DAMN Good Comic of the Week -- ACTION COMICS #893

Over the past few months, writer Paul Cornell has come up with some entertaining ideas for his Lex Luthor storyline "The Black Ring," but he amps the surreality level all the way up to eleven in Part Four.  Luthor continues his quest to gain knowledge to create his own power ring, this time taking to Uganda where he soon confronts the classic Flash nemesis Gorilla Grodd.

Grodd, it seems, has developed some... interesting new appetites since we last saw him, such as a fondness for human brains.  He even has his own wine brain cellar where he can select a particular vintage of pickled brain and digest the knowledge stored within it as if he were Rocky Balboa getting protein from a glass of raw egg yolks.  This has apparently become such a treat for Grodd that he even has a set of gigantic Combat Spoons for dining on brains out in the Ugandan jungle.  It's madness one can only expect from a talented British writer like Cornell, but wonderful madness that makes the issue flow all the way to a rather Deathly cliffhanger.  Sean Chen, meanwhile, turns in some lovely work filling in for regular artist Pete Woods and if DC is smart, they'll place him on one of their higher profile series that could benefit from his considerable talent.

As if this wasn't enough to justify your purchase, a new Jimmy Olsen backup series debuts from writer Nick Spencer and artist RB Silva that looks to be very promising.  Spencer wisely embraces the weirdness of classic Jimmy Olsen stories from decades past, while updating them in the process.  He also gives Jimmy some long-overdue character development with the addition of Smallville's Chloe Sullivan (making her DC Universe debut) as his own Lois Lane and the creation of Sebastien Mallory as his Lex Luthor.  The first chapter ends with Jimmy confidently proclaiming that he's going to stop an alien invasion happening right outside and if there's any better way to impress your ex-girlfriend while owning the rival for her affections at the same time, I don't know what it is.