Superman #50 - Review (The end of the nightmare)

So we start off where Superman-WonderWoman left off. Vandal and Superman going at it.

Now, this comic clearly shows, that Yang is not ready to write in the big leagues. This comic could've been reduced to three pages, if Yang didn't so obviously purposetely made things happen as they did.

In this scene. If Superman had punched Vandal back down to Earth, that would've been the end of it.

No 'ghost rider' Vandal Savage.

No blowing the asteroid into a thousand pieces, so it could rain down on Earth. Which of course will later be used to maybe create more villains or superheroes. Or more immortals like Vandal.

This was sloppy writing at best. But I do give Yang credit for one thing, and one thing only. He does seems to have a beater grip on how Superman powers should really work, or at least his weaknesses.

No instant loss of power. Red sunlight=No recharging kryptonian powers. As it should be.

The writing is within what I've already been expecting from Yang. Far from a masterpiece, poor actually, but barely aceptable seeing how poor these two last arcs were.

And of course Yang couldn't stop himself from basically throwing Lois at Superman. In at least one moment that screamed "Get a room you two!"...

Yang. Yang... His writing is so in your face, that when I saw this scene I was thinking "Yep. This is Yang. Can't think of anything original so he pulls cheap moves like this."

Whatever. To me this had totally zero effectiveness. It only served to create a facepalm moment.

So when Vandal and Puzzler are trying to pull the asteroid down to crash on Earth, Superman starts pushing in the opposite direction. Puzzler has this really deep moment with Supes and decides to stick it up to his dear old dad. Sigh! Not really. Supes just tells him some obvious stuff, and Puzzler decides to stick it up to his dear old dad.

The asteroid breaks apart, and we then get a scene where Kal, Lois and Jimmy are in a dinner talking. Lois keeps flirting with Kal. Kal hears someone calling for help. Starts to run off the dinner while opening his jacket, showing the S shield.

And this end would've have been great, if Kal identity has Clark Kent wasn't still out there for the whole world to know. When I saw that moment all I could think off was how totally meaningless that move is right now. Has long as his secret identity is still exposed.

Yang might have won some awards and done some decent writing over the years, but he obviously wasn't ready to tackle a comic book character like Superman. His writing was always over simplistic, he never knew how to push the stories in a interesting way. Maybe his writing would've worked in the DCAU, but in a comic book it definitely doesn't work.

Do I recomend this comic?! Yes and no.

If you have been following Truth and Savage Dawn, then yes, read it. It's the end of these nightmarish two arcs. The last nail in the coffin where we'll try to bury what happened during these two last arcs.

If you gave up on Truth, and haven't been following up on Savage Dawn, then the answer is no. Don't read it. You'll end up not understanding a lot of things. Especially why DC let Yang waste so much time with unnecessary things, while leaving no room to close things up correctly.

We get no idea of what happened to Vandal Savage. Superman is somehow trying to act like everything is back to normal, when they clearly aren't. And what about the asteroid?? If it gave Vandal those powers, seeing it now rained down on Earth, most likely it will bring consequences in the long run. All that, was left open.

On a side note! Yang most have not received the memo that said that Earth-0 Superman and pre-Flashpoint Superman supposedly were to meet in this issue.

The "days of christmas past" subplot completely killed the momentum of the story. The Savage vs Superman fight could've ended this horrible event on a high note, but instead we we only get a few pages of the fighting, a random, unneeded subplot, and a mostly open ended conclusion as to what happened to Savage. Well....at least Superman finally has his powers back! And yeah, I agree that it was cool seeing somebody finally write the red sun deal correctly.

I'd give it a 6.75/10 5/10

ah ...It is a very long saga .. and not recommended... The resumen of truth and savage dawn is this:

-A villain will expose Clark as Superman, to soften the damage Lois says her secret.

-Superman loses much of its powers, by the guilt of this villain

-Superman and Wonderwoman ends his relation For a foolish thing, for SM..

-Sometimes Superman acts as should not act.

-We lose a LOT OF TIME with enemies

-Vandal family wants to dominate the world

-SM recovering after many difficulties his powers, obviously..

Like all or most, I suffered a lot watching Superman in this situation even before it began... BatGordon has seemed better.

NOW. To see how this future... Without Clark I think.

My god. So now it is finally finished. I've to say that this whole story has had its nice ( few) moments and it has had at least some potential but in the end it was a Mess and the last two issues had the wasted opportunity to close in a good way this story arc.

There are also a lot of unanswered questions like:

- how could Savage steal the carrier?

- why he need the carrier,the fortress and the jla's satellite to catch the comet?

- why he needed to move the jupiter's moons to catch the comet? Are they still aligned that way?

- why superman changes his damn costume from comic to comic? what's the point of changing his costume ( and making a big deal of it) if you forgot those changes?

- why Superman has lost his powers in the first place?

- what was that damn comet?

