In addition to eight decades of Superman and Lois Lane, this week's release of Action Comics #1000 also celebrated the 80th anniversary (to the very day) of the release of the first issue of Action Comics. The character of Superman has gone through a number of changes in those 80 years and those changes are perhaps best realized simply by looking at the evolution of Action Comics itself.

In the past 80 years, Action Comics went from being an anthology (in which Superman was just one of many characters featured) to eventually being simply another Superman comic book. How he got to that point is all the fun. For the sake of this piece, we'll break our look into one hundred issue segments, just to give us some sort of boundaries to work with in describing the different eras of the series.

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#1-99

In 1938, National Allied Publications had three other ongoing series, a humor comic (More Fun Comics), an adventure comic (Adventure Comics) and a crime comic (Detective Comics) and wanted to do another new adventure series. There was a big drive behind this new comic, so all the various freelancers were trying out to get into this comic book. There was just something missing, though, something that would make it stand out. National felt that it had found that special something when they convinced Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster to abandon their attempts to get Superman made into a newspaper strip and instead sell it to National so that it could be the lead feature in this new magazine. Siegel and Shuster ultimately agreed and their sample strips were quickly cut and pasted into a comic book story that ended up being the cover feature in the first issue of Action Comics. However, when Action Comics #1 sold very well, National did not know that it was necessarily Superman who was responsible, so they continued with their plan to rotate the cover between their various features. Ultimately, though, it was obvious that Superman was driving the sales of the comic and they began to feature Superman in little proto-"corner boxes" on the covers that he was not featured until ultimately he got the covers all to himself from Action Comics #19-on.

Still, though, the series continued to have regular features like the magician Zatara, the western hero, Tex Thomson, the cowboy, Chuck Dawson, the boxer, Pep Morgan, the repoter, Scoop Scanlan, plus a historical fiction starring Marco Polo.

As Superman became more and more popular, Joe Shuster pretty quickly had to turn to art assistants to keep up the demands for material, as there was soon a Superman newspaper strip and then, in 1939, an entire second comic book devoted to just Superman features. Paul Cassidy became the first regular artist on the series other than Shuster, but Shuster assistants, John Sikela and Leo Nowak soon began to draw most of the Superman features in Action Comics.

The first issue of Action Comics introduced Lois Lane, along with Clark Kent and Superman, but over the first two years of the feature, Jimmy Olsen would also appear (at least an early version of the character) as well as Superman's greatest foe, Lex Luthor (initially, Luthor was a redhead, but all of the new artists involved in the strip led to confusion and Leo Nowak accidentally thought that Luthor's assistant in an early Action Comics story was Luthor himself, so he drew Luthor as bald. The look stuck).

World War II saw most of Action Comics' creative team drafted, which led to some temporary creative changes in the series. More permanent changes occurred in 1947, when Siegel and Shuster sued National for the rights to Superman. They lost and National fired them. By this point in time, Wayne Boring had been doing the newspaper strip. He transferred over to the comic book title and became the main Superman artist, working with inker Stan Kaye, mostly. Don Cameron and Alvin Schwartz (both of whom had filled in for Siegel during the war) became the main writers on the Superman feature in Action.

Meanwhile, four notable new features had joined Action. There was the western hero known as the Vigilante, the jungle explorer, Congo Bill, the futuristic Tommy Tomorrow and the rhyming cop, Hayfoot Henry. Tex Thomson turned into a superhero (first as Mr. America and then as the Americommando).

#100-199

As the years went by, the size of the comic book was reduced. As features left, the book became mostly just a Superman lead, plus Vigilante, Congo Bill, Hayfoot Henry and Tommy Tomorrow. Hayfoot Henry was a key feature because it added humor to the otherwise serious book. However, it ultimately became the next feature to lose a spot when the book shrunk in size again.

The key Superman creators during this period were Wayne Boring and Al Plastino on art and Alvin Schwartz, Don Cameron and William Woolfolk on the stories. By #100, Superman had already gained a few recurring foes (Luthor was not yet to the point of being a regular foe), such as Mister Mxyztplk (the spelling at the time) and the Prankster. The general type of Superman story in a given Action Comics story was beginning to come into focus, as well. Namely, either Lois Lane would try to find what Superman's secret identity was or some other scenario would put Superman's secret identity into jeopardy.

