The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2095: Action Comics #404, September 1971

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The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2079: Action Comics #369, November 1968

  For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

Honestly, some really rather mediocre stories today. Superman manages to screw up an alien plan to bring peace and harmony to Earth (though the aliens don't really give anyone a choice, so it's a bit weird to begin with), and Supergirl decides to use her powers to win over a womanizing toxic male because...reasons. Honestly, the guy's a total crapsack and every woman in the story thinks he's just great. Like they know he's a player but they still want to get played? It's really no wonder that we have a culture that's as fucked up about gender dynamics as we do when you see some of the nonsense that got pumped out into peoples' formative years.

There's a weird little meta moment at the beginning of today's comic, where we get a full-page shot of 5 kids gathered around Action Comics #369, debating how Superman could possibly blunder. They never reappear, and it really is a strange moment - did they need another page filled for the issue? I suppose it creates a sense of disbelief, or reminds readers of the ways in which a story of Superman making a mistake could take place, but there's surely better ways of doing that than this Greek Chorus-esque gathering of pubescent boys ruminating on how the story might unfold.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1503: Action Comics #776, April 2001

One of the things that also kept me from reading the Superman titles at this point in their publication history is an old story that made the rounds at the time. Apparently Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Tom Peyer, and Mark Waid proposed a revamp of Superman that would have seen Superman's powers increase due to his prolonged radiation exposure, and would have dealt with the ramifications of this increase.

Can you imagine those four writers doing Superman stories? Peyer's The Wrong Earth is one of the best superhero titles on the racks. Millar blew minds (some literally) in The Authority. Morrison and Waid defined the DCU of the 90s (which is probably why they didn't get this redefining shot as well).

The reason I bring this up is that I'm actually super-impressed with the writers on these titles right now. Aside from Mr. Schultz, I'm familiar with the names, though I've only ever followed up on Joe Casey. I know Joe Kelly, today's writer, went on to take over JLA after Mark Waid's tenure, and I what I read of that run is quite good. But it just goes to show that you can't limit yourself, much as that's a good way to not spend every cent you have on comics. I love Grant Morrison's stuff, but titles like Klaus, or the work he's doing in Heavy Metal, don't really speak to me as much as his older stuff. Branching out, not following writers or artists, but taking chances on new comics and creators, though a gamble, very often pays off.

This, I think, really speaks to the quality of editors through whom these stories pass. But that's a conversation for another day.

"What's with the giant key?"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1331: Action Comics #1003, November 2018

I feel like, as Man of Steel ended, Action Comics and the new Superman series acted like two choices in a Choose Your Own Adventure book. One follows Clark into Metropolis, one follows Superman into space. And, of course, that's exactly how they're supposed to function. But I will admit to finding reading the two at the same time to be a bit off-putting. I guess it's the continuity cop in me that just wants to know how these two stories can be happening consecutively. A small hint, just a gesture, to how these two stories fit together, would be lovely. Hopefully we'll get one soon.

Is anyone surprised that Mr. Bendis can write Batman? The scenes with Batman in this issue steal the story - he's grumpy and funny all at the same time. In fact, Bendis's Batman seems to be a bit more relaxed, even joking with people he's usually too eager to scare. He reminds me a bit of Dick Grayson's Batman, who I loved dearly.

Spoiler alert, but next issue we might actually get some answers about where Lois and Jon have been, and why Ms. Lane has been hiding in Metropolis.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1328: Action Comics #1002, October 2018

Once more, it's the little moments that truly make this story. A Superman story is a Superman story - in this I mean that something outrageously ridiculous has to be happening, even if it's simply the idea of Superman himself. If you are telling a story about Superman, it involves the kind of narrative that grows around a character like Superman. And that's a good thing, even when poorly done. Remembering the scope of Superman's story is a very important aspect of the myth. What makes these particular stories stand out is the moments that aren't Superman stories, in a lot of ways. Well, in today's issue, that's the case. As Clark goes undercover to find out about a dead drug dealer, the little moment of humanity and grief he shares with the patrons of a dive bar, in the midst of a tale of superhumanity, is an all-important linking feature. Myths like this one rely on us being able to see not only our better selves in the main character, but to see the parts of ourselves that are already "super" to begin with - our empathy and sympathy, our ability and desire to help. If we share this quality with Superman (or any other mythic carpent...I mean, figure), then we can embody something of what he is and represents.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1325: Action Comics #1001, September 2018

For me, this comic is all about the first scene, in which two armed gunmen are stopped by Superman. One of them simply accepts the fact that they've been busted, and that considering who has done the busting, there's no point in running. The other one loses his shit completely, and can't put a coherent sentence or thought together while Superman is taking him down.

