Should We New52 Superman Fans Resign Ourselves to SuperDad, and, if so, How?

[Ascended]

I waited through all of the 2000's hoping for a return to a more pre-crisis like superman.

Then I finally got it.

Then bad editorial suffocated it.

Now I'm being told that my least favorite version of one of my favorite characters is being brought back, with no new blood among the writers, and for who knows how long?

I've never lost so much interest in DC in my entire life. I just...

Is anyone really excited for yet another reboot in what seems to make things more complicated than ever after how new 52 turned out?

Its like we share the same brain here......

[Ascended]

If that was the case Berganza would be out yesterday. he just got lucky and will have this job until all the actual leadership get fired, that also seems really hard after the failure of new 52;
man i just wish i could get a job on DC, seems very easy to keep if you are friends with harras.

IDK johns seems more like a supervisor, he probably won't have much time to really control superman comics for the next years

Having a supervisory position means that all the directions will have to go through Johns. He might not oversee every script and every detail but he'll have a say in the tone and direction of the DCU.

Just look at Rebirth as an example; according to him, Johns was personally involved with all the Rebirth writers and helped them work out what would happen and where it was all going. I imagine that will continue, which means any attempts to bring back a pre-Crisis style Superman will be shot down so we can get more of his bastardized Donner/post-Crisis crap, which despite all the evidence to the contrary seems to be what he thinks will sell.

As for the sales, even at their worst Superman sells decently. Not like he should, certainly not like he did, but even his worst book (Lois & Clark) outsells at least half of the rest of the DCU. If you dont think Superman can and should do better (which management apparently feels he cant) then those are solid numbers.

[A Guy's Name]

Is the Mark Millar comment on Post-Crisis SM or SuperDad being a Marvelisation of Superman accurate, I wonder?
Like in : http://i.4cdn.org/co/1464527654304.jpg
Why Post and Pre-Crises feel different?

[adrikito]

Is the Mark Millar comment on Post-Crisis SM or SuperDad being a Marvelisation of Superman accurate, I wonder?
Like in : http://i.4cdn.org/co/1464527654304.jpg
Why Post and Pre-Crises feel different?

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-di...on-of-Superman

Before 1986 comics were good, clean fun. Superman towing a chain of planets was just one more thing that just happened. Comics were fantastic. They were lighter, brighter, more cheerful, heroes were heroic, villains were dastardly, everyone knew their place in the universe.

REMEMBER THAT QUOTE..

Hate to say it but I think when New 52 Superman returns, it will be as a villain. They're establishing Superdad as a good and pure hero with a wife and kid, so his counterpart will probably be made evil to create drama. He might even be the modern equivalent of Cyborg Superman, or even come back as a cyborg and actually become Cyborg Superman.

New 52 Supes will inevitably come back. But if it's as his regular old self, it might not make for the most interesting story. Unless he becomes the main Superman again and Superdad dies, which would make it 2 Superman deaths in less than 5 years.
.

If you go to see superdad and do not want to see your character dirtied .. better not look superman.. you're probably going to be disappointed

They are able to raise him as erradicator.. that character appears in Superman comic, shortly time after the visit to the tomb of superman ..

[Ascended]

Is the Mark Millar comment on Post-Crisis SM or SuperDad being a Marvelisation of Superman accurate, I wonder?
Like in : http://i.4cdn.org/co/1464527654304.jpg
Why Post and Pre-Crises feel different?

I think its "vaguely" accurate.

Marvel's classic characters are often archetypes with a couple real big flaws tacked on to make them seem more "human." Tony's a drunk, Reed is a lousy husband, Thor is an ass, Spider-Man suffers from self-destructive guilt, and so on. The effort was on making them seem like "real" people, insofar as the industry was capable of back then, whereas DC focused on larger-than-life characters having big, mythological battles that were practically on a higher level, ideological level.

Pre-Crisis Superman was a pretty complex guy. Clark wasn't the "real" person, but neither was Superman. Not really; they were two halves of a strange psychology that not only leaned on that duality, but absolutely depended on it. Without the other "half" neither could function properly, and there were several done-in-ones that tackled the concept. And, no doubt, that's hard as hell to write well.

With Bryne, he dumbed it all down and took a Marvel-esque approach where Clark Kent was a fairly normal guy....except for the part about being an alien with god-like powers. And a lot of that comedic, Silver Age Super-Dickery was turned into Clark having some personality flaws, like lying to people when he didnt have to and being rather self-righteous (things that were played up or down depending on the creators). All that stems from stuff already present in the mythos, but Bryne took it in a different way.

I think Millar has a valid point but I think is also simplifying things too. There hasn't been much difference between DC and Marvel's approach to things since the 70's.

[Sacred Knight]

Well, thats a good point. But with Johns now having greater influence over the larger-media stuff, his take on Superman is going to bleed into everything. Berganza is at least confined to the comics, and a shrinking readership will eventually force him out regardless of whatever BS inner politics DC is playing. Sales just have to sink enough for WB to get pissed off about it.

Plus, as DC gets more addicted to synergy, what Johns does will come back around and influence the comics more. So we'll have Johns' uninspired Super-crap mixed with Berganza.

Holy s**t, Morrison was prophetic with his Superdoom story, wasnt he? :/

This is depressing as all hell.

Because without any filter, today's Geoff Johns' ideas mostly suck. Bad. They've always sucked for Superman but they suck across the board now. Last halfway decent thing he did was the Shazam back up in JL. Which subsequently went nowhere and still has gone nowhere to this day.

[DieHard200904]

This is depressing as all hell.

Because without any filter, today's Geoff Johns' ideas mostly suck. Bad. They've always sucked for Superman but they suck across the board now. Last halfway decent thing he did was the Shazam back up in JL. Which subsequently went nowhere and still has gone nowhere to this day.

