Action Comics: 80 Years of Superman: The Deluxe edition (2018): edited by Paul Levitz: Not Action Comics 1000 but a companion volume. With Action Comics the first mainstream American comic book to reach 1000 issues, DC released both a special anniversary issue and this thick volume of reprints, the latter containing one never-before-published story from the Shuster studio, and a new story by editor Paul Levitz and legendary artist Neal Adams.
Created by Cleveland teenagers Jerry Siegel and Canadian ex-pat Joe Shuster (cousin of Frank Shuster of Wayne and Shuster), Superman came to life in 1932 and was then met by complete indifference from the comic strip syndicates for the next 6 years.
Finally, what would become DC Comics bought Superman from Siegel and Shuster for less than a thousand dollars in 1938. In Action Comics 1, cover-dated June 1938, Superman ignited the superhero genre. Everything with American superheroes springs from that moment, this creation of Siegel and Shuster.
Neal Adams (him again!) led the battle in the 1970's to get more compensation for Siegel and Shuster beyond that initially paltry sum. Time Warner, DC's corporate overlord, caved to a certain extent, granting the Cleveland duo a pension. More lawsuits and settlements would follow over the years.
Here we are, 80 years later. Action Comics has reached 1000 issues, though recently it wasn't always numbered that way as DC restarted the numbering in 2012 for reasons I won't bother explaining before returning to the original numbering (folding the new numbering in as well). Detective Comics should have gotten here first, but Action Comics was a weekly for a year back in the 1980's. Thanks, Action Comics Weekly!
Paul Levitz has assembled 300+ pages of stories, essays, and covers. It's solid work -- and I don't think this type of anniversary volume is easy to assemble, as Levitz had to serve history as well as artistic achievement. Thus, this isn't The Best of Superman.
For one thing, Levitz was charged with presenting the other recurring DC heroes who first appeared in the pages of Action Comics (Vigilante, Zatara the Magician, Supergirl, Human Target). For another, the book emphasizes Firsts and Anniversaries along with major stories. That still leaves lots of material.
So pretty much all the great writers and artists are here, though some are by necessity omitted. The raw power of the first two Superman adventures by Siegel and Shuster still compels, to the extent that one wishes Superman would return to his left-wing, agit-prop roots, when stopping a domestic abuser and saving a wrongly convicted woman from the electric chair were more common moments for the Man of Steel than punching it out with some angry-ass super-villain or another.
Oddly, the book doesn't present any of the two-page Superman stories from Action Comics Weekly, I assume because they presented a serialized story in emulation of the Sunday full-page comic strips.
In any case, there's a lot here to delight both a Superman aficionado and a casual reader. The reproduction of the art is generally good, not always easy when the originals don't exist (the muddiest looking reprint comes from 1978, which is a shame because the story is a humdinger of a 40th anniversary issue). A Joe Kelly-penned, many-artist-illustrated anniversary story from the oughts is excellent. A never-before-printed story from the Shuster Studio is a rare find, as is Marv Wolfman's tale of how he rescued it from the garbage. Paul Levitz pens an original story to end the volume, illustrated by comic-book-art Titan Neal Adams.
The essays are fine, too -- none match Ray Bradbury's text piece from Superman 400, but that's a pretty high standard to meet. So all in all, a satisfying volume that I'd be happy to read at twice the length. Long may the Reign of the Superman continue! Highly recommended.
Action Comics Volume 5: What Lies Beneath (2013-2014/Collected 2014): written by Greg Pak; illustrated by Aaron Kuder, R.B. Silva, Mike Hawthorne, Scott McDaniel, and others: Greg Pak and Aaron Kuder's Superman stories in Action Comics formed one of a handful of truly fine pieces of work on the Man of Steel during DC Comics' soon-to-end 'New 52' era. Pak writes a sympathetic, funny, and humane Superman. Kuder draws everything with a palpable sense of joy and wonder. It's great stuff that a lot of people missed.
This volume contains one short story arc that brings Lana Lang back into Superman's life as the two of them investigate a mysterious underground threat in Venezuela. Superman must also deal with the growing threat of Harrow and the Ghost Soldiers, government operatives who want Superman out of the picture because they view him as the greatest threat humanity faces. It's all a lot of fun, even the flashback story in which a young Superman tries to duke it out with a hurricane. Recommended.