Hopefully we'll get some answers in the next crossover but i fear we'll never get all of them.

I love your title. This was as bad as the rest of the arc, It's good that it ended and I will forget it in a few months from now. I hope that after this Superman can get back on track. Also this issue left many question unawsered (or at least I didn't read about it), How did Superman lost his powers, What were those damaged cells?

On a side note, I think that there was a problem with the synopsis, At first this issue's solicit said that it was the meeting of New 52 and Pre new 52 Superman (It had a completely different cover) then that issue was passed to Action comics 52, and then DC modified the synopsis to what was going to be the actual issue of Superman 50 but they forgot to take away the description that mentioned both Supermen.

Truth ended. Finally.

How to Superman returns his abilities?

Yeah. That moment with Vandal and Superman going into "what if's" moments, was why I said that Yang wasted a lot of space with needless things, instead of trying to at least give some much needed answers.

The Red Sun thing wasn't really a genious move, it's what makes sense seeing how DC tries to explain kryptonian powers. I just found it interesting that Yang at least got that right.

In my books I'd give it a 4, maybe a 5. And this would be me being nice.

Yes. That pretty much covers it.

The future without Clark might be short lived I'm guessing. This relaunch that screams at being a reboot, will most likely solve the secret identity problem.

Yes. A lot of unaswered questions like...

• We never learn how Superman cells got mutated in the first place, and how Supes even arrived at the conclusion they had mutated? After all he spent a lot of time wondering what was wrong with him and then out of nowhere he already knew the answer to the question.
• Why was only he the only one that got his cells mutated? Diana had her power drained at least two times, and she didn't lost her powers.
• Realigning Jupiter moons, what was that all about? Vandal didn't need the Carrier, the JL HQ, or the Fortress. He could've easily built or acquired a spaceship and gone to the asteroid himself.
• Why steal the artificial sun at Wayne enterprises, collecting all that nuclear material, and having what it seemed to be a spaceship, if not to use them?
• How was that black goo, related to him?
• The Kal and Diana situation made no sense whatsoever. They broke because she was trying to help him and his friends... If that doesn't make Supes the most stupid man on the planet, I don't what does.
• We get no explanation why we saw in the last issue of Supergirl, her powers also failing. And also that pre-Flashpoint Superman powers were also not working properly.
• Why Superman gives everyone he trusts a key to his Fortress but always forgets to build one for himself with total override capabilities, just in case of situations where he can't get in. Which is fascinating given what happened during the H'el On Earth and Doomed arcs, where such a key would've come in handy.
• If only Superman top layer cells had mutated, which prevented his buttom layer (healthy) cells to recharge, then a more easier cure would've been to use a version of Luthor syngas, that he gave to Superman during Unchained. And that solar fuel would've recharged Supes healthy cells allowing them to fight off the mutated ones without all this drama.
• Where did the Mythbrawl members went? Did they see that big rock in the sky and thought to themselves "Forgot we left the stove on. Bye!"
• Why is it that everything from Krypton's solar system somehow always ends up affecting Superman one way or another, but the asteroid radiation had no affect on him? It would've been much cooler to have seen kryptonite charged Superman fighting Vandal in space, Vandal punched Superman against the asteroid, while at the same time removing the kryptonite rock around his neck. Superman would hit the asteroid, its radiation would start flowing into Superman destroying his damaged cells, and regenerating the healthy ones. And then Superman would've been totally fixed, an as a bonus, Savage would've lost his prize because the radiation was gone and all his plans had been for nothing.
• Why wear normal clothes? Everyone knows who he is. He might as well use his costume 24/7 or at least wear some normal kryptonian clothing. Just so the humans don't start talking again how Superman is trying to pass has one of them.

Has for answers. I don't expect any. That's just how DC is. That's how they treat the fans. They most think we're all either too dumb to wonder about things or too meaningless to even be worthy of some effort to give answers.

That's why I've been slowly but steady, moving away from the comics of DC. I've been having much more fun with Marvel and Image, thankfully.

True, but it seems that someone missed a memo or something. Typical of DC. When the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, we get things like this.

Has for how Superman lost his powers... That's another thing to fall into DC black hole. To join all the others. Like...

• What happened to his first Fortress? The one in space.
• Was it so damaged that Superman ship used its kryptonian crystals to engolf the satellite, fusing the two into one structure? Or was it completely destroyed and Superman used his spaceship to create the Artic Fortress? It would've been nice to know.
• Why did his original suit had shapeshifting abilities that allowed it to become totally invisible, reduce itself to the shield only, and make his normal clothes disappear when he needed to use the bio-armor?
• Why hasn't Superman moved his Fortress to another location after it was revealed by H'El actions?
• Why does he give crystal keys to enable access to his Fortress, to the people he trusts, but never builds one for himself with complete override capabilities.
• How did he cured himself from the Doomsday DNA?
• Why hasn't he created better versions of Luthor syngas solar fuel, that we saw in Unchained, so he could use it if he went on a long, deep, space travel? Or simply to help him become more powerful, or in the case of Truth, to charge his healthy cells so they could eliminate the mutated ones?
• Why hasn't he used the tech from the Star Chamber to also become more powerful? Or at least to improve the powers he has, add some useful one's, and maybe reduce his vulnerabilities to mostly only one? Kryptonite!

