COMIC BOOKS: Superman: Action Comics: Metropolis Burning

May 22—It's been a long wait for the next "Action Comics" collection by writer Brian Michael Bendis. It's been a long wait for any of his Superman collections.

In truth, it's been about a full year. Usually comic collections of monthly issues are released two or three times a year. Not with the Bendis "Superman" titles.

Which is part of what makes the latest collection, "Superman: Action Comics: Metropolis Burning" so disappointing.

One might expect more issues being included here but the volume collects only five issues.

And the issues feel disjointed. In the separate "Superman" title, issued in a collection last year, Clark Kent reveals he is Superman. In the "Action Comics" collection, he hasn't made that reveal public yet in the earliest collected issues.

The storyline is also interwoven with events from "Leviathan Rising," a big DC crossover event, or a post-Leviathan event, involving the Legion of Doom and the Justice League. Many readers will feel like they have walked into the middle of something more than just a year-long hiatus from the last collection ... and that feeling is correct.

Good to have "Action" back in action but, well, there are too many buts to make it a satisfying return.