Action Comics Volume 6: Superdoom (2014/ Collected 2014): written by Greg Pak; illustrated by Scott Kolins, Rafa Sandoval, Karl Kerschl, Jed Dougherty, Julius Gopez, Ken Lashley, Aaron Kuder, Cameron Stewart, and others: Completism in today's reprint market means that this volume exists even though it doesn't contain an entire story arc. Instead, it's the chapters of the multiple-book crossover series Doomed that appeared in Greg Pak and Aaron Kuder's Action Comics. The story's fine as it goes, though there are a lot of art fill-ins. But's it's roughly 25% of the story, collected elsewhere in its entirety. So buy the Doomed collection instead. A reborn Doomsday causes Superman problems -- but not the normal slug-it-out problems normally associated with Doomsday. Recommended for completists.
Dr. Strange: Into the Dark Dimension (1984-85/ Compilation 2011): written by Roger Stern and Peter B. Gillis; illustrated by Paul Smith, Mark Badger, Bret Blevins, Terry Austin, Steve Leialoha, and others: Roger Stern's great run of writing Dr. Strange in the 1980's ends in this collection as Strange is gradually pulled into civil war in the Dark Dimension, the vast, magical abode of magical tyrants Dormammu and Umar. This volume also collects most of Paul Smith's brief, stellar time as the artist on Dr. Strange.
Stern keeps the story-line moving quickly without sacrificing plot density. He also cleverly offers an 'origin' for Dormammu and Umar that has the virtue of being conditional -- it's a piece of propaganda used by Umar to dupe her own people, so its veracity is suspect. Dr. Strange is hyper-competent without being boringly omnipotent or omniscient. This being the early 1980's, Smith does give Strange's old girlfriend/pupil Clea an extraordinarily period-specific haircut and a rockin' headband in several scenes. Even in the Dark Dimension, they were feathering their hair and doing aerobics in the 80's. But besides those period-specific moments, Smith seems to have a great time depicting the time-and-space subverting vistas of the Dark Dimension. A monster that comes out of a space warp is especially nice.
The last story, in which new writer Peter Gillis and new artist Mark Badger take over the book, offers a brief coda to the main story before Gillis and Badger try to make the even-more-1980's-looking, company-wide villain Beyonder more interesting than he generally was. They succeed, but it takes a lot of heavy lifting. Recommended.
Superman: Reign of Doomsday: written by Paul Cornell; illustrated by Axel Jiminez, Pete Woods, Kenneth Rocafort, Jesus Merino, and others (2011): It wasn't until I found out that writer Paul Cornell has had a long professional relationship with the Doctor Who franchise that it all clicked: his Superman is a super-powered Doctor Who. Or perhaps vice versa.
In any case, Cornell's Superman refuses to kill, has hope that even his enemies can change, and tries to solve problems without violence. And he occasionally explains himself to both enemies and allies in somewhat lengthy speeches.
This is really Cornell's riff on the Bronze Age, pre-Crisis Superman of the late 1970's and early 1980's, a hero who was the smartest guy in the room but didn't rub it in anyone's face. Superman even holds out hope that Lex Luthor and even the creature that killed Superman in 1992, Doomsday, can learn to be better beings. It's a much more expansive vision of Superman than that seen in the rebooted Justice League or across much of DC's New 52. Of course, this collection, along with the Chris Roberson-penned conclusion to the Grounded arc, is the last adventure of the post-Crisis, pre-New 52 Superman. That we know of, anyway.
The art is solid throughout on the main story, despite the rotating cast of artists. Superman must first deal with a Luthor who's achieved infinite power and then clean up the mess left by Luthor -- namely, several clones of Doomsday, a bizarre inter-dimensional spaceship, a kidnapped Superman Family, and a world-killing object heading towards Earth at near-light velocities. All in a day's work.
Cornell's Superman is a pretty interesting fellow, but not in that vengeful, dark way that so many of the world's aging superhero-comic-book readers crave from the distorted versions of their favourite heroes of childhood. This Superman really would probably have a great adventure with one Doctor Who or another, though there'd have to be one episode or one issue that would basically play out as the science-fictional equivalent of My Dinner with Andre.
There are also some short stories penned by other writers and artists from the 700th issue of Action Comics. They're interesting in parts, but it's Cornell who really shines here, along with his collaborators. Recommended.
