Is there a way to make everyone happy?

[edwardsdv]

Step 1, kill of Lois.

I would be more okay with Pre-FP Superman being around if she was gone.

[SuperCrab]

By the way, my early reaction to pre-Flashpoint Superman taking over Action Comics right after the WonderCon presentation wasn't that bad, because I figured it was him in his universe, with the older comic title and classic numbering, and that new52 Superman would get the Superman title and the Justice League and stuff, in stories set in his universe. Plenty of room for both Supermen.

It was when I realized they were killing off new52 Clark or otherwise exiling him and giving pre-Flashpoint Superman both books, and setting them in a universe he isn't from, that I turned on the whole thing. I also don't like that the whole thing seems to be a vehicle for launching a 10 year old Jon Kent fighting crime (I wouldn't mind if he was just casually in the books briefly as a non-superhero who happens to be Clark Kent's son)- that seems to be a real emphasis of the early Superman book with the new numbering, from the solicitation descriptions, plus I know they're trying to launch a spin-off. But that last point is not the main thing.

I also think it'd be fine to do a crossover where the two Supermen fight together in this universe, so we can see how the new52 people react to SuperDad and vice-versa, before having him move back to his own universe.

Honestly, what should happen in a scenario where a relatively unknown older Superman from a different universe steps in and replaces the current Superman, who is presumed dead, is that some of the old Superman's friends reject him. Batman is already paranoid as things stand, something like that should leave him setting up traps and contingency plans and being extremely suspicious of the replacement Superman for years. Wonder Woman, who dated replaced Superman, should also be upset at this older guy married to another woman replacing him. Heck, new52 Lois Lane shouldn't be entirely happy about this development either. Like, really, he should be rejected by the characters.

But DC probably won't write it that way, because they just want to slide this Superman in and have everyone in the book like him and talk him up so the readers just adapt, and don't feel any friction about the situation, which isn't true to the characters involved or the situation, but, hey, when has the current DC Comics regime really been concerned with that?

This decision is just weird all the way around.

[DieHard200904]

Step 1, kill of Lois.

I would be more okay with Pre-FP Superman being around if she was gone.

Which one? Because now thanks to DC'S decision, there are two, maybe more if DC changes their mind again LOL!

[Kuwagaton]

It was when I realized they were killing off new52 Clark or otherwise exiling him and giving pre-Flashpoint Superman both books, and setting them in a universe he isn't from, that I turned on the whole thing.

Except they're apparently not?

[edwardsdv]

Which one? Because now thanks to DC'S decision, there are two, maybe more if DC changes their mind again LOL!

Both. But especially Pre-FP.

[SuperCrab]

Except they're apparently not?

Hang on, just saw the reference to a new Jurgens Newsarama interview earlier in the thread that may cast new light on things. Let me find the interview and see if it does. I went into this thread without having checked newsarama in the last few hours to see if the whole Superman situation had suddenly changed since I last checked for news earlier in the early afternoon. Maybe I was checking other sites instead of newsarama, too, which would mean I had not checked newsarama in *forever* aka yesterday.

If both are still around, they really could have clarified that on-stage at WonderCon, or sometime in the aftermath instead of seemingly to clarify that the new52 guy was out by inference, not only then, but also in subsequent interviews and on Twitter and in interviews and stuff. Really mishandled if they never meant to send the impression that new52 Superman was out, because they definitely sent that impression, repeatedly, for like a week.

[SuperCrab]

Hang on, just saw the reference to a new Jurgens Newsarama interview earlier in the thread that may cast new light on things. Let me find the interview and see if it does. I went into this thread without having checked newsarama in the last few hours to see if the whole Superman situation had suddenly changed since I last checked for news earlier in the early afternoon. Maybe I was checking other sites instead of newsarama, too, which would mean I had not checked newsarama in *forever* aka yesterday.

If both are still around, they really could have clarified that on-stage at WonderCon, or sometime in the aftermath instead of seemingly to clarify that the new52 guy was out by inference, not only then, but also in subsequent interviews and on Twitter and in interviews and stuff. Really mishandled if they never meant to send the impression that new52 Superman was out, because they definitely sent that impression, repeatedly, for like a week.

Alright, I just read the Jurgens interview.

The problem is, it still doesn't say that the new52 Superman lives.

Everything in quotations is still vague at who the "mysterious" Clark Kent character in the new books is, exactly.

Newarama says, itself, not as a quote from Jurgens, that it's the new52 Superman, but that's their interpretation, and it's not written as reporting, it's written like they are assuming it, the same way the Los Angeles Times seemed to pull the whole 'new52 Superman is touring the world and gets the pre-Flashpoint Superman to fill in for him in Metropolis' out of thin air. Jurgen's quotes are a bit more conducive to that Clark being Superman than what was said on-stage at WonderCon where he said that the Clark in his comics is "Not who you think", but nothing he said in the interview actually contradictions the impression he gave on stage that he isn't the new52 Clark.

