PKJ Action Comics Discussion and Spoilers

[Vordan]

If he cared more about Jon than Clark he’d probably be sticking with Jon in Superman rather than Clark in Action. Still I’m waiting to see how his Worlds of War FS one shot does before leaping to conclusions. That doesn’t have Jon in it at all and is 100% focused on Clark. We’ll see how well he writes Clark soon enough.

He’s said Morrison & Waid are his favorite Superman writers and he liked Superman #400, so I don’t want to accuse him of not really liking Clark just because he likes to talk about Batman stories lol. Someone should ask him what his top 10 favorite Superman stories are though, that would be useful info to know what kind of stories he likes to read, because he’ll probably try to write similar ones.

[Quinlan58]

He's mentioned Morrison, Waid and Marz, he's mentioned Superman #400 and Annual #10 (even if it seems he didn't particularly like the later one), he's credited Tomasi/Gleason's run over Jurgens' as far as Jon goes, he keeps mentioning the Donner movie and Superman #400 again as his main inspirations, he mentioned the Golden Age stories basically to say they're outdated (he talked more about Siegel as a soldier than about the stories he wrote), and he's using Death and Return as his reference for how big his plans are. He also keeps praising Bendis, and while that may just be professional courtesy, everything we've heard of his plans does align with what Bendis did in his Superman run (though not with what he did in his Action Comics run).

Yeah, I also get the impression that he's interested in Superman the symbol more than anything else except maybe Superman the father (as well as not thinking of Lois as that important for the mythos).

[Sacred Knight]

On the negative side, like others I haven't been feeling these interviews. On the positive side, pretty much everytime in recent memory that a new creative team has come on, the interviews have been lauded for saying all the right things. Bendis said all the right things. Hell even JMS said all the right things a decade ago. Actual product and giving a good interview don't necessarily seem to go hand-in-hand. But as always before a run starts, interviews are all we have to whet the beak, and for what that's worth right now I am with those who are not impressed with these interviews all the same. What does that ultimately mean? Who knows.

[Prime]

He's mentioned Morrison, Waid and Marz, he's mentioned Superman #400 and Annual #10 (even if it seems he didn't particularly like the later one), he's credited Tomasi/Gleason's run over Jurgens' as far as Jon goes, he keeps mentioning the Donner movie and Superman #400 again as his main inspirations, he mentioned the Golden Age stories basically to say they're outdated (he talked more about Siegel as a soldier than about the stories he wrote), and he's using Death and Return as his reference for how big his plans are. He also keeps praising Bendis, and while that may just be professional courtesy, everything we've heard of his plans does align with what Bendis did in his Superman run (though not with what he did in his Action Comics run).

Yeah, I also get the impression that he's interested in Superman the symbol more than anything else except maybe Superman the father (as well as not thinking of Lois as that important for the mythos).

Focusing on Superman the symbol is always bad.

[Ascended]

Focusing on Superman the symbol is always bad.

I think the only "symbol" story I'd be interested in at this point is Clark examining his, and exploring the differences between the legend and the man. Because the "idea" of Superman really has very little in common with the actual man, and if done right, with a delicate touch, watching Clark deal with how he's perceived could be pretty good.

But I'd really just get away from the symbolism completely, and get back to Superman doing awesome, badass stuff and having adventures, without any kind of moral at the end of the story, or some self-righteous pontificating speech about nebulous non-entities like "hope" and "true justice."

But we'll see what PKJ does. I adore Last God so he gets a few issues to convince me of his story and vision.

[Vordan]

Here’s the thing about the “symbol” stuff: It can be good. I recently reread Planet Hulk (take a guess why), and that’s a story that very much harps on about Hulk is a symbol of hope for Sakaar. People look to him for a savior, there’s outright religious overtones about his role as a “Sakaarson”, etc. It’s a story very much focused on Hulk as a symbol, as a savior. Why does that still move me, whereas so many Superman stories that deal with similar stuff fall flat? Because Hulk is a symbol of hope on account of his actions. There’s no grandstanding, no blowhard speeches or empty platitudes. Hulk becomes a symbol because he kicks massive amounts of ass and refuses to break no matter what gets thrown at him. And when he wins and overthrows the Emperor, that’s not the end of things. There’s still work to be done, the prejudices between the Sakaar races don’t just go away immediately. Hulk has to work at it constantly.

Now PKJ only has a one shot to work with (unless this tweet is hinting at a Warworld story in the “present”: https://twitter.com/phillipkjohnson/...079125505?s=21, I hope so I’d love to see more gladiator Superman) so he isn’t going to be able to explore in depth all these themes the way Planet Hulk was able to. But if he focuses on Superman as a symbol of hope because Supes kicks evil’s ass and never backs down no matter the odds? Well that’s fine by me. Lay off the speeches and the grandstanding and just show us Superman doing cool stuff to help others, and it will be more than he usually gets and I expect I’ll greatly enjoy it.

