Superman: son of Kal-El

[Yoda]

Superman has always been a book with middling sales, so their sales numbers were on par and to be expected. And all good things must come to end so they would've left the book eventually, their Batman and Robin came to a pretty amicable end, but I'd argue it was very premature and very unnecessary. Mark Waid eventually stopped writing Flash and Grant Morrison eventually stopped writing Batman. If Tom King could've stayed on Batman and Josh Williamson on Flash for as long as they did, then so could've Tomasi and Gleason.

Didio's MO at that point was to use controversy to sell. So he was already planning on shaking things up after Action Comics 1000. King didn't start sliding until the marriage debacle happened with Batman 50 and even then the issues with that run didn't come to a head until the weird dream sequence arc. But once it became obvious things continued to slide they actually did pull him from the book early. Had that occurred earlier in the run, things would likely have played out the same. King also wasn't helped by the Heroes in Crisis underperforming. So I don't think that comparison works in your favor here.

Flash, I don't think anyone really cares about enough to compare it to Superman situation.

[garazza]

Didio's MO at that point was to use controversy to sell. So he was already planning on shaking things up after Action Comics 1000. King didn't start sliding until the marriage debacle happened with Batman 50 and even then the issues with that run didn't come to a head until the weird dream sequence arc. But once it became obvious things continued to slide they actually did pull him from the book early. Had that occurred earlier in the run, things would likely have played out the same. King also wasn't helped by the Heroes in Crisis underperforming. So I don't think that comparison works in your favor here.

Flash, I don't think anyone really cares about enough to compare it to Superman situation.

I just used them as examples as things that, sooner or later, came to a end, as Tomasi and Gleason on Superman would have eventually. I believe their time on the book was ended sooner than necessary, if not down-right prematurely. But like you said, all of this has been covered before and what's done is done.

[Vordan]

Well while we’re on the subject of sales again, Jon’s at number 1 for the week on ComiXology.

[garazza]

Well while we’re on the subject of sales again, Jon’s at number 1 for the week on ComiXology.

I was quite surprised by its rise (Robin also climbed quite high), but I'm left wanting for that oh-so-precious second printing. I'd be remiss for not mentioning there always having been a disconnect between digital and physical sales.

I'm also surprised seeing AC being as high as it is at the number ten spot.

[Vathlonian]

Son of Kal-el increased from issue 1

I wonder how much of a boost Jon’s sexuality will give to this book when it comes out


Probably a massive boost since Superman is viewed as most heteronormative superhero ever and it will trend on Twitter

[Superlad93]

I was quite surprised by its rise (Robin also climbed quite high), but I'm left wanting for that oh-so-precious second printing. I'd be remiss for not mentioning there always having been a disconnect between digital and physical sales.

I'm also surprised seeing AC being as high as it is at the number ten spot.

C'mon fam. This book is currently handing "Grant Morrison is back on Superman y'all": The Book its own ass, selling well on its own, beating out the other main Clark Superman book, and got us all forgetting Kara even has a prestige book by DC's go-to "fix this for us" guy, but that's not good enough? It needs another second printing? Why do we keep moving the goal post when it comes to Jon?

Not to jump down your throat or anything, but it's doing well. Second issue didn't drop off hard and word of mouth is solid if not strong. And Mz Marvel is an example of a book and character who does so-so in physical but quite well on the digital and she's easily one of Marvel's most successful and beloved new characters.

[Vathlonian]

C'mon fam. This book is currently handing "Grant Morrison is back on Superman y'all": The Book its own ass, selling well on its own, beating out the other main Clark Superman book, and got us all forgetting Kara even has a prestige book by DC's go-to "fix this for us" guy, but that's not good enough? It needs another second printing? Why do we keep moving the goal post when it comes to Jon?

Not to jump down your throat or anything, but it's doing well. Second issue didn't drop off hard and word of mouth is solid if not strong. And Mz Marvel is an example of a book and character who does so-so in physical but quite well on the digital and she's easily one of Marvel's most successful and beloved new characters.

