What would have saved the New 52 Superman?

[superduperman]

What ideas do you think would have saved New 52 Superman? Would having him hook up with Lois have done it? Would giving him a more traditional costume done it? Obviously crossover fatigue and stories that go nowhere didn't help but what else could DC have done that would have prevented his death?

[Ascended]

Better editors.

There was nothing wrong with Nuperman. Sure, there were things I would have liked to see done differently. Lois needed a role in the books. Shay Veritas should have stuck around. The blogger thing was worth exploring. So on and so forth.

But the only actual flaw in Superman these last five years was the people in charge of him.

[Sacred Knight]

Berganza being booted after Doomed.

[SuperCrab]

They could have just kept publishing his comics and not written a Death of Superman story.

I mean, seriously. They did not have to do this. He was selling better than the Pre-Flashpoint Superman.

However, it might have helped had Truth not gone on so long and they had fewer crossover epics, and just let people write the character doing what the character does in his fairly normal circumstances (for him) in each book for extended lengths of time. Truth would have been okay as an arc in one book for a few months, or every book for 2-3 months, but it went on way too long. Similarly, Doomed did not need to be like a 40 part thingamabob where they required you to read like every book published involving Superman, and then a random issue of Supergirl and then some extra special Doomed issues that weren't part of a book and then...

Like, just develop the character doing what the character does. Keep continuity, and move forward so it's not like he stays totally the same every month for 10 years (Have logical incremental changes in his relationships and situations), but assign four good writers to the four books they had (Not counting the two Justice League titles) and let them plot good arcs and write them. A higher profile writer or two for one book might have helped. But just letting them develop the character while keeping him as Clark Kent with the Superman secret identity might have helped.

They could have even had him reveal himself to Jim like he did, and then to Lois, but still kept his secret identity from the world. He could have had a power crisis that was brief and hit the road for a few issues on a motorcycle.

But everything had to be a really lengthy mega-event that ended in a reset, so nothing could really give him momentum as Superman. And there wasn't enough room to let writers to tell their own stories in long-term arcs. Things would get going and then they'd have to do a crossover or a Truth event and it'd all go out the window.

They also should have really locked in some things like who Jim was to him, and his love for Diana, and not screwed with it. Jim the friend doesn't revert to Jimmy the guy he's mentoring depending on who's writing. There isn't like a year where it's not clear if he and Diana are dating or not, just keep them together. Give it some stability to develop slowly and for people to tell good stories. That eventually would have sold more copies.

However, again, I consider the death a bad editorial decision that the circumstances didn't dictate. The issue of Superman where he got his powers back sold 90,000 copies. They didn't even give him a single issue before he was dying. This is death by editorial mandate, not because there was any real sales justification for it. They could have done some things to make sales better to that point, but sales were not low enough to dictate this. They wanted to get press and fan attention by killing off one Superman and bringing back another one (Gimmick! New #1 issues!), plus Jon Kent is clearly someone's pet project that he wanted to make sure got maximum exposure by shoving him into the biggest books in an attempt to get his character cemented into the Superman line so much that even reboots won't remove him. The whole thing sucks. I just do not agree they had to do this AT ALL. Premise rejected. With all due respect.

Also, I think someone there has a hard-on for Pre-Flashpoint Superman and was biding his time waiting to pull this crap.

[andersonh1]

They broke New 52 Superman. They took him too far away from spec, especially with the Truth storyline, and he was pretty much beyond repair. You'd have to go all the way back to the beginning, let Morrison establish the new version of the character, and then not stray as far away from classic Superman storytelling as they did. They went astray years ago, in my opinion.

[Last Son of Krypton]

A change of editor would help him, or if DiDio turned down Jurgens' pitch to give a son to Lois and Clark, he would still be around..

[upgrayedd]

Maintaining the same sales as his introduction would have saved him too.

[superduperman]

They could have just kept publishing his comics and not written a Death of Superman story.

I mean, seriously. They did not have to do this. He was selling better than the Pre-Flashpoint Superman.

However, it might have helped had Truth not gone on so long and they had fewer crossover epics, and just let people write the character doing what the character does in his fairly normal circumstances (for him) in each book for extended lengths of time. Truth would have been okay as an arc in one book for a few months, or every book for 2-3 months, but it went on way too long. Similarly, Doomed did not need to be like a 40 part thingamabob where they required you to read like every book published involving Superman, and then a random issue of Supergirl and then some extra special Doomed issues that weren't part of a book and then...

Honestly, I think this is where the books started going off the rails. I hated the nineties where you had to read every book a character was in to get the full story. And in an era where books were getting up to about $5 a pop, it's kind of an unreasonable request in this day and age. The whole point of the New 52, at least I thought, was to get away from this model.

[StrikeJP]

1. As some have already said, better editing. He was bogged down by constant crossovers and a vague "5 year timeline." Any interesting story ideas never seemed to have an ending in mind (e.g.Truth).
2. Stronger focus on Clark and his supporting cast. They weren't allowed to shine much, especially with all the crossovers. Ironically, the double-shipping of books for Superdad would have done a lot for building Nuperman's world.
3. A better costume. No collar, less lines, classic boots, and a little yellow in the belt would have done wonders for him.

[Sacred Knight]

Maintaining the same sales as his introduction would have saved him too.

That would have been nice, but entirely unrealistic. Everything drops to a leveling out point. Even Batman does. To a lesser degree than everything else, sure, but nothing starts at one high point and remains there. The mark to look out for are drastic drops, and the only drastic drop the New 52 version had, despite incompetent editorial, was the Truth storyline. Which strongly suggested the only thing the Superman line needed was that story to end and just move on from there. But, if certain quotes are to be believed, they had made the decision to swap Superman out for Superdad before Truth even started. Which suggests that even sales weren't enough for the guy, as he was doing fine around the time Johns took over Superman and began laying his Mr. Oz hints which again, supposedly was all done with the intent of a similar situation to what we have now.

I suppose the optimist could look at that as more evidence however that Superman is just on brief sabbatical and the intent was never to be rid of him entirely. One can hope. But I guess I would have to rescind my original post and say that I think the real answer is: nothing. They were determined to do this when the New 52 Superman doing fine. So while its up in the air still whether the intent here is to permanently remove him or its just part of a story meant to bring him back alive and well in due time, nothing would have stopped this part of the tale. As they were seemingly determined to do it when there appeared to be no pressing need to in the first place.

They broke New 52 Superman. They took him too far away from spec, especially with the Truth storyline, and he was pretty much beyond repair.

He was barely even damaged, much less broken beyond repair. You magically reinstate the secret identity and boom, you're done, everything's fine. Hardly the symptoms of a broken-beyond-repair character. At the absolute worst he was just the victim of a year's worth of a boring storyline. That's it.

[MajorHoy]

Not screwing over George Pérez.
Not letting Scott Lobdell write anything.
Finding better editors.
Not letting their best Super-book, Supergirl, get flushed down the toilet.
Not having the Superman/Wonder Woman hook up.
Not having the books become crossover city.
(Do I need to continue with the litany of mistakes they made?)

[Sacred Knight]

You could probably stop while you're ahead. Because only three things on that list were actual mistakes. Perez did deserve a better template, the line does need a better editor, and the crossovers do need to be limited. That's it though.

[Jadeb]

Before they jettisoned all the traditional Superman trappings, they needed to have a plan for a workable new status quo. Sure, Clark as a blogger sounds modern, but how does that work? How does he interact with his supporting cast from his apartment? If Lois isn't the love interest/workplace rival, what is her importance to the mythos? How do you keep her integrated into the stories when, at best, Clark is going to bump into her while reporting, which doesn't take up much page space?

Morrison had a vision for the early days of the character, but there was no vision for what was to follow. It was a mess from the start.

[manofsteel1979]

Short answer,better editors. Although frankly if we had better editorial management in the first place prior to 2011, then I don't think there would have been a New 52 Superman in the first place.

Long answer, it comes down to one word. Commitment.

Commitment to reboot your whole universe from square one. No exceptions. I honestly think the moment DC decided the New 52 was going to reboot everything not with a bat or Green Lantern logo but leave those two properties largely be spelled doom for Nuperman. The biggest mistake DC made in 1986 was not going full reboot then and they repeated the same mistake in 2011.

If DC wasn't willing to take everything back to ground zero, neither should Superman have been. You should always utilize what you have,perhaps retool and adjust, then move forward. Many people say there was nothing wrong with Nuperman that good writing couldn't fix,which was true, but also applied to Pre flashpoint Superman in 2011 and Pre Crisis Supes in 1986.

However once the decision is made to reboot, commit to it. Do the hard work. Build and take the time to do things right. For instance, you want Wonder Woman and Superman together? Fine. Build it naturally and organically over a couple years worth of comics, not just tease some stolen glances in a handful of Justice League comics, then have them kiss, and then suddenly they are a couple because you say they are? Sorry. Don't buy it. You wanna change Superman's costume? Fine. Just don't arbitrarily throw on a high collar and draw lines all over the suit and call it a new suit. Again, put thought into it and come up with something that is unmistakable as Superman, but with actual thought and care behind it. You want to do something that shatters the status quo and reshape Superman in the way TRUTH was supposed to? Then instead of doing crappy crossover after crappy crossover, actually build a status quo that we will actually care about losing.

Outside of Morrison, Perez and Pak, no one at DC seemed to give a damn about New 52 Superman ( or more specifically Superman in general) and with that apathy emanating from editorial, the readers, for the most part stopped caring as well.

[Prime]

Boot the editors. No freaking crossovers.