How long do you reckon before they get back on track?
Heroes Reborn sales initially did well but only lasted 12 issues each in the end...

The comics are set in the present day, but Batman will not be about 50. He will now be however old the new writers want him to be. They can simply ignore every old story if they want, or just pick and choose which bits to keep.

I give it a year at the outside. I think they'll get a big sales spike as speculative investors and the mildly curious pick up the first few issues, then by about the five month mark they'll start to slip again and in the meantime a lot of older readers will have given up. It can't succeed in the long term.

I agree, pretty much what happened at Marvel with Heroes Reborn... so Marvel tried to renegotiate contracts with creative teams and got their hands bitten... sheesh!
I don't think the contract thing will be an issue here but, wow, do these people never learn?!

Given that one of the major architects of this debacle is Heroes Reborn's own Jim Lee, apparently not.

d'oh! Of course, I'd missed that! Sheesh...

Comic Book Resources has all the new upcoming comics plus sample covers on one page.
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?p...ticle&id=32768

^ no sign of a Batman+Superman comic..... nuts !!!

No you'll have to make do with the Justice League for now. I see there's a lot of excitement about Justice League Dark where some classic supernatural characters come together to deal with the stuff that regular superheroes can't deal with.

This relaunch is very exciting but may be there's too many strips? Is DC spreading too thin?

Yeah, you were right. the JSA are being "rested". Shame, I would have loved to see an Earth-2 JSA again.

Still, how long before someone wants to do a Spectre or a Doctor Fate series.

won't be JLing - not a fan of all those multi-coloured superheros with their superpowers. Can take Superman when partnered with Batman cos of the ying/yang nature of their relationship, but comics such as (iirc) Batman+The Outsiders which had about 20 different heroes appearing in EVERY BLOOMING PAGE, that's just too darn much for me, trying to keep track of which person can do which special thing :arrrg:. If we could have stories with Batman in Gotham absent of anything superheroness (like back in the No Mans Land era) that would be cool for me, but all this fighting Aliens from other universes, no thanq very much.


Exciting, kinda yes, but methinx Gotham has just too many heroes milling about the place.

You might be getting your wish: http://robot6.comicbookresources.com...lane-marriage/

In your worthless opinion maybe, but I had grown tired of it, it made Lois look superficial (pining after superman and not the man) and stupid (she's meant to be amongst the smartest reporters in the feild). They changed it to smarten her character up and it WORKED, regardless of what you "think"

Excellent.


Well, according to DC, my opinion does matter, as they're clearly making drastic changes trying to win back readers they have lost, as well as new ones, while showing very little regard for the wishes of their existing readers.


Actually, Superman is the man.


Clearly the super marriage has failed in every incarnation it has been tried, whether it's been Lois & Clark or the comics. It's disappointing that it took DC this long to rectify it, but hopefully they can get things back on track now.

As for smartening Lois up, it may have seemed like a good idea on paper, but it was never a requirement to have a smart Lois, and certainly not at the expense of the romance between the two, which was completely lost as soon as the marriage was introduced. It's a well known fact in most forms of entertainment, and increasingly so in the real world, that marriage is the end of the line. There's really nowhere to go from there. Think about it. Some of the greatest romances in film and literature have been will-they-won't-they and impossible love. From Romeo and Juliet to Ross and Rachel, which was another relationship that died completely as soon as they got together. Can you think of a single great marriage? Of course not. Marriage doesn't work. Marriage is a goal, an end-game, while a monthly comic book or TV series is a journey.

For me - no Power Girl, no DC Comics.

'Failed'? It's been in place for fifteen years and pretty much everyone seemed perfectly happy with it! How has it 'failed'?
Marriage doesn't work? That has to be the most asinine comment I've ever heard! You're clearly not married...

Perhaps post-Flashpoint, all the non-Earth 1 heroes are back on their own parallel Earths again. And Earth-2 might have an older, married Clark and Lois like it did in the pre-Crisis continuity. Not much compensation if you've invested in the current marriage, of course.

What "everyone"? The 12 people who still buy the comics? DC have barely been able to give away Superman comics for free since the marriage, which was roughly the point where the nosedive started, just as it was for the Lois & Clark TV show. The marriage doesn't work. Period.


In the context of fiction? Hardly ever. In reality? Barely 50% of the time. And that's just the people who are prepared to admit failure, the real number is much higher, of course.


I think you just raised the bar for asinine comments yourself. Well played.

Do you have any evidence to back that up? I mean actual figures, not assumptions presented as facts.
You appear to have a very bitter, cynical and joyless world view. I pity you.

If you're not familiar with the sales figures of the Superman titles over the last decade or so, you're hardly qualified to declare the marriage a success. I can't be bothered to look up the numbers for you, and whether you believe it or not is completely irrelevant, but the Superman titles have barely cracked the top 50 on a consistent basis for over a decade. The marriage isn't the only problem, of course, it was just one of many mistakes that needed to be corrected.


Yes, that's cute. I'm just being realistic. Nothing bitter about that.

Using the Ross and Rachel example doesn't really strengthen your argument. Their relationship didn't die when they got together. it died when they kept getting together and splitting up ad infintum. Will they?/Won't they? became "I honestly don't give a flying fup what they do."

In terms of comic book characters, there's nothing about a marriage that really effects the story, by virtue of the fact that they aren't primarily love stories. Yeah, if you're writing a story about a relationship then yes, it does arguably end when said couple get together. But comic books should primarily be about adventures, goodies vs baddies, saving the world and all that malarkey. None of which are especially effected by the hero's marital status.

