It looks like when Batman Inc. relaunches in 2012, it is going to be limited to a 12 issue run and will be Grant Morrison's Batman finale. In an interview with Comic Book Resources, he talks about how he considers the end of the current Batman Inc. run the end of part one and the final 12 issue run will be "my big race to the finish with Batman... I'm very excited about that one because I'm using a completely different storytelling style, which I think will be quite exciting."

As someone who has not been pleased with Batman Inc. so far, I remain skeptical of how the final 12 issues will go. I have loved Grant Morrison's run on Batman up until Inc. I just hope he finds a good way to wrap up his work over the last few years.

I want to start off by saying that Superman was the first comic I started reading and while he has been replaced by Batman as my favorite character, he is secure at the number two spot. As much as I have loved Superman, his stories have never appealed to me as an adult (I am 29 as of the writing of this). I started reading Superman in the post-Crisis DC Universe. John Byrne’s Man of Steel miniseries which retold his origin and the major events of his early history will always be the definitive Superman origin for me. I loved the Death and Return of Superman story arcs and while they don’t hold up as some of the best Superman stories, the death of Superman in issue number 75 is a major milestone for the character and I think no single issue better exemplifies and portrays the character in over 75 years of comics. As an adult I stopped buying the Superman titles over 5 years ago and have only reluctantly picked up a few trades. I was bored with his stories. We say nothing new with the character. It was the same thing over and over. I just couldn’t understand how such a powerful character, the original superhero who defined the archetype for over 75 years, could become so boring. When I first heard about the DC comics re-launch, I was skeptical for all the characters and changes, except that of Superman. I thought, that is exactly what this character needs

There has been some speculation about some big changes coming to the Superman corner of the DC Universe with the September relaunch for some time. It looks like we got confirmation of some of those rumors today. Most of the speculation has centered on Superman and Lois Lane’s marriage not surviving the re-launch. Dan Didio fueled the fire by saying that their marriage would be re-examined. This led to some speculation that they would be getting divorced. Superman and Lois have not been spending a lot of time together. He first left for New Krypton and he is now walking across the United States to reconnect with the people he abandoned for New Krypton. The thinking was that Lois and Supes would break up because they weren’t spending time together. We have now found out that in the re-launched Universe, they were never married at all.

The new status quo in the Superman comics will be that Superman/Clark Kent will be a bachelor and that Lois will have a relationship with a colleague at the Daily Planet. I had previously talked with some people on Comicvine about how the Superman – Lois Lane dynamic was a very important part of the character. Not necessarily married, but a romantic attraction existing between the two being essential. It still remains to be seen whether that attraction/romance will exist, but I guess we will have to wait and see.

Before I get into some of the other tidbits that were revealed, let me remind you thatAction Comics will take place at the dawn of Superheroes in the DCU and Superman is going to be the first one. Action Comics and Justice League of America will take place 5 years before the continuity of the other titles. For example, while we will see a fully developed Superman wearing the slightly redesigned iconic costume (no red briefs over the blue) in the Superman title, Action Comics will tell Superman’s story as he first breaks onto the scene and show us how he develops into the hero we all know.

So what are the other changes being made to Superman? In Action Comics, Superman will not have fully developed powers yet. He will still be discovering what the full extent of his powers are and what he is capable of. Namely, he won’t be able to fly. Similar to how he was when he first debuted in 1938. Action focuses on Superman’s early superhero career, depicts a “younger, more brooding” Man of Steel adjusting to his adopted home world. His powers are still in development at this point, as he “can leap tall buildings but can’t fly in space.” We can tell from the solicits for Superman, that he will eventually be able to fly. As many origin stories as we have seen for Superman in the last 10 years, it will be nice to see a slower progression and development of the character. Another example of this is his costume. He will not be wearing the iconic red cape and blue tights (sans red briefs now) right away. In the Action previews, he is wearing a t-shirt with the Superman shield on it, a cape, jeans and boots. When he does work his way to his standard costume, it will be because it is based on Kryptonian armor and he will be more embracing of his alien heritage earlier on. It sounds like we will see less farm boy and a more Kryptonian Superman. This is slightly supported by the rumor that both Ma and Pa Kent are already dead in the re-launch Universe, similar to Golden and Silver Age Superman.

