Action Comics

Not to be confused with Action (comics).

Action Comics
Action Comics #1 (June 1938), the debut of Superman. Cover art by Joe Shuster.
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
Schedule	Monthly (Weekly 1988–89)
Format	Ongoing series
Genre	Superhero
Publication date	April 1938 - Present
Number of issues	909 (as of January 2012)
Main character(s)	Superman
Collected editions
Superman Chronicles Vol 1	ISBN 1-4012-0764-2
Superman Chronicles Vol 2	ISBN 1-4012-1215-8
Superman in the Forties	ISBN 1-4012-0457-0
Archives Vol 1	ISBN 1-5638-9335-5
Archives Vol 2	ISBN 1-5638-9426-2
Archives Vol 3	ISBN 1-5638-9710-5
Archives Vol 4	ISBN 1-4012-0408-2
Archives Vol 5	ISBN 1-4012-1188-7

Action Comics is an American comic book series that introduced Superman, the first major superhero character as the term is popularly defined. The publisher was originally known as Detective Comics, Inc., and later as National Comics and as National Periodical Publications, before taking on its current name of DC Comics.

Publication history

Superman

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster saw their creation, Superman (also known as Kal-El, originally Kal-L), launched in Action Comics #1 in April 1938 (cover-dated June). Siegel and Shuster had tried for years to find a publisher for their Superman character (originally conceived as a newspaper strip) without success. Superman was originally a bald madman created by Siegel and Shuster who used his telepathic abilities to wreak havoc on mankind. He appeared in Siegel and Shuster's book Science Fiction. Siegel then commented, "What if this Superman was a force for good instead of evil?" The writer and artist had worked on several features for National Allied Publications' other titles (Slam Bradley in Detective Comics, for example) and were asked to contribute a feature for National's newest publication. They submitted Superman for consideration and, after re-pasting the sample newspaper strips they had prepared into comic book page format, National decided to make Superman the cover feature of their new magazine.

Early anthology

Originally, Action Comics was an anthology title featuring a number of other stories in addition to the Superman story. Zatara, a magician, was one of the other characters who had their own stories in early issues. (Zatanna, a heroine introduced in the 1960s, is Zatara's daughter.) There was also the hero Tex Thompson, who eventually became Mr. America and later the Americommando. Vigilante also enjoyed a lengthy run in this series. Sometimes stories of a more humorous nature were included, such as those of Hayfoot Henry, a policeman who talked in rhyme. Gradually, the size of the issues was decreased as the publisher was reluctant to raise the cover price from the original 10 cents, so there were fewer stories. For a while, Congo Bill and Tommy Tomorrow were the two features in addition to Superman (Congo Bill eventually gained the ability to swap bodies with a gorilla and his strip was renamed Congorilla), but soon after the introduction of Supergirl in issue #252 (May 1959) the non-Superman-related strips were crowded out of Action altogether. Since then, it has generally been an all-Superman comic, though other backup stories such as the Human Target occasionally appear.

Hiatus, name changes, publication changes, and special numbering

Cover of Action Comics #800 (April 2003). A modern take on the cover of Action Comics #1.
Art by Drew Struzan.

In number of issues, Action Comics is the longest running DC Comics series, followed by Detective Comics; however, it has not had an uninterrupted run, having been on a three-month hiatus on two separate occasions. The first of these occurred during the summer of 1986, with issue #583 bearing a cover date of September, and issue #584 listing January 1987. The regular Superman titles were suspended during this period to allow for the post-Crisis revising of the Superman story through the publication of John Byrne's six-issue The Man of Steel limited series. Publication was again suspended between issues #686 and #687 (February and June 1993) following the "Death of Superman" and "Funeral for a Friend" storylines, before Action Comics returned in June with the "Reign of the Supermen" arc. (The two "Funeral for a Friend" issues, #685 and #686, featured the cover announcement of "Supergirl in Action Comics", highlighting the passing of Superman.)

For slightly less than a year in 1988–1989, the publication frequency was changed to weekly and the title became Action Comics Weekly, and was an anthology format series. After May 1988's landmark issue #600, issues #611-615 all bore August cover dates. The Action Comics Weekly experiment lasted only until the beginning of March 1989, however, and after a short break, July's issue #643 brought the title back onto a monthly schedule. (However, the temporarily increased frequency of issues allowed Action to further surpass the older Detective Comics in the number of individual issues published. It originally passed Detective Comics in the 1970s when that series was bi-monthly for a number of years.) This change lasted from issue #601 to issue #642. During this time, Superman appeared only in a two-page story per issue; however, he was still the only character to appear in every issue of the run.

Prior to its launch, DC cancelled its ongoing Green Lantern title Green Lantern Corps, and made Green Lantern Hal Jordan and his adventures exclusive to Action Comics Weekly. During the Action Comics Weekly run, a Green Lantern Special was published in 1988, tying in with the events happening in Action Comics Weekly. Green Lantern was soon moved out of the title, with Green Lantern Special #2 (1989) published concluding the story plots from Action Comics Weekly, and the character was relaunched with a limited series in 1989 (Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn), followed up by a new ongoing series in June 1990 (Green Lantern vol. 3).

The rest of these issues featured rotating serialized stories of other, mostly minor, DC heroes, as try-outs that led to their own limited series. Characters with featured stories in the run included Black Canary, Blackhawk, Captain Marvel, Catwoman, Deadman, Nightwing, Phantom Lady (Dee Tyler), Phantom Stranger, Secret Six, Speedy, and Wild Dog. Each issue also featured a two-page Superman serial, a feature which, according to an editorial in the first weekly issue, was intended as a homage to the Superman newspaper strips of the past.

