It is 2004. I am cautiously optimistic about the bold new direction for the Superman titles after a long period of floundering.
It is 2006. I am cautiously optimistic about the bold new direction for the Superman titles after a long period of floundering.
It is 2011. I am cautiously optimistic about the bold new direction for the Superman titles after a long period of floundering.
It is 2014. I am cautiously optimistic about the bold new direction for the Superman titles after a long period of floundering.
It is 2016. I am cautiously optimistic about the bold new direction for the Superman titles after a long period of floundering.
It is 2018. I am cautiously optimistic about the bold new direction for the Superman titles after a long period of floundering.
It is 2021. I am cautiously optimistic about the bold new direction for the Superman titles after a long period of floundering.
It is 2023. I am cautiously optimistic about the bold new direction for the Superman titles after a long period of floundering.
On paper (which is how comics are printed), this is kind of exactly what I want. Action is now a Superman Family anthology book, and while a Power Girl spotlight and Danny J. rehashing the post-Convergence Lois & Clark status quo aren't exactly what I would have pegged for the initial backups, I'm happy that the former is getting a spotlight and that we're getting to spend more time with bearded Clark and young Jon. And I'm even happier that the Steels and Kong Kenan are in the main group. With Kon, Jon, and the adopted Phaelosians, it's probably hoping too much that we'll eventually see the return of Lor-Zod, but I can be optimistic. Phillip Kennedy Johnson has earned my trust for this run, and I hope he sticks it out for awhile.
I was a lot more worried about Superman. I thought Williamson's Flash series went off the rails pretty quickly, and the entire Dark Crisis saga was bad even on a purely technical level, let alone as a satisfying story or crossover event. My experience with Williamson of late has felt like he's been reheating Geoff Johns' and Scott Snyder's leftovers, and that has not made for entertaining comics. So I was blown away by Superman #1, which managed to strike precisely the right balance of getting back to basics while introducing enough new story hooks and conflict points to make things feel fresh. The way Superman's secret got put back in the bottle was dumb (and also the second time Manchester Black has been used to do precisely that thing, two_nickels.gif) but they gloss past it nicely here to get to a situation where Lex Luthor is the sinister voice in the back of Superman's head, voicing all of his anxieties and doubts. Lois chafing under the restrictions of being the Planet's temporary Chief makes for some good character beats, and repurposing LexCorp into SuperCorp (which feels like a knowing nod to CW fans) puts Superman in a fascinating position. There's a lot of promise here, and it reminds me a lot of the Busiek/Johns "Up, Up, and Away" story from the post-Infinite Crisis era, which kicked off a pretty decent run of comics, all things considered. I hope Jamal Campbell is in it for the long haul; I'm not particularly familiar with his work prior to this, but this book looks fantastic.
Adventures of Superman: Jon Kent...remains probably the weakest link in the bunch. Giving Jon a secret identity is a good idea, and something that should have been done back at the start of Son of Kal-El (or, more accurately, should have been done for more than a few pages). Giving him the electric blue suit and powers is an even better idea (even if they keep dragging it out for no clear reason), I've been on the "give someone else in the Superman family that costume" bandwagon longer than anyone. And the series sets up some good drama in Jon's changing powers, his ability to be a civilian for the first time, and how that affects his relationship with Jay, who is publicly recognized as Superman's boyfriend.
Except that it's ditching all of that to send Jon on a multiversal trip to battle Ultraman because they finally remembered what his backstory was, and have decided that Ultraman is just Gog now. And it's all leading up to a crossover with the Tryhard Injustice universe, and I cannot roll my eyes hard enough. It's honestly nice to see Val-Zod, a character I missed out on but who has a nice design, but Jon's current problem has a lot to do with the fact that he has no clear anchor and few connections to the regular universe, and removing him from it yet again isn't going to fix that problem. Doing it so that Tom Taylor can take a little victory lap around Superman characters he's written just feels like a major disservice to a character who's already being effectively demoted and sidelined. It's a good looking book, and I welcome the chance to see my second-favorite Superman costume on somebody again, but I kind of hope this is Tom Taylor's swan song on the Son of Steel so that someone else can give the kid a real chance at being a star.
Where does that leave us in the long run? It's hard to say. I was just musing recently about what an amazing accomplishment it was that the post-Crisis brain trust managed to churn out a weekly comic of pretty consistently high quality for the better part of a decade, and how unique that is in the history of comics as a medium. We're unlikely to ever see anything like that again, but that doesn't mean we can't have a few years of the Superman comics being Good, Actually. You could say I'm cautiously optimistic, but [calculates average] I guess we'll check back in 2.375 years and see whether or not we're onto another bold new direction.
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