PKJ Action Comics Discussion and Spoilers

[Last Son of Krypton]

Confident that Clark will get killed, but like in Future State, Mongul will bring him back and toss him to the pits. That would make him a symbol of the futility of defiance. Then Clark helps lead a rebellion that ultimately succeeds in unseating Mongul. Hopefully any Authority members that get killed off will be brought back by the end, because I really like the idea of Clark leading the group.

Hmm... yeah, make sense.

As for the long term, yeah, there has to be a relaunch coming. Sales across the board at DC just arenÂ’t good, only Batman is selling well. IÂ’m assuming that after WilliamsonÂ’s 2022 event there will be a linewide relaunch. Hopefully PKJ will get to continue like how Venditti did on GL. I want to see this big epic story heÂ’s setting up that involves Aethyr. My guess is that heÂ’ll get to continue to 1050 at the very least, provided there are no dramatic dip in sales, and after that weÂ’ll see.

Would a new line-wide relaunch gets any different results than the Infinite Frontier one or individual titles' renumbering?

What DiDio used to do was literally blowing up the previous continuities (Pre-FP, New52 or Rebirth's if 5G would've happened) to draw attention to the line. Come to check our new #1s, everything is changed!
But, on the past Fandome, Jim Lee openly dismissed this business practice calling it a gimmick to boost sales temporary.
I don't see the new regime trying anything similar anytime soon, but just let each book/franchise stand on its own. Flash and WW are reliable sellers and would stay in the lower 30k range anyway, like they do from years now. It's just SM that it seems is dropping more than its usual sales and the other DC's non-BM books.

Didn't PJK hype up his big story as biggest Superman story since DoS? Might have been a hint right there.

I guess so.

From what we saw, I don't see how The Warworld Saga can be considered this big event anyway. No tie-ins or crossovers typical of an event. It's just a storyline so far.

This is just an educated guess, right? They have no way of knowing the real numbers.

From Comichron:

"While Diamond returned to reporting for June 2021, Lunar did not release any sales data. As we started doing in 2020, Comichron has drawn upon a retailer initial order sample to approximate unit and dollar sales rankings for DC relative to titles released at Diamond. The dataset represented a sizable number of copies, from which Comichron was able to determine relative sales volumes.

Where the Diamond numbers are projected with precision, the numbers which appear for DC sit at the middle of ranges, as a margin of uncertainty surrounds each DC estimate; the numbers are rounded to the nearest thousand. They appear for purposes of getting a general idea of what DC has in circulation. Further, remember that DC's information comes from a dataset of initial orders, so reorders and second printings would not be detected. We also look only at DC's North American copies, to keep consistent with Diamond's practice."

[Vordan]

Didn't PJK hype up his big story as biggest Superman story since DoS? Might have been a hint right there.

As for sales, its kinda sad that we now have to bank on Jon's bisexuality being big enough draw to "fix the franchise".

Nothing the comics do can “fix” the franchise at this point. Superman fandom is too shattered to really be unified. To get people interested in the franchise again, they pretty much have to rebuild him in outside media. S&L is a start, MAWS is coming, a big Superman video game would also help. But in the comics themselves, unless Hickman jumps on, I don’t think anything can be done.

Hmm... yeah, make sense.

Would a new line-wide relaunch gets any different results than the Infinite Frontier one or individual titles' renumbering?

What DiDio used to do was literally blowing up the previous continuities (Pre-FP, New52 or Rebirth's if 5G would've happened) to draw attention to the line. Come to check our new #1s, everything is changed!
But, on the past Fandome, Jim Lee openly dismissed this business practice calling it a gimmick to boost sales temporary.

Lee says a lot of things. If they need to get sales back up, then they’ll do a relaunch. Right now temporary sales boosts are the only kind the Big 2 can really get, nothing has permanently boosted sales. Even the New 52 only gave a temporary bump, although I think their ineptitude in how they handled that opportunity is why it was only temporary.

And yes, a bunch of new #1’s would probably get people interested. Infinite Frontier simply seems to have failed to get people to pick up the books. The Infinite Frontier mini was selling in the 40k’s, that’s terrible for the main book which is meant to be setting up your big event.

