Review by Frank Plowright
Warworld Revolution concludes Phillip Kennedy Johnson’s Warworld trilogy, later combined as The Warworld Saga, but this collection doesn’t take the obvious route of picking up immediately from the ending of the previous volume. Instead this opens with a story co-written with Si Spurrier contrasting the upbringings of Superman and Mongul, the pleasant and the unpleasant separated by the differing art styles of Dale Eaglesham and Ian Churchill.
It’s the type of story that might seem obvious, yet there’s enough ingenuity and emotional resonance to ensure involvement, and in the end there’s the realisation of a greater common factor than might at first be assumed via strength having different forms.
After that’s been established it’s back to the regular story continued from The Arena, and much that has previously seemed too convenient or which hasn’t been dealt with in great enough detail is now revealed and explained. For instance, since their introduction the Authority have contributed very little, indeed the story would have progressed much the same without them. Here, though, both they and the people who defeated them are given time and backgrounds. We also learn of the United Planets, and of a creation myth that makes Warworld even more dangerous than a mobile planet that ravages others.
Two artists on the opening story is a deliberate conjunction of opposites, but once we return to the main thread the artists are in constant flux. Riccardo Federici and Will Conrad are combined to good effect on the sample art, but that morphs into Brent Peeples, Fico Ossio, Brandon Peterson, Max Rayner, and Miguel Mendonça, all with different styles affecting the consistent look of Warworld Revolution. Do Superman readers not care? DC obviously don’t. They see artists as interchangeable, and what could have ranked very highly among Superman stories is dragged down by not investing in the art.
For all the dressing, everything ultimately distils down to a weakened Superman facing a fully powered Mongul, and that part of the finale is exhilarating. Not as impressive is the Justice League finally turning up to help, having previously decided they couldn’t, yet only for three pages without explanation, which is lazy writing. Johnson has several surprises in store for a climax that otherwise does make sense, and almost survives four artists over 48 pages.
As with the previous volume, the back-up features from the original comics are also included. Has Mongul ever previously had an origin? Johnson and Conrad supply a viable myth. With everything that’s happening on Warworld, Thao-La, who after all initiated events, has seemingly been forgotten, comatose on Earth. Three chapters nicely drawn by David Lapham ultimately prove disappointing by solving nothing and just become filler when other options were available. Her recovery continues in Kal-El Returns.
Not everyone agrees about the main feature being diminished by so many different artists, and all three volumes of the story are combined as The Warworld Saga, and the content also forms the bulk of the first Superman by Phillip Kennedy Johnson Oimnibus.
