Take my money now!!!

Well, for the most part I don’t care any more about numbering either, though I do think they should keep Action and Detective going at least. But I also think your logic is a bit off here, Brian. it’s not like they need to renumber to put Grant Morrison on a Superman title; they could have done the same thing, at any time, with any numbering in place without affecting the quality of the stories. Maybe it’s just a semantics thing, but this isn’t really a result of the renumbering; it’s probably the other way around, where they sign Morrison up and then renumber as a ploy to boost sales. Which, I think, is a good argument against renumbering, not for it.

Well, OK. If Morrison Superman and OMAC are part of the relaunch, they have my money for 2 downloads.

This supports my reaction that, aside from Lee being the major artistic force involved, this relaunch is a very good thing.

UP UP AND VNECK!

Maybe this explains why Superman is wearing a Neru jacket.

Isn’t it 13 years by now?

Good point, Taylor, I’ll change that.

Well, for the most part I don’t care any more about numbering either, though I do think they should keep Action and Detective going at least. But I also think your logic is a bit off here, Brian. it’s not like they need to renumber to put Grant Morrison on a Superman title; they could have done the same thing, at any time, with any numbering in place without affecting the quality of the stories. Maybe it’s just a semantics thing, but this isn’t really a result of the renumbering; it’s probably the other way around, where they sign Morrison up and then renumber as a ploy to boost sales. Which, I think, is a good argument against renumbering, not for it.

I’m presuming their logic went “Hey, let’s relaunch all our titles,” followed by “Okay, but if we’re going to do that, we need to make sure that the creative teams are top of the line, especially for the big characters.” Which leads to them having Morrison write Superman. To wit, Jim Lee, in particular, was never going to be doing a comic that wasn’t a brand-new #1.

He’s never going to finish Seaguy is he?:(

I don’t care about this. Morrison may be a good writer, but I don’t care about this. This whole thing reeks of “Heroes Reborn/Return”. If DC wanted to attract newer or younger readership, they should be taking a long break from doing big event stories and focus their resources on creating newer and newer characters that appeal to people accross all spectrums. That is the one other purpose (other than making a profit) that a comic book company is supposed to do. It’s what they’ve always been said to do, even in cartoons! Why has DC (or Marvel, for that matter) ABANDONED that approach? In the past two years alone, what new, “exciting” characters have we gotten, and how many? Combined, we only got SEVEN. SEVEN FREAKING CHARACTERS from the Big Two:
-Cinder, Solstice, Freight Train, and Anna Fortune (DC)
-The Five Lights, Jimmy Howlett (from the Ultimate Marvel imprint), and The Bastards of Evil.

Why couldn’t they focus on both quality AND quantity for character creation? If Johns likes the Silver Age so much, why doesn’t he take THIS approach?

As long as Morrison doesn’t get rid of the Superman/Lois marriage. I still think they are the coolest couple in comics when written correctly….and Morrison is just the preson to write them correctly.

Yes, yes, yes!! I still can’t believe this news, its so great!

As long as Morrison doesn’t get rid of the Superman/Lois marriage. I still think they are the coolest couple in comics when written correctly….and Morrison is just the preson to write them correctly.

I think it is a near certainty (if not an actual certainty) that the status quo for Clark and Lois will be very much like All Star Superman. The marriage will be gone. Morrison certainly could write the marriage well, but he could also write them well without the marriage, and I bet he’d prefer to write the latter, so I’m cool with whatever he feels like writing.

This is good news but my concern is more in terms of Batman Inc. If this costs us Batman Inc it is a net negative for me at least.

I didn’t read it yet, but on bleeding cool there’s a bit about Supes and WW hooking up, so the marriage is probably gone.

But GMozz bringing even half of the cool from ASS? Hells yeah!

Any word on the artist yet? Weston? I know he wanted to do one of the ASS specials that GMozz said he might do post ASS 12.

