writer: Grant Morrison
artist: Rags Morales
Well, this was it! The grand finale of Grant Morrison's run on the New 52's Action Comics reboot. This issue was originally supposed to be the first of the new team's run, but Morrison got himself an extra one.
Morrison has made no bones about how he approaches superheroes. He wrote a whole book about them called Super Gods, after all. The phrase "nothing less than a new American mythology" appears on the first page of this issue. With the latest trailers for Man of Steel having everyone losing their kits, it's not hard to see the idea resonating lately, certainly not after the huge success of The Avengers last summer solidifying the place of this genre in the movies.
I somehow doubt that anyone will take the bulk of this run as an iconic take on Superman. Morrison used elements of this particular mythology that don't tend to translate into other mediums. Mxyzptlk appeared in Lois & Clark, but in the form of Howie Mandel. I happen to think this material was brilliant, how Morrison used the 5th dimension and its imps (as he previously did when concluding his run on JLA) to reflect on the overall legacy of Superman, including his inspiring of the Legion of Super-Heroes in a thousand years. When I talk about Superman's iconic legacy outside of comics, it shouldn't be that hard to understand. In six movies now his adventures have simply been trying to figure out his relationship with humanity, let alone the greater impact a whole career has. In Superman Returns, thought to have taken on a backlash because it hewed too closely to films that ended like the Schumacher Batman era, it briefly reflects on this concept, with Lois Lane, formerly Superman's greatest champion, now more famous for writing an article wondering if the world still needed him.
Action Comics #18 itself takes the form of one massive fight with the villains who have been assembling around Superman since the start of the story, none of them particularly memorable except for being characters who defined themselves as being diametrically opposed to him. Previously it was really only Lex Luthor who filled that bill. Superman's enemies are said to be his real weakness, that they aren't as memorable as Batman's or Spider-Man's. The movies keep doing Luthor and Zod because once you go past them...?
Morrison is famous for embracing high concept. He writes his scripts in language that is so distinctly his own that it can sometimes seem impenetrable. That's the vibe that's very much on display here. He's fully capable of reversing this instinct, by going sublimely simplistic, but that's just not how this story ends.
Still, there's a clever moment when Superman says, "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." Basic physics, right? Yet it's something infinitely clever to hear in a comic book called Action Comics, like the punchline seventy-five years in the making. Was that Morrison's whole point?
The best moment of the issue, however, is Superman's last statement: "You should see the other guy." It's the pitfall of being the icon of all superhero icons. He can sometimes seem completely remote, unapproachable. Most of what Morrison was trying to do in the early issues was reverse that perception. Sure it gets crazy along the way, but it boils down to exactly that, in as many words a fight, just another fight. He won. And he has something funny to say about it afterward. Is that what you should really take away from the issue?
The traditional Sholly Fisch backup follows, this time with art from Chris Sprouse, who first rose to prominence in collaboration with Alan Moore on Tom Strong and of course Supreme, which at that time was Moore's obvious pastiche on Superman. This association is only appropriate. The story itself is mostly wordless, set sometime in the future in a museum exhibit. An alien boy stands up to bullies (who happen to be human), earning the respect of his peers in the process. The Superman statue winks at the end. Superman winks on the last panel of every era's close these days, all thanks to what Moore himself did the last time he did superheroes for the big publishers.
By now you've also heard that Andy Diggle opted out of continuing his commitment of following Morrison in this title, probably for similar editorial concerns that have riddled the New 52 pretty much since its inception. I can't pretend to understand why so many writers have had such a problem with editors, but it's almost become as memorable a story as anything that the writers have been telling themselves.
Anyway, so long Grant Morrison, and thanks for all the greatness!
The only thing I know about Andy Diggle is that his name makes me think of a hybrid between Andy Dick and Dirk Diggler.
ReplyDeleteI suppose as far as the movies go the weakness of the villains is most of them beyond Luthor and Zod aren't workable because they aren't really human. Brainiac is a robot and Mxyzptlk is an imp and Doomsday is an alien and Bizarro is just...Bizarro. Of those Brainiac would be easy to work around if you make him like a Terminator with a human shell over a robot body that would eventually be exposed. (You could do the same for Metallo or whatever he's called.) And I'm sure you could come up with something for Bizarro that is human enough. Doomsday as a CGI construct would only work in tandem with another more human villain but really since Christopher Nolan is producing the movie and he hates CGI, I wouldn't hold my breath. And there's nothing scary about an imp either so that wouldn't work.
Anyway, I haven't checked around for rumors, but you have to think they'd introduce Luthor in some way in the movie and then use him as a villain in the second one, right? Like "Batman Begins" or "Sherlock Holmes" maybe he wouldn't be there visibly, but you have to think they'd at least mention him to set that up for the sequel.
If you follow some recent speculation, Luthor does indeed appear in the movie.
DeleteThe other funny thing about Andy Diggle is that he's basically been made into a character on Arrow (he wrote a "year one" story for Green Arrow a few years ago), so he's linked to DC for the foreseeable future one way or another.
His run will one day take on legendary status like Byrne's run. Interesting how Andy Diggle's been portrayed on Arrow. I didn't known his history.
ReplyDeleteThis was an interesting post! Thanks for sharing.
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