I don't see the new regime trying anything similar anytime soon, but just let each book/franchise stand on its own. Flash and WW are reliable sellers and would stay in the lower 30k range anyway, like they do from years now. It's just SM that it seems is dropping more than its usual sales and the other DC's non-BM books.
[/I]

Action is selling pretty much within the norm. Going through the charts, Action seems to settle around the low 30k/high 20k range these days. Doesn’t usually get this low because there’s usually a big relaunch or linewide event to capture peoples attention, which Infinite Frontier has failed to do across the board. The days of Action being the “flagship” are so far in the past I can’t believe anyone even seriously thinks that. Action is the side book to the main Superman book, Superman sells better.

[Last Son of Krypton]

Lee says a lot of things. If they need to get sales back up, then they’ll do a relaunch. Right now temporary sales boosts are the only kind the Big 2 can really get, nothing has permanently boosted sales. Even the New 52 only gave a temporary bump, although I think their ineptitude in how they handled that opportunity is why it was only temporary.

And yes, a bunch of new #1’s would probably get people interested. Infinite Frontier simply seems to have failed to get people to pick up the books. The Infinite Frontier mini was selling in the 40k’s, that’s terrible for the main book which is meant to be setting up your big event.

Interested for how long? 2 issues? Like Yara's book #1 selling above 100k and #3 dropping to 40k?

My point was that DiDio's "gimmick" worked past the first 2 issues, because he didn't made just a line wide renumbering, but shook up everything overnight each time (and his 5G would've been the same) and that was what generated readers' interest. Lee made clear he isn't interested to follow anymore this business model. We would've got already a 5G type of relaunch instead of Infinite Frontier if they wanted to bump sales the old ways.

Action is selling pretty much within the norm. Going through the charts, Action seems to settle around the low 30k/high 20k range these days. Doesn’t usually get this low because there’s usually a big relaunch or linewide event to capture peoples attention, which Infinite Frontier has failed to do across the board. The days of Action being the “flagship” are so far in the past I can’t believe anyone even seriously thinks that. Action is the side book to the main Superman book, Superman sells better.

Action was ranking higher than Flash and WW when IF started, and dropped below pretty fast. I don't get when the book was selling normally in the high 20k these days. Last time it happened was during the New Krypton saga more than a decade ago. Without a boosting-sale reboot, AC was usually selling around the 40k/30k range and stay among the Top 50 selling books or close.

Btw, I still think the beginning of The Warworld saga could serve as a jumping on point for some, and eventually the speculated Death of Superman redux will bring some attention on the book.

[HsssH]

Yeah, relaunch needs a hook if it is going to have an effect beyond first 2-3 issues. At the moment it looks like we might one if Clark actually ends up dying.

[Vordan]

Hmm perhaps Clark’s “death” would be connected to the story with Aethyr somehow?

[sifighter]

Ah, so they did explain the grey hair....yeah Kennedy did not lie and explains how Superman and the Authority is 100% canon in today’s issue.

[WallyWestFlash]

Wow. That was awesome. With Johnsons epic writing and Sampre's beautiful art, todays issue was great.

I wish they would have done this months ago instead of the slow slog of a build up weve been getting.

Nice how he tied in the golden age story with Superman's haur change. Looking forward to the next issue.

[Bromor]

"come here to make the stories come true at last"...

if it's not mr byla from the annual, it's one of the kids.
If byla is the scientist he meets in 1039, then it's definitly him.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

That was pretty badass. Looking forward to seeing how this plays out.

[Vordan]

Damn this was great! Mongul hasn’t felt this intimidating since Alan Moore wrote him, and the world building PKJ is doing for Warworld is fantastic. We get some more details on the religion of the Warzoons, we get to see some United Planets politics in play with regards to the Phaelosians, and we get one of the most brutal shots in a Superman comic to set up the stakes:



I’m dying to know who the hooded person is. He connected to Aethyr in some way?

Also people can finally stop asking how Superman & The Authority is in continuity:



There you go. All ties back to the beginning of the run.

