Action Comics Annual #11 - DC

I really, really liked this book. I thought the story-line was incredible. And of course, Adam Kubert's art was just phenomenal. However, with bated breath, I will say that I was a bit disappointed. Not in this book, and certainly not in this story-line. No my disappointment came from the publishing. I'm sure some of you noticed that we haven't seen anything, or even been hinted at, about this story-line in quite a while. I know that part of that is because of the huge Superman / Legion cross-over that occurred in the last 6 issues. But, this is an Annual. It's not even, really, a part of the regular title. And it could've been printed at any time. Action Comics #865 is out right now, but we haven't seen or heard anything about this story since #851, over a year ago. Yes it was a huge story. And yes it had an epic creative team. But, to me, that's overkill as far as dragging out the suspense of the ending. It's almost to the point of, "Oh yeah! This story never did wrap up . . did it? I almost forgot about that one." And for the $10 variant cover, it wasn't really all that much different from the original. Anyways, having said that . . I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Geoff John and Richard Donner did a wonderful job on this one. They brought Lor-Zod, Christopher Kent, in to this world and made Clark & Lois, as well as us, care about him. He's had a tumultuous 2 years here, but he still seemed like the perfect boy for the Kent's. But all that's over now, because he's been sucked back in to the Phantom Zone. Lex set off a kind of "zone-bomb" over Metropolis, to suck back in everyone that had escaped from it. However, in order for it to be turned off, and not destroy Metropolis in the process, Christopher also had to go back. At the last minute, I think, Superman realizes that, but doesn't want to let go. Literally! Christopher has to be the voice of reason, and tell him that there really isn't any other way. However, we see at the end that he's got Mon-El scouring the Zone for him, looking. So it's definitely not the end. Overall I thought it was a great book. The whole creative team was phenomenal. At the end, as an "afterwards", we get a little 6 page back-up about the zone, and really, all the back-up characters in Superman's life. The artwork in it is by Stephane Roux. She's been doing the covers lately on Birds of Prey. I have to say, these 6 pages look stunning. I don't know if she's going to just stick to covers, or if she's going to do some interiors, but this girl has a definite future in front of her. Except for the publishing faux-pas, I thought this was the best annual we've seen so far this year.