The difficulties encountered by Marvel’s high-profile Halo 3 prelude could easily have discouraged major publishers from trying to tap into the video games market. Wildstorm, however, has obviously not been dissuaded, with DICE’s pakour courier now joining the Gears of War squad on comic store shelves. That’s not to say that the lessons of Brian Bendis’s misfire have not been taken to heart, with a number of astute decisions leading to an entertaining read.

Rather than trying to directly tie the plot to a game that is not yet released, Rhianna Pratchett sensibly sets the comic several years prior to the on-screen story, taking the opportunity to flesh out Faith’s background. Kicking off a six-issue limited series, this opening firstly provides an introduction both to the protagonist and the basics of her world, before introducing the A-story that will presumably stretch across the remainder of the issues. Despite this work serving as Pratchett’s comics debut, the game’s writer does an extremely slick job of structuring the story, with good use made of her small cast of characters and a nicely unexpected action sequence during the second half of the issue. Matthew Smith’s art initially seems an odd choice for the title, with his manga-influenced style noticeably at odds with the photo-realistic cover. Once the book moves outdoors, however, his selection makes much more sense, with his clean and bright work will-suited to reproducing the game’s deliberately sterile urban aesthetic.

The issue’s only stumble comes in the first few pages, which overlays a three-way dialogue on top of a flashback sequence showing how Faith originally met her employer. Given that this is the first time the reader has encountered these figures, however, it’s slightly confusing to read, with the effort of working out who’s speaking slightly distracting from the tale. This misstep aside, there’s an intelligent approach to the storytelling, with the doctrine of “show don’t tell” adhered to throughout. Instead of using dialogue to spell out the city’s nature as a totalitarian utopia, the writer instead shows a run-in with military police and the horror of citizens when a rogue element arrives in their back garden. This approach is also taken in respect of the main character, whose absence of extraneous backstory allows the cliffhanger revelation to carry weight. Mirror’s Edge is a pleasant surprise, and should have no difficulty in sustaining interest throughout the remainder of its run.

As I think I’ve mentioned before, I’m not hugely impressed with this recent habit of taking chapters of an ongoing story out and putting them into one-off “Specials”. I find it throws off the momentum and sequencing of a title, even if it falls as a bridge between two arcs proper – as New Krypton Special does. You’re left wondering whether it’s an essential part of the story that’s been pulled out to emphasise its importance, or whether (as in the case of last week’s Jimmy Olsen one-shot) it’s there more to add colour and background for the more dedicated reader.

In this case, I’d have assumed before reading it that it was going to be the former – when in fact, it’s more about the latter. Nothing happens that you’d miss if you just went on to the next issues of Superman and Action Comics, it’s more about establishing the tone (and certain character beats) of the story to come. As it happens, it’s not a bad read. It’s fairly padded out, which only strengthens the argument that it should have been kept to the main titles – a number of scenes have no real reason to drag on the way they do, and thus feel suspiciously like page-filler (the dialogue-free opening of Jonathan Kent’s funeral also feels like it’s copping out of working on bringing out genuine emotion, instead falling back on the time-honoured device of silence).

The sequence that works best, however, is the middle section of the issue – Clark’s conversation with Zor-El and Alura in Kandor itself. It’s the mixture of Clark’s joy at having fellow Kryptonians around, and the increasingly ominous tone as we realise that their presence really isn’t going to turn out to be a good thing for Earth – aptly demonstrated by one Kandorian’s killing of a blue whale.

(Incidentally, while I previously complained about the apparent lack of relevance in killing off Jonathan, I’m starting to see the point of it as this story kicks into gear – killing him has put his very existence, and more notably his influence on Clark, into the spotlight, and we’re presumably going to see the difference between an all-powerful Kryptonian that was raised by the Kents, and ones that weren’t. Let’s hope that we get a more convincing range of Kryptonian characters than a simple one-note “non-understanding alien” take across the board, though.)

The other moment that leaps out comes right at the issue’s close, when the identity of the previously-unnamed “General” is revealed. I have to say that it says a lot about this character’s prior lack of relevance that he can have appeared on-panel unrecognised by simple virtue of not naming him (the reader could be forgiven, in fact, for wondering if Thunderbolt Ross hadn’t crossed universes) – and even the earlier conversation between the Lane sisters didn’t have me twig, although it was probably supposed to. What really strikes me about the closing scene, though, is the way Luthor is used. It would seem that, after a hazy few years where his status has never quite been clear, the final shackles of the Byrne-era “corporate criminal” have been cast off, and he really is back to being an habitually-jailed scientific genius. Not before time, to be honest – Morrison’s All-Star version (clearly an influence here, down to the orange prison suit) showed that it’s an interpretation that can still work, and indeed arguably works better than any other.