Grant Morrison is the writer on Action Comics. When he left DC to work for Marvel in the early 2000’s, it was because he wanted to write Superman but wasn’t allowed to make the changes he wanted. He left because he did not get the free reign over the character that he wanted. It was always rumored that he wanted to make some drastic changes. A big part of the rumored changes he wanted to make was that Lois and Superman would not be married. It looks like he is finally getting the control he wants. Grant Morrison is a phenomenal story teller. He writes great story arcs and is considered by many, easier to read in trade formats than he is across individual issues. He has shown over the last few years what he can do when given complete control over one of DC’s big three characters with his work on Batman. I have loved his Batman run. Batman Inc. has been his weakest arc for the character and has been very up and down, but I like to think that is more because of the looming re-launch and that put a time limit on what he could do with that title (although it will be returning in 2012).

Superman is in good hands with Grant Morrison. He is a great character who has suffered a lot of mediocrity in the last 15 years. He has a fairly blah set of villains outside of 2 or 3 big ones. He is a character in desperate need of better stories and if it takes these changes to bring that, then I fully embrace what is coming. He is a BIG character, one of the biggest characters in comics in general, if not the biggest (It has to be either him or Batman). I think the negativity towards the re-launch version of Superman and the DCU re-launch overall has to do with a mostly older comic reading audience being scared of change. For example, people like to say that over 75 years of history is being tossed aside. NOT True. All of DC’s characters have gone through re-launches, reboots, revamps, retcons etc. There is no character that really has continuity going back before Crisis on Infinite Earth’s. Except with a few notable events (Killing Joke, Death in the Family, and Death of Superman), no characters continuity really extends beyond the last few years. We already know that major events like the ones I just mentioned are going to remain intact. A largely adult audience exists for comics these days, we don’t want to lose the things we have fond memories of, but a re-launch won’t change those stories and make them any less good than they are. Not everything needs to be connected or remain in one fluid history and continuity (that never existed anyway). If anything continuity has probably hurt the stories being told more than anything else. Writers won’t be burdened by it (as much) and will have more freedom to tell the stories they want to tell without fear of repeating anything or hurting continuity.

For those of you with some questions and concerns about the DC relaunch in September, you might want to check out thisover at Newsarama. It addresses 10 common misconceptions or "Myths" about the relaunch. It talks about things like costume design, missing characters, continuity and relaunch vs. reboot. Its a quick read and I think it will be good for those of you that still have a lot of questions and are reluctant about the relaunch.

I was really trying to not blog about the relaunch a whole lot more, but I know there are those of us out there that couldn't believe that DC was going to relaunch Action Comics and Detective Comics when both of those volumes were getting close to the # 1,000 milestone. Some believed that there would be a later renumbering after the relaunch so those books could hit issue 1,000, but it really doesn't look like that is the case. Dan Didio said that if they did not restart the number of these books along with everything else, the relaunch would not be taken seriously. A very good point and a book with that many back issues can be very daunting to new readers who might not pick it up for the fear of being lost for missing so many issues. Didio also said that there are not any plans to renumber at a later date in order to hit these landmark numbers. There was some talk about how current events and arcs would transition into the reboot. For more info on that check out Bleeding Cool's write up (Source).

As a reader, I for the most part don't care about numbering. Things have been changed so many times for major titles at both DC and Marvel, that its hard to take numbers too seriously. If I remember correctly, I think Marvel relaunched some titles at #1 and then renumbered back to the old system in order to hit landmark issue numbers. DC did a lot of renumbering after "Crisis on Infinite Earths" in the mid 80's. The old Superman volume was renamed Adventures of Superman, and a new Superman (Vol. 2) volume was launched at issue #1 following John Byrne's Man of Steel mini series (One of my all time favorite Superman arc's). Adventures picked up at the original Superman titles numbering and started with issue 424. Later on when trimming some of the fat in the Superman titles, DC cancelled some series (Superman: Man of Steel and Superman (vol. 2) and returned Adventures of Superman back to is original Superman title and resumed the numbering where Adventures left off. So Superman # 's 424-649 do not exist and are collected in Adventures.

A boring rehash I know, but I did it to show why I don't care about numbering. For someone (aka Me) who stopped reading Superman for awhile and picked up again after all this happened, it was very confusing. Changing the names of books and transferring numbering from one title to another is a pain in the ass and creates a cluster F@#& in the scheme of things, especially for those trying to collect back issues. I know there is plenty of time for things to change and DC can still decided to renumber and hit issue # 1,000 later on, but I really hope they stick to what they have said and don't do that. It will just make a mess and not benefit anyone in the long run.

Not sure how many of you are keeping up with the various DC Retailer Roadshow events that they are holding across the country to discuss the September relaunch with comic retailers, but there was a third one in New York on Friday. Rather than rehash more of the same and repeat what I have covered in my previous two blog posts that covered the first two events, I will address the issues of story quality and continuity (For those of you interested in how continuity will be affected, skip the next two paragraphs).

Dan Didio talked about how comics have gotten too talky and there wasn’t enough action or good story telling anymore. He mentioned how comics used to be able to tell stories that movies couldn’t, but now it is the other way around. Movies are telling the stories that comic books should be telling. DC wants a fresh face and produce a story that is as good and action filled as what is being told on TV and in movies. He also addressed the issue of books not being released on schedule and flat out said that he was embarrassed by the number of late books. He guaranteed that the new 52 titles would be released on time. Pretty ballsy to come out and say that, so now he knows they need to deliver on it. Getting back to the story element of things, he said they won’t be writing for the trade collections anymore. This was great news to me because I often find myself questioning why I buy individual issues when many story arcs read better when collected in trade. The writers of the new 52 titles have been told to write the stories they want to write and not worry about collections. If a story is only one or two issues long, that is fine. No need to stretch it out over 5 or six issues so it can be collected and sold in a trade later on. Didio said Editorial will handle how they are going to collect these stories and if a trade needs to collect several stories rather than just one, they will do that.

It was great to see an emphasis on storytelling. As someone who is a huge fan of the DC titles, bad stories have been the reason I have stopped picking up 75% of the DC titles that I used to. I am ecstatic that DC has come out and acknowledged this as a problem and is making plans to address it. The biggest reason I stopped reading Superman books regularly is the story arcs were getting too long and dragged out. This would be fine if the writing suited the length of the arc (see Grant Morrison’s run on the Bat titles for how this can be down well), but the Superman stories felt too long, too think, and too boring. They would have done much better if they had been condensed and told the same story in a lower number of issues.

This led to a discussion of continuity. DC said that they had a good idea of what was working in the current titles and what was not. They used a mixture of sales figures, critical response, and fan comments to come to these conclusions. Basically Green Lantern and Batman were doing well and very little else was. Continuity for these two parts of the DC universe would remain intact and the conclusion of current arcs in August will flow smoothly into the relaunch. This even includes Barbara Gordon’s return to Batgirl. It was even implied that Stephanie Brown might be returning to her Spoiler guise at a later time. Scott Snyder has also come out said that what is happening to Dick as Batman will show us why and how he returns to the Nightwing role. As a huge Bat fan, I was relieved to hear this. For Green Lantern fans, the conclusion of “War of the Green Lanterns” will flow into the new titles.

So what about the other titles? It looks like a lot of things will be changing in the non Green Lantern and Batman books. We already know JLA will be very different because it takes place 5 years before the other books (along with Action Comics) and will tell the story of how the JLA came to be, just as Action Comics will retell the rise and first appearance of Superman. In these two titles, there have not been any other super heroes. There have been super powered people that have been viewed with suspicion, but it looks like Superman will be the first super hero to emerge and JLA will tell the story of other heroes emerging and banding together.

So what’s changing with continuity in the titles outside of Batman and Green Lantern? Didio said that DC wants to let go of the past and move forward. Any changes in continuity will be addressed as they arise in the stories and they didn’t want to get too overly burdened by continuity changes when it came to storytelling. The reveals were said to be gradual and make sense in the stories. There is an internal list of what is and isn’t considered continuity, but they didn’t reveal too much outside of what we know about GL and Batman. Didio did say that the Death of Superman would remain in continuity.

Below is a short list of some characters that were addressed:

Supergirl – will be portrayed as more immature and show her age since she is often depicted as way too mature and experienced for a hero of her age. She will be acting like the teenager she is now and will still be finding herself.

Jason Todd – Dido said there was a lot of fan request for a Jason Todd book that focused on him as an anti-hero.

Swamp Thing – This has been described as the best Scott Snyder work done to date. Impressive, given his great runs on Detective Comics and American Vampire.

Frankenstein – Will draw on Grant Morrison’s portrayal of him in Seven Soldiers of Victory.

Bleeding cool posted a list of what they thought the titles would be that would launch after the initial 52 titles in the DC September relaunch. Some of which I had mentioned before, and others you all mentioned in the comments. Their story can be found here.

1. Batman Beyond by Adam Beechen.

2. Superman Beyond by Tom DeFalco?

3. Justice League Beyond.

4. My Greatest Adventure by Kevin Maguire and Aaron Lopresti.

5. Mystery Nicola Scott project.

6. Mystery Gail Simone and Ethan Van Sciver project.

7. Shade by James Robinson and Jill Thompson.

8. Batman Odyssey by Neal Adams.

9. Mystery Jamal Igle project.

10. Mystery Amanda Conner project.

11. THUNDER Agents by Nick Spencer.

12. Mystery Phil Jimenez project.

13. Mystery Scott Kolins project.

14. Flash: Speed Force.

15. Batman Inc by Grant Morrison and Chris Burnham (scheduled for 2012).

16. Multiversity by Grant Morrison

Some new tidbits (at least to me) have emerged from the meeting DC had with retailers in Dallas/Ft. Worth yesterday. Lets start with what looks to be new titles that are launching after the first 52 titles in September. DC confirmed that Batman Beyond would be returning sometime after September and that the Superman Beyond title that we will see issue 0 of this Summer will continue, as well as a Justice League Beyond book. So, you lovers of the futuristic "Beyond" DC Universe need not worry. DC also stated that James Robinson, who was notably missing from the titles launching in September has several issues of a new project written, but no word yet when it will launch. Amanda Conner, Nicola Scott, Phil Jiminez and Scott Kolins were also said to still be working for DC, so it can be assumed they are either working on new titles or story arcs that will appear in DC Comics Presents.

As to characters that people have noticed will be missing from the relaunched DCU like Donna Troy, Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain, sources are saying they haven't been killed off or erased from continuity, just benched for the time being. No word yet on if any or some of them will reappear down the road.

DC also went into more details on marketing to a broader audience that may not follow comics on the web or hear news through the grape vine at their local Comic shop. They said they have a seven figure marketing budget to spend on the relaunch, so we are talking at least $1,000,00. The marketing will include a TV ad campaign which will run commercials on the Cartoon Network and other networks. This could be an attempt to target younger readers and you could see ads on networks like Nickelodeon (Spelling?) too if they are going after pulling in new younger readers. It should be noted that Cartoon Network has its older audience too with its Adult Swim programming. They will also run ads in USA Today, on Facebook, in movie theaters, conventions, and send out promotional materials to retailers. Another thing to contradict what I said earlier about targeting younger readers is that DC has said before they are going mainly after men age 18 to 34, but they will reach out to other demographics. This makes sense given most titles are rated for Teens or higher.

