Was the New 52 an objective mistake in regards to Superman?

[Rod G]

This.

If you need some external moral compass to be able to decides that helping and saving peoples is Worth it, whatever or whoever that external moral compass may be, you're not a good guy or gal at heart.

And New 52 Superman was, through and through, a good guy.

I never cared about Superman; I'll probably care about him and his whole mythos in the foreseeable future (in fact, I don't care so much that each and every hint that he's somehow central to the whole DCU makes me cringe -like Reborn, the last issue of Doomsday Clock or all the talks by creators and fans about how Lois and Clark together are essential or else, everything is wrong. bah).

But for five glorious years, I loved Superman. And Wonder Woman, another character whom I just can't stand to read his classics because I find the values and morals presented there to be either hypocritcal or outright bad.

In that respect, for me, New 52 was an objective success.

And I’m fine with that.

Try convincing a lot of posters here of that, though.

[DochaDocha]

Some alternate universes where Batman and his army of brats are the evil ones and Clark and Diana and others are the heroes would be refreshing.

Batman (supposedly) works as a resistance fighter against EVIL TYRANT SUPERMAN! because Batman's "only human" and therefore the odds are stacked against him. As the late, great Wilt Chamberlain said, "Nobody roots for Goliath." X-Men seems to be one of the few, if not only, successful stories or series in which the folks with the godlike abilities have to rebel against their ordinary human overlords. Who's seriously going to root for Superman and Wonder Woman to beat up Bruce and Dick and Barb? Well, I guess I would if Batman were evil, but be careful what you wish for. If this is going to follow the typical underdog tale, and it likely would, you're going to have dial up the Batgod to 10.9.

Evil Batman could happen in other media if they wanted to do a Robin story.

[HeroVladimir93]

Injustice Superman is not meant to be a definitive blueprint of anything resembling Superman. The game and concept is enjoyed largely by those who are at that age to be deconstructive about everything, but I've been around here long enough to know it's not a well regarded entry point into the lore by a lot of this community. You'll notice not a lot of Injustice discussion actively goes on here either.

The final chapter of the first Injustice game, in my opinion, is basically Superman in a microcosm, a fine blueprint of what the character is supposed to be. That single experience made the whole game for me. I can say the same about Superman Unchained, which was also a good representation of Superman and his values. Maybe I'm giving Scott Snyder too much credit and throwing shade at the vast majority of Superman stories published during the New 52 era, but I feel that Unchained succeeded where the New 52 failed: it elevated Superman, not by deconstructing him, but by honoring him.

[The World]

Batman (supposedly) works as a resistance fighter against EVIL TYRANT SUPERMAN! because Batman's "only human" and therefore the odds are stacked against him. As the late, great Wilt Chamberlain said, "Nobody roots for Goliath." X-Men seems to be one of the few, if not only, successful stories or series in which the folks with the godlike abilities have to rebel against their ordinary human overlords. Who's seriously going to root for Superman and Wonder Woman to beat up Bruce and Dick and Barb? Well, I guess I would if Batman were evil, but be careful what you wish for. If this is going to follow the typical underdog tale, and it likely would, you're going to have dial up the Batgod to 10.9.

Evil Batman could happen in other media if they wanted to do a Robin story.

Honestly I have no real desire to see Superman fight an evil Batman. I couldn't care less about getting even or whatever but I do think that it's important that as far the mainstream versions go that Superman not be willing to yield one inch to Batman in any typical setting. The tone needs to be set that Superman in no way fears or is subservient to people like Batman.

[The World]

The final chapter of the first Injustice game, in my opinion, is basically Superman in a microcosm, a fine blueprint of what the character is supposed to be. That single experience made the whole game for me. I can say the same about Superman Unchained, which was also a good representation of Superman and his values. Maybe I'm giving Scott Snyder too much credit and throwing shade at the vast majority of Superman stories published during the New 52 era, but I feel that Unchained succeeded where the New 52 failed: it elevated Superman, not by deconstructing him, but by honoring him.

You know when I was first looking into Superman and pretty much up until the end of the Post-Crisis era the Post-Crisis proponents were MASSIVE fans of just kind of letting go of the past and moving no with what they then felt was the modern interpretation of the character. It was their counterargument against the Pre-Crisis claim that they didn't get what made Superman a great character and in doing so at the time freely admitted that they mainly liked Superman for the dizzying amount of alterations that had been imposed on him after COIE and for the most part turned their noses up to the Pre-Crisis version of the character.

