I like round numbers. In my review of Action Comics #600 I talked about the importance of milestone issues, how impressive and difficult it is for a title to reach 100 or 200 consecutive issues, to say nothing of 600. It had taken 50 years to reach that milestone, and another 15 years to reach #800. A lot had happened in the 15 years since then. In those intervening years, Superman had died and lived to tell the tale, had gotten married, and had much of the Silver Age trappings restored to his mythology. For the comicbook industry, it had seen the end of newsstand sales and the implosion of the direct market, with sales mere fractions of what it had been less than a generation before. And for me, I grew up, went to college, became an adult, and quit comics.
Quitting comics was mostly, though not entirely, a financial decision. I had lost my job in the Spring of ’02 and the job I found afterwards was paid significantly less money. Suddenly my $40 a week habit was a luxury I could no longer afford. But I had also been culling the number of titles I was collecting throughout 2002. If my inventory database is to believed, I had reduced my comicbook buying by over 40% over the course of 2002. As these last few reviews can attest, there was a growing dissatisfaction with the stories being told --or at least in the stories being told in the comics I read. As I reach the titles I was collecting up until I stopped, I’m sure I’ll start to poke at the why’s and wherefore’s of this. But for the moment I’m content to simply acknowledge that whatever satisfaction I was getting from comics was no longer enough for me.
But the truth is I’ve never quit comics completely. Yes, the weekly buying is gone, but I’m still picking up the occasional trade paperback, still browsing Wikipedia and various comicbook web sites to keep at least somewhat informed of the latest twists and turns. And every once and a while something happens that gets me into a comicbook store to buy an actual single issue. In 2003, that something was the 800th issue of Action Comics.
This issue shares some thematic similarity with the last issue of the title that I collected. Like #775, this anniversary issue discusses what value Superman has. But this time, rather than worry about whether Superman has any meaning at all, Kelly focuses on the concept of inspiration. The comic is actually two different stories. The first is yet another variant of the origin of how Clark became Superman, with a heavy focus on the time between Clark leaving Smallville and Superman arriving in Metropolis –Superman’s “Wilderness Years”—and how a heretofore unknown person inspired Clark Kent to become a crusader against injustice, both as a reporter and as the world’s most powerful boy scout. The second part is a series of vignettes of how Superman has inspired others.
This second part is the weakest, because the conceit doesn’t hold up. These vignettes are all one-to-three page stories, first-person narratives explaining how Superman affected them. One person learned to read due to Superman comicstrips; another became an Air Force pilot because as a child he wanted to fly like Superman; a cop wears a Superman t-shirt as a good luck totem; a father and son bond over a Superman documentary. They’re sweet little stories that tug at your heartstrings . . . until you realize that they’re as fictitious as the “origin” story you’re also reading about. I’m all for a good “inspired-by-a-superhero” story--God knows there’s enough people out there who truly have been inspired by Superman—and that’s makes the fictitiousness of these stories all the more glaring. Couldn’t Kelly, or then editor Eddie Berganza have just found real people to tell their story and drawn that? (I will admit that it’s possible some of these stories are true; but when one features an air force pilot flying something closer to an X-wing fighter than an F-16, and another shows with how a US Solider bonded with foreigners over watching Superman die fighting Doomsday . . . well, there goes reality.) Knowing these vignettes are constructs makes you all too aware of their fabrication, which means you realize that the emotions they attempt to evoke are likewise calculated. And rather than being affected by inspirational stories, I felt resentful that Kelly thought we could be manipulated so easily.
The other half of the comic, detailing those Wilderness Years, fares somewhat better. Kelly uses John Byrne’s origin story as the template—something I found curious since in the couple of years prior to this issue there had been a very strong push to undo many of the changes Byrne made and reinstate Supes’ Silver Age trappings. (They brought back Krypto, for Rao’s sake!)—so there still was no Superboy, and Clark still decides to leave Smallville after High School to see what the world can offer him. But rather than finding his place, he’s overwhelmed and drifts without focus until meeting Ed Wilson. Wilson is your stock crusading reporter archetype with a little Hunter S. Thompson thrown in for good measure. Wilson is meant to be an inspiration and a teacher to young Clark but there so little to his character beyond Crusading Reporter Type that he’s a pretty shallow addition to the Superman origin. When one of the things Wilson teaches Clark is that “you can’t report on a story until you become the story” I have to wonder how Clark ever learned true journalism from this guy. But the truth is Wilson’s a pretty forgivable construct because his addition doesn’t really change the core story. Clark wrestles with his insecurities and finds his purpose in life. That some created-just-for-this-story character had a hand in it doesn’t really mean anything. The important thing is that Clark is inspired (by Wilson, by his parents, by Lana) and in turn becomes the icon that will inspire others.
Kelly opens and closes this issue by invoking the “truth, justice, and the American Way” chestnut, which I suppose had more resonance in late 2002, when the nerves frayed by the September 11th attacks were still too raw for most people. Personally, I’m far too cynical to buy into that, but it’s clear that for whatever faults the real America may have, Kelly finds the best of that ideal is best idealized in Superman. As ideals go, that ain’t too shabby.
Now let’s jump ahead another 8 years to 2011. At this point, I had settled into a pattern with my comics: I’d take out some series or a chunk of some series and read them; occasionally I’d wander into a comicbook store and peruse the shelves; about twice a year I’d splurge one a few trade paperbacks for the fun of it, but that would mostly be for stories I was interested in or reading back when I was collecting regularly. Comicbooks were things from my past. Until I started inventorying my collection.
The inventory was something I had wanted to do for years. I found some software that had all the various items I’d want to record, and it had access to an online database that saved me the bother of manually typing in the information. As I did this I began to submerge myself into the murky waters of the current state of comicbooks. I learned which series lasted and when; which series ended and restarted. And I learned that the 900th issue of Action Comics was just a few months away.
