Newsarama

A new interview with Dan Jurgens on Newsarama indicates that there might still be a future for Lois and Clark beyond the eight issue mini-series, as he hints that they will form part of DC's major Rebirth event later this year.

So what do you reckon their role will be? Will Rebirth restore pre-flashpoint Earth and send them back home? Will Lois finally confront New 52 Lois? Will we see more of the Supermen working together in possibly a team-up book, with pre-FP Clark recruited into that Super League we've been teased about in the April solits? Perhaps he gives New 52 Supes the inspiration to form the league?

I hope they take over their new 52 counterparts place but become younger and lose the kid.

@dernman: Why? With age comes experience and if they lose that and their son then all that has happened is you have made a brand new Pre Flashpoint Lois and Clark get together, ignoring the pair and all they have already here.

Because we've had loads of stories of him being the older fatherly Superman. It's time to role that back and grow again. He doesn't need to be some newbie but not so close to passing the torch in his career. He's on like the third or fourth generation of you go legacies standards. I have no interest in their so or really there series considering everything from their universe has been taken from them. Rarely I approve of characters getting to the point of having kids. FF it worked for because they're meant to be a family and a big older. Superman should be a prime viable age. Not too you and not older.

I get where you're coming from (the experiences with Conner and then Chris Kent during the Donner and New Krypton phases) but in my opinion, that helped prepare Clark for this role he has now. You can't "grow" a character by keeping him static.

But that's the thing he has grown. He's been that way for a long while. It's time to role it back and start the process over again. That's what you do with comic characters that you want to keep around forever. There is only so far you can go without saying either role back or move over for the next generation. They don't have ending or really move on so you slowly age and grow them over time then do a role back and begin anew so it doesn't seem stale. Right not the older Superman version is the stale one. They tried to fix the with the new 52 but gave us a crappy darker edgy Superman who I don't even consider Superman.

I really don't see how. He's married, has a kid, these are fresh developments which serve to advance his story. New 52 Superman may not be to your liking, but he can still prove salvageable, especially if pre-flashpoint Clark mentors him. There is no need to roll back to "simpler times" when these times can prove challenging and more complicated. A new generation deserves complexity. Not the same old/same old.

OGha been married forever he's even already done the kid thing. It's nothing new. N52 is beyond salvageable. It's build on OOC mediocre building blocks. It would take years and retcons to fix it. New generation is fine getting complexity but lets not pretend the OC are ever or should ever step aside. You might disagree on the should step aside but the fact they wont happen.

Years from now after we're long gon Sups Bats and Wonders are sill going to be here. That's how this particular genre of mediaworks and to be honest is a draw for many.

@zarius: you are totally right

I would much rather have Old Man Superman than starting all over again but "nicer".

@zarius: Definitely. I don't need some character's development retconned to give me the same old same old cycle. I would rather prefer some stories and twists to come out of it. Keep the new and old ones as themselves. I also do not think DC is going to do Deus Ex machina since they have a never ending story to write as well. It's another big team up event in the works, let's see how it goes.

Bleeding Cool have an article up where some retailers currently finding diffuculty selling DC and Marvel books have said Lois and Clark are amongst their most well-regarded titles.

@zarius: I think he goes home, but encourages him to form the super league with Supergirl, Superboy, and others.

Expected.

The kid is the only reason they are actually relevant. It brings new story potential.

Other than that, they are the same characters...

This. It will also provide new stories. Instead of the ten cliches, Origin,enter archnemesis, death etc.

This is great news. :D

What a silly thing to say. The real Superman will always be relevant. He doesn't need the kid.

I guess I don't see how he is more "real", that's all.

Lois & Clark is my favorite Superman book right now so I'm happy with this as long as they don't ruin anything with the characters.

Also, Old Man Superman sounds like a really blatant copy of Old Man Logan. I'd rather something like 100-200 years in the future with an older New 52 Clark. Kind of like Superman Beyond.

CHaracter. He has more things that make up what Superman is. N52 always ended up short. Especially recently.

I guess we forget the mediocrity of the 90s Superman, or early 00s, or late 00s. Pre-52 Superman wasn't a joy ride either. And his problems were the same ones New 52 Superman has now. The stories being bad isn't because of new 52, before the reboot Superman sucked too.