That's an understatement

Pretty much all of marvel’s champion era legacy characters do better digitally than physical

Jon is in great company

Let’s hope we get a team up book with Yara flor, Damian Wayne, Jon kent, and others

[Vordan]

I was quite surprised by its rise (Robin also climbed quite high), but I'm left wanting for that oh-so-precious second printing. I'd be remiss for not mentioning there always having been a disconnect between digital and physical sales.

I'm also surprised seeing AC being as high as it is at the number ten spot.

If it does would you admit it’s a success? It’s fine to not want SSOKE to succeed, I myself have mixed feelings about Taylor’s success and what it means, but it’s clearly doing well. Super Sons never even scratched the top 5 during its run, yet you wouldn’t call that a failure. It’s doing well man, might not stay that way of course, there’s no telling how people will react to Jon coming out when/if that happens, but right now Jon is succeeding.

Just wish Action was doing better but oh well.

C'mon fam. This book is currently handing "Grant Morrison is back on Superman y'all": The Book its own ass, selling well on its own, beating out the other main Clark Superman book, and got us all forgetting Kara even has a prestige book by DC's go-to "fix this for us" guy, but that's not good enough? It needs another second printing? Why do we keep moving the goal post when it comes to Jon?

Not to jump down your throat or anything, but it's doing well. Second issue didn't drop off hard and word of mouth is solid if not strong. And Mz Marvel is an example of a book and character who does so-so in physical but quite well on the digital and she's easily one of Marvel's most successful and beloved new characters.

As a Morrison fanboy myself, Moz doesn’t get big sales anymore alas. Their GL run’s sales showed that their star power has faded, although I am happy that S&tA is getting positive buzz. The real success is Jon beating Damian and Tec, Batbooks, since that’s the barometer for success across the industry nowadays.

[Quinlan58]

I for one am pretty happy Action Comics got the 10th spot, lol. May it rise further in sales. And yeah, whatever you may think of the concept or execution of "Jon Kent as Superman" at this point, or how it commercially compares to previous eras and shake-ups of the franchise, or the relative worth of physical vs digital sales, Son of Kal-El is undeniably the most successful book the Superman line currently has.

And yep, second issue is a far better indicator of sales than first issue was, and it's still pretty good, so congratulations, Tom Taylor and John Timms.

[Superlad93]

As a Morrison fanboy myself, Moz doesn’t get big sales anymore alas. Their GL run’s sales showed that their star power has faded, although I am happy that S&tA is getting positive buzz. The real success is Jon beating Damian and Tec, Batbooks, since that’s the barometer for success across the industry nowadays.

As a very big fan of theirs I know this, but that doesn't change that this is still Grant "All Star Superman" Morrison's book running at the same time as this book and getting beat. That's still gonna mean something regardless of whatever Morrison's sales usually are.

But You're totally right that the real kicker is that Jon is beating Damian, Tec, and that dumb ass Robins book. The kid is kind of low keying kicking ass right now, and I'm sure DC's taking note of this with each issue.

[Superlad93]

Let’s hope we get a team up book with Yara flor, Damian Wayne, Jon kent, and others

There's probably a very good chance that we'll see either a Jace and Jon Batman/Superman book, a Jon and Yara Superman/Wonder Woman book, or a Jon, Jace, and Yara Trinity book to replace the Bruce and Clark Batman/Superman book ending.

I'm not really getting much from Yara right now, but the prospect of Jon and Jace bouncing off each other based on what we've seen of them so far sounds like it could really revitalize the Batman/Superman book idea. As a concept for a book it's been kind of floundering for decades now.

Maybe even just keep the book down to just 6, 8, or 12 issues. Tell a specific story, establish a dynamic, and then see what people think.

[Vordan]

It will be Yara and Jon I expect. Of the three Jace is oddly getting the least amount of hype, which is crazy to me, I would’ve thought people would’ve been all over a black Batman. Instead he’s just kind of sailing under the radar. Jon & Yara meanwhile were already paired together in Future State, and they seem to have strong sales. I hope Watters writes it if so, I like his Jon and Yara a lot.

[Superlad93]

It will be Yara and Jon I expect. Of the three Jace is oddly getting the least amount of hype, which is crazy to me, I would’ve thought people would’ve been all over a black Batman. Instead he’s just kind of sailing under the radar. Jon & Yara meanwhile were already paired together in Future State, and they seem to have strong sales. I hope Watters writes it if so, I like his Jon and Yara a lot.

