Action Comics #441.

Life can be full of crushing disappointments.

Take me, for example. I pick up a copy of Action Comics, led by the cover to expect the sight of Superman punching the Flash's teeth in and, once inside, I get nothing of the sort.

Instead, I get a weather forecaster on Clark Kent's TV show who keeps predicting freak but destructive weather events.

Needless to say, Superman's soon on the case and, after dealing with the aforementioned events, he heads off to see the Flash, having reasoned the Weather Wizard must be behind it all.

So, together, they're off to see the Wizard who's currently in jail.

Upon being confronted, the Wizard confesses he's behind the scheme. Not only that but it was all a plot to lure Superman and the Flash into seeing him so he can zap Superman with some Kryptonian black lightning.

According to the Weather Wizard, upon being struck by such a phenomenon, a Kryptonian must kill the person nearest to him when it struck – and that person is the Flash!

Can nothing save our Hermes heeled hero?

Well, yes. It turns out it can because, before going to see the villain, Superman and the Flash disguised themselves as each other, and so it was really the Flash who the Weather Wizard zapped, meaning the black lightning had no effect on him. A quick chop across the back of the neck, from Superman, soon deals with the foolish felon.

Apart from the fact it hinges on him somehow bouncing hypnotic commands off the ionosphere, there does seem to be a fairly obvious flaw in the Weather Wizard's plan, which is that if Superman hadn't bothered to bring the Flash with him, the person standing closest to Superman at the moment the lightning was fired would've been the Weather Wizard who Superman would then have killed. With smarts like that, I think we can see how come he's in prison in the first place.

Actually the main disappointment of the tale is the Weather Wizard's declaration that it's been proven the Flash can't outrun Superman. I do tend to feel that, if Superman gets to have a zillion powers and a character like the Flash only has one, then the Flash should be better at his one super-power than Superman is, otherwise who needs the Flash?

And who needs a dog?

The Green Arrow and Black Canary do. Because in the issue's back-up tale, they've taken in a stray one - and they don't know where it came from.

But the mystery of where that was can wait as, first, the duo have to burst into a bad guy's lair.

Disastrously for them, the crook has an ageing ray.

Not so disastrously for them, the stray dog turns out to be Krypto who promptly bursts in and saves them before once more disappearing.

Maybe there's something wrong with me but it gives me a warm feeling to see Krypto back in the Superverse after his mystery disappearance, even if he vanishes immediately afterwards.

The main selling point of the tale is a slick and stylish art job by Mike Grell that mostly avoids the oddly amateurish lapses in draftsmanship he was sometimes prone to.

But I'm not sure I'll be able to sleep tonight for worrying what'll become of Krypto now his whereabouts are once more unknown.

Then again, where's Streaky the supercat? Streaky, where are you?