Action #1 re-imagines the concept of Superman starting off as a vaguely socialist vigilante, which gives the character somewhere to go and seems quite contemporary given current events.
The problem being that a number of fundamental underpinnings of the Golden Age Superman simply don't work within the context of a modern setting, at least not without taking on a ton of unintended baggage.
For instance, I don't doubt that outspoken leftist Grant Morrison intended for his point-for-point recreation of Superman's deeds in the original Action Comics #1 to be seen as a refreshingly progressive change of pace from the character's relatively conservative portrayals in the decades since the Golden Age, when Superman went from being a trust-buster to being a Boy Scout.
The problem, though, is that after the better part of a decade in which the Bush administration touted 9/11 as "proof" that America needed to throw its civil liberties straight out the window in order to "bring the evildoers to justice" and "protect homeland security" (which Obama hasn't seen fit to overturn in his three years in office), there's really no way for me to read a scene in which Superman uses torture to extract a legally inadmissible confession without thinking that Dick Cheney would be first in line to pat him on the back.
It's the same reason why Atlas Shrugged has become even more absurd than it already was in recent years, because for as much as conservatives masturbate over it like teenagers with their first copy of HUSTLER, the fact of the matter is that, if Dagny Taggart were real and alive in modern-day America, and pushing to install a cutting-edge new rail system, her biggest supporter would be JOE BIDEN.
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The problem being that a number of fundamental underpinnings of the Golden Age Superman simply don't work within the context of a modern setting, at least not without taking on a ton of unintended baggage.
For instance, I don't doubt that outspoken leftist Grant Morrison intended for his point-for-point recreation of Superman's deeds in the original Action Comics #1 to be seen as a refreshingly progressive change of pace from the character's relatively conservative portrayals in the decades since the Golden Age, when Superman went from being a trust-buster to being a Boy Scout.
The problem, though, is that after the better part of a decade in which the Bush administration touted 9/11 as "proof" that America needed to throw its civil liberties straight out the window in order to "bring the evildoers to justice" and "protect homeland security" (which Obama hasn't seen fit to overturn in his three years in office), there's really no way for me to read a scene in which Superman uses torture to extract a legally inadmissible confession without thinking that Dick Cheney would be first in line to pat him on the back.
It's the same reason why Atlas Shrugged has become even more absurd than it already was in recent years, because for as much as conservatives masturbate over it like teenagers with their first copy of HUSTLER, the fact of the matter is that, if Dagny Taggart were real and alive in modern-day America, and pushing to install a cutting-edge new rail system, her biggest supporter would be JOE BIDEN.