Action Comics

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Action Comics should not be confused with Action, the controversial British comic of the 1970s.

Action Comics is the 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, a subsidiary of Time Warner.

Contents 1 Publication History 1.1 Superman 1.2 Hiatus 1.3 Early Anthology 1.4 Action Comics Weekly 2 Collections 3 Awards 4 Issue #1 Cover 5 External links

Publication History

Superman

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster saw their creation, Superman, AKA Kal-El, launched in Action Comics #1 in April 1938 (cover-dated June). (Approximate present-day value (In "near mint" condition): $440,000 USD.) Siegel and Shuster had tried for years to find a publisher for their Superman character (originally conceived as a newspaper strip) without success. The writer and artist had worked on several features for National Periodical 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. The dynamic "Man of Tomorrow" was an instant hit, and he permanently changed the medium of comic books and comic strips by formalizing a new fantasy subgenre. Action Comics was soon followed by the Superman comic book series in 1939, along with a wealth of other comics starring numerous costumed superheroes.

As of 2007, Action Comics is still in publication, surpassing 840 issues. This makes it the second-highest-number American comic book series, after Dell Comics' Four Color.

Hiatus

Action Comics is the second-longest running DC Comics series after Detective Comics; however, it cannot claim to have had an uninterrupted run, as it went on hiatus for three months twice, once in 1986 (when the regular Superman books were suspended during the publication of John Byrne's The Man of Steel six-issue limited series, and again in 1992 (when the Superman books went on a 3-month hiatus following the "Death of Superman" and "Funeral for a Friend" stories). In 1988, DC Comics tried unsuccessfully to return the format of the comic to an anthology and publish it on a weekly basis, but it returned to a monthly format less than a year later. (However, the temporarily increased frequency of issues allowed Action to surpass the older Detective Comics in the number of individual issues published.) Another departure from a strict monthly schedule were the giant-size Supergirl reprint issues of the 1960s and very early 1970s (published as a 13th issue annually). An issue #0 (October 1994) was published between issues #703 and #704 during the Zero Hour crossover event and issue #1,000,000 (November 1998) during the DC One Million crossover event.

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 Thomson, 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.

Action Comics Weekly

For a bit less than a year in 1988-1989, the publication frequency was changed to weekly and the title became Action Comics Weekly; 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.

To boost the profile of Action Comics Weekly, prior to its launch DC cancelled its ongoing Green Lantern title Green Lantern Corps and made Green Lantern and his adventures exclusive to Action Comics Weekly. The move was largely a failure, as many fans felt the Action Comics Weekly stories were of extremely poor quality. Green Lantern was soon moved out of the title and relaunched with a new limited series in 1989 (Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn), followed up by a new series in spring 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, Catwoman, Deadman, Nightwing, Phantom Lady (Dee Tyler), Phantom Stranger, Secret Six, Speedy, and Wild Dog.

Collections

• Superman Chronicles vol 1 reprints issues #1 - 13.
• Superman Chronicles vol 2 reprints issues #14 - 20.
• Superman in the Forties reprints issues #1, 2, 14, 23, 64, 93 & 151.
• Superman in Action Comics Archives
  • Volume 3 reprints issues #37 - 53.
  • Volume 4 reprints issues #54 - 68.

Awards

Action Comics #687 through 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.

Issue #1 Cover

• The cover of Action Comics #1 is one of the most referenced comic covers, including:
  • appearing in two consecutive episodes of The Simpsons when Krusty the Clown sets it on fire to light a cigar, and when Homer finds it at a swap meet for 5 cents and dismisses it as "junk"
  • The cover of Action Comics #1 is enacted by Kal-L in Infinite Crisis #5 in the setting of Earth-Two, the Golden Age DC Universe.
  • A reenactment of the cover also appears in Kingdom Come
  • The 2006 film Superman Returns also references the cover of issue 1 in two scenes.
  • It is re-enacted in a full page spread in the Elseworlds Frankenstein pastiche The Superman-Monster in which the Monster lifts Eloise Edge's carriage when the horses bolt.
  • The cover of Superman #136 shows the Superman of 2999 AD lifting a hovercar.
  • The cover of The Amazing Spider-Man #306 shows Spider-Man hoisting a police car in the same manner as Superman on the cover of Action Comics #1.
  • Hiro Nakamura, a character of NBC's TV series Heroes, is given Action Comics #1 from his grandfather in a graphic novel supplement to the series.
  • In the beginning the Tiny Toon Adventures episode "Citizen Max", while Montana Max is furiously destroying his room, at one point there is an extreme close up of a comic book that Monty tears to shreds. Its cover appears to be a reproduction of that of Action Comics #1, only under-detailed. The possible parody name is unknown, due to how tight the shot is on the comic. Only the word "Comics" is barely visible.

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