Not a fan of the extra yellow bolts on Flash's costume. His costume was so sleek just being (mainly) red.

Rumor over at Bleeding Cool says Superman's secret identity may burst wide open after Convergence. Puts a new light on this cover now.

I miss the Van Dyke Green Arrow, but putting him more in line with the Arrowverse look-and-feel is probably a very smart move.

But this will always be my favorite Oliver Queen look:

But here's the thing with that argument: they probably just didn't make quality issues with the "classic" version. I remember for the longest time Batman was pretty lackluster. Then they got some good creative teams and they were good again.

Not that changes can't be good, but I think they work better when they're more natural progressions of the story line when decided upon by the writer and editor.

Probably because they just weren't that good.

Morrison on Action: First off, rebooting Superman and having his new costume be just a regular t-shirt and jeans, with a cape tied around his neck was a dumb decision. If people thought Superman's old look was too dull this isn't going to help. The Morales art wasn't that great either. I think the best moment was the Krypto back up and that wasn't even written by Morrison.
Morrison had a much better Superman run with All-Star Superman but I feel that the line suffered due to not only being a bi-monthly schedule, but on top of that, the artists still couldn't meet the deadlines!

Johns Superman run: I bought a few issue of it. The art was nice and detailed, but the overall issues didn't stand out that much. I think they did a secret origin mini-series as well, and it's like, damn, we've already had like 3 or 4 retcons of the origin, we don't need another one. Everyone knows Superman's origin.

It's just not an issue of having quality talent, it's about the talent putting out some really noteworthy stuff. I think the only Superman comics that really impressed me was All-Star Superman...
...
and Supreme by Alan Moore. The rest of his stories just aren't that exciting or fun to read.

At one point they let the writers do almost anything they wanted. Didio himself said who cares about missed deadlines, the fans will buy it regardless. I think when sales got low enough though, they were looking at everything, and they thought maybe late books and giving writers free-reign wasn't a good idea anymore.

The best modern Superman stories:

Mr. Majestic-The Big Chill
Supreme-Story of the Year
All-Star Superman
Red Son
Secret Identity

I would have loved if they had created all-new characters for the Nu52 and just kept the codenames, like Julius Schwarz & co did back during the 50's.

As it its, I find the current DC line-up a big ol' pile of "meh". I'm not picking up any of their titles these days, and I've been a DC guy since the early 70's.

@Preterite

That would have pissed off way too many people. The root of the problem is that all these characters are too old and they have no ending. The comics go on forever.

Alan Moore's Promethea which lasted for a few years is probably better than the vast majority of Wonder Woman comics.

And that Wonder Woman costume is awful looking. It looks like a rejected 90s design.

The reason Johns had to put out yet another Superman origin story is because they retconned it again; when he brought back the adult Legion, well, that meant there was a Superboy that interacted with the Legion of Superheroes. And I'm sure for Smallville reasons they brought back the Luthor-knew-Clark-in-Smallville thing.

The best Superman stories are somehow the standalone stories: All Star Superman, Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, For the Man Who Has Everything, For All Seasons, and you could argue that Kingdom Come was a Superman story and that Morrison's run on Action was a stand alone. Death was an event and is remembered fondly, but I don't know if people really consider it as a great story.

There is one radical solution...move Superman to his own universe, away from the DC universe. We all know it wouldn't be permanent but the reason why DC has broken the character is because they care more about promoting lesser properties at his expense. How did Batman gain credibility in the 1980s? By having Batman beat Superman in The Dark Knight Returns. How did they make Wonder Woman a true powerhouse? Once again by making her Superman's equal in strength and now they claim she's a better fighter.

There are your reasons why the character isn't as popular in the modern era. It's no coincidence that two of the most popular characters from the modern era are virtually unbeatable fighters - Batgod and Wolverine.

I'm way behind in reading the 'new 52', like I've read maybe 50 issues total across all titles, but it's sounding more and more crappy the more I hear you guys talk about it.

But whatever, there is enough DC Silver and Bronze Age stuff to keep me happy forever. Stuff that is either new to me or that I'll forget enough about it that it will again be new again.

That scene actually happened in Kevin Smith's Green Arrow run as a flashback to the Final Night crossover.

I don't see why they have to turn it into a 6 issue mini series. Re-tell the "definitive" origin in a back-up or at least in a single issue. The constant retcons and all-new, definitive origin specials further dilute the idea of the character.

If you're going to put talent like Geoff Johns and Gary Frank on a superhero comic, at least tell a new story with the character. For someone like me who wants to like Superman comics it's not a good sell.

The Death of Superman? I remember buying the issues only because I thought they were going to be valuable at the time. I eventually got the TPB free with a Fossil watch. It wasn't very good. The big bad guy is just some lumbering thing in a great suit. "Grrr", "Urrrr," "Mrrrrh-trra-plsssss..." that's the dialogue of the villain who killed Superman.

