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Greg Kirkman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 May 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 15775
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| Posted: 05 February 2018 at 9:37pm | IP Logged | 1
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I think a big part of the problem is that Siegel and Shuster's original idea was a clear and simple one, and was designed for the simpler storytelling style of their era: Clark Kent seems to be a mild-mannered reporter, but, underneath the glasses, he's really SUPERMAN! It's a power-fantasy for the meek and the weak. Superman represented the imagined inner strength of nerds and the oppressed. But, when you start trying to write more complex stories with deeper characterization, reality (or the comic book version of it) starts to get in the way. One starts asking questions about the psychological dynamics of a man with two distinct identities. Real-world logic would dictate that Clark Kent is the "real" guy, since he was raised on Earth. But, thematically, the original point of Superman was that HE was the real guy--the all-powerful superhero hiding within a meek exterior.
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Adam Schulman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 July 2017
Posts: 1717
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| Posted: 05 February 2018 at 10:47pm | IP Logged | 2
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Regarding Lois, Clark, and their 10 year old son Jon Kent...
It's working far better than I thought it would, mainly because I like the kid. He's a very smart, even mature (for a 10 year old) kid.
As of the climax of the "Superman Reborn" storyline I don't think much "research" is needed to read current stories. I think even newcomers to DC Comics know that someone rewrote reality and altered people's ages and memories -- specifically, Dr. He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named-Here. As a result of this, Clark and Lois became "split." The motivations of the "splitter" are still unknown.
But on one hand there were the rebooted versions of Clark and Lois -- the new iteration of Superman with his "aggressive attitude" and his Kryptonian ceremonial armor (ugh) and his relationship with Wonder Woman, not Lois.
And then we found out that the older, pre-2011 versions of Clark and Lois (and their newborn son) had been torn from their timeline and ended up 10 years in the past of the new timeline, where their doppelgangers already existed.
So the "normal" versions of Clark and Lois adopted different names and Clark did superhero stuff in secret until the rebooted versions of Clark and Lois suddenly died. Then the "normal" Superman went public and "normal" Lois started working at the Planet.
Then the "Superman Reborn" story happens (it involves Mr. Mxyzptlk) and the result is a sort of amalgamation of the two timelines, pre- and post-reboot. Everyone remembers there being only one Superman (and Lois), and DC continuity is now closer to what it was before the New 52 reboot. But not entirely. And many of the superheroes know that something rewrote history, that there are things and people that they should remember but still don't. And Clark, I think, still has this nagging feeling that what he remembers and what actually happened in his past aren't the same.
In any case, it's been made clear across various titles that reality/history has been rewritten. But nobody needs to know exactly how things were before the Great Reality Alteration in order to read the current titles.
(Sometimes what's been altered is mentioned in stories. In a recent FLASH story, the Reverse-Flash tells Iris West how he enjoyed killing her. Iris has no memory of this, of course; she doesn't even remember being married to Barry Allen, yet. She doesn't even remember her own nephew, Wally West/Flash III. And Wally, who only re-entered the material world in 2016 in REBIRTH #1, is afraid to talk to Iris because he's afraid she won't remember him, just like Linda Park, his wife before the reboot, doesn't remember him, which of course was emotionally devastating.)
Edited by Adam Schulman on 05 February 2018 at 10:49pm
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Greg Kirkman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 May 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 15775
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| Posted: 06 February 2018 at 1:22am | IP Logged | 3
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https://13thdimension.com/why-john-byrnes-superman-was-the-g reatest-man-of-steel-ever/
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Eric Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 October 2013
Location: United States
Posts: 2366
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| Posted: 06 February 2018 at 7:07am | IP Logged | 4
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Thanks for the recap, Adam Schulman!
I'd bought a couple of issues of the (married with a kid) LOIS & CLARK mini-series because it was drawn by Lee Weeks (he's great!), but it annoyed me that the "real" Superman was working in secret while the jerky armored Superman was starring in the main series. I was glad to hear that they killed that guy (tough luck to all the readers who had invested $150-200 to buy his fifty issues that no longer mattered!).
And I can see that the whole convoluted split/died/reintegrated/history-rewritten story line is just the powers that be trying to actually set things right (or rightER at least). If they just let it go, the New 52 rebooted versions could be seen as "just" a five-year blip on the landscape and we could go back to having entertaining stories. Unfortunately, it appears, they keep referencing their own course correction--which UNcorrects it a bit, every time!
CRISIS, INFINITE CRISIS, FLASHPOINT, and now REBIRTH are basically just editorial decisions given solid form as stories, which could be fine if they all ended with a wink and a caption saying "OK, now we're back on track!"
Continually referencing the reality-rewriting through characters like Psycho Pirate (after CRISIS) or now the Reverse-Flash (and others, I'm sure), keeps reminding the reader that the problem still hasn't been fixed (and could potentially get worse/convoluted again). It's as if every episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE had Rod Serling walk into the second act and say to the viewer "Get it?!? Brilliant, huh?"
Edited by Eric Jansen on 06 February 2018 at 7:11am
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Andrew Bitner
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 June 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 7526
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| Posted: 06 February 2018 at 9:35am | IP Logged | 5
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Robbie: Jeez, Andrew, that sounds unwieldy.
***
It's a mess. And all because DC wanted to have their cake (a nice, clean reboot of the whole universe) and eat it too (all the stuff older fans wanted, like married Superman).
There's no real way to reconcile those, apart from having separate titles set in parallel worlds. Now they're clearing away the rubble from New52, leaving a married Superman (which is a long way from where he'd been historically), a soon-to-be-married Batman who's already a father, and... what next?
No idea, but I figure that as of ACTION 1000, I'm out. It's a hobby that takes up an awful lot of time, money and living space, for diminishing returns. Maybe I'll pick up a collected edition here and there but feels like my days of buying monthly comics are numbered.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 06 February 2018 at 9:38am | IP Logged | 6
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…all because DC wanted to have their cake (a nice, clean reboot of the whole universe) and eat it too (all the stuff older fans wanted, like married Superman).•• Exactly what scuttled CRISIS.
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Robbie Parry
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 June 2007
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: 06 February 2018 at 10:08am | IP Logged | 7
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Won't engage in thread drift too much, but I have dipped in and out of THE WALKING DEAD over time. Jumped back on board again recently. Not a superhero universe, I know, but so easy to get back into the swing of things.
You can still buy monthly comics, but I just go for less unwieldy stuff.
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Adam Schulman
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Joined: 22 July 2017
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| Posted: 06 February 2018 at 1:40pm | IP Logged | 8
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CRISIS, INFINITE CRISIS, FLASHPOINT, and now REBIRTH are basically just editorial decisions given solid form as stories, which could be fine if they all ended with a wink and a caption saying "OK, now we're back on track!"
***
FLASHPOINT originally wasn't supposed to end as it ended. It would've ended with everything going back to normal. Geoff Johns didn't want the New 52 to happen. He got outvoted.
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Adam Schulman
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Joined: 22 July 2017
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| Posted: 06 February 2018 at 1:49pm | IP Logged | 9
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It's a mess. And all because DC wanted to have their cake (a nice, clean reboot of the whole universe) and eat it too (all the stuff older fans wanted, like married Superman).
*** The New 52 wasn't even that clean. GREEN LANTERN picked up from where it left off before August 2011 as if nothing had happened. The Batman titles did much the same, except that now we were expected to believe that Bruce had trained four(!!) Robins in the space of a very few years.
A real clean reboot would have involved erasing all Earth-born Lanterns except Hal -- at least temporarily -- and turning Dick Grayson back into Robin and erasing all other Robins.
This is why part of me always had the feeling that the New 52 wasn't going to last.
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Eric Sofer
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Joined: 31 January 2014
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| Posted: 06 February 2018 at 2:40pm | IP Logged | 10
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I have no regrets that I gave up on comics several years back, and a lot is thanks to the report of the State of the Superman.
Adam, you have literally given me a bad headache. The events are not your fault, of course, and your report seems as cogent as any could. But you owe me for an Aleve, pal. :)
The status quo at DC now sounds to me like a great idea - IF I were starting a comics universe from scratch, and wanted a mysterious history. Brand new heroes who keep wondering why they have deja vu so strongly... an occasional character who claims to know that things were different just a few years ago... a hero with sidekicks/partners who's told that he didn't work with #1 for just a few months... they were together for years and years.
But applying it to an eighty year old character is preposterously ridiculous, and seems that it cannot support either a existing reader base or a new reader base. Who the hell would want to slog through THESE comic stories??? Maybe people who see the movies and want to see more of the characters... possibly.
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Robbie Parry
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| Posted: 06 February 2018 at 2:46pm | IP Logged | 11
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"Slog" is the right word, Eric.
I'm not saying things weren't a tad inaccessible decades ago. Didn't Hulk end up in a microscopic world decades ago? Or on a warrior world? 70s or 80s? Someone called Jarella? I may have imagined it. But if you'd come on board for the first time, it may have been a *tad* confusing.
But not for long. You still had the character descriptions in the boxes. You would soon be up to speed.
It feels like "Kal-El, rocketed from Krypton..." would not be prudent nowadays, not with the convoluted stuff posted above.
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Adam Schulman
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| Posted: 07 February 2018 at 1:27am | IP Logged | 12
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Eric -- it all reads better than my summary, I promise!
No DC comics I've read since "Superman Reborn" have felt like "slogging" in the sense that you mean (sure, there are some badly-written titles, but not specifically because of the ongoing "someone has altered reality" motif running through various DC titles).
Honestly, it's made for some stories I quite enjoyed, like "The Button," which ran through BATMAN and THE FLASH for a month. (We get reintroduced to the Thomas Wayne Batman from FLASHPOINT, who meets our normal Bruce Wayne Batman, and at the end of their time together...well, I found it moving, and "moving" isn't something I usually get from Batman stories.) Or the "what the hell has screwed up the Microverse so badly?" story in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, which brought back Ray Palmer while solidifying Ryan Choi's status as the new Atom. (Ray's busy in the Microverse for the foreseeable future.)
See THE FLASH Annual #1 for a good story about what the reality-rewrite has done to Wally West's life. I don't think you need to know who the characters are at the end -- in the "big reveal" -- to enjoy the story as a whole.
Also, and thank god, DC has been doing a number of "done in one" stories in SUPERMAN, BATMAN, JUSTICE LEAGUE, maybe some other titles. So that portends well. (I hope.)
The New 52 was a lemon but on the whole DC has done its best to make lemonade since summer 2016. I'll give credit where credit is due.
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