Action Comics 976 Discussion

[Miles To Go]

And Batman is the same repetitious edgy crap day in, day out. I thought that would change a bit with Rebirth, but all I'm getting from it is a OMD'd Nightwing, an unlikable Batgirl, and a tweenerish Stephanie. Blech.

[Nelliebly]

I enjoyed the story, there were plenty of stakes, and there's a guarantee of greater stakes to come in the "Black Dawn" storyline, and Lois and Clark certainly earned this course correction by valiantly standing up against Mxy despite failing memories, thier core essence and iron will shone through and showed they are capable of bending destiny to their will if it means they preserve the future. An Optimistic message

Right?

I think you can reasonably argue that Lois and Clark's longing to have a child together has been a plot point for literally decades at this point. It even made its way into media with "Lois and Clark" and even to Smallville Season 10. This happy ending has been long long teased and earned. There is plenty of gravitas here even if it's not perfectly executed.

[hellacre]

We can debate until the cows came home how Rebirth should or shouldn't have been handled but the idea that Superman and Lois Lane didn't EARN this outcome is a statement I absolutely will challenge.

Lois and Clark were married for 15 years before the new 52 broke them up and used their marriage as a scapegoat. They were engaged for even longer--since before Death and Return. They were married in the Bronze Age in the Superman family books. Jon Kent was teased as early as the 1980's with "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow." Throughout Lois and Clark'a marriage, their desire for a child and longing to have one together was a plot point various times. They lost their adopted child. Their desire for a child was even part of All Star Superman. So, there is absolutely no way that you can pretend here that the happy ending here for Superman, Lois and their child wasn't earned over the years. This should have happened YEARS ago. I suspect this once again comes back to WHO the mother of this child is for you and if this child had a different mother you would be more than happy to sing a different tune.

The comparison to Batman is also misplaced. For one, Batman didn't have his continuity disrupted so badly at the start of the new 52. So he's never been put in the position that Superman was in that regard in a long time. Two, Batman has a different kind of family than Superman does but has not been shown to ever be able to sustain a healthy marriage like he has nor was he always presented as a present father for his son's whole life. So the comparison doesn't work unless you are willing to acknowledge that Superman's narrative was supremely disrupted with the new 52 and the way Lois was treated AND that Superman being married to he period has made him a different kind of hands on/present father to his child.

My opinion. You can take it or leave it. You can make excuses about its execution if you like...you can love this...no problem. My opinion is mine.

It not about the kind of family you have. It's what happens, how you deal with it, writers execution Superman has little consequences if everything can fixed with a magic wand. And that is what everything lead up to this point. No real humanity in any of it. Retroactive writing doesn't mean good writing either.

[Maxi]

I was thinking that now Superwoman and New Super-Man will have a lot to explain. There's no way those books could exist as they are, given how their events are specifically tied to those of The Last Days of Superman and now that story didn't happen.

Also, how will this affect Luthor? Presumably his past as a villain has been restored now.

[Superlad93]

Hey, did anyone else notice that not only does Jor-El not have white hair but he also has a green headband. That's not Secret Origin. That's a hold over from the "telebands" of the New 52. Moreover, it's a callback to the silver age Kryptonian headbands, and obviously it's green because it's Jor-El.

Another indication of a mix of histories.

I could do without too much Krypton stuff for a little bit, but when they do decide to revisit it, I'd like them to uses amalgamated Johns' version from New Krypton. It'd probably be the most simple way to go. It has ideas from every version of Krypton to date, and it has room for more.

[stillanerd]

They aren't.
We have a SO-like Jor-El and Lara. The rocket scene could be from SO or Morrison, they are barely distinguishable (even if I have vague memories that in Morrison's run Jonathan and Martha found the rocket in the night time). We also have a Smallville scene with a young Luthor, also from SO.
Nothing from Morrison's AC.

Oh, the kid with red hair walking by Clark and Lana is Lex. So yeah, looks like Secret Origin (a Geoff Johns story, of course) did get thrown in there, too. Even so, I believe the rocket ship leaving an exploding Krypton and the scene of Jonathan and Martha finding baby Clark are meant to be seen as been taken from the New 52.

[Sacred Knight]

For me, still, the biggest eye-opener to this issue was the complete lack of reference to Jonathan and Martha and Jon. Instead we see a pregnant Lois and Clark with Perry, and then baby Jon being held by Perry and Jimmy playing with him. It gives the strong indication that these two are Lois and Clark's closest family. No grandparents. Why? Post-Crisis isn't coming back in this regard and Clark's parents are still dead.

[Miles To Go]

t. No real humanity in any of it.

As has already easily been relayed to you by myself and others, we found humanity in the storytelling and connected to it.

Why? Post-Crisis isn't coming back

Enough of it is back though. And Johnathan was already dead by the time Post-Crisis ended anyway. Martha could have died in Jon's ten years or just before he was born, just like Aunt May died before the birth of Spider-Man's daughters in MC2 and Renew Your Vows respectively.

[Spiderboy12]

Oh, the kid with red hair walking by Clark and Lana is Lex. So yeah, looks like Secret Origin (a Geoff Johns story, of course) did get thrown in there, too. Even so, I believe the rocket ship leaving an exploding Krypton and the scene of Jonathan and Martha finding baby Clark are meant to be seen as been taken from the New 52.

Or the Silver Age origin of Lex, which Johns resurrected.

Me, I wish we'd seen some indication here that Clark had been Superboy, even if only as a "rural legend" or with the Legion of Super-Heroes.

[SuperCrab]

What is interesting about Mr Oz's final monologue. Did he just put Superman and Dr Manhattan into same league? O_o Considering that Blue energy gave Jon ability to fight back Mxy, who is a being from 5th Dimension with unlimited powers, who knows how actually powerful this Superman now is?

