Superman August 2021 Solicitations

[D.Z]

The authority are Superman related now. Basically Supermans own outsiders.

[Sacred Knight]

I wonder who Superman leaves for parts unknown with. The easy guess would be Lois, but being all secret about it might suggest someone else, if its not just solicit misdirection. I guess it depends on what they want to do with her. Put her in a brand new role with Clark, or keep her grounded on Earth to serve as a supporting character to her son.

[Last Son of Krypton]

I wonder who Superman leaves for parts unknown with. The easy guess would be Lois, but being all secret about it might suggest someone else, if its not just solicit misdirection. I guess it depends on what they want to do with her. Put her in a brand new role with Clark, or keep her grounded on Earth to serve as a supporting character to her son.

He'll probably leave with someone of the Authority team.

[Vordan]

- God I hope Taylor doesn’t go for the utterly boring choice of Jon going into journalism, but that feels like something he’d do. Guess he’s going to the University of Metropolis unless Taylor sends him to an Australian university.
- Action sounds great, despite all the fears from Lois fans she’s still active and a part of what’s going on
- S&tA seems like it’s setting up some status quo stuff for PKJ, wonder who he’ll be going with? Must be referring to one of the team members, Natasha, OMAC, or Manchester (if he doesn’t go bad) are my guesses
- Supergirl and Checkmate sound good
- Looking forward to that King story in the final R&B issue
- Yang’s B/S sounds fantastic and I adore how he continues to play with the comic format (no clue how the hell that will read digitally). Love the Superman Robots showing up!
- Looks like that might not be “our” Conner after all. The return of Match?
- Can’t wait to see Calvin and Thomas team up!

All of this plus Superman ‘78 and Superman vs. Lobo makes this sound like the best month in... damn I can’t even remember a month that sounded this good.

Is midnighter a Superman character?

He’s gay Superman’s (Apollo) husband so kind of

[Quinlan58]

- Superman: Son of Kal-El #2: Jon going to college, getting his own Fortress of Solitude and going up against an activist news machine. Against my better judgement getting hyped for it. Going to be very disappointed if he's studying journalism, though... but I'm already preparing myself for that.
- Action Comics #1034: Superman having to choose between defending the Fortress, Lois and alien refugees from Mongul or stopping a potential world war. Every month PKJ rewards my faith in him. I get the impression he's course correcting his plans to include Lois after all the backlash, though.
- Superman and the Authority #2/#3: It's a Superman comic written by Morrison, where he and Manchester black put a team together to change the world, and they fight Superman's first supervillain. How can I not want this? Also, the one he'll leave to space with is totally Midnighter.
- Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow #3: Not much to glimpse from this. Still waiting for the first issue to drop to know if this is good Tom King or bad Tom King.
- Checkmate #3: Our bastion of Lois and Superman as intrepid reporters, I guess.
- Batman/Superman #21 and Annual: I'm still wondering if this is an extended Zack Snyder diss. Still, Yang's doing amazing work with an amazing premise.
- Suicide Squad Annual: The truth behind Conner Kent, at last. He's not mentioned in the solicitation for the regular issue, which is... intriguing.
- Superman Red and Blue #6: That cover is amazing. Also, the return of Streaky!
- Justice League #66/#67: The continuation of Bendis' Superman run with the United Planets and Synmar Utopica. I liked those, but I'm liking both sequels to it (PKJ's Action Comics and Thorne's Green Lantern) much better.
- Infinite Frontier #4: A Calvin Ellis spotlight issue. Not reading this, but interesting to see him get more and more prominent these days.
- Superman '78 #1: Donner/Reeve Superman fighting Brainiac. At last.
- Superman vs Lobo: As I said before, it's Tim Seeley writing Superman fighting Lobo in all his hedonistic glory, and therefore everything I want in a comic.

What a time to be a Superman fan.

[Vordan]

You forgot one: SUPERMAN '78 #1!!! WHAT! WHAT!

That Action cover looks interesting. Are they bringing back the post-Crisis origin? Is this just an homage? What is this?

Totino on Instagram said he just chose that design because he wanted to draw it. His variants just celebrate different eras of Superman, like how that one variant celebrated all kinds of different eras including New 52 Truth which isn’t canon.

[Robanker]

I’m sure it’s a fake out, but I will say killing Lois would be a deal breaker for me. I’d be out until the inevitable reboot.

Yeah, I'd walk too.

