DC Comics’ ‘Action Comics’ Superman Superstars Event Was An Interesting Failed Experiment

In January 2024, DC Comics ended a multi-year run on Action Comics to kickstart an experiment. In June, that experiment comes to an end, and it’s for the best.

As announced last week at the ComicsPro retailers’ event, the eighteen month Superman Superstars experiment comes to an end as superstar writer Mark Waid and up and coming artist Skylar Patridge take over Action Comics. Frankly, it’s about time.

The Superman Superstars initiative was branded as an initiative to bring the biggest names in comics to the Man of Steel. It was kickstarted with a re-imagining of legendary Superman rogue Bizarro. Since that time, we’ve seen alien invasions, a war with Brainiac, a Phantom Zone invasion (totally different from the alien invasion), and a debate about the ethics of the supervillain prison system.

The idea was sound. Getting some of the biggest names in comics to write a single arc featuring the Man of Steel, with some of DC’s best artists. And the writers they promised delivered- starting with Jason Aaron in his first DC work in years, and continuing with Gail Simone, Joshua Williamson, Mark Waid, John Ridley and ending with G. Willow Wilson– as did the artists- John Timms, Eddy Barrows, Rafa Sandoval, Clayton Henry, Inaki Miranda and Gavin Guidry.

The issue here isn’t in the talent. It isn’t in the stories either. Frankly, outside of Aaron’s (which had an interesting concept, but the execution grossly misunderstood a key element of how the story would work), the stories were a baseline of good (though Wilson’s is still to come). The issue is that the format resulted in stories that didn’t feel like they counted, and it’s a problem the industry has faced for a very long time. 

In the past, the anthology was a very popular format. Series like Showcase, DC Comics Presents, The Brave & The Bold, What If…?, Marvel Team-Up and Marvel Two-In-One lasted for years at a time. Yet, the format has fallen out of favor. It’s hard to point to a reason, because frankly I think every instance might have different reasons. The fact is that anthologies don’t sell, and DC turned one of their two flagship titles into an anthology.

For me, the concept fell short because they came and went so fast, that my head was spinning. Aaron and Simone’s stories were both three issues each, giving neither enough time to really breathe and develop, which is a problem also facing Ridley’s story currently in progress. Williamson’s was just borrowing a little extra space for his big Brainiac story that had been stewing in Superman, giving him some room to add some subplots and additional characters (hi Kara and Conner!) while not stopping the momentum of Superman too much.

That even puts aside though the uniformity of the stories- Aaron wrote about the world being overrun by Bizarros. Simone saw the world overrun by new alien invaders. Williamson had the world overrun by… Brainiac. Ridley’s current story, and Wilson’s upcoming story both are offering something different, but that shouldn’t come at the end of the initiative.

The most successful story here was, by far, Waid and Henry’s Phantom Zone story. It was a fast paced action (hah!) adventure story. Yes, it did involve yet another invasion, but because DC gave Waid 12 issues, there was room to breathe. Superman and Supergirl stop a monster from the Phantom Zone, then Kal leaves his family to explore the Zone alongside his old friend Mon-El. Kara gets to protect Metropolis, while Conner and Kenan get into some trouble in space. There’s a little bit of time travel, the Justice League, and a big emotional climax.

Why did it work? Because it had time and space to tell its story. Unfortunately though, after it wrapped, Waid’s run has been “paused” to wrap the initiative. And worse, DC ran the story weekly, printing it at a pace that made it incredibly hard to keep up with it. 

I hope the publisher has learned a lesson from the failure here. The idea was interesting without a doubt, but I can’t see how they thought it would end up any way than it did, considering the last few attempts at the same sort of series- including Batman: Urban Legends and Batman: The Brave & The Bold– failed as well.

Come June, we’re about to see Action Comics return to the stability it needs, and I hope it helps Superman fly to the heights we know he’s capable of.