Like most of Morrison's work, I appreciate it much more on a second and third read, and after reading some of the creative commentary. It's hard for me to slow down and appreciate the careful design of each image, or to even track what's happening in the plot very well.

One thing working against this book is that there have been a lot of recent retellings of the Superman origin story (e.g., Superman: Birthright, and Superman: Earth One). What sets this version apart, and makes it worthy as the official relaunch of the character, is that it makes Superman both vulnerable and reckless. He's back to just leaping buildings, and while he can handle speeding bullets and runaway trains, he takes a beating in the process. And, like you would imagine in a young tough from a small town, there's a cockiness to him, too, not something we're used to seeing in Superman. ( )

Like most of Morrison's work, I appreciate it much more on a second and third read, and after reading some of the creative commentary. It's hard for me to slow down and appreciate the careful design of each image, or to even track what's happening in the plot very well.

One thing working against this book is that there have been a lot of recent retellings of the Superman origin story (e.g., Superman: Birthright, and Superman: Earth One). What sets this version apart, and makes it worthy as the official relaunch of the character, is that it makes Superman both vulnerable and reckless. He's back to just leaping buildings, and while he can handle speeding bullets and runaway trains, he takes a beating in the process. And, like you would imagine in a young tough from a small town, there's a cockiness to him, too, not something we're used to seeing in Superman. ( )

Morrison does a really great job rebooting Superman -- in the first arc. He then immediately in the second starts miring it in complicated lore and time travel logic, but oh well. Morales' artwork is still fantastic. And Fisch's back-up features are really quite good, especially the two on the Kent's background. ( )

I was confused with the first reading of this book. It is well done in many ways. It has a lot of fine points and transitions that are difficult to keep track of and understand. I was originally going to give it 3 stars but I enjoyed the back-up adventures so much and the explanatory descriptions at the end, that when I went back adn reviewed, it knitted together for me. ( )

I haven't made any secret of my love for Grant Morrison's enormous Batman and Son/RIP/Incorporated saga, and while I don't think I wrote an actual review of it on here, I loved Morrison's All-Star Superman as well - so when DC announced they were putting Morrison on Action Comics, I was naturally interested.

This collection is real good -- really, really good. Morrison's Batman and Robin collections have really suffered, in my opinion, from unevenness -- I applaud their dedication to shorter, 3-issue arcs, but it really sucks in the collections when you get 3 awesome issues that push the story forward and three terrible ones. Things are improved here - the two-part story where Kryptonite is introduced is a real clunker (which is where I dropped a star, although I feel kinda guilty about it), but the main arc is spectacular. Morrison's rebellious, slightly-bratty Superman takes a little getting used to, but makes for an interesting, fresh take on a character a lot of people consider to be used up, and his Lex Luthor oozes corruption right off the page.

The art is also really, really great - where Batman and Robin had whole issues that swerved right off the road into ugly-art territory, I only recall four pages (!) in this collection that could be called "bad". Morrison talks in the afterword about going for more physicality in the relaunch, and it really shows (check out the page with Superman and the train, or his "jump" up to space).

Things are rounded out with the backstories that ran in Action Comics with the main stories - nothing really spectacular, but nice to have, I suppose -- and an extensive post-mortem/afterword from Morrison and the different artists, which I always welcome. ( )