publishing.

Reviews

[Cybernex007 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This issue of action comics served a very interesting purpose: the introduction of checkmate!! This is really my first introduction to the group and the mystery this issue surrounds them with has me even more interested. This issue introduces us to checkmate through their cover: Konig industries. This is where it seems the leaders of the organization plan and deploy their pieces out into the world, and their current target is Qurac’s minister of defense…who is currently on the move to deliver an address to the UN in metropolis. That makes him pretty untouchable…but it seems they already have some agents there.

At the same time Superman isn’t happy to hear about the defense minister’s arrival as he is no doubt there to denounce him. And after everything that has been happening lately with Lana brainwashed, Lois believing Clark’s relationship with Superman is giving him an unfair advantage, gangbuster crippled, and Luthor constantly scheming…he could really use a breath of fresh air. But that’s not going to happen today!! Not only is Lois sent to interview the defense minister, only to be seen as insolent and almost whipped/beaten by the minister, only for a different group of terrorists to swoop in and kidnap Lane and the minister…but the terrorist group also took over a nuclear aircraft carrier outside the city to distract Superman. And the distraction works as expected, Superman is completely tied up with the hostage and bomb situation on the carrier to even notice that Lois and the minister have been taken.

But luckily for Superman he isn’t the only one acting in metropolis today. At the scene of the kidnapping we see as a Knight for checkmate swoops in with a pretty generic and ambiguous yellow/black costume and outfitted with training and gear to swiftly take down the terrorists and save the minister and Lane. What’s interesting is that this Knight makes a comment about being a former member of the NYPD. What I’ve been able to piece together about checkmate is that all of their members have chess piece related names/roles…which is a pretty cool gimmick. This Knight is eventually able to get the minister to the airport where a plane waited to immediately get him in the sky and send him home.

At the exact same time, Superman is getting introduced to another Knight who was able to assist him with the hostage situation on the boat and give Superman the chance he needed to take down the armored leader of the terrorist group and give him a chance to get the bomb to a safe location before it detonated. Eventually both Superman and Lois met up and were quite struck and confused by the people that just helped them out. As the issue comes to a close we jump back to Konig industries where we see their full plan come full circle. They simply waited for the minister’s plane to leave US airspace…and they detonated it. And up in smoke goes their problems with the minister. Wow this organization sounds like everything the peacemaker project wanted to be.

[Ross Armstrong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Introduction of Checkmate which would spin off into its own series.
Superman is having an existential crisis as Lois interviews a Middle Eastern prince linked with terrorism acts. Meanwhile, terrorists take an aircraft carrier hostage. Both Superman and Lois are aided by agents of a new espionage agency. This is mainly a setup for the new series Checkmate which started the following month and ran for several years.

[Andi Chorley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Checkmate arrives! A good introduction to what would become one of DC's premier fictional spy agencies.

[Paxton Holley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve never read any Checkmate. This was an interesting debut.

[Sean Korzinski · Rating 4 out of 5]

First appearance of Checkmate. The ending epilogue was a good twist. I thought they would bring him back later but they decided to kill the dictator off right after he threatens Lois.

[Sophia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actual rating 3.7 stars.
First appearance of Checkmate!

I liked the way it was done. This was still a Superman (and Lois) story but Checkmate was threaded inbetween.

Can’t say I was sorry to see that Minister of Defense go.

Not sure if I’ll be reading the Checkmate series yet. Could be cool to see a different side to this universe.