So if our hero is married, the only thing that we miss out on is the considerably staler dating/secret identity/I've just to rush to the toilet/lonely hero tropes that we've seen time and time and time and time and time again.

Of course it does. Everybody loved the will-they-won't-they dynamic, but as is almost always the case, very few people actually care once the characters get married/get together. This is true for almost every single fictional relationship that has used this dynamic.


That's not the point. It fundamentally changes the perception of the character. It's essentially the same reason PR people used to keep the wives and girlfriends of rock stars a secret. But in Superman's case, the marriage actually did affect the stories, and, as was the case on L&C, he was turned into a complete domesticated wimp.


Absolutely. I think there's more wiggle-room with characters like Batman, Daredevil, etc, but Superman has always been at his best when it's just been light, fun, exciting, etc, and there are few duller or unpleasant words in the English language than "marriage". It's right up there with "tax audit" and "unlubricated colonoscopy".


Sure, the love interest shouldn't be a part of every story, but when she does make the occasional appearance, it's a far more attractive proposition to be able to use a bit of romantic tension between them than "don't forget to buy milk, honey". And the marriage did become too much of an influence on the stories, as did the insistence on fleshing out Clark Kent as a character.


That's probably been the reasoning for the marriage enduring as long as it has. Well, that and the fact that it would be an even bigger disaster to simply have them split up, even though they've accidentally done that a few times as well. Nevertheless, this marriage was born out of utter and profound cluelessness, and it's about time they realized something had to be done about it. Although it sounds like they've got a fair amount of new mistakes lined up.

I found it annoying and stale. Try again.


It didnt fail. Stop making stuff up. If it had failed, it'd have cancelled the Superman books LONG ago. It didnt. Even Grant Morrison has admited they were great marraige-related stories told by various writers over the years.


Ha. I don't expect this relaunch to bring in any new reader, the time for that is long past for comics. It took them this long because the marraige was a SUCCESS and they didnt feel like shaking it up. Now they are because they want their heroes to be accesible and fresh, nothing wrong with that, but don't blame the marraige for this reboot


Wrong as usual.

Aside from Lois and Clark, there's Homer and Marge Simpson, and Peter and Mary Jane Parker. And before you bring up the OMD garbage, it's still alive and kicking in the newspaper strip and led to a great twelve year run as the backbone of the Spider-Girl mythology.

Your turn pal. Oh, but of course, you have no argument to begin with, so I don't expect a counter-argument to make much sense.


Marraige is also a journey, but then you've obviously never been married so you come off as very uneducated on the matter...and if you are married...good god do I feel sorry for your wife.

You come off as a very mysonginistic and bitter man. You're also not a true fan of Superman.

Did they? After several decades of it, I don't think most people cared...
I think this says a lot more about you than it does the stories, to be honest. Sad. Very sad.
So you preferred him as a one dimensional stereotype and because of that, you assume everyone else did, too?


I think your initial assumption is correct.
Not any Superman that's existed since about 1970, anyway.

But your personal opinion doesn't matter, it was clearly wildly popular.


Lois & Clark was canceled soon after the marriage, several Superman comics have been canceled in the period in question, including Adventures of Superman, Superman - Man of Tomorrow, and as I already mentioned, the sales figures were generally dismal for what was meant to be DC's flagship hero, which was why they've tried to reboot him at least 2 or 3 times in recent years. You really don't have a very firm grasp on the facts here, do you?


No, it will bring in lots of new readers. Wanna bet?


Now you're just making stuff up. There's simply no objective way the marriage can be considered a success. And now it's gone... or "canceled", even. See what I did there?


Huh? Where did I say that?


They were married from the very first episode. It was an established dynamic that never changed. We're talking about characters and relationships that were based on a will-they-won't-they dynamic and then changed. Please pay attention.


Whose ill-conceived marriage was also dropped a few years ago. It never happened in the Ultimate line, the single most popular Spider-Man title in recent years, and it didn't happen in the wildly successful movies.


Yep, and in about 50% of the cases (more in many places), it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And that's just for the people who can admit it's over, rather than choosing to stay in a dead marriage.


Completely irrelevant, and complete nonsense. You're being much too emotional about this. Look up the divorce statistics. They're there for everyone to see. Educate yourself.


Misogynistic??? Are you sure you know what that word means? I mean, you can't even spell it right. I'm opposing a religion based institution that originally defined women as a man's property, and ordered them to be subservient to their husbands, and I'm misogynistic? Good one. In fact, it seems I'm more on their side than you are, since statistics show that around 65% of divorces are initiated by women. Another fact to counter your entirely fantasy and emotion based argument.


Hilarious. You're championing a hijacked version of Superman that distorts everything about him that had been in place for 50+ years, and you claim I'm not a Superman fan? Sorry, not your call to make. But nice try.



That was about Ross and Rachel. As for the no-so-Super marriage, that didn't even last 2 decades. Creatively, it was probably dead in its first year.


I've said no such thing. Please don't just make stuff up. I'm not being emotional about it, I'm just going with the facts. It's clear to see which elements of the character worked, and which one didn't.


Try mid-90s. But even then, in addition so several excellent and popular one-shots, we had the superb Superman Animated series, which took a back-to-basics approach without the marriage. It's generally considered one of the best incarnations of the character. In fact, pick the most popular Superman stories of all time, and the vast majority of them will feature the non-married Superman.