Superman#7 Spoilers and Discussion

[Kuwagaton]

"This is the best conditions"

I've been thinking about this for a while, and I will admit that being partial to Kaminski is part of this, but bringing on a new editor in Cunningham at the same time as Bendis jumped over really seems like a mistake to me. Bendis has a pretty solid grasp on the world of Superman, sure. However, he's writing like a dozen books right now and none of his pros seemed improved while none of his cons seemed addressed. It's very hard to find a real monthly artist and while we do get nice art, the speed has been effecting the flow of stories. And I don't think Bendis should or would be the one to address that.

But I had no real problems with this issue. The fun parts were really fun. Bendis is good enough at writing a regular Jon that the forced aging is not a bad mystery. We're only seven issues in so while I'm wary of any stunts, this era has just started. I'm assuming this is only the first half of the flashback.

[manwhohaseverything]

This was underwhelming and pathetic issue.that explanation was nowhere near, good enough. It did not work for me at all. She left her 10 year old boy in space without anyway to track him, with complete stranger for all she knows is mentally sick and has dubious past with a lot of trauma. Give this woman a trophy for best mother. And people call chichi bad names for pushing gohan to study.
A woman who made a career out of keeping up with amazing men and women Turn tailed and ran. A woman who in this continuity alone has taken on alien, terrorists, eradicator, gods and demons. Suddenly, can't hack it so ran away. Not only did she ran away, she also left her son, alone.And she has seen her son do more amazing things than this.
Oh! By the end of it. It looks like jor el is a lunatic and may have started a war.
After all this jon decided to come "home" (if you can call it that). To strangers, for parents without any abandonment issues, resentments, survivors guilt or PTSD. Everything is just peachy. I can understand jon might be too focused on the mission,might be holding his emotions back. But still, everything is back to normal between them without any awkwardness. Then this is stupidest thing ever. As a guy who went through similar situation when he was of the same age this is insulting. I know i am not objective here, what a terrible issue.lois just reminded me of my "father". no, that is not a good thing.
I would have appreciated it, if Jon was atleast more professional than personal.
I thought action comics 1004 was bad, this gives it clear competition.

Other than that i hated the dialogues "dad might poop" seriously. But i liked jon confronting lobo. bendis's jon sounded so artificial sheesh!. His kid jon voice did not flow at all. I also liked "mama bear" part for lois and Her breaking down.i also liked kid jon's playful nature and attitude he showed with lobo. Bendis writes kid jon as a caricature of a kid, more than real kid. In a way, i am glad he aged Jon. Bendis clearly can't write him.

So lobo met jon before? So "adventures of supersons" might be canon after all. Since lobo might be making an appearance there.

[LordUltimus]

As someone who dealt with most of Bendis's stuff from Marvel, I'm just enjoying the schadenfreude of DC fans having to deal with Bendis.

[Soubhagya]

Man that felt deflating. I thought i was in for a treat. But its like teases to something more. Why tease us with Lois in that costume if you aren't doing anything about it? What about mama bear?

Its still good. But it could have been gold.

[HeroVladimir93]

Does anyone else get the feeling that Bendis is using the Superman comics to subvert the audiences' expectations, like The Last Jedi? That's the feeling I got when I read this issue. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad by any means, but I think Bendis was setting up a good plotline by letting Lois stay with Jor-El and Jon, only for to quickly end that plotline by quickly returning Lois to Earth. At first, I thought Lois had gone to space to write up a story about something but it turns out she only went with Jon to protect him, you know, like any mother would do. Whether you like it that Lois is acting on her motherly instincts instead of her journalistic instincts is up to you.

