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I read this information yesterday. It sounds like DC has some exciting plans.

Action featuring characters without a title…Adventure relaunching with the Legion. Sounds awesome.

I’ve never been a Superman fan, but this move away from Earth might be a nice change. As a reader, his constant battles with villains on Earth seems boring. Getting away seems like a nice change.

I wonder when they plan on Superman leaving. When Johns, Robinson, and…..whoever it is that writes Supergirl, talked about the New Krypton crossover, it seemed like crossing over is something they had planned on doing more than once.

I’m afraid no DC news will excite me until they take place after the announcement that Didio has left DC comics.

No Batman, no Superman… throw in Wonder Woman and it´s another year without the big 3.

Interesting. I think most people had already figured out the Adventure Comics thing (which sounds awesome), and Johns had hinted that Superman would no longer be the star of Action (not so awesome), but I had no idea about some of the other stuff. Very spoiler-y, indeed.

Did you catch the LITG piece about Robinson? I think most people haven’t been impressed by his work on the book so far, but expect those same people to call for DiDio’s head if that rumour turns out to be true.

Sending Superman in to space? Didn’t da Ordster & Co. do that a few years back?

And if they can’t tell good Superman stories without all these contrived “events,” then maybe they ought to find people who can do just that.

With this crappy economy, it will be far easier for fans to drop marginal books.

superman:Exile

This is nothing compared to the spoiler in the solicit for the Feb issue of Nightwing. DC’s not even trying to hide it.

Those are not scoops. Didio revealed ALL of that yesterday over at Newsarama:

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/110817-AdventureComics.html

Actually, scratch that, you’re right. LA Times was a day before the Newsarama reveal. Sorry.

They’re breaking up the Super-marriage, aren’t they?

I have bought Superman comics since before Doomsday killed him. I just stopped. They cancelled them for me, really: I don’t want a Showcase book, and I don’t want a Legion book. And I don’t want the triangle numbering to force me to buy Supergirl just to know what’s going on. This must be what it feels like to be a Spider-Girl fan.

Dan: The place I went is ‘They’re going to kill off Lois’. Which sort of amounts to the same thing, I guess.

Hang on, didn’t they already do the “Action Comics” w/o Superman before, when they did “Action Comics Weekly” back in the 80s? It didn’t work out very well, then, as I recall…

“They’re breaking up the Super-marriage, aren’t they?”

Well no one can identify with a married Superman.

“First off, Action Comics no longer featuring Superman?”

I hear Jimmy is going to be the new Superman and it’s going to be totally permanent! Brubaker to write.

Seriously though, this is just a horrible idea.

You know, I sort of like the idea of Superman and Batman both being out of the picture for a while while Wonder Woman is alive, well, and present, taking lots of guest-star roles and adding a second main book (Sensation Comics, I guess, since reviving the old dead titles seems to be the current thing.)

And I’ve always liked DC’s present-day outer space settings, which will be getting quite a workout between Superman, the Green Lantern Franchise, and the new R.E.B.E.L.S. book…

Well, I think if DiDido should be canned, it should be because of stuff like the sloppy editing and seeming lack of planning for the line as a whole rather than this stuff. This isn’t all that bad, although getting rid of Lois (even shipping her offscreen) smacks of desperation. Everyone under the age of 25 or so basically ONLY knows the status quo with Lois and Clark either engaged or married, and she’s a really good character independent of Clark, to boot.

(Technically, far more people, especially under the age of 25, have only gotten the character by way of the recent movie [in which they were neither engaged nor married], the animated universe, in which they’ve neither been engaged or married, and Smallville, in which they aren’t even dating, than have ever picked up a comic book…)

Everyone under the age of 25

That’s a dying breed of comic fan.

Anyway, to me the real question here is how badly Didio will manage to botch all these new initiatives. The only successful thing in the mainstream continuity DC universe under his watch has been 52. And by successful, I mean in terms of critical reception AND sales. Point is, Didio will find away to botch all these AND somehow keep his job.

Action without Superman? Superman in space?

It’s 1988 all over again, only this time I don’t have to flunk my senior math class

“Everyone under the age of 25″

Bullshit. I’m 23 and have been reading comics for sixteen years.

