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Review: Action Comics #1000

Johnny "The Machine" Hughes

“Providing Hope for 80 years!”

Say what you want about Superman; yes he can be too powerful; yes it used to be hard to humanise him and yes he has gone through some changes over the years; the one thing you can not ignore is that he gave rise to superheroes.  Created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, two Jewish immigrants who wanted a hero to stand against their own hardships, a hero that was as powerful as a locomotive, faster than a speeding bullet and able to jump tall buildings in a single bound.  Little would they know that their character would mean so much to so many people.

Action #1000 is a celebration of Superman, drawing on his past, before Brian Michael Bendis has his merry way with the mythos.  Lets be clear, that the first point of the above statement is the real the aim of this book.  With a ton of DC legends picking up pen and pencil and colors, the masses have seemingly taken their favourite parts of Superman’s past to give us a snapshot of what made Kal-El of Krypton Super.  Hint, it wasn’t just the yellow sun!  Some people state that with most heroes, the mask is the real persona; this belief is probably Batman’s fault but that is a discussion for later.  With Kal-El, regardless of losing his planet, or the color of the sun, Clark Kent has always been who he is due to the nurturing over nature of the Kents.  Recently, with the introduction of Jon Kent, this has become more apparent.

Nearly all elements and styles of the Superman mythos make an appearance, and as much as I like to try different things, I for one am glad there is no Red or Blue Superman or that god awful ponytail/mullet affair that besieged the 90’s.  Creator wise, it is a veritable who’s who with the likes of Geoff Johns, Paul Dini, John Cassaday, Oliver Coipel, Patrick Gleason, Peter J. Tomasi, Butch Guice, Tom KIngJimm Lee, Clay Mann, Brad Meltzer, Jerry Ordway, Tim Sale, Louise Simonson, Scott Snyder, Marv Wolfman, Neal Adams complimenting the great Dan Jurgens (yes, Jurgens is great – he kept Superman afloat through some lean years and since Rebirth has proven he is more than up to the task) before leading into the next step in Superman with the oft advertised Brian Michael Bendis. Before we move forward though, there are a couple of people who deserve a special mention, those being the always fantastic Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez whose work is synonymous with the DC Universe of yester year and finally, the late and very great Curt Swan whose work on Superman will forever be etched into the minds of many comic book readers.

As mentioned, the book does feature some of the work fans can expect from Bendis.  At first glance, it might seem a tad samey; another powerful person rocks up to go toe to toe with Superman, though this time there is a reason and a snippet of a clue that may well have an emotional impact on Big Blue.  I have to say, it was great to see Supergirl looking like you would expect, courtesy of Jim Lee.

DC are looking to make some traction with this book.  For some it will be a great celebration of a classic character and his family, for others it will be seen as practice run for Detective Comics #1000, although the real party should be Detective #1027, and for others this will be seen as cheese on toast, that doesn’t meet the requirement to spend so much on one issue.  I am going to side with aspirational elements, the inspirational elements that Superman, no Clark Kent stands for.  80 years is a huge amount of time for anything to endure.  Now think on how society has changed in that time, sometimes for the good, sometimes for the bad and through it all, our role model has stood with us, whether we wanted him to or not.  Superman’s goal was to help two creators who had a difficult life to get through the day, to make it a little bit easier. Man, how much does the world need a Superman now?  All we can hope for is that Clark Kent continues to shows us how we can all be Super!

 

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

Written by; Various
Art by; Various
Published by; DC Comics

Make sure to use the followinghashtags  when celebrating this amazing Milestone in Comic Book Histoiry via socialmedia: #ACTION1000 #Superman80 @DCComics

Author Profile

Johnny "The Machine" Hughes
I am a long time comic book fan, being first introduced to Batman in the mid to late 70's. This led to a appreciation of classic artists like Neal Adams and Jim Aparo. Moving through the decades that followed, I have a working knowledge of a huge raft of characters with a fondness for old school characters like JSA and The Shadow

Currently reading a slew of Bat Books, enjoying a mini Marvel revival, and the host of The Definative Crusade and Outside the Panels whilst also appearing on No-Prize Podcast on the Undercover Capes Podcast Network
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