Every piece of Shaner Superman art goes in my longbox. There's a lot of Superman coming up in general. It's nice to see.

And hey, Power Girl! Yeah, it's her usual Crowd Shot limbo, but she was remembered for the Super family! That's progress!

If Jon is a journalist I'm going to be so fucking upset. Stop making him a clone of his dad.

Yang/Reis continue to make the case they should get their own Superman book proper. Let Jon keep Superman, Son of Kal-El and give Yang/Reis SUPERMAN proper once they wrap up on Batman/Superman.

[Vordan]

Kinda surprised you guys are getting the impression Lois is in any danger. Is it the cover, because Kara and Jon’s capes are there and we know those two aren’t dying. The solicit does nothing beyond the usual “without Superman there, can X survive on their own until he arrives?!?!?!?”

[manwhohaseverything]

Superman: Son of Kal-El #2
story by TOM TAYLOR
pencils by JOHN TIMMS
cover by JOHN TIMMS
ON SALE 8/10/21
$3.99 US | 32 PAGES | FC | DC
card stock variant by INHYUK LEE
US $4.99
Suicide Squad Movie card stock variant by SAMI BASRI $4.99
Jonathan Kent now dons his father’s cape, but can he be Superman and still have a normal life? It’s tough in this modern world. Danger is everywhere. 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.
But first, the son still has some things to learn from his father—and a few cool toys to inherit. Ask yourself, what would you do with your very own Fortress of Solitude? This all-new chapter in the legacy of Man of Steel has only just begun to reveal its surprises

Jon kent is going to college...I can't wait for this.Already was excited about action..

I wonder who Superman leaves for parts unknown with. The easy guess would be Lois, but being all secret about it might suggest someone else, if its not just solicit misdirection. I guess it depends on what they want to do with her. Put her in a brand new role with Clark, or keep her grounded on Earth to serve as a supporting character to her son.

I think lois leaving would apt.Jon needs to grow away from them now...Lois was always clark's cast.They might building bibbo bibbowski in superman for jon.Bibbo can be the one to take Jon in.Hopefully,the kid gets a job at the bar...

[rpmaluki]

Yeah, I'd walk too.

Every piece of Shaner Superman art goes in my longbox. There's a lot of Superman coming up in general. It's nice to see.

And hey, Power Girl! Yeah, it's her usual Crowd Shot limbo, but she was remembered for the Super family! That's progress!

If Jon is a journalist I'm going to be so fucking upset. Stop making him a clone of his dad.

Yang/Reis continue to make the case they should get their own Superman book proper. Let Jon keep Superman, Son of Kal-El and give Yang/Reis SUPERMAN proper once they wrap up on Batman/Superman.

Didn't Future State make this a given?

Yes, to the latter.

[Yoda]

Kinda surprised you guys are getting the impression Lois is in any danger. Is it the cover, because Kara and Jon’s capes are there and we know those two aren’t dying. The solicit does nothing beyond the usual “without Superman there, can X survive on their own until he arrives?!?!?!?”

I’m 95% sure it is a fake out. But I think it a combination of what has been said by PKJ about her role in the story and how he’s stressed her importance and how much we’ll see Clark care about her but not her actual participation in the story going forward. Along with the Kingdom Come imagery and Clark leaving Earth on some quest to War World. Lois dying defending the fortress and the refugees and Clark then making that his life’s mission to save them and take down Mongul would be a pretty basic storyline. I would hope that he’s a better writer than that but who knows. I’d also expect Taylor would be annoyed that he’d finally been given a Superman book and Clark and Lois would be off limits, but leaving Jon alone on Earth without both parents would be a lowest common denominator set up as well.

I think you’re probably right, it’s a cover and solicitation tease (according to the solicit Jon and Kara won’t even be there) but I don’t think it can be written off entirely.

[Superlad93]

I don't think Jon is being set up to be in the newspaper industry/be a reporter. If you look back at the solicitation for Son of Kal-El #2 talking about the Truth, it goes out of its way to say that it's an activist news outlet.

This actually lines up a bit with the small bit from Taylor's interview when he said that Jon will be figuring out how to tackle government inaction to climate change.

I think it's more likely that he'll become what can only be described as a "super activist". The Truth will likely open his eyes to all of the stuff that Clark has let slide over the years.

So potentially it'll be about a young man of privilege and power being shown where said privilege and power could be used more effectively.

That functions as a great updated to Superman's relationship with news and information. And it's a very modern update on the Golden Age.