I feel like there's a very good shot it'll be Jon and Yara, but the general idea of "hmmm, Batman/Superman" may override that, and it may even be *because* of Jace's relatively low relevancy oddly enough. In a strange twist of fate, DC may want to use the new Superman to hype up the new Batman?

If it were Watters, it would be inherently different from the vibe of his FS work. Jon's the one about social change and maybe going a little far, and Yara...well, Yara is kind of stuck doing that Wonder Woman thing where she gets stuck inward gazing at her mythology with no signs of stopping.

I'd rather we just get a Trinity book, honestly. I've never really thought either a Batman/Superman book or Superman/Wonder Woman book had inherently enough steam to call for more than a story arc. But a Trinity book? A Trinity book is basically a three person friend group book that just happens to be about three of the most important people in the world. That's a book that's flexible than BM/SM or SM/WW. It only becomes more interesting when you make it about two 20 somethings and a 17 year old freshmen in college. Like, what is THAT books response when Jon does some crazy sh!t in his book that makes some people in the world nervous? I'd rather the three of them go there than Justice League to be honest. JL: Gods & Monsters showed me that you can make a really compelling team out of just the three main icons.

[garazza]

C'mon fam. This book is currently handing "Grant Morrison is back on Superman y'all": The Book its own ass, selling well on its own, beating out the other main Clark Superman book, and got us all forgetting Kara even has a prestige book by DC's go-to "fix this for us" guy, but that's not good enough? It needs another second printing? Why do we keep moving the goal post when it comes to Jon?

Not to jump down your throat or anything, but it's doing well. Second issue didn't drop off hard and word of mouth is solid if not strong. And Mz Marvel is an example of a book and character who does so-so in physical but quite well on the digital and she's easily one of Marvel's most successful and beloved new characters.

If it does would you admit it’s a success?It’s fine to not want SSOKE to succeed, I myself have mixed feelings about Taylor’s success and what it means, but it’s clearly doing well. Super Sons never even scratched the top 5 during its run, yet you wouldn’t call that a failure. It’s doing well man, might not stay that way of course, there’s no telling how people will react to Jon coming out when/if that happens, but right now Jon is succeeding.

I've always been questioning how successful the book would be, not whether it would even be a success. SSoK #1 got a second printing when it was lower on Comixology's bestseller list. Now it's much higher on the list, but no news of a second printing. First issues always sell the most out of any run, so it's a statistical outlier and shouldn't been counted when determining a general trend for the sales of a run or a book. What the second and third and all subsequent issues sell are much more relevant in determining its success. It's number 1 on Comixology, but what were it's physical sales? I don't know where I read or saw it, but I when I saw someone praising the book, they pointed out the first issue sold out in a week. I found that odd because selling out in a day is noteworthy, but expanding that time frame to a week seemed a bit disingenuous, at least to me. It's almost been a week and I haven't heard anything about a second printing for the second issue. A second issue, might I add, that even had some false speculation behind it about Jon coming out as gay or at least introducing a brand new and very important character whose relevance would be as a male love interest for Jon.

My fear always was SSoK selling out and getting a second or even third printing like Taylor's Nightwing. SSoK's was successful enough to get a second printing, so it was no doubt successful, but nowhere near as successful as Taylor's Nightwing, which I assumed would be DC's expectation for SSoK or else why put Tom Taylor on the book? But DC actually had rather low expectations for the book. SSoK didn't sell out of 100k. It only sold more than 54k, which is quite low for a first issue with as much going for it as this one.

Just wish Action was doing better but oh well.

As a Morrison fanboy myself, Moz doesn’t get big sales anymore alas. Their GL run’s sales showed that their star power has faded, although I am happy that S&tA is getting positive buzz. The real success is Jon beating Damian and Tec, Batbooks, since that’s the barometer for success across the industry nowadays.

That's actually something that I found odd. Tamaki's Tec was in the top ten, but not Tynion's Batman and I've heard that Batman has been very successful, it's one of the reasons why Tynion stayed on past issue 100. I'll bring up again the disconnect between physical and digital sales. AC being as high as it is on the top ten and yet not selling that well physically is one such disconnect.