I guess that is it for now. Just trying to keep everyone updated on the DC Roadshow as they travel across the country spreading the word and answering retailer questions about the relaunch.

In case you didn't know, DC has started meeting with Comic Book retailers and are holding several events across the country. Last week they met with retailers in the LA area and are meeting with more retailers in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area today. Representing DC and Warner Brs. at the meeting were Bob Wayne Jim Lee, Dan Didio, Diane Nelson, Hank Kanalz and John Rood. In the audience there was probably close to 50 people, who represented about 20 different Comic Book stores. There was information disclosed at the meeting that DC advised is not to be made public, but here are some of the highlights of what I was able to find out.

This is what seemed the most important to me as a DC reader: Action Comics and Justice League are set in the past, the Green Lantern, Batman and LSH books are all continuing without a reboot. DCU Presents, Green Arrow and Hawkman are picking up where Brightest Day left off. But for everything else, yes, it will be more of a reboot/restart. They are keeping the books and continuity for the titles that are financially successful and revamping or rebooting everything else.

The event started with Didio and Jim Lee trying to sell the idea of a relaunch to everyone. They said the DC executive team took a look at the comic book marketplace and there was no doubt that it was shrinking. No titles are selling 100,000 copies and they decided to do something bold to try and bring growth back to the marketplace. The solution according to Didio was to quit doing boring. I think a large number of readers will agree that across all publishers, there are a lot of average stories out there and great or even good stories are harder to come by. Didio talked about “following the examples set by Jim Lee and his previous work.” (aka Image/Wildstorm). They really made it clear that they want to be the market leader in comics and are pushing digital content hard. Digital and Print will be released on the same day (9am EST for didital) and are guaranteeing titles will be on time.

It looks like two different audiences are being targeted. Print makes up over 90% of DC's sales and they made it clear they are targeting a different audience for the digital releases than those people currently buying print comics. It sounds like digital releases might be how they hope to lure in new or former comic book readers. Both Jim Lee and Bob Wayne made it clear that it was the job of retailers to make their stores worth going to. Lee commented that print comics are about collectability and the experience of going to a comic shop to “talk to real people about comics” and not casual reading.

A large number of retailers let it known that they were upset that they were losing sales on current titles because people stopped reading new DC books after the relaunch was announced. One person suggested DC start a returnability plan to help retailers absorb some of the losses they are seeing on current titles because DC didn’t reveal their plans earlier. DC Co-Publisher Dan Didio apparently got a little worked up and Jim Lee had to jump in to calm things down. Bob Wayne’s response was: "it’s your job as retailers to keep fans excited about these books and if you’re losing sales it might be because you aren’t doing enough to 'evangelize' the books."

Some of the creative teams on current DC titles were setup with the upcoming reboot in mind. The DC Retroactive material was set up to keep the publishing schedule full so people didn't notice a lot of the key creative teams were “missing” and using the time to get books for the reboot done in advance. It was also set up as part of an initiative to pull in readers who might not be purchasing current DC titles. The Flashpoint titles are being done by teams not being used in the reboot to help give the reboot creative teams more time to get things ready.

Probably won't interest most of you, but below is some information that is good for store owners:

DC is giving retailers an additional 30% kickback if they set up a DC Digital portal on their web sites. They are also allowing retailers to pay for print orders of comics in two installments and are giving them twice as long to pay for half of the order. They had previously announced a 10% return fee on the relaunch titles in September, but that is now being replaced by a 20 cents per copy return fee, which is cheaper than a 10% return fee on both $2.99 and $3.99 titles. There was also talk at a percentage of kickbacks being given to store owners who really push certain titles (rumored to be around 15%).