After the shock of rumors surrounding the then impending N52 and following it's implementation the Post-Crisis reader rebranded themselves as the defenders of the classic Superman but created to very polar opposite arguments. One was that DC had taken Superman and made him err far too much to his Pre-Crisis self in attitude and behavior which was too aggressive and self reliant. On the other hand you had the argument that Superman was totally unlike Superman at all and simply wasn't Superman which when similarities were pointed out to them with the Pre-Crisis Superman they would go on about how times had moved on and then default back to their first argument.

Unless the Superman you like is limited to the first 30 years or so it's probably filled to the brim with deconstuctionist elements. Hell the Action comics 1000 story had a big apology issue for the guy in Action Comics 1 cover. Get off your high horse.

Kingdome Come has Joker murder Lois as well, but it doesn't turn Superman into a villain. He goes away when he sees the public side with heroes who kill, but his personal morals never change.

In the Death of Clark Kent storyline he thinks that Conduit murdered Lois for half the arc and also doesn't change. He is briefly suicidal and for a long time thinks he should drop the secret identity, but he doesn't ever lose it except when he takes his anger out on a bunch of robots.

To me the best 'Superman becomes a villain' story was King of the World, where he tries to take a more proactive approach but again takes great care not to kill anyone despite the world seemingly turning against him. Rather than a personality shift, it was a rather subtle change.

In the comics - at least since post-Crisis, it was the Kents who made Clark a hero and the lessons they taught him. Those stay whether or not Lois is around. Lois is what keeps him tethered to humanity and not eventually just being Superman full-time while take an hour-long nap in the fortress of solitude every couple of months. He'd be the same superhero with the same moral code without her, but he wouldn't continue to be Clark Kent, investigative journalist and man of the people, without her.

Like this. This is a deconstructionist element of the modern Superman. This was not a thing prior to '86.

[Kuwagaton]

That was a thing for Mr. & Mrs. Superman though. In the New 52 she was his "best friend."

That whole "evil Superman" thing is kind of a dead horse because it's not like we ever have any discussions on that comic here and the games couldn't really factor that in less to the play.

Vlad that makes me curious: do you think we'd have gotten a viable front runner from Snyder instead? He was a very well favored writer within DC even before his Batman landed and could draw fans even without Jim Lee. The hindsight of who Superman was in Unchained wasn't a major advantage for the story he was telling amd even if he didn't stick around, we didn't have much from Perez anyway.

It's funny because one of my favorite New 52 moments was the beginning pf Swamp Thing, which essentially featured the pre flashpoint Superman.

You know when I was first looking into Superman and pretty much up until the end of the Post-Crisis era the Post-Crisis proponents were MASSIVE fans of just kind of letting go of the past and moving no with what they then felt was the modern interpretation of the character. It was their counterargument against the Pre-Crisis claim that [b]they didn't get what made Superman a great character and in doing so at the time freely admitted that they mainly liked Superman for the dizzying amount of alterations that had been imposed on him after COIE and for the most part turned their noses up to the Pre-Crisis version of the character.

After the shock of rumors surrounding the then impending N52 and following it's implementation the Post-Crisis reader rebranded themselves as the defenders of the classic Superman but created to very polar opposite arguments. One was that DC had taken Superman and made him err far too much to his Pre-Crisis self in attitude and behavior which was too aggressive and self reliant. On the other hand you had the argument that Superman was totally unlike Superman at all and simply wasn't Superman which when similarities were pointed out to them with the Pre-Crisis Superman they would go on about how times had moved on and then default back to their first argument.

There's definitely something that resembles irony in the 1986 case vs 2011... but then what the argument really looks like around here and likely other places is the people who feel throwing out history back then was just as problematic in 2011. The "don't see what made him great prior" also kinda goes with what we see in the New 52, even here.

Too aggressive and self reliant, I mean I haven't seen someone ever call being self reliant a bad thing. The aggression, detractors didn't see a precrisis trait but a new overcompensation for the pre flashpoint era. Morrison didn't really have him act overly aggressive by the time he got the costume.

[JAK]

There's definitely something that resembles irony in the 1986 case vs 2011... but then what the argument really looks like around here and likely other places is the people who feel throwing out history back then was just as problematic in 2011. The "don't see what made him great prior" also kinda goes with what we see in the New 52, even here.

Too aggressive and self reliant, I mean I haven't seen someone ever call being self reliant a bad thing. The aggression, detractors didn't see a precrisis trait but a new overcompensation for the pre flashpoint era. Morrison didn't really have him act overly aggressive by the time he got the costume.

