Interlude....(cue the music)

Due to life, etc...I won't be able to continue the story of the Wasp until later this week...here is an article I wrote a few years ago on the Action Comics Team-up era. I hope you enjoy it.

The Crisis on Infinite Earths maxi-series has always been acknowledged as the definitive break between the old, haggard and confused (but wonderfully entertaining) continuity of the first 50 years at DC Comics, and the clean break that the company needed to revamp and streamline their universe, especially for their core characters of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. While leading to a large number of title cancellations, this also would lead to a major revamping of the way certain titles were handled at DC.

Wonder Woman was rebooted, with a new series by George Perez and Greg Potter. Although many of the features of the old title were retained, one significant change was rather than being completely based on the Amazons of old, she started as a lost soul from a tribe of cavemen that entered the baby of clay made by her mother, at which point she received her blessings, rather than of being from the Greek Gods themselves. Batman was rebooted only slightly, by having timelines shift and Golden Age villains becoming villains on this new combined Earth (leading to situations like Basil Karlo, the original Clayface, being able to meet up with all the other versions in a group known as the Mudpack, for example.) Superman’s reboot, as shown in the Man of Steel limited series by John Byrne, was a little more extensive. Superman was now the only survivor from Krypton, which was reimaging to an emotionally sterile environment where the inhabitants all live to enrich their minds and reproduction is done by splicing DNA patterns. Clark was never Superboy (which at one point in the 1960’s was DC’s sixth best selling title!), and the Kents live on well into Clark’s adulthood.

Naturally, with these changes, the comics themselves also changed. Detective Comics and Action Comics, although DC’s third and fourth chronological anthology titles in their history, were the only ones left of The Big Seven, (New Fun/More Fun Comics, New Comics/New Adventure Comics/Adventure Comics, Detective Comics, Action Comics, All-Star Comics, Sensation Comics, and Star-Spangled Comics.) from the National Periodical/All-American Comics original run of titles still being published (Both companies of course, merged into Detective Comics Inc. in 1944). For Detective, it was business as usual, although it had moved into secondary status compared to the main Batman title in sales and quality. Action, however, was temporarily put into hiatus for three months, after the iconic issue 583 in 1986, while the aforementioned Man of Steel mini-series was rebooting Superman’s mythos. (Sidenote: This means that until the cancellation of Detective Comics v1 after issue 881, Detective was the oldest continuously published American comic book in existence.)

According to many sources (including the man himself in several interviews), John Byrne was given a large role in revamping Superman in any way he wished to, with few restrictions. The old Superman title was renamed Adventures of Superman, beginning its numbering at 424, with the incredible artistic duo of Marv Wolfman (from Batman & the Outsiders) and Jerry Ordway (All-Star Squadron) teaming up, and a brand-new Superman title done by Byrne himself. These two titles would form the core of the rebranding of the Superman franchise over the next few years. (We are now in 1987. I’m getting to my point, I promise.)

One of the most interesting books of the late 1970s and 1980s (and one of the only new titles to survive the DC Implosion of 1978) was a neat little title called DC Comics Presents. At the time this title made its debut, the comic book team-up magazine was in vogue (especially at Marvel Comics with Marvel Team-Up and Marvel Two-in-One.) DC’s The Brave and the Bold, originally a try-out magazine where many characters of the Silver Age had made their debuts, had been tuned into a Batman team-up magazine for a few years, where Batman would meet (supposedly) random heroes and team-up with them to stop a crime and then the heroes would go their separate ways at the end. Of course, there was World’s Finest Comics, featuring Batman and Superman together on a monthly basis, which as a title had been around since 1939. However, DC Comics Presents used the same format as the Brave and the Bold, but using Superman as the static hero in every issue. DC Comics Presents was a solid seller for DC in the early 1980’s, and this was reflected in some of the characters that Superman partnered up with. However, with the changes from the aftermath of Crisis in Infinite Earths, World’s Finest and DC Comics Presents were cancelled (the Brave and the Bold was cancelled with issue 200 in 1983, replaced with Batman and the Outsiders, which was also cancelled not long after.)

