Action Comics #978 Preview

[Jokerz79]

IMO New 52 should had been a Ultimate line like Marvel had start with like 7 books a Superman, a Batman, a Flash, a Green Lantern/Green Arrow Book Maybe, the Justice League, and a Teen Group either Titans or Young Justice to showcase the younger heroes. This way to start at a real Ground zero to could use any version of any character you wanted without history or baggage which would be friendlier to new readers and also allow creator to go in directions they never allow the main continuity out of fear of scary off readers. If DC really wanted a line of books of their most popular heroes that wasn't bogged by continuity and fresh start this was the way to go IMO.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

It didn't fail, those in power just didn't want to go that route anymore. As we know now it appears as though they were or at least felt forced into some of the changes. But the "it failed" narrative is just revisionist history, because financially, it never did fail. DC was never, at any point in the New 52 era, in dire straits. DCYou was the closest it got, and while a blunder, still was far from ruinous. That said, keeping the history seems to be what the majority of readers enjoy the most as well as the creators. There is a healthy section of fandom though who would welcome a starting over, judging from early positive responses to Superman's starting over at the very least in Morrison's run. But that would probably be best served on a theoretical other line now. And why would some fans welcome a starting over? Different tastes. There's an appeal there to some myself included in starting the journey over anew, in witnessing the milestones live and in person in a way we never were able to before. That's all. Others have no interest in that. And that's fine too.

Exactly what Jokerz79 said. Even if we can't label the New 52 a financial failure (although there's the argument there that it was, since it really didn't hold onto that spike in sales that it started out with and fell to at or below Pre-Flashpoint levels pretty soon afterwards), we can label it a creative and public image failure. Not only were a lot of the stories bad because of mismanagement by the editors, but that mismanagement chased off several creators who literally had nothing but bad things to say about DC during the height of the New 52.

[Sacred Knight]

Eh, the internal mismanagement was hardly a symptom of the New 52. It was a symptom of DC as it handled themselves in general. This was a problem way before the New 52. Their "public image failure" was alive and well in the later stages of the pre-Flashpoint continuity, and talent had nothing but bad things to say about them then too, and were losing talent. In this aspect I'm even hesitant to proclaim things fixed now. There hasn't been word of much drama this year, but will old habits come back? It is the same power structure after all. This year has been a positive sign, I'll give it that, but I don't think they've quite earned the declaration of reformed well-oiled machine yet.

[DragonPiece]

Reading a live blog of the Rebirth panel going on at C2E2 and Jurgens said something interesting about the current Superman

"Jurgens spoke about bringing in elements of runs from Geoff Johns, John Bryne, and more, saying "This Superman reflects more eras of his 80 year history than the one I worked on before."

So he is confirming this ultimate superman theory/prediction some of you had on here.

[Sacred Knight]

Good. Now let's see more of it. I don't want to hear it said but in actual practice just see a bunch of Johns' stuff.

[DragonPiece]

Good. Now let's see more of it. I don't want to hear it said but in actual practice just see a bunch of Johns' stuff.

Yeah, but I really don't think we'll see much of it in this issue. He's gotta waste pages setting up Eradicator and Cyborg Superman for the revenge team as well as showing Lois his identity,Superman's death by Doomsday,his comeback..the marriage..and I think he mentioned they are gonna show Jon's birth. Issue will probably end with him talking to Kelex about recruiting heroes for "whatever's coming" and then the issue mentioning supegirl,new-superman and superwoman reborn tie-ins....now that i typed all that, I wonder how accurate that will be to the issue lol.

[Mister BoMan]

This looks great! I am enjoying the Superman titles.

[ARIARAIDEN]

So New 52 is over but what says that in a few years DC decides to reboot again and mess things up again?

[Jokerz79]

So New 52 is over but what says that in a few years DC decides to reboot again and mess things up again?

DC gets a bad rap about reboots they've only done it twice in the past. The excellently planned Crisis of the Infinite Earths which was done because the Multiverse was a mess and the New 52 which was done because Dan Didio thinks young don't like older characters and now it's being tweaked due to the mess to continuity the New 52 was with it's confusing and ever changing of what was continuity. Everything like Birthright or Secret Origin was just origin updates and honestly comics do that all the time look at Marvel. Reed and Ben of the FF aren't WWII vets anymore and the FF didn't go into space to beat the reds in the space race, Tony Stark didn't get kidnapped or held hostage in Southeast Asia, Frank Castle and Flash Thompson aren't Vietnam Vets anymore. The past is fluid in comics always has been it's why we originally got Earth-1 and Earth-2 in the 60's due to all the changes made to continuity from the 40's and 50's.

