History was made this week with the release of the 1000th issue of Action Comics, the first non-weekly comic book series to reach that magical number. Naturally, when you have that many issues released over the years, you are bound to have a number of amazing comic book covers, as well. Interestingly, though, when it came to Superman covers, DC Comics (then called National) tended to put more of their cover efforts into Superman's solo title, Superman, then Action Comics. So most of what you think of in terms of the most iconic Superman covers appeared on that series. However, that left plenty of amazing covers for Action Comics, as well.

Due to there being an inordinate amount of great covers from certain eras, we felt that the fairest way to handle this list, to give you an accurate view of Superman's history, would be to limit each decade to five covers. Therefore, there might be certain eras (like the 1960s, in particular) who otherwise would have had more books on the list. Note that in terms of "greatness," we're taking into account not just how well-drawn the covers are, but how iconic and historic they were, as well. Essentially, which covers would show up if you were writing a history of Superman.

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THE ORIGINAL

The first issue's cover (by Joe Shuster) gets its own spot on the list because it is such an important cover that it really isn't fair to compare it to the other books on the list. This is the comic book cover that changed the entire comic book industry, as it was the introduction of the first comic book superpowered hero (or "superhero," if you prefer) and right from the cover, you can see just how different Superman is from the other heroes appearing in comic books at the time.

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Interestingly, the cover is essentially just a blown-up panel from inside the comic itself, and the comic itself was made by cutting up comic strips that Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created to try to sell Superman as a newspaper comic strip. So it's a blow up of a cut up panel. Interesting journey to becoming one of the most familiar images in comic book history (and certainly one of the most homaged images).

1930s/1940s

ACTION COMICS #13

So much time has passed since the introduction of Superman that we sometimes lose track of just how different the character was at the time. Things that we now just take for granted were once seen as truly unusual events of the day. For instance, Superman's super strength is now just an accepted part of the character's status quo, but in the early years, it was still very novel. We hear "More powerful than a locomotive" and we just accept it as a matter of course. At the time, though, seeing Superman actually be more powerful than a locomotive, like this Joe Shuster comic book cover, was a thrilling sight.

ACTION COMICS #27

One of the first comic book artists to "ghost" draw Superman (that is, draw the character not only without credit, but while pretending to be a different artist) in place of Joe Shuster (who could not keep up with the deadlines of a character who was exploding in popularity and thus more and more content featuring the character was expected) was Paul Cassidy. Much of what we think of as the traditional Golden Age depiction of Superman was designed by Cassidy, who had been one of Shuster's earliest assistants. On this striking cover (Gary Frank would later homage this cover during Superman's 75th anniversary), Lois Lane was also featured for the first time, establishing the historic dynamic between Superman and his regular damsel-in-distress, Lois Lane.

ACTION COMICS #40

What's notable about this Fred Ray cover is that it was published in the Summer of 1941, half of a year before the United States would get involved in World War II. However, the rhetoric in superhero comics was decidedly anti-Nazi well before the United States actually declared war on Nazi Germany. This is the first major propaganda cover for Action Comics. There would be other, likely more notable covers (involving slapping the Japanese, for instance), but the casual racism that was involved in war propaganda led us to pick this earlier cover as the symbol for Superman's Action Comics war propaganda covers. It's a really strong drawing by Ray.

ACTION COMICS #52

Something that often gets overlooked when thinking of the history of Action Comics is that for roughly a decade, the book was primarily an anthology. Superman was clearly the most famous character in the series, but he was not the only hero in the book by any stretch of the imagination. This great 1942 Fred Ray propaganda cover shows the other heroes of the series, getting an extremely rare cover spotlight along with the Man of Steel. From left to right, you have the Americommando, Vigilante, Zatara and Congo Bill.

ACTION COMICS #112

After the war, the covers of Action Comics often used clever imagery on the cover. There's a really good one where Superman punches the keys on a giant cash register to knock some crooks out with the giant drawer of the cash register. However, the cover that we're going to spotlight is one of Superman's most popular villains of the 1940s, Mister Mxyztplk (the spelling of the time). Mister Mxyztplk led to some very creative cover designs, like this one by Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye (the Superman art team of the era).

