I have a confession to make... I understand that these first Action Comics are collectors items and that Superman himself is often considered one of the world's best super heroes but this early stuff is just plain boring. How many times can a gag or scene be repeated? We get it, the guy can run/swim/jump at amazing speeds and distances. It seems that almost any time there is a vehicle, be it a car in AC 1, a cruise ship in AC 2, or a train in AC 3, he always catches up to it or outruns it. No bullet or knife is a match for his skin, which deflects his attackers every time. I find these stories to be, for the most part, a sequence of events that is simply reshuffled for every new issue.
Worst of all, however, are the bad guys. The have the subtlety of a fog horn and the intelligence of one too. I do recognize, and appreciate, that they represent some of the problems of corporate greed and corruption that were commonplace in that time period (1938). However, whether it was a munitions magnate or money-hungry mining company owner, when Superman deals with them, makes them face their problem head on, and then when they turn tail and apologize, making everything right in the world, the entire process is painfully formulaic and cheesy. Maybe I'm missing something? Maybe there's a subtlety in this work that I can't tease out? To me, once you read the first couple of Action Comics, you've read them all.
I have the same issue as Gabe, I do not think Action Comics Superman is all that interesting. Personally, I attribute this boredom more to complacency and familiarity with the character. I grew up with Superman facing villains that were larger-than-life, villains that threatened the cosmic balance of the universe. Superman's villains in the original issues of Action Comics are in comparison minuscule and therefore, nonthreatening. However, readers at that time would be incapable of making this comparison when first encountering Superman and his adventures. Therefore, Superman's adventures for them were still full of novelty and ingenuity. Where we see repetition, they would have seen as innovative.
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