Anyway, with Lois back on Earth, that leaves fans wonder why didn't she return to Superman and tell him she was alright. Maybe her short time with aliens that worship that husband gave her something to think and write about. It just feels that Bendis is playing it safe with Superman family. Lois didn't cheat on Superman, she didn't go on a space journey to satisfy her journalistic curiosity and she is overjoyed to reunite with her husband and son. While I'm glad to see the family dynamic is still healthy, at least for now, I feel that Bendis has taken away the potential suspense and dramatic tension he was setting up in Man of Steel. There is still some dramatic potential to be had in Superboy's new teenage form but we'll see how it goes.

When Superboy meets Lobo in that space bar, I admit that Lobo brings up a legitimate point about Superboy having to choose to be a man instead of manhood being something that he gets from other people. Obviously, Lobo is not the most reliable source of wisdom but he still leaves something for Superboy to think about.

This was an okay issue, and I can't wait to see what happens next.

[Korath]

I really loved this issue, because Lois felt like an actual character, for once, and not this awesome badass report superwoman who can take everything in stride, make use of the Hellbat (not matter how awesome to see it was) and be unphased by everything.

We got a woman who discovered for the first time that her husband was seen as a Galatic symbol of Hope and Peace, with aliens she never even knew existed worshipping the very ground she walks on because of her husband's actions. It has to be overwhelming, everyone would be overwhelmed (yes, even Batman).

Added to that the sense of danger and impotence while her son seemed mightily pleased and perfectly safe, I can get why she felt she could leave.

Now, the execution was too rushed. I think Bendis should have had two or three issues with Lois in space, growing ever more afraid, lost and impotent, realising that it was impacting Jon's joy and Jor-El playing the sympathetic ear and step-father. Then have her return to Earth and Jor reveal himself.

[Superlad93]

I liked this a good deal overall.

* I'm a big fan of how the story is presented with the flashback via conversation.

* I liked how the storytelling format allowed for quick jumps to big moments because the between were either not seen by the character telling the story (Jon) or relevant. It allowed Bendis to really pick up some speed in terms of pace (more on that at the bottom)

*I'll be honest, when I saw Jon immediately fly out into space, unprotected, with Jor-El and take down a whole fleet without breaking so much as a sweat, I sort of had a "whoa" moment about him that Lois has later.

* Lois and the mob of people was a good moment (especially if future theories end up being true)

* Lobo's moment with Jon may be pointing at a name change. Superman Secundus sounds less and less far fetched....

* The "you are royalty" moment was cool and a bit frustrating.

______

So, my only real hang up with this issue is how quickly Lois left. Not in the sense that I'm in agreement that she didn't vet Jor-El enough, and I think she's wrong for that, no. I think the issue gets across the point that she trusted Jon, and saw that he was far more capable than she or Clark had ever given him credit for before. But my issue with it is more the speed of her story. I'd have liked the reasons for he leaving to be more underscored. Maybe spend a day or two out there?

But, knowing what I know, I can only imagine Bendis shuffled off that bit of the story so quickly because that's technically Action Comics story more than Superman. The moment being more of a footnote in Superman is frustrating because, well, I wanna know, but, in terms of the structure we know we have, understandable. The story being told to us now is Jon's, and Lois' side of the equation beyond the notes we got here are being held close to the vest by her over at Action. But still, I'm human, so I'm understandably a little frustrated lol

The art really sold me this beautiful but lived in Star Trek/Star Wars feel. Seriously, I smiled harder than I probably should have at there being bits of paper on the ground when Lobo got there.

[RudHao]

So he spent 7 years doing The Green Lanterns jobs for them, cool I guess.....

[manwhohaseverything]

I really loved this issue, because Lois felt like an actual character, for once, and not this awesome badass report superwoman who can take everything in stride, make use of the Hellbat (not matter how awesome to see it was) and be unphased by everything.

We got a woman who discovered for the first time that her husband was seen as a Galatic symbol of Hope and Peace, with aliens she never even knew existed worshipping the very ground she walks on because of her husband's actions. It has to be overwhelming, everyone would be overwhelmed (yes, even Batman).

Added to that the sense of danger and impotence while her son seemed mightily pleased and perfectly safe, I can get why she felt she could leave.