“Well no one can identify with a married Superman”

I CAN identify with a married Superman pretty well; sadly poor writing and lousy editorial decisions sometimes makes it more difficult.

Bullshit. I’m 23 and have been reading comics for sixteen years.

Ivan, I’d prefer you not react so angrily, but I’d also like you to note that sixteen years ago, Clark and Lois were engaged, so you did not contradict the statement as presented.

I don’t have a problem with any of this, as long as the stories are good. At the least, I like that these events seem to be coming out of the stories that are being told now, rather than just pressing the big red candy-like History Eraser Button.

I’m kind of stoked about Action, although trying not to get my hopes up. I love anthologies when they’re well-edited, but “well-edited” is not a term that current DC product brings to mind frequently.

Didio didn’t say it would be an anthology, did he? Just “he will be leaving it and handing it over to new characters.” That could be an ongoing series, kind of like Marvel did with INCREDIBLE HERCULES – same book, different stars…

The impression I got of the news, which could admittedly be quite wrong, is that it would be a home for characters with no books of their own and probably rotating creative teams. Not technically an anthology, then, but still the sort of book that will live or die on the strength of its editing.

(Technically, far more people, especially under the age of 25, have only gotten the character by way of the recent movie [in which they were neither engaged nor married], the animated universe, in which they’ve neither been engaged or married, and Smallville, in which they aren’t even dating, than have ever picked up a comic book…)

Maybe if you went to under 20, possibly lower – Lois & Clark was a smash hit for a couple of years.

It really isn’t the same thing as Spider-Man when it comes to the marriage.

Superman has always been an adult, it’s part of his character, and it’s not too far-fetched to believe he would be married.

If anything, I think that a married Superman is easier to identify with (and although I’m only 25, I’m British and got into Superman through the Fleetway reprints magazine over here, and have read single, engaged and married Superman stories) as it helps show his human, vulnerable side. Without the human relationships in the Superman books, he’ll just be an overly powerfull alien again.

This change won’t last.

“Hang on, didn’t they already do the “Action Comics” w/o Superman before, when they did “Action Comics Weekly” back in the 80s? It didn’t work out very well, then, as I recall…”

I have really fond memories of Action Comics Weekly… Although it did have a Superman strip in it 90% of the time (usually just two pages and often the centrespread)

It seemed like a try-out area for writers and artists, so typically there was some great stuff and some dross…

I remember Wild Dog featuring quite prominently, and some great Blackhawk stuff too…

Oh, yeah… And a Phantom Lady cover that really belonged on the top shelf… Boy did I get some looks across the counter that week!

“Well no one can identify with a married Superman”

To anyone not getting it, this is sarcasm.

Action Comics without Superman? Yes, they did try it once already, back in “Action Comics Weekly” starting with #600… and lasting until John Byrne took over the book after his “Man of Steel” run. Does anyone know if “ACW” is now considered a success or was it pretty much filler until Byrne was scheduled to take over?

Bruce Wayne no longer Batman? Didn’t this happen already in “Knighfall”, back in 1993? Look how well that went: Bruce (as expected) became Batman once again. And what happens if Batman actually dies in the comics? How will this affect the movies? Or do Batman comics even get a bump in sales when the movies come out? Didn’t tons of people want to read about Batman and the Joker after seeing “The Dark Knight”? What happens when those people (many of whom may be old-time readers) pick up a Batman comic and find Bruce Wayne is long dead and some joker (pardon the pun) is now Batman.

I can hear the confusion already when someone picks up the comic they haven’t read in 20 years and asks why Jason Todd is Batman when he remembers calling a 900 number to kill Robin, all those years ago.

Action Comics without Superman? Yes, they did try it once already, back in “Action Comics Weekly” starting with #600… and lasting until John Byrne took over the book after his “Man of Steel” run. Does anyone know if “ACW” is now considered a success or was it pretty much filler until Byrne was scheduled to take over?

John Byrne’s Man of Steel run was BEFORE Action Comics Weekly. Byrne’s last issue was #600. George Perez took over when ACW ended.

And Superman still appeared in Action Comics Weekly, he just wasn’t the only star.