Yeah, I think everybody's different. I first dove headlong into comics during the best of Post-Crisis, so that's my touchstone, but I definitely never hated Pre-Crisis or remember knocking it much. Some elements seemed a bit silly (the super-animals, super-dickery, etc), but I could roll with it, and still saw the tossing out of the history in 1986 as a problem. I didn't start having any major problem with new variations on Superman until 2006 and Superman Returns, as well as some of the comics around that time. It seemed like what I'd slowly started to see building as "the character is the problem" approach to Superman became more prominent - and it was hard not to see it.

The books in 2011 were spotty, and initially I was excited about the reboot - until DC decided the best way to advertise the new was to dunk on what they were then-currently selling. So it was hard to not see the New52 version as their creation to fix what it seemed they thought was wrong with Superman before (marriage, etc). Then every change became not a new direction, but a seeming commentary on what wasn't right before. The books themselves didn't generally bear this out, but marketing seemed like pissing us off was a good strategy. Maybe for a handful of issues, but not so much after. If they'd marketed differently, we may well have still been in the New52 era.

[Ascended]

The books themselves didn't generally bear this out, but marketing seemed like pissing us off was a good strategy. Maybe for a handful of issues, but not so much after. If they'd marketed differently, we may well have still been in the New52 era.

DC often seems to fall on the "let's piss people off" marketing strategy. It gets us all talking, and it's a viable option when handled right, but I often feel like they're way, way too heavy handed to pull it off the way it "should" be done.

You want a little controversy, because it gets people talking and it gets them passionate, and all that brings in new fans who hear the "noise" but it can easily spiral out of the company's control and become legitimately bad press, and the fan wars can be a big turn off for potential new fans. Bad press is definitely a thing even if people say it isnt, so marketing from this angle can be real tricky.

[manofsteel1979]

DC often seems to fall on the "let's piss people off" marketing strategy. It gets us all talking, and it's a viable option when handled right, but I often feel like they're way, way too heavy handed to pull it off the way it "should" be done.

You want a little controversy, because it gets people talking and it gets them passionate, and all that brings in new fans who hear the "noise" but it can easily spiral out of the company's control and become legitimately bad press, and the fan wars can be a big turn off for potential new fans. Bad press is definitely a thing even if people say it isnt, so marketing from this angle can be real tricky.

Which, along with no solid plan in place is what doomed the New 52 and specifically new 52 Superman. If the powers that be didn't lean so hard on the " the old Superman sucked and New 52 Superman is soooo much kewler!" type of promotion, I think we would still be working with New 52 Superman as the basis of Superman going forward rather than PreFlashpoint. I still think that by now things would have drifted to more classic elements like a relationship with Lois and maybe even the classic suit, but we'd probably still be working off Morrison's origin with more of the PreFlashpoint continuity folded into that framework rather than a PreFlashpoint framework with some New 52 elements folded in like we have now.

[JAK]

DC often seems to fall on the "let's piss people off" marketing strategy. It gets us all talking, and it's a viable option when handled right, but I often feel like they're way, way too heavy handed to pull it off the way it "should" be done.

You want a little controversy, because it gets people talking and it gets them passionate, and all that brings in new fans who hear the "noise" but it can easily spiral out of the company's control and become legitimately bad press, and the fan wars can be a big turn off for potential new fans. Bad press is definitely a thing even if people say it isnt, so marketing from this angle can be real tricky.

Oh, certainly - but WB/DC has never had a good handle on how to do it. Bendis, so far, seems to be riding the line nicely. The aging of Jon may well make or break his balance on said line, but so far it's going well overall.

Which, along with no solid plan in place is what doomed the New 52 and specifically new 52 Superman. If the powers that be didn't lean so hard on the " the old Superman sucked and New 52 Superkan is soooo much kewler!" type of promotion, I think we would still be working with New 52 Superman as the basis of Superman going forward rather than PreFlashpoint. I still think that by now things would have drifted to more classic elements like a relationship with Lois and maybe even the classic suit, but we'd probably still be working off Morrison's origin with more of the PreFlashpoint continuity folded into that framework rather than a PreFlashpoint framework with some New 52 elements folded in like we have now.