There are a lot of varying reactions out there to the DC re-launch coming in September. While it is not a complete reboot, we do know that some characters are going to go through some big changes and major overhauls. I have gone up and down about it over the last few weeks. As a long time comics fan, my biggest concern was for continuity and how the characters that I love would be affected. We get attached to our characters and have an emotional investment in them and their stories. We don’t like the thought of a re-launch threatening the status quo because we feel DC is going to ruin or betray the investment we have put into them. I have a good enough grasp on the business side of the comics industry to understand that sales are not good, comic shops are closing and becoming more rare, and there are a lot of good titles failing because of a lack of readers. DC needs to sell comics to say in business and they need to lure in new readers for that to happen. As much as you may not like the re-launch, we need it to succeed. I have finally settled on being very pro re-launch and think that the examples of Batman and Superman show how it can be viewed as both good and bad.

Batman is probably one of the characters that didn’t experience a lot of change after Crisis on Infinite Earths. Other characters were rebooted completely, but not Batman. We saw a retelling of his origins in the “Year One” story arc, but the Batman universe did not go back to square one and start from the beginning. Dick Grayson was still Nightwing and his past history as Robin was intact and happened in the past. It looks like his continuity won’t be changed too much now, but there will be some change. It has been said that major story lines like “Death in the Family” and “The Killing Joke” will remain intact. There has been a natural growth and progression of characters in the Batman comics more so than any other titles. Dick has gone from Robin, to Nightwing, to being the Batman of Gotham after Bruces death in Final Crisis and continued as such in Batman Inc. Jason Todd died while serving as Robin. This had a big impact on Batman and his return via lazurus pit and evolution into a vigilante who isn’t afraid to kill stands as the polar opposite of the non-lethal Batman. Barbara Gordon was paralyzed by the Joker and because one of the first major characters with a disability. She continued to be a hero but in a different capacity as Oracle. We have seen these characters grow up and evolve and I would hate to see that tossed aside.

Luckily there doesn’t appear to be a ton of change coming to Batman, but what is changing is mostly for the better. Grant Morrison has told some great Batman stories and done some great things during his run, but I have hated Batman Inc. I was ecstatic to learn that it looks like there will be one Batman and it will be Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne is Batman and the billionaire playboy is the mast that he wears, so it never made sense for there to be multiple Batmen. I was also glad to learn that this isn’t happening through a tweak to continuity. Dick returns to his Nightwing persona, but the press releases about it acknowledge that he was Batman for awhile. Damian will remain as Robin and Tim Drake will be Red Robin still. Even Batman Inc. is not going away and will return with Morrison still at the helm in 2012. While it looks like most things are intact, we also know some things are changing. We know that Barbara Gordon will be Batgirl once again, but how can this happen. “The Killing Joke” is still going to be acknowledged continuity and she was paralyzed and has remained so in the present. It is hard to see how this can happen without a tweak to continuity. I like the idea of Babs becoming Batgirl again, but want it done respectfully in regards to her being paralyzed and not through a continuity tweak. We can only hope that questions like this will be answered in the conclusion of the current story arcs in August or in the early issues of the re-launch.

While Batman’s continuity looks like it is going to remain largely intact, I think a good example of a character that needs to be revamped in a big way regardless of what it means to continuity is Superman. Superman was my first comic and the first character that I started to read regularly. I started reading comics post Crisis on Infinite Earths with the “Man of Steel” mini-series and the re-launched Superman title in the late 80’s. I have a preference for Batman today, but still love the character of Superman. That being said, I don’t regularly buy Superman titles anymore. Superman stories have not been good for a very long time and the character. In a few short years (75 issues) Superman went from being introduced anew to the DC Universe in Superman Vol. 2 No. 1 to revealing his secret identity to Lois, getting engaged, and then we saw the death of Superman in issue 75. I can name great story arcs for almost every other title that I read, but struggle to come up with any Superman. I can’t even come up with many that I would consider good. Most have been ok, but there have been a lot of bad stories in the Superman titles. To the point that as I stated earlier, I stopped picking up Superman comics regularly and they are not on my pull list at the comics shop. For such a great character, who was the first true superhero, his stories have become stale and there isn’t a lot to excite us about Superman. Anything good, like All Star Superman, has been done out of continuity. If anyone character is in need to a major revamp or reboot, it is Superman.