DC is a black hole of why's.

Amen to that!

@heavenlydarkdragon: Yeah, I just skimmed through it again last night. My opinion of it dropped dramatically lol 5/10

@heavenlydarkdragon: Let's hope that Rebirth redeems DC, because everything that they are doing right now, is a big insult to the fans.

Nightmare indeed .I am anxious to see how DC will mess it up again.

Sigh...I feel I am never gonna be satisfied with DC's Superman line. I entered the frame after Infinite Crisis were Johns and Busiek, were writing bold, classic and entertaining stories and even the money-grab flicks like Superman/Batman were popcorn fun. Its hard to imagine, yet true, that between 2003-2008 Superman got most of his best modern stories.

At this point. I think I'd agree with you.

Damn man that scene with Lois spoil my whole evening yesterday, not even a night at the pub could wash away this drivel.

@stelios23: Oh, come on, she's Lois, he's Clark. You know that's going to happen eventually. :) I was just rereading the first half dozen new52 Superman issues and they establish pretty well from the beginning of this universe's Superman that each of them have feelings for each other that go beyond just friendship. :)

@supercrab: Yep ya not wrong, some writers chose to do that, but the whole love triangle between Clark, Superman and Lois is quite frankly outdated and if you objectively read some older issues pre new52, you'll understand y i'm tired of it. Even if dis thing with WW is over keep Big Blue single and let Lois grow as a character away from Superman at least that's my 2 cents.

I did like the Pa Kent flashback admittedly but that was the only high point of this issue. Everything else was rushed to a forced end and the virtual reality sequence took up way too much time, not to mention it was a complete reversal of Vandal's intentions for Superman. As up until that point, Vandal seemed like he wanted to drain and eliminate Superman, not turn him to his side like Darth Vader. That came out of nowhere. Even though Yang's stint took place in a crossover, I remain just as sceptical about his ability to write Superman as I am about Pak's grasp of the character. Just because Yang is Eisner award winning and a capable writer does not mean he is instantly going to be good at Superman. He didn't achieve the things he promised in interviews of the immigrant experience of being American nor the mythological retrospective of Superman either. All in all, his work was a huge waste and a flawed understanding of what makes the character work. That's the blunt truth about Truth in a nutshell, what was done to Superman was unnecessary and detrimental. I couldn't be more glad to be rid of it even if the Super League crossover is the follow up.

All art and interpretation of art is subjective, and I find a lot of those stories are pretty good. You may be tired of Lois and Clark, but only a select few are, and I'm glad the WW experiment is over. Ghastly pairing that ran out of compelling stories pretty quickly.

Stick Clark with Lori Lemeris again. So he can find out where her mergina is. [/Tina Belcher]

A select few, nah much more than people would like to believe, and the experiment as ya put it WW had the ability for some great new storytelling opportunities but the writers n editors over at DC dropped the ball once again.

And as for the mergina bit i'm with u there.

Did not see Pre-52 Superman. Am betrayed.

The VR sequence was... cool? But it was so random.

Puzzler changing sides was predictable.

What happened to chunks of the comet? Did they burn up upon reentry? Because I'll accept that as an answer. But I do need an answer.

Where's Savage? Someone who was tanking Superman blows and was able so send Superman flying did not die from a Comet explosion.

Bye Bye Puzzler? You're going next to Ulysses I guess?

Oh Hi, Lois. Where did you come from?

Ugh I'm glad this arc is over so we can bury it in our subconscious, repressed memories.

Hopefully... prayerfully... Super League is an amazing followup.

@lvenger: To be honest it is totally DC's fault. This was his first attempt at a monthly without any experience and they forced him into a crossover.

I am sure he could do much better if he was alone.

@squalleon: Yes there is that factor which is the biggest problem. And that ultimately the real progress in fixing and improving Superman lies in reducing editorial interference and mandates and even replacing Berganza with a new, more competent and open minded editor. Though the few times it seemed Yang's own personal writing was allowed in, I'm not sure I liked it like I did the Pa Kent flashback here.

My bet... Rebirth will become DC next slap in the face of its fans. Hope not, but I'm already preparing for that hypothesis.

Yes. 2003 to 2008... Now those were good even great years to read Superman. It wasn't all good, but it was mostly good even great sometimes, and then it all went to hell really fast.

Word!

And this is the kind of thought that has in some ways left Superman as a character whose stories have been atracting less and less fans.

