PKJ Action Comics Discussion and Spoilers

[oneveryfineday]

The cover:

the biggest Superman event since the Death and Return of Superman begins HERE!

Oh DC, how I want to believe you.

[witchboy]

Not having Superman on Earth to deal with the fallout of the reveal of his secret identity seems like a poor storytelling choice.

[Korath]

He has already. Basically, since he's Superman, the world rolled with it, largely.

What's happening in SSoKE is the aftermath of Clark leaving Earth to free the people of Warworld.

[Sacred Knight]

Well, when none of those prior storytelling choices were done to service him as a character but someone else, it becomes easy to see why it won't really continue to coalesce and matter that much for him in the long run with what comes next. It matters, but elsewhere, for their true focus.

[kryptonian]

Not having Superman on Earth to deal with the fallout of the reveal of his secret identity seems like a poor storytelling choice.

To be fair


Nothing they can do can really top *whatever happened to the man of tomorrow* in terms of iconicity

[Quinlan58]

"Truth" already was all about the negative consequences of Superman's identity being exposed. I'm fine with them taking a different route for this one, though admittedly making Clark Kent's civilian life completely irrelevant in this way wasn't what I wanted.

I mean, what I wanted was him going cosmic and reporting on all the different civilizations he found in his adventures, which I think would have been a good synthesis of "Superman the sci-fi hero" and "Clark Kent the reporter" only possible due to him no longer having a secret identity.

[Nelliebly]

I'm not really getting where he doesn't care about Clark Kent.

Unless it's because he's not adhering to the strict "Clark Kent is who I am, Superman is what I do" stuff from post-Crisis, in which case...YMMV on how interesting that is to read all the time.

Johnson has made his entire life on Earth, all his earth relationships and his entire civilian identity completely irrelevant as if it doesn’t even exist. It’s all alien all the time. I think comic die hards underestimate just how unappealing that is to the general fan.

I’m not a fan of the Byrne era interpretation either but that’s because I believe in balance on both sides.

This is not balance anymore than the “Superman is just what I can do” thing is balanced. Neither of these perspectives are balanced.

[Vordan]

Man I am so excited to see Superman and his Authority team on Warworld, this seriously feels like an epic in the making if PKJ can nail it. An entire planet to liberate is a great challenge. That said I thought Janin was going to do this Warworld arc, I have zero problem with Sampere drawing it, but I wonder when/if Janin is still planning to come on board.

He has already. Basically, since he's Superman, the world rolled with it, largely.

What's happening in SSoKE is the aftermath of Clark leaving Earth to free the people of Warworld.

This. Clark leaving Earth is what kicks off the plots Jon will be dealing with, not the identity reveal. Bendis already handled the fallout of that.

[manwhohaseverything]

This is not balance anymore than the “Superman is just what I can do” thing is balanced. Neither of these perspectives are balanced.

Hate to break it to you,Where is the balance in superman and lois series?the show has clark kent(that too with glasses).he's the real deal.they actually flipped goldenage dynamics where lois has falls in love with guy with glasses .atleast,lois was skeptical one in the show.so i give them credit for that .On top of that,they used max fliescher cartoons costume without anything to show from it.it was window dressing.I Don't think superman and lois is that great.It's watchable.that's it.It same old interpretation (byrne and donner..snyder to boot..not that snyder superman was new interpretation) of superman with other older and newer versions used as toppings like man and superman(masked vigilante bit),superman smashes the klan,..etc.it's not groundbreaking to the say the least.It's certainly not balanced.Quite,frankly i don't want balanced.i want different interpretations, different stories..etc.so that different people can get into superman without going"this is superman" or "you must like clark kent to like superman" all that preconditions
I am sorry..the books lack lois.i think there jon kent superman books will have her.

Regardless,i am excited about superman going back to gladiator roots..But,still the character is a savior figure..i don't care for that..

[SiegePerilous02]

Johnson has made his entire life on Earth, all his earth relationships and his entire civilian identity completely irrelevant as if it doesn’t even exist. It’s all alien all the time. I think comic die hards underestimate just how unappealing that is to the general fan.

I’m not a fan of the Byrne era interpretation either but that’s because I believe in balance on both sides.

This is not balance anymore than the “Superman is just what I can do” thing is balanced. Neither of these perspectives are balanced.