And does this mean GMozz on Superman AND Batman? And if WW is involved too…

Since I stood just feet away from Frank Quitely when he was telling someone that after he did the new WE3 pages, Grant was giving him the Charlton characters Multiversity script, I know FQ ain’t on the list. But GMozz on the big 3, the Multiversity stuff (please please please Doc Fate’s world!)…yay DC!

This is good news but my concern is more in terms of Batman Inc. If this costs us Batman Inc it is a net negative for me at least.

I don’t see how it could lose us Batman Inc., as Morrison has not finished his Leviathon story yet (it doesn’t even appear to be close to being finished). I could see something like Morrison doing both (maybe even a third title, like Wonder Woman, but probably not) and then when he finishes up with Batman Inc. then he would go into Multiversity.

I may be getting greedy here, but pleasepleaseplease can we have Mark Waid on the other Superman book? Pretty please???

Oh by the way I’m so excited that Grant Morrison is writing Superman in the fall. I literally squealed out loud when I read the news.

Still using Wizard as a refference for the 13 years ago story huh?

And Chris Burnham on pencils for the slam dunk, right? Cmon, DC, this is a really obvious call. Don’t balls it up by hiring some Jim Lee impersonator to draw the book.

People keep talking about Heroes Reborn and OMD in comparison to this, but they forgot about Avengers Disassembled which was just a big mesh of destroying everything for no reason and starting over at #1. It was a success and then they started over at #1 again despite this.

Now…. does that make sense?

IF they do this, they should make the biggest thing they can out of it.

Dude, Cass nailed it. Yeah, Burnham on the Supes book would be so f-in’ awesome!!!

Wow, I’m really geeking out tonight.

I want to see Yanick Paquette on Superman and Cameron Stewart. That’s not asking too much is it?

I really, really, really hope that Batman Inc. isn’t impacted by this universal reboot, although I wouldn’t be surprised if it comes to a hasty end in August. I also wouldn’t be terribly surprised if Morrison’s whole Bat-run is retconned away in favor of a rolled-back timeline and a more iconic, younger Bruce/Dick Batman/Robin team.

As for Superman, after collecting his books monthly since 1986, I was 100% on finally dropping them, feeling that this is just one reboot too many for me (after much patient waiting on my part for them to get continuity sorted out for the nth time), but a Morrison-penned Superman…man, that’s just about the ONLY thing they could pitch that would keep me reading.

As long as there is some strong behind the scenes co-ordination, and people are willing to play in the same sandbox together, it should be fine.

@wwk5d
If this is done right (with each title in a different world) everyone will have their own sandbox.

I’ve been collecting comics for three decades now – numbering and continuity used to mean a lot to me. As I’ve gotten older I’m less interested and couldn’t really care less about either. I’m more interested in interesting stories, rather than convoluted, continuity-based stories. Just give me something interesting and worth spending my cash on.

Interesting how it’s listed as “A new title starring Superman written by Grant Morrison.” in the press release, while everything else is listed as “New Book #1″. This looks interesting – maybe they’ll keep the numbering on Action and (possibly) Superman, and just have a whole new book.

Oooh, they could call it Superman: The Man of Steel or something…

You can read the full Superman 2000 proposal Brian mentions above at

https://sites.google.com/site/deepspacetransmissions/Resources/superman-2000-proposal

including a Brand New Day-esque “fix” for negating Superman and Lois’s marriage. Most of the blatant Morrison elements were used in All Star Superman but there’s still some interesting stuff in there, particularly about Superman’s rogues gallery.

“YOU ARE FORGIVEN!”

“We believe that the four of us understand the new face of Superman: a forward-looking, intelligent, enthusiastic hero retooled to address the challenges of the next thousand years.”

Or at least the next 15 years

Maybe Lois will finally break down and have a lesbian affair and leave Superman, which causes him to have a nervous mental breakdown and destroy two-thirds of the Earth?