It’s a good-looking comic, too, by virtue of the fact that the Superman stable currently has by far its strongest set of artists since the days when Jurgens, Grummett, Bogdanove and Guice were the four main pencillers. It’s a shame, though, that while Pete Woods and Renato Guedes offer no small measure of consistency in their styles, it’s not matched by Gary Frank – whose work is excellent, but stands out as markedly different from the other two, and so gives the funeral sequence an even stronger impression of being something that should have been in the pages of Action, but simply didn’t fit.

Against my expectations, this really isn’t an essential chapter in the ongoing story, and so – especially at the price – I’d hesitate to recommend it unreservedly to anyone looking to get onboard with the new story. But for the current Superman reader there’s a good amount of colour established, and it does the job in a tidy and professional way.

I was a bit worried going into this. Following the hiatus, filled by DC with a bunch of tie-in one-shots (some even written by Mozza himself), it was beginning to look like, once Final Crisis picked up again, it would be dependent on knowledge of some of the stuff that had been published in the interim. This very week a title was released called Final Crisis : Submit, which people across the net have been exhorting to “read before you read issue #4!!!!111”

Such things would have made a mockery both of the book’s original promise to be a self-contained miniseries – and also of its status as a “first book on the pile”, something it should be aiming for as a massive event coming out in the same week as Marvel’s massive event. Thankfully, I’m happy to report that the people who’ve said you need to read Submit – or indeed any other tie-in – first are talking bollocks. Hell, you don’t even need to have read the first three issues, really – all of a sudden, those slow and occasionally baffling chapters look more like a prequel than part of the series itself. Issue #4 begins where you suspect the series as a whole should have kicked off – Earth is in the shit, Darkseid is on his way, and the heroes had better do something about it quickly. Despite the apparent jump in time from the closing pages of #3, these facts are conveyed quickly and effectively – to the extent that I gleaned a better understanding of what had happened earlier in the series than I had from actually reading the issues as they came out. And no information from other books is really necessary – the tie-ins embellish, rather than define, the main series.

What we’re left with, then, is an archetypal “turning point” issue, in which the heroes – those who are left – finally band together to make a stand. You’ve seen it all before, of course – but even so, the sequence in which the rebels (as they’ve become) gather over the SubWave Netw… er, sorry, the Unternet… is superbly inspiring, and not just because of the timely reminder of Alan Scott’s status as one of the DCU’s most venerable heroes. But this is a feature of Morrison’s work – it’s so frequently about moments, and for arguably the first time this series, the issue is full of them: Ollie and Dinah’s farewell, the former then immediately showing just why he’s so excellent; mirroring that, the deeply touching reunion of the Allens (and I’ll be hesitant about this, since it’s only consisted of a few pages, but so far Barry’s return is working – maybe because Grant’s giving him most of the best dialogue); the details of the anti-life equation itself, which is driven by the fantastic idea that in order to conquer people, Darkseid has simply shown them “mathematical proof that [he] is the rightful master of everything in existence”. As an invasion plan, you have to say it’s pretty original.

But it’s not all about heroic comebacks just yet. Rather than being a simple progression of good-to-bad-to-good-again, events are fluctuating in different ways, often meeting and crossing in the middle – and so while Alan Scott’s freedom fighters are raising mood and spirits, elsewhere Earth’s conquerors are only making things worse and worse. After all, Darkseid has been an unsettlingly malevolent presence throughout the series, and yet he hasn’t even appeared yet. This threatens to change, however, in a superb closing couple of pages, as the story of Dan Turpin’s attempt to resist becoming the tyrant’s reincarnated form draws to an (apparent) end – an arresting final full-page image by JG Jones portending even worse to come.