#200-299

With The Adventures of Superman now a bona fide hit on TV, the editor of the Superman titles, Whitney Ellsworth, began to dedicate most of his time to TV series, so Mort Weisinger became the new editor of the series. Weisinger had the new regular writers of the Superman feature become Edmund Hamilton and Otto Binder, with Bill Finger chipping in the occasional story. Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye were the regular artists on the Superman feature, with Al Plastino working as an alternate artist (by this time, Superman had spun off two more titles, Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen and Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane, so there was plenty of work to be found for artists on other Superman books. It was on the spinoffs that Curt Swan first started doing interior artwork, while soon contributing covers to Action Comics and Superman).

Congo Bill and Tommy Tomorrow were the remaining features, as Action Comics would continue to see its page count reduce throughout the 1950s (the idea was to shrink the comic book rather than raise the cover price. Comic book companies were scared over ever having to charge more than a dime for a comic book).

During the late 1950s, a number of major changes to the Superman mythos were introduced (most by Otto Binder). We discovered the Fortress of Solitude in Action Comics #241, Brainiac in Action Comics #242, Supergirl in Action Comics #252, the adult Bizarro in Action Comics #254 and the adult Krypto in Action Comics #258. After her introduction, Supergirl took over Tommy Tomorrow's back-up feature spot in Action Comics, with Congo Bill (now with the ability to switch bodies with a gorilla, so he was called Congorilla now) as the other feature.

#300-399

Finally settling on a page count (the book couldn't get any smaller than 32 pages, so the price was finally raised to a shocking 12 cents!), Supergirl was the lone surviving back-up series, with Congorilla retired after a nearly 300 issue run in Action Comics.

Curt Swan had succeeded Wayne Boring as being the lead artist on the Superman feature in Action Comics, with Edmund Hamilton and Leo Dorfman writing most of the Superman stories in Action Comics at the start of the 1960s. Jim Mooney was the main artist on the Supergirl back-up feature.

As the series got closer to #400, Neal Adams began to draw more and more covers for Action Comics. Also, in Action Comics #377, the Legion of Super-Heroes took over from Supergirl as the lead back-up feature (with Supergirl moving over to Legion's old home in Adventure Comics).

#400-499

The series soon settled into a remarkably consistent creative team, as Cary Bates wrote nearly every issue of Action for the next hundred issues and Curt Swan drew nearly every issue during that same period.

Early in the 1970s, DC expanded the page count of their comics, although Legion moved over to Superboy's comic book, leaving the back-ups in Action Comics to be now other Superman stories plus reprints of other DC Comics. Nick Cardy began a long (and impressive) string of Action Comics covers beginning with Action Comics #409 and ending with Action Comics #445 (Neal Adams had one memorable cover mixed into this run, with Action Comics #419's photo-collage cover).

Towards the end of the 400s, DC celebrated Superman's 40th Anniversary by having Superman and Lois Lane of Earth-2 get married in Action Comics #484. By the end of the 400s, the book had officially become just a Superman comic book called Action Comics, as there was only one feature in the comic and that was Superman.

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#500-599

After DC Comics wooed star Marvel writer, Marv Wolfman, over to DC in the early 1980s, he slowly took over as the new writer on Action Comics. Starting with Action Comics #539, he began a short, but memorable run on the book with artist Gil Kane until Action Comics #546.

The book's page count was expanded to roughly 25 pages for most of this period, so after Wolfman left the book, a variety of writers handled the book for the next couple of years, with issues alternating between "novel length" solo Superman stories and issues with multiple features in them.

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Curt Swan drew most of these issues, before he was finally replaced on the series with one farewell issue in Action Comics #583, the final Superman story before the book adopted a new continuity following the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths (written by Alan Moore, who was already a star writer at that time).

John Byrne rebooted Superman's continuity in the miniseries, Man of Steel, and Byrne then took over Action Comics with #584 as the writer/artist, turning it into a team-up series until the 600th issue.

