Action Comics #7 – Review

By: Grant Morrison (writer), Rags Morales (penciller), Rick Bryant (inker), Brad Anderson (colorist)

The Story: Ooh—I love your miniatures in a bottle collection.  Wait, is that my house in there?

The Review: I tend to feel Superman has the same problem as the Flash in terms of appeal.  The whole heart of the Man of Steel is he’s one of the finest and purest superheroes you can think of, a blank perfection which makes him respected and admired, yet also inaccessible.  To exacerbate matters, he’s just so darn powerful that he can afford to stick to his guns; if you have the ability to solve any problem without sacrifice, you never have the problem of making tough choices.

In All-Star Superman, Morrison overcame these obstacles by giving our hero big, Herculean challenges which allowed him to actually struggle.  Morrison’s attempting something like that here by taking away a sizable amount of Superman’s strength and knowledge, putting him on a lower footing than his problems.  It’s certainly raised the stakes for him across the board, but for us readers, seeing him wheeze as he jumps hurdles that wouldn’t have even made him blink some months ago has been a rather jarring gear-shift.

That’s why this coming showdown with Brainiac (I’m pretty sure we all saw him coming some time ago, so I won’t even bother calling this a spoiler) is a very welcome event.  Superman’s not only going to have to fight without the benefit of his peak abilities, he’s going up against one of his greatest foes of all time—don’t let that “1.0” designation fool you.  Brainiac, like Luthor, derives his menace from his mind, not his brawn.  Even though Superman spends only a very brief part of this issue physically fending off Brainiac’s various robo-guards, he’s under attack the entire time as Brainiac constantly strives to screw with his mind.  The climax of all this is Brainiac’s attempt to force Superman into one of those sticky choices that plagues so many of his heroic peers from time to time: save the people of his origin or those of his adoption?

Ultimately, while the question may be a nail-biter for the rest of us, it’s a moot point for our hero.  For one thing, Brainiac miscasts the decision as a “nature versus nurture” problem, as if Superman choosing to save either Kandor or Metropolis is a symbol of loyalty.  The issue is Clark knows nothing—or at least, very little—of his pre-Smallville life.  So the real question is whether his desire to learn more about his background is powerful enough for him to betray the life he lives now.  No matter how you slice it, the answer is probably not.  Besides, this is Superman; he would never allow anyone to force him into such a quandary: “I won’t choose between any one life and another!  All of these people are under my protection, you got that?”

Action Comics #3 – Review

By: Grant Morrison (writer), Rags Morales (penciller), Rick Bryant (inker), Gene Ha (guest artist), Brad Anderson & Art Lyon (colorists)

The Story: Corrupt people rabidly spouting nonsense on TV—what will fiction think of next?

The Review: Anybody who’s read much of Superman has wondered this question at some point: which is the real alter-ego, Superman or Clark Kent?  For most superheroes, their secret identity serves as a mere cover for their vigilantism; their true selves emerge when they spring into action.  For a while now, interpretations of Superman have gone the opposite route.  When Clark slips on those tights and spit-curls his hair, he’s still Clark at heart, only more so.

In this issue, we spend most of our time with him out of costume, getting to know him beyond the proletariat grandstanding he does when he’s got his cape on.  If anything, Clark the man is even more stridently principled than Clark the Superman.  As a citizen, his powers can’t come into play, so his indignation becomes more hot and vocal: “You need to be the cop you wanted to be when you were a kid…  Back to cop school, guys!”

It makes perfect sense that at this younger segment of his life, Clark would be rasher, bolder, and more competitive, all of which makes him a more compelling figure now than the endearing but slightly straight-laced reporter of DC past.  You just relate to him more, like when he says in exasperation, “Aliens on the news!  This is what I’m saying…”  If you’re a reader who finds the media at large a mind-boggling place to be these days, you know what Clark means.

Actually, that line builds upon a mystery from last issue, namely how much Superman knows about his origins.  Judging from his scoffs at the sensational reportage of “space monsters,” he really seems to have no clue.  This, of course, explains why he demonstrates such a singularly human lack of self-restraint in his temperament, and why he has such passionate, folksy ideals.  Once he learns the truth, he’ll have to re-evaluate both these qualities, and it may be rough, especially since the public negativity has him already doubting this whole Superman thing.