According to Bleeding Cool Bestseller list of March 3rd, Action and Superman are being sold at below Pre Bendis levels as readers comment that this doesn’t seem like their Superman any more. This makes me both happy and sad but the Bendis drop is happening now.

Seeing the pro-Bendis crowd lose their minds over this on CBR (and trying to shift the blame to us Superfamily fans) is both amusing and all too pathetic at the same time.

I feel you man, but this was bound to happen.

I need to see the commenters on CBR right now. lol.

Yep, lots of people on CBR openly said they don't care about Jon.

@eto It wasn't just a dislike for Jon, they were calling pre-flashpoint Superman a "boot kissing yuppie" and his fans "nostalgic fanatics"

yep, just read the comments. lol.

Need to pick up some Superman comics, they be getting good.

Elaborate.

Justice League #19 Preview. The beginning of the Sixth Dimension arc which focuses on Superman and leads into the Year of Villains. Gotta say it's great to see Jorge back on art duties for this book, the living buildings trick that Mxy pulls look wild and wacky with Jiminez's pencils. Hoping Snyder writes a better Superman than he did in Unchained.

@zariusii: That was mostly Korath who was being the most abrasive. Still, there was definitely a lot of shifting the blame onto Superfamily fans as if we somehow can't handle change. If anything, Rebirth brought in a lot of changes with the family status quo, Lex Luthor as an ally and readjusting the older Superman to a new universe.

Jurgens didn't really focus on the Superfamily and the quality of his run and its sales exceed Bendis' at the same point in time. It's not that Jurgens was doing much beyond the basics to accomplish it, either.

Bendis is not who he used to be 15 years back - anyone reading his books over the past decade can attest to it. Him writing something good is the anomaly, an exception to his rule of intense mediocrity. He used to be great, until he wasn't. No need for in-depth analysis. It's like hiring Frank Miller today and being surprised when he doesn't deliver on par with his Daredevil run or Year One anymore.

Mercifully, Doomsday Clock finally updates tomorrow, I am so tired of this event holding everything back, and the sad thing is it isn't going to lead to a more hopeful tomorrow for the DC Universe any longer due to the Year of the Villain event picking up right after it.

@zariusii: Is there even any point to Doomsday Clock in the grand scheme of the DCU now? It seems Snyder, Bendis and King are now DC's status quo setting creators with Year of the Villains, Leviathan and Heroes in Crisis respectively.

@lvenger It does seem very vanilla so far. I get not wanting to spoil a year's worth of storylines for DC, but so far the only thing of note in Doomsday Clock is some couples are still together and some have changed costumes.

Issue 9 was delayed for ages and really the wait wasn't worth it. Clark's role in this just keeps worsening, his reputation being in tatters amounts to a Donald Trump twitter joke, and he spends the whole issue in a coma. As for Lois, she's being handed everything on the JSA by Lex rather than following her own leads, Lex has even uncovered Wally's connection to things.

First issue of Snyder's JL that I've really enjoyed. Looking forward to the rest of the arc.

Doomsday Clock was also entertaining but Superman has so far been a complete non entity.

Honestly Doomsday clock is becoming very meh and I doubt that It will be even relevant for the DC universe as a whole.

@zariusii : Are the costume changes even going to be relevant? At the end of the issue, It seems that the new suit that Batman was wearing is destroyed and that he was going to grab the one he is using currently in the comics.

Also I hate the trope where they send street level heroes to fight a big cosmic threat it's so dumb and it's just for the excuse to only have the Trinity be the only heroes on Earth.

JL #19 was solid, definitely an improvement over the Drowned Earth and onwards stories in JL. Snyder had a good grasp of Clark's voice, Mxy's use of powers were complimented perfectly by Jiminez's art and even the cosmic stuff seems better in this issue. I am disappointed that Superman Reborn wasn't mentioned since it was a pretty significant story for both Superman and Mxy.

Doomsday Clock was pretty wild. Though this is what the series should have been in the beginning. It shouldn't have taken 9 issues for Manhattan to be confronted by the DCU's heroes in an admittedly fun fight scene.