Don't tell me, GJ just dumped unnecessary drama on other characters for rebirth?

[Sacred Knight]

Well he ruined New Gods lore by having Darkseid reborn as essentially Alexander Luthor Jr. He killed off Metron. Lex Luthor is running Apokolips. Then you look at the Crime Syndicate, which for the first time since the pre-Crisis, were able to be reintroduced as no-nonsense Earth-3 inhabitants; essentially their original origins without the post-Crisis "we-don't-have-a-multiverse-but-need-a-poor-man's-way-to-fit-this-in" deal. Then before anyone else but him gets to use them, Johns systematically kills ALL of them off.

So not necessarily lots of forced drama per say...just lots of dumb ideas and needless killing. But hey, hope and optimism, yo.

[Ascended]

Well, I cant say Johns completely ruined the New Gods, since he has done some solid stuff with them, but the Darkseid thing is certainly....interesting. I dont think it'll last that long, this seems like just one part of a much longer story, but....I dunno, I feel like a lot of us get awfully touchy about New Gods material and tend to dislike changes just on principal, so Im trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. He actually made me like Mister Miracle, and even Kirby himself couldnt do that.

What I'd love to see him do is stay out of comics for a while and work on the DCE stuff exclusively, and when he does eventually do a comic, I'd like to see him stick to refining characters in need of it. Keep him on projects like Booster Gold, Vibe, Hawkman/Hawkgirl, etc., and build solid new foundations out of the diamonds in the rough of their premises. He's at his best when he's re-imagining a property that really needs it. Keep him away from the big names, let him work with the lesser knowns.

I'd like to see him do a Vixen miniseries, for example. There's a lot to work with there that, if it were tightened up properly, could be really something.

If he has to write a monthly series, my preference would be Stargirl above everything else, with Shazam after that. Though, the way he's halted Billy's character development in Justice League makes me question if he's got it in him. The Shazam backup was so good, yet all the promise of a character arc that story delivered has disappeared. Its quite disappointing. I wonder if that's been intentional and he's saving Billy's growth as a character for the solo he keeps talking about writing "soon."

[Sacred Knight]

That's fair. You know, mainly it was the death and destruction and the hypocrisy of it that bugged me the most about JL #50. The Darkseid thing...as is I think its kinda silly but maybe it'll go somewhere. And if we're being even more fair I didn't get mad when Morrison had him reborn as a human either. Twice. So that can grow on me. But I still didn't like the issue or the bulk of where it left things.

[Ascended]

Cant say I was the biggest fan of the story either. I didnt think it was bad, and certainly this was Johns' best work on Justice League, but I just think there were more interesting ways it could have gone. And I feel like it lost direction in the middle. But there were some really interesting things in there too.

The Anti-Monitor was a complete non-entity, and I think that was the worst thing about it. Its the god damned Anti-Monitor. He should be a big god damned deal! That he killed Darkseid (far too easily, I thought) doesnt balance out how....minimal....he felt to the story. He was just a prop, and so was Darkseid. I expected more from a story called "Darkseid War." And of course, the godhead Johns had the League take on was pretty uninspired. Superman, the god of strength? You dont say. Couldnt have made him the god of tomorrow? God of hope? I did like what he did with Flash though, and while Batman's divinity was as obvious and trite as Superman's it was still well done.

Still, there was alot to like here, and I liked the connective tissue; earth-3, Apokolips, Anti-Monitor, the Amazons.....lots of stuff interconnected in cool ways. And Grail strikes me as the kind of villain who might actually have some lasting potential, if she's handled well going forward. It'd be nice to get a new addition to Diana's rogues gallery.

[Sacred Knight]

I like Grail. I'm glad she was the one character who escaped death. But yeah, I was really digging the story early on. But from Superman's disappointing showing (but what else is new), to all the disappointing deaths, I think it really went out with a whimper. Like I've said elsewhere, I just get the feeling that DC's apparent answer to fix things is to essentially let Johns do whatever the hell he wants. And anyone without any restrictions and filter will produce some bad results, no matter how creative the mind.

[Ascended]

I think you're right about that. But really, DC doesnt have a lot of high-end writers left who will pull in strong sales on name alone. Johns, Snyder, and some up and comers like King. And thats really about it. And the guy does have a history of taking run down or never-were properties and making them work.

But yeah, the company is pretty unhealthy. It makes me sad; I love these characters but of the four publishers I read on a regular basis, DC is easily the worst.

[Kuwagaton]

I think star power is an unfair qualifier. We have Parker, king, seeley, Snyder, rucka, Williamson, Williams, Jimenez, Orlando, abnett, giffen, Jurgens, Tomasi-Gleason, yang, Conner and Pal, Priest, and a few yet to be announced. It's not quite the mid 90s but it's a strong stack with the right direction and collaborations.

As for Geoff, I'm not really a fan to begin with, but from here on out it's not about him anyway. Harras, Johns, Lee, and didio set up the New 52 and yet you don't have that acknowledged when it comes to things done right.

[Ascended]

While I think at least half of those names are better writers than Johns, none of them will pull in a Top 10 book on name alone. Johns does on a regular basis. Well, maybe Snyder. The others, like Rucka, Giffen, Parker, King....all of them really, are great talent but they dont have that star power, and that is absolutely a factor in sales. It shouldnt be, but it is. And that means Johns gets free reign where the others dont. Not to mention Johns' position in management of course. Sorta hard to be the editor for the guy you answer to, Im sure.

And I do give Didio credit for the things I feel DC has done right. Ive actually defended the guy a lot. Its just that right now I dont see a lot that I think they're doing right. A good chunk of the Rebirth stuff looks like maybe its what needs to be done, but since its not out yet I cant judge.