Essentially they are the same character. As long as the stories are good you will see they have no difference.

Love these characters and I seriously hope this survives past Rebirth. I mean how awesome isn't old Supes costume, mom/wifu Lois and the possibility of two active supermen in the JL or world in general! I wouldn't know because haven't read superman #50 yet but entertaining the thought and the possibilities makes me anxious to see how these Superman writers ruin it, like everything else they touch. Has any one on-going thus far consistently disappointed quite like "Superman"? They have the coolest concepts to build arcs around and still produce shit for us to read. (reading all of this I just wrote in one swoop makes for one quick turn haha) Still, it might only have been 4 issues but this is some of the most pleasant I've read out of a Superman title since the start of Action Comics. Keep it alive DC!

@squalleon: Yeah, he's still kind of different in his backstory details, such as how his adoptive parents aren't with him when they were with him at this age in the prior continuity, which probably changes his outlook on some things. I personally don't mind if DCYou Superman becomes more like Pre 52 in some ways, just give it time, it seems like some people want him to have so many easy wish fulfillments, but that's not the point of Superman, where despite his great powers, he doesn't get all his wishes fulfilled in a flash.

They actually are not. They've gone against the grain of the character more times than not. It's not good enough just to have a good story. You need a good Superman story. Something we don't get with the 52. If I'm a Superman fan wanting to read about Superman and I have a choice between a mediocre SUperman story and a crappy story about a character that shares the same name can you guess which one I'm going to choose? At least with the first one I'm actuallly reading about the character and with just a bit pf better work from the writers I can have a good Superman story. On the other hand even if they somehow fix the garbage of the second it's still not a Superman story. Therefore it automatically fails to be a good Superman story.

New 52 Superman has the best mainstream Superman run...

Yes as a whole he has more bad stories than good but that's also true about pre-52 Superman. Pre-52 Superman literally has only 5 years of good stories in his 25 years existence. I am not a hater, I like pre-52 Superman and you know it but I also know that the essential difference is minimum. Both are Superman, and both can be bad when they are written bad.

And New 52 Superman goes to what Pre-52 SUperman went in his beginnings under Byrne. The "relatable, grounded phase".

Give him 20 years, like Pre-52 Supes and I promise you he will grow on you.

@dernman: Except... If you want to look at "real" as meaning "original", neither of the current Supermen are the real Superman. The Superman who was fighting the Nazis in World War 2 and went through the Silver and Golden ages of comics had bits of gray hair and wrinkles by the the 1980s and more or less died during either Infinite Crisis or Crisis on Infinite Earths. Then he turned out much later not to be dead and I think came back and died again or something. I don't know, I'm not a comics historian. But he isn't technically either of these guys. The guy in Lois and Clark is the 2nd Superman and the New52 is the 3rd Sueperman- at least, I may be missing a timeline change in there somewhere. ;) I think this slips people's minds a lot when they try to argue that the Lois and Clark Superman is more legit than the New52 Superman purely because he existed first. The "I was first" argument really fails both of them in the end.

And you can just as easily say in the fictional world of DC Comics, the real Superman is the one who was born in the universe that nows exists, and raised on Jonathan and Martha's farm in that universe. The other Supermen's universes no longer exist, they are alternates, in a sense, if you want to look at it that way. This world's Superman is new52 Clark Kent.

I like both Supermen that currently exist. I do have some, I guess, commentary on how I'd like both to maybe change and evolve from the way they are portrayed now and what their relationships are to others, but, they're both good characters- and to me they are both Superman, more or less.

Also, people forget that the real original Superman was a bit of a jerk in the 30s and 40s. It was later that he became the paragon of virtue that we remember him as. Certainly, by the time he existed in what was then called Earth 2 (Not to be confused with the more recent new52/convergence Earth 2- totally different), side by side with the Superman who then was mainstream and now is in Lois and Clark, just in two different universes, he was what we remember. I wouldn't mind seeing a book about him either, to be honest. :)

I think there's room for lots of visions. I mean, how many comics does DC publish each month? And when you consider digital distribution and the potential of doing some series that avoid the costs involving in actually *publishing*... It might be viable.

