“Nothing’s impossible.”
What They Say:
Metropolis has been captured! To save it, Superman must push the limits of his nascent powers as never before! Aboard the ship that has the city captive, The Man of Steel finds an important tool that may help him defeat Metal-zero and his boss! And as Superman fights foes in the sky, Steel must do what he can to protect those still in danger on the ground in a backup story by Sholly Fisch and Brad Walker!
Creators:
Main Story/Backup Story
Writer: Grant Morrison / Sholly Fisch
Artist: Rags Morales / Bradley Walker
The Review:
For those not in the know, DC relaunched its entire line last year, erasing decades of continuity in an effort to streamline the stories, update the characters, and bring in new readers. Right now there are two different timelines running consecutively—one contemporary and one set five years in the past. Action Comics is one of the series that takes place (for the moment, anyway) in the past, at the beginning of Superman’s career. Right now he’s young and brash and runs around in work boots, patchwork jeans, a t-shirt, and his characteristic red cape. Instead of battling Lex Luthor or Metallo (although both characters have been introduced) he fights crime bosses, corrupt businessmen, and slum lords. Grant Morrison has taken the character back to his roots when he was a champion of the oppressed, but his life is about to change in a drastic way.
An alien being calling itself The Collector has kidnapped Metropolis, shrinking it and its inhabitants down to the size of an anthill and preserved in a glass bottle. The next step in The Collector’s process involves destroying the Earth, and only Superman can stop it.
This issue is classic Morrison, and I mean that in both a positive and negative way. For the positives, we get the usual huge ideas that he’s famous for. This is Superman on a grand scale. He can’t fly yet, so he runs up a ramp so fast that he manages to escape Earth’s orbit, jumping from satellite to satellite towards The Collector’s ship.
This is also one of the best characterizations of The Man of Steel. Morrison has a real love for the character and he manages to write him with sincerity and passion without managing to come off as hokey or naïve. This is a champion for humanity, an exemplar of what is best in us and what we can achieve if we’re true to ourselves and listen to the better angels of our nature. There’s a definite charm in his Superman that I’ve never seen before in the character and I finally get why he’s such an icon.
The elements that work in this comic do so very well, but there are flaws to the story. Often when I read Grant Morrison I feel like I’m missing something, like I hadn’t read the previous issue. He tends to throw ideas around willy-nilly, and some of them don’t work, and others are so interesting that I wish he would take more time to expand them. For example, when the Collector introduces itself, it says, “We are the colony of the Collector of Worlds. We know everything there is to know. On Yod-Colu we began as C.O.M.P.U.T.O. On Noma they called us pneumenoid. On Bryak: Mind 2. On Krypton—where you were born—We were Brainiac 1.0. On Earth—we were Internet.” That’s a huge info dump and it may be that Morrison will expand upon it in the next issue or issues to come, but it’s unclear whether or not these vast repositories of information were infected by The Collector, incorporated into The Collector, or somehow gained sentience and became The Collector in some sort of inevitable end point of their evolution. The implications of the idea are fascinating, but Morrison doesn’t play them up enough for my liking.
Thankfully, the strengths of the issue more than make up for those minor points, and part of that is due to Rags Morales’ excellent art. His Superman looks young, unsure, but powerful. It’s easy to believe that this is The Man of Steel at the beginning of his career. The action sequences are spot-on and alien ship looks imposing and properly alien. Simply put, this is a joy to look at as well as read.
Moving on from the miain story, we also get a backup tale about Steel helping relief efforts in what’s left of Metropolis. The backup is light, as you might expect, and it really doesn’t advance the story. Its purpose, I think, is to flesh out this new Metropolis and John Iron’s character. The best part is when Irons has to divert a ferryboat from falling into a whirlpool left by the sudden disappearance of the city. Irons’ armor isn’t strong enough to lift the boat or directly divert it, so instead he uses his brain and uses the currents to push the ferry towards the shore. It’s a great character moment that illustrates how Steel differs from Superman and that his real power comes from his amazing intellect.
In Summary:
Although it possesses some of Morrison’s characteristic flaws, this is still a fun comic to read and a fresh, invigorating reimagining of this iconic character. The backup is more or less filler, but Superman fans old and new will find plenty here to keep them happy.
Grade: A-
Readers Rating: [ratings]