1950s

ACTION COMICS #171

One of the regular cover artists of the early 1950s for Superman was Win Mortimer, who combined two of the major cover themes of this era on this cover. One, Superman using then-modern technology (Superman making a film recording of himself revealing his secret identity) and two, Superman's secret identity being at risk. Most covers of this era involved Superman's identity seemingly being revealed.

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ACTION COMICS #241

This stunning cover featuring the introduction of the Fortress of Solitude shows just why the concept of the Fortress is such a popular one with fans. The guy is carrying a giant key to open the door! How awesome is that? This cover was by Curt Swan and Stan Kaye. Swan would soon become the artists most associated with Superman (although he was not yet the regular interior artist by this point - Wayne Boring was still the regular artist).

ACTION COMICS #243

In many ways, the late 1950s/early 1960s are best remembered for being the "transformations" era of Superman (and especially Superman's pal, Jimmy Olsen, who transformed just as many times as Superman). This bizarre cover by Curt Swan and Stan Kaye perfectly encapsulates this era of Superman stories (other examples of this era is when Superman is turned into a mummy-like version of himself or when Superman had to get a brand-new, odd-looking yellow and purple costume).

ACTION COMICS #252

The great Al Plastino designed the look for Supergirl in her debut comic book story, but Curt Swan was brought in to actually draw the awesome cover for her first appearance (with Plastino inking Swan, so that the cover still looks like Plastino's story within). How could you not want to check out this comic with a cover like that?

ACTION COMICS #255

Under the editorial direction of Mort Weisinger, Superman comics of the 1950s and 1960s were known for finding something popular and then driving it into the ground. One thing that they found that fans were interested in was Bizarro, Superman's dim-witted polar opposite. So there was suddenly a huge influx of Bizarro covers in the late 1950s, with this Curt Swan and Stan Kate cover being a standout.

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1960s

ACTION COMICS #280

Stan Lee rightly gets credited with taking fan interactions to a whole new level with his creation of Bullpen Bulletins, and other areas where fans could feel as though they were interacting with Lee directly. However, years before Stan Lee began doing that sort of things, Mort Weisinger was already setting the standard at the time of interactions with fans.

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Weisinger's theory was that the fans typically know what kind of comic book that they would want to buy, so he took suggestions from fans to heart. Not only that, but he would go further and specifically take ideas directly from fans and have his artists turn them into covers. A very young Cary Bates, years before he actually went to work for DC Comics as a teenage writer, wrote in with a cover idea that Weisinger had Curt Swan and Stan Kaye turn into an actual cover. He then had the same basic cover idea (giant Brainiac lording over Superman) re-used for a Superman cover a few years later!

ACTION COMICS #285

When Supergirl was introduced and became a regular cast member in Action Comics (as the main back-up feature), for whatever reason Superman decided that she had to keep her identity a secret from the rest of the world. Fans, naturally, thought that idea was not a good one, but it continued for a few years so that when she finally got to reveal her identity to the world, it was a really big deal. This Curt Swan/George Klein classic cover captured the hoopla of the event well.

ACTION COMICS #300

For many years, Action Comics did not really celebrate anniversary issues the way that other titles did. Superman celebrated 100, 200, etc, but not Action Comics. However, purely by accident, Action Comics #300 actually ended up being a classic issue anyways, as Curt Swan and George Klein deliver a standout cover showing Superman trapped in a far-off future. Just the image of the beard alone was enough to draw in curious readers of the time.

ACTION COMICS #311

The early 1960s was a key point in the history of "Superdickery," that is, covers based on making Superman look like a jerk (while the story within the comic would explain why Superman looked like a jerk. It was always either a misunderstanding or part of a convoluted plot to stop some bad guy). This cover was seemingly a rare exception, as red kryptonite split Superman and Clark Kent into two separate beings, with Clark being good and Superman being evil. Evil Superman takes over the world. However, we learn that it is still a convoluted plot anyways (split Superman had to pretend to be evil to stop some evil aliens).