*More directly to the topic of the thread*:

I like Lois and Clark, but I think by taking him out of his element too much, they are missing the potential appeal that he has. The people who most wanted a series featuring "their" Superman are also the people most attached to the Daily Planet and all those characters and the Clark Kent and Lois Lane personas in that context. Setting them up on the west coast with a kid undercover does keep those two people alive with the same memories and continuity of character, which is cool, but I'm not sure it caters to the audience that one would think they'd be trying to cater to, if that remains the status quo.

To me, the most exciting moment in that series so far was when they visited Metropolis, starting comparing it to "their" Metropolis, and almost ran into Jimmy Olson.

I think that's where they should put him. Maybe this universe's Clark could say he's his uncle and get him a job at the Daily Planet, if this universe's Clark isn't going back. Maybe, if the Earth 1 Lois dies, he could could do what they originally were going to have the original Earth 2 Superman do, and reveal that his aging was faked (He's Kryptonian, after all, maybe under a yellow sun, he wouldn't age beyond looking like he's in his 20s or 30s for centuries- or would live a normal human lifespan, and just visibly age extra rapidly at the very end?), and be a younger Clark Kent who slides into this earth's Clark Kent role, and then that makes his relationship with new Lois really interesting- especially if he's a single father raising her alternate's kid and she doesn't realize it immediately and then discovers it. :)

Then you can have Lois discover the truth, and it gets interesting. And will he marry her again?

It also might be interesting to have this universe's Jim Olson, who this universe's Clark had treated more as an equal, been roommates with, called Jim, etc., deal with a Clark that starts treating him as if he's just a kid named Jimmy that he's sort of look after (More like the old Clark's interactions with the other Jimmy)- and wonder what the hell happened to Clark and eventually call him on it. Maybe the old Clark apologizes and actually does treat him as more of an equal the second time around, not realizing that he hadn't done it before, but realizing it once this world's slightly more assertive Jim stands up for himself.

Meanwhile, this world's Clark Kent could be the darker guy they want him to be. Less powerful, darker, maybe he gets the black costume. :) And he could be the guy without the secret identity who goes on missions around the world and the universe and let's the "old" Superman handle Metropolis, most of the time. Maybe he's the head of the Justice League and based there and Batman says "You know, you've really grown in this well. At first I thought you were a good person, but kind of a naive boyscot. You've really smartened up.", to which Clark replies "You mean grown more cynical and jaded?", Batman: "Interpret it however you want.".

I don't remember which comic it was, but I read one somewhere from a long time ago where the actual original Superman from "Earth 2" (the first Earth 2) visited Earth 1 Metropolis and Gotham and remarked on how much dirtier and gritter it was. And now the Earth 1 Superman is saying similar things about new52. It actually does a lot to tie them in as the same character- and you begin to wonder- does Clark Kent grow into more a curmudgeon as he gets older (Any Clark Kent) or are the universes getting progressively darker? What will the 4th DC Comics universe look like?

Also, on a side note, the current Metropolis has Times Square? It's pretty clear from the artwork, but has Metropolis always had that? Seems kind of odd, especially with Justice League of America definitely establishing (as if there was any doubt), that there is a separate New York that is neither Metropolis or Gotham in the DC Comics universe.

Oh, and if they did go back and make an alt-universe Superman comic about essentially (or literally) the first or second Superman- it'd be neat to see that City of Tomorrow more futuristic Metropolis again that bearded Clark observes is less furturistic in the current universe.

By the way, the beard is cool. I say keep it. Actually, you know, the whole thing where everyone makes fun of people not recognizing that Clark is Superman even though he doesn't hide his face? Where the only differences are a hair style, glasses or lackthereof, and an attitude or walk? What if Clark Kent had a beard, but Superman didn't? They could establish that like he shaves it off in superspeed when he switches into his suit- and he can grow a new one almost instantly when he's done because, you know, he's an alien. Among his superpowers under a yellow sun- can grow a beard faster than a speeding bullet. ;)

A clean-shaven Superman with glasses and a different hair style and baring than a bearded glasses wearing less sure of himself Clark Kent with less slicked back hair- I could kind of buy people not recognizing that they're the same guy more.

"The real Spiderman will always be relevant. He doesn't need the kid. He doesn't need the marriage. Etc."
Such people like you brought One More Day. This is disgusting.

@supercrab: sorry I know you put effort into it bu I really don't want to read a wall of text. I certainly don't want to create my own if it's something that asks for one.Too lazy.