I've always thought it's ambiguous as to whether Mxy is really going all out when he plays these games with Superman or not. Maybe he's imposing some rules on himself consciously or subconsciously because it's more of a challenge, and that's what he really craves.

I have a dog who used to play with a smaller dog a lot. My dog would intentionally pretend to fall down so that the smaller dog would get the upper hand every once in a while. The smaller dog was faster, and you could see him slow up to let my dog catch him. Because in a test of strength, my dog would just pin the smaller dog every time. In a test of speed, the smaller dog would always get away. In order to have a fun game, they had to handicap themselves.

Also, deep down, Mxy is a Superman fan. He wants to see Superman win and to see him as a legit threat to the mystery man from Mars. And, of course, because it's a comic book, like a lot of forms of entertainment, with Superman being considered the good guy, he's going to win in the end, so he'll be more powerful in that sense, but he may not be more powerful in terms of what powers he has and how they effect time and space. As with Mxy in many stories, Superman may just outsmart Manhattan while distracting him, or something like that. Also, it's pretty clear that it's not going to be 1 on 1. Ultimately most of the key members of the Justice League are going to be in on this when it finally gets to the final showdown.

Worth noting as well is that it was almost said straight out in this arc and some of the tie-in books (Superwoman) that Superman and Lois are essentially cosmic lynchpins, around whom the whole DC Universe resolves. That's why the "bad guy" went directly after him and split him in two, while leaving most of the others with, yes, a missing ten years, but being basically being the same people with the same backstories (i.e. Batman, Hal Jordan). Wonder Woman was weakened (In terms of the current story arc ret-conning the past- I actually think the New52 WW was the best version of the WW character I'm aware of taken without the ret-cons that came later), but not split into two weakened.

Now, is being a cosmic lynchpin power? In a sense, but it's not really a power you can use very easily. You have to be there doing your thing for the sake of the universe, apparently, but it's not like you can erase people from time or something. It's not a "power" in the traditional sense.

In a way, the Flash's ability to rewrite history may be a more significant power, albeit one he is reluctant to use often for obvious reasons. Superman just rewrote history, in a way, but was only able to do it because of some very unique circumstances. He can't do it at will on an average Tuesday.

[Sacred Knight]

Enough of it is back though. And Johnathan was already dead by the time Post-Crisis ended anyway. Martha could have died in Jon's ten years or just before he was born, just like Aunt May died before the birth of Spider-Man's daughters in MC2 and Renew Your Vows respectively.

You cut off a big part of my statement. I said I don't think its back in regards to Clark's parents. Obviously we can see that a ton of it is indeed back in general. And Jonathan's post-Crisis death doesn't fit this new timeline. Jon would have already been born by the time Brainiac killed him in the Brainiac arc. So there'd still be no reason to omit them thus far from imagery of Jon's early life if things happened that way. That doesn't wash.

I mean, there's a lot not yet shown, one collage isn't the big picture and detail filler, I realize that. But I do think its significant nonetheless in its presentation as a first look.

[Maxi]

Post-Crisis isn't coming back in this regard and Clark's parents are still dead.

This is my first dissapointment. It would be like taking from Pre-Flashpoint Superman and having him live a life without parents in his adulthood.

Now Death and Return of Superman doesn't make sense anymore... :P

[stillanerd]

For me, still, the biggest eye-opener to this issue was the complete lack of reference to Jonathan and Martha and Jon. Instead we see a pregnant Lois and Clark with Perry, and then baby Jon being held by Perry and Jimmy playing with him. It gives the strong indication that these two are Lois and Clark's closest family. No grandparents. Why? Post-Crisis isn't coming back in this regard and Clark's parents are still dead.

That's a good observation. Though I liked the idea of Clark's parents still being alive which seemed refreshing given how there's so many superheroes with dead parents. Even so, it's fitting that Perry White would act as a surrogate grandfather for Jon in this new "corrected" timeline, especially, as the scenes imply, he's a surrogate father for both Clark and especially Lois. Speaking of grandparents though, it will curious seeing how General Sam Lane, who is Jon biological grandfather, will react to all this.

[Patrick Gerard]

So this is the sixth version of mainline continuity Superman:

1. Golden Age/Earth-Two (retroactively estabilished as a different universe version)
2. Silver Age/Earth-One
3. Post-Crisis
4. Post-Infinite Crisis (which continued the PC narrative with alterations done to his past)
5. New 52 (which retroactively became known as basically "4B")
6. Post-Reborn

It should be noted that the last three happened in less than 15 years and under the same editorial management, while the first three happened over a period of 50 years...

I prefer not to think in versions. 1942-1959 was about as distinct from EITHER Earth-1 or Earth-2 as this is from Byrne. Those years had a Daily Planet, not Star. Lois neither spurned Clark as harshly as she initially did nor did she want to marry Superman all that badly. Luthor had no first name. Superman was Superboy in the 1930s. Kryptonian froze their criminals. The Kents' names fluctuated and they never seemed deaged at any point. Many of the classic Silver-Age stories had prototypes in those years. Halkor in place of Mon-El. Mars Boy in place of Star Boy. Continuity the way I see it, is both hazy and modular.

Heck, I'd argue that outside of specific interactions with specific characters building a history (The Legion, Supergirl), Superman didn't have what we would call continuity until Van Benson showed up late in the 60s.

[Sacred Knight]

I'm hoping for an eventual story arc revolving around Sam getting to know Jon, dealing with the revelation that his grandson is half-alien, but eventually coming to terms with it and coming out of it all a better character. No more evil Sam Lane, IOW. I hate that.