Who are the general fans? Because regardless of the setup, only the diehards read comics. If the general fans were to even read anything, I imagine they'd approach it like they do with the stuff in other media: they are down for anything if it is executed well. Like a Superman movie that doesn't have him on Earth would do well if it was good. I don't think they care about the specifics of what Superman is doing and who he interacts with as much as you think they do.

We've had over 80 years of him having a civilian identity with his supporting cast on Earth, both in comics and out of it, and we are going to have plenty more of it at various points. None of it is ever going away. Superman was not designed to be put in one box, a lot of people want to see him do and encounter new things or see fresh spins on old concepts, and he is a character that has a sprawling cosmic side to his mythos. We have mountains and mountains of books that either have the balanced approach or skew too heavily towards the "human" side of things, so him leaving Earth for a sprawling space epic for the first time in decades (if ever) isn't going to ruin this franchise. Especially as it is barely off the ground at this point.

Well, when none of those prior storytelling choices were done to service him as a character but someone else, it becomes easy to see why it won't really continue to coalesce and matter that much for him in the long run with what comes next. It matters, but elsewhere, for their true focus.

Yeah, if it's all related to the fallout from the Bendis run (which I dropped and don't plan on picking up again) and is mostly relevant to Jon, I'd rather Clark just peace out and go to space and do more interesting stuff where I can mostly read him in AC and ignore the rest of it as much as I am able to.

[Superlad93]

Not having Superman on Earth to deal with the fallout of the reveal of his secret identity seems like a poor storytelling choice.

He has already. Basically, since he's Superman, the world rolled with it, largely.

What's happening in SSoKE is the aftermath of Clark leaving Earth to free the people of Warworld.

Taylor seems to be self containing things to Superman: Son of Kal-El as much as possible. It's to the point where somehow (via a fake identity or something, one would assume) Jon is about to go to college and simulate a normal life in issue 2, but that quickly goes out the window when he has to save lives, and because of that the underground news organization, The Truth, exposes his identity. " The new Superman learns this the hard way on his first day of college, and a deadly attack forces Jon to step from the shadows and into the spotlight—where his identity is exposed to the Truth, an activist news machine ready to upset everything."

It's a smart bit of new reader friendly storytelling, because just in case people reading Son of Kal-El didn't read Bendis' run or even know about the exposed identity, they now have a first hand entry point with Jon re-exposing it here. I also agree, that chances seem good that the identity reveal was always intended to be dealt with as a Jon-Superman thing more so than a Clark-Superman thing.

And even beyond that, this attack on Jon's family is a direct response to the powerful people he made mad with his exploits as Superman in this book. Not much seems to actually deal with Clark outside of him handing over the title, and I think that's for the best. Otherwise, the book and Jon as Superman wouldn't stand on its own as well.

[Vordan]

I just read a great post on Reddit (no wait hold on this is actually intelligent!) that analyzes the Superman/Mongul plotline through the lens of Superman’s Jewish roots. It sees Superman as a Moses figure, coming to liberate “his” people from the tyranny of an oppressive ruler. I thought it was a brilliant insight, no clue if PKJ is intentionally paralleling Supes and Moses or not: https://www.reddit.com/r/DCcomics/co...tm_name=iossmf

Thought this was very insightful. There’s also some Abraham in PKJ’s Clark given his descendants go on to “outnumber the stars in the sky” and become a great nation unto themselves as we see in Future State: House of El.

[Quinlan58]

Love that post. I'm not quite as sold on the "Superman & The Authority" speculation, but the one on PKJ's run seems very applicable.

[manwhohaseverything]

I just read a great post on Reddit (no wait hold on this is actually intelligent!) that analyzes the Superman/Mongul plotline through the lens of Superman’s Jewish roots. It sees Superman as a Moses figure, coming to liberate “his” people from the tyranny of an oppressive ruler. I thought it was a brilliant insight, no clue if PKJ is intentionally paralleling Supes and Moses or not: https://www.reddit.com/r/DCcomics/co...tm_name=iossmf

Thought this was very insightful. There’s also some Abraham in PKJ’s Clark given his descendants go on to “outnumber the stars in the sky” and become a great nation unto themselves as we see in Future State: House of El.

Well, that's a given and that was always what clark was supposed to be doing.

[Robanker]

Been taking a break from comics for a while because the community and overall industry has been exhausting of late, but if it really does come down to Clark leaving Earth because he needs to free Warworld's people from chains, that's as good a reason as any to get him away from home for a prolonged period of time.

The execution will make or break the run, but as far as reasons for Clark to be apart from Lois and Jon go, it's a good one.