Having Morrison on a monthly book was a big deal, particularly a monthly book as important to the company’s legacy as Action Comics. Morrison was one of few comic book writers who could legitimately be described as a superstar, arguably with a higher profile outside mainstream comics than executives Jim Lee and Geoff Johns.

In spite of all the confusion and chaos of the relaunch, Grant Morrison writing Action Comics was the cause of considerable excitement. Emphasis was placed squarely on monthly print sales numbers, with little patience for books to grow their audiences whether online or through collected editions. All-Star Western was diminished by having to tie to Gotham City continuity, while attempts at genre diversity in books like Demon Knights or I, Vampire were under-promoted.

But the ideas and concepts that were interesting were frequently hobbled by the demands of the publisher. … And what was that about speeding bullets? Scott Lobdell and Rob Liefeld were among the relaunch’s heavy hitters. Instead of courting either exciting new talent or industry veterans, the company had difficulty drawing top-tier talent. The Wildstorm characters were ported over into mainstream continuity, in spite of the fact that they were largely redundant or incompatible. Hellblazer was cancelled so that John Constantine could be dragged under the corporate umbrella in Justice League Dark, all in the name of coporate synergy. In contrast, a lot of the line felt like hedging. The most interesting books were those that dared to do things differently Scott Snyder inverting Alan Moore’s brilliant twist on Swamp Thing made for iconoclastic reading, as did Brian Azzarello’s ground-up reimagining of Wonder Woman. In many respects, the “new 52” felt like more of the same familiar mid-tier talent working on familiar mid-tier ideas. In practice, the execution was more muddled the massive experiment curtailed by a very conservative aesthetic. In theory, this was a great idea anything was possible and everything was on the table. Wow, he IS more powerful than a locomotive…!

Final Crisis by Grant Morrison