The final issue of the weekly was originally intended to feature a book-length encounter between Clark Kent and Hal Jordan penned by writer Neil Gaiman. While Gaiman's story primarily teamed up Green Lantern and Superman, it also featured other characters from Action Comics Weekly, including the Blackhawks (in flashback), Deadman, and the Phantom Stranger. The story ran counter to DC editorial policy at the time as it portrayed Hal Jordan and Clark Kent as old friends who knew each others secret identities. This was not considered canon in 1989 (though other issues of Action Comics Weekly implied Hal and Clark were friends) and Gaiman was unwilling to change this aspect of the story. The story was pulled and a different story was run. Gaiman's story was finally published as a one-shot in Green Lantern/Superman: Legend of the Green Flame in November 2000.

Another departure from a strict monthly schedule were the giant-size Supergirl reprint issues of the 1960s (published as a 13th issue annually): issues #334 (March 1966), #347 (March/April 1967), #360 (March/April 1968), and #373 (March/April 1969).

An issue #0 (October 1994) was published between issues #703 and #704 as part of the Zero Month after the "Zero Hour" crossover event. There was also an issue #1,000,000 (November 1998) during the "DC One Million" crossover event in October 1998 between issues #748 and #749.

2000s

After the "One Year Later" company-wide storyline, Action Comics had a crossover arc with the series Superman, titled "Up, Up and Away!" and which told of Clark Kent attempting to protect Metropolis without his powers and eventually regaining his powers. Afterward, he leaves Earth and is replaced by the new Nightwing and Flamebird as the starring characters of the book.

Starting with issue #875, Thara Ak-Var and Chris Kent, two characters introduced in the "New Krypton" story arc, took Superman's place as the main protagonists of the comic, while Superman left Earth to live on New Krypton. These are written by Greg Rucka with artist Eddy Barrows, who left the art duties on Teen Titans to pencil Action.

Starting in July 2009, Action Comics includes back-up stories featuring Captain Atom.

On February 22, 2010, a copy of Action Comics #1 (June 1938) sold at auction for $1 million, besting the $317,000 record for a comic book set by a different copy, in lesser condition, the previous year. The sale, by an anonymous seller to an anonymous buyer, was through the Manhattan-based auction company ComicConnect.com.

Although DC had initially announced that Marc Guggenheim would take over writing of the title following the War of the Supermen limited series, he was replaced by Paul Cornell.

Cornell has stated that Lex Luthor would feature as the main character in Action Comics from issues #890-900 and Death would appear in issue #894, with the agreement of the character's creator, Neil Gaiman.

In April 2011, the 900th Action Comics issue was released. It served as a conclusion for Luthor's "Black Ring" storyline and a continuation for the "Reign of Doomsday" storyline.

Relaunch

On June 1 2011, DC announced that it would relaunch 52 titles with all-new numbering. Action Comics was relaunched with issue #1 being written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Rags Morales. The story takes place early into Superman's career. He is not yet trusted by the citizens of Metropolis and he wears a basic costume consisting of a caped t-shirt, jeans and work boots.

Collected editions

The Action Comics series is included in a number of trade paperbacks and hardcovers. These generally reprint only the Superman stories from the given issues.

• The Superman Chronicles
  • Volume 1: reprints issues #1-13; New York World's Fair Comics #1; Superman #1; January 2006; ISBN 978-1-4012-0764-9
  • Volume 2: reprints issues #14-20; Superman #2-3; February 2007; ISBN 978-1-4012-1215-5
  • Volume 3: reprints issues #21-25; New York World's Fair Comics #2; Superman #4-5; August 2007; ISBN 978-1-4012-1374-9
  • Volume 4: reprints issues #26-31; Superman #6-7; February 2008; ISBN 978-1-4012-1658-0
  • Volume 5: reprints issues #32-36; Superman #8-9; World's Best Comics #1; August 2008; ISBN 978-1-4012-1851-5
  • Volume 6: reprints issues #37-40; Superman #10-11; World's Finest Comics #2-3; February 2009; ISBN 978-1-4012-2187-4
  • Volume 7: reprints issues #41-43; Superman #12-13; World's Finest Comics #4; July 2009; ISBN 978-1-4012-2288-8
  • Volume 8: reprints issues #44-47; Superman #14-15; April 2010; ISBN 978-1-4012-2647-3
• Superman in the Forties, includes issues #1-2, 14, 23, 64, 93, 107; November 2005; ISBN 978-1-4012-0457-0
• Superman in the Fifties, includes issues #151, 242, 252, 254-255; October 2002; ISBN 978-1-56389-826-6
• Superman in the Sixties, includes issue #289; October 1999; ISBN 978-1-56389-522-7
• Superman in the Seventies, includes issue #484; November 2000; ISBN 978-1-56389-638-5
• Superman in the Eighties, includes issues #507-508, 554, 595, 600, 644; April 2006; ISBN 978-1-4012-0952-0
• Superman: The Action Comics Archives
  • Volume 1: reprints issues #1, 7-20, and summarizes #2-6; May 1998; ISBN 978-1-56389-335-3
  • Volume 2: reprints issues #21-36; December 1998; ISBN 978-1-56389-426-8
  • Volume 3: reprints issues #37-52; August 2001; ISBN 978-1-56389-710-8
  • Volume 4: reprints issues #53-68; June 2005; ISBN 978-1-4012-0408-2
  • Volume 5: reprints issues #69-85; March 2007; ISBN 978-1-4012-1188-2

Awards

Action Comics #687-689 were part of The Reign of the Supermen storyline, which won the 1993 Comics Buyer's Guide Fan Award for Favorite Comic Book Story that year.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Action Comics #1
• List of DC Comics publications

External links

• Action Comics at the Grand Comics Database
• Action Comics at the Comic Book DB
• Action Comics cover gallery
• Action Comics