Action Comics #1000 - Cheap Thoughts

I've thought a lot about how I want to open this piece. Talking about Superman and what he means to me, what he means to audiences, what he means to the comic industry, and what he means to society as a whole. A character that has been around for 80 years. A character that everyone knows simply from a look. A character that gets adapted a thousand times over, yet somehow was perfected from issue 1. Superman isn't a character that had to grow into his ideals, he's been them from his first ever story. Yet here we are, a thousand issues later, and what we get is half a dozen of DC's best writers telling the most basic of stories you could tell with the man..and somehow making each one a perfect representation of why Superman will always be important and iconic.

This comic isn't so much about what Superman is, but what he means to people, and what they mean to him. Several of the stories are just following ordinary citizens, with them discussing how their interactions with him, whether he saved their lives, helped redeem villains, or even inspired them to save someone else. Likewise whenever the story focuses on the Man of Steel, it's discussing how grateful he is to have had parents like Jonathan & Martha Kent, or how meeting just one good person can put him in a good mood for the whole day. My favourite story of the bunch was 'The Car' written by Geoff Johns, Richard Donner, Oliver Coipel with art by Alejandro Sanchez. Telling the story of the car owner that Superman smashed all the way back on the cover of Action Comics #1, which is not only a brilliant idea for a story, with some beautiful artwork and visual storytelling (The literal bird & plane panels were especially great). But the main reason is that it shows Superman has been perfect from issue 1, everything about how he's represented works in context of both then and now, he seems a lowly thug, stops him from committing crime, and then actually puts in the effort to learn about him, see what made him the way he is, and tries to help him. He doesn't turn him into the police or violently attack him, he talks to him, gives him advice and sometimes, that's all you need, someone to believe in you, and when that person is Superman, that can do wonders.

I don't even know what else to say about this, almost every story is perfect in someway, it's just telling all the reasons why Superman is as important as he is, every line of dialogue, every story just had me going "Yeah, I agree". The only story that I can say didn't do anything for me was of course the last one, because it's not a celebration of Superman, it's a prologue for Brian Michael Bendis' new run, which don't get me wrong, I'm excited for (Though it means losing Peter J Tomasi so that saddens me), and of course they were going to advertise it in the biggest Superman book of the year, but I just wish this book can have been just celebrating Superman. The story itself wasn't bad, just not what fitted this type of book.

In summary: Action Comics #1000 is just excellent, really really really excellent. If you love Superman, you'll love this book. It's as simple as that.

-Danny