Official : Bendis gets both books

[Celgress]

...Competition is going to brutal no doubt about it and Bendis will need to be on his A-game but I’m way more interested in Leviathan personally than any of the other events you mentioned. King is going to be hurt by his poor performance in HiC, and with all due respect to Daniel, Maleev is in a whole ‘nother class art wise. Don’t really have any interest in Marvel events personally, but it will be interesting to see if they sell well.

We'll see. I'm standing by my prediction in the meantime.

[Miles To Go]

The solicitation for Lois' maxi-series says she'll be out of town investigating stories and threats to her husband. Between that and Clark out in space, it'll likely take a big event in a year's time to bring everyone together again.

I have no doubts Lois will tell Lex where to shove his offer, thus the Unity Saga will continue to portray the family in a unified manner (per the title) despite the distance between them

[Vordan]

We'll see. I'm standing by my prediction in the meantime.

I’m a bit surprised Marvel is putting out so many events. It seems counterproductive to me, and not giving Hickman any room to breathe for his X-Men debut. I also think so many Marvel events back to back might end up hurting their sales overall but we will see.

[DragonPiece]

The solicitation for Lois' maxi-series says she'll be out of town investigating stories and threats to her husband. Between that and Clark out in space, it'll likely take a big event in a year's time to bring everyone together again.

I have no doubts Lois will tell Lex where to shove his offer, thus the Unity Saga will continue to portray the family in a unified manner (per the title) despite the distance between them

The thing about comic books though is writers tend to go with where the plot would be more interesting, it would be weird to hype up Lex making a offer and then she does nothing with it.

[Yoda]

The Maximum Carnage event will sell through the roof no doubt. It’ll have 40 variant covers for each issue too. I’ve tried to get into Cates Venom, but I just can’t get into it. I don’t think anyone should really expect Leviathan to compete with that.

Leviathan is kinda in a weird place, it’s closer in scope to Heroes in Crisis or that Justice League Suicide Squad crossover than like Doomsday Clock or Metal. But HiC seems to have gotten a much bigger push and was coming off King’s Mister Miracle coattails before he kinda burned a ton of that goodwill in HiC by killing so many characters and the storyline being a mess, then add on the whole wedding debacle.

Leviathan is bringing back a lot of quirky characters, and likely won’t put them in a meat grinder like HiC. And it has Batman front and center. And Bendis Batman, Question, etc. along with Maleev will be a draw. And despite opinions to the contrary Bendis’ Superman books are selling well for the market. Leviathan will sell well enough, but I don’t expect it to sell 150,000 books.

The Batman storyline will be interesting to see if King has really damaged his reputation and selling power. Batman’s sales have taken a hit recently, and people seem to be getting kinda bored with King’s shtick of psychoanalysis of every character. I think they moved the Thomas Wayne story because they were worried it’d completely tank sales after this Knightmares arc.

[Miles To Go]

The thing about comic books though is writers tend to go with where the plot would be more interesting, it would be weird to hype up Lex making a offer and then she does nothing with it.

The point of the offer is to determine which characters are above accepting it or not. If everyone did something with it, the offer would just be a handout. Selina would do something more with it than Lois, and I'm expecting that to inform her character arc in the Bat books and possibly be a further roadblock to getting back with Bruce.

I see Lois possibly not telling Clark and Jon about Lex talking to her (again), but little else. We're already getting an issue of Justice Leauge with a Lois embracing a darker side to herself, that's the biggest takeaway that nothing similar is going to happen with "our" Lois. We've already seen where it leads with another, so what's the point?

I see Bendis simply using the opportunity to again reassure readers Lois will never let her family down, get it out of the way, and give the A-OK to Rucka to do what he has to do without this temptation, and event, hanging over her.

[Yoda]

I see Lois possibly not telling Clark and Jon about Lex talking to her (again), but little else. We're already getting an issue of Justice League with a Lois embracing a darker side to herself, that's the biggest takeaway that nothing similar is going to happen with "our" Lois. We've already seen where it leads with another, so what's the point?

I see Bendis simply using the opportunity to again reassure readers Lois will never let her family down, get it out of the way, and give the A-OK to Rucka to do what he has to do without this temptation, and event, hanging over her.

I think this will just be a flashback to Action Comics 1003 myself. That was Lex making Lois the offer. His offers are supposed to be making these characters (and they've made sure to say he's making these offers to "prominent characters" not just "villains") the "Apex" versions of themselves. We know the Superman books have been operating on a pretty condensed timeline - three weeks from Lois & Jon leaving with Jor El to Jon's return - and possibly ahead of the rest of the DCU. This is just Justice League finally catching up to Bendis.

But I do agree that Bendis didn't set all this up with Lois to make her a villian. I don't even think Snyder's thing in Justice League is what the cliffhanger made it out to be.

[Frontier]

Sook drawing LoSH? Damn that would be cool. I dunno though, LoSH is pretty much as far from Bendis’ strengths as a writer as it gets. They’re not street-level, they’re not normal teens, it just doesn’t seem a good fit. But I guess you’re probably right. Maybe he’ll prove me wrong but I did not enjoy his GotG run so I’m very nervous about this. The last thing LoSH needs right now is another flop.

