Superman and the Men of Steel (The New 52) - Action Comics

This is yet another New 52 re launch. This story being of the Greatest Hero ever created! Marvel and DC both agreed, this character named Superman deserves the very Best! and he does here. BUY THIS!

Grant Morrison's run on Action Comics is the best thing that happened in Superman this year.This is the second best story about Superman ever written.The first one is obviously All-Star Superman.Grant gets Superman and Clark more than any other writer.He's like the Superman in writing Superman.And this edition is perfect for everyone who wants to read this magnificent piece of art.The extras are very rewarding and show you some rough sketches and ideas by Morrison and Rags Morales.If you like Superman even a little GET THIS BOOK!!Grant is the best writer.

This was a pretty good beginning for superman I'm not that big of a fan of superman Batman my preferred character but this story had me intrested showed Clark before superman and how he was adapting to his powers and to earth wasn't bad

Its 1992: Grant Morrison has been running around the Glasgow rave scene for many, many nights and returns to his apartment in state of highly enhanced sensory stimulation. He opens his door and sees an uncanny silvery mirror-like rectangle which undulates as if it were made of liquid silver. Morrison walks up to the mirror and puts his hand to it and it parts! Throwing caution to the wind the estimable young writer puts his arm, than his whole body through this mysterious portal.

He's time transported to Los Angeles 2012! Standing in the darkness, he spies a second Grant Morrison, his future self. Future Grant Morrison is looking worriedly at his bank account statement. "This mortgage for the Hollywood Hills house is fookin' killing me. And these charges for escort services ... or this $50,000 for 'party favors' ... how am I going to cover that? Of course that night with Michelle, Boom-Boom and the dwarf was very nice and all but I've just got to cut back."

Future Grant ruminates further, "I know ... I'll take a super-hero franchise and 're-invent' it. Fans love when I do that and it always brings in the big buckaroos. Hmmm, whose left that I haven't 're-invented'; Batman (no), Superman (no), Robin (no), Fantastic Four (no), JLA (no), Superdog (not sure), wait what about Superboy! That's it! But it will be new and different because Superboy will use an Iphone! And Jimmy and Lois will be like ... yuppies, yes. And let's see a mysterious group will appear from the future with a cryptic comment that our hero will have to struggle to figure out which will give his life profound meaning. Oh wait I used that plot device in my last 5 series, well hope no one notices.

Past Grant is disturbed by this spectacle and jumps back through the portal to the safety of early nineties. Visibly shaken, he thinks "I hope that was one of those weird silver-age 'alternate universe' stories or something, that will never come to pass. But the time-travel thing, there's an idea there ... I'll call it the Invasibles, no the Invincibles, well it will come to me."

Grant you are of course incomparably brilliant, but besides "All-star Superman" its been 5 or 6 years since you've delivered the goods. Perhaps a break from blue-chip super-hero stories might be in order?

I definitely wasn't feeling the new direction this story went into. Not at all. I was so excited then was hugely let down. The total essence of Superman was Stripped from the character. What a shame! Grant Morrison please stop!

I got into Superman comics in 4th grade, during whole Death and Return of Superman stuff. That Superman was a man. He knew who he was, and he didn't fret over political bullsh**. This Superman is some sort of moral crusader, bent on stopping bad guys that....wait for it....USE CHEAP LABOR! GASP!

The wussification of America continues. If you want something positive out of the New 52, turn to Batman and the Court of Owls. Not this politically correct sissy garbage.

Grant Morrison (writer of all star superman) has again graced us with yet another great superman tale. The plot involves the regular superman cast ( Lois lane, jimmy olsen, ect.) and the entire city of metropolis getting kidnapped by brainiac. I won't spoil the rest, but it has many short story's in the end to really make this reboot more of a reboot instead of just a renumbered comic collection ( like most of the bat-books and most green lantern books.)

Grant Morrison's run on Action Comics is the best thing that happened in Superman this year.This is the second best story about Superman ever written.The first one is obviously All-Star Superman.Grant gets Superman and Clark more than any other writer.He's like the Superman in writing Superman.And this edition is perfect for everyone who wants to read this magnificent piece of art.The extras are very rewarding and show you some rough sketches and ideas by Morrison and Rags Morales.If you like Superman even a little GET THIS BOOK!!Grant is the best writer.

After having stayed away from comic books for over a decade, DC's New 52 version of Action Comics seemed like the perfect place to jump back into the mix. I mean, a new (collectible) Superman series being written by none other than Grant Morrison? Grant Morrison--i.e., the author of The Invisibles? The guy who has been mentioned throughout the years in articles and whatnot by novelists and filmmakers that I admire? How many comic books writers can say the same? Unfortunately, not very many. So I couldn't wait to try out what THEE comic book writer was going to do with THEE superhero.

As most people have already mentioned about this new series, matters DO start off with a bang and with lots of flair. For instance, right off the bat, Morrison blesses his motor-mouthed characters with the ability to speak in dialogue that is not only flavored with spicy wit but also with casual brilliance; Lex Luther's take on Superman as an invasive species, for instance, is a great throwaway concept that, if developed further, could carry an entire book on its own. Even more thrilling, however, is the sense of true heat and urgency that these initial socially-minded chapters generate, defining what Superman is all about--good 'ol fashioned action and heroism--but with contemporary bite. Right?

For someone who was never keen on Superman, it was exciting to see that this new Superman would not be coming across as a distant godlike goodie-goodie. Nope, no Super-powered boy scout operating on a higher but inaccessible moral plane here. On the contrary, though clearly an alien (just ask Lex Luthor), Morrison's new Superman would not so much function as an earthly incarnation of a god as much as a heaven-sent avatar for the Everyman. More importantly, for the reader.