Oh, wait, didn’t Waid do something like that on Irredeemable?

I would love to see Action and Detective continue on as supersized anthologies that continue the current stores so Morrision can continue to tell his bat-epic.

I’m also wondering, and this may be a column for a future Comic Book Legends Revealed, if DC gave their creators free reign to do whatever they felt like because they knew it was all going to be reset. Of course it might be a few years before we can get an answer, but maybe we can start with something about Spider-man being allowed to be unmasked because OMD was going to undo it a few months later.

It’s way to early to tell if this is going to work but I see it as a really desperate move by DC. And, at the end of the day, rebooting everything won’t work if the stories are not solid enough.

It all comes down to the stories and the creative teams. Nobody could predict that Green Lantern would be one of DC’s flagship titles until Geoff Johns came on board. Or, in the case of Marvel, New Avengers by Bendis.

As far as continuity is concerned, I’m always baffled by this claim that it scares new readers away. I remember when I started reading Uncanny X-Men back in the late 90′s. I was actually pretty excited to learn everything that happened before, all the history and the relationships. It’s like a hidden world that you start to discover. Before the internet it was much harder to absorb this knowledge but now all it takes is a trip to Wikipedia.

I think this is an old fashioned way of thinking. Continuity doesn’t scare people away. Bad creative teams do.

I can’t help but smell Heroes Reborn all over this. Does anyone think that Detective WON’T switch back to original numbering just in time for issue #1000?

Thing is, I bet dollars to donuts they could have gotten Grant Morrison to start his run on Superman issue # 715 a la Batman issue # 655. Just my opinion.

As far as continuity is concerned, I’m always baffled by this claim that it scares new readers away. I remember when I started reading Uncanny X-Men back in the late 90?s. I was actually pretty excited to learn everything that happened before, all the history and the relationships.

There’s selection bias at work there, though. You’re part of the group that saw that complexity and was drawn to it, so of course it doesn’t seem like a big deal to you and other current readers. There may be a much larger group that looks at it and says “not worth my time”.

Does anyone think that Detective WON’T switch back to original numbering just in time for issue #1000?

Well, “Detective” still has #900 coming up. We’re talking months, not years.

Jorell wrote:

“I may be getting greedy here, but pleasepleaseplease can we have Mark Waid on the other Superman book? Pretty please???”

Well, Mark Waid and Dan DiDio hate each other, so that’s not gonna happen.

On the surface, this looks like a MAJOR reboot for the DC Universe; after all, when you watch the first episode of a new TV series that had already been done in the past, you (usually) don’t expect it to be the same, or even connected ex. Hawaii 5.0. But since I don’t think DC feels anything they have done recently (with the exception of the JMS Wonder Woman fiasco) needs to be changed, I think this will just be another Zero Hour eg. a few changes on the surface to make it look new but otherwise keeping all the continuity they had (at least dating from Identity Crisis on.) It will also be a handwave for dealing with picky fans (Fans: “Countdown sucked!” DC: “It never happened!”) but that’s fair.

Now, DESPITE having enjoyed Morrison’s All Star Superman, I’m not entirely happy about his taking over the title, because half the time he’s a genius, but the other half he’s just crazy. Remember Superman Beyond? (DC: “It never happened!”) At least I’m (fairly) sure that his series won’t be littered with corpses. Now if ONLY I could be sure that will apply to the rest of the ‘new’ DC as well. *cough cough Teen Titans* (DC: “It never happened!”)

I’m much more interested in a 2011 Morrison Superman title than one from 13 years ago. I think he’s developed a very different mindset towards big universe superhero comics.

Fabien Nicenza just confirmed that he was NOT writing Teen Titans so…don’t believe everything you hear, Brian.

“To wit, Jim Lee, in particular, was never going to be doing a comic that wasn’t a brand-new #1.”