I think it's pretty much a certainty that Bendis will be re-introducing the Legion, but I don't think that makes him a certain bet to write the new Legion book we'll inevitably be getting.

[Superlad93]

At the very least I feel like I at least get why the Lois deal in in the Superman book rather than Action or the Lois Lane book. Superman may be the big cosmic book, but it's also 100% the introspective personal book that deals with Clark's family.

Not sure what the offer itself could be, but Lex doesn't seem to really require the the recipients to overtly do evil in the conventional sense. The example being Jericho who will use it for good, and that still makes Lex happy.

If I had to hazard a guess in regards to the non-villains he's asking? It's manipulative and may actually hinge on them not accepting, or accepting but not using it for its intended use, or them just knowing about some information.

[rpmaluki]

I don't know if this has been discussed already or not but is this offer to Lois part of the threat to Superman that sets her to investigating in her book? At first I thought she may have found something out whilst in space but then we learnt she wasn't there for long or learn anything of note on her travels. It sounds like she learnt something after she came back and now there's Lex Luthor making her an offer. She may turn him down but that clearly won't be the end of that thread.

[Superlad93]

Yeah, I may be leaning towards that slightly, but I'm not sure yet.

But the Lois book comes out first, so maybe it's a flashback? A flashback to their meeting in Action 1003? An all new meeting that builds off the previous one?

Sky's the limit.

[Yoda]

What would an "Apex Lois Lane" be? The Lois in the fake reality the JL is in right now didn't side with Doom I think by virtue of her being the jailer there. And she says she "destroyed Superman... all of them" which to me read as a kinda meta commentary that this Lois sees her role as negative. I think, and I definitely could be reaching a bit, Lois may be the factor that pushes Superman over into not going along with the plans Batman develops to ID and lock up all the potential Doomsiders. In that way, through Superman's refusal to side with them, she causes his "destruction" in all the realities and leads to her role as this jailer. If she sided with Doom or had the potential to side with Doom, she'd likely have been taken off the board and not be the one to be guarding this prison planet.

So I think Lex made her this offer in Action Comics 1003 and she rejected it then, but either didn't grasp the enormity of what Lex was doing or does and that's why she doesn't think she can tell Clark. Because if she does she will push him to go against it all and end up destroying him. Loose theory that all the parts don't really fit for me yet, but who knows. I don't think Lois as a villain or even villain adjacent really works at this point with Bendis and now Rucka's plans.

As for her book, I think the secret that could disrupt Superman's life - that's the photograph of her and him kissing. I'd bet $$$ on that!

[rpmaluki]

What would an "Apex Lois Lane" be? The Lois in the fake reality the JL is in right now didn't side with Doom I think by virtue of her being the jailer there. And she says she "destroyed Superman... all of them" which to me read as a kinda meta commentary that this Lois sees her role as negative. I think, and I definitely could be reaching a bit, Lois may be the factor that pushes Superman over into not going along with the plans Batman develops to ID and lock up all the potential Doomsiders. In that way, through Superman's refusal to side with them, she causes his "destruction" in all the realities and leads to her role as this jailer. If she sided with Doom or had the potential to side with Doom, she'd likely have been taken off the board and not be the one to be guarding this prison planet.

So I think Lex made her this offer in Action Comics 1003 and she rejected it then, but either didn't grasp the enormity of what Lex was doing or does and that's why she doesn't think she can tell Clark. Because if she does she will push him to go against it all and end up destroying him. Loose theory that all the parts don't really fit for me yet, but who knows. I don't think Lois as a villain or even villain adjacent really works at this point with Bendis and now Rucka's plans.

As for her book, I think the secret that could disrupt Superman's life - that's the photograph of her and him kissing. I'd bet $$$ on that!

Oh, I hadn't thought about her comment regarding "destroying" Superman quite that way. I just took her statement at face value but what you're suggesting makes better sense. I do not see them making Lois a villain, even in a "what if" dystopian-like future. Oft times you hear writers describe Lois' role in inspiring Superman with her unyielding spirit, it's possible her role which normally would have helped Superman ended up destroying him, not just one Superman, but many, one after another (although I can't figure out how she could do that to "all" of them) and now she's resigned herself to becoming this "jailer". If that utopian world wasn't as it seemed, it's highly probable that this "prison isn't as it seem, beginning with Lois' statement.

Ugh, I forgot about that photo coming back to haunt them. Yeah, that could be the secret that threatens Superman but then what does it have to do with her investigation?

[Superlad93]

Evan Doc Shaner is working on an issue of Young Justice apparently

Around the 17:00 mark

https://www.dcuniverse.com/videos/wa...9-6c87c2318a8e

[Robanker]

Evan Doc Shaner is working on an issue of Young Justice apparently

Around the 17:00 mark

https://www.dcuniverse.com/videos/wa...9-6c87c2318a8e

I am so stoked for this.