SUPERMAN Details Revealed; Prepare For Disappointment

SUPERMAN Details Revealed; Prepare For Disappointment: "

(The cover to ACTION COMICS #1 by Rags Morales)

DC has revealed more details regarding their relaunch reboot new Superman titles coming in September.

I'm against change for the sake of change in comics, and the plans revealed leave me even more disappointed than initially expected. In some ways, I'm relieved that they are ending both Superman and Action Comics and starting anew, as this truly isn't Superman.

After the jump, read the entire press release as posted on the DCU Source blog. Pretty much everything within affects the iconic nature of the character. My concern stems from the following key phrases: "a bold new take on a classic hero" and "brasher and more brooding".

Superman is neither brash, nor brooding. Any attempts to make the character attractive to a younger demographic should come from a clearer vision, not of reinvention. Smallville, warts and all, lasted for ten seasons, and if nothing else, maintained the ideal of who the character is.

If this is the ideal for the current generation, are we acknowledging our own failure to hold heroes up to a higher ideal?

He has been called the Man of Steel, the Last Son of Krypton and a strange visitor from a distant planet.

He is Superman, the Man of Tomorrow. As part of DC COMICS – THE NEW 52, this September will usher in a new Superman for the new century.

In the pages of ACTION COMICS, writer Grant Morrison and artist Rags Morales will present humanity’s first encounters with Superman, before he became one of the World’s Greatest Super Heroes. Set a few years in the past, it’s a bold new take on a classic hero.

• This Superman is very much an alien, one struggling to adjust to his adopted home. In the series, he must come to terms with both the loss of his home world, as well as the loss of both of his adopted parents. He is more Kal-El from the planet Krypton than Clark Kent from Kansas. He’s a loner trying to find his place in the world.

• The series’ first storyline will explore the origins of Superman’s costume, as it evolves from a look that includes jeans and work boots to a new look: a suit of battle armor that pays tribute to his Kryptonian past.

• His great powers have limits. When the series begins, Superman can leap tall buildings, but his ability to fly is in its infancy.

And in the SUPERMAN ongoing comic book series, by writer George Perez and artist Jesus Merino, will be set in present day continuity and will unleash a series of new challenges for Superman and his alter ego Clark Kent.

• Clark Kent is single and living on his own. He has never been married.

• Lois Lane is dating a colleague at the DAILY PLANET (and his name isn’t Clark Kent) and she has a new position with the paper.

Timeless and modern, classic and contemporary, but younger, brasher and more brooding, this is Superman. The New Man of Tomorrow.


ACTION COMICS issue 1 goes on sale on September 7 and SUPERMAN issue 1 goes on sale September 28.

(The cover to SUPERMAN #1 by George Perez)

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