It’s a great time for Superman fans, with the Man of Steel soaring into movies, TV, animation and comics. To help us stay on top of it, writer Tim Beedle shares what's grabbed his attention and why in this monthly Super-Family column.
Superhero comics are usually all about looking forward. Teases, cliffhangers, looming threats… Writers have all kinds of tools at their disposal to leave us wondering what’s going to happen next, and eager to get our hands on next month’s new issue.
However, Action Comics has been taking the opposite approach. Ever since Mark Waid and Skylar Patridge took the reins of Superman’s original ongoing title, it’s been all about looking back. And it’s been stronger than ever as a result.
Focusing on the original Superboy—meaning Clark Kent as he comes of age on his family farm—Waid and Patridge’s Action Comics reads like a more grounded version of the show Smallville. In fact, if you consider yourself a fan of the Tom Welling series, then the current Action Comics is as close to a must-read as you can get. But it’s a pretty great book for the rest of us Superman fans as well.
In Action Comics, Clark is just learning how to use his powers and figuring out where his limits are. Some of his most well-known abilities, like his heat vision, haven’t yet manifested. He’s still earning the trust of the world—its communities and particularly its governments and militaries. We’re seeing how the hero we know Clark will become starts taking shape and how the process was very much a learning curve, with plenty of mistakes made along the way.
We’ve also been discovering just how complicated being Superman really is. Other stories have demonstrated how overwhelming some of the Man of Steel’s abilities are for him at the beginning, but Action Comics #1092 was the first time I realized how difficult it might be to rescue someone from a crashing plane, especially when it’s an older aircraft. We’ve also learned how challenging it is to navigate when you’re flying thousands of feet above the Earth, how complex some natural disasters (like a plague of locusts) are to mitigate and how simple it can be for a rescue attempt to go wrong when Clark saves a blind, elderly woman from getting hit by a truck, only to have it backfire in a surprising, but highly believable way.
Of course, much of the difficulty comes from navigating around the rules Clark either sets for himself or has imposed on him by his parents. As he says at one point, “As if being a teenager wasn’t hard enough—extra abilities always meant extra rules. Rules that I thought were ridiculous.”
His frustration is understandable. It is hard being a teenager, and in order to hide his second life as Superboy, Clark deliberately has to make himself seem average and, in some cases, straight up weak. It’s something that proves particularly chafing when it comes to his interactions with Lana Lang, whom Clark has feelings for, but who’s crushing hard on Superboy. When you think about it, it really isn’t fair. Superboy, in many ways, is who Clark really is, while the underachieving nobody in faux glasses that he’s forced to present himself as to the world is a mask. Despite this, Clark fully grasps the importance of maintaining the façade, and so he grits his teeth and lets Lana pine after his alter-ego without ever letting her know it’s him.
I’ll admit, there are times when I even found myself frustrated by the rules placed upon Clark. Last month’s Action Comics #1093 provides some good examples when the farmers of Smallville, including Clark’s parents, find themselves getting evicted as the Smallville Bank unexpectedly forecloses on their farms. The whole thing seems pretty sketch, as most of the farmers claim to be up on their payments and even if that weren’t the case, it’s pretty unlikely that the whole town would be delinquent. Yet, the law favors the bank, so when Clark presents his parents with some gold nuggets he obtained by using his powers to burrow deep into an abandoned gold mine, he thinks he’s found a victimless solution. However, it’s quickly rebuffed by his parents.
At first, I found myself agreeing with Clark. With the mine abandoned, Clark’s claim to the gold was a valid one. No one would question it if an ordinary human prospector had shown up with it, saying he found it after days of digging in the mine. But it’s the fact that Clark isn’t an ordinary human that’s the problem. As Jonathan Kent says, “Son, I want nothing more than to save our home. A father who can’t provide isn’t much of a father. But having principles is more important than any farm. It’s our job to teach you to not get used to shortcuts.”
When Clark asks him why not, his father responds, “Because we don’t know where your powers come from! Suppose they go away someday? What then?”
The whole thing leaves Clark angry, but it’s a good point and something that’s easy to overlook. The Kents knew so little about their son’s abilities at this point. The fact that they might suddenly disappear is a legitimate concern. Clark might eventually need to get by and make a living like any other human, and as his parents, it’s their responsibility to ensure he can.
Of course, you can’t expect Clark to like it. No teenager likes being told no by his parents, and with a son capable of doing all that he can do, Jonathan and Martha Kent probably have to tell Clark no an awful lot. That can’t be easy for them either, and what soon becomes clear the more you read is that all three of them are in uncharted territory. Clark’s parents are raising a child who’s unlike any other child on the planet and that requires all sorts of consideration beyond what’s normal for parents. Meanwhile, Clark is being forced to navigate one of the most challenging periods in anyone’s life with dozens of additional restrictions placed on him. The fact that they’re all doing as well as they are with it—and that we know will ultimately succeed—just shows how much character the three of them truly have.
That’s something we should probably be grateful for, considering how badly this all could have turned out if it were different. But it’s also something all of us parents can find comfort and inspiration in. After all, if the Kents can get through their family difficulties, which on occasion result in the U.S. Army showing up at their front door, surely the rest of us can get through ours.
Tim Beedle covers movies, TV and comics for DC.com, writes our monthly Superman column, "Super Here For...", and is a regular contributor to the Couch Club, our recurring television column. Follow him on Bluesky at @TimBeedle and on Instagram at @notabard.
NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in this feature are solely those of Tim Beedle and do not necessarily reflect those of DC or Warner Bros. Discovery, nor should they be read as confirmation or denial of future DC plans.
