Man looking forward to Action Comics now. Looks like it will be a book on its own. If Action is anything close to ALL Star Superman, I’ll be happy.

Hate to be Mr. Crabbypants Comic Guy On The Internet, but: That costume is BAD, really.

I dunno, I mean for its purpose, yes, it is bad, But I don’t think it is inherently a bad costume.

Like if you kept that design and put a different logo on it and said it was “Character X”‘s new costume, I think it would look fine.

It just doesn’t work for Superman.

So is the deal here that each book is its own universe?

Because there are 2 superboys,and 2 supermen.

and every cover for each of the 52 comics has its own feel, like they really aren’t connected to each other. some seem retro, some seem sc-fi, some seem horror-ish, etc They look like elseworlds covers.

Sounds quite possible. I think it is more likely that some of them share worlds. But yes, I think it is a real possibiliy that we’re seeing a bunch of little Heroes Reborns in some of the titles.

I like the different look on Superman.

The Supergirl (or is it PowerGirl) look is embarrassing and disturbing…. I’m one of those who appreciate the more logical pants on Wonder Woman and this look on Supergirl is the polar opposite.

Lemire’s Superboy has been entertaining, so it will definitely be missed!

Sigh, I know I shouldn’t complain because DC has done worse in the past, but I’m still disappointed with Rags Morales on Action Comics. I’ve been holding out forever for a cartoony artist on Superman, who, afterall, is a cartoony character. Rags is a definite step up from Eddy Barrows, but his art still favors sinewy, musclebound characters bathed in shadow, which doesn’t work for me on Superman.

Not to be a Negative Nancy, but all in all, I have to say that I’m pretty let down by the reboot. If you include minis, I currently buy around eight DCU titles per month. It looks like that number will drop to five or six come September, and furthermore, I’ll only be sampling those titles to see if I like them; the number could very well slip to three or four in a few months. As DC is putting out more books than in recent memory, and I plan to buy fewer, if I’m at all representative of the average consumer (which, in all fairness, I don’t pretend to be), this bodes ill for the venerable comics publisher.

I like supermans new look, but I’m sad the trunks are gone.
Supergirls look is good, but yeah pants on that one would work so much better.
As for superboy, too early for me to tell..

The cover to Superman 1 looks very proletariat to me (for lack of a better word). That’s not surprising given the ending to All-Star Superman, however.

I’m telling ya, that’s Bibbo on the Action cover. His moment has finally come.

I like Jesus Merino as an artist, but I can’t be the only one who was surprised and disappointed to know that Perez’s art wouldn’t be gracing the new Superman ongoing

Clearly anyone with eyes wanted Pérez drawing the book, but with him on a Flashpoint series, he wouldn’t have had the time to hit the ground running doing art on the book.
Merino is a good choice – he does a good Superman book.
Hopefully Pérez will do arcs or annuals throughout the book, or maybe even be the fill-in artist if Merino needs a break.

THREE new books for Lobdell! That’s quite a splash for his return to ongoing work for the Big Two.

That’s a heap – really odd they aren’t testing the waters a bit more. Although he did a good Gotham Sirens fill in a year or so ago.
I’m kinda shocked they didn’t put him on JLI – I think that’s a book/cast that would play to his strengths.
(He’d also be a good scripter to put with Giffen or Jurgens).

(He’d also be a good scripter to put with Giffen or Jurgens).

Giffen plotting and Lobdell scripting would be a wonderful match. Then again, DeMatteis and Giffen with Giffen plotting and DeMatteis scripting is already a wonderful match.

The solicits as featured on bleeding cool are…interesting. It sounds as if maybe Batman and the GLs will have been around for awhile, but the rest of the superheroes are just coming into play when the new issues start (that is, there’s stuff about Batman Inc, Damian, the 4 GL titles, etc, but the JL solicit talks about Batman needing to form a team of these new heroes.)

Given what’s been going on in Flashpoint, I’m guessing the end will have a new timeline/earth created — maybe Earth 1 or new Earth or whatever they’ve been calling the current DCU will be rebooted, but all the other earths left alone. And given Booster’s prominence both in Flashpoint and in JLI, I’m wondering if down the road they’ll address this with some other time travel-y/multi earth event.

