Here's the thing that has bugged me about DC Comics the last few years. They absolutely love their legacy characters. Iconic characters that have lasted for 50 to 60 years, hell. In some cases even longer. They love using them as the symbol of all things heroic... but then they like to take something that is already perfect and fuck it up.
Take for example last week when Scott Lobdell ruined DC Comics
n Superman issue 13, the Man of Steel's alter ego, mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent, quits the Metropolis newspaper that has been his employer since the DC Comics superhero's earliest days in 1940.
However, his still-strong feelings for Lois, combined with Daily Planet editor in chief Perry White getting on his case for not enough scoops on the Superman beat and his boss' boss Morgan Edge also giving him a hard time, leads to a Jerry Maguire-type moment where he quits in front of the whole staff and rails on how journalism has given way to entertainment — in a not-so-mild-mannered fashion. (The Daily Planet has also been moving more toward the real world, too, with the newspaper becoming part of the multimedia corporation Galaxy Broadcasting.)
Entertainment reporter Cat Grant also quits the Planet with him, and Lobdell says she'll be bringing "a whole other set of skills" to their next venture. It probably won't be at another media outlet in Metropolis, though.
"I don't think he's going to be filling put an application anywhere," the writer says. "He is more likely to start the next Huffington Post or the next Drudge Report than he is to go find someone else to get assignments or draw a paycheck from."
Clark's new employment status is part of Lobdell as well as DC wanting to explore Superman through a modern-day lens. The writer says Rocafort's vision of Clark and Superman is one where "both have a lot of gravity but are also very light and young and sexy." Plus, they talked about modern journalism jobs that may be more relevant than an old-school beat reporter for a newspaper.
"When we started discussions," Lobdell says, "they were like, 'Yep, let's see where this goes. Let's take the sacred super-cows and start looking at Superman with a new set of eyes.' "
I know a couple of people who used to love to defend the bad choices DC seemed to be making all the time by retconning or needlessly changing things around - all for the sake of shaking things up for a couple of months and hoping that it increases sales in the change, as well as increases sales when they have to eventually change it back.
In this situation, the common detonator is Scott Lobdell. This seriously cannot be editorial pushing their changes through with Lobdell as their champion. He's clearly actively changing really stupid things and nothing anyone can tell me will change my mind on that.
Perhaps this story, given the success of shows like Newsroom, could be an interesting and relevant turn of events.... perhaps if written by someone far more talented than than Scott Lobdell. But all this is going to do is be a flashing ad on the nightly news to fill up space that SUPERMAN QUITS HIS JOB! Which rightly so is answered with a "who gives a fuck, he'll be back at the Daily Planet soon enough and shit will maintain the same status quo"
It really makes you wonder what wont they do to make superman relevant again. They ended the marriage to Lois. They made him get together with Wonder Woman and now he's quitting the Daily Planet? Why the fuck do you even call him Superman any more? Just go ahead and flush it all down the shitter and start all over.
Apparently the key to revitalizing Superman is obviously by not having him be Superman anymore. So let's just go the full tilt with it and make him someone new entirely.
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