New 52 Superman fans, what do we do now?

[vasir12]

Setting aside certain key books like All Star Batman and Green Lanterns, very very few of the books are actually building on New 52 Lore.

I mean the description for Trinity makes it sound like the trio just met for the first time which is a story we last got....at the start of the new 52 reboot. Granted that this is a completely different Superman than back then, Batman shouldn't still feel isolated from Diana so I mean its like starting from scratch+ basically.

Nightwing is taking after Grayson
Batgirl moved out due to the events in burnside
Wonder Woman will deal with all that happened before
Supergirl as well and so will the rest of the Super titles
People that died in Suicide Squad are still dead
Green lantern follows.

See where I'm getting at here? Not a reboot in the slightest. Maybe NuClark's disappearance causes the Trinity to be strained. Or maybe we're all just reading too much into these.

[edwardsdv]

Nightwing is taking after Grayson
Batgirl moved out due to the events in burnside
Wonder Woman will deal with all that happened before
Supergirl as well and so will the rest of the Super titles
People that died in Suicide Squad are still dead
Green lantern follows.

See where I'm getting at here? Not a reboot in the slightest. Maybe NuClark's disappearance causes the Trinity to be strained. Or maybe we're all just reading too much into these.

Wonder Woman is literally negotiating in real time the differences in her multiple origins stories, which is certainly not building on any N52 lore. Backpacking Batgirl is BECAUSE of those events but really has little relation to them and I am willing to bet most of her burnside support cast gets pretty de-emphasised.

This Supergirl has like...nothing to do with pre-cancellation Kara Zor-El. She's living as a high school student instead of a 19 year old barista, she probably won't be besties with Silver Banshee and she's living as Kara Danvers with the DEO.

Suicide Squad is a big barrel of who gives a shit, that's why theyre on Suicide Squad.

Green Lanterns is like one of the only true exceptions.

[Doctor Bifrost]

Yeah this is the main reason its a bad idea - the very premise of superman becomes so completely convoluted as to not be even recognizable anymore.

I'm a little concerned that the whole DCU will wind up looking like that, what with "a secret that dives into the very nature of why the DC Universe is the way it is... and why it lost what it lost!" Hey, it could be interesting, I guess - but it sounds like Yet Another Metauniversal Omninarrative used to explain things about characters "from the outside," of the sort that have been proliferating around the DCU since Crisis on Infinite Earths. (HyperTime! A Race of Monitors! Pandora's Plan!)

Sometimes I just want to say: look, we know the DCU and its characters have had a complicated publication history over the years, with different versions appearing at different times. But that's a fact about The So-called Real World™; you don't really have to explain that within the story. Just: pick a universe. Set your history there. Set your characters there. Tell stories about them that develop naturally and organically from the setting, its events, and its characters' experiences. That's enough.

It's as though, on the TV show Elementary, they introduced some cosmic character who had come to an Earth-like timeline in the 1880's and "held back" Sherlock Holmes from emerging until 2012. It might be an interesting concept. It would "blow people's minds!" And you could have the two Sherlock Holmes characters from the different timelines meet!

But would it really be good for the show?

Of course, comics are already rife with such cosmic characters and explanations, and I don't really expect them to go away. And, based on my long experience, I'll probably even be intrigued by this one. But sometimes I feel like all these explanations of "why the JSA was a part of history and then forgotten (and the Titans too!)" and "now the older Superman of a lost timeline will take the place of the current Superman" gets in the way of them telling stories about the JSA and the Titans and Superman without all these odd footnotes attached to them.

It's a mixed bag.

[vasir12]

Wonder Woman is literally negotiating in real time the differences in her multiple origins stories, which is certainly not building on any N52 lore. Backpacking Batgirl is BECAUSE of those events but really has little relation to them and I am willing to bet most of her burnside support cast gets pretty de-emphasised.

This Supergirl has like...nothing to do with pre-cancellation Kara Zor-El. She's living as a high school student instead of a 19 year old barista, she probably won't be besties with Silver Banshee and she's living as Kara Danvers with the DEO.

Suicide Squad is a big barrel of who gives a shit, that's why theyre on Suicide Squad.

Green Lanterns is like one of the only true exceptions.

Rucka said, he isn't going to ignore what happened in the new 52. All of it will be considered in the story

Supergirl was never 19, I don't think. Any other change of status and location, doesn't mean a reboot. People move and reinvent themselves all the time.