It's a lovely scene, and is a great vehicle to see just how Superman deals with the low-level criminals he encounters.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1317: Action Comics #1000, June 2018

I've fallen a bit behind on my current comics, so I though that in order to catch up on the new Brian Bendis Superman stories, I'd read them for the project. We'll start here, with Action Comics #1000, and see where he takes us.

What more can I say about Superman, though? There is actually something I have to try to work out. It's my understanding that Frank Miller is going to be writing a Superman series in the near future. I can't wrap my head around the idea of a right-wing nut job like Miller breathing life into Superman. Miller's politics seem antithetical to everything I believe about the Man of Steel. But that's the thing, isn't it? Superman's not real - he's a fictional character that can come to be representative of anything. This means he can come to be representative of things that I might not agree with. Not that I think you can push the character too far, unless you want a repeat of the original run of Supreme. There is always something of the socialist in Superman, right from the beginning. But if Superman is indeed for everyone, then he has to be for right- and left-leaning readers. Perhaps Miller's take will satisfy that other demographic.

As far as Mr. Bendis' work on the Big Blue, it's hard to say, thus far. He provides us with a nice little in media res prologue, and drops the bomb that Krypton's destruction may not have been what it seemed. Intriguing, but it's the handling of the characters that I'm more excited to see from Mr. Bendis. His gift for dialogue is virtually unparalleled in contemporary comics.

So, more Superman to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1183: Action Comics #563, January 1985

We come to the end of our Action Comics reading today with an amusing issue, the pro- and antagonists of which you can see on the cover here. It's really a showcase for the three in the foreground, with Superman popping in and riding herd on the chaos that ensues.

There's mention in the letters pages of these issues of a switch in format which must have come slightly before this run of issues, and I think it's referring to the division of stories in the title, as well as the tone of those stories. Everything's a bit more light-hearted than contemporary Superman tales. And while there seem to have always, or almost always, been multiple stories in Action Comics, these stories all feature either Superman or members of his supporting cast, rather than B-listers like The Atom or the Human Target. I'm torn as to whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. I'm finding the Superman stories to be less-compelling than the ones that were being told in the more anthology-style issues from about 10 years earlier. This line of thought definitely looks ahead to the weekly anthology that starts in issue 601, which we'll get to eventually.

It's been nice getting back into Superman, and I imagine I'll hit him up a bit more once July rolls around. I have a big project in mind for June, but until then we've got a few days of random bits and pieces from the collection to look at.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1182: Action Comics #562, December 1984

Okay, this one was just okay. The villains weren't particularly interesting, and their schemes really didn't seem like they'd be that big of a challenge to Superman. I sometimes wonder if we should be reading these comics with the subtext that Superman is actually letting all of these things happen to him, just to either a) see how much he can take, or b) build up the villains so their defeats are more demoralizing. Which doesn't say a lot for the Man of Steel, either way.

What I do like is having a bit of background on Queen Bee, who shows up in Morrison's JLA as part of an anti-JLA team of villains. One that's much more threatening than the team in today's comic.

But they can't all be winners, and even if the story was a bit of a letdown, the art was, as usual, beautiful. The early 80s Superman artists were really on the ball.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1181: Action Comics #561, November 1984

Let's add this one to probably one of the most misleading covers we've seen thus far. Nothing even remotely like this scene happens in the issue. In fact, Toyman appears to have actually gone straight (a contentious phrase in our gender-nonconforming era), though he does use his newfound wealth for his own selfish purposes. However, as a collector, I totally understand his desire to track down the first toy he ever made. That's important.

Superman's role in this story is really that of observer, which is a nice way of parsing stories about an alien trying to fit in on Earth. But he also play peacemaker between Toyman and his nemesis, evincing a bit of the Christ metaphor that people seem so quick to lay over top of Superman. I'm more of the opinion that we have a Moses metaphor going on, but that's just me.