To me, that’s an indictment of Lee. I would think that being offered a chance to be the custodian of a legacy like Action Comics or Detective Comics would be a privilege and an honor for a comic book creator. Not that this is surprising, because Lee did the same thing with X-Men when he kicked Chris Claremont to the curb in 1991. But I don’t think his position of “I am more important than the characters and the company” reflects well on him. Or, really, on the state of the business. I just think DC should be more concerned about what’s best for Superman and Batman than what’s best for Jim Lee, though maybe they think it’s the same thing in this case.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m actually all for rebooting the characters if they do it right, but some of it just smacks of egotism run amok.

Too bad they yet again unleashed Jim Lee for another round of his horrid costume “redesigns”. I see by that JLA #1 cover he’s made Wonder Woman’s costume even worse than he did last round and GL, Supes AND Aquaman are all wearing high collars… for some reason. Also, Supes’ costume is now mostly blue with no “swim trunks” and Batman has all kinds of extraneous crap glued to his new Batsuit. Lame. I can’t wait for all the changes to be undone over the course of several months. The only good thing out of this is Grant Morrison finally writing a Superman ongoing, even if I’ll have to look at Lee’s awful costume on him, but hey, I survived “light-blue electrical Superman” and “mullet Superman”, too.

I don’t see red super-underwear on Superman. If he hasn’t got the red super-pants, he just isn’t Superman to me. The new “S” looks dumb to me. But I’m an old fogey who prefers the George Reeves “S” anyway. That’s not a huge deal to me; the lack of red super-briefs is something I just don’t like. The v-neck collar is acceptable, but doesn’t appeal to me. I wonder how much the Seigel estates lawsuit has to do with the costume changes. Wonder Woman’s new costume is kind of “eh” frankly. Apart from Superman and Cyborg I don’t see massive costume changes. I _do_ prefer the all black bat on Batman, and his changes seem only to be that he’s wearing knuckle-buster gloves. So it seems to me that the writing approaches on these books will ultimately determine success or failure. As to Morrison on Superman, that=”Hell,yeah!”

Who’s also betting that Lee will probably only do the first 5 numbers of JL? Just sayin…

These are supposed to launch in the fall? Hope Lee’s got two or three issues in the can already then.

My one concern with this — as was one of my major concerns regarding the Morrison/Waid/Millar/Peyer proposal* — is that we’re going to go back tot he stupid Lois-Clark-Superman love triangle. Even Jerry Siegel wanted that to end pretty early on, and frankly Lois is a much more interesting character without that obnoxious plot device.

* My other major concerns with the proposal were the really silly Toyman idea and the name “Mark Millar.”

But he really didn’t do much with the triangle in ASS, did he?

He didn’t, I’ll grant you, but aside from issue #s 1 and 5 he didn’t have much Clark Kent in the series. The Planet characters were there, but the Clark identity is really used more in concert with Luthor than with Lois or Jimmy. It’s hard to do a triangle plot when one of the sides is mostly absent.

What he did show of it is hard to gauge. On the one hand, you have Superman in a “last days on Earth” situation revealing his ID to Lois; on the other hand, you have Lois apparently refusing to believe the truth. I think the narrative particulars of ASS gave Morrison the opportunity to have it both ways, and he wisely took it.

I think he chose to go with the “Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane” approach, which was the way Lois appeared in the comics for a significant chunk of the 1960s and 1970s. So I think he’s going with “Superman’s Girl Friend” Lois Lane rather than “Trying to Prove Clark Kent is Superman” Lois Lane. With the former, you can avoid the triangle all together. Basically, Lois doesn’t even think about Clark except as that nice co-worker and friend of hers.

In any case, my personal preference as a reader is for a Lois who knows the whole dual identity thing. I sort of feel like knowing Superman is Clark is what makes it possible for me to buy the romance. That said, I’m happy to wait and see what Morrison does and determine for myself how convincing it is.