It’s just a shame that the visual side of the book in general has turned into such a fiasco. You just can’t put artists on event books like this if there’s a chance they won’t see it through. You wouldn’t put Quitely or Hitch on this - and Jones, as good as he is at crafting pretty and iconic images, isn’t a Quitely or Hitch when it comes to his storytelling. That said, he does provide some beautiful work here - that terrific closing page, the scenes with the two Flashes, not to mention a fourth absolutely stunning cover in a row, perhaps the best of the lot - but it doesn’t feel worth the upheaval of jumping between him and Carlos Pacheco in this issue and for the next couple, before being replaced entirely by Doug Mahnke for the seventh. Pacheco, for his part, is solid enough, but that’s all he is. The series is a whole is very well presented, with a classier look and feel compared to, say, Secret Invasion - but it feels like sacrifices have been made in order to get a flavour du jour artist’s name on the front, and I don’t think it’s paid off.

Still, we’re getting there. Suddenly, Final Crisis looks less like another lumbering DC crossover, and more like an actual event - and one that, pleasingly, remains a valid self-contained tale in and of itself despite all the tie-ins (not that I’d recommend it to a complete DC novice, but neither do you have to be an avid reader of everything up to and including Dan Didio’s self-congratulatory editorials to “get” it). As with Batman RIP, it’s been a bit slow to kick in, but now that the tension levels are rising - he really does foreboding menace well, doesn’t he? - you sense that even better is still to come.

This is a strange one. Written by current Superman scribe James Robinson, and advertised on the closing pages of that title’s most recent issue as the “next” part of the ongoing arc, it would apparently seem from all of that to be a crucial part of the big storyline that Robinson and Geoff Johns are apparently building. And yet in fact, upon reading it, it’s actually a standalone adventure story that – while it does answer one of the questions posed by the Atlas storyline, and contains continuity developments that are significant if you’re a long-time Superman reader – winds up feeling less essential than one might have thought.

This is a curious feature of DC’s publishing habits in recent years, though. When a big storyline comes along, it’s no longer customary to keep it within the pages of its own title – instead all manner of spinoffs, one-shots and tie-in issues abound, and it’s difficult for the reader to know exactly what they need to buy. The only one of the Final Crisis tie-ins I’ve touched, for example, was Superman Beyond – after all, if I have to see one more story about “the Rogues”, I’m going to scream – and so I genuinely don’t know if I’m going to be missing something big when issue #4 finally hits next week. And the latest Detective Comics story has “Batman RIP” banners splashed all over it, even though it can’t possibly be a concurrent part of Morrison’s story (it can only be taking place before it, in fact). So when it comes to Superman, it’s a bit annoying that significant developments are apparently taking place in one-shot titles rather than the main book – the upcoming New Krypton Special is apparently the next part of the story, although it remains to be seen what it does that couldn’t be told in one or both of the main Superman titles.

Still, divorced from that context, this isn’t a bad read – and in shifting the focus onto Olsen, there’s at least a reason for it to be kept out of the main title. It’s also clear that it offers more to the Superman fan than to anyone drawn in by Robinson’s run on the main title (which has so far kept admirably free of the trappings of tangled continuity, and so has proven pretty accessible to the casual reader), dealing as it does with characters – and an entire organization, in fact – that were created by Kirby in the ’40s (some of them) and ‘70s (the rest) before becoming a slightly overused part of the title’s early ‘90s storylines. Yes, it’s the Newsboy Legion and Cadmus - in fact, in somewhat surprising fashion, it’s the end of the Newsboy Legion and Cadmus, along with a retconning revelation about the Guardian. I can’t imagine there are masses of people out there who’d particularly care about this, but those that do are probably the sum total of the target market for this special.

Anyway, it’s a measure of Robinson’s ability as a writer of dialogue and mood that, on those occasions that he gets the tone right, he’s able to mask storytelling problems with strong atmosphere. Here, if you pick apart the story, it’s a relatively simplistic one, with almost all the exposition handed to Jimmy on a plate - yet it has the feel of a fairly compulsive mystery thriller, and that’s no mean feat. Still, it doesn’t feel like the most coherent work Robinson has ever put together - for example, a neat telepathy-related moment involving Dubbilex contradicts a plot point established earlier in the issue - although that’s no fault of the three pencillers and two inkers, who somehow conspire to give the book a consistent look and style even as they’re passing it between themselves.

