My Collection - ACTION COMICS [1938 Series]

Action Comics [1938 series]
(Action Comics Weekly [1988 series] from 601 - 642)
140 issues [1960 - 2007]
263, 333, 341, 402 - 403, 406, 449, 459, 464, 476, 484 - 491, 500 - 502, 504, 509 - 561, 563, 565, 579, 581, 600 - 645, 650, 655, 658 - 668, 700, 847 

Wow, that's a scattered bunch of issues. The series finally wrapped up in 2011 with #904 and an ill-considered restart, which was eventually reversed so the numbering is well over 1000 now. I used to have a few dozen more issues of this, but got rid of them when I winnowed down my collection a few years ago. I kept all the pre-1987-revamp stuff I had (except that last issue with the Curt Swan / Alan Moore story, which I got rid of after it was reprinted. Slightly, but illogically, regret that sometimes), most of it with some Swan art, and later Gil Kane, some nice writing by Cary Bates and Marv Wolfman among others. For the post-revamp stuff, I got rid of everything except a few that had Swan guest art and a run by Roger Stern and Bob McLeod that I rather enjoyed, even though at the time the Superman books were doing intertwined storytelling that makes it hard to follow a single title, Stern did a better job than most of making his issues read almost complete, and he kept me reading the line of books a lot longer than was justified by their overall quality.

From about #500 - #560 on are the ones I bought off the newsstand when I was a kid, anything earlier than that as a back-issue, as well as a few after that run.

I could probably stand to winnow it down a bit further, keeping only the handful with high affection or nostalgia values, especially now that various current and upcoming tradepaperbacks give a decent sampling of these stories. Maybe get this down to about 50 issues I want to keep. I'd have to do some re-reading to decide what, though. I'd almost certainly keep the earlier ones (most are too beat-up to be worth selling) and a few like #510 - #512 (a nice Luthor story by Bates/Swan), #544 (an anniversary issue with a few nice stories and contributions from Siegel and Shuster). Also a few of them have Ambush Bug stories which amuse me. 

More recently I slowly got around to picking up the full ACTION WEEKLY run from 1988/1989.  That's a mixed bag, but has a few great stories, some decent reads and a lot of great covers. Not really looking for too many back issues.  Well, except that I'd pick up #1 if I could find a nice copy for under $5....