Bendis leaving the Superman and Action Comics in December

[Last Son of Krypton]

I'd like a streamlined version of the DCEU suit being used in the comics.

[K. Jones]

I think it's been an okay-to-mid-tier run altogether. There's some nice stuff but also some stuff that didn't mesh well or felt weird in the pacing. I'm sure my pros and cons lists would be about equal in size. Just thinking back to recent history I think the Tomasi/Jurgens Rebirth had me a lot more excited consistently, but I don't need too much to be "turned back" or "fixed". Just a new run with new ambitions and cooler concepts.

The only thing I'd literally request be "fixed", which is totally easy to do anyway, is bringing Jon Kent's age back down.

[OpaqueGiraffe17]

https://www.gamesradar.com/dc-shoots...ing-to-happen/
5G is not happening according to Lee, as he states pretty firmly here. Curious if the future Jon and Clark in the Authority plans have been scrapped entirely.

[Sacred Knight]

This has me pretty convinced they have. Him being so emphatic about it seems like he's directly trying to squash the rumors for good, whether there was ever an air of truth to them or not (I believe they were true, but its moot now). Makes me think the chances of that other imprint idea may not even happen anymore in regards to these concepts. Only question I have now will be whether Bendis puts the pieces back himself, whether the Death Metal ending handwaves them or whether the new creative teams have to address reversing them via a storyline on its own accord. I think options two or three are the most likely, as with Bendis' run ending in December I don't see any pieces being put in place by now to reverse things in his own run. Personally I'm hoping for option two, as I'd rather let the new teams get off and running with their own ideas without having to take care of reversing these large changes. Its the laziest option and hypocritical to support laziness but what can I say, I can't help it, I thought all these changes were that bad.

[Vordan]

https://www.gamesradar.com/dc-shoots...ing-to-happen/
5G is not happening according to Lee, as he states pretty firmly here. Curious if the future Jon and Clark in the Authority plans have been scrapped entirely.

They’re still doing Luke Fox Batman but Bats has always been a special case. Maybe Jon Superman as a separate mini? But the rest of 5G is absolutely dead, we’ve seen no inkling they’re planning to replace WW, Flash, Aquaman, or GL.

[LordUltimus]

They’re still doing Luke Fox Batman but Bats has always been a special case. Maybe Jon Superman as a separate mini? But the rest of 5G is absolutely dead, we’ve seen no inkling they’re planning to replace WW, Flash, Aquaman, or GL.

Well, we saw a black Wonder Woman in the last issue of Doomsday Clock, but other than that...

[Frontier]

So? Batman's costume with trunks or no trunks is'nt used to perpetuate "aw! Shucks!" feeling. Books treat the costume as means to strike terror into the heart of evil doers. Batman is mythic.

Batman's costume is treated with fear, respect and reverence. Superman's costume? It's used to Perpetuate the former"aw! Shucks!". That feeling should be reserved for clark kent with glasses. The fake id. Not superman, the strongman. Strongman should make you feel different and his suit should as well.A man breaking chains is what a strongman suit should make you feel like. If it's not, then the suit isn't serving its purpose.

It is the most mythic costume that inspired the genre. You don't have to tell me that. It is precisely why i want better treatment and explanation of for the suit. Hello! Phantom fan here. Just because i feel that, doesn't mean my nephew would also. And that's what really matters, Not me.Moreover,suit had an ingrained story and thematic purpose that wasn't "space dad suit or earth mommy made suit". So, i want them to try to create something that can be thematically linked to superman-the physical marvel that protects the weak again and that has some form of tangible real world familiarity to it for the next generation . So that my nephew can easily get it and think "cool!". And not, "that's wierd". Especially, with the kind of grandiose explanations and trivialising explanations they give(quite frankly both don't work) . I want them to explain what a superman is, in the modern sense without the contrived explanations i mentioned prior . How does the suit connect to it and things like that.

I think, it's just indeed the body proportions that's reminiscent of Quitely and texturing of the suit.Correct me if i am wrong. Quitely body proportions for superman was inspired by curt swan's silverage superman. Wasn't it?

It's all in the presentation. Generally in-universe Superman is seen as a paragon and a beacon of light and wonder whenever he appears in-costume, and that's what his visual design represents. I don't think on a general basis people view it as a representation of "aw shucks" Superman.

[SuperX]

[Ascended]

I don't know, a lot of the young guys don't appear to be much interest on Superman, we heard guys like Donny Cates talking about his 5 years plans to Batman or his notebook full of Green Lantern ideas and all he says about Superman is tha he may have a take on the character; or Brian Edward Hill who says he likes to write characters reacting to Superman.

Yeah, after thirty years of bullsh*t the damage is becoming clear. But there's still young rookies out there who would love to write Clark.