Outlets are logically assuming that DC Comics isn't just going to kill off the Superman of the last half decade, especially given that the stories are set in his universe, but no where does DC ever say it. No where does DC really even imply it. DC implies that he's dead or gone. Which is why all the "No he isn't" asides that some stories have out of quotations all have different explanations- one saying he's just decided to be Clark Kent at the Daily Planet, and another saying he's touring the world. It's because they are making them up, or getting confused (I think the LA Times may have lifted the pre-release publicity for the standalone non-canon miniseries, The Coming of the Supermen, where a retro Superman character is described as having three Kryptonians filling in for him as Supermen while he deals with something off-world, and confused it for an explanation for what's happening in the canon comic lines.).

Geoff Johns, Dan Jurgens, Peter Tomasi, Dan Didio, or somebody at DC should just answer the question unambiguously on their twitter or in an interview in quotations or something. Heck, put a press release up on the DC Comics website. They are being too cute by half right now. If new52 Superman is going to live on and be a regular in some comic lines going forward, they really should say so, because a lot of people are giving up on books and by the time they unveil that, those people may not be checking in anymore to see if the status quo has changed. I've already cancelled Lois and Clark, and also cancelled the Coming of the Superman, due to this, so they are losing those sales whenever those issues come out. Other people have said they've dropped everything.

Alternately, if they are killing off new52 Superman, delaying telling us "officially" doesn't "soften the blow". It annoys people.

[edwardsdv]

Between this and Tomasi I have a sneaking suspicion that new 52 Superman is playing the role of Dick Grayson to Super Son in Superman for some reason but thats wild conjecture on my part.

[Adekis]

You just keep building the new Superman. Same as DC did back in the day. They didn't give up on post-Crisis Superman five years in. They built up.

I agree, in principle but since this is a thread about keeping the people who prefer the pre-Flashpoint guy happy too-

What's wrong with having two Supermen, each in their own universe? It'd certainly be a way of diversifying the Superman line by differentiating the two main books and giving people separate reasons to buy each of them, instead of them essentially both being the same thing with different individual stories.

This is one hundred percent accurate. It'd be like the Pre-Crisis divide between Earth 1 and Earth 2, but with Earth-0 as the post-Flashpoint world and I dunno, Earth-14 or something being home to the pre-Flashpoint Superman. Treat them as separate but equal universes, take steps to establish that the heroes are different enough to justify keeping them both around, and don't play too fast and loose with destroying the status quo constantly like Marvel did to the Ultimate Universe. It could really do well. This is arguably what they should have done back in 2011 anyway.

Of course, to me there is one major problem with this idea: nobody but Superman and Wonder Woman really have enough differences between their pre and post Flashpoint incarnations to be worth splitting up the universe. Animated clay vs demigoddess might be a big difference, as is young hothead Superman vs. old married Superman, but what about Hal Jordan and Bruce Wayne? They're basically about the same before and after Flashpoint. If they'd made separate universes in 2011, it'd be one thing, but at this point, you might have to mix and match a little to make enough of a difference between the worlds to justify having two of them. For example, maybe on this hypothetical Earth 14 (or whatever), the Hal Jordan Parallax that's still hanging around from Convergence (is he? I thought he was, anyway), is on a team with pre-Flashpoint Superman (married with son), Wonder Woman (made of clay), Wally West ('nuff said) and I don't know, First Wave Batman (just because he's so different from Batman-0) and an Aquaman native to that world or something.

Actually, my point when starting that paragraph was that it would just create more problems and more retcons because you can't just drop the whole Pre-Flashpoint universe into a series of books and expect it to coexist with a post-Flashpoint world that's almost exactly the same but for one or two characters, but you know what? By the end of said paragraph I'd just described a whole line of Earth-14 (or whatever) Justice League comics I would be totally willing to buy alongside the Earth-0 stuff, so either I've stumbled upon a simple, elegant solution or my high tolerance for confusing crap has gotten the better of me and I should probably stop myself. I'm betting on the latter.

It might work, but what about outside comics. Which do you do SM/LL or SM/WW?

Depends on what the creators want, same as every other adaptation. Post-Flashpoint SM and WW already broke up. Maybe Pre-Flashpoint Superman on Earth-14 (or whatever) is married to Lois but Superman-0 starts dating Maxima. Then what do the adaptations do, when Superman has simultaneously been in a couple different relationships in the last few years and also been married for the last twenty?

My guess is that as is always common in adaptations, Superman is probably going to get ship-teased with Lois a lot- but maybe not exclusively. Do you remember the Legion of Super-Heroes cartoon, where Superman and Brainiac Five had crazy amounts of romantic tension? I'd love to see that get repeated in some show or another. Actually, Superman-0 would do that in the comics if I was boss of the world, which I think we've established that I'm not.

