YMMV / Action Comics (New 52)

• Base-Breaking Character: Superman himself. Some love him as a return to his Pre-Crisis roots while others despise him for being much more aggressive and flawed than the Post-Crisis conception of Superman.
• Broken Base: Honestly it would be easier to list what didn't cause uproar but some particular hot topics.
  • The Kents dying when Clark was still young. A return to the Pre-Crisis tradition that showed Superman overcoming a tragic moment and staying true to their life lessons via becoming Superman, or a needless attempt at giving him some trauma? It does help somewhat that the story doesn't treat this as a source of angst for them; merely a thing he's moved past.
  • The erasure of the Lois/Clark marriage. A needed shakeup that offered a chance to explore other romantic relationships for Clark, or a pointless change given that Lois and Clark had been so tied together there was never any chance of someone else replacing Lois as Clark's endgame relationship?
  • Superman's more Golden Age hands-on attitude. Some saw actions like dangling Glen Morgan over a balcony as a betrayal of the character who hasn't been known to act like that in recent decades, while others applauded the return to Superman's leftist roots and welcomed a more active Superman in contrast to how inept the Post-Crisis Superman was perceived.
• Complete Monster: Vyndktvx is a 5th dimensional Imp whose jealousy and envy spurred him into trying to murder rival magician Mxyzptlk and the hundreds of worlds he contained inside a Pocket Dimension kept in his hat. Upon accidentally striking the King-Thing of Zrfff dead instead, Vyndktvx quickly schemes to take over Zrfff for himself, plunges Mxyzptlk into a coma, and goes about systematically destroying all of the planets inside his pocket dimension to spite his enemy, before specifically targeting Superman for burning Vyndktvx's arm during one of his attacks on Earth. Murdering Superman's parents, endangering Metropolis several times over, and horrifically killing an entire science expedition to Mars while Superman watches, Vyndktvx does all this and much more just to torment Superman, even arranging for Lex Luthor to come into prominence as Superman's Arch-Enemy. After turning a parallel Earth into a dystopia and creating a Superman-killing machine that he unleashes across the multiverse, Vyndktvx stages a massive strike against Superman in which he tortures the hero, brags about his intent to leave Earth a desolated land of suffering, and, when beaten, tries to blow up Metropolis as a final, petty blow.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Xa-Du the Phantom King is the most popular new character introduced, and even after DC made an effort to try to bury much of the New 52 era, he's still managed to stick around as a recurring villain—even managing a showing in DC Universe Online. His Large Ham villain persona, Mummy-like design, unique niche as essentially the Kryptonian equivalent of a ghostly necromancer, and simple-but-effective concept of "first Phantom Zone prisoner" helps him stick out a lot from the crowd. The fact that his first story happens to be Krypto's wonderfully tragic introduction doesn't hurt, either.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Superdoom telling Superman he's at his best when he's dying hits harder given that Superdoom himself is an attack on how WB/DC have treated Superman over the years, and after this run Superman's death would be chosen as the focus for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and The Death of Superman in an attempt to rebuild Superman's perceived decline in popularity.
• Older Than They Think: A 5-D imp gathers an army of anti-Superman villains to destroy Superman for good? Where have we seen that before?
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Despite having a cool costume and being characterized as a Kraven the Hunter expy for Superman, Nimrod doesn't really end up accomplishing much within the story.
• Vindicated by History: Action Comics had a bad first impression, to put it mildly. Superman's more rougher-around-edges portrayal turned off a lot of readers who were hoping that Grant Morrison would work their magic and bring us an All-Loving Hero again, not helped by the rest of the New 52 rolling with Morrison's writing of the younger Clark Kent as a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and exaggerating it to the point of overt Adaptational Jerkass. Years later however, as the dust settled and further discussions on how to properly write Superman were had, Morrison's run was given reevaluation. Fans now see the run as not just a great Superman run, but one of the greatest Superman runs of all time, citing a strong and unique characterization for the Man of Steel, a Darker and Edgier take that didn't compromise Superman's core ideals due to Revisiting the Roots, and powerful themes that intelligently tackled Superman's place in the modern world as both an inspirational cultural icon and a symbol of corporate evil.

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