Superman is one of my favorite superheroes, second only to Captain America. Which is why it pains me so much that I haven't enjoyed his comic since the new 52 started. Just to clarify, Action Comics can be good, but Superman's main series is horrible, its like the creative team over at DC sat around and thought, "How can we destroy Superman?"
First I would like to say the costume isn't the problem, Superman has changed his costume before (anyone remember the electric suits? No, its for the best then). The problem is that they decided to crap all over everything that made Superman, Superman. First his marriage to Lois was removed, not only that, but now there is no relationship between them at all. Jimmy is now his roommate, which actually could work, but all his relationships with regular people are that they are just there. Every time I do read an issue of Superman, he seems to pull at least one new power out of nowhere, for example this month was a prelude to an event, so I picked it up, Superman can now use his super hearing to figure out the shape, size, and speed of an approaching danger. He then combined his heat vision and super breath to gently transport people three miles away. The sad part is all of this would work in an alternate universe, like Marvel's Ultimate series, but this is DC's main universe.
Next they took away his job, but more than that the turned the Dailey Planet into a farce. Clark's only job there is to cover Superman, if he tries to do any other story, he gets in trouble, if Superman is gone for a week, while he is on vacation, he gets in trouble. And now he is an internet news blogger, so basically what I'm doing right now. Lois is the head of the television department, and even has the balls to ignore Perry and text during a meeting, things Perry would never stand for.
The writing style of this series is atrocious, its like it was written out of time, everything is narrated, which nobody has done in decades, so why reboot the series to make it more modern only to write it in a style of the 1950s.
The biggest problem however is that every other Superman publication is good. Smallville comes out once a week, and is the most traditional Superman series available, which is ironic considering the whole time it was on television fans complained. The Earth One series is even better, but you only get one volume every few years, and in fact in that series he even has the red underwear. Even other New 52 titles know how to get Superman right, he is the toughest hero around, and not even Batman has lasted more than a few seconds. So why does the monthly Superman series suck so much? My theory is that the reason Lex has yet to make his debut is because he is secretly the head of the creative team.
So how can he be redeemed? The answer is simple, first reboot, something DC does every few years when they realize they need a clean slate. Then get a team that knows Superman, or is known for working on stories that would work with Superman. Next reverse all the changes made to his character, Martha made the suit, there is chemistry between he and Lois, and Jimmy is his friend. Hell if DC doesn't want to reboot they could simply dive into the more personal side of Superman, and his relationships with those around him. An interesting way they can do this is bring up the fact that Clark and Lex grew up together, and are friends, this could even be an interesting story arc in itself. Though DC may have already considered some of this, because Scott Snyder and Jim Lee are now doing their own Superman title, combining DC's greatest writer and artist in one title, he's even getting better suit.
Though a lot of what is wrong with Superman today I feel can be blamed on the movies, I know they are the comic nerd Holy Grail, but think about it, only two of them are any good, and even those two are considered cheesy by today's standards. Plus they are responsible for giving Superman some of his strangest powers, like time travel, or making copies of himself, or whatever the hell that "S" thing was in Superman II. Then Superman Returns was released as a sequel to a film franchise the target audience never saw, and was boring. But again I feel DC is fixing that and now Zack Snyder is making the reboot, and really he is one of the only directors that can make the large amount of CGI needed for Superman look good, and with Nolan's help this should become my new Dark Knight.
While we're on the subject of Superman I want to bring attention to Volume 2 of Superman Earth One, my favorite Superman book of all time. Volume two is to be released next week, so Halloween, and if the last one was any indication, it is set to be one of the better Superman titles available, just look at the cover art.
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