[Adekis]

Between this and Tomasi I have a sneaking suspicion that new 52 Superman is playing the role of Dick Grayson to Super Son in Superman for some reason but thats wild conjecture on my part.

Now that would soften the blow, since that was on my wishlist even before all this Rebirth hubbub. Too bad Grayson's getting canceled and Dick's "getting back in the game"- if I knew definitively that post-Flashpoint Superman was sticking around but taking a lesser role, I'd 100% advocate for him to be the new Nightwing.

Ah well- it's just as well, since my advocating for things has zero impact on whether or not DC actually does them. In 2009 I was saying that Grayson should be Batman forever! Obviously, that didn't happen, and I guess neither will anything else this thread has inspired me to fantasize about. Such is the life of a comic book fan.

[sifighter]

image.jpg

I saw this over in the Kenji thread, perhaps the reason that new 52 Superman is out for a while is not that he's dead but his powers are out of control or on the fritz. I mean in Darkseid war he was overpowered like crazy from the apokolips fire pits, Truth forced him to regain his powers from kryptonite, and that looks like the most recent issue of JLA with his fight with Rao. He might not be at his best and sees pre-flashpoint as a chance to rest.

[Lairston]

No there's no way to make everyone happy.

For me, I like the curl on the forehead cause it makes him unique. I find the art of the nu52 Superman to be pretty much interchangable with all their other black haired characters. I think you could cut Nu52 head off and paste it on a Batman body and no one would really notice. Yet above, you have someone calling the curl a relic of the past.

And at the same time the trunks are also called a relic of the past. Another thing I like. I think its pretty weird that part of a Superhero costume would be a relic of the past cause I don't see many people out there wearing them now. And I don't believe there were many people wearing them in the 30s or 40s. Yet somehow its not modern to have trunks. When in reality, the whole point of trunks is to one break up the costume color and also two artist aren't too interested in drawing the skin tight male anatomy which you can tell by the way the area is drawn today without trunks. Ie with Batman's new costume, I think he's wearing a diaper with that strange strap or bookmark looking thing. So having not skin tight trunks are useful for the flow of the costume as well as the fact artists don't really want to draw that area skintight. And also good since comics arent supposed to be porn and I wouldn't be interested in collecting them if they did. And I don't get why every setup of characters' costume has to be made to look the same with all the other characters. Nobody can have trunks. And next it will probably be nobody can have capes. That's boring.

In the late 80s and 90s there was talk in the CBG letters page that Superman, Batman, Spider-man, and others' costumes needed to be updated and modernized or else Malibu's Superheroes were going to replace them in popularity among the public. Yet Superman's costume wasn't modernized then. Neither was Spider-man nor many others. And who was the group that disappeared? Why those MODERN heroes did. No one sees Malibu's Prime or whomever else they had today. Then it was Valiant's heroes were going to replace them. Then they went belly up only to return years later. So next it was going to be Image yet... they've become more nonsuperhero...

Yet despite the fact that DCs heroes(and Marvels) survived the challenges of all these other companies, in 2011 once Didio and his goons got rid of Paul Levitz the person that stopped them from revamping these characters for years, they did this massive overhaul. Now 5 years later, what a great job they did huh? They have Batman selling better. Otherwise not so much.

But anyway... they're never going to make everyone happy. Some want the Flashpoint continuity reinstalled. Others want the Nu52 to be unaltered. Others want Pre-Crisis to return. Others want a meshing. Others want just costumes to be returned or at least fixed to not be so ugly. Others love the nu52 costumes and to change them is blasphemy. Others want to restart everything from scratch. So one big gigantic headache all because they had to rush into this nu52 without a real plan. Or basically they Didioed the DC UNiverse.

[edwardsdv]

Yeah they certainly never tried to update/change Superman's Look before 2011.









You sure Showed me.

That's just an aside. Costumes are made to be changed and updated and to be generally made to appeal to people right now. No one goes to the circus anymore. Strongman style tights don't make any sense in the modern context. They evoke an image that basically no one is familiar with - its the same reason why even when they make Dick Grayson go back to being Robin in flashbacks they dont make him wear an acrobats outfit. Why would the red tights are half iconic and half one of the most often made fun of things about the guy.

[Dispenser Of Truth]

There doesn't need to be a strongman association. Everyone associates it with superheroes. Everyone on Earth gets that's how superheroes look. Even if it's not strictly necessary, it's hardly an oddity.

[Jon-El]

One problem is you have a fan base that spans several versions of the character. When the audience "rebooted" every few years, there probably weren't as many problems. What if the readers of the golden age characters were still around when the silver age started? They'd complain about wanting their Green Lantern or Flash back. That transition was helped immensely by most characters ceasing publication for a few years.

It might help if readers followed creators more than characters & many do I'm sure. Then they wouldn't get as stuck on a specific version. Comics don't usually work that way though.