Month 1: Decompress this

superman ACTION comics #1

Week one proper and we start with a GMoz book, so that's bound to be the highlight of the reboot, yes? RONG.

Another week, another book that doesn't know what it wants to be. It starts off reminding me of GMoz's Marvel Boy, but then turns into The Hulk. The first page with General Lane and the un-named Lex Luthor could be out of any Green Hulk book from the 70s onwards to be honest, and even has the added frisson of the General's daughter being the love interest. Stopping the train would have been good had everyone not immediately thought of the first Spider-man film. The confrontation between Supes and the cops at the beginning is mediocre Bat-book fare. And robocopters?

And yet there's something more to this. The pacing is excellent and it doesn't really feel like an origin book despite the fact it clearly is. There's lots of twists on things we thought we knew are rewritten - Lois and Jimmy work for a different newspaper, for example - and there's a real groundedness with Clark and Jimmy ACTUALLY USING MOBILE PHONES which bizarrely makes this one of the most modern-feeling comic books in modern memory.

Foreshadowing is similarly very well handled. We get told Superman is getting stronger. Luthor talks about something approaching through space, which might turn out to be the maguffin that enables the books that aren't in the past. We meet his landlady, Mrs Nxyly. Now, I'm not an expert on American surnames but not only does it seem uncommon I would guess it points this way:

The most intruiging foreshadow, however, is this:

There's something about the way he looks, and the way he speaks, and whatever it is he's doing with his tie that implies to me he's a big deal. And I'm on board to find out.

Because I'm a mug and bought so many books I get a variant cover with Superman wearing a different costume to the one he does in Action. Go me.