Action Comics #1004 (spoilers)

[Yoda]

What makes you think he is working on a year one story? I figured it would just be another book for his wonder comics lone.

Telling the definitive origin of Superman (or relaunching a Post-Crisis 2 DCU) would arguably be the "biggest goddamn thing" he's ever done in his career, which is how he described the project with Sook. He's launched like 5 imprints by now.

[Miles To Go]

Telling the definitive origin of Superman (or relaunching a Post-Crisis 2 DCU) would arguably be the "biggest goddamn thing" he's ever done in his career, which is how he described the project with Sook. He's launched like 5 imprints by now.

I bet you the next crisis will be the sixth imprint

Nothing but Crisis comics every month

[Yoda]

I bet you the next crisis will be the sixth imprint

Nothing but Crisis comics every month

Ha! CRISIS COMICS - At the end of every issue Reality Completely resets and/or your favorite hero gets replaced by someone else who's even edgier!

[Sacred Knight]

But the handling of Superman and the haphazard change for the sake of change with no long term plan is symptomatic of the failures of the New 52 on the whole that you identified. Regardless, I don't think we'll see a New 52 style reboot of anything anytime soon. They tried it and it failed spectacularly.

The point is that the specific changes they made to the Superman mythos in the New 52 were not a detriment to the character by any known metric. Most of the changes worked out just fine saleswise. Overall sales only began significantly dropping years later with the DCYou movement, again another universe wide gimmick/event that wasn't needed over shoring up the continuity. All that said, I agree they won't do a reboot again. But they might have interest in trying a similar concept again elsewhere without changing up the main line.

[Yoda]

The point is that the specific changes they made to the Superman mythos in the New 52 were not a detriment to the character by any known metric. Most of the changes worked out just fine saleswise. Overall sales only began significantly dropping years later with the DCYou movement, again another universe wide gimmick/event that wasn't needed over shoring up the continuity. All that said, I agree they won't do a reboot again. But they might have interest in trying a similar concept again elsewhere without changing up the main line.

Probably not the thread to rehash the New 52, but I think you're glossing over a lot of the problems the New 52 created and I'm not sure what other "known" metrics you're thinking of because sales, critical and fan acceptance, storytelling, and merch all suffered. Sales wise, there was the initial bump and then the whole line crashed. Storytelling wise, again you had an initial bright spot with Morrison, but Morrison actually kept the legacy elements of the character! You could sub in the Morrison origin with the classic Superman and it would still work. But they jumped 5 years with little to no actual character development then storytelling went off a cliff as well. You had Pak's run which was OK until Truth, but it brought in a legacy character in Lana.

But what else? You can blame that on editorial interference and crossovers, but that stuff was necessary across the line because the sales and quality were not there and were trying to throw everything at the wall to stay away from the "legacy" stuff. Plus, outside of Doomed, what crossovers mucked up the Superman line? Pak being banned from using Lois Lane. Dropping the Daily Planet angle for a blog. And this is saying nothing of the quality of the rest of the line. The Superman line suffered from all the same issues that the New 52 did.

And the sales success is relative. It was selling consistently outside of the top 20 for much of the run, wasn't it?

The only book that seemed to maintain quality and sales was Batman. Batman will always sell, but what was unique about it - It all but ignored the New 52 reboot except for the costume. Kept most of the pre-N52 characters in recognizable forms and did not go for cheap editorially mandated tricks to shock fan expectations.

Now you also have to consider the costume. Superman merch with the new design apparently sold a lot worse. The drop off in merch sales was supposedly one of the reasons the N52 was dropped. With Superman, the look never took off (I blame this on Jim Lee actually, his design work is dated and he tries to overcompensate with over complicated looks. Plus turtlenecks, who honestly thought that was a good idea?) And even then half of it kept the classic look, because after 80 years that is "Superman" to basically everyone. Or people just dropped the messy elements from the Lee design, like they did with the animation.

And you have the ignoring of all the legacy elements. When the mass media, DCEU, TV specifically associate Superman with Clark Kent, Lois Lane, the Daily Planet, and being a reporter, that is ingrained in the mass interpretation of Superman. You strip that away and you have a generic superhero who's wearing an S-Shield. You can swap the Sentry, Mon El, Captain Marvel, Will Smith as Hancock into that etc. and no one would notice, because you stripped the mythos down to nothing that anyone will recognize.

Batman without being rich, Alfred, a Batcave, a Batmobile, etc. is just a vigilante. Superman without Clark Kent, The Daily Planet, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olson, is just a generic superhero. The mythos elements ARE the character.

[HeroVladimir93]

Probably not the thread to rehash the New 52, but I think you're glossing over a lot of the problems the New 52 created and I'm not sure what other "known" metrics you're thinking of because sales, critical and fan acceptance, storytelling, and merch all suffered. Sales wise, there was the initial bump and then the whole line crashed. Storytelling wise, again you had an initial bright spot with Morrison, but Morrison actually kept the legacy elements of the character! You could sub in the Morrison origin with the classic Superman and it would still work. But they jumped 5 years with little to no actual character development then storytelling went off a cliff as well. You had Pak's run which was OK until Truth, but it brought in a legacy character in Lana.

But what else? You can blame that on editorial interference and crossovers, but that stuff was necessary across the line because the sales and quality were not there and were trying to throw everything at the wall to stay away from the "legacy" stuff. Plus, outside of Doomed, what crossovers mucked up the Superman line? Pak's ban on Lois Lane. Dropping the Daily Planet angle for a blog. And this is saying nothing of the quality of the rest of the line. The Superman line suffered from all the same issues that the New 52 did.

And the sales success is relative. It was selling consistently outside of the top 20 for much of the run, wasn't it?

The only book that seemed to maintain quality and sales was Batman. Batman will always sell, but what was unique about it - It all but ignored the New 52 reboot except for the costume. Kept most of the pre-N52 characters in recognizable forms and did not go for cheap editorially mandated tricks to shock fan expectations.

Now you also have to consider the costume. Superman merch with the new design apparently sold a lot worse. The drop off in merch sales was supposedly one of the reasons the N52 was dropped. With Superman, the look never took off (I blame this on Jim Lee actually, his design work is dated and he tries to overcompensate with over complicated looks. Plus turtlenecks, who honestly thought that was a good idea?) And even then half of it kept the classic look, because after 80 years that is "Superman" to basically everyone. Or people just dropped the messy elements from the Lee design, like they did with the animation.

And you have the ignoring of all the legacy elements. When the mass media, DCEU, TV specifically associate Superman with Clark Kent, Lois Lane, the Daily Planet, and being a reporter, that is ingrained in the mass interpretation of Superman. You strip that away and you have a generic superhero who's wearing an S-Shield. You can swap the Sentry, Mon El, Captain Marvel, Will Smith as Hancock into that etc. and no one would notice, because you stripped the mythos down to nothing that anyone will recognize.

Batman without being rich, Alfred, a Batcave, a Batmobile, etc. is just a vigilante. Superman without Clark Kent, The Daily Planet, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olson, is just a generic superhero. The mythos elements ARE the character.

Yeah, a huge problem I had with the New 52 is that it tried hard to reinvent the wheel with Superman instead of celebrating what made the character and his community so great in the first place. I understand that DC is in a highly competitive market, which always presents the challenge of giving audiences a new angle to look at these old characters, but the New 52, by an large, didn't offer anything transcendent or groundbreaking with Superman. Adventures of Superman, Superman Unchained and Superman Doomed were true diamonds in the rough because they refused to strip away the core elements of Superman and instead they delivered good stories about Superman and his community.

[Yoda]

Nevermind....