This time out we conclude the 2 stories that started in Action 544! First up, Luthor’s plan is finally unleashed, and it is…disappointing. Then it is all out Action as the JLA and the Teen Titans team up to stop Brainiac!
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I have to say that I’d really have expected more from stories involving Lex Luthor and Brainiac, especially stories written by Cary Bates and Marv Wolfman, but, for me, these two fell a bit flat. I’m particularly disappointed in Marv Wolfman, who, in the previous issue of Action Comics had Brainiac press the survivors of his conquest of a planet in the Betelgeuse system into his service, and then apparently forgot the biophysics of the DC universe. Betelgeuse is a RED SUN, and by long-established precedent, natives of such a system should, under Earth’s yellow sun, have the same powers as Superman. An army of such super beings, even a small army, should have made mincemeat out ot the JLA and the Titans. Really, Marvelous Marv could have picked any random, nameless star system in the previous issue, but, if he was going to specify one with a red sun, he should have made use of that. Call it “Chekhov’s Sun”, if you will.
Addendum: On further reflection, here is my “No Prize” (Yeah, wrong company. I know.) explanation to get Marv Wolfman off the hook:
Perhaps the aliens Brainiac pressed into service were not natives of the red sun system, but colonizers from another system, maybe one with a yellow sun. In that case, not having evolved under a red sun, they wouldn’t have exhibited super powers under Earth’s yellow sun.