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Action Comics (1938-2011) #599
Action Comics (1938-2011) #599
Superman must discover the connection between the Metal Men and Lex Luthor's newly created Kryptonoid Man.
37 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 1, 1988
1 person is currently reading
12 people want to read
About the author
John Byrne
2,957 books360 followersLibrarian 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 24, 2025
Yeah this issue was okay at best, it was great to see the metal men return even if there plot was a bit weak…but omg that extra bonus book was awful. Just an absolute chore to read and the story wasn’t interesting in the slightest nor coherent as the dialogue packed into every panel to explain the entire convulsed plot was just confusing and did nothing. But I would much rather talk about the good parts of this issue…the return of the metal men. We see in this issue that they have gone behind Magnus back and hired another scientist to take Tin’s responsometer and rebuild him. Unfortunately Tinker is also an employee under Lex Luthor and holds his same moral standards…so when the metal men came to check on the progress only to find that Tin had been turned into a giant Kryptonite solider, they were quite perplexed. Only for it to be fully explained when Lex showed up, used a device to dismantle their bodies, and extract their responsometers…they’ve been betrayed.
And using Magnus technology, with its metallic replicating properties, Lex was able to create an entire soldier out of Kryptonite. So all that was left was to use his assistant to scream out for help and get Superman to show up and it was off to the races. After a bit of monologuing from Lex, Superman realized that while the Kryptonite solider hurt…it wasn’t actively killing him, and if he focused he still had all of his powers to fight back against Lex. Lex vowed to create more of the Kryptonite soldiers with the other responsometers and modify their personalities the same as Tin, but Superman refused to give him the chance and took the other responsometers from him. Then as he engaged in a fight with the Kryptonite man, he was able to use a nearby plasma jet (as one has in a lab) to melt part of the Kryptonite, allowing Superman to throw the other metal men responsometers into it and let them reform their bodies…just made out of mock Kryptonite. Lex was able to get away, but it had the effect of restoring the metal men and Tin back to somewhat normalcy. They were then able to take the vat of chemicals that contained their melted down bodies back to Magnus, and after a stern ask by Superman…he opted to help restore the metal men to normal. Even Superman was taken aback by Magnus’ tone towards the metal men and his outright refusal to help them that drove them to do this anyway. Once the metal men were restored they wanted to run back out and get Luthor immediately, but even Superman stopped them. They are just robots and can’t testify against him in a court of law, and Lex has the means to do the exact same thing to them. But not to worry metal men, Superman will make sure Lex pays one of these days.
Then the issue concludes with a special extra book that showcases Jimmy on his own mission. As I mentioned previously, the extra is incoherent and has a pretty brining story with way too much dialogue to over explain the plot. It’s a basic plot of Jimmy getting all dressed up and going out to investigate an island off of Florida which has been running a money making scam by one of the archeologists that dug up the site after he killed his partner. Jimmy only found this out later after he infiltrated the facility and found the partner daughter also sneaking around in disguise. He was able to learn pretty quickly that not only were they drugging people and putting on mystical fake shows to get their money and life savings, but they were also arming all the criminals in that area. But without being in range of Superman, Jimmy was put in the position of his signal watch not actually working. Which forced him to act on his own and work with the original archeologist’s daughter to get out of there. They ended up taking one of the brainwashed cult members hostage who he knew could fly a plane and they hightailed it out of there. A jet was sent in pursuit, but once they were in the air Jimmy was able to use the tech on board to amplify the signal of his watch and send a distress signal to Superman…who was able to rush over and help them at the last moment from the jet blowing them out of the sky. Jimmy barely got any of the credit from the original story, and once the leader was locked up he surprisingly broke out of Stryker’s later on…looks like the power he showed to be fake had some real properties to it that have begun to take him over. Hopefully we never see him again, lol.
And using Magnus technology, with its metallic replicating properties, Lex was able to create an entire soldier out of Kryptonite. So all that was left was to use his assistant to scream out for help and get Superman to show up and it was off to the races. After a bit of monologuing from Lex, Superman realized that while the Kryptonite solider hurt…it wasn’t actively killing him, and if he focused he still had all of his powers to fight back against Lex. Lex vowed to create more of the Kryptonite soldiers with the other responsometers and modify their personalities the same as Tin, but Superman refused to give him the chance and took the other responsometers from him. Then as he engaged in a fight with the Kryptonite man, he was able to use a nearby plasma jet (as one has in a lab) to melt part of the Kryptonite, allowing Superman to throw the other metal men responsometers into it and let them reform their bodies…just made out of mock Kryptonite. Lex was able to get away, but it had the effect of restoring the metal men and Tin back to somewhat normalcy. They were then able to take the vat of chemicals that contained their melted down bodies back to Magnus, and after a stern ask by Superman…he opted to help restore the metal men to normal. Even Superman was taken aback by Magnus’ tone towards the metal men and his outright refusal to help them that drove them to do this anyway. Once the metal men were restored they wanted to run back out and get Luthor immediately, but even Superman stopped them. They are just robots and can’t testify against him in a court of law, and Lex has the means to do the exact same thing to them. But not to worry metal men, Superman will make sure Lex pays one of these days.
Then the issue concludes with a special extra book that showcases Jimmy on his own mission. As I mentioned previously, the extra is incoherent and has a pretty brining story with way too much dialogue to over explain the plot. It’s a basic plot of Jimmy getting all dressed up and going out to investigate an island off of Florida which has been running a money making scam by one of the archeologists that dug up the site after he killed his partner. Jimmy only found this out later after he infiltrated the facility and found the partner daughter also sneaking around in disguise. He was able to learn pretty quickly that not only were they drugging people and putting on mystical fake shows to get their money and life savings, but they were also arming all the criminals in that area. But without being in range of Superman, Jimmy was put in the position of his signal watch not actually working. Which forced him to act on his own and work with the original archeologist’s daughter to get out of there. They ended up taking one of the brainwashed cult members hostage who he knew could fly a plane and they hightailed it out of there. A jet was sent in pursuit, but once they were in the air Jimmy was able to use the tech on board to amplify the signal of his watch and send a distress signal to Superman…who was able to rush over and help them at the last moment from the jet blowing them out of the sky. Jimmy barely got any of the credit from the original story, and once the leader was locked up he surprisingly broke out of Stryker’s later on…looks like the power he showed to be fake had some real properties to it that have begun to take him over. Hopefully we never see him again, lol.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 7, 2024
The Metal Men return!!
And Luthor uses them to create a Kryptonite metal man. Pretty cool idea. I really liked this issue.
Why is Doc Magnus such an A-hole?
And Luthor uses them to create a Kryptonite metal man. Pretty cool idea. I really liked this issue.
Why is Doc Magnus such an A-hole?
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews