Keeping track of Post-Rebirth Superman sales

[Sam]

By next year we'll probably have the secret ID back, and maybe even kid Jon. This is just not working. My personal feelings aside, as I rather liked what Bendis was doing in the beginning. But when he introduced the gimmicks, things went south. And they keep going down with each proceeding gimmick, the ID being the latest that has been met with a poor showing. I'm also sad the Legion was brought into this. I missed the concept and wanted it back, but I also knew of the myriad of failures on its back. It didn't need another, it needed something solid to come back on. Instead we got what looks to have been intended as an original-5G prologue. And we know what's happening there, complete chaos in the wake of Didio's dismissal. This unfortunately was not the platform a delicate property like the Legion needed to return on.

Honestly, I'm not a big fan of Johns anymore either but in retrospect DC would have been better off letting his Rebirth vision play out. I know its all hindsight, for example I still don't get what the massive delays with Doomsday Clock were all about, and at least in that regard I still can't blame them for moving onto something else. But in a general sense, where he was going and the monthly writers working on that template was working better. Even someone like me who wasn't a big fan of Rebirth in its own right can admit that.

My understanding is that a lot of the delays for Doomsday Clock were for rewrites that would accommodate the events of Bendis's Superman and Snyder's Justice League, so even that seemed to be a case of interference from the editorial level. Certainly, I agree that pushing Johns out was a big mistake. Supposedly, Rebirth was more his baby than it was Didio's and Bendis coming in, Snyder's New Justice, and Heroes in Crisis was Didio reasserting control on an editorial level. As much as I enjoyed Snyder's Justice League, I absolutely agree with you that I wish Johns's vision for Rebirth can been allowed to play out fully. But either way, I need Bendis's foot taken off the pedal now, and hope that kid Jon can return to us.

[OpaqueGiraffe17]

Redoing Truth just like 2 years later was an incredibly stupid idea. And no BuT ThIs TiMe ClaRk rEvEaLs iT HiMsELf, isn’t enough of a twist to make the concept fresh. Clearly someone higher up wanted to get rid of the secret id, I doubt it was Bendis’s idea, though he probably jumped at the opportunity to make his mark once again. If we’re lucky it was Dan Didio pushing for it and with him gone it can be put to rest. Seriously though, I get that with an 80 year old character retreading the past is inevitable. But making another go at the secret ID so soon? I wasn’t even mad when the new 52 did it. I think it ended up being pretty bad. But come on wait at least 8-10 years before giving it another shot.

[Menacer]

Redoing Truth just like 2 years later was an incredibly stupid idea. And no BuT ThIs TiMe ClaRk rEvEaLs iT HiMsELf, isn’t enough of a twist to make the concept fresh. Clearly someone higher up wanted to get rid of the secret id, I doubt it was Bendis’s idea, though he probably jumped at the opportunity to make his mark once again. If we’re lucky it was Dan Didio pushing for it and with him gone it can be put to rest. Seriously though, I get that with an 80 year old character retreading the past is inevitable. But making another go at the secret ID so soon? I wasn’t even mad when the new 52 did it. I think it ended up being pretty bad. But come on wait at least 8-10 years before giving it another shot.

So you disliked the truth Earth 2, Convergence, final days of superman, Rebirth Actions, and finally Reborn multi volume story arc???
For me this is a favourite run of mine... the two Clark's and surprise villian and eventually Jon being a big factor in ratifying the multiverse-...

This was not a fun exciting story to you?

Which multi volume story arc would you recommend. No minis. But genuine superman or action comics... or man of steel or adventures of superman... from before flashpoint...

I'm genuinely asking cause I'd like to collect good older arcs from the main series

[OpaqueGiraffe17]

So you disliked the truth Earth 2, Convergence, final days of superman, Rebirth Actions, and finally Reborn multi volume story arc???
For me this is a favourite run of mine... the two Clark's and surprise villian and eventually Jon being a big factor in ratifying the multiverse-...

This was not a fun exciting story to you?

Which multi volume story arc would you recommend. No minis. But genuine superman or action comics... or man of steel or adventures of superman... from before flashpoint...

I'm genuinely asking cause I'd like to collect good older arcs from the main series

I never read convergence or earth 2. I wanna get around to reading earth 2 someday though, heard a lot of good things. The rest I remember enjoying.

[Menacer]

I never read convergence or earth 2. I wanna get around to reading earth 2 someday though, heard a lot of good things. The rest I remember enjoying.

My decision to read earth 2 was because of Lois and Clark... the opening bit explains where this Lois and Clark and there son jon have come from. Convergence mentioned.

Really Convergence is a story that only makes sense if you've read Earth 2 Vol 1-5

I'd already read a bunch of action comics Rebirth stories and the Lois and Clark book and damn I was so curious I just had to collect convergence.... but after researching it a bit I held off reading it and collected the earth 2 books...


I genuinely love earth 2 1-5 and thought the Convergence event was largely bashed by people who hadn't read all the build up, and had no vested interest in the characters... since Convergence is about The Earth 2 cast of characters.

Sort of like watching the last 15 min of Return of the King and never having seen Lord of the Rings 1 and 2... of course your going to have bad time.

If you've got a used book store that's carrying volumes of comics. I'd check there... I'm able to buy 2 or 3 volume for the cost of 1 new book. Recently this is how I've been collecting older stories

[Vordan]

By next year we'll probably have the secret ID back, and maybe even kid Jon. This is just not working. My personal feelings aside, as I rather liked what Bendis was doing in the beginning. But when he introduced the gimmicks, things went south. And they keep going down with each proceeding gimmick, the ID being the latest that has been met with a poor showing. I'm also sad the Legion was brought into this. I missed the concept and wanted it back, but I also knew of the myriad of failures on its back. It didn't need another, it needed something solid to come back on. Instead we got what looks to have been intended as an original-5G prologue. And we know what's happening there, complete chaos in the wake of Didio's dismissal. This unfortunately was not the platform a delicate property like the Legion needed to return on.

Honestly, I'm not a big fan of Johns anymore either but in retrospect DC would have been better off letting his Rebirth vision play out. I know its all hindsight, for example I still don't get what the massive delays with Doomsday Clock were all about, and at least in that regard I still can't blame them for moving onto something else. But in a general sense, where he was going and the monthly writers working on that template was working better. Even someone like me who wasn't a big fan of Rebirth in its own right can admit that.

Robert Venditti just left Justice League because DC offered him his “dream job” or so he said on Twitter. Might be he’ll be getting one of the Superbooks. He’s a huge fan of Superman judging by his social media. I’m still enjoying Bendis but unless he’s selling great in the trades he will probably get replaced soon.

[Frontier]

Robert Venditti just left Justice League because DC offered him his “dream job” or so he said on Twitter. Might be he’ll be getting one of the Superbooks. He’s a huge fan of Superman judging by his social media. I’m still enjoying Bendis but unless he’s selling great in the trades he will probably get replaced soon.

And here I thought they were just playing JL musical chairs again...

[Ascended]

My understanding is that a lot of the delays for Doomsday Clock were for rewrites that would accommodate the events of Bendis's Superman and Snyder's Justice League, so even that seemed to be a case of interference from the editorial level.

I had heard that the delays forced DC to remove the ban on the Legion and JSA. They had wanted those groups back in play sooner but Johns couldn't make the deadlines so the ban was lifted, Bendis and Snyder took the teams, and Johns had to adapt to that.

I'd really like to know what was up with that whole book. It's probably something boring and stupid, like Johns' work with the larger media stuff took too much of his time (and Shazam is always delayed too) and Clock was, by far, the most complicated and skillful thing he's done so that certainly must have taken a lot of time and effort. But it'd be fun to find out he and Didio were locked in a power struggle for the direction of the DCU or something, with scripts getting written and rewritten as they vied for authority.

We'd have largely been better off had Johns won, I think. Except for Superman. Johns has never truly understood the character I think, only one small part of him, and outside of very few exceptions, has never even written him well. But Johns' vision would've been far better for most other franchises I think.

[Vordan]

Johns’ Superman is the Donner Superman with all the strengths and weaknesses of that take. Didio has helped make a lot of my all time favorite Superman stories happen such as when he got Morrison back from Marvel, but everything he had planned with 5G sounded terrible to me. I’m not a fan of the Kents’ being back which comes from Johns, but I’m also not a fan of Bendis’ new Legion which is something Didio wanted, a full reboot of the team, I’d rather have Johns Retroboot Legion back. Ultimately between Superman and Action Bendis will have written over 50 issues of Superman soon, so if things end before issue 40 of each book I’ll still be content since I’ve enjoyed a lot of stuff Bendis has made for Supes.

If I had to replace Bendis I would let Venditti have Superman since he wrote a good Zod in Hal N’ Pals and I think he could give us a more entertaining straightforward Superman run. Give Action to Yang and let him make that a Superfamily book akin to Tynion’s Tec with Clark, Kara, Kon, Kenan, John Henry Iron, Natasha Irons, and maybe the Power Girls or Lana Superwoman. Yang can write teams well and I would love to get more Kenan interactions with the Superfamily from him. Tomasi can have Kid Jon back in a relaunched Super Sons and the people who love the (imo) boring Norman Rockwell Superfamily status quo can enjoy it there. He’d never do it but I would love Morrison to take on Legion of Super-Heroes, either him or Johns who can bring his Retroboot back. Johns ******* owes us a Legion run for all his meddling.

That’s what I would do if Bendis got replaced. But who knows? Right now with so much of DC in flux they may just let Bendis do what he wants. Not like they really think that highly of Supes after his outside media failures.

[Sacred Knight]

We'd have largely been better off had Johns won, I think. Except for Superman. Johns has never truly understood the character I think, only one small part of him, and outside of very few exceptions, has never even written him well. But Johns' vision would've been far better for most other franchises I think.

That's basically my feeling too. I mean, the Legion would have been better off. I think Jon probably would have been better off. Most of the lore too (except bringing the Kents back, that's a Johns thing and is a mistake). The character of Superman though is always a question mark when Johns holds the keys. But then again individual writers can overcome that, if they get the character themselves. And that's really the rub, because I think those within DC's cabal of talent largely don't. Or at the very least if there's diamonds in the rough they've thus far been denied a shot. And the ones that do had their say long ago and are dated scribes (Jurgens, for example).

[OpaqueGiraffe17]

I’m leaning onto the opinion that the Geoff Johns vs Dan Didio thing was fabricated by fans. Don’t know if there’s any real evidence of that. But if there were, and I’m pretty sure neither of them “won” in the end big picture wise

[Sam]

I’m leaning onto the opinion that the Geoff Johns vs Dan Didio thing was fabricated by fans. Don’t know if there’s any real evidence of that. But if there were, and I’m pretty sure neither of them “won” in the end big picture wise

Bleeding Cool was the source of a lot of it, and while people like to paint them as peddling in unfounded rumors, when it comes to the inner working of DC and Marvel, their track record is pretty impressive. If they say there was a power struggle between Johns and Didio, I believe it.

[Vordan]

Sheesh has anyone looked at the sales for the rest of DC’s books? Bendis’ Superman may be below 40k but it’s still one of DC’s top selling books at the moment. Willamson Flash is down in the 20k’s and so is WW. I actually don’t think Bendis will get replaced unless DC does another big Rebirth creative team shakeup where everyone switches books. Everything else is in the 30-40k range even books like Justice League are down to 42k. There’s no question that a relaunch is coming at this point. 5G was clearly initially meant to be that relaunch but now who knows? One positive of this pandemic is it will give DC more time to figure out what they want to do post-Didio. FCBD being cancelled means that Gen 0 one shot will be delayed.

[Yoda]

The market almost looks like it's at the point where if it's not a big event, AAA tier creative team, or Batman/Spider-Man, 30-40K is doing pretty well.

[OpaqueGiraffe17]

Flash is Flash and Superman is Superman.....hasn’t Williamson has been on Flash for like somewhere in the ballpark of 90ish issues?