Exactly. You're the first person I saw/read bring up that idea, and it makes such total sense that I cite it often. I'm a convert to the idea, as it were. lol

[rpmaluki]

Which, along with no solid plan in place is what doomed the New 52 and specifically new 52 Superman. If the powers that be didn't lean so hard on the " the old Superman sucked and New 52 Superkan is soooo much kewler!" type of promotion, I think we would still be working with New 52 Superman as the basis of Superman going forward rather than PreFlashpoint. I still think that by now things would have drifted to more classic elements like a relationship with Lois and maybe even the classic suit, but we'd probably still be working off Morrison's origin with more of the PreFlashpoint continuity folded into that framework rather than a PreFlashpoint framework with some New 52 elements folded in like we have now.

Honestly, I am convinced this is what would have happened, if only they had not maligned what came before and actual had plan. They basically cut off their nose to spite their face. Making Superman cool isn't entirely a bad idea at the start of his career, so long as you don't get bogged down and wondering around aimlessly with no clear direction where it mattered the most. I mean there were times when I felt he was regressed to the point where he didn't even feel like Superman, let alone the same guy they started with.

[manofsteel1979]

Honestly, I am convinced this is what would have happened, if only they had not maligned what came before and actual had plan. They basically cut off their nose to spite their face. Making Superman cool isn't entirely a bad idea at the start of his career, so long as you don't get bogged down and wondering around aimlessly with no clear direction where it mattered the most. I mean there were times when I felt he was regressed to the point where he didn't even feel like Superman, let alone the same guy they started with.

Objectively New 52 Superman was basically just PreCrisis Superman in a new costume and a few elements of Post crisis thrown in. Hell The first thing Perez does is put Clark and the Daily Planet back under Morgan Edge and Galaxy as it was preCrisis. Perez references a bunch of preCrisis villains in his short run.

All Morrison was doing was recontexualizing the golden age period of Superman in his first 7 issues. There was nothing unprecedented in either run at the start. Most of the aspersions that were cast onto Nee 52 Superman were from misconceptions that DC's marketing had pushed... namely the armored suit and playing up the rough and tumble angry Superman from Action #1 was going to be the new default when that wasn't necessarily the case.

Had the powers that be been less sensationalist and been more honest and straight forward about what the new Superman really was, I think fandom as a whole would be more open to giving it an honest shot instead of a very sizable chunk of fandom automatically rejecting this illeration sight unseen.i ought to know. I almost didn't make the leap. I ended up buying Superman #1 and Action #1 and realized it wasn't as bad as I feared and grew to like some of what came and I stayed loyal. Until the dark times...until TRUTH.

[Sacred Knight]

I don't know if the marketing would have changed much to be honest. I mean, post-Crisis fans wouldn't have been sated if the marketing had paid tons of homage to the past all the time; it'd still have been gone. Maybe some more on the fence people would have been less angry, but I think most on the fence people gave it a fair shot regardless. Some probably stayed and then some probably decided it wasn't for them. But even all that aside, at the end I reverting had far more to do with internal creator response as opposed to critical response. There were some key creative personnel within the company that didn't like it, and I feel there was a rather perfect storm of events starting with the move to Burbank gave precedence for pitches to bring the old version back and they jumped on it.

[rpmaluki]

I think there's a difference between Post-Crisis being replaced and DC's marketing stomping all over him at the same time. There was no way that would have sat well with some fans, readers and creators alike. I think we all sort of live with the dreaded expectation that Superman will get a makeover down the line, it's become unavoidable and this shouldn't be the case. It's like going to the dentist. You know you have to go through it sometime what you don't expect is to have all your teeth pulled out without anesthesia. The ironic thing here is that this has nearly happened with every iteration of the character. Rather than build the character up using the sum of ALL of his parts, thereby growing the fanbase, DC has only managed to successfully fracture the man as well as his fans.

[Sacred Knight]

I guess its a difference in perception. I don't really think they stomped all over him in many senses more than the literal that in that he had been erased. Yes they marketed as New 52 Superman as more modern and "cool", but I can't recall them ever outright or even strongly alluding with strong language that he was an awful version. It could have been handled with better care yes (I still say it wouldn't have made a TON of difference because lip service doesn't change the fact your guy is gone) but at the same time I don't recall many if any outright instances of insult. Heck, I'd say that Tomasi's flippant "this is the Superman you should love" during Rebirth when questions about New 52 Superman came about were much more harsh than anything said about the pre-FP version after he left. Even meta commentary within the books I felt was more strongly insulting to New 52 Superman during Rebirth than it ever was toward post-Crisis Superman in New 52 materials.