[Vordan]

I feel like there's a very good shot it'll be Jon and Yara, but the general idea of "hmmm, Batman/Superman" may override that, and it may even be *because* of Jace's relatively low relevancy oddly enough. In a strange twist of fate, DC may want to use the new Superman to hype up the new Batman?

If it were Watters, it would be inherently different from the vibe of his FS work. Jon's the one about social change and maybe going a little far, and Yara...well, Yara is kind of stuck doing that Wonder Woman thing where she gets stuck inward gazing at her mythology with no signs of stopping.

I'd rather we just get a Trinity book, honestly. I've never really thought either a Batman/Superman book or Superman/Wonder Woman book had inherently enough steam to call for more than a story arc. But a Trinity book? A Trinity book is basically a three person friend group book that just happens to be about three of the most important people in the world. That's a book that's flexible than BM/SM or SM/WW. It only becomes more interesting when you make it about two 20 somethings and a 17 year old freshmen in college. Like, what is THAT books response when Jon does some crazy sh!t in his book that makes some people in the world nervous? I'd rather the three of them go there than Justice League to be honest. JL: Gods & Monsters showed me that you can make a really compelling team out of just the three main icons.

I have no real objection, but the Trinity books have never been as good as the duo team up books of Superman/Batman or Superman/WW. Perhaps a new Trinity could achieve greater success, but I don’t know for sure. All depends on who is writing it and if they’ve got an actual vision for the book, plus a good handle on what the relationship between all three is. Jace and Jon weren’t meant to be close, and I’m still not sure I buy the idea of them being friends given Jon’s friendship with Damian, plus Jace viewing Wayne and his family as corporate shills essentially. That could be something worth exploring now that I think about it.

I've always been questioning how successful the book would be, not whether it would even be a success. SSoK #1 got a second printing when it was lower on Comixology's bestseller list. Now it's much higher on the list, but no news of a second printing. First issues always sell the most out of any run, so it's a statistical outlier and shouldn't been counted when determining a general trend for the sales of a run or a book. What the second and third and all subsequent issues sell are much more relevant in determining its success. It's number 1 on Comixology, but what were it's physical sales? I don't know where I read or saw it, but I when I saw someone praising the book, they pointed out the first issue sold out in a week. I found that odd because selling out in a day is noteworthy, but expanding that time frame to a week seemed a bit disingenuous, at least to me. It's almost been a week and I haven't heard anything about a second printing for the second issue. A second issue, might I add, that even had some false speculation behind it about Jon coming out as gay or at least introducing a brand new and very important character whose relevance would be as a male love interest for Jon.

My fear always was SSoK selling out and getting a second or even third printing like Taylor's Nightwing. SSoK's was successful enough to get a second printing, so it was no doubt successful, but nowhere near as successful as Taylor's Nightwing, which I assumed would be DC's expectation for SSoK or else why put Tom Taylor on the book? But DC actually had rather low expectations for the book. SSoK didn't sell out of 100k. It only sold more than 54k, which is quite low for a first issue with as much going for it as this one.

Honestly I don’t think they had as high expectations for Jon. Dick is a character who been around almost as long as Batman himself, he’s widely known and is a fan favorite, he’s had decades to build up a fanbase through comics and appearances in outside media. Jon in contrast is relatively new, DC is well-aware people hate the age up, and also Jon’s stepping up as Superman, a role many see as exclusively Clark’s. I think they’re happy with how things are, you’ll know they aren’t if the book gets cancelled by issue 12 lol.

That's actually something that I found odd. Tamaki's Tec was in the top ten, but not Tynion's Batman and I've heard that Batman has been very successful, it's one of the reasons why Tynion stayed on past issue 100. I'll bring up again the disconnect between physical and digital sales. AC being as high as it is on the top ten and yet not selling that well physically is one such disconnect.

Taylor has a strong digital fanbase on account of the Injustice comics. Those were extremely strong sellers digitally but sold mediocre/poorly in physical issues. They’ve been top sellers in collected editions however. Wouldn’t surprise me if SSOKE has much stronger digital than physical sales, and if it also sells strongly in the trades.