Superman meets Naomi in Action Comics #1015, by writer Brian Michael Bendis, artist Szymon Kudaranski, colorist Brad Anderson, and letterer Dave Sharpe. This issue reads like an advertisement for Bendis’ Wonder Comics series Naomi and that hurts the whole thing.

Naomi explains how she got to Metropolis to Superman. He takes her to the Hall of Justice, and the Wonder Twins and Ray Palmer begin to scan her to learn about her powers. Batman shows up, and she tells them about her origin. Superman hears something in Metropolis and races back, confronting the Red Cloud. They battle their way through Metropolis, but with her Luthor enhanced powers, she gets the upper hand. Who will save the day?

The first two-thirds of this comic is about Naomi. She’s an interesting enough character, but Bendis basically pauses the action of the book to go into her origin and her powers. There’s some good stuff here, but a big problem Bendis has had on Action Comics is he abandons the plot. He’s been building up to focus on something else, like a kid with ADHD. Sure, it’s on Superman’s character to take her to the Hall of Justice and get her help with her powers and such. But there is so much more going on the book lately, what with Superman’s hunt for Leviathan, that this feels like hitting the pause button. At the end of the last issue, it felt like her arrival was going to tie into his search. Nope, she’s here to warn Superman about a threat from her Earth. This is something that makes sense, but it also comes out of the left field because this isn’t her book.

That’s not to say this team-up shouldn’t happen, but it should happen in her book or be done entirely differently. This whole thing feels like an advertisement for another book in a way that most character crossovers don’t. Usually, the writer will showcase the new character doing something cool to get readers interested when doing these sorts of stories. But Bendis doesn’t do that here at all, instead of having her just flat out explain herself. She’s a charming enough character with an interesting backstory, but there are better ways to drum up reader interest than just an info dump. Thankfully, Bendis ends the story with Superman and the Red Cloud fighting, getting the book back to one of the developing plot threads he’s been working with for over a year now.

Szymon Kudaranski’s art is so very good in this issue. He and colorist Brad Anderson gel perfectly together. Kudaranski’s linework is very heavy and powerful, and Anderson’s colors work with that, shedding light when the scene needs it, making it darker when it’s called for, and setting the mood for each scene. One of the better panels in the book is a reaction shot of Batman as he’s speaking to Naomi. It’s a close-up on his lips, and there’s just a ghost of a smile there. It’s perfect and understated, but noticeable. Another artist might have overstated it, but not Kudaranski. The ending fight against Red Cloud is a great sequence. Anderson uses a lot of red, of course, to set the scene and it gives the fight a sense of violence that another colorist might not have given it.

Action Comics #1015 is more like an infomercial for a new character than an actual crossover. There’s nothing wrong with the issue structurally, and it might put some butts in the seats for Naomi, but the way Bendis does it is a big problem. Too often in this book, he’s hit pause on the things going being set up to focus on another title he’s doing elsewhere in DC. A crossover with a new character is fine, but this is more an infodump than a crossover. The good news is that the infodump isn’t boring and it doesn’t ignore anything about the characters to make the issue work, as Bendis has been known to do, but it’s endemic of a big problem this book has had for a while. The art by Kudaranski and Anderson is the highlight of the issue. This art team works together so very well. While this issue is entertaining and nowhere as bad as this book has gotten in the past, most of it is done in such a counterintuitive kind of way that the plot suffers, which is a shame. Naomi is a wonderful character, but instead of doing something dynamic with her, Bendis just expositions her to death. All hope is not lost, of course, but this issue suffers because of the way Bendis presents things.

Grade: C