There it was again: that thrill of large numbers. 900. It was now 23 years since I picked Action Comics #600 off the shelves, bought just when I becoming a serious comicbook reader. I wanted to have that thrill again. I wanted to read a superhero story--a current one, not just read some decade’s old issue that I hadn’t read since I first bought it. I didn’t want to relive the joy I had buying comics in my youth. I wanted to enjoy buying a comicbook now, as an adult.
In an unexpected moment of déjà vu, Reading Action Comics #900 was a bit like reading #600—I knew the basics, and some characters were familiar, but I had only a cursory knowledge of what had lead up to this moment. And what had I missed since last reading Superman eight years prior? Just most recently: there was a new planet Krypton that came about, only to get blown up just like the original. Superman left Earth to be on this New Krypton. Pa Kent died. And Lois and Clark had some sort of son or step-son or something; someone named Chris, also super-powered, and he died too. Doomsday is still alive and well, and beating up/kidnapping anyone who wears an “S” on their chest. Oh, and Lex Luthor became a god.
It was the perfect encapsulation of “the more things change the more they stay the same.” Luthor’s scenes with Superman echoed the stakes I last saw in the “Emperor Joker” storyline, with the same end result: the omnipotence Luthor had attained is eliminated due to his own character faults, just like what happened with the Joker. Once again, a storyline raised its stakes to the limit, and while this one cloaked its reset button in a nicely-done character study of the relationship between Superman and Lex (I particularly liked the way Lex discovers Superman is Clark Kent, and what that meant in terms of Lex’s view of Superman), it still ends with Luthor alive and well and back to his “normal” self, sure to bother Superman again in a future issue.
(Hell, this issue even had a cameo of Death, and seeing her gave swell to the righteous indignation of my younger self: How dare writer Paul Cornell sully the Artistic Merit of Neil Gaiman’s opus by having her appear in a lowly superhero story!?!? It was a moment of comicbook snobbery that I hadn’t felt for 15 years. I guess you really can go home again.)
Even more telling was the “B” story in this issue, featuring a reunion of the cast from “Death of Superman/Reign of the Superman” stories. Doomsday! Supergirl! Superboy! Eradicator! Steel! Cyborg! All together again and filling space while they waited for Superman to join them for the next storyline: “The Reign of the Doomsdays”. Of course comicbook stories build on previous ones, but think about it: I have just read (at least part) of the “Death/Reign” story, literally a few weeks before buying this issue, and in doing so realized that it’s been nearly 20 years since it first came out. And now, twenty years later, I’m reading a comicbook that is still playing off that story. It’s both a testament to the legacy of that story, and an indictment that after twenty years there’s nothing more to do but write variations of what was already done decades ago.
This issue also featured a smattering of back-up stories, all of varying degrees of interest. Sadly, Man-Bat was left out, although the trippy alien Buddha hippo in Paul Dini and RB Silva’s story was a neat consolation prize. Honestly, the most enjoyable one was a script by Richard Donner, presented motion picture storyboard style. It was a trivial story but it’s worth reading because it doesn’t aim to do more than entertain, but in doing so it shows a clear understanding of Superman and what makes for a good Superman story, namely a chance for Superman to live up to his name (a thrilling, flying race through Metropolis, diving in to save a derailing subway train). Compared to the epic threats of the main story, it was a reminder that you don’t need to raise the stakes to 11 in order to tell a thrilling Superman story. (I’d also like to point out that, like Dini’s story, Donner’s also ends with the “only human” comment but here it actually has resonance.)
So: what was it like returning to the world of Superman, and superheroes in general, after so long a visit? I'd like to tell you that I had some great epiphany, but I didn't. I liked it. Reading this comic reminded me of all the things I enjoyed about reading comics and also of why I left it, but one factor did not overpower the other. It neither destroyed my childhood memories nor make me rush out and start collecting again. Truth to tell, it was like visiting an old friend that you didn’t have much in common with anymore. It was great to catch up, and you look forward to doing so again sometime down the road, even though there is no desire to restart the friendship properly.
One last thing worth commenting on: shortly after reaching the milestone 900th issue, DC Comics announced Action Comics was ending, and restarting again with a new number 1, as part of their New 52 reboot. (Yes, another reboot, another revision to the Superman mythos. The more things change, the more they stay the same, indeed.) So August 2011 saw Action Comics #904 hit the stands, followed in September by Action Comics #1. Since I’ve already commented on my personal awe regarding large numbers, the fanboy in me was definitely upset that the comic industry’s highest numbered series was going the reset route, but I have no fear. Numbers have meaning. Seven years from now, I’ll bet you money that the month after Action Comics #95 is released, Action Comics #1000 will hit the stands. And, yes, I will be there to buy it.
Next Issue: We finally bid adieu to Superman (for now) and instead look in on Adam Strange and deconstruction run amok in his 1990 mini-series “A Man of Two Worlds.”
Hey, Wait A Minute: Yes, I know: I said I was going to talk about Action Comics Annual #6 but I’m not. It’s written and drawn by John Byrne in 1994, which is right when he began his Great Decline, so while there’s while there’s plenty of things to take cheap shots at, it’s neither terrible enough a story to make merciless fun of, nor good enough to call it praise-worthy. It’s an Elseworlds story, and there will be plenty of those to talk about in greater detail. So if alternate realities where a Kryptonian defeats the American Revolution and rules England, and Kal-El is his non-powered descendant who becomes a freedom fighter, are your thing, then check it out. But, sadly, my commentary will not be part of the experience. [Insert snarky response here.]
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