[ARIARAIDEN]

DC gets a bad rap about reboots they've only done it twice in the past. The excellently planned Crisis of the Infinite Earths which was done because the Multiverse was a mess and the New 52 which was done because Dan Didio thinks young don't like older characters and now it's being tweaked due to the mess to continuity the New 52 was with it's confusing and ever changing of what was continuity. Everything like Birthright or Secret Origin was just origin updates and honestly comics do that all the time look at Marvel. Reed and Ben of the FF aren't WWII vets anymore and the FF didn't go into space to beat the reds in the space race, Tony Stark didn't get kidnapped or held hostage in Southeast Asia, Frank Castle and Flash Thompson aren't Vietnam Vets anymore. The past is fluid in comics always has been it's why we originally got Earth-1 and Earth-2 in the 60's due to all the changes made to continuity from the 40's and 50's.

Yeah but that is Marvel and every Comic fan knows that Marvel does that all the time.That is the reason why i dont even bother to follow the Marvel Comics, its way to busy and confusing!

[Jokerz79]

Yeah but that is Marvel and every Comic fan knows that Marvel does that all the time.That is the reason why i dont even bother to follow the Marvel Comics, its way to busy and confusing!

Even DC consistently changes continuity Superman has almost always been in some kind of Flux. He was always changing in the 40's let be his Kryptonian parents name from Jor-L and Lora to Jor-El and Lara or the evolution of the Kent's names, the change from Daily Star to Daily Planet and George Taylor to Perry White, and adding stuff from the radio show into continuity. They had a set continuity by the 50's and added Earth-2 in the 60's and then they kind of had a soft reboot in the early 70's with the shift from the Silver Age to the Bronze Age while technically the same continuity it felt completely different in Tone and adding lots of new characters and even a new job for Clark. Then we had Crisis, Zero Hour, Hypertime, Birthright, Infinite Crisis, Secret Origin, New 52, Rebirth and now Reborn truth Superman is always evolving and changing usually some things always remain constant but the details change. It is what it is.

[Flash Gordon]

Ah, so straight up Geoff Johns SECRET ORIGIN/ACTION COMICS run?

[Chris24601]

Still, if they do indeed stay until publication....perhaps it lends credence to the rumors Jon Bogdanove talked about for ACTION #1000. Perhaps they are returning for real eventually.

Or they've decided it will be easier to sell trades of the older stuff if the flashbacks to those periods look closer to how Superman looked at the time. Frankly, I'm fine with the idea that Superman started with the trunks 12-15 years ago but at some point just decided to change his style up. Even the Army changes its uniforms now and then, why shouldn't Superman? It's not like he doesn't have the resources with his Fortress to have different suits made up over the years. Heck, I wouldn't mind a set of display cases at the Fortress where they show off a number of his past outfits with the implication that he's worn them all at one point or another (heck, make the Golden Age one part of an adventure where Superman time-traveled to c. 1938 and had to make a spare out of materials of the time and ultimately ended up being the inspiration for the founding members of the Justice Society of America in the lead up to WW2).

I DID really like the bit showing Lois coming to Clark's defense from Lombard's prank and her "I Don't like bullies" line. It makes perfect sense why Clark falls for Lois. One thing Jurgens gets better than almost anyone is the Lois/Clark dynamic and what makes their relationship tick.

Also, the nicer from the start Lois and Clark relationship works if they're compressing the pre-marriage story to account for a mid-30's Lois and Clark with 10-year old Jon. With the non-adversarial relationship presented here its pretty easy to imagine them moving a pace more akin to Marvel's time compression (i.e. year one was the issues from 1986-1991, year two was the ones from 1991-1996, etc.) such that Jon could have been born as early as year three or four (which would be in line with the 14 year anniversary mentioned in Reborn if you counted from Lois and Clark's first meeting).

[Patrick Gerard]

I spoke to someone who read it. You're getting a fairly generic origin in the early pages. I don't think it qualifies as a spoiler to say that Superman's career includes at least 3 long term costumes after the trunks and before the Reborn look. You have seen them all before.

There is little in this that you haven't seen before. This is a simplified "good parts" take. If you look at Superman's publishing history, covers only, that is pretty much Superman's continuity now. Nothing my friend said surprised me, exactly. Aside from how much they're keeping. Ignoring stuff with Wonder Woman, I'd say the bulk of cover images from Superman's history are in continuity now although the events inside may be tweaked.

That said, you'll want to be reading The Button. There are panels of major interest. Including a couple of other classic costumes not seen since Flashpoint. Assuming my friend is reliable.

[The Kid]

IMO New 52 should had been a Ultimate line like Marvel had start with like 7 books a Superman, a Batman, a Flash, a Green Lantern/Green Arrow Book Maybe, the Justice League, and a Teen Group either Titans or Young Justice to showcase the younger heroes. This way to start at a real Ground zero to could use any version of any character you wanted without history or baggage which would be friendlier to new readers and also allow creator to go in directions they never allow the main continuity out of fear of scary off readers. If DC really wanted a line of books of their most popular heroes that wasn't bogged by continuity and fresh start this was the way to go IMO.

I always wonder why DC didn't do this. They could have started a fresh new universe that is revamped with a brand new take on the characters without the limitations that exist with a long continuity and the mainline still exists as the main canon. It probably would eventually run into its problems like the Ultimate Universe but as a HUGE fan of Ultimate Spider-Man (one of my all-time fav runs), something like that for Superman would have been incredible