Action Comics #904 brings the curtain down on an era of Superman, DC Comics

In the last week of DC Comics before next week’s reboot kicks off The New 52, Paul Cornell brings the curtain down on Action Comics, the longest-running continuously numbered North American comic book series.  “Action Comics” No. 1 introduced the world to Superman in 1938.  A new “Action Comics” 1, by Grant Morrison and Rags Morales, will be released in September.

Cornell has his hands full wrapping up the “Reign of the Doomsdays” arc and trying to put a coda on the past 25 years or so of “Superman” tales.  I don’t know how well it’ll be reviewed, but I think he did try to celebrate some of the things I like about this version of the character.  There are some great lines and some quotes that could be given a couple of meanings – overall, I enjoyed Cornell’s run on the title, and I think he was aware of the need to provide some closure in this situation.

And sort of a last nostalgia dip in the Superman pool also came out this week with “Superman Retroactive: The 1990s,” which featured a new story by Louise Simonson and Jon Bogdanove, both of whom were key players in the 1990s success of Superman.  Jon Bogdanove talks about this last hurrah of the old Superman in an interview at

Set during Superman’s long-haired period following his return from the grave, the “Retroactive” story features Lex Luthor scheming against Superman and Metropolis.  It had a lot of throwbacks to the issues of the time.  While it might be confusing to someone who wasn’t immersed in Superman of the period, for this fan, this lost story fits right in.   The story also reprints “Superman: Man of Steel” No. 12 by the same creative team, about six months before the introduction of Doomsday.  As shown in issue 12, Bogdanove had a great facility for drawing monsters, something that would fit right in with the Doomsday storyline, which introduced the super-strong creature known as Doomsday.