This really was the first decent issue of Snyder's JL, and I'm also noticing that I've enjoyed every Mxy story so far in the post-Flashpoint universe. Seems to be one of the few characters who's had consistently good portrayals in the modern era.

Interview with Snyder on Newsarama about Justice League #19 and the next issue.

Mxy will be as 'scary' as he's ever been and some other Imps will show up as well.

Martian Manhunter and Hawkgirl's child is called Shane. He has both of their abilities and plays a conductive role.

Barry has merged with Wally and Jay to become an ultimate Flash Kingdom Come style.

John has become a White Lantern.

Batman is someone other than Bruce.

Superman getting trapped in a galaxy/universe without sunlight was a contribution from Jorge Jiminez that Snyder included, hence why he is co-writer of this arc. Credit to Jorge for the idea, it's a creative one.

I’ve been really enjoying Snyder and Tynion’s run on JL through Metal, No Justice and the JL ongoing. It’s got a really intriguing throughline, huge stakes, solid character work and moments and strong art. It can be convoluted at times but I think it’s gonna be one of those the more you read it the better it is kinda runs. I really enjoy how they’re essentially making this the JL’s/DCU answer to Hickman’s Avengers saga. Snyder also seems to be channeling as much Morrison as he can and I’m just diggin it.

This arc is definitely shaping up to be the best one yet as many of you have said issue 19 of JL was arguably the strongest of the entire run so far.

@lvenger: this quote “The Superman part of this story is actually built off one of his ideas. I was going to put Superman in kind of a cage. But when he told me this idea he had for a universe that was created specifically to entrap Superman by a super-character who would have Superman’s abilities to move suns and move planets and create a perfect environment to keep him, I knew that was right.”

gets me excited for the idea that we may see some massive Superman feats this arc

Preview for Superman#9 , another dream/flash-forward to the Super Family uniting everyone, with the legion of superheroes attacking.

https://www.dccomics.com/blog/2019/03/11/first-look-superman-achieves-world-peace

Just read Superman#9. Jon spends years being tortured inside a volcano by Ultraman (who has a jersey accent), he ultimately escapes and ends up in Denver where he meets Earth 3's Lois Lane, aka Superwoman

So Jon detractors who thought that the book would focus on Clark are probably feeling silly right now. This was the first time since Jon's introduction that I felt that Superman was a bit player in his own book. Sure it makes Jon look impressive but its not a version of Jon I care about.

Jurgens & Tomasi: Hey guys want to know what it would be like if Superman had a son and how he would live up to his father’s legacy?

Fans: Yeah that sounds like fun!

Bendis: Hey guys want to know what would happen if Jon went away from his parents, got kidnapped and tortured for years by evil versions of his parents?

Fans: Ummm.:..

Seriously this is the first issue where I’m actually angry with Bendis for what he’s done to Jon. It’s miserable, depressing, unnecessary and warps Jon into something I don’t recognise as his character.

So far Bendis has managed to improve his storytelling a bit on Action Comics but he manages to keep getting worse and worse with Superman. I can say that the recent issue of Superman was definitely the worst one so far. Very bad voices for Jon and Ultraman, terrible dialogue and terrible storytelling and for the first time since Bendis began his run I couldn't even appreciate Reis' interiors.

Yeah I haven’t enjoyed this current arc in Superman whatsoever so far

smh ....

I will say that I think the ideas Bendis has used in Superman are definitely bombastic and epic.

Earth getting sucked in to the Phantom Zone

The dream/future scenes

Jon travelling across the multiverse

Teasing a Superman family and Zod family alliance

Setting up Ultraman to potentially play a big role and having an enmity with Jon

The United Planets foreshadowing

Its cool high concept stuff no doubt but Rogol Zarr is awful, the Super family break up and get together is awful, character motivations and dynamics between the Super family in general are awful, the pacing is awful. Honestly a co-writer could have brought all this together without all the negatives that are holding this book back imo.