Where this works, though, as with much of Robinson’s work, is in the dialogue and character beats. Olsen is a difficult character to make work - too long the butt of jokes, too outdated in the role he tends to play in stories - and I even felt he was, the closing issue aside, one of the weaker elements of All Star Superman. I wouldn’t say that Robinson shows the strongest grasp of the existing character here - because by putting him through a bit of progression for once, he comes out with arguably a new person entirely. But crucially, and this is what makes it more satisfying than most other Jimmy appearances of recent years, he might just be turning him into a character I want to read stories about. And that’s an achievement in itself.

Every Wednesday we take turns to delve into our trusty longboxes, pluck out a dusty back issue, and give you our thoughts. We’ll also try and place it in the context of the time it was originally published.

Although Garth Ennis is of course primarily known for his late-90s series Preacher, for many readers – myself included – his best original creation (taking account of the view that probably his best work overall has been on Hellblazer) was in fact a lesser-known DC Universe title that ran almost concurrently with the Vertigo epic – Hitman. An odd series of the sort that almost certainly wouldn’t get past DC editorial nowadays, Hitman took all of Ennis’ ideas about violent gun-toting anti-heroes, friendship, honour and a love of war stories, and threw the resulting mixture slap bang in the middle of the DC Universe – in Gotham City, to be precise. Tommy Monaghan and his supporting cast were inspired creations, and the entire series is a terrific read – well worth tracking down, although sadly its (even then inadequate) trades are long out of print.

But in truth, the setting of Gotham often seems like a strange one. Of course, one of the hooks of the series is that having acquired superpowers (during the Bloodlines crossover), Tommy – a hitman who already only kills those he believes to be “bad” – begins to specialise in metahuman contracts. But even though the series spun out of Ennis and McCrea’s Demon run (and features Etrigan quite prominently, early on), it still doesn’t feel like it has to be in the DCU – you wonder why it’s not just a creator-owned Vertigo project instead. After all, Ennis is probably the highest-profile superhero-hating writer out there – so why stick his lead character in a world full of them?

Indeed, in the early part of the series, superheroes came in for a fair amount of flak. The most obvious example is the almost parodic playing of Kyle Rayner’s Green Lantern as a thick-headed superhero jock – while, although Batman doesn’t really do anything to disgrace himself, his appearance in the first issue does see him being thrown up on. The only costumed character who really gets any respect in the first half of the series is Catwoman – and, of course, she’s not really a “hero” at all, enjoying the same sort of moral ambiguity as Tommy (hence why they get on so well).

But something dramatic happened with issue #34 – which also saw Ennis and McCrea win a “Best Single Issue” Eisner award – in that all of a sudden Ennis, the great anti-tights writer, started to take a superhero seriously. In the process, he turned in one of the best Superman stories of that barren late ‘90s period. Funnily enough, the issue was followed within a couple of years by another excellent standalone story that involved a reflective chat with the Man of Steel – but where James Robinson’s later Starman issue used Kal-El to explore the doubts of its lead character Jack Knight, Ennis instead uses his own lead to delve into the psyche of the world’s greatest hero.

And for someone more accustomed to cape-bashing, Ennis treats Superman with a surprising amount of respect and gravitas (even if he plays him a little overly strait-laced with lines such as “Well, there are no ladies or children present, you should express yourself as you see fit”). When he first shows up, you imagine this is going to be an encounter much like the one in an early issue of Morrison’s Animal Man – instead, though, an initially awestruck Tommy ends up acting as a sympathetic ear as Superman tells the story of a space-bound rescue gone wrong. Ennis shows a good grasp of the sort of issues that the character has to deal with while maintaining a front of “perfection” – he’s aware of the subtle distinction, for example, between his knowing that he can’t save everyone (as he puts it, “That’s something I learned a long time ago”), but the weight of expectation among the rest of the world that he somehow should.

It’s clear both from Preacher and this issue that Ennis has some pretty strong views about America and the concept of the American Dream – less the way they work in practice, but more how they exist as ideals. And irrespective of whether or not you agree with them, it’s hard to deny that Superman encapsulates them perfectly – and it’s a speech confirming this from Tommy (himself of immigrant stock, washed up on the shores of America, perhaps the one thing he shares with the Kryptonian) that eases Superman’s burden. And if Ennis is perhaps a little guilty of putting just a bit too much good sense and author’s voice in his lead character’s mouth, it’s made up for by the bitter irony of the closing pages, as Tommy – having earned the respect of a hero he truly admires – continues about his business, putting a bullet through the head of a mob leader. You could call it cynicism if you like – but it doesn’t feel like Ennis is undoing the work of the rest of the issue, merely acknowledging the moral grey area that exists (and this somewhat controversial aspect of the issue was later dealt with once and for all with the superb recent JLA/Hitman two-parter).