Accordingly, there was an opening for a new concept in Action Comics, thus it was decided with issue 584 to turn Action into a team-up format. John Bryne was involved on every issue of this format. The first people to team-up with Superman are the New Titans. In a story called “Squatter”, we see Superman in an apparent rage, showing amazement with the fact of how powerful he is. One of the Titans, the human/machine hybrid known as Cyborg realizes that something is wrong and confronts Superman about the situation, costing him an arm and a leg, literally. Calling in his teammates, Cyborg can only watch as Wonder Girl, Changeling and Jericho fight Superman. At one point when Jericho finally manages to use his power of controlling other peoples’ bodies on Superman, a physically-challenged gentleman arrives explaining that he is actually Superman, that due to a mind-transfer device created by the new arrival’s real person his mind is not in his body. Jericho manages to control Superman’s body long enough to have the transfer affected back and all is well.

The team-ups went on for fifteen issues, with characters as varied as Hawkman and Hawkwoman, Checkmate and the Metal Men (twice) as some of the heroes that team up with the Big Blue Boy Scout. But, (to me, anyways) the best of the team-up issues had to be Action Comics 592 and 593, featuring Big Barda and Mister Miracle. In Action 592, while taking a walk through Suicide Slum, Barda encounters a denizen from Apokolips that was so scummy that Darkseid actually banished him because he couldn’t stand him. The character, appropriately, is named Sleez. Sleez manages to control Barda by taking her Mega-rod and makes her into a dancing girl (in the sewers, yet!) in a classic image from this book. (I read this story this week; it is what inspired this column.) Naturally, Superman gets involved when Barda recovers control of herself and he stops her from hurting Sleez. Superman, of course, ends up under Sleez’s power by the end of the book,  (as does Barda again) leading us to issue 593, where Mister Miracle shows up trying to find the missing Barda. He finds her all right, as Superman and Barda are about to begin filming a, shall we say, NC-17 movie and leave it that. Naturally, the heroes save the day and Superman and Barda decide to “forget anything that may have happened.”

My least favourite of the run was Action Comics 597, which had Lana Lang and Lois Lane as the “team-up” flavours of the month. The cover looked promising, as it shows Superman breaking up what is beginning to appear to be a cat-fight between Lois and Lana. In a story titled ‘Visitor”, Lois goes to Smallville trying to find information on Superman. When she sees Superman with Lana she gets suspicious and jealous that Superman might be in love with her. The Kents try to help Clark cover his identity (this is before Lois knows) by saying that they secretly raised Superman with Clark, but Lois get furious as she seems to understand that this is why Clark always gets exclusives with Superman. This story just was one I didn’t enjoy as much (even the two Metal Man stories, in Action 590 and 599 I found more interesting.)

The reaction to this revamp was not exactly well received. Due to sales quickly diving on the title, a decision was made in late 1987 that with Action 601, (right after the special anniversary issue) Action Comics would change in two ways. One, it would become a 48 page book returning to its anthology roots having several features, including Green Lantern, who currently didn’t have a book. They also decided that the comic would change its name (and frequency) to Action Comics Weekly in effort to create a new readership for the company’s most recognized (and in some quarters, revered) title. However, at the time of this latest format change, Action had the distinction of being the only team-up title left on newsstands, and yet again it remained as always, lovable in its own way.

(As a kid, Action and Adventure Comics was what managed to get me out of the lair, other than school.)

NOTE: I wrote this originally for a website that no longer exists. I was feeling a little nostalgic with Action Comics 1000 due out in less than two weeks.

Ottawa News and Notes - Shout out to Mike Martin and Susie Gauthier at Dark Age Comics; they deliver new books monthly around Ottawa at discounted prices. They also offer loyalty bonuses. Check out their website at http://www.darkagecomics.com/. I buy something from them everytime I see them at a show, (usually Showcase Presents books, but I did buy almost one quarter of the 1996 Supergirl series run from them at a Lansdowne show a long time ago.) They have been at Ottawa Comiccon, the Geek Market and other various shows.

Anyway, until the weekend, enjoy your books.