15 Years Ago, DC’s Greatest Writer Gave Superman the Best Book of a Hated Era (and It Still Holds Up)

Superman is in a great place right now, but it’s taken a long time to get there. The history of the Man of Steel is one of the most interesting in comics. For decades, he was the most popular superhero of them all, but he’d eventually lose his spot on the top as Marvel overtook DC. Crisis on Infinite Earths gave us the first major changes to the character, and in the last 41 years we’ve gotten several different versions of the hero as the publisher has rebooted their universe numerous times. In 2011, we got the biggest change to the Man of Steel, and to DC Comics, in years: the New 52.

The New 52 restarted the DC Multiverse, and Superman got a new origin and world. However, fans were given a reason to believe that things were about to be amazing for the first superhero because the publisher put their greatest writer on a book that was positioned as one of the flagships of the line: Grant Morrison on Action Comics. Things looked very bright for the hero and his fans. However, in 2026, we know how it all turned out; the New 52 is one of the worst eras of Superman ever. Morrison’s Action Comics run still stands up as one of the greatest Superman series ever, though.

Morrison’s Action Comics Gave the New 52 a Perfect Superman

The New 52 is a legendary mistake in DC history. It’s hard to find exactly where the reboot went wrong, but that’s more because the whole thing was doomed to fail from the start. Crisis on Infinite Earths was planned for years; the New 52 was a snap decision that caused chaos behind the scenes. There was no real plan for anything, and this shined through in numerous ways. This was the environment that Morrison was given Superman in, but as always, they excelled.

Morrison wrote the all-time great All-Star Superman, and was known for their love of the Last Son of Krypton, so letting them start the character from scratch at the beginning of a new DC Universe seemed like the perfect idea. Morrison wanted to take the character back to basics, making him the man of the people of the Golden Age, as well as give readers some of the weirdness that typified the Superman comics of the Silver Age. Their 19 issues on Action Comics would revolve around Fifth Dimensional imps, old school characters like Captain Comet, the Legion of Superheroes, and Kryptonian aspects of Superman like Krypto and the Phantom Zone, with all of it coming together in surprising ways.

Morrison is one of those creators who helped push DC forward in the ’80s and ’90s, and they have always been able to take the classic ideas of DC and modernize them. They wanted to return the character to his place on the cutting edge of comics, and their Action Comics did that beautifully. There was a time skip over the run of the book (their first story took place at the beginning of Superman’s career as a hero, and then went to the present day), but it always felt like the story of a young hero learning the ropes, even in the present. Morrison loves to talk about Superman with their work, and this run said a lot about the character and his role in superhero comics.

Action Comics (Vol. 2) #9 is one of the most unique Superman stories out there. This issue re-introduced readers to Calvin Ellis, the Barack Obama-inspired Superman of Earth-23, but it was actually about the way that Superman was stolen from his creators and used to push ideas that they were against. Morrison talked smack about DC Comics and Warner Brothers and they paid them to do so. These 19 issues are one long story that you have to pay attention to, the narrative twisting and turning in on itself. The whole run was about showing that Superman could work in the modern age with an old school attitude, and it was flawless.

Morrison’s Action Comics Is the Only New 52 Superman You Need to Read

There are plenty of great eras of Superman comics out there, but the New 52 isn’t one of them. DC was trying to modernize the character, but none of the creators seemed to any vision for the hero other than Morrison. They wanted to use ideas from the character’s heydays, the Golden and Silver Ages, to find a new voice for the Man of Steel. Their time writing the book, Action Comics (Vol. 2) #1-18 and #0, was able to create a new version of the character that felt new, but still paid homage to the past.

You’re not going to find anyone recommending too many Superman stories from the New 52. Since it ended in 2016, DC has been trying to apologize to fans of the Man of Steel for the mistakes made during the New 52 in a variety of ways. However, the biggest shame is that Morrison gave the publisher a perfect new Superman with their Action Comics run, a modern take on the character that could have grown in great new directions. Instead, we got a bunch of creators taking him in a million different directions, none of them as valid as Morrison’s.

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