The tone of the issue is helped by John McCrea’s artwork – an acquired taste, he was nevertheless well into his stride by this point (not least thanks to the inks of Garry Leach), and if he struggles a bit to portray a traditional or inspiring-looking Superman (particularly on the emblem), it’s made up for by his expressive ability. Indeed, in a story that emphasises the “man” as much as the “Super”, he contributes well to the humanising of the character.

Comics continue to be full of surprises, and the fact that someone with such an avowed distaste for superheroes should show such an uncanny and sympathetic understanding of the foremost of them all is certainly among them - even notwithstanding the reputation for class and quality that Hitman had already established. Hitman may be far from the first place you’d think to find one of the best Superman character studies of the recent era, but this is one that stands shoulder to shoulder with the rest.

Okay, so, before I get going, a word about spoilers – yes, I will be discussing what happens at the end of this issue, so if you don’t want to know, then look away now. On the other hand, despite what CBR might say about the New York Daily News’ story yesterday, if you’ve actually been paying attention to Action Comics over the past six months, it’s not a surprise at all. Hell, I actually thought it was going to happen last month, based on the cover – and indeed, based on solicitations of this month’s one, which shows Clark at a funeral (a funeral which, incidentally, is nowhere to be seen in the issue – I get the feeling the covers are a month ahead of the actual story).

So, yes, as we’d all guessed from the “hints” dropped in previous issues (let’s face it, subtlety has never been Geoff Johns’ strong point) Jonathan Kent bites it in the closing pages of the story. But while it’s been on the cards for months – all those lingering camera shots, and indeed the simple fact that the Kents were spotlighted in a story that apparently had nothing to do with them – I’m still struggling to figure out exactly what the point is.

See, in the previous versions of the Superman story in which Jonathan has died – that’s the first movie, Smallville and All Star; I’m not counting pre-Crisis continuity, because both parents died almost off-camera originally – it’s been a defining moment in a young Clark’s life. It’s the point at which he realises that there are some things that he is simply powerless to prevent, and some people he will never be able to save. I really don’t see, though, any reason for him to go through that lesson as an adult. What does it add to the character, with everything he’s already experienced? Worse, this is the first time we’ve seen Clark’s father die as a direct result of his being there. A heart attack seems to be the standard way of killing the character, and it works because it’s something that Clark just cannot prevent. Here, though, said attack is suffered after Jonathan has exerted himself saving Martha from an explosive device launched by Brainiac as a final act of revenge. In other words – if the Kents hadn’t adopted Clark, Jonathan would still be alive. And that just doesn’t work with Superman. You can’t go piling that kind of guilt onto his shoulders – he’s not a Marvel character, you can’t ever have him question whether he should be doing what he does. Coming from someone who’s generally shown a good grasp of the background and motivations of DC characters, it’s a disappointing misstep.

And of course, coming so soon after All Star, the issue can’t help but invite comparisons to Morrison and Quitely’s version of the same story – it even features the near-identical image of a previously-unaware Clark suddenly flying home at breakneck speed (Gary Frank does well here to convey the torment on his face as he does so, but it’s still not quite up there with Quitely’s flame-licked image). The thing is, while this Action run is superficially a technically well-crafted story (and I don’t mean that as an insult – many people struggle to make comics any good even on that superficial level), it doesn’t have the heart that it thinks it does. I found Morrison’s version genuinely moving – I feel like this, however, is trying to yank at my heartstrings with the payoff, but without putting in the effort to earlier get me emotionally invested in the story.

As a conclusion to the “Brainiac” storyline, meanwhile, this feels a bit weak. After building up the threat of Brainiac for months, it transpires that he’s… well, not much of a threat at all, really. Superman ends up defeating him rather easily, and it’s only by virtue of the closing pages that he’s left having any kind of impact on things. There’s a nice moment with Clark and Kara (her rehabilitation continues), but little else of any weight – and indeed, it feels like the death of Jonathan has been tacked on to the story to give the impression of a substance that isn’t really there beneath the surface. It looks great, and it apparently does the job that a straightforward superhero story should – but call it heart, or depth, or resonance, or anything else: there just seems to be something lacking.