We've already had plus 20 years of Lois and Clark. Can you imagine plus 20 years of Stephenie Meyer writing about Edward and Bella?! Can you imagine the boring, senseless, almost torturing effort that would be?! Or that any fan would even be insane enough to support such of a thing??... Lois and Clark as a pair are the same thing. They're boring. Done it all, seen it all. Even they having a kid as been fixed by the Lois and Clark comic. So at this point fans of those two can say "We've seen it all."

Yes. Single for the love of god.

Can't take anymore romances that DC will not really apply themselves into making it work.

Agreed. It's more than a selected few.

There were (and still are) people really rooting for Kal and Diana. But DC has shown once again they're unable to tackle any challenge that might imply puting some real good work at it.

The comet... The small pieces, sure, it makes all sense that they burn out in Earth's atmosphere. But it wasn't all small pieces. And taking into account its size, even of the pieces that flew off when it blew. Most likely there's gonna be hundreds of pieces arriving on Earth and causing whatever havoc they're gonna cause.

If of course the next teams take the comet into account. They might do exactly what other teams have done... Simply forget about it. Or ignore it like a STD.

Savage is now DC ghost rider. Or the new version of Helspont. Honestly the look lacked a lot of originality. Either way they'll most likely place Savage in a drawer somewhere, and take him out in one of two situations. A) Blame Superman because the radiation that Savage was so looking forward to get his hand on is somehow now killing him B) Vandal will appear like his regular self, saying that after a while the radiation he absorbed disappeared and he returned to normal. Basically giving the middle finger to both Truth and Savage Dawn.

Lois... She's Supes ultimate stalker. So she'll find him, even if she has to kill herself in the process.

The only thing so far about the Super-League is that Superman is showing some proactive behavior for a change. And the premise is also good. Superman can't be everywhere at once (well theoretically he could) he simply shouldn't have to. Sharing the burden is a good idea.

Not totally DC's fault. He knew what he was getting himself into. No one forced him into it. He thought he was ready and was proven wrong. Simple as that.

DC might have not facilitated the work, by puting him right in the middle of a crossover. But other writers have had to deal with the same situation and didn't do such a poor work.

I'm not saying he doesn't deserve another chance. Maybe with a comic character that's more his style. Like Deathstroke or some other character.

I am not sure the whole love triangle between Clark, Superman, and Lois qualifies as *outdated*. I can understand that some people may be bored with that dynamic after years of Superman comics, television, and movie adaptions, but outdated kind of implies that like people wouldn't act that way in 2016. A woman being torn between a strong heroic character who's sort of unobtainable and a regular nice guy who adores her and who she could really be a partner doesn't seem too old fashioned, does it? I mean, we've made great strides as a society against sexism and certain stereotypes, but I don't think that is really a sexist dynamic- Lois is a strong woman with a career who at times stands up to both Clark and to Superman, and is as much the person deciding where to go with things relationship wise as Clark/Superman is.

I really liked the alternate Krypton and the alternate future Earth bits (Enough though they were just projections of how things might happen or might have happened), but I was a fan of Sliders, and like parallel universe/alternate reality type things to begin with, so maybe that biased me in favor of the sequences.

My feeling was the point of the Truth arc was supposed to be that Clark Kent's principles and behavior are what makes him Superman as much if not more so than the cape and the powerset. That's where, despite going on too long and taking some weird turns, the whole arc was going. So, it makes sense that the final test the writers would give him after depowering him, where he ultimately did do the right thing after some twists and turns, was that once he got his powers back, he was immediately offered absolute power ala Injustice, to see how he'd handle that. And then he turned that down, too, because that's not what Superman would do. Superman cares about the weak and the powerless, the people who villans like Vandal show such casual disregard for, and that's part of what makes him different. Superman as social justice crusader who stands up for everyone is a core element of his character for me.

From the internal logic of the storyline, my feeling is that Vandal tried to weaken over the last year or so directly and indirectly, taking away his power, trying to break him, and so on and so forth, because he thought Superman would stop his plans otherwise. In Superman #50, though it's not explicitly stated, Vandal feels he's lost, that Superman is back with his powers and he's going to stop Vandal. Vandal's plan didn't work. So, out of desperation, Vandal goes to Plan B and tries to persuade Superman to join him, because it was the only way Savage was going to be able to win at that point. Savage's Plan A had failed. It wasn't that Vandal planned for Superman to be his right hand man all along, it was that he was calling an audible because he had to.

I liked the idea of doing Superman/Wonder Woman for a while. I mean, people speculated about the two getting together for basically the last 80 years or however long the two have been around. In most versions of DC continuity, they're about the same age, he's a "super man" and she's literally a goddess. They have powers, they fight villains, they work closely together in the Justice League, they aspire for a better more peaceful world (Usually- Granted, Diana was the Goddess of War for a while in this continuity, but she was an Ambassador working for peace at the UN in the last one, and when she became Goddess of War in this one, it was a point of contention between her and Clark, so it isn't like they ignored that potential contradiction between the two's ideals), etc.. They're usually portrayed as good looking people.

Usually, the two are paired with regular humans, like Lois and Trevor, in part because it grounds them and helps make them more than just visitors to earth, but people with human families. There's something to be said for that, but I think there's also something to be said for a storyline where they decide to date each other, because they are more equal, if that makes sense. The beginning of the romantic pairing is essentially Wonder Woman saying she doesn't feel human beings can understand what it's like to be them and what they do, and that makes romance more complicated than it needs to be, but the same obstacles wouldn't exist if she and Clark dated, and then she kissed Clark, and things unfolded from there. Makes sense to me.

This Diana seems like a better match for Clark than prior versions in some ways.

There's something to be said for shaking things up temporarily for a while so that we don't get rehashes of the same boring stories over and over again. But that doesn't necessarily mean they have to stick with it forever. So, I didn't mind the start of the romance, and I don't mind it ending either.

I think, though, that while the writers did some things right with it, there were some missed opportunities. Also, the tail end of this romance just feels like sloppy writing. I get that sometimes people go through relationship issues and start fighting before they break up and don't always know where they stand with each other, but I feel like the writers from book to book didn't really have a blueprint for where the relationship was supposed to be at- they seemed to break up several times and then we'd read that they loved each other deeply like nothing had happened, without referencing that they had a rough patch and then got over it, and then they seemed to break up again, and then another book acted like nothing was wrong again, etc..

The Justice League stuff is even more confusing, because it seems like it's set before the Truth arc, so their relationship should be just fine, but it isn't. Some argue that it's set afterwards, but, if it is, the Truth arc, and big Bruce Wayne not being Batman arc, and everything else, had zero effect on anything- like total wasted years. So, it'd be better for the writers looking like they are telling stories with impact and not wasting people's time and money to have it set beforehand, but the relationship troubles are present when they shouldn't be at that point in time.

They really needed to get it together continuity wise.

I think it's run out of steam now. There were stories they could have told with it and didn't, but everyone's turned on it and it's probably too late now.

*Although* the one neat twist they could do next might be if Rebirth is what I suspect it is, some form of people getting back their memories of the last DC universe while still being their characters and having their memories of and existing in this one, that could add a twist. Maybe they are broken up or about to break up (I still can't tell what's going with those two, honestly- they seem broken up, I guess), but with the new memories, which one might think on the surface would lead Clark to Lois and Diana to Trevor, might make them reconsider each other in a more positive light.

For example, let's say the last Diana always really respected Clark as a friend and a colleague and for whatever reason, her devotion to Trevor, his devotion to Lois, her romance with Batman, not wanting to date a superpowered person, just a lack of physical attraction, whatevever- a romance never really crossed her mind. Maybe it was the same on Clark's end. However, imagine they get back those memories, that extra respect and friendship and admiration, combined with their new youth and vigor and dating and memories of this universe, might combine for something new. Like if they are fed up with each other, they might from recovering their memories know that the other has potential to be a better person or partner than he or she is now (And that they have the potential to be better for the other person, too), and from their recent memories, they might know the attraction and bond and hot sex or whatever that the old characters might not have thought possible, and reconcile for that reason.

I doubt they'll get back together, I think the Refresh is going to put Clark back in some sort of a thing with Lois, maybe dating? But you never know.

I just haven't seen anything yet that will make me hopeful. It feels too much like New 52 and DCY. Rushed and spastic.

Nothing can be all good, but we got such a range of stories in that era, Red Son, All Star, Camelot falls, Up Up and away, Brainiac, Supergirl, For Tomorrow, First thunder, I could go on for a while, It really was a golden age of Superman in a way.

@heavenlydarkdragon: Thank u, knew i couldn't be alone with that whole Lois schtik, and the bare minimal effort put into Supes comics dese days. Dats y i took a few months off

@heavenlydarkdragon: Here's to not putting Romita Jr. on the pens for anything more than cover art. My eyes can't take another beating like that.

I read in one place ..

The satellite of Spyral, could erase the memory people about Dick Grayson-Nightwing and Clark Kent-Superman ..

It's possible? or false hope?

Been thinking about a legal sue against Romita Jr. for trauma caused by bad artwork. If I can avoid another comic drawn by Romita Jr. in the next 10 months won't still be enough.

Can't really answer to your questions. Haven't been following the Grayson comic. So you most likely know more about it than I do.

But seeing this is DC and Rebirth relaunch *coughreboot* is on its way. Maybe Supes will save some old woman (she's a gypsy or something like that) and tells him she can grant him any wish he wants. He doesn't really believes her but nonetheless says, he'd like so he could return to a life where no one knew he and Clark are the same person. She does so. And that's it. Identity fixed.

Or he'll be in some country in the end of the world, saving people from some warlord, he sees a strange stone in the ground, throws it to the river, wishing he could be able to return to the life he had before Lois blew his secret identity. The stone is magical and grants him that wish.