I say find someone with the passion, who appreciates the history, and who isn't tied down by old ways of doing things and see what happens. Worst case scenario is we get another crappy run. Best case scenario is we get a rejuvenated Superman ready to tackle the problems of the 21st century. It's worth the small risk of a bad run and the effort of finding somebody to do it, in my opinion.

Only question I have now will be whether Bendis puts the pieces back himself, whether the Death Metal ending handwaves them or whether the new creative teams have to address reversing them via a storyline on its own accord.

I'd rather go with option four; they actually keep this status quo around and see what can be done with it. This could be a hell of an opportunity to bring back the OG social crusader, older and wiser and fixing crap from a new direction. Remember that early issue of Morrison's Action where Clark realizes his Golden Age bully styled methods weren't working? His new position with the UP means he can return to that fight, and actually make a difference. It's like the kid who protests in college, then ends up in politics because he realized protesting doesn't achieve anything.

Superman has been becoming less relevant year after year, decade after decade. The world is burning (literally, in several places) and we need more from Superman than punching aliens in the face for trying to blow up earth and writing exposes on Lex that he'll lawyer his way out of. If Superman is going to matter, if he's going to be someone people today look at and say "Yes, this guy gets it!" then we need more than infinite cycles of the standard status quo. Bendis' president of earth might not be the way to achieve the change we need, but it's a hell of a lot better than another asinine story about Superman punching Metallo and hiding his identity from his boss.

Bear in mind; it's not the *concepts* that are failing us; it's DC's execution. And I figure, they've been treating Clark the same way for so long, the best way to shake that up and force them out of this self-destructive spiral is to force them into unknown, new territory.

[Sacred Knight]

Even if I didn't outright hate most of the changes as people know, I'd still have a hard time seeing with them rolling with much. I mean, there's the Invisible Mafia and stuff like that. Every reason to keep those additions. But the secret ID will go back in. Jon as a teenager was just reviled. And even outside of that there's just no point to it at all without 5G. I think the likelihood is extreme he was aged up specifically because the general idea of the 5G idea was already known to Bendis at the time. And if there's no 5G, the new Legion is pointless too by extension because that's the foundation of the new lore. I absolutely agree we need social crusader Superman back in the absolute worst way. But you can definitely do that without any of the above. I don't know if they will mind you, I don't know if they want to give him that edge he so desperately needs again. But I'm hopeful, as at the very least that concept does not have to go hand in hand with the stuff Bendis was trying to do.

If all this stuff is erased, believe me I get the argued downsides. Do something, erase it, do something, erase it, do something, erase it. Its not a good look. I can totally appreciate that. Its just...I'm a stickler on that ID man. Even if they don't utilize it right, it cuts right to the core of the character. I'm not willing to be rid of it even knowing they don't know how to use it to its max most of the time. I just can't go there. But I do understand that none of this automatically fixes Superman by any stretch of the imagination, and the very idea of reversals and erased continuity is a gigantic part of the problem as it is.

[OpaqueGiraffe17]

Yeah, after thirty years of bullsh*t the damage is becoming clear. But there's still young rookies out there who would love to write Clark.

I say find someone with the passion, who appreciates the history, and who isn't tied down by old ways of doing things and see what happens. Worst case scenario is we get another crappy run. Best case scenario is we get a rejuvenated Superman ready to tackle the problems of the 21st century. It's worth the small risk of a bad run and the effort of finding somebody to do it, in my opinion.



I'd rather go with option four; they actually keep this status quo around and see what can be done with it. This could be a hell of an opportunity to bring back the OG social crusader, older and wiser and fixing crap from a new direction. Remember that early issue of Morrison's Action where Clark realizes his Golden Age bully styled methods weren't working? His new position with the UP means he can return to that fight, and actually make a difference. It's like the kid who protests in college, then ends up in politics because he realized protesting doesn't achieve anything.

Superman has been becoming less relevant year after year, decade after decade. The world is burning (literally, in several places) and we need more from Superman than punching aliens in the face for trying to blow up earth and writing exposes on Lex that he'll lawyer his way out of. If Superman is going to matter, if he's going to be someone people today look at and say "Yes, this guy gets it!" then we need more than infinite cycles of the standard status quo. Bendis' president of earth might not be the way to achieve the change we need, but it's a hell of a lot better than another asinine story about Superman punching Metallo and hiding his identity from his boss.

well one direction I figure they could go with that is have Superman tackle those real life "grounded" issues, but with aliens instead of earthlings. Outer space civiliazations like those in the united planet are bound to also have social issues, corruption, oppression, etc. Could be one way to go forward. Kinda like how Star Trek used alien stuff to make political statements about real life....I think, I'm not a trekie so that could be a terrible comparison.