Not at all. I didn't call for one more day because I didn't have a problem with him having a marriage and kid at the time because it hadn't gotten stale yet. Though I didn't have a problem with one more day either because he was far along enough for a role back. The only problem with one more day was that the story sucked and no, as much as I loved the marriage and the kid he doesn't need them. What's disgusting is people pretending that certain characters are only for their generation and what them to age past the point of prime instead of themselves moving on if they have a problem with it. Not pretending that characters like these in this medium actually grow up, grow old, die and comics move past them.

Please tell me you're joking.Heck most of the time barley even a Superman at least Byrne got him even with the major changes. Heck I defend him on many things. I spent alot of time trying to defend new 52 in the beginning but even I had to stop at a point.

Are you literally asking us to sit through 20 years of mediocraty just so we can get a classic New 52?

No. No honey no.

heh I was going to say something about that. It just slipped my mind.

Is that you Joe Quesada? (joking, you're alright)

I'm not too fussed with the state of Spider-Man these days because the marriage is still kicking about in the newspaper comics anyway. He's likely never going to have a kid there either, but at least I can read that knowing he and MJ won't get screwed over by editorial and are allowed to have a healthy relationship.

I disagree on Peter "not needing" MJ. He even said he needed her in JMS' run, and it's evident he's not the same character without her.

You misunderstood me. I never said he didn't need MJ. MJ is an essential part of his life. Friends, dating, or married in particular what's not needed. He could be in any stage of their relationship with her and it wouldn't matter. It all works.

For the record again I didn't want One More Day to happen. I felt it had years more to go before needing a roleback.

I don't see DC dropping Jon.. might see a Damian/ Jon comics in the near future.. Knowing how they push Damian now.

Νο, Ι am just asking you to stop overreacting on a character who is literally the same. You are cherry-picking the best of Pre-52 Superman and you are vilifying New 52 Superman. See below.

No Byrne is the reason Superman suffered for almost 20 years. He had Superman kill in cold blood and then unprofessionally left the title and others had to clean up after him. He wrote Superman like a Marvel character, intentionally leaving aside the mythic, heroic and alien part of Superman. He is the beginning of the "relatable Superman" mania.

And all that for 5 years in four titles! How many Byrne stories do you remember? 2, 3? How many of them stand out as great? 1 at best and that is polarizing also. Almost if not more than 50 issues and you remember 10 at best.

And then we have the 90s. Superman hit all new lows that they had to KILL him to make him remotely relevant. And like the New 52. He went from reboot to reboot to status quo change until something sticks.

That took 10 years! Superman had 5 years after that of prosperity and then he returned to mediocrity until the New 52.

Now I am not saying one is better than the other. But that both are the same character under different stories. You blame the character while you should blame the writers.

Even if Pre-52 Superman was the Superman you read, the stories would still be shit.

So describe those 5 years of prosperity?

It's writers and editors that suck,not characters,any character can be made "cool".

@squalleon: I had agreed with you before on the subject matter.

The diffrence is that Pre-New 52 has more good stories than New 52 by default. So heck yeah I'm preferring him. Even with the dreadful stories n' all (Barda porno, Walk through america, etc) New 52 hasn't been given an actual legit edge that would make me prefer him to Pre-Crisis.

@squalleon: Yeah, you're right, Supes always has the good, the mediocre, and the bad stories. But then there's kind of a reason why I went for Elseworlds stories such as Red Son, or Shogun of Steel back before the New 52 happened. Some of the different takes on the character were interesting during that time, even when there was a majority of canon material that wasn't. Multiversity would probably be interesting, but I haven't checked out the newer ones, some of them might be somewhat good. But back to the subject, yes, there's plenty of mediocre and bad, and it's probably a similar proportion now as it was before, at least when it comes to Iron Age. Silver Age probably wouldn't have the same proportions since there was a lot of intentionally goofy Superman stuff back then.

@squalleon: I think we have different views on whats good for Superman. Though there was problems with Bryne I thought the after affect he had brought to Superman was great. I'm guessing you're more of an All-Star godly Superman silver age guy. Am i right?

Still, Its not a problem of character, its a problem of writer/management.

Even if you bring back Pre 52 Supes, you will still get the same bad stuff. That's what I say.