Now, the execution was too rushed. I think Bendis should have had two or three issues with Lois in space, growing ever more afraid, lost and impotent, realising that it was impacting Jon's joy and Jor-El playing the sympathetic ear and step-father. Then have her return to Earth and Jor reveal himself.

she has shown plenty fear and desperation before.even when she was using hellbat armour.The reason she got the hellbat armour was because she ran to find something to fight with.She was afraid,but her fear always became resourcefulness when push came to shove.That is lois.She was not unphased. Her resourcefulness comes with the territory of being army brat,reporter and superman's wife for 15 years.And she is a fighter,especially when her loved one lives are at stake.She has never ran away.

[rward777]

Three weeks. Supes has been through a lot in that time. With a alien warlord who claimed to destroy krypton, Earth in the phantom zone, red cloud and the invisible mob, and the heroes in crisis s\l.

[Miles To Go]

Three weeks. Supes has been through a lot in that time. With a alien warlord who claimed to desteoy krypton, Earth in the phantom zone, red cloud and the invisible mob, and the heroes in crisis s\l.

Heroes In Crisis probably occurs a little later, given Lois is back at the Planet and living with Clark again in that.

[The World]

I hope whatever it is Jon did in those 7 years helps divert him from just being a lamer version of his dad. Frankly I'm liking the direction the two Superboy's are heading now, Conner has had the N52 and much of the 2000's wiped from his character putting him back to the confident and emancipated character he was at his height rather than the broken poor mans Clark where he was literally being raised by the Kents and going to Clark's old high school while wearing the same square framed glasses. If it plays right Jon and Conner could be kind of foils to one another.

Frankly if you want a more straight forward "Superboy" title it already exist but the Superboy's name was Clark Kent. There is an omnibus for purchase on amazon and all the stories are on the internet.


Still don't like Jor-El being alive though. Wish it had been someone else.

[Rakzo]

Three weeks. Supes has been through a lot in that time. With a alien warlord who claimed to desteoy krypton, Earth in the phantom zone, red cloud and the invisible mob, and the heroes in crisis s\l.

Aw man, this reminds me that Lois is terribly written in Heroes in Crisis too!

This is not a good time to be a fan.

[Superlad93]

Heh, I noticed Jon picked up intergalactic slang in his travels. Gnarkles. I like that. Hope that sticks around from here on to give him some distinctive dialog.

Thinking about the Lobo interaction a bit more, and I see some pretty straight forward parallel points between Jon and Conner in that moment. Conner's famous "don't call me Superboy" line is parodied, or at least pointed at, here when Jon says "you and all your little galactic bounty hunters can call me Superboy." Then Lobo corrects the boy, as he sees it, and basically says one is a man when they decide, and not when others do. This is a direct contrast to the fact that Conner insisted on being called Superman even at 15-16, but the world called him Superboy.

If the parallels continue, Jon's possibly going by Superman based on his costume. Hopefully Superman Secondus or even Superman II (read as Superman the second). Out in space his family is royalty, so the naming style of II or Secondus seems quite fitting. His new suit also has quite the regal look to it. Space prince Jon!

You know, I'm now wondering if Jon has been out there bolstering Superman name on an intergalactic scale. I mean, it sounds like he broke off from his grandfather for a number of years, and spent that time trying to get home. When he got older people probably just assumed he was Clark ("he's smaller than I imagined") and likely just called him Superman or maybe Secondus is some sort of alien naming convention (also the name of a Nigerian businessman lol)

_______

Also, I totally called that Jon would think his rejection from the Teen Titans was silly. Dude's totally not joining the that team now. Lets all say it together now: LONG LIVE THE LEGION.....and their new Superman

[Miles To Go]

This is not a good time to be a fan.

CW's Elseworlds and Reign of the Supermen would argue otherwise. DC's books as a whole are suffering from mischaracterisation, but the outside mediums are doing fairly well.