Back in 2010 I walked away from the Superman books for the first time.

It was very dramatic.

It’s kind of funny to think about now because it’s sixteen years later and I am in a completely different head space these days, but back then me dropping the Superman titles was a very principled stand against what I saw as DC Comics completely and utterly ruining Superman. The New Krypton story was an affront to my sensibilities and worse not only were they going to continue keeping Superman out of Action Comics, but Lex Luthor would be the star of that book. Once again Superman was getting sidelined in one of his own books and, to add insult to injury, Lex was going to be played as the hero. It was wrong.

All wrong!

Again, it was very dramatic.

And completely unnecessary.

And not accurate to what they were doing at all.

In the years since all of this went down, I have come to realize what was actually going on. Comics had changed and Superman had changed with them. “My Superman” was no longer the Superman appearing in the monthly books and hadn’t been for a long time. I just couldn’t see it. There is some irony to the fact that “my Superman” disenfranchised an entire generation of readers back in 1986 leading to some of them to have very strong reactions but when my time came I fought against it and acted pretty much like the people that hated Byrne’s Man of Steel, except I had the Internet and a podcast to vent my frustration.

So, I walked away and that lasted nearly a year. During that time period I started to come to terms with the reality of the situation. I realized that my time was over and that was okay. I also realized that being angry about comics was damn silly and that I shouldn’t be mad at the things that are supposed to entertain me.

That last lesson is one I still have issues with from time to time.

It’s a process.

During those ten months I still read comics. I even continued to fill out my Superman back issue collection and made some serious headway in the gaps in my Silver and Bronze Age books. I tried following other characters like I followed Superman and found that I wasn’t built for that. To be fair I still read Superman/Batman, but that was only because I was reviewing that title for the Superman Homepage.

Then, sometime during February of 2011, I was poking around Facebook, saw someone talking about the upcoming release of Action Comics #900, and got a weird feeling. I couldn’t quite describe it. These days it would be described as FOMO (fear of missing out) but back then that term wasn’t in the social media waters. It’s accurate, though. I felt like I was missing out. I thought about the fact that another anniversary issue of Action Comics was coming out, and I wasn’t reading the books.

What was I going to do?

There’s a scene in The Outsiders, the 1983 film adaptation of the S.E. Hinton novel, where the rumble (the big fight between the Greasers and the Socs) is about to go down. It’s a tense scene. The two sides had squared off, and everyone was waiting for that one thing to start the fight. Suddenly, Dallas (played by Matt Dillon) comes running in and shouts, “Don’t you know that a rumble ain’t a rumble without me!”

I am not trying to say that me picking up the Superman titles again is an “A equals A” comparison to two gangs from different social backgrounds in 1965 Oklahoma beating the hell out of each other, but Dallas’s line right at the beginning of the rumble is kind of how I felt about Action Comics #900 coming up.

Don’t know an Action Comics anniversary isn’t an Action Comics anniversary without me?

(That doesn’t have the same zing that Dillon’s line did and, to be fair, an Action Comics anniversary could conceivably happen without me, but at the time it was how I felt.)

Maybe I could change that?

Could I go back?

 Yes. The answer was yes. I’m not going to make this any more dramatic than it has to be.

I could definitely go back. It was well within the realm of possibility.

And so, I came back. I opened a box at Dave’s Comics in Fayetteville because Titans, my old store, had sadly closed in late 2010. I set about tracking down the back issues I needed to fill in the holes in my collection/catch myself up on what was happening in the Superman titles. What Dave’s didn’t have I bought on eBay. It was kind of fun and a bit of a race. I needed to have everything read by the time Action Comics #900 came out. It was the thrill of the hunt. The thrill of finding a good deal.

The only serious rule I made about coming back was that I would always know where the door was. Meaning, that if there was ever another time where the Superman books made me actually angry about reading them that I would stop. I was set on having a better frame of mind when it came to my entertainment.

It took some doing but by the time Action Comics #900 was released I was completely caught up. I read the whole Black Ring storyline that was going on in Action Comics and was current on the Grounded story happening in Superman. I also caught up on Supergirl and the new Superboy series. Cause, to quote a number from the musical Big River, as long as I’m in and in for good, I might as well go whole hog.

Then, Action Comics #900 came out, and controversy came with it thanks to the story written by David Goyer. If you have forgotten the story or weren’t there, the TL;DR version is Superman causes an international incident that has to do with protestors in another country. He reacts by renouncing his United States citizenship and this caused a bit of a stir. Comic fans argued about it. Political pundits argued about it. Think pieces were written. Podcast episodes were recorded. The whole thing ended up being a storm in a tea cup, but it was thing for a news cycle or two.

The important thing was that I was back as a Superman reader and collector. I even got a “promotion” over at the Superman Homepage and began reviewing Action Comics as a regular assignment. This resulted in me becoming Facebook friends with artist Axel Gimenez, which had never happened before. He appreciated the things I wrote about his art, which was really cool and still is. Axel is an amazing artist, and his Masters of the Universe work is fantastic.

Then, right as I was settled back in and had come to accept my new normal as a Superman fan, it was announced that DC was going to cancel all of their titles and start over under an initiative called The New 52.

My timing has always been excellent.

In that not at all kind of way.

The reason I’m writing about this is that DC recently solicited Action Comics #1100. I’m currently not reading the Superman titles on a regular basis. I walked away again in 2019 and came back in 2022 when the Joshua Williamson Superman title was announced. Once again, I set about catching up on the Superman titles that I had missed (which was a lot easier this time thanks to things being more digital) and read both Superman and Action Comics on a monthly basis for the next two years and change.

Then I stopped.  

There’s nothing dramatic about it this time. I’ve just changed as a reader. I like to binge stories instead of following them on a monthly basis. The current teams are doing great work and eventually I’ll read what they’re doing, but, for the most part, I’m just not a monthly reader anymore.

This could change at any time. It’s nice to feel like I have options.

However, I will be picking up Action Comics #1100 when it comes out, both digitally and in physical form. It will be sixth 100 issue anniversary since I started collecting the Superman titles in 1987 and I just couldn’t miss it. And I’m planning on catching up with Mark Waid’s Superboy stories that have been running in Action since last summer. Just to be caught up.

I may not be a monthly reader anymore, but don’t you know that an Action Comics anniversary issue ain’t an Action Comics anniversary issue without me?

(cut to C Thomas Howell getting punched in the face)

More to follow…