ACTION COMICS #374

As the decade came to a close, Action Comics' covers took a seismic shift as Neal Adams became the de facto cover artist for the series. The interior art was still by Swan, but the eye-catching covers, like this one showing Superman wearing a disguise, were delivered by Adams, who quickly became one of the most popular artists in the entire comic book industry (and who got a generation of fans used to the idea that the cover was often going to look a lot better than the comic book inside the cover).

1970s

ACTION COMICS #419

Like other great comic book artists of the past, like Will Eisner, Jack Kirby and Jim Steranko, Neal Adams kept pushing himself with experimental approaches to comic book art. One of the notable examples of this saw him following in Kirby's path to work photographs into his work, like on this stunning comic book art/photo collage cover. Jack Adler supplied the photograph for the backdrop. This image was used extensively throughout the 1970s to promote Superman, especially when the Superman movie was getting ready to be released.

ACTION COMICS #443

One of the drawbacks of having only five covers for each decade is that an artistic genius like Nick Cardy gets short shrift. Cardy was the regular cover artist for Action Comics for a few years in the mid-1970s and he came up with a stunning array of creative cover ideas. There was the image of the Flash running right into a Superman punch, there was the image of a bunch of kids hanging out on a stoop, reading Superman comics, there was the image of Lois Lane waiting for Superman while two Supermen flew towards her (in a homage to Carmine Infantino's "Flash of Two Worlds" cover), there was a Jaw parody - there were many amazing covers. The one that we are choosing to spotlight for Cardy is one that followed an artistic theme that he often used on covers, which was the sort of metafictional depiction of characters coming out of the pages of actual books.

ACTION COMICS #466

In the 1970s, a major change to the Superman titles was the introduction of a new editor, Julius Schwartz, who took over the books from Mort Weisinger after Weisinger had the books for decades. Schwartz's comics were known for the approach of coming up with covers first and then coming up with a story to match the cover. This led to many outlandish covers that the creative team of the comics had to match. A great example of this is is this Neal Adams cover featuring Lex Luthor beating the heck out of kid versions of Superman, Batman and the Flash.

ACTION COMICS #484

While this might technically be an homage to an early 1950s Win Mortimer cover, this 40th anniversary cover by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Dick Giordano, featuring the marriage of the Earth-2 version of Superman and Lois Lane, is a stronger drawing and has become accepted into the Superman history books as the definitive version of this particular idea.

ACTION COMICS #485

As we noted earlier, when it came to the most iconic covers, typically the main Superman series was given more attention in this regard. Neal Adams drew covers for both, but it seems like his better ideas ended up on the higher-selling Superman title (it makes sense, as you want to pay more attention to your higher-selling book). Thus, you get weird situations like this, where Adams is homaging, well, Adams. This is a reprint of the Superman revamp from the early 1970s (when Schwartz took over the titles) that featured an iconic Adams cover. This is a reprint of that story, so Adams did a new version of the same cover he did back then. It's a Gil Kane-esque style by Adams and we wish we could pick a more original cover, but this is so good that we know fans would wonder where this cover is on any "best of" covers list.

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1980s

ACTION COMICS #546

One of the all-time great comic book cover artists was Gil Kane, who was actually Marvel's more or less official cover artists for a while there in the 1970s. In the early 1980s, he teamed up with Marv Wolfman for a run on Action Comics and he delivered some standard dynamic Kane style covers during this period.

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There are a few to choose from, but we'll go with this team-up of Superman with the New Teen Titans (also written by Wolfman at the time) and the Justice League of America.

ACTION COMICS #583

The end of Curt Swan's more than 25-year-long run as the main Superman artist was celebrated on this cover, with Swan inked by his longtime collaborator, Murphy Anderson (to the point where they would often be called "Swanderson," as they are credited on this cover). This was the last Superman comic book before his new, Post-Crisis on Infinite Earths continuity kicked in and this was a heck of a send-off.