They said the Barbara would go back to Burnside when she learns what she needs.

Your argument for SS was basically, "I don't care about this book, so you can't use it to argue my point."

Everything is a continuation from the new 52. That was explicitly said.

[nnelg]

I understand some of the people complaining. But NU 52 Superman has only been around for five years. Pre-Flashpoint Superman has been around since Crises on infinite Earths. I think that using Pre-Flashpoint Superman I is the right decision. He has the bigger fan base and a better version. Think about it this is to increase sales. If the NU 52 Superman was selling good they wouldn't change anything.

[edwardsdv]

I'm a little concerned that the whole DCU will wind up looking like that, what with "a secret that dives into the very nature of why the DC Universe is the way it is... and why it lost what it lost!" Hey, it could be interesting, I guess - but it sounds like Yet Another Metauniversal Omninarrative used to explain things about characters "from the outside," of the sort that have been proliferating around the DCU since Crisis on Infinite Earths. (HyperTime! A Race of Monitors! Pandora's Plan!)

Sometimes I just want to say: look, we know the DCU and its characters have had a complicated publication history over the years, with different versions appearing at different times. But that's a fact about The So-called Real World™; you don't really have to explain that within the story. Just: pick a universe. Set your history there. Set your characters there. Tell stories about them that develop naturally and organically from the setting, its events, and its characters' experiences. That's enough.

It's as though, on the TV show Elementary, they introduced some cosmic character who had come to an Earth-like timeline in the 1880's and "held back" Sherlock Holmes from emerging until 2012. It might be an interesting concept. It would "blow people's minds!" And you could have the two Sherlock Holmes characters from the different timelines meet!

But would it really be good for the show?

Of course, comics are already rife with such cosmic characters and explanations, and I don't really expect them to go away. And, based on my long experience, I'll probably even be intrigued by this one. But sometimes I feel like all these explanations of "why the JSA was a part of history and then forgotten (and the Titans too!)" and "now the older Superman of a lost timeline will take the place of the current Superman" gets in the way of them telling stories about the JSA and the Titans and Superman without all these odd footnotes attached to them.

It's a mixed bag.

yes I agree with that a lot actually about Rebirth as a whole. The whole concept of re-introducing older elements as a part of the in-universe narrative is just...so needlessly unwieldy.

Like Rucka is going to spend literally a year of his run parsing out what is fact and fiction with Wonder Woman's lore. As you hinted at Abnett has been tasked with doing the same with the Titans and Jurgens doing so with Superman and it's already been announced they plan to do the same with the Legion and New Gods. That's just...so unnecessary. It would be better almost if they just said "this is a reboot - we'll be plucking what we like from here and there and just deal with it as it comes and not worry about things like timelines and such making sense because there's actually no way to do that while keeping everyones favorite characters in-tact". What they're doing now is just a half and half approach that's just going to lead to a lot of head-slapping.

[Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever]

I understand some of the people complaining. But NU 52 Superman has only been around for five years. Pre-Flashpoint Superman has been around since Crises on infinite Earths. I think that using Pre-Flashpoint Superman I is the right decision. He has the bigger fan base and a better version. Think about it this is to increase sales. If the NU 52 Superman was selling good they wouldn't change anything.

If he had a bigger fanbase, Lois & Clark wouldn't be selling than 18, 000 in physical copies as it is now.

It's unlikely that either version has a bigger fanbase than the other. Those of us that prefer one comic version over the other make up a tiny, insignificant portion of the Superman fanbase.

[edwardsdv]

I understand some of the people complaining. But NU 52 Superman has only been around for five years. Pre-Flashpoint Superman has been around since Crises on infinite Earths. I think that using Pre-Flashpoint Superman I is the right decision. He has the bigger fan base and a better version. Think about it this is to increase sales. If the NU 52 Superman was selling good they wouldn't change anything.

Pre-Flashpoint was selling worse than even the worst selling current Superman book. This argument doesnt hold water. I think youll see sales spike for the new #1 and the return to the old numbers for action and then, like everything else...die to previous levels, maybe even lower because renumbers give people as much a chance to jump off books as jump on. Marvel has been murdering the constant #1s gimmick so the new #1 just isnt going to cut it the way it used to anymore.

