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

[Kuwagaton]

. Other than that pretty much every aspect of him fit some form of a pre-Crisis element, so rather being completely different he was just different to a couple generations who weren't around for the way he used to be to see the similarities.

He grew up on a farm and thought of himself as Clark. The latter is a significant departure, isn't it?

I also think a lot of these changes are retroactively justified by tying it into some aspect of Pre-Crisis when in fact they were done haphazardly to generate outrage and media attention. When New 52 was announced, the lack of the marriage was a main point in the mainstream news media. That was the hook they used to get the story out. Same with the Wonder Woman relationship. Now not only is Superman not married, but Lois Lane is out, Wonder Woman is in.

Agreed. It wasn't your dad's Superman because five years later, he was still butting heads with authority. When was Superman a rebel and well known superhero simultaneously? Why would he be? Why have him brood about Lois dating someone else instead of being in love with superheroics or in a love triangle for two?

Now Morrison I can believe was going for a Golden Age Pre-War take. But if you are going to try to convince me that Scott Lodbell was purposefully trying to call back to pre-Crisis, I really will need to see some receipts for that claim.

On one hand following Morrison and mimicking the flavor is vintage Lobdell. But his "gonzo" approach was quite similar to what Bates and Maggin were doing after O'Neil.

The pre-Crisis parallels in the New52 are pretty plain to see if one cares to look, but let's not forget that the Super-line had been moving back in that direction for a good decade before the reboot hit. It started with the return of Silver Age Krypton, Krypto, and Kara Zor-El under Loeb in the very late 90's or early 00's (I forget when exactly), then spread to include Clark's time with the Legion, his powers manifesting at a young age, the death of a Kent (which seemed like trying to split the difference), and so forth under Johns. We saw post-Crisis Clark's power levels slowly rise across the 00's until he was, perhaps not at crazy Silver Age levels, but far beyond where he had started in 86.

I think it really startwd with Schultz directly having Superman come to see himself as Kal El just before Loeb started, but that's nitpicking if only to slight Berganza and his leadership. Same with Clark and the reboot Legion. The power creep, well, his powers always manifested at a young age and expanded after his death but DC clearly wanted the New Superman to hit the ground running so while he wasn't all powerful from the jump, he was nearer to pre crisis much sooner.

The rebel thing I can give Johns for... although his fellow pre crisis foremost fan Waid did do the xenophobia earlier in his own origin. But I think Johns is why it stuck more than any general attempt to go retro, as I guess I said above.

[Yoda]

My point wasn't that the Pre-Crisis elements weren't present, its that they weren't added as part of a conscious effort to incorporate those elements to get Superman back to a Pre-Crisis feel. That would have required some sort of coherent road map, plan, or goal for the character. The Loeb & Johns 2000 era stuff was intentionally reincorporating those elements in an effort to give Superman back some Silver Age elements. The changes in the New 52, particularly coupled with the constant drumbeat of this isn't the old Superman, gave the impression that they were looking more to change recognizable elements for the sake of changing recognizable elements, some of which we, as fans, could loosely tie into some element of the characters history after the fact. Which given Superman's been around for 80 years you likely can find some examples for almost any character attribute you want to defend.

This excludes Morrison's obvious attempt to recapture the Pre-War Social Justice Warrior Superman. Honestly, half the time I look at Morrison's whole run as it's own character that coincidentally shared a costume with New 52 Superman.

[Sacred Knight]

I understand where you're coming from, and I still disagree. They very much were brought back as a conscious effort to give him a pre-Crisis feel. I know you're giving Morrison's run credit, but where I think you're mistaken is the idea that because the Superman title didn't follow suit properly, it means that there was never any very general plan in that regard. There was. It just wasn't something executed evenly across the Super-line. But the basic platform was laid, so I fail to see how that doesn't count as succeeding in and proving that particular aim. In the end its just one title failed to continue that and was all over the place. That's where the failure was. A big failure, don't get me wrong, but not at all a sign that the original pre-Crisis callbacks were not entirely planned and deliberate. The idea was to use the early, lesser powered state to call back to the Golden Age, then, the power boost move into Silver/Bronze Age themes. Action succeeded in that, and then continued forward coherently. To say it didn't is taking it a bit too far.

Back to the Superman title, The failure with it falls on editorial, some of that falls on the Superman writers, and some of that even falls on Morrison for not sharing enough during his run in the beginning to allow Perez to craft his story without having to walk on eggshells. As that led him to leave and begin what would become the constant turnover with no consistency of character. But the fact remains that the New 52 Superman's story started with a concrete effort to restore and call back to specific pre-Crisis elements of the three main Ages of that time period. That was Action Comics' job and it did that, and the title continued to move forward from that template after Morrison was gone (outside of one hire gone bad and a resulting interlude before Pak took over). Further, Batman/Superman featured a very coherent and recognizable continuation of the platform. Superman/Wonder Woman as well, at least when Soule was around. Then Truth happened and that upended everything beyond just the problems with the Superman title alone. That was the one though that never had its act together and was the odd-man out with wild, willy-nilly characterizations that sometimes even from one issue to the next within didn't mesh.