I guess you could say that. I tend to prefer stories that are inspired by Elliot S Maggin's run and novels and SA stories. Moore, Millar, Waid, Busiek and Morrison are all writers that know what the character is about and use him perfectly. Loeb and Kelly too. Their runs,when they weren't hindered by crossovers, were great.

Their stories tend to be the stories that are critically acclaimed and popular. You could say that is because they are good writers. I will agree. But they are good writers because they know what character they tackle, they know what works with him and what not. They write Superman, in all his facets. And they aren't ashamed of it.

Their stories are timeless for a reason.

I agree on that. I mean, it seems the real problem I have seen is that you have these issues of writers going in different directions for the main Superman character right now. Then there are the multi-writer crossovers, like what we've had for Truth. Making the old Superman replace the younger one by itself only turns him over to the same awful writing procedures we have with the current one. We'd be back to square one, with more crap to bitch about, but nothing really has changed. Hopefully, rebirth means that the separate Superman titles and Superman Crossover Titles each have their own story arcs, rather than Crossovers, and I have no faith in that. I want to see that they do this for the relaunch before trusting any Superman character over to the teams to get "less butchered".

It's like you guys don't want Superman to be relevant again, old supes as a main stay would be outdated and stale, Batman will always prove more relevant and hold Superman back if this course of action happens.

Same thing with Spider-man, people hate him not being married but guess what him being single got him a freaking company and more respect, if he stayed the same, Deadpool and the Avengers would be the main money makers and Spidey would have be in team up books for the rest of his existence due to the main books dying and selling less than the fomer.

And you have any real evidence this would be the case? No, You don't. JMS tackled the marriage well and was a consistent top seller and highly regarded. Last year's Renew Your Vows was a flawed but top-selling and highly praised series which proved if Marvel wanted the marriage and parenthood to work for Spidey, it would.

BND era sales up to and including the first few years of Slott's run were terrible. And Peter was single then. It took killing him off and replacing him with Ock to spike sales. Even now, the Parker Industries garbage only occasionally puts Spidey in the top ten.

Don't you get very tired of being so ludicrously wrong?

Peter didn't earn his company in the context of the story either. The whole point of the Parker Industries plotline is that you want Ock to take his revenge and see that Peter FAILS. As for "respect". Ha. Most of the plotlines so far have seen the opposite of that happening.

Would be nice.

Just give Superman to Waid, Johns, Morrison, Millar, Busiek or Kelly.

Or you give Pak more freedom and remove the crossovers so he can shine again.

Jurgens could also be a solid choice to steer Superman.

I'm just tired of bad Superman comics.

Finally i 've heard the same exact words that i wanted to hear.

I don't know why but suddenly with the new-52 (which still isn't a failure) most of the people have erased from their memory the years and years of bad stories that plagued also the pre-52 Clark. We just have to go on one of the many forums in which some random guy asks " i don't know Superman but i want to try some of his comics,what i have to buy?" and so we can see between the dozens suggestions that almost no one cites a story from the previuos continuity that since the start of the new-52 has been idealized thanks to the "nostalgia factor" along with the previous characters and in the Superman's case also his trunks.

This new Superman has had his good stories and a fair share of bad ones ,sure, but he still has a huge potential,he still needs time to grow if he wants (and will) compete with his older and idealized counterpart.

The only way I viewed Spider-Man was that he had challenges of not having someone to go home to besides Aunt May for a while, I personally didn't mind him single in the earlier titles. I didn't mind that Spider-Man ended up single, I just felt the execution was EXTREMELY STUPID as to how they did it. Having Aunt May die, since Peter and Aunt May were getting older anyways, would have been fine with me. Him sacrificing his relationship for something less when he could resist making a pact with Loki made his deal with Mephisto stupid. Plus, it was PIS for Mephisto considering that Mephisto likes to screw you as much as possible for the deal(s) you make with him, such as what he did to Johnny Blaze, or to the Silver Surfer's gf, etc. FWIW, the pre-reboot ending was better than OMD/BND in the fact that they restarted continuity. I like Superman single, because without the acceptance of a wife and/or dead parents (he had those in the GA and SA as an adult, IIRC) he develops differently as a character.

I wouldn't mind superman create a super.league,then pre Flashpoint Supes taking over.they can have him weaker than superman,and he can be shown to need to work harder now,and show it when dealing with good and bad guys.