The second story is a nice example of the wackiness that Superman often encounters, especially in terms of his exposures to Red Kryptonite. This time, it splits the Man of Steel into his much younger counterpart (on the cusp of revealing himself as Superboy), and into a future version of himself that has a ridiculous array of powers, including splitting his secret identity off from the body so that both can function at once, or turning himself into an actual man of steel. The story is silly and entertaining, which is not a bad thing for a holiday Monday morning read.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1180: Action Comics #560, October 1984

I think that despite our mutual love of the Doom Patrol, Kieth Giffen and I have very different senses of humour. I just don't get Ambush Bug. I was thinking about this before sitting down to write, and it feels to me like every Ambush Bug story I read, at least the Giffen/Fleming ones, are set in a strange parallel version of the DCU, though AB's presence on Oolong Island in Giffen's Doom Patrol suggests otherwise. Though, with the Doom Patrol, you never know.

Today's lead story was an interesting one-off (unless John Doe every returns, I guess), most notably because we see a scene of the super-villain buying weapons from the Monitor. I wish I'd been following comics at the time, to see the build up through these titles to Crisis on Infinite Earths, but alas I wasn't even reading comics regularly (not superhero ones, anyway) at this point. And certainly not DC stuff. I was a dyed in the wool Marvel fan in my early youth.

What makes this appearance of the Monitor doubly interesting is that this issue of Action was not written by Marv Wolfman, so we see insertions of the Crisis lead-up in other titles by other writers. This has got to be one of the earliest instances of cross-continuity story telling by numerous writers. And for someone who's interested in how these universes grow and evolve, that's a pretty bit thing.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1179: Action Comics #559, September 1984

We're starting off a short run of consecutive issues today, though strangely they don't all appear to have been written by the same person. Though my reading of Action has bounced about a lot, I've yet to see a regular creative team. I mentioned to some friends that my recent readings seem to suggest that at this point in time, DC was just throwing things at Superman and seeing what stuck, so perhaps that philosophy also applied to creative teams.

Today is a throwback to a Superboy story, in that a villain from Clark's youth returns. She's not actually so bad, but her husband, it turns out, is a bit of a con man, and tries to use her powers to milk money from pollution-choked towns.

I've noticed a very strong environmental aspect to many of the stories I've looked at over the last week or so. It seems to have been prevalent in the minds of the writers on Superman through the late 70s and early 80s. Not surprising, really, as this was when the environmental movement really got going. But it is a bit surprising to see the attitude evinced by numerous different writers.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1178: Action Comics #523, September 1981

A very silly story about an alien that convinces Steve Lombard that they're brothers in order to steal Steve's athletic prowess.

I'm not even kidding a little.

As I noted a couple of days ago, Superman faces some very, very strange menaces. I think it's because most writers recognize that if they used the kinds of challenges that are usual for other superheroes, Superman would fix the problem immediately. But when you go to the stranger side of things, antagonists can have very weird and specific powers that baffle, but never quite defeat, the Man of Steel.

More Action to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1177: Action Comics #484, June 1978

Have to say I'm becoming quite taken with Action Comics. I think we're going to stick with it a little while. I'm in the process of tracking down Marv Wolfman's run on the title, but we'll be reading stuff from throughout the recent history of the run, though not quite into New 52 or Rebirth territory.

This is a great story, the story of the original Superman (at this pre-Crisis moment still living on Earth-2) and his wedding to Lois Lane. I always thought that what happened to them in Infinite Crisis was absolutely criminal, and I'll admit that it's what turned me off of Geoff Johns's writing. Taking away a happy ending from the original superhero is almost as bad an idea as joining the DC and Watchmen universes....oh, yeah.

Today's issue also gives us an interesting interpretation of what Clark would be like if his super side was sublimated. He's far less unassuming in this version of himself, channeling his innate desire to do right into his reporting, becoming something of a newsman action hero. This is the Clark that Lois falls in love with, and it's actually quite heart-wrenching when she realizes she's been right about Clark being Superman all along, and thinks that when his mind is healed, he won't want her for a wife anymore. Superman, of course, does the exact right thing, and joins with her in a Kryptonian ceremony.

Also, can I just say, Lois is looking absolutely smoking on that cover. Well done, Mr. Garcia-Lopez.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1176: Action Comics #479, January 1978

I've never actually seen the cover of this comic. I have in my collection a fair number of coverless comics that have found their way into the boxes over the years. I'm not picky about this sort of thing. Though the covers are wonderful works in and of themselves, I'm more particular about the story being complete, rather than the comic itself. I'm more inclined to not include a comic in my collection if the center pages have come loose, and there is thus story missing. This is the case with many of my Archie comics, and, sadly, one of my old Animal Man Strange Adventures issues.

But today's story is intact, if coverless. Superman faces a foe that only he can see, which makes for some kind of hilarious panels of the big guy doing what looks like those instructional dance photographs that you might find in an old disco album.