[Kuwagaton]

My point wasn't that the Pre-Crisis elements weren't present, its that they weren't added as part of a conscious effort to incorporate those elements to get Superman back to a Pre-Crisis feel. That would have required some sort of coherent road map, plan, or goal for the character. The Loeb & Johns 2000 era stuff was intentionally reincorporating those elements in an effort to give Superman back some Silver Age elements. The changes in the New 52, particularly coupled with the constant drumbeat of this isn't the old Superman, gave the impression that they were looking more to change recognizable elements for the sake of changing recognizable elements, some of which we, as fans, could loosely tie into some element of the characters history after the fact. Which given Superman's been around for 80 years you likely can find some examples for almost any character attribute you want to defend.

This excludes Morrison's obvious attempt to recapture the Pre-War Social Justice Warrior Superman. Honestly, half the time I look at Morrison's whole run as it's own character that coincidentally shared a costume with New 52 Superman.

The only part where I didn't necessarily agree was Lobdell. His penchant for high end pseudoscientific feats, superdickery, previously undiscovered races, philosophical questions about Superman's power level vs responsibility, and bits of DC lore like HIVE are pretty 60s to early 80s in scope. I think he even squeezed out an epilogue or two.

[Sacred Knight]

That's a good point. Its been so long that a lot of details about the run I've forgotten. But plot-wise, yeah, some of it had a pre-Crisis feel. Really the deal with that run imo was that it was the characterization of Superman himself that fell uneven. Sometimes it was good (Superman telling the government to shove off when they wanted to invade his Fortress was gold), sometimes it was very bad (his treatment of Kara, musing to himself if he subconsciously allowed Lois to get hurt to protect his secrets).

But mainly, overall it was the turnover and the lack of consistency in said turnover that was the big issue with Vol 3 Superman. At least in my opinion.

[Lokimaru]

Main problem with New52 Superman is that Superman fans can't let go of the Triangle era changes. Look at New52 Aquaman. Back to his near original Origin as Arthur Curry half-bred son of a Lighthouse Keeper and the Queen of Atlantis instead of the Orin (Good ol' Hook Hand) one created by Peter David and Esteban Maroto. Did his fans bitch? No. Guess only Johns can truly change **** and have it stick. Bet they aren't itching to bring back the Hook (or Water Hand). Superman fans give me a headache with their Socially Acceptable Non-Threatening Superman bullshit. Just as New 52 Aquaman was classic Aquaman with a kick, New 52 Superman was classic (CLASSIC not 80's) Superman with a Kick. Nuperman even developed a new power just like Classic Superman use to do all the time.

[Lokimaru]

I understand where you're coming from, and I still disagree. They very much were brought back as a conscious effort to give him a pre-Crisis feel. I know you're giving Morrison's run credit, but where I think you're mistaken is the idea that because the Superman title didn't follow suit properly, it means that there was never any very general plan in that regard. There was. It just wasn't something executed evenly across the Super-line. But the basic platform was laid, so I fail to see how that doesn't count as succeeding in and proving that particular aim. In the end its just one title failed to continue that and was all over the place. That's where the failure was. A big failure, don't get me wrong, but not at all a sign that the original pre-Crisis callbacks were not entirely planned and deliberate. The idea was to use the early, lesser powered state to call back to the Golden Age, then, the power boost move into Silver/Bronze Age themes. Action succeeded in that, and then continued forward coherently. To say it didn't is taking it a bit too far.

Back to the Superman title, The failure with it falls on editorial, some of that falls on the Superman writers, and some of that even falls on Morrison for not sharing enough during his run in the beginning to allow Perez to craft his story without having to walk on eggshells. As that led him to leave and begin what would become the constant turnover with no consistency of character. But the fact remains that the New 52 Superman's story started with a concrete effort to restore and call back to specific pre-Crisis elements of the three main Ages of that time period. That was Action Comics' job and it did that, and the title continued to move forward from that template after Morrison was gone (outside of one hire gone bad and a resulting interlude before Pak took over). Further, Batman/Superman featured a very coherent and recognizable continuation of the platform. Superman/Wonder Woman as well, at least when Soule was around. Then Truth happened and that upended everything beyond just the problems with the Superman title alone. That was the one taught that never had its act together and was the odd-man out with wild, willy-nilly characterizations that sometimes even from one issue to the next within didn't mesh.

