How Long is Bendis Going to Stay on Superman?

[lotchj]

I've maintained the earliest we could see Bendis exit would be SUPERMAN #50 & AC #1050.

But, if Bendis is now saying he's already run out of the original Kal-El stories he meant to tell, then maybe this concludes much earlier ... SUPERMAN #25 & ACTION #1025, perhaps?

Unless he means he thought both books would turn over to Jon instead of Clark by now, in which case I hope 5G is an abysmal failure right out of the gate.

Clark Kent is the real and only superman!! Dc Comics will find out their making a big mistake if they replace Clark with Jon!

[qwertyuiop1998]

TBH, I don't think 5G will be carried by DC at the end. At least, I don't think DC will be replacing their most popular heroes(Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman) permanently

[Vordan]

Considering bendis didn't fully finish his first story about the invinsible mafia, I don't see how he is past his original plan.
Maybe he would drop the Superman title. But Action is still in the middle of the plot.

EDIT. but I do agree he would wrap his run by the end of Death Metal.

Which will lead to 5G despite Snyders displeasure.

I don’t know if it will anymore. Snyder has said the Generations are less about setting stuff up now as they are about getting continuity straightened out. I think Didio’s departure has changed things, remember he and Snyder were fighting over 5G if you believe Bleeding Cool. With Didio out and Death Metal getting expanded, I think there’s a good chance 5G as it was planned isn’t happening.

[Flash Gordon]

Considering he's the closest to quality that Superman has had in years, here's hoping he sticks around for a lengthy run.

I HIGHLY doubt that 5G thing is going to happen, thankfully.

[Superlad93]

There's a pretty absurd amount of planning and forethought going on here, right? Like regardless of what anyone feels about the run, the level of production here is noteworthy. These stories seem deliberately not built to be resolved in an arc or two. It would be rather strange that he'd sign on to take over the whole Superman universe, get his two best friends to help build the world, get them to write stand alone books in that world, request for specials, get them to write tie-in specials in the world, link his Legion book directly to it, make it so said Legion book sets up the story of Jon as Superman, and personally build Jon's hero's journey from issue 1 of his run if the idea were that he'd be leaving anytime soon.

More signs point to setting up roots and foundations for the shift in the DCU that ushers in the 5G version of the Superman universe where he'll really cut loose, no?

On that note: I genuinely think he's waiting to really dig when 5G hits. I think major plot points like what Jor-El did, the United Planets, New Krypton, the revealed identity, and even the city of Metropolis itself are the tame/pre version of whatever he's got planned.
_____________

By no means a holding pattern, but maybe comparable to the story of Rhaegar Targaryen vs the story of Jon Snow, if you catch my drift. One of them's the Price Who Was Promised, fights ice zombies, and rides a dragon, but nothing even remotely close to the status quo of the modern day of the show/books happen without the set up and big leaps and moments made by the other guy in his time.

[Sacred Knight]

TBH, I don't think 5G will be carried by DC at the end. At least, I don't think DC will be replacing their most popular heroes(Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman) permanently

I think they've rethought a lot of it. What we'll get is probably quite toned down from what Didio initially envisioned in which replacements were to take over pretty much wholesale. But I'm still not convinced that even in light of these alterations, that Superman is out of the woods yet. I don't see Batman or WW being replaced anymore for example, but it still seems more than possible that they're still aiming to replace Superman with Jon. I hope Lee has sense and has squashed this too, I'm just not confident in it yet considering the direction books like Superman and Legion were still trending in before everything halted. You could easily see the foreshadowing of the general idea in a way we weren't getting with Batman or Wonder Woman. Its still possible to about-face, but the foreshadowing is worrying.

[Vordan]

With Batman we got Alfred dying and Lucius Fox and Bruce getting close. I also suspect that Batman/Catwoman was going to do a lot of the heavy lifting in that regard, with Selina getting pregnant and Bruce giving up the cowl to Luke Fox to help raise Helena.

With WW we got nothing but that’s par for course, when has DC ever bothered to set up a WW reboot? They just dump whatever was going on before hand and jump all in. Hence why WW is now once again a mess having apparently been active since WWII.

[Sacred Knight]

Fair points all. Particularly stand corrected on Batman, I'm not a regular reader and didn't realize they'd upped Lucius like that already. That definitely counts as potential foreshadowing. Not as strong as they've shoved down our throats with Superman, but still counts.

[Superlad93]

With Batman we got Alfred dying

Just to add to this point: on a Word Balloon interview Tom King pretty candidly confirmed that Alfred's death was to facilitate 5G. He said that he intended for the death to be fake, but when he went to pitch it, the higher ups to, no, it's going to be real because this helps facilitate 5G. King even specifically said the words 5G when talking about all of this.

[Man_of_Tomorrow]

Plus king said:

"So what’s going to happen is, or what did happen, was that [DC] needed some major DC stuff to be told in the Bat books.And that would have conflicted with the Batman/Catwoman focus"
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And because King is King. they gave him the 12 issue mini to keep him in good terms. And Tynion is exactly the name you would bring if you wanted a writer you can control more.

[Superlad93]

That is so very true. Good catch. King's run was moved over to a 12 issue mini to keep him on good terms with DC by letting him finish his run properly, and giving them the main Batman book to do what I can only assume something similar to Bendis in the sense that do some major set up.

That's why we get the greater Fox family connection, a much more unstable Bruce, Joker planning out his big endgame play on the Bat family (he knows their secret identities), and the plot point that the city of Gotham itself is in a physical transition period with it getting ready to be rebuilt as something better.

[Vordan]

What does it mean then that Tynion has been talking about his run like it’s more than filler? Doesn’t seem like it’s meant to just be setting up 5G anymore. It sounds like he’ll be on Batman all of next year which means he’ll be writing it past issue 100 which was originally going to be the finale for Bruce Wayne Batman.

Edit: Lmao he just confirmed he’ll be on past issue 100. Sounds like he’ll be on for a while too. To me this says either 5G has been massively delayed or it’s being heavily reworked. https://twitter.com/jamesthefourth/s...196302339?s=21

[Ascended]

What has confused me about all this is that we can see the lead-up to 5G being planted with Bruce and Clark. Alfred and Selina and Gotham being rebuilt and Joker's big attack on the family (again) and in Metropolis you've got Clark getting into politics and revealing his identity and Jon getting old enough to become a new Superman. It's all a clear set up.

But where is that in the other books? Is that happening anywhere? Morrison seems to be doing his own thing with GL and as far as I know Hal's not getting close to retirement or marrying Carol or any of that kind of stuff. I trade wait Flash but as far as I know not much is happening there either to establish a "next phase of life" shift to 5G.

I guess Aquaman had a daughter and Mera is Queen or something? I'll grab that stuff in trade eventually but haven't read it.

So is there any visible 5G build up elsewhere that I'm missing?

[Vordan]

I’m pretty sure the whole reason they originally cut Morrison’s GL run short was for that exact reason Ascended. He wasn’t going to waste his time on his last ongoing setting crap up for DC’s latest attempt to figure out its continuity, so they cut his run short so they could do it. That Morrison got his 12 issues back, well... it does point to changes.

For Aquaman, it’s that Jackson Hyde is a part of the book and he’s apparently been picked to take over the role for 5G or he was picked at least. Arthur having a kid is an easy way to have him step aside, the same way Batman was going to imo.

[Last Son of Krypton]

Recently King talked about 5G like it was still in the works:

"5g is in eternal flux as it should; they want to get it right."

https://community.dcuniverse.com/t/l...m-et/852226/53