My point is that most likely DC will find some lameass loophole and will fix his identity, instead of exploring the new options, not having to be Clark Kent presents. Going global, having multiple alias. One for each spot on the planet he saw he was needed. Moving away from Metropolis. Nooooo.... DC will find some excuse and put him right back at the Daily Planet, like Truth never happened at all.

This event ended the same way that Doomed ended with the same ploy. Both have the villain have some reality altering power and they both offer Clark a dream reality. Jesus guys, dafuq?!

The Daily Planet, the SID, Lois Lane, all that is part of the his mythology. That all should remain. It is part of who he is.

@darkman61288:

No. No. And no.

The Daily Planet, Lois, his secret ID, are all choices. DC choices to handle Superman.

The real mythology resides in the fact that he's a alien that survives the destruction of his homeworld. He arrives on Earth and of all hypothesis, two of the best examples of the human race decide to raise him as their son. And they raise him to become the man he later on becomes. And that man will inspire an entire generation to remove themselves from the shadows and start to use their powers for good openly. And of course the powers that he somehow gets from our star.

This my friend, is Superman mythology. The last son of Krypton, the orphan that is raised by humans to become Earth greatest champion, Earth shinier example of self-sacrifice and commitment.

The DP, Lois, Jimmy, Metropolis, they are choices. Choices that DC doesn't move away from. Not that they have to. But at the same time it makes little sense that someone as powerful as Superman bases most of his actions within the confines of that city. Superman in many ways should be like a Green Lantern, only global-wise.

Look I get Batman and Gotham. I get Aquaman and his duality between Atlantis and the rest of humanity. I get Green Arrow. What I don't get is the Flash and Superman. Them being just two examples of people with powers that should make them global forces of justice, and not just these caged people whose lives revolve around the same old city and the same old people.

Clark Kent could be Superman in any number of more productive, more interesting ways. But DC chooses to make the same choices and do the same things, over and over again.

That's why Marvel has been getting more positive reviews from the fans. They decided to actually evolve their characters. Place them in new scenarios. New challenges. New opportunities.

Maybe if DC did the same, readers/fans would find the stories more compelling, more attractive.

This is of course my personal opinion. But one that is shared by increasingly more and more people. The old way of doing things simply isn't working anymore. I know it, and you know it as well.

@saintwildcard:

It just comes to show how deeply lost DC is. When they don't even bother or recognize they're doing the same things over and over again.

Not only are their ideas been weak ever since Ulysses, but they've also been basically repeating the way each arc ends.

And to add to the loss, Superman as a character doesn't grow from these experiences. He doesn't become smarter, more able. He's always the same.

Look at the Fortress situation. Ever since the Reboot with the New52 and DCYou, Superman as been unable to access his Fortress for the third time, two of them in basically the same way. In Doomed the Fortress didn't recognized his DNA and in Truth we got the same thing.

@heavenlydarkdragon: If they were to do a radical departure like that long-term, I think it might be in their best interests to cover their bets and do a Superman with his secret identity intact who works at the Daily Planet with the familiar cast as a regular book, too. Two different universes, whatever. Trying something new with an iconic character is alright, but you don't want to lose those readers who just want to see Superman be the Superman they know and love, you know? The way the Truth arc went over sort of underlines the latter point, though it was only an arc and not executed all that well.

One of the nice things with comic books having all these books about the same characters is that you don't have to only go in one direction. You can go in several. And the multiple universe stuff is well established in comic book lure, so people are broadly familiar with the concept that you can have two of the same guy and they're each more or less in their own separate continuity.

@supercrab:

I understand that. Really I do.

But for someone that's been reading Superman comics for almost 25 years now. I can safely say, that what I saw and am seeing is nothing more than recycled goods. They pick up stuff they've done in the past and simply shuffle it until they get something "new".

I've been a strong advocate of change to Superman, as he acts, thinks, how he uses his powers, how kryptonian powers and weaknesses are explained, his supporting cast and where he operates.

But never to the root of his mythology. The last son of Krypton thing and the Kents, are to me the very core of his mythology. And we've seen what happens when either of these essential parts are left out. Superman is no longer Superman.

Now. The DP, Lois, Jimmy, are all irrelevant. He could've gone to Metropolis and done hundreds of different things, worked in different places, had different supporting cast and he'd still be Superman.

I'm not like those fans that get so hungover by Lois not being with Clark that I hate anyother possible romantic possibility.

I'm also not one of those fans that thinks that doing the same thing over and over again, is the way to make people more drawn to Superman.

You spoke about Truth like that arc was actually something new. It wasn't. It was the recycling I told you about. And the same goes for Ulysses and other arcs.

Honestly to me the three writers that got the New part right were Morrison, Lobdell and Pak. All others have failed. Snyder failed. Johns failed. Tomasi failed. Yang failed.