[Ascended]

Even if I didn't outright hate most of the changes as people know, I'd still have a hard time seeing with them rolling with much.

I figure there's basically only three major changes to the status quo under Bendis.

Jon being aged up is one. Ultimately, I don't give a rat's ass about Jon but if I made the call, yes I'd undo that and return him to being ten. There was plenty of story left to tell with kid Jon, and being a teenager makes him far less unique while also making it harder to hide the fact that he was never anything more than a Silver Age Superboy redux. But what they do with Jon's age actually has little impact on Clark's overall story, when you get right down to it. His position in the supporting cast is still "young son."

The "earth president" is the second big thing. And it is a slice of genuine brilliance. It allows easy access to topical narratives using both allegory and direct commentary. It can be the focal point of countless stories or easily sidelined. It helps define and add to the entire cosmic side of DC and provides a foundation to build from. And it brings back the social crusader elements, but updated in a way that retains the patriarch aesthetics people now ascribe to Superman. It *could* be used as a brick in the "establishment man" wall but that's a non-factor; it won't be *this* decade and until DC lost their grasp of the character Clark was always what the decade needed him to be. Straight talk, if DC drops this, the odds of me dropping the book increases a lot. I *do not care* about the classic status quo as it's usually given to us. The concept isn't broken but DC forgot how to make it work. And I got tired of watching them try more than a decade ago.

Then there's the identity reveal. And you an' me have spun around this before. You know how much I value the duality; it is *the* crux of the character. I was only behind this thing because Bendis could pull it off. I was hoping he'd have the time to settle into this, and establish the blueprint on how it works without completely dropping the core of the character. With him leaving before he's done that, I'm not entirely sure I want DC trying to pick this up; it's a delicate idea. I'm kinda revising my opinion on whether this should stick around now. I think it *should* because it makes thematic sense and is new and interesting (losing the secret identity does not mean losing his intrinsic duality; the transition could have been a beautiful piece of character work). But I dunno if I trust DC to pull it off without Bendis. I'm not sure if they could *with* him.

Other stuff like STAR Labs and the Invisible Mafia.....that's just changing up the dressing a little bit. Changing Clark's go-to science guys, adding a new villain group to Metropolis, or supporting cast, etc. Some of that stuff I'd want to keep, some not, but it's just details really.

well one direction I figure they could go with that is have Superman tackle those real life "grounded" issues, but with aliens instead of earthlings. Outer space civiliazations like those in the united planet are bound to also have social issues, corruption, oppression, etc. Could be one way to go forward. Kinda like how Star Trek used alien stuff to make political statements about real life....I think, I'm not a trekie so that could be a terrible comparison.

No, you got it about right. Trek was built on using sci-fi allegory to explore social issues. And yeah, president Superman naturally lends itself to that kind of stuff, which is awesome. I mean, it's not necessary, Clark can go to space and save blue aliens who, really, are black whether he's president of earth or not. But the political position lends itself to the effort *so* damn well. Personally I want more than just allegory; I want Clark getting his hands dirty with the rest of us again. But allegory is always useful.

[Digifiend]

i hope they have an idea what to do with the family as a whole. There are two superboys, a supergirl, a superwoman, a steel, a superdog and on top of that we have the regular metropolis cast.

You do realise, despite her showing up in a flashback this week, Superwoman is depowered?

I really doubt Superman would be that character.

G Willow Wilson seems to have problems to wrote pretty powerful characters (that was a big problem in her Wonder Woman run). So, I don't think she will be so good for Superman.

What about Green Lanterns? Bring back the Rebirth duo, Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz. Simon's Muslim, and I know from Ms. Marvel that she would do good with his culture and family life. On his own though he wouldn't be a good seller, hence reuniting him with Jess. She's not the same type of character as Diana, much more flawed.

[dornwolf]

They’re still doing Luke Fox Batman but Bats has always been a special case. Maybe Jon Superman as a separate mini? But the rest of 5G is absolutely dead, we’ve seen no inkling they’re planning to replace WW, Flash, Aquaman, or GL.

I think just from a marketing perspective that the Luke Fox Batman survived. It'll make the news, probably sell decent off the first issue, and maybe if it sells overall well continues on.

[Vordan]

I think just from a marketing perspective that the Luke Fox Batman survived. It'll make the news, probably sell decent off the first issue, and maybe if it sells overall well continues on.

“Black Batman” was always a much more newsworthy change than “Superman’s aged up son takes over”. Still say they should’ve made Kenan 5G Superman. But yeah I think they’re still doing Fox Batman in part because it will sell off the attention and Bat brand power, but also because they want to keep John Ridley around. I could see him doing other books too if this pans out.