If it’s multiple earths and stuff with the #1 reboots, that seems to defeat the purpose, so…maybe they are that dumb.

What’s intriguing to me is that the Superman Flashpoint mini is called Project Superman, right? Wasn’t that the name (implied or stated, not sure) of the project in All Star Superman? Will this DCNu be, somehow, in a way, a sequel to ASS?

And yes, that might mean that the DCNu is coming right out of GMozz’s ASS. Boo-yah!

Also, it sounds like DC is being smart with this TV commercial campaign BC says they’re doing. I believe I said sometime in the past week or so that if DC is smart, when y’all go to see GL next week, you’ll see an ad for the DCNu at the start. “In a world….”

Then again, DeMatteis and Giffen with Giffen plotting and DeMatteis scripting is already a wonderful match.

I have a dream, where books plotted by Giffen and scripted by DeMatteis, can exist hand in reader’s hand with books plotted by Giffen and scripted by Lobdell.

The solicits as featured on bleeding cool are…interesting.

There’s an odd thing on there – it says Stormwatch is spinning out events in Superman, but Stormwatch ships before Superman.
That’s an odd thing to do from day one.

And given Booster’s prominence both in Flashpoint and in JLI, I’m wondering if down the road they’ll address this with some other time travel-y/multi earth event.

Booster could remember the old world.
JLI starring him does ship in first week, so it could be the book that lays down the new universes rules.

You know, I’ve finally realized what bothers me about Jim Lee’s Superman costume — it’s basically the same tweak used to create Ultraman’s ersatz Superman costume. So, basically, they already used this costume design for “Character X.” More seriously, I’d have preferred finding a way to make the pants two-tone if we absolutely needed to get rid of the trunks, since this redesign makes the costume mostly an expanse of featureless blue and thus rather visually bland. Anyway, I suspect that decades of licensing mean the classic costume will return eventually; look for that red belt to start being drawn wider and wider if they decide to slide back to the old design quietly.

Also, I wonder how many people remember that this is George Perez’s second time writing a Superman comic?

DC solicit info on Bleeding Cool has George Pérez listed as writer / breakdown artist for SUPERMAN #1 with Jesus Merino as finisher. That would be a good compromise!

“Hi, I’m Supergirl, and this is my bright red pubis.”

Eew.

The costumes are overall improvements, although I don’t like Superboy’s look _in the Titans book_. Superman’s costume could use a bit more color and detail in the arms and a bit less in the legs. The trunks becoming less constrasting is a good move, however.

Supergirl is a great improvement and I like the touch of sophistication and mystery in the new look. Even without true pants or skirts she is _still_ far less like a street whore now.

Superboy as an android is a stroke of genius.

Funky, I noticed that bit about Stormwatch and Superman too. I wonder if they mean Stormwatch spins out of Action, or if they’ve already f-d up the works planning wise. Given what we know of DC, probably the latter…

And hey, Christine, it’s only once a month.

Is it just me, or does the cover of Action Comics say “Bizzaro” more than “Superman”? Maybe it’s the grey ankles/socks.

I also agree that we may be having a case of Multiple Supermen here; Grant’s series could be set in the past, possibly even the 1930′s. In fact it might be part of his Multiverse plans (the Flashpoint thing may have affected only *one* Earth). Perez’s is probably not even the TRUE Superman- he looks more like a Superman Robot to me (remember those? I think he had artificial stand-ins before Doctor Doom did! Hey Cronin confirm that for me will you?) The Superman in JLA could be a stand-in ala Mon-El. And the Superboy could be a different clone from the one in Teen Titans (or the same one at an earlier point of his life.)

This sounds familiar… didn’t we have Multiple New Supermen take over each of the Superman books during the Death of Superman thing in the 90′s? Yup, and they all turned out to be Awesome, though of course the *real* one soon came back. I suspect this is a similar case. as long as they are good, I’ll reads them- and I have faith on Morrison and Perez.