How come when Editor's screw up with the character, the Character takes the brunt of the blame? It's the same with DCEU Superman and the Studio Executives. I was always thought that I had to be accountable for my actions growing up yet people in corporations just seem to pass the buck. Why not have Morrison write Action And Superman then there wouldn't have been any confusion. Or have Johns write Superman since he wrote him in Justice League and already had a take on the character.

[Rod G]

Main problem with New52 Superman is that Superman fans can't let go of the Triangle era changes. Look at New52 Aquaman. Back to his near original Origin as Arthur Curry half-bred son of a Lighthouse Keeper and the Queen of Atlantis instead of the Orin (Good ol' Hook Hand) one created by Peter David and Esteban Maroto. Did his fans bitch? No. Guess only Johns can truly change **** and have it stick. Bet they aren't itching to bring back the Hook (or Water Hand). Superman fans give me a headache with their Socially Acceptable Non-Threatening Superman bullshit. Just as New 52 Aquaman was classic Aquaman with a kick, New 52 Superman was classic (CLASSIC not 80's) Superman with a Kick. Nuperman even developed a new power just like Classic Superman use to do all the time.

That’s it in a nutshell, Lokimaru.

[Yoda]

The Triangle era supported four Superman titles a month for over a decade and brought in tons of new fans. Post-Crisis Aquaman could barely sustain a single ongoing during the same period. So it's not surprising that the fans would welcome one change and reject the other.

If anything Post-Crisis Aquaman is analogous to the New 52 Superman. Drastic editorially mandated changes, shock for shock sake, and multiple attempts to revamp the character. While New 52 Aquaman had relatively stable creative teams, a fairly well defined direction and consistent (more or less) characterization.

[Sacred Knight]

The reality is there's very little done just for shock value in New 52 Superman. Controversial changes don't necessarily equal things done just for shock value. Controversial change can have a viable aim. This is true for most things during that era. Just like the term objective, shock value is really overplayed, more often than not just used as a pejorative for something being different that individual reader dislikes, as opposed to truly looking to see if there was storytelling merit in it because they just don't want to. There's nothing wrong with not liking a lot of the changes of New 52 Superman. But labeling much of it shock value is just cheap, imo.

In fact off the top of my head I can only think of one thing done just for shock value because there was no story behind it, it went absolutely nowhere, thus it literally was just there be shocking. And that was the Superman/Parasite/Lois debacle. And that was all of one page, in five years of stories.

Likewise I consider the post-Crisis Aquaman initiative to not be much shock just for shock value either. Again, controversial changes, but there was an intended story to be told surrounding such elements. Whether these things in the end succeed or fail notwithstanding, they weren't just shock value changes. The loss of his hand for instance, while "shocking" to see, went somewhere.

[JAK]

The Triangle era supported four Superman titles a month for over a decade and brought in tons of new fans. Post-Crisis Aquaman could barely sustain a single ongoing during the same period. So it's not surprising that the fans would welcome one change and reject the other.

If anything Post-Crisis Aquaman is analogous to the New 52 Superman. Drastic editorially mandated changes, shock for shock sake, and multiple attempts to revamp the character. While New 52 Aquaman had relatively stable creative teams, a fairly well defined direction and consistent (more or less) characterization.

Exactly. The Triangle Era is probably the most popular Superman has been since his early Golden Age stardom. Not saying it didn't have it's problems, but there's a reason it stuck. Not to mention, DC's pissing on their then-current Superman ("time for underwear on the inside" and "wedding is the end of the story" etc) to push their "new hotness" Superman meant that fans like me were going to tell DC where they could stick their "super-armor." More respect on their part while hyping the new version would have had me excited - I was initially looking forward to a reboot before they pulled that. I'm not the only one, either - a lot of fans I knew at the time were ready for a change after "Grounded" and the execution of "New Krypton". Comparisons were going to be drawn anyway, but that ensured that said comparisons would be thought of in a vs/combattive manner by at larger chunk of the fanbase than was necessary. DC did that to themselves, and they paid for it eventually.

[Yoda]

I'm not trying to be antagonistic, so maybe it's better characterized as an over reliance on stunts or purported status quo changes. At least from my point of view the fact that it was part of a storyline doesn't alter the fact that the driving force behind the change was to drastically alter something in an attempt to drive controversy and drum up interest and sales.

How integral to the direction of the character was quitting the Daily Planet for a blog? I could be remembering it wrong but it was used like once or twice afterwards mainly to drive the public reveal of the Superman Wonder Woman romance and then was ignored and undone. The new powers, losing his powers, becoming kryptonite powered, the secret identity reveal, Wonder Woman interrogating all his friends, etc. That was like within the space of 12 issues. Yes they were all part of a story, but they were drastic actions or changes that relied on the "shock" to drive the story (often right into the ground). These were all status quo changes and the primary purpose was to drum up controversy (and hopefully sales).