(Tell me there's someone out there who gets that comparison...)

It's a competent story, and indicative of the Superman stories we see in this era, pre-Crisis, pre-gritwash. Writers appeared to just throw the most outlandishly powerful and weird villains at Superman to see what he would do. The random bad guys he faces in the 70s remind me of the weirdos the Doom Patrol fought a decade earlier. That's a strange lineage to trace, but I think that Superman is often far more weird that we give him credit for. Consider the wackiness of the 50s and 60s, much like that of Batman - I think in a lot of ways that surreality has never really left the Man of Steel. It's not just that he's equipped to deal with villains that are strong, but also those that are strange. The super human is not only physically superior, mentally superior, but also conceptually superior, able to intuit about alienness. Which Superman does very, very well.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1175: Action Comics #425, July 1973

I thought that, since I've been reading a bunch of Batman stuff lately, I should get into some Superman stuff too. And the nice thing about Action Comics, the old ones anyway, is that there's always 2 or 3 features, not just a Superman story. Today both the Atom and the Human Target share the book with the big, blue Boy Scout.

I enjoyed today's issue. It was a very silly story about a man who kills the last Moa in New Zealand, and ends up bringing its irradiated egg back to Metropolis. What's great is that the man, a hunter, kills the bird accidentally, and then spends the rest of the story guilt-ridden over his mistake. It's a nice contrast to the usual tales of big game hunters who more often than not end up as the villains of whatever story they're a part of. Don't get me wrong: I'm 100% against the kind of hunting that is depicted in this comic. It's the difference in characterization that I find refreshing.

There is one panel that is amazing - as the super-Moa is flying around Metropolis, Superman latches onto its legs, which immediately are shed and a new pair grows in their place. Superman is, quite distinctly in at least one panel, left holding what amount to a pair of human-sized chicken legs that disappear in the next panel! Where did they go? Did Superman just drop them? What the heck is whoever finds those legs going to think? I know that these kinds of details go unremarked upon in old stories like this, but I really want to know what happened to the legs.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 841: Action Comics #554, April 1984

Isn't it strange that we can forget things that seem like they would have made an impression upon us? I remember this comic and the basic premise, but going back to it today, I find that it speaks to so many of the ways I've been trying to conceive of the superhero for so many years now.

This brings up some interesting ideas. The golden pyramids that we encountered with Superman and the Forgotten Heroes over the last couple of days turn out to be structures placed by an alien race that, once activated, erase the violent impulse from a species' development. As such, humanity has no myth, no tales of heroism or of overcoming obstacles. It's not the most factually solid of foundations as far as the development of the species goes, but we should recall that the tale is talking to us about the power of imagination, of myth, of the hypotheticals that we envision in our stories. In the wake of this removal of heroic myth from humanity's development, the planet is rife for conquering by the race that left the pyramids in the first place.

Except for two young boys, Jerry and Joe, who conceive of a "super man" who would be able to stand up to the invaders. And they manage to believe Superman back into existence. The salient point here is that, despite the fact that Superman defeats the alien armada, it is the power of belief in this figure, the faith that the two boys have in a character they created themselves, that provides the tool with which to remove the shackles of slavery within which humanity finds itself. Honestly, that's my dissertation right there. Marv Wolfman and Gil Kane said it in words and pictures when I'd just turned ten years old.

Which brings up another idea - the intersection of fan/professional scholarship and thought with that of academic scholarship and thought. I was on a panel a couple of weeks ago for the local Panel One comics festival, and we spoke at length about comics scholarship and the links to the greater comics community. Comics are one of those kinds of fandom that have, since the beginning, encouraged the kind of high-level thinking we often only associate with post-secondary education. The difference between someone who is a FanAc (Fan Academic) and a scholarly academic is that scholarly academics have a particular, and precise, set of tools, concepts, and words to talk about specific aspects of the medium that FanAcs might lack. But the breadth of knowledge of the medium, and how it works, are not solely the purview of the scholar. In many cases, in fact, the FanAc, free of the restrictions of the academy, will have much more broad knowledge and ideas of comics. It's important to recognize this kind of knowledge, and to work with it. Which is what I try to do.

We'll get back to Animal Man tomorrow, but this comic is a great favourite of mine, and I'm glad I took the time to read it and finish off the story of the golden pyramids. Belief in a thing can make it real. That doesn't mean it's not still a fiction. It's simply that it's become a fiction that has measurable effect in "the real world."