I'm not saying lets go cold turkey and change it all in one move. We could have Action Comics handling a more off the box arc while Superman was more inside the box. And vice versa.

Why have I been shifting to Marvel, has mainly to do with the fact that they're being brave and bold, and you know what... I've been loving it. Even comics I haven't picked up in years, lost all track are now giving me the best material. While DC has been one let down after the other. Even the Injustice comics are getting tiresome and boring.

Honestly if Rebirth fails, I might drop DC altogether for like a year or more. Before I got the courage to pick it up once again.

@darkman61288:

That can get old too. One day a Superman is not alien, inspiration and an antihero might come around and his defenders will say many of the things you just said.

The day that gets old, is the day Superman ends for good. You can't simply remove Superman kryptonian heritage. Remove that, and he's no longer Superman. Many things have changed about Superman, but that as always remained the same, as it should.

He can be Earth's champion saving the on global scale while still be Clark and be with Lois and still work at the planet. The hell he can fight on a cosmic scale. Him having a life without the cape does not deter from that. In fact we had have stories were he is on a global level and on a cosmic level before. What you what has really been done before.

But that's the thing. When was the last time you saw an arc entirelly devoted to Superman being global or even cosmic. What we get 99% of the time, is he doing something in Metropolis. We see references of him having stopped a volcano, a tsunami, an asteroid from crashing on Earth. But what of global issues?? When does Superman tackles that? Most of the times, he doesn't. He reports the facts afterwards but rarely do we see him operating globally.

True that in the past, there had been tensions, with meating at the united nations, where they discussed Superman impact everytime he took down a dictator, or he simply helped defenseless people that live in countries ravaged by war. Even in America itself he doesn't really handles the tough problems. Not like for example Bruce does in Gotham.

I know Superman has that whole idea that if does everything, then humans don't learn and grow, and might even become too dependent of him. But those are all excuses from the writers. They simply don't want to tackle worldwide issues to avoid getting the wrong kind of attention. Or simply because drug dealers, psycopaths, and corruption are Batman area of expertise. And god forbids, Superman had to do something about the same kind of problems.

You might be satisfied with him being a reporter, working in the Daily Planet, but I'm not. When he comes to Metropolis why does everytime, Superman is the hero, while Clark is simply the reporter? Are you gonna tell me, Kal-El as Clark Kent and Superman, couldn't save the world using both his personas. As Clark Kent he could be, a doctor, a scientist, heck he could even be a fireman, and still be Superman. I personally believe that as Clark Kent he could be a freelancer R&D or own his R&D company. Developing new tech that he could sell in a way everyone could afford, that would save lives. All the while having all the time in the world to be Superman as well. Saving lives in both fronts.

More than once Superman as critized Lex Luthor, because Lex said and says that if it wasn't for Superman, he could've fixed all of Earth problems, cured diseases, end world hunger... But the fact remains that Superman himself also doesn't tackle those problems. He too uses Lex and all the other villains as an excuse for not living up to his full potential.

He says that he doesn't want people to get too dependent on him, but everytime he saves people from a tsunami, he's helping the government save money instead of them spending money to create the necessary systems to help prevent such disasters. Everytime he saves people from a burning building, he's preventing the loss of human lives that would drive people to rise up and demand better ways to prevent such loss of life.

In many ways Superman is a hypocrite mainly toward himself, when he creates those lines that differentiate, what he does that doesn't causes minimal impact and what he could do that would cause too much impact. Because at the end of the day, everything he does and doesn't do, matters. Everything creates an impact. If he does too much, then people will ultimately grow too dependent on him and if he fails to be there when they need him, they'll blame him first(humans already do so everytime you read someone saying "Where was Superman?"). But if he decides to do too little, then he can't actually complain about the state the world is.

Has for Lois and the rest of the supporting cast. I stick to what I've said before and I add this... Lois isn't the only woman in the world that can be beautiful, smart, witty, and help keep Kal connected to humanity. DC only makes it so, because for decades it's been done this way. So why change, right?... And here is where Superman fans should say "Wrong! Lets change that. Lets try new characters with new attitudes and goals and see how it works out."

There are other heroes in the world besides them. They really don't need to be on a global scale. Now if DC ended the Shared Universe then maybe a need for a global Supes/ Flash.

True. There are others. But you don't see a global view. You see an American view. Like the whole world revolves around America. If America is saved from an alien invasion the world is saved.

Wouldn't you like to see how Superman would handle(or how the writters would handle) problems like North Korea? The problem in Syria? Wouldn't you like to see Superman tackle some of the worlds greatest issues? Wars, world hunger, corruption. Or to avoid problems like one day waking up and seeing that DC had been bombed, they could create similar situations on other planets and Superman would go and handle them.