So in that sense I do think Aquaman is analogous. They were constantly looking for drastic, "shocking," new directions to take the character in. Relying on a drastic status quo altering element to change the direction of the story instead of just telling a good Superman story. Like Pak's initial Action run were just good Superman stories that stood on their own merits. They didn't require a drastic change to drive them.

[Vordan]

I'm not trying to be antagonistic, so maybe it's better characterized as an over reliance on stunts or purported status quo changes. At least from my point of view the fact that it was part of a storyline doesn't alter the fact that the driving force behind the change was to drastically alter something in an attempt to drive controversy and drum up interest and sales.

How integral to the direction of the character was quitting the Daily Planet for a blog? I could be remembering it wrong but it was used like once or twice afterwards mainly to drive the public reveal of the Superman Wonder Woman romance and then was ignored and undone. The new powers, losing his powers, becoming kryptonite powered, the secret identity reveal, Wonder Woman interrogating all his friends, etc. That was like within the space of 12 issues. Yes they were all part of a story, but they were drastic actions or changes that relied on the "shock" to drive the story (often right into the ground). These were all status quo changes and the primary purpose was to drum up controversy (and hopefully sales).

So in that sense I do think Aquaman is analogous. They were constantly looking for drastic, "shocking," new directions to take the character in. Relying on a drastic status quo altering element to change the direction of the story instead of just telling a good Superman story. Like Pak's initial Action run were just good Superman stories that stood on their own merits. They didn't require a drastic change to drive them.

I agree. The blog thing went nowhere. They had Lois **** blonde Not!Clark while Clark walks away listening to them have sex for what reason exactly? They said they wanted to explore Superman not tied down to Lois but they then tied him down to Diana for the entire New 52. They had him lose his powers repeatedly, non-stop crossovers that were terrible, and generally just went out of their way to try to establish that this wasn’t your dad’s Superman while not really letting him do stuff that “normal” Superman wouldn’t do.

[JAK]

I agree. The blog thing went nowhere. They had Lois **** blonde Not!Clark while Clark walks away listening to them have sex for what reason exactly? They said they wanted to explore Superman not tied down to Lois but they then tied him down to Diana for the entire New 52. They had him lose his powers repeatedly, non-stop crossovers that were terrible, and generally just went out of their way to try to establish that this wasn’t your dad’s Superman while not really letting him do stuff that “normal” Superman wouldn’t do.

Well, Clark did date a few other people in Post-Crisis, too. But there are concrete ideas and there are general changes without a plan. And the sense I get from things is that it was much more the latter (besides Morrison and maybe one or two others). That doesn't mean there was nothing good, because N52 has it's fans and that's fine. But DC's lack of a solid plan and it's disrespect to what they'd spent years building previously shortchanged N52 fans as much as it did anybody. That's why I defend my own positions, but I have a lot of sympathy for those who jumped on board and strapped in for the long haul... but now feel kinda left out. I can very much sympathize.

[Yoda]

I agree. The blog thing went nowhere. They had Lois **** blonde Not!Clark while Clark walks away listening to them have sex for what reason exactly? They said they wanted to explore Superman not tied down to Lois but they then tied him down to Diana for the entire New 52. They had him lose his powers repeatedly, non-stop crossovers that were terrible, and generally just went out of their way to try to establish that this wasn’t your dad’s Superman while not really letting him do stuff that “normal” Superman wouldn’t do.

Exactly. John Carroll is a great example. He served no purpose whatsoever other than to give Lois some boy toy to have Clark mope over in the first issue of Superman. He basically got the Poochie treatment didn't he? Just dropped altogether - "died on the way to his home planet."

Well, Clark did date a few other people in Post-Crisis, too. But there are concrete ideas and there are general changes without a plan. And the sense I get from things is that it was much more the latter (besides Morrison and maybe one or two others). That doesn't mean there was nothing good, because N52 has it's fans and that's fine. But DC's lack of a solid plan and it's disrespect to what they'd spent years building previously shortchanged N52 fans as much as it did anybody. That's why I defend my own positions, but I have a lot of sympathy for those who jumped on board and strapped in for the long haul... but now feel kinda left out. I can very much sympathize.

This is what I'm trying to get at. There was no concrete plan. They were piling shocking status quo changes on top of shocking status quo changes without any long term goals and seemingly changing directions within the space of like 6 issues. More often it seemed to drum up some mainstream press based on how these elements went against the general understanding of Superman versus any actual story driven motivation. No more Lois, Wonder Woman, Quitting the Daily Planet, Lois outing Superman - all were stories that got them press attention. They were designed to shock the readers, create controversy not out of any coherent development or plan. They all reaked of editorially driven story mandates.