Whatever that might be.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 840: Action Comics #553, March 1984

This has been a very strange adventure (pun intended), in that there's very little action. A lot of this story has been people talking to one another about action, or about the problem facing the team and Superman, but the actual steps taken to stop the problem happen in literally 2-3 pages of this second issue.

And not much is really revealed or solved, aside from Superman no longer spreading prehistoric seeds across Metropolis.

In terms of Animal Man's development, we're beginning to see the limitations of his power set - in order to be useful, he's really only good if he's around animals that might have useful powers. Though "usefulness" is an aspect of the powers that is fully explored in his series, it's not really delved into here. Buddy is sent back to Brazil, where he by some random chance has seen a jaguar (and anyone who's walked around forests full of wild animals knows just how often you happen upon one by chance), and so can use those powers to defeat the government officials guarding the mysterious temple. The expansions his powers undergo in his eponymous series, from sensing animals around him to tapping into the morphogenetic field exponentially raise the level of his powers, making him into a remarkably powerful character in the end. And perhaps it's this overcoming of the limitations of his powers that finally allows Animal Man the shot at having his own series. Indeed, much of the early part of Morrison's run is about Animal Man discovering the true extent of his powers.

But we'll get there eventually. The end of today's story leaves the audience with the possibility of Superman not having survived his encounter at the beginning of time. We might take a quick detour into the next issue of Action Comics, just to see what happens, and then we'll pick up with Animal Man again in DC Comics Presents.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 839: Action Comics #552, February 1984

Four years pass between Animal Man's appearance in Wonder Woman and his next one in Action Comics. This is very much a set-up piece, gathering together a group that, briefly, come to be known as the Forgotten Heroes, who have all had adventures that have led them to a strange temple, the knowledge of which brings them into conflict with the American government. Concurrently, Vandal Savage unleashed a plan against Superman that, one can only imagine, is connected to the temple and the Forgotten Heroes' adventures.

Animal Man expresses some surprise here that someone else knows his secret identity. It's the first time I've seen reference to the secret identity issue from Animal Man, as his identity is, as far as I know, a public one through most of his self-titled series. His characterization is also a bit odd...his dialogue sounds to me like Hawkeye's from his early 60s Avengers appearances. Using words like "figger" and such. What I come to realize though is that I read every single Animal Man appearance through the lens of his own series, even those that come before that series happens. It's an odd phenomenon, and one that can really only occur in serialized fictions like these, though with the caveat that they are serialized fictions whose creative teams change regularly. Until someone defines a character like Animal Man, his personality is going to be in flux across his appearances. And then once he's been established, prior appearances might not gel with what is now canonical. Where things get interesting is with a group like the Doom Patrol, who I also read from a particular perspective, yet whose personalities were long ago established in their first series. In such a case, perhaps we can see the shifts in character as growth and development of those characters, rather than being a personality in flux.

The Forgotten Heroes do manage to get a few adventures in, even making a brief appearance in Crisis on Infinite Earths, but it's a scant four years until Animal Man gets his own series, and the DCU gets its first taste of the madness of Grant Morrison. Once this happens, Animal Man is no longer forgotten, and this motley crew of adventurers falls by the wayside.

Will the Forgotten Heroes and Superman actually meet up next issue? It seems likely, but you never know.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 606: Amazing Fantasy #17, January 1996

Same as yesterday, I'm afraid, still sore, and typing is a bad idea. But I will get to this issue, because it's really, really great.

Okay, another quick one. Just as yesterday's comic addressed the discovery, and occasional incomprehension, of new super powers in the early days of a hero's career, today's comic addresses the inherent loneliness that can accompany the manifestation of such powers. The last few weeks of the Supergirl television series have dealt with this really nicely, as we see Kara's reaction to having Clark around for a few days: all of a sudden there is someone there, someone present, who understands exactly what it's like to be you.

Because of the, in many cases, unique origins of Marvel heroes, this loneliness can become quite pronounced. Though we do eventually see a "family" of spider-themed heroes, the bite from the radioactive spider is unique (I think) to Peter. It's not like he's a mutant, so has the racial connection of that class of superhero, nor is he an alien like the aforementioned Kryptonians. In today's comic he connects with another super-powered teen, ameliorating the loneliness through a bond of age. It's unfortunately not enough.

I was very happy to see that this series is a limited series, three issues only, even though it continues the original series numbering. I've been greatly impressed by it so far, and knowing that there's only one more issue to pick up makes that a much more enticing notion. So you'll see the conclusion of this series at some point in the future.

Onward.