#600-699

Following the 600th issue (which saw Superman and Wonder Woman kiss and then fight against Darkseid together), Action Comics was turned into an anthology once more in a bold initiative that saw the book go weekly. It would be over-sized and filled with short serialized stories starring Green Lantern, Blackhawk, Secret Six, Black Canary and Nightwing (among others). The weekly approach lasted little under a year (Superman remained a presence in the book, but only as a two-page story in each issue).

The series returned to a Superman series with Action Comics #645, which saw George Perez take over the book as the writer and artist. Perez slowly eased off of the book and by Action Comics #653, Roger Stern, Bob McLeod and Brett Breeding was the new creative team on the series (Denis Rodier soon joined McLeod, with Breeding moving over to work with artist Dan Jurgens on Adventures of Superman and then Superman). In Action Comics #676, Jackon Guice replaced Bob McLoed.

In Action Comics #684, the series tied in with the famous "Death of Superman" storyline. After Superman died (and all the Superman titles took a brief hiatus - the first multiple month break in the history of Superman comic book titles), Action Comics took part in the "Reign of the Supermen" storyline, where four men showed up who could each possibly be a resurrected Superman. Action Comics starred "The Last Son of Krypton," a more Kryptonian version of Superman (that turned out to be the former villainous artificial intelligence, the Eradicator).

By this point in time, the Superman titles had long adopted a sort of joint storytelling system, so Action Comics was no longer its own title, exactly, but it was more like one part of a weekly Superman story every week that continued into the other three titles.

#700-799

David Michelinie took over Action Comics from the departing Roger Stern with issue #702. He would write the title for the next two years, bringing Superman through two more major events (along with the other Superman writers). First, there was "The Death of Clark Kent," where a new villain showed up who knows Superman's secret identity and begins to target Clark Kent's family and friends, leading to Clark faking his death. Then there was "The Trial of Superman," where Superman was captured as part of some intergalactic trial. Then Lois and Clark finally got married (after breaking off their engagement in an issue of Action Comics). Finally, after Superman temporarily lost his powers following the events of Final Night (where Earth's Sun was almost extinguished), his powers returned only supercharged and he gained new energy abilities and began to show up as blue energy.

Kieron Dwyer became the artist on the series with Action Comics #712 and then Tom Grummett joined with Action Comics #726 (Denis Rodier remained as the inker throughout).

Former Adventures of Superman artist Stuart Immonen took over the series as the writer and artist (with inker Jose Marzan Jr.) with Action Comics #738, still in the midst of the "Blue Superman" era.

Immonen stayed on as the writer through the end of the "Blue Superman" era (Superman returned to normal to celebrate his 50th Anniversary). Immonen remained on the book as Superman, influenced by the villain Dominus, slowly tried to take over the planet (to protect it, but still) in a storyline in the Superman books in 1999. Mark Millar joined Immonen as the scripter over Immonen's plots.

At the end of the 1990s, Joe Kelly took over Action Comics with #760, as part of a line-wide revamp (with the other titles also getting new creative teams). Kelly was initially paired with German Garcia, but that did not last too long. Kano ended up becoming the regular artist on the book after a couple of Garcia issues.

Kelly was part of the Superman titles' response to the Year 2000, with Metropolis being transformed into a futuristic new city courtesy of a future version of Brainiac. Soon afterwards, the world was changed when the Joker gained the powers of Mister Mxyptlk and turned the Earth into a place where he could be Emperor Joker.

In Action Comics #775, Kelly (working with artists Lee Bermejo and Doug Mahnke) made the argument that Superman still had a place in the postmodern comic book world by having Superman show up The Elite (a team of heroes based on the then new superhero team, The Authority).

Superman then had to deal with Lex Luthor becoming president and then Earth itself being invaded by the forces of the villainous Imperiex. It was a very busy time for the Man of Steel. He also had to cope with a new General Zod. Duncan Rouleau and Pasqual Ferry were the two main artists on Action Comics during the last year or so of Joe Kelly's run.

