Action Comics Annual #13

A young Lex Luthor meets Darkseid for the first time, and tries to take Darkseid head-on! Second story involves young Lex Luthor's time with Ra's Al Ghul.
 

The Good

I love it when Annual's are self-contained stories about character's hidden history and not just some lame one-shot "we have to fight this villain" deal. If there's one thing I've been saying for quite some time now, it's that Paul Cornell's run of Action has been extremely awesome, and this annual is no exception. Although neither story has Paul Woods on art, the Darkseid story has Marco Rudy doing the art and it is beautiful. I loved the inking on this story and better yet, the panel composition of the Apokolips part of the story was really cool. It's a bit confusing at first, but everything slowly starts flowing together very well as you flip through the pages. I loved seeing the interactions between Darkseid and Lex. They're incredibly similar in so many aspects, and this touches on that a bit. They're both arrogant jerks. The Ra's Al Ghul story was also great, but it didn't have the same effect on me as the Darkseid story did. I loved Ed Benes' art on this back-up, and again, we have another great young Lex Luthor story, even if it wasn't as interesting as the first.
 

The Bad

As much as I liked both stories, I was a little thrown off by the two very different art styles. Both artists are extremely talented, and it shows here, but sometimes it can throw a reader off.
 

The Verdict - 4.5/5 Highly Recommended

After reading this, I realized I love to read a book about the Adventures of Young Lex Luthor by Paul Cornell. The issue had a pretty cool Silver Age feel to it, much like the old Superboy, Jimmy Olsen, or Lois Lane books. It was really great seeing Lex interact with other villains in the DCU, and this is a book I could really back. I highly recommend this issue. You don't need to know what's going on in the Action Comics series to appreciate this either.