I’m also belatedly realizing just how much of Morrison’s approach to his Batman run is quietly (and sometimes more subtly) present in All-Star Superman. The blend of multiple eras’ continuity is there — you have a Wesinger-era Lois and Jimmy working alongside Bronze Age elements like Steve Lombard and post-Crisis/Byrne-reboot characters like Cat Grant. The Bizarro stuff, too, is a clever fusion of the 60s “wacky square Earth” versions with the post-Crisis flawed clone idea and a very millennial “zombie plague” version of the concept that Morrison first floated in DC One Million.

I wonder if that’s what DC’s really going for with this renumbering reboot: a kind of vague, broad-strokes setup for the characters that mix the more popular or enduring elements of many eras. It’d be the smartest thing to do, and it explains perfectly how Morrison’s Bat-books will remain largely unaffected. Perhaps they’re not anomalies in the reboot, they’re its bellwethers.

I really don’t get the Morrison phenomenon. I swear I’m not trying to be a troll or devil’s advocate or anything, but I just don’t. He’as a good writer. But he’s not ALWAYS good. in fact, quite often, in my opinion, he’s self-indulgently awful. Why is it people are already praising a book he hasn’t written, yet?

When Morrison writes characters that are his own or obscure enough to be made his own- Animal Man, We3, Doom Patrol, Invisibles, Sebastian O- he is legitimately brilliant. And when he can do a self-contained, non-continuity story like All-Star Superman, he’s very good (even though I guess I’m in the minority when I say I’m not a fan of Superman-as-Christ). But I really just don’t see that he knows how to play well with others, or make compelling characters. Final Crisis (and Seven Soldiers before it) was impenetrable. I am not a stupid person, I know how to read and I understand metatext, but there was no actual story there. It was pages and pages of philosophy. From month to month I couldn’t even remember what had happened before. There are a few great stories in his Batman run, but there’s just so much “stuff” there, and it’s all so seedy and dark, that I just can’t get into it. And his JLA just bored me, frankly- big event after big event with nothing resembling character moments. That’s ultimately it, I guess- since Animal Man, he’s had a real tough time making me ever care about any of his characters, even if his “big ideas” are interesting and even sometimes thrilling. So now he’s going to be in charge of the one character that DC considers its stand in for humanity, and as Brian said, he’s likely going to strip away the main human relationships that have defined that character for several decades now. I’m not thrilled.

I wonder if that’s what DC’s really going for with this renumbering reboot: a kind of vague, broad-strokes setup for the characters that mix the more popular or enduring elements of many eras. It’d be the smartest thing to do, and it explains perfectly how Morrison’s Bat-books will remain largely unaffected. Perhaps they’re not anomalies in the reboot, they’re its bellwethers.

I think that might be a very astute observation.

At least as far as Morrison’s titles go. As we’ve seen in the past, though, other writers tend to fail to deliver on the same ideas that Morrison develops, so while I expect Morrison will, indeed, go for that “blending of eras” approach in whatever he does for DC, I don’t know if the other writers will.

What’s the betting over and under on when Superman gets his original costume back?

Oddly, I’m not that excited by Morrison on Superman.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s something I thought they should do for a long time, it’s just that Roberson and Cornell are doing such a great job with the character, that it’s a bit of a dampener to lose them.

Omar:

My one concern with this — as was one of my major concerns regarding the Morrison/Waid/Millar/Peyer proposal* — is that we’re going to go back tot he stupid Lois-Clark-Superman love triangle. Even Jerry Siegel wanted that to end pretty early on, and frankly Lois is a much more interesting character without that obnoxious plot device.

* My other major concerns with the proposal were the really silly Toyman idea and the name “Mark Millar.”

Have you read Millar’s Superman Adventures work?
It’s like it’s written by a totally different, non-cynical, person.

I’m totally buying all 52 #1 issues as long as the heroes have those little V-necks. Because they rock. They remind me of when I was young in the 1960s. People wore all sorts of wacky clothing then too!