The JLA went against Doomsday and I remember thinking "THIS is the JLA?" It consisted of superheroes I had never heard of. The action scenes went on for issues and yet none of them were even a fraction as exciting as what we saw in Miracleman #15. I don't mean the gore either. It was just more imaginative. Miracleman had to adjust his speed to catch a child thrown by Bates because if he just catches the child thrown at that velocity it would be like a brick wall catching the child.
Even the descriptions were great. "Incinerator eyes..." "The battle, far too big to be contained by simple facts, has spawned so many different legends, each with its own adherents; as valid, if not more so, as the truth."


I don't think Batman gained credibility in the 80s by beating up Superman. He got more popular for a variety of reasons. With or without DKR #4, the Frank Miller series was wildly popular. An amazing, mature themed, well marketed limited series, plus the Year One follow up, plus the "death of Robin," plus the hugely successful 1989 film is what made Batman even more popular. It also helped that Batman has always had better creative runs than Superman.

Batman being Bat-god was only played up when Morrison began writing JLA and he wanted to give credibility to Batman, a non-powered human, being on a team full of superpowered heroes. But that was the mid 90s.

I do feel like they play up Wonder Woman at Superman's expense at times to big her up in some way yet it hasn't worked for her sales-wise.

Same thing with Wolverine. He wasn't indestructible in the 80s like he is now. Before it was a given that he could be killed. Now he can regenerate from ashes.
He's popular like Batman, because he's a darker character and he's also had some great creative runs. Claremont and Miller on the first Wolverine mini-series, BWS doing Wolverine's almost-origin, etc.

Superman isn't as popular because he's always been viewed as dull compared to everyone else. The 52 reboot didn't really help. They updated his costume but it looked like everyone elses! Why would Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, and Superman all have similar armor-like looking costumes? Batman makes sense, but Green Lantern already has an energy aura around him. And Superman shouldn't look like he is wearing armor because the visual implication is that he needs it.

The new 52 was also marketed wrong in my opinion because every title on the newsstand (Barnes and Noble) looked too uniform in presentation. All the redesigns looked like they were created by one person still stuck in the 90s.

All the New 52 designs look the same because one person did create them...Jim Lee. I agree the Justice League designs were a little too uniform in appearance. Did they all go to the same tailor?

I always felt the New 52 re-designs were about making the comics more closely resemble videogame characters. It was an attempt to tap into that youth market.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. I think Jim Lee has done some great designs. Gambit in particular had a good overall design for that era.

That's definitely a possibility because look how Harley Quinn's New52 design followed the Arkham video game design.

I do like the fact that their superhero titles got more colorful with the reboot. For awhile the coloring on a lot of titles was muddy and they got some old geezer-type looking covers for Batman. I love Alex Ross's work but I feel like his painted covers for Morrison's Batman RIP made the contents seem too pedestrian.

But even the non-superhero titles had the same overlook and design as the rest, All-Star Western Stories for example.

Hal Jordan's turn:

^ Almost looks like Hal is wearing the Infinity Gauntlet in that pic. What's up with that?

His new look will save people a fortune cosplaying.

The last issue before Convergence, Hal dumped his ring, turned against the Guardians, beat up Kilowog and stole Krona's Power Gauntlet (green super weapon). He'll be more !!EXTREME!! when the title returns in June.

So will the new Superman look. Just wear some jeans and a t-shirt with a Superman logo, and you're cosplaying the new Superman.

Although to be fair, I guess that look isn't really anything new considering it was what Conner Kent wore for many years before the New 52.


So he is going Parallax again?

I haven't kept up with Green Lantern lately, but didn't

I guess I should have been clear that was who I was talking about, since I see quite a few people doing it already. Green Lantern's will at least take a facemask.

I hadn't thought of the cosplay connection but that sounds like a good explanation for some of these costumes.

Yeah, that does sound an awful lot like a rehash of Parallax, complete with Kilowog beating. I still have yet to read Godhand or whatever that GL storyline was. What, no "gem" for each of the rainbow colors?

I know you guys are joking about the cosplay thing. Right?

I could see those Superman and GL costumes being relatively easy to cosplay, or even hoping people wear it out in the streets. It's the state of corporate marketing in 2015, sadly. Walmart recently carried a line of DC branded shirts and hoods not that dissimilar to them.

Yeah, but cosplayers are a niche of a niche. I can't imagine DC or WB corporate making decisions affecting multi-million dollar properties based on trying to appeal to the cosplay fanbase. Trying to create synergy with a line of branded apparel being sold at Target or Wal-Mart? Sure, I get that. But cosplayers? Really?

I liked his work during X-men but after that it got real boring. I like Barry Windsor-Smith's criticism of his work "an artist in training" or something like that. I don't understand his popularity at all.

Edit: Found the article...basically he's saying how shitty today's artists are. It's hard to disagree with him.

http://www.tcj.com/the-barry-windsor-smith-interview/

While the cosplay community is small, there is a wider group of people that may wear Superman's shirt. DC hopes it works as viral advertising. Go to a gym and you'll see many young men wearing the famous insignia that have never read a comic in their life.