Action Comics #1000

I bought this at Merrymac Games and Comics in Merrimack NH this past summer.

Title: Action Comics
Issue: 1000
Date: June 2018
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Dan Jurgens, Peter J. Tomasi, Marv Wolfman, Geoff Johns, Richard Donner, Scott Snyder, Tom King, Louise Simonson, Paul Dini, Brad Meltzer, Brian Michael Bendis, Cindy Goff, Curt Swan, Bob Rozakis, Kurt Schaffenberger, Butch Guice
Artist: Dan Jurgens, Norm Rapmund, Patrick Gleason, John Romita Jr., Danny Miki, Curt Swan, Butch Guice, Kurt Schaffenberger, Bob Rozakis, Olivier Coipel, Rafael Albuquerque, Clay Mann, Jerry Ordway, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Kevin Nowlan, Walter Simonson, John Cassaday, Jorge Jimenez, Jim Lee, Scott Williams
Colorist: Hi-Fi, Alejandro Sanchez, Peter Steigerwald, Dave McCaig, Jordie Bellaire, Trish Mulvihill, Brennan Wagner, Laura Martin, Alex Sinclair
Letterer: Rob Leigh, Tom Napolitano, Nick Napolitano, John Workman, Carlos M. Mangual, Josh Reed, Chris Eliopoulos, Cory Petit
Cover: Jim Lee, Scott Williams, Alex Sinclair,
Editor: Paul Kaminski, Andrea Shea

I love these big-round-number issues! At one point, when DC made the idiotic decision to renumber Action and Detective, it looked like we might never get here, but fortunately the original numbering was restored a few years back, and so here we are at #1000.

This is an anthology featuring some truly legendary Superman writers and artists, most of it assembled around a loose theme of inspiration: How Supermans is an inspiration, and more importantly, how the courage of ordinary people serves as an inspiration to Superman.

The opening story had Superman reluctantly attending a Superman appreciation event in Metropolis with some encouragement from Lois Lane, and a bit of behind-the-scenes manipulating that took on a distinctively silly Silver-Age vibe.

Next up was "Never-Ending Battle", a sort of walk down memory lane in the form of single-panel pages taken from various alternate timeline and Elseworlds-style adventures, all framed around a battle with Vandal Savage. This was aimed right at the hardcore fans who have read every story. Casual readers were going to miss a lot here.

"The Enemy Within" features Maggie Sawyer and the question of how Superman decides which crisis to intervene in with so many things always happening at the same time. This was handled pretty well, considering the difficulty of the question it was addressing, and Maggie came off great.

"The Car" was my favorite story in this issue, a throwback to Action Comics #1 set in the 1930s that answers (among other questions) what became of that car that Superman is demolishing on the famous Action #1 cover.

"The Fifth Season" was a great little Lex Luthor vignette, and "Of Tomorrow" was a sentimental far-future piece.

My second-favorite story was "Five Minutes", focusing on the staff of the Planet, with a some introspective moments leading to a humorous ending.

"Actionland" featured Mr. Mxyzptlk, and Brad Meltzer's "Faster Than A Speeding Bullet" was another story hitting the theme of ordinary people inspiring Superman, in this case with the action condensed down to a second or less.

The last story was a preview of the upcoming Brian Michael Bendis run, and it introduced a new villain who didn't seem to have much trouble beating Superman and Supergirl. The book ends with the new villain making some "shocking" revelations about Krypton and Superman's origin story.

The opening and ending stories were my least favorite in the book, which is unfortunate, since those were the ones most tied to current continuity. This was my first introduction to Superman and Lois' son since I haven't been reading much in the way of current in-continuity comics, and he comes off mostly as annoying.

Rogol Zaar, the new villain, certainly comes off as powerful, but that's not difficult to write, and the tone of the scene was uneven, with some weak humor mixed into what should have come off as a grim scenario. The tease of big new revelations (read retcons) didn't do much for me either. I don't need every new writer to rework Superman's past.

But that being said, there was plenty to like in this book. Most of the one-shot stories with well thought out, with some pleasant surprises. And as mentioned earlier, the cast of talent here is spectacular.

There was a lot of beautiful artwork, and enough of the nostalgic and introspective stuff to make this special in the way it needed to be.

Rating: 7/10

The New Mutants Saga

From the random stack of unread comics.

After this book, 47 comics remain in the random stack. There are 54 days remaining before we leave Vietnam. Which means that if I want to finish the stack before we head to the US, then I only get to skip 7 days. And that's not counting the various graphic novels in the school library (and a couple on my to-read shelf) that I'd like to get through. So expect things to be busy here in the coming weeks.

And during our month-long visit home, hopefully I'll get the chance to review some new releases for the first time in a while! After that I'll be gathering a new random stack of unread comics to pack for our time in China.

Title: The New Mutants Saga
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date: 2009
Writer: John Rhett Thomas, Sheila Johnson, Chris Claremont, Louise Simonson, Rob Liefeld
Artist: Bob McLeod, Sal Buscema, Paul Smith, Ron Frenz, Tom Mandrake, Bill Sienkiewicz, Steve Leialoha, Rick Leonardi, Bret Blevins, Jackson Guice, Terry Shoemaker, Rob Liefeld
Editor: Jeff Youngquist, Mark D. Beazley, Jennifer Grunwald, John Dennng, Cory Levine
Cover: Diogenes Neves, Danny Miki, John Rauch

This is a promotional recap book that summarizes the entire run of The New Mutants from the 1980s into the early 1990s. It hits some of the now-classic Marvel crossover events like Fall of the Mutants and Inferno.

The recap is done in prose written by John Rhett Thomas and Sheila Johnson based on the stories originally written by Chris Claremont, Louise Simonson, and Rob Liefeld.

Prose recaps of complicated ongoing comic stories are challenging to write (and to read!), and Marvel's mutant stories from the 80s and 90s are among the most convoluted anywhere in comics. New Mutants wasn't a book I followed for its whole run, but I picked up enough of the individual issues back in the day to have this bring back some memories. New Mutants could be a mess of a book, but it always had a lot of heart to it, and the recap presented here does a good job of focusing on the themes of friendship and loyalty that were important to the fans of The New Mutants.

Still, the complexity of the plot does get in the way of this book's effectiveness. If the objective is to sell the reprint trade paperbacks, this does an uneven job, Some of the stories sounded interesting, while other sounded like they'd be a slog to get through.

The reprinted art was awesome, though, and just flipping through this will likely bring a nostalgic smile to fans of Marvel's classic mutant stories.

Rating: 5.5/10