[edwardsdv]

Rucka said, he isn't going to ignore what happened in the new 52. All of it will be considered in the story

Supergirl was never 19, I don't think. Any other change of status and location, doesn't mean a reboot. People move and reinvent themselves all the time.

They said the Barbara would go back to Burnside when she learns what she needs.

Your argument for SS was basically, "I don't care about this book, so you can't use it to argue my point."

Everything is a continuation from the new 52. That was explicitly said.

Puh-lease. Rucka is coming back onto a book he was iconic for. As in the case of literally everyone else who ever did that, he'll probably handwave the old stuff away and reinstate the way he likes it just because. i mean shit, Johns didn't really "ignore" Lobdell's run but he did basically pack away everything Lobdell did and never referenced any of it.

Jurgens is in the process of doing the same on Superman, go back in time and you can see Levitz do it on Legion, Claremont do it on X-Men, even Justice League 3001 basically just became a JLI redux. You're super naive if you dont think that is how this is going to play out.

[NYCER]

This is why DC insisting #Rebirth is not a reboot is beyond disingenuous. I've said it before, soft though it may be, all this rejiggering of stories and characters is indeed a reboot despite DC's protestations to the contrary. Putting Superdad and Dan Jurgens at the helm is the epitome of regression, not a rebirth.

[edwardsdv]

This is why DC insisting #Rebirth is not a reboot is beyond disingenuous. I've said it before, soft though it may be, all this rejiggering of stories and characters is indeed a reboot despite DC's protestations to the contrary. Putting Superdad and Dan Jurgens at the helm is the epitome of regression, not a rebirth.

The only aspects of their universe where its not a total reboot are Flash Green Lantern and Batman.

But Flash and GL are still going through pretty major changes. Batman doesnt get rebooted because theres literally no reason to reboot their one successful line of comics.

[nnelg]

Of course pre-Flashpoint was selling bad that's one of the reasons for the Nu52 changes in the first place. But that doesn't mean that sales aren't bad. Why else would they start using a previous version. I would like to think the change is because of the fantastic work Jurgens is doing with Pre-Nu52 Superman. But it's more likely sales.

[vasir12]

Puh-lease. Rucka is coming back onto a book he was iconic for. As in the case of literally everyone else who ever did that, he'll probably handwave the old stuff away and reinstate the way he likes it just because. i mean shit, Johns didn't really "ignore" Lobdell's run but he did basically pack away everything Lobdell did and never referenced any of it.

Jurgens is in the process of doing the same on Superman, go back in time and you can see Levitz do it on Legion, Claremont do it on X-Men, even Justice League 3001 basically just became a JLI redux. You're super naive if you dont think that is how this is going to play out.

So despite all the evidence to the contrary, you still think that you know so much on the behind the scenes. That's fine, doesn't really matter.

[SuperCrab]

Of course pre-Flashpoint was selling bad that's one of the reasons for the Nu52 changes in the first place. But that doesn't mean that sales aren't bad. Why else would they start using a previous version. I would like to think the change is because of the fantastic work Jurgens is doing with Pre-Nu52 Superman. But it's more likely sales.

Superman #50 with New52 Superman just sold over 90,000 copies. Lois and Clark with SuperDad and SuperJon is selling like 18,000 copies an issue. You do the math.

I've also read that the new52 numbers in general are at least a little higher than pre-Flashpoint Superman was at pre-Flashpoint.

If they really think the new52 Superman has failed and can't be revitalized, a notion I strongly disagree with, the answer would probably then be to reboot again, not bring back the guy who made you reboot the first time, who you're already ahead of in sales.

[vasir12]

Superman #50 with New52 Superman just sold over 90,000 copies. Lois and Clark with SuperDad and SuperJon is selling like 18,000 copies an issue. You do the math.

I've also read that the new52 numbers in general are at least a little higher than pre-Flashpoint Superman was at pre-Flashpoint.

If they really think the new52 Superman has failed and can't be revitalized, a notion I strongly disagree with, the answer would probably then be to reboot again, not bring back the guy who made you reboot the first time, who you're already ahead of in sales.

Despite the fact that I don't really think NuSuperman is being replaced, nor do I really want him to, You can't really compare the two series. One is Superman's flagship title, the other is a book a lot of people don't even know is in continuity. If you wanna compare sales, you'd be better off doing it after Rebirth, when this Clark gets the flagship.

.... For now. Cause nuClark is coming back.