What a reboot!
Metropolis is a city, ruled by insider trading and slave-like labour. One man stands against all that. His name is Superman and he doesn't like the way things are done.
The Good
- Superman finally has a character again. In this one, Superman is not a blank canvas to push whatever political agenda the writer feels the need to push. He also isn't about some lame "We're all equal"-thing, from the looks of it. He's for the people. The city was alright, built upon injustices that had many be alright, but a few suffered. Superman couldn't stand for that. So he changed it. It's very refreshing to see Superman as a champion of the people and not the guy who punches aliens.
- It had both Action and it felt like a Comic. While this isn't the deepest and most mind-screwy story there is, it's a nice, fun action romp with Superman having an actual personality. Superman has his moments to shine as Supes, his moments to fail as Clark and it's very obvious that he hasn't quite found himself yet.
- The cover. It's a very fitting cover. It has Action, it has Superman, it has exactly what we're getting in the comic. I love it when a comic book cover fits the content.
The Bad
- There's only one real complaint: the story. I know Grant Morrison has ways of screwing with readers' minds even when he's not completely coked out of his head. The difference is rather noticeable: You have the coke-trip-made-comic known as The Invisibles and you have regular mind-screwing with Batman RIP. This, sadly is nothing of the sort. It's - for Morrison's standards - a very generic story. No twists, just straight storytelling. While this isn't a bad thing necessarily, I was waiting for the "What the fuck"-moment and it didn't come.
The Verdict:
Get it. It's good, it's fun, it's a comic book. Action Comics #1 shows us that comics don't have to be grim and dark and brooding in order to tell a good, current comic story. And I, personally, am very grateful for that.