A super-powered Everyman as an avatar for the reader is a solid approach to Superman and a no-brainer of a concept. Indeed, wearing that now iconic "S" t-shirt, initially, Clark Kent/Superman simply comes across as a smart, generally good-mannered, well-meaning guy acting out from a justified sense of moral indignation and social outrage. This Superman is just like us if we could actually DO something about society's evils. (Superman himself knows this as he's not above taunting his enemies with his superpowers or lecturing them on our behalf. Hehe.) And yet, come issue #3, *** SPOILER*** when The People selfishly turn on their new hero, Morrison displays the kind of depth, complexity, and integrity as a writer that has made him an artist worth following. Morrison reminds us that Superman IS indeed an alien to us mortals who are sometimes too eager to impose earthly limits on ourselves. That is, we CAN do something about our outrage if only we were more like Clark Kent the man, and less like the convenient super-powered revenge fantasy that Superman tends to be in most people's minds (after all). Solid. *** SPOILER OVER ***

At this point I was giddy reading this stuff, thinking that I had clearly made the right choice in deciding to once again invest time, energy, and MONEY into the comic book medium. Heck, I was even enjoying Rags Morales' artwork, which, though intentionally shabby at times, it seems, also resonates with a quaint yet subtle Norman Rockwell-esque quality that underscores this more contemporary Superman with retro appeal. (Just take a gander at those cuffed blue jeans and scuffed worker boots on Supes there.)

But then... something odd and baffling starts to happen at about the midpoint of this volume. At around issue #4, for example, *** SPOILER *** when a nightarish army of factory robots comes to life, sheer chaos overtakes the proceedings and never quite lets go. So be it. *** SPOILER OVER *** The problem with this sudden development, however, is that the chaos never emerges organically from pertinent character and story issues to which we have been exposed so far. At least, not on any recognizable emotional or psychological level. Indeed, as characters that we have been eagerly following suddenly disappear, new characters, events, and concepts are introduced so joltingly and out of the blue that as a Superman newbie I began to feel as if I had missed some vital info and backstory about the character afterall, New 52 or no New 52. But it turns out that Morrison is cutting a lot of this stuff out from new cloth. Huh?

Purposeful or not, this lack of organic emotional depth and conflict to events devastates any intuitive understanding that the reader might derive from this otherwise complex story. Indeed, you WILL have to re-read many of these later issues simply to discover any kind of sense and clarity to the proceedings. But even then the payoff is merely intellectual. This isn't a story. What you have here is a series of intriguing concepts, promising story fragments, and interesting character moments wrapped around one big subversive idea after another, all of which begins to feel incredibly forced and labored.

What I find to be truly stunning about this unfortunate turn of events, however, is just how little regard Morrison shows beyond this point for the basic mechanics of storytelling. It truly feels as if the restless idealist in Morrison simply could not refuse the opportunity to impart some very urgent messages and important ideas about society, superheroes, the comic book medium, etc., to the enfeebled comic book reader at the expense of narrative cohesiveness and basic character development.(*** SPOILER *** Note that Morrison's Brainiac is essentially the universe's most anal and neurotic memorabilia collector/aficionado EVER. Got that? HaHa. *** END SPOILER ***)

Who does Morrison think he is, anyway? The Coen Bros? I suppose that proves just how serious Morrison is here, people! So listen up. Thing is, all chuckling aside, after a certain point, beyond frustration and flashes of genuine anger, you simply stop caring. Indeed, the lack of empathy for the poor reader on Morrison's part starts to feel increasingly quarrelsome and driven by bitterness when the storytelling becomes so purposely incoherent and painful to read that it clearly feels like, well, like the reader is being force-fed an agenda--albeit an agenda teeming with genuinely subversive concepts and big whopping ideas. (I dunno. With all the news coming out about the rampant editorial interference and indecision happening at DC these days you have to at least wonder if Morrison's storylines for Action Comics weren't tampered with or altered in some indirect way, no? Right?)

To make matters worse, a series of semi-irrelevant back-up stories not only adds to the overall chaos and confusion but finally forces you to give up as you realize that the-powers-that-be at DC originally included these stories solely to boost up the cover price on original issues. Seriously... We're in a recession.

Baffled as to how this volume of stories could have gone so horribly wrong, I went off and did some more research, learning that Morrison has indeed written wild-eyed, incoherent idea-driven comics before (see: Seaguy and some of his Batman Inc. stuff, for starters); in fact, a large portion of his output reads like a mosaic of mind-boggling ideas strung together only by raw unfiltered dream logic and sheer force of creative will. Admirable. Subversive, I suppose. But not exactly the stuff of classic storytelling. This kind of stuff sticks with you like fragments from a disturbing dream, but not as actual stories that you really care about.

As smart and creative as Morrison cleary is and as important as his messages might be, no storyteller is above the basic requirements of telling a good story. None. This new Action Comics doesn't work. Yet you get the feeling that some readers will be a little too quick and eager to say nice things if only to justify their enthusiasm for the material and/or for the author. Speaking of which, my final advice? If you haven't already, hunt down Morrison's All-Star Superman instead; with those stories, Morrison taps into the soul that makes the Superman mythos tick, in the process inspiring you to dream dreams of your own. With this new Action Comics series, however, Morrison devolves into exploring and feeding you HIS ideas on the character and HIS ideas only. Good for him. This reader, though, is officially off the Action Comics bandwagon.