[HsssH]

Some people speculated that this was the case and I guess it all makes sense in the end.

[Thor-Ul]

I only can say...

Holy nuts. I had look the PJK series with certain sckepticism, but it seems than the Action book is going to live up with its title.

What is the mystery of the phaelosians?

From where Superman get tha carrier?

Which band was Manchester Black listening?

Mongul's Champions are really scary.

Superman vs Mongul... again, for the first time.

And Vordan is happy when he sees his recommendations being took into account.

[Digifiend]

PKJ's Superman doesn't have gray hair.

He does now. Should've been patient.

Disclosure: PKJ has said if you want to nitpick you will probably be able to find some mistake to “discount” S&tA from being in continuity, but it is a canon story as far as he is concerned. Action 1036 is apparently where the grey hair gets addressed iirc from his Word Balloon talk.

And as mentioned in the last few posts, indeed it was.

[K. Jones]

Wow that was good stuff. The presentation and pace aren't anything ground-breaking, in fact they strongly reminded me of Johns/Tomasi era Green Lantern. But that's a good thing. For starters, those were already the best Mongul stories since For The Man Who Has Everything anyway. And there's definitely been a gap in that ... "style"? ... of DCU cosmic. Or at any rate that's a flavor I've been missing for quite a few years already.

The continuity question was certainly addressed alright.

I'm not sure what else to say. Not that I actually really know which Mongul was which in previous stories other than that this is the Newest Mongul (I presume FTMWHE was Grandpa Mongul ... post-IC Sinestro Corps Mongul was Mongul Dad ... and this is Mongul Junior). But it is nice to see Mongul get, well, kind of the Thanos treatment - but I really only mean that in the sense of the Presentation. Mongul actually comes off as worse. Not necessarily more powerful. Thanos strives for that 'power cosmic' stuff, has that nihilistic death cult angle, but he doesn't come off as a tyrant, whereas Mongul presents as worse than the worst tyrants with the worst slavery, worst casual disregard of life, on a Hellish world (you know, that angle they always try to play Darkseid off as that doesn't do him justice but works really well for Mongul). In this way WarWorld feels like a problem big enough, a Job For Superman. A pale (but also rather unsophisticated) imitation of an Apokolips, where there's not any cosmic synchronicity or mythic balance between Heaven and Hell at play ... the denizens here aren't taking comfort in suffering or servitude. There's no Courtly Intrigue or Houses of Hell. They just suffer and slave away to a tyrannical despot who is a reflection of the most brutal and worst of human traits in the past - a brutish yellow mirror to Superman himself, an alien of tremendous power come to Earth to fight bullies and reflect the best of Humanity ... well now here is our Alien Worst Reflection. A stroll down a brutal memory lane, which finally puts him up there with the likes of Brainiac and Zod and Bizarro as "Reflections of Superman" style villains. The story could peter out, who knows, but I think it's at least a solid step in the direction (not the first, but maybe the clearest) of Mongul getting his due in the annals of history.

And of course with the "Thanos-Big Presentation" he gets elite champions and all that, which is fun in that team way. And it does almost even have a bit of a Sixties Avengers vibe in that regard, which is a good look here. WarWorld having that almost Game of Thronesy language and brutality and Medieval horror was also a nice touch, and the "OH BOY, HOW IS SUPERMAN GOING TO GET OUT OF THIS ONE?" hit really hard at the end.

So high marks from me. This feels big and bold like "Last Son" or "Brainiac". Cinematic, with clarity, logical/natural casting of characters, enough old and new mixing, and as of this moment not saddled with the baggage of the era it's existing in. I'm sure that'll be the first thing to go - this is the Superman Has a Teenage/Young Adult Son already period and I'm still ignoring that in my head pretending Jon is still a Super-Son preteen.

[Quinlan58]

And now PKJ's back to writing stuff I like after last week's debacle. Especially liked that defense of their system the oldest Warzoon gave as a response to Superman.

Also, without the context of Superman & the Authority it looks like OMAC is asking why Superman looks like he's being turned into an old man. With the context of Superman & the Authority it looks like OMAC is asking why the villains took away Clark's hair-dye