ACTION COMICS #600

This is an homage to the first Superman Annual. It is a cover design that has been used many times over the years, but this one was one of the most memorable usages of the design, in this celebration of Superman's 50th anniversary with drawings by John Byrne, Kurt Schaffenberger, Dick Giordano, Curt Swan and Mike Mignola in the little insets (inks by George Perez, Jerry Ordway, John Beatty and Murphy Anderson)

ACTION COMICS #601

In 1988, DC decided to try a bold new idea by having Action Comics turn into a weekly anthology series. It still featured a two-page Superman story in every issue, but the book now starred Green Lantern, Blackhawk, Secret Six, Nightwing and Black Canary (with Green Lantern being the main lead at the start of the series). Such a momentous occasion was celebrated by a cover by the great Dave Gibbons.

ACTION COMICS #609

In the early 1980s, Black Canary was given a new costume that looked like the 1980s exploded all over her. When she got her own feature in Action Comics Weekly, she returned to her classic fishnet-style costume. The great Brian Bolland memorialized the exit of her previous, much-disliked costume in a hilarious and quite memorable cover (Bolland's first Superman cover was on an issue of Action Comics earlier in the decade, but we felt that this one was more notweworthy).

1990s

ACTION COMICS #662

In the early 1990s, DC made major waves when they had Clark Kent and Lois Lane get engaged. One of the big changes in the Post-Crisis version of Superman is that Clark Kent was seen as a much more desirable guy and he and Lois Lane had a nice, normal courtship that ended with her accepting his marriage proposal. Of course, the problem was that he had not yet explained to her that he was Superman, and that reveal took place at the end of Action Comics #662, depicted by this striking Kerry Gammill and Brett Breeding cover.

ACTION COMICS #684

In what was a sort of big deal at the time, DC Comics got Art Thibert, one of the hotter art talents of the era, to become the regular cover artist on Action Comics. He drew a number of well-stylized, eye-catching covers for the series. Interestingly enough, though, is that his run finished up during none other than one of the most famous Superman stories of all-time, the Death of Superman! Thibert was right in there with this cover featuring Superman and Doomsday battling away.

ACTION COMICS #687

As you might imagine, the Death of Superman ended with, well, the death of Superman. After he was then buried, there was a brief hiatus where there were no new Superman comics. That ended when four new characters, each claiming to be Superman, returned to the DC Universe in the Reign of the Supermen. Each of the four Superman titles had a die-cut cover with a spotlight on one of the new Supermen. In Action Comics, Jackson Guice and Denis Rodier showed "The Last Son of Krypton," who turned out to be a Kryptonian artificial intelligence known as the Eradicator.

ACTION COMICS #714

One of the more memorable stories from David Michelinie's run on Action Comics was a story where the Joker poisoned Lois Lane and the only way to cure her was to kill the Joker. Would Superman really kill the Joker to save his fiancee? As it turned out, the answer was "No, he will not." So when Lois Lane dies, it turns out that the cure for the poison actually kicks in right at "death" anyways, so she is revived and is all fine. The Joker's plan was either to watch Superman deal with letting Lois Lane die or seeing Superman kill him and then see that his murder was for no reason! That's some dark stuff. This story first began with the Joker attacking Metropolis a few issues earlier, behind a great Kieron Dwyer and Denis Rodier cover.

ACTION COMICS #738

In the late 1990s, Superman's powers mutated and suddenly instead of having super-strength, the solar energy in his body turned into literal energy, so Superman became a being of blue energy. It was one of the odder points in Superman's history. Stuart Immonen and Jose Marzan Jr. did their best on this cover to try to make Blue Superman look as cool as he possibly could.