Plus, in most fiction (and in real life) college is usually where young people get woken up to issues like this, and form a passion for tackling them.

_________

It's also sounding like he'll be inheriting the Fortress (rather than getting a new one), but it also sounds like Taylor will be exploring the more tech side of the Superman world.

You couple that with Jon being stronger than Clark or Kara, and having more control over aspects of his powers, and you're looking at a very cool Silver Age-y situation.

[superduperman]

Totino on Instagram said he just chose that design because he wanted to draw it. His variants just celebrate different eras of Superman, like how that one variant celebrated all kinds of different eras including New 52 Truth which isn’t canon.

Ah. Thanks. That makes sense.

[Frontier]

Thoughts:

- Jon's life sounds like it's going to be more low-key than I was expecting what with going to college (so much for high school), possibly having a secret identity (?), and maybe building up a civilian life. I thought that was out of the question after the outing and the way his character seemed to be heading.

- I do wonder if the prominence of Lois is in part a course-correction on PKJ's part with how vocal people were about the lack of (and use) of Lois so far. Feels like writers need to keep course-correcting with Lois over the course of their runs for one reason or another.

- Enchantress looks kinda hot.

- Woman of Steel? Not Girl of Steel? I know people are assuming she's going to go by Superwoman by the end of the mini, but that feels out-of-sync with the title of the book (and doesn't flow as well). Can we still call her the Maid of Might?

- Was anyone begging to see Mark Shaw Leviathan again?

- Battle of the Superboy's?

- At least Sophie Campbell cares about Streaky.

- I am so hyped to get a "Donner" Brainiac .

[SuperCrab]

Totino on Instagram said he just chose that design because he wanted to draw it. His variants just celebrate different eras of Superman, like how that one variant celebrated all kinds of different eras including New 52 Truth which isn’t canon.

Technically, it's canon twice over:

1. The current Superman is technically a merger of refugee "SuperDad" Superman and the New52 Superman via the events of Superman: Reborn. The New52 "red" half of his soul came from New52 Superman's essence escaping into Lana Lang after his death, resurrecting as New52 Superman to save Lois and Jon from Mxy, and then merging with Superman "blue" (the other guy).

Of course, because that storyline merged the two Supermen in a way that changed the timeline and because editorial chose to have him remember one new past rather than both pasts of the two Supermen he came from, very few entities remember the New52 Superman history as having happened, except for the elements of the history that are got ported over (For example, the current Superman remembers spending some time wearing the New52 Superman's high collar/Kryptonian body armor costume- ironically, it's what he was wearing when Jon was born now). Since the New52 Superman's Truth era (Or the earlier Morrison t-shirt and jeans era) is not part of the current combined history, not many fictional people remember it, including the main DC universe Superman himself. Still, if part of the current Superman experienced it, that makes it canon of a sense, whether he remembers it or not. Granted, they completely sublimated the New52 Superman in the Reborn Superman in a way that it basically just seems like SuperDad got a continuity fix to have "always" been there, which sucks, but doesn't change the underlying technicalities.

2. Doomsday Clock establishes at the moment of Superman's death- any Superman's death- a new universe branches off in which he did not die. In case we were wondering if New52 Superman counted as having really died or having been Superman for the purposes of this branching mechanism, Doomsday Clock explicitly shows a Superman with the complete late-stage New52 Superman costume, hair cut, and so forth residing on "Earth 52".

So, that New52 Superman is out in the multiverse. He lived through everything up to his death, which would include, well, everything. Every issue of Action Comics, Superman, Justice League, Batman-Superman, Superman-Wonder Woman, and so forth from that era (Including, among other things, Hitch's Justice League of America.). Obviously, that includes Morrison and Truth.

Everyone on Earth 52 remembers everything that happened to New52 Superman to that point (Assuming they were privy to the knowledge in the first place, of course), and whatever life he has lived beyond it, as well.

In any storyline that involves alternate universes, the current Superman, or anyone, could theoretically run into the New52 Superman (Technically this would in a sense be the New52 Superman running into himself [See point 1], but neither Superman would know it. They'd just know they are two Clark Kent Supermen running into each other- unless seeing the New52 Superman would awaken some repressed memories of prior timelines in the current main universe Superman's head that no one knows are there.). Editorial probably wouldn't check off on it, but if we just look at the fictional universe's internal logic, he's as close as The Flash running over to Earth 52 and saying hi.