Action Comics 19-20 (New52) versus Action Comics 975 (Rebirth)

[SuperCrab]

So, I was reading Action Comics Volume 4 last night, the parts that I think equate to issues #19 and #20 (I have since the time I bought that switched to no collections and only individual issues, but I am obviously not re-purchasing what I already have in collection form).

I was really struck by how I loved those two rather ordinary New52 issues and how much more I enjoyed them than I enjoyed the Rebirth Action Comics #975.

I thought Andy Diggle really nailed the relationship between Clark Kent and Lois Lane- much more nuanced and adult than Rebirth. I loved the artwork from Matt "Batt" Banning- which I thought was stylized in a more realistic way than the more cartoonish looking Rebirth. Lois Lane, for example, is really hot in #19. I wouldn't say that the Lois in Rebirth is good looking or bad looking- she is too cartoonish for me to process in that way at all (The exception might be that issue with New52 Lois typing in her apartment before she died).

There were a ton of great action scenes and Superman stylized to look and act menacing while doing good in the New52 stuff I was reading. It wasn't weight down by my family this, or here's this guy with candy canes in the background because he's jealous of Superman's son that.

Veritas the parasitic hand thing were done well. I liked the action scenes at sea.

Like, I really do not get Rebirth. I've now read every issue of the two main Rebirth books (Superman and Action Comics) and I still don't get why people like them so much.

I'll grant people that Truth went on overly long and there were some groan-worthy points (Though I think there were also some good parts, and it was a good idea- it just needed to be condensed some), but this decision to change from the New52 was made before Truth.

And, really what I happened to be rereading from the New52 this week and the new issue of the Rebirth Action Comics brought something into focus for me. It isn't just that one Superman is younger with a certain costume and at a certain place in his place with certain tendencies, and that the Rebirth Superman is older with a different costume and at a different place in his life with somewhat different tendencies. It isn't just that one has a son and one doesn't. I mean, in all those cases, I lean towards the New52 Superman heavily, but that's not all there is to it.

I really do feel like, and I'm finally able to put my finger on it, there is a difference in the artwork and writing that has nothing to do directly with which Superman is which or the ancillary cast and so on and so forth, or at least is separate from that- which is that I think the New52 was trying to be slick, realistic (for superhero comic books, obviously, it's a relative thing), with a certain dramatic maturity and complexity, and set to appeal to the type of people who'd watch a television drama or action movie; whereas I think the Superman Rebirth is cartoonish both in artwork and in the stories they tell and how they tell them, the equivalent of a Saturday Morning Cartoon.

I mean, even when you look at how the two eras both used Mxy, there's a difference.

I don't understand why they had to do such a 180 or why it's so beloved. Beyond that, I can't understand why they can't throw people who got into what they did for 5 years of their flagship titles a bone and have a comic that continues in the same vein in an alternate universe or whatever. It's always got to be one or the other, it seems like. They publish dozens of issues of comics every month and there's no room for a New52 style Superman title?