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2000s

ACTION COMICS #775

At the turn of the century, the rising popularity of comic books like the Authority and the Ultimates were often seen as specific rebukes to the established superheroes of the era. In other words, if these comics were specifically cool because they were different from the other comics of the era, then doesn't that inherently make the comics that they are trying to differentiate themselves from "uncool" in comparison?

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That was the idea that Joe Kelly tried to explore in "What's so funny about Truth, Justice and the American Way?" where Superman fights a new team, The Elite, who are meant to be like the Authority, with Superman proving that his way of life is still relevant even with the existence of heroes like The Elite. The comic caused quite a stir at the time. Tim Bradstreet did the cover for the book.

ACTION COMICS #785

Few comic book artists seem to pair as well with a given character quite like Ed McGuinness and Bizarro. He really had a flair for the character and he featured him on a number of notable covers around this time, with one of the most popular being this cover (inked by Cam Smith) to a Bizarro spotlight issue that told the story inside the comic backwards, Bizarro-style!

ACTION COMICS #800

We're all so used to Alex Ross being the guy with the epic painted covers for anniversary issues that when someone like Drew Struzan drops a cover like this one, showing the cover of Action Comics #1 from a different perspective, it is particularly shocking. It's an amazing cover, but there likely was some cognitive dissonance at the time. "Wow, awesome Alex Ross cover...oh, wait."

ACTION COMICS #844

Geoff Johns, Richard Donner and Adam Kubert began a short, but memorable run together with this very stylized and very distinct Adam Kubert cover. Kubert had just signed an exclusive contract with DC after spending many years at Marvel and he made his regular DC Comics debut with quite a splash!

ACTION COMICS #858

After his short run with Kubert and Donner, Geoff Johns then teamed up with Gary Frank for a memorable run that also re-set the Man of Steel's connection to the Legion of Super-Heroes. That connection was highlighted on this stunning Gary Frank cover, giving Superman a Legion flight ring for the first time in decades.

2010s

ACTION COMICS #894

People were stunned when Paul Cornell got Neil Gaiman to give him permission to have Death show up and play a major role in Cornell's run on Action Comics, which briefly starred Lex Luthor. The cover by David Finch and Matt Banning was a real sensation at the time.

ACTION COMICS #1 (ACTION COMICS #905)

In 2011, DC Comics rebooted their entire DC Universe, re-launching every title (with 52 comics launched that first month) with a brand-new #1. Action Comics was re-booted by Grant Morrison, Rags Morales and Rick Bryant. The cover to the first issue of the "New 52" version of Action Comics was drawn by Morales and it showed Morrison's new take on Superman's early days, where he now initially wore jeans, a T-Shirt and a cape when he became Superman. Note the reference to 1938's Action Comics #1 on the cover by Morales.

ACTION COMICS #9 (ACTION COMICS #913)

Before the New 52, Grant Morrison had been doing some great work with DC's Multiverse and during Final Crisis, he introduced a world where an African-American version of Superman was President of the United States (essentially, it was "What if Barack Obama was Superman?"). Well, during his Action Comics run, Morrison re-visited the Multiverse with his stunning Gene Ha cover featuring the Superman of that world.

ACTION COMICS #987

During DC Rebirth, Action Comics and Detective Comics both went back to their original numbering, and also began to be released twice a month (along with other major DC Comics, like Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Justice League, etc.). One of the major figures of DC Rebirth was the mysterious Mr. Oz, who was manipulating the DC Universe from behind the scenes. In Action Comics #987, we learned that Mister Oz is actually Superman's father, Joe-El, who survived the destruction of Krypton! This revelation came in a book with a striking lenticular cover designed by Nick Bradshaw.

ACTION COMICS #1000

Finally, the book that commemorates the 1000th issue of Action Comics features a cover by Jim Lee that celebrates the return to basically Superman's original costume, after a number of years where Superman's costume went through various new looks (including an armored look for the early parts of the New 52). This throwback cover by Jim Lee and Scott Williams really stands out as a wonderful celebration of the Man of Steel.

Feel free to share your favorite Action Comics covers in the comments section or on CBR's social media!