Has for DC shared universe, the truth is, that Superman can't and shouldn't have to hold all the weight on his shoulders. There's room for everyone. The Flash, Batman, Wonder Woman, Cyborg, Shazam, Aquaman, Firestorm, Captain Atom, and so on and so on... The world is big enough for all of them. But for example, as Shazam and Wonder Woman problems and powers are in a way connected to the Earth, they can't handle cosmic problems. And here's where heroes like Superman, Cyborg, and Captain Atom, just to use these three as an example, could act and make the difference where others can't.

And I don't mind the idea of them working together. What I do mind is when a character (Superman) is chained down just so the other one's around him can shine. This is also why I've been a strong supporter of the idea that Superman shouldn't be a full time member of the Justice League but only an extreme scenarious character, that would be called upon, when it was clear the threat would require all of them to bring their A game to the table, not outshining one character in particular just so the other ones can have a sense of being needed.

Civil War 2 that is a new idea? Marvel repeats itself just like DC.

See? Here's the problem. You're looking at a forest but only seeing one tree.

What about Peter Parker new situation as the owner of a multinational company, that's tackling the world problems? What about his new approach creating that new suit that looks much like the basic suit but with incorporated details from past suits he also created? What about Tony Stark new approach and view on his life and his actions? The way comics like Guardians of the Galaxy, Inhumans, X-Men and the Ultimates, have brought so much interesting new approaches on things they've done in the past. And are once again doing it, only better.

That's the thing that currently differentiates DC and Marvel the most. DC tries to recycle their old material and have given us mostly cr*p. While Marvel as also been recycling and from my point of view, they've been doing one hell of a good job. Wish I could say the same thing about DC, but unfortunetely I can't.

@heavenlydarkdragon: Seems to me like Injustice dealt with a lot of that. It's non-canon, but that's like 4-5 years of twice monthly stories there. 99 cents each. A lot of people don't like what happened to Superman's character in that, kind of going over to the dark side, but in a sense it's showing precisely the danger Superman, through his inaction in certain circumstances, and Batman, more explicitly, both see in a Superman who hypothetically ignores human laws and geographical boundaries and just stops all violence and starts setting the rules himself. That's why Clark reigns himself in and why Bruce keeps a bit of Kryptonite in storage. Someone with that much intrinsic power has to be very careful about drawing lines, or things can spiral out of control fast. You know the old saying, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Clark knows it, and I think that's a large part of why he intentionally tries to respect earth laws and governments and operate locally a lot of the time.

Also, remember, Clark grew up essentially as a regular person. A regular person with a secret, but a regular person. He's Clark Kent more than he is Superman, in some ways. He went to school, he worked on the farm, he doesn't remember being on Krypton. He remembers growing up as essentially a human with human dreams and aspirations, kind out at some point that he was more than human, but not really sorting through the implications until he got to Metropolis and became Superman. I think part of Clark really values the idea of holding down a regular job and feels being a journalist is his vocation, and would in the end like to settle down and have a family, as the last universe's Superman did (Currently starring in the Lois and Clark miniseries) and as was chronicled in that old book where the original Superman gives up his powers, takes on a new identity, marries Lois, and lives a quiet life with her (Can't remember if that was the original Superman's end in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow [Well, one of his ends, it appeared in a regular book like Action Comics, but basically that writer ended him one way, and Crisis on Infinite Earths took another route with him], or All-Star Superman, I think the former).

Finally, I'd just say that, while interesting story arcs and developments are neat (I wouldn't have necessarily minded seeing Superman decide to marry Wonder Woman in this continuity, for example.), they do have an iconic character that they have to be careful not to ruin the brand of.

Like, let's say they were to decide they permanently wanted the "Truth" arc version of Superman for the next few decades. It doesn't make sense to give up all these beloved iconic aspects of the Superman character to do that. That's an intellectual property that DC owns and shouldn't just throw away. However, what they *could* do, is create a guy who acts and is powered up exactly like Truth arc Clark Kent, and motorcycles around the country in jeans and t-shirt with his logo, and just give him a slightly different backstory and stuff- he's Connor Smith and got his (lesser) powers from a mysterious accident on his farm where a UFO crashed and emitted a glow and, you know, whatever. Maybe he joins the Justice League and teams up with Superman, Batman, and the rest.

There's nothing stopping them from using those type of ideas with original characters.

Why can't Lois be something different and still be with Clark? She can be a spy, an other scientist, or a cop and still date him. Jimmy and the rest can also be different.

Peter Parker is a complete clutz in his Parker Industries persona and makes so many bone-headed decisions, it's a miracle they even still call him the "world's greatest hero". Sales are also in the toilet for the ASM title. You ask just about every Spidey fan there is and they'll tell you the book is garbage.

@darkman61288:

They could be all those things. And I'd have no problem with that.

Problem is that it isn't done. Things rarely change if they change at all.

@zariusii:

That's one way of seeing things. I don't see them that way.

Also don't forget in which age we live in. It's almost a miracle people buy comics at all these days.

I buy ASM and I've been loving it. Too bad some people can't just adapt and change with the times.