Rushed Nexus
Oh geez, this cover is absolutely nuts and I love it. The solicit (correctly) says this issue takes place on Mars, so why is he in a blue sky with angels flying at him? Superman almost knows how crazy this is, and looks back at us like 'Seriously.... what the hell?' But the design is well laid out so it looks great.
But this is the most flawed issue of Morrison's run, and I think it's because he's pretty clearly rushing things. #12 ended with his landlady distorting reality, and since then we had admittedly important side stories for #0 and #13; and jumping back here it's like nothing happened. And then it just starts bolting through major plot points, tying together the loose ends without Morrison's usual finesse. Metalek repeats it's construction on Mars, Superman stops it, then The Multitude shows up for an AWESOME fight scene, but it's over very quickly as Superman retreats and quickly comes up with a solution. He beat the big epic multitude within a few pages of encountering them. A foe that caused Brainiac's mad planet capture and devoured thousands of planets.... and Superman beats it by massive electrocution. And THEN The Tiny Man finally makes his move. It just feels like way too much was being crammed into this issue, like a recap of the current status quo to jump right into the finale.
And the co-feature is.... touching in the end, but mostly it's just some science stuff. It's interesting what they're doing and how, but it never really gripped me.
In Conclusion: 2/5
It's really a shame, this issue had great art for the main story, and The Multitude was REALLY cool; the fight scene with them was awesome! But the first bit of the issue felt like a haze, a shortened repeat of parts of the first arc, and then for a foe so ridiculously built up; Superman takes them down with one simple idea, it was really anticlimactic. This is kind of supposed to be a turning point into the endgame of Morrison's run; but I think he originally intended to go a little longer because this issue severely rushes that process.