[HsssH]

I think it worked for Hulk because nobody really thinks about him that way so you can craft a big story with him being sent to another planet and how he becomes a symbol of hope there. It worked, it added another dimension to Hulk, people liked it, but there is no real need to revisit those themes for a while. For Superman problem is that editors and writers pushed the idea that he is the HOPE for years (decades?). So in theory you can do similar story in Warworld or somewhere else, but what do you do after that? Superman presented as the symbol of hope needs to constantly have such stories. And well how many times is he going to inspire people on some fictional planet? After all, he can't change anything on Earth.

[DragonPiece]

On the negative side, like others I haven't been feeling these interviews. On the positive side, pretty much everytime in recent memory that a new creative team has come on, the interviews have been lauded for saying all the right things. Bendis said all the right things. Hell even JMS said all the right things a decade ago. Actual product and giving a good interview don't necessarily seem to go hand-in-hand. But as always before a run starts, interviews are all we have to whet the beak, and for what that's worth right now I am with those who are not impressed with these interviews all the same. What does that ultimately mean? Who knows.

Seem slike a long winded way of saying you don't anticipate liking this run

[Vordan]

I think it worked for Hulk because nobody really thinks about him that way so you can craft a big story with him being sent to another planet and how he becomes a symbol of hope there. It worked, it added another dimension to Hulk, people liked it, but there is no real need to revisit those themes for a while. For Superman problem is that editors and writers pushed the idea that he is the HOPE for years (decades?). So in theory you can do similar story in Warworld or somewhere else, but what do you do after that? Superman presented as the symbol of hope needs to constantly have such stories. And well how many times is he going to inspire people on some fictional planet? After all, he can't change anything on Earth.

...keep exploring the cosmic side of things? There’s tons of stories out there for Supes to participate in. I’m not sure what your argument is here, should Supes never do anything cool because the next arc might not be as good? A run doesn’t need to be never ending escalation to be enjoyable, you can do a high adventure arc with big stakes and then follow it up with a smaller arc to let the story breathe. Scott Snyder’s JL didn’t do this and often suffered from event fatigue because of it. Moore’s Swampt Thing followed up the secret origin and Woodrow arcs with one about him fighting werewolves or vampires.

And bear in mind that while PKJ has said he does want to focus on the larger than life and cosmic side of Superman, that doesn’t mean he’ll never touch on the human or down to Earth aspects either. Sadly I expect Ma & Pa will show up at least once since they’re on the spread.

[Sacred Knight]

Seem slike a long winded way of saying you don't anticipate liking this run

More of a long-winded way of saying that while the interviews concern me, I'm trying not to let it completely dominate, because good interviews burned me before too. So its worth at least giving a look see.

[HsssH]

...keep exploring the cosmic side of things? There’s tons of stories out there for Supes to participate in. I’m not sure what your argument is here, should Supes never do anything cool because the next arc might not be as good? A run doesn’t need to be never ending escalation to be enjoyable, you can do a high adventure arc with big stakes and then follow it up with a smaller arc to let the story breathe. Scott Snyder’s JL didn’t do this and often suffered from event fatigue because of it. Moore’s Swampt Thing followed up the secret origin and Woodrow arcs with one about him fighting werewolves or vampires.

And bear in mind that while PKJ has said he does want to focus on the larger than life and cosmic side of Superman, that doesn’t mean he’ll never touch on the human or down to Earth aspects either. Sadly I expect Ma & Pa will show up at least once since they’re on the spread.

My point is that when editors and writers keep talking about hope hope hope hope then you have to constantly do stories about hope or it starts to feel shallow and not earned just like it does now.

[Myskin]

My point is that when editors and writers keep talking about hope hope hope hope then you have to constantly do stories about hope or it starts to feel shallow and not earned just like it does now.

What's really bizarre is that most of those stories aren't about hope, actually.
Most of the times they start as completely normal stories until at one point to resolve some plot points they use "get-out-of-Jail-free", err, whoops, the "HOPE" card. And people around Superman magically looks at him as if he had been right all along.
I strongly suspect that this hope thing started when they couldn't make the character act as, well, a character anymore and they forcefully tried to compensate by trying to make him a symbol of something instead of a character. Which - to a degree - is what happened with Wonder Woman as well.
If there's something worse than an endless series of Superman stories about hope, is an endless series of Superman stories about him talking about hope.

[Superlad93]

Everybody shut up and read this: https://bleedingcool.com/comics/dc-f...hate-superman/

" Superman having to deal with Brainiac, The Five Empires, The Golden Gods Of Creon, The Time Luchadores."

Time Luchadores.

TIME LUCHADORES!!


Inject this story into me NOW! You literally can't miss with a story involving Jon Kent Superman punch time traveling super luchadores. And all of that seems to be hinted at as taking place before the Future State story, so likely in Jon's run as Superman in the main book. My body has never been more ready.

[HsssH]

I'll admit, Time Luchadores sounds intriguing.

[Journey]

Time Luchadores does sound intriguing I'm thinking how that works hopefully it's some WWE type shit and they settle shit in like some fixed point in time super-powered wrestling ring it could be funny! Lol