#800-899

Joe Kelly's run ended after Action Comics #809. By this time, the Superman titles had abandoned their weekly writing system and each book was finally independent of the other series (this had happened before Kelly's run ended, but we're mentioning this now because it became a bigger selling point post-Kelly).

Chuck Austen, Ivan Reis and Marc Campos took over Action Comics with #814, but their run proved to be short-lived, with Austen off of the book by Action Comics #823 (with his stories completed by a mystery writer using the pseudonym J.D. Finn).

Gail Simone, John Byrne and Nelson then joined the book with Action Comics #826 as part of an almost-transition run to take the book to Infinite Crisis. Simone became the first woman to be the regular writer of Action Comics in its then 67-year history.

Following Infinite Crisis, Superman would drop down to just two ongoing titles, Superman (picking up Adventures of Superman's numbering which had, of course, picked up the numbering from the original Superman title in the first place) and Action Comics. Geoff Johns and Kurt Busiek co-wrote the opening arc on this new set-up (set "One Year Later" after Infinite Crisis), with Busiek then doing a fill-in arc before Geoff Johns could take over the book full-time with Action Comics #844 with co-writer Richard Donner (director of the first Superman film and most of the second Superman film) and artist Adam Kubert, who had just come to DC from a long stint at Marvel.

Their run never quite got started due to various delays (they told the adventure of Chris Kent, a young Kryptonian born in the Phantom Zone who ended up on Earth with Clark and Lois). Their run ended up only being roughly six issues, spread out over more than a year's worth of time (so lots of fill-in issues during this time). Ultimately, Johns moved forward with a new run with artists Gary Frank and Jon Sibal that lasted from Action Comics #858-870 and re-established Superman's history with the Legion of Super-Heroes and also introduced a new version of Brainaic (in a tragic storyline where Pa Kent passed away).

Then there was a year-long storyline where Superman was away from Earth (following the discovery of the Kryptonian city among Brainiac's possessions and the creation of New Krypton nearby Earth) and Earth was patrolled by an older Chris Kent and a hero from New Krypton. Upon Superman's return to Earth, Action Comics then briefly became a book spotlighting Lex Luthor instead of Superman (written by Paul Cornell).

#900-99

Soon after Action Comics hit #900, the entire DC Universe was rebooted with "The New 52," a companywide event that saw every DC Comic start over from #1. Instead of Action Comics #905, we had Action Comics #1 by Grant Morrison, Rags Morales and Rick Bryant, which told the new origin of Superman, as told by Grant Morrison.

Morrison then told an epic 19-issue run on Action Comics that was, in effect, one really big storyline that tied in the past, the present, the future and multiple alternate realities into one big mega-story.

There were a few starts and stops on Action Comics following Morrison before Greg Pak and Aaron Kuder finally took over the series. Their run ultimately tied in with a storyline where Superman's secret identity is revealed to the world and Superman loses his powers. Eventually, he recovers his abilities just in time to seemingly die (as part of a crossover with the other New 52 Superman titles).

Meanwhile, the pre-New 52 Superman had showed up in the crossover Convergence. This Superman was still married to Lois Lane and they had a son, Jon Kent. During DC Rebirth (with new writer Dan Jurgens, working primarily with artist Patrick Zircher), Action Comics returned to its original numbering with Action Comics #957 and this pre-New 52 version of Superman took over from the dead New 52 Superman as the new Superman in the DC Universe after Lex Luthor had decided that he, Luthor, was going to be the new Superman (Clark couldn't let that happen).

Eventually, both the New-52 Superman and the pre-New-52 Superman were revealed to be, essentially, the same person, as their energies combined to form a new history of Superman. This happened in a crossover with the other DC Rebirth Superman series.

Throughout the DC Rebirth, Superman has been dealing with the mysterious Mr. Oz. Finally, during "The Oz Effect," he discovered that Mr. Oz was his own father from Krypton, Jor-El, who had somehow survived Krypton's destruction, as well.

#1000

Now, Brian Michael Bendis is taking over Action Comics and he has more secrets to reveal about the destruction of Krypton.