The New 52! Action Comics #1

DC decided to reboot their comic book universe, so I decided to blog along with it!

Action Comics #1

Scale it back, bring him down to earth. This seems to be the idea behind Grant Morrison's take on Superman. Scale back the power levels, scale back the maturity, scale back everything. And it is OK, it makes Superman a character that could be flawed, but obviously this won't last long.

I enjoyed Grant's take on Superman in All Star Superman. It was like Superman: Year Omega. That Superman was much older, this one is much, much younger. He is flawed. He isn't the boy scout. But Lex is at the top of his game, and gets his moment in the end.

When it comes to how Morrison writes, you simply cannot be a new reader to his books unless you already have a good sense of character history coming to the table. He writes big ideas in a somewhat linear fashion that can lose you if you don't keep up. Think of it in this regard: when writing a story you want your characters to have that character moment. The one that you build to throughout the comic that takes a reader's breath away. There are little in between moments so you have that sense of build up. Grant takes those character moments and writes them as those in between moments. Instead of tin details building together there are these big moments pulling together. What most writer would do in ten pages Grant tries to condense into two and a half. So we get left out some if you don't take things slowly.

Rags Morales on art duties is excellent though. Each character has distinct facial features. That's not something that some artists do. The best part is you can actually just flip through the comic, stare at the art, and get a great sense of the story tat was told. This is something that a great storyteller does with pictures, and its nice to see it happen here.

So, we get introduced to Lois, Lex shows his brainy side, and Superman is put into a believable cliff hanger situation at the end. For new readers, you don't really get much. I think the story of Superman has just been told before, so there isn't really much anyone can do to put him in a dire situation for long. Overall, its ok. I'll give it the three issue try, but after that if it is still at this pace, I may just wait for the trade on it.

Words: 6/10

Pictures: 9/10

Recommend: Maybe for Superman fans, but not to new readers.

Buy Next Issue: I will, but this might not be habit forming.