While I was pro-Continuity in terms of Batman, I just made the argument for Superman needing a reboot and it looks like that is exactly what we are getting. There will be 3 titles featuring Superman, Superman, Action Comics, and JLA. The reboot looks like it is going to be presented to us in Action Comics being helmed by Grant Morrison. It was rumored that when Grant went from DC to Marvel a few years ago, he left because he wanted to do Superman and wanted free reign to do whatever he wanted. DC did not want to give him that control, so he left. He has since come back and had a successful run on various Batman titles and has been the architect over the Batman Universe for the last few years. His stories may be complicated and take a few reads and need to be read in collected trades to fully understand, they are for the most part great, if not brilliant. He has had free reign over Batman and has proven that he can be trusted with such control and I am looking forward to what he can do with Superman. Why it looks like a reboot, is that Action Comics will go back to Superman’s beginning and tell the origin story and start at the beginning of Supe’s career as Superman. What also appears to be different is that it is rumored that his powers will return to what they were in 1938. This means no flying and no heat vision. What is interesting is that in the previews for JLA and Superman, he is very clearly shown flying and in one of the images his eyes are glowing read like they would when uses heat vision. I wonder if we will see a progression or discovery of new powers after Superman is already an adult.

Superman has had his origin story retold and tweak so many times over the years, especially in the last ten, that you have to ask “Why the F@#% are DC doing it again?” They just did Superman: Secret Origin not too long ago and “Birthright” a few years before that. Man of Steel remains the definitive Superman origin for me. While I would like to think that it is being retold because Morrison has come up with something amazing and he may have, but the real reason is probably because of the lawsuit with the families of Sielgel and Shuster. It has been rumored that DC needs to change some things such as the origin in order to avoid legal problems. Another big thing that is changing and has pretty much been confirmed, is that Supes and Lois will no longer be married. This makes sense if it’s a reboot of the character. I was against this at first as the Superman – Lois relationship is so important to the mythos and character, but then realized that they don’t need to be married or even in a relationship. It is Superman’s attraction to Lois and him wanting her to love Clark and not Superman, conflicting with Lois’ love for Superman that has always been important, not their being married. Their marriage plays such a minor role in the comics, that nothing would be lost by it being erased from continuity. Superman needs a clean slate and DC is giving it to him.

I intended to make the argument that the pro DC re-launch people can user Superman as their rallying point and the people that were against it can use Batman as the argument against it. What I ended up showing is that overall it looks like the re-launch is being handled in a very good way in regards to these two characters. Batman shows that they are going to make some minor changes to get the character back to the status quo with a respect to continuity and the history of the characters. It has a very “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it” feel to it. Superman on the other hand, shows that they are willing to revamp or reboot the characters that really need it. I couldn’t be more excited for what is happening in September with DC. I know not all fans feel this way and this is what I have to say to you. Don’t boycott the re-launch because you don’t like the idea of it or the changes it may bring. You will just be making the problems with the industry worse and the whole reason behind the re-launch the titles is to bring in new readers and make the industry stronger. Get the first couple issues of the titles you like before, give it a chance. If you don’t like them after that, then fine, you gave it a chance. Pick up some titles you weren’t interested in before, maybe you will find them appealing and more interesting after the re-launch. I am sure DC expects to lose some readers, just don’t let them lose you due to your own ignorance.

I was writing my first ever blog post on Comic Vine. It was about the DCU relaunch and how Batman and Superman present to different perspectives on the relaunch for me. It was long, probably close to 1,000 words and I was all done. As I was bout to save it, my browser crashed and I lost the whole damn thing. Guess I learned the hard way to write the posts in MS Office and then copy them to here. Going to rewrite it later, but its back to work for now.