@ Pelkie: You know, technically speaking, a continuity-changing crisis was NEVER needed. I remember being annoyed by this fact back in 85: if the DC Universe was infinite and already had several Earths to house specific takes on various heroes, why not simply introduce a NEW Earth, one where the heroes where younger and just starting out, and simply have those characters take over the titles the way the Golden Age DC heroes were relegated to Earth Two and the new ones set on Earth One? That way you *kept* all that had gone before for later use (in the occasional crossover) while still having the freedom to reinvent everything. No Cosmic Massacre needed. As far as I can tell, the only reason the Multiverse was destroyed was because Wolfman hated it… it didn’t actually confuse anybody, neither the fans nor the writers.

Am I the only one a little perturbed by the fact that there seems to be a huge, honkin’ geometrical heart on Supergirl’s crotch?

@Sijo:

That’s kind of what I’m thinking is their “back door” for this: the multiple earths all exist, and DCNu is just going to be a different one. However, for the time being, they won’t “look in” on any others. But if sales are in the toilet, or fan outcry wants the old stuff back, we’ll see it come back.

I’m one who loves multiple earths and all that hoo hah, so that’s why I hope this is just going to be some new earth (or one we just haven’t seen before), and the rest of the DCU/52 earths still exist.

Plus, Morrison’s Multiversity will be AWESOME, and there’s no need to eliminate that project.

Ooh, just saw on bleeding cool about Jim Lee and Geoff Johns at a superhero movie thing in LA, and they talked about the relaunch. Apparently the Justice League’s first arc will be their origin and take place in the past, while the second arc will be set in the present.

So things make a little more sense.

There apparently was a video of Morrison discussing his take on Superman, and it will probably hit the internets before long. Sounds cool. Maybe his first arc will be taking place in the past as well….

Ooh, just saw on bleeding cool about Jim Lee and Geoff Johns at a superhero movie thing in LA, and they talked about the relaunch. Apparently the Justice League’s first arc will be their origin and take place in the past, while the second arc will be set in the present.

Damn, I am annoyed that they announced that before I could do a post where I made that guess (with the caveat that even if that WASN’T what would happen, that that is what SHOULD happen). Do a first issue origin to set up the status quo and go into the status quo with issue #2 (of course, end #1 on a cliffhanger to make you want to read #2). Basically, the approach of Byrne’s Superman is Man of Steel did not exist (Man of Steel would be #1 and #1 would be #2).

Brian, I don’t quite follow your last bit about Byrne’s Man of Steel. Can you elaborate?

And in this day and age, one issue to tell the new origin, and issue 2 the status quo? That would be nice, but from what I read, no, that’s not it. It’s the first ARC, so 4-6 issues before the new status quo.

A done in one origin would make sense with the whole “introduce new readers to the world” and all. But that’s not how we do things in comics anymore.

Just because the greatest origin ever, Spidey’s, was originally told in 11 pages!

Michael Green and Mike Johnston must be shit even though i haven’t read Superman/Batman or their run on it.

Am i cool yet?

Where’s my hipster cred?

Bleeding cool also has Felicia Henderson listed as the Static Shock writer as it would be hard for Rich to admit he was wrong.

So that Perez stuff is probably 99% bullshit.

And in this day and age, one issue to tell the new origin, and issue 2 the status quo? That would be nice, but from what I read, no, that’s not it. It’s the first ARC, so 4-6 issues before the new status quo.

That seems like a mistake.
I would have thought that an emphasis on the digital side – as well as trying to avoid mistakes of the past – would have put emphasis back on the single issue, rather than arcs.
If they want to push harder for people to buy the serialization rather than the collection, then surely shorter, compressed, stories need to come back to the fore.

That seems like a mistake.
I would have thought that an emphasis on the digital side – as well as trying to avoid mistakes of the past – would have put emphasis back on the single issue, rather than arcs.
If they want to push harder for people to buy the serialization rather than the collection, then surely shorter, compressed, stories need to come back to the fore.

I agree. But if you have 4-6 issue story arcs, you only need 2 or 3 story ideas each year – would today’s writers be able to come up with a dozen different story ideas per title each year? I am not sure all of them could.