The New 52s: One Year Later – Action Comics

If you asked me a year ago what is the worst thing comics have ever done I would have told you something along the lines of DC ruining Superman.  One year and 24 issues (12 Superman and 12 Action) later and I am coming off that statement a bit.  In fact I really enjoy the Superman title I think George Perez started a good book and Jurgens has continued and improved the title.  Grant Morrison, not so much.  Morrison is a great writer and maybe that is the problem, he is talented and he is creative and he is trying to make Superman his own.  Superman belongs to the people, not Grant Morrison.

I despised Issue #1 of Action Comics more than I have ever disliked anything in print before.  Mostly because I love Superman so much, to watch it be torn apart I felt like the South Park kids after they seen Indian Jones and the Crystal Skull and brought George Lucas And Steven Spielberg up on criminal charges.  Issue #2 was not any better.  Superman’s early attitude and cockiness is something I can not warm up to or get use to in this title.  Society’s distrust and reluctance to welcome Superman is something I found irritating at first but have accepted as not only part of the story, but an interesting change from perfection and happiness that I have read for the past 30 years.

Beyond a rough start I think issues #5 and #6 just got plain confusing, in the middle of a cross issue story line they just up and dropped into a new story set in a different timeline of the DC Universe with characters we don’t know.  Looking back on this another year from now it will probably make some sense, DC has a way of back telling a tale and having it make sense in a Momento sort of progression,

Action Comics #1 (2011)

So Superman in jeans, hmmm.  Well you know what I can accept costume change.  Batman has had numerous redesigns, Superman has been more minor tweaks for the most part.  But if you look back you will see several times where they deviated drastically, think the “Death of…” or the electric look.  Very different changes, but easy enough to comeback, even a dramatic entrance, sort of like Jordan coming back with the 23 jersey from halftime.  They can try a new outfit and work the traditional in with little effect on “history.”

I love Superman, I grew up with Superman.  I have watched him change over the years, I watched him die, I saw him wed, I even followed the electric blue and red line with pretty solid interest.

This smells like your roommates dirty Nikes after football in the rain and left in the hallway on a hot August afternoon to really ripen the atmosphere of a 2-bedroom brick building in college.

Imagine the Superman Returns team deciding to take over the comic… yep that is what we have.  No, I take that back, it’s worse.

I think DC sat down to brainstorm Superman and agreed he IS DC.  Batman is big, but Supes they feel needs to be the flagship.  They talked about Batman’s popularity and discussed what makes him successful and said, let’s make that the next Superman. What?!?! Yep.

Superman is an asshole.  There it took only 2 full blogs, but I swore, I tried to hold back and make this one a bit more family friendly but how else do you describe it.  Superman taunts, he terrorizes confessions out of criminals and he actually beats them until they say they did it.  Wow, when did Brainiac pull the whole Bruce Wayne/Clark Kent brain switcheroo?

I don’t know what is going on but this is really reminiscent of the “bad” Superman of Superman III.  I found that entertaining because they set the Golden Boy image and you knew that was an effect of the chemical kryptonite Gus gave him at the Key ceremony for Smallville.  This, this is the honest to goodness Jerk Superman in denim.

There is not much I can say about the book, you really need to read it for yourself.  I subscribed to this one back in the summer when I heard about the relaunch, this will likely be my first subscribe.  I am going to give the book a few issues to iron out, but I don’t see this relationship going much past 2nd base.

I see a Pa Kent conversation coming soon very much like you would expect, but Ma and Pa would have never raised Clack to be an arrogant jerk.  Bad move DC.

NEXT: Detective