@entropy_aegis: I think what both of his books are lacking are, as you said, a co-writer. A person that will gather his ideas and write it down in the best possible way because I am sure that the writing style Bendis has developed throughout the last few years is because of a too tight schedule.

Juggling all of the books that he is writing, at the same time developing events and planning ahead for the future of the characters that are under his pen - it is a tough life, a draining one even. The solution to the very bad pace which is a mixture of too slow when there is dialogue and too fast when some action or development is actually happening can be all solved by a co-writer. Dan Slott has been using CHristos Gage for the past 5-6 years at least as a co-writer because he helps him out with the script of the issue while he focuses solely on the plot.

Did they explain how the Crime Syndicate was there or nothing about it here?

Jon simply travels to their native universe through a wormhole. How/why Ultraman, Johnny Quick, Owlman or Power Ring are alive is anyone's guess, though.

@morpheus_: I see. Get the feeling he is not going to explain anything. Anyway, thanks.

DC solicitations are out later today for some reason

DC June solicitations

https://www.newsarama.com/44329-dc-comics-june-2019-solicitations.html

Superman/Jon/Kara crossover storyline, more Rogul Zarr, the Leviathan event kicks in, the JL have to pick up the pieces of their lives after Sixth Dimension

Could it be that they travelled in time aswell; to a Pre-Anti Monitor Earth 3?

@thekinfing: Perhaps, but Ultraman outright says he's fought Clark many times. I'm not even sure they met in Forever Evil, which should be the first verifiable appearance of the Syndicate on Prime Earth.

Superman Reborn solved some problems but its vagueness makes continuity difficult to judge.

Don't think they did really. IIRC the Justice League was, for most of the event, trapped inside the Firestorm Matrix. I think they mostly interacted during Darkseid War and even then not a lot.

Although you do make a good point about Superman Reborn though. Wish they would make a mini-series or something detailing all the changes brought by the merging.

@magian: the last part of your post so true

I really want to know which events are in continuty

In recent issue of doomsday clock guy mentions various villains they faced to Dr Manhattan

From that panel I found that infinite crisis death of Superman crisis on infinite earths and blackest night are in countinuty but still lots of confusions

@supermanthor: DC can be a mess when it comes to continuity. They've done all these reboots over the years but since they never completely start from scratch, it can be rather confusing figuring out what is and what isn't still canon.

@magian: yeah

Well, someone on Twitter asked Bendis the following question:

Will #DCEVENTLEVIATHAN still focus on #Superman ?The build up was in his books and I’m just curious if he will play a prominent roll in the main event book.

The reply:

Action comics starting with 1006 is the lead up, THEN it REALLY ramps up in the 80 page Superman special, which is an enormous Superman story, and then #DCEVENTLEVIATHAN has Lois Lane in almost every panel. beyond that, no spoilers. its a MYSTERY story.

Yeah not exactly a straight answer to a rather simple question, I think this event is likely to be crucial to DC's street level characters and therefore I can see Suicide Squad, Green Arrow and Question books spinning out of it in addition to the already announced Lois and Jimmy books (which is where I expect the most contributions from and to the Superman mythos).

@entropy_aegis: In a way he gave us an almost clear answer that Superman isn't actually on central stage, but Lois is. So, it is probably more Batman and street-levelers centered rather than a Superman centered event. Which in its own right is not a bad thing because Superman will be part of another crossover at the same time as well.

It kind of is, why does he hype it up in a book starring Superman then?

A big update on the state of the Superman family in the 80 page Superman special, Lois and Clark remain "100% together and 100% in love" according to Bendis

https://twitter.com/BRIANMBENDIS/status/1108005651509186562

I just read the third issue of YJ, so Conner has a wife and potentially a kid? Ok...

This podcast interview with Greg Rucka reveals some details on the Lois Lane comic.

The first storyline deals with the fall out of Lois being caught kissing Superman in public back in Action Comics#1004.

@morpheus_: @theincrediblesuperhulk8642: @entropy_aegis: @zariusii: @magian: @lvenger:

https://www.cbr.com/scott-snyder-superboy-justice-league-debut/

Something tells me they are not fans of Bendis' version lol