State Of The Line: Superman Flies High But The Family Is At A Low

It’s a brand new year. Tons of opportunities and possibilities for comics to come in 2024. American politics do their State of the Union addresses at various levels each year, and Tony Thornley and Scott Redmond are doing the same for comics! 

We’ll be looking at a handful of comic book lines from Marvel and DC Comics. Pull off those glasses and take a mighty leap for truth and justice as we turn our gaze to the Superman family.

Currently, the line consists of Action Comics, Superman, Power Girl, Superman: Lost, Superman ‘78: The Metal Curtain, and the dual line balancing Batman/Superman: World’s Finest. Books that concluded in 2023 include Adventures Of Superman: Jon Kent, Superboy: The Man Of Tomorrow, and Steelworks as well as a single Supergirl one-shot.

Scott Redmond: Compared to our views of the Batman and X-Men lines, this is definitely more of a breezy walk in the park. It’s wild how skewed things are when it comes to DC Comics’ so-called Trinity, with Batman taking up almost all of the pie and leaving Superman a decent chunk but poor Wonder Woman gets a sliver. 

Beyond the publishing inequities that plague the universe, there definitely was a more concentrated effort to grow the Super-family of characters again in 2023. Both on the page and in the offerings. As the resident reviewer of much of this line Tony, how did you feel about where it’s been and where it’s going overall?

Tony Thornley: This is very much a mixed bag. I think story-wise much of the line worked really well. I think editorially, the line suffered in a few ways that were frustrating. Which we’ll get into shortly.

Man Of Action & Steel:

 Scott: Much like his caped crusader BFF, Superman has a couple of core books including one of DC Comics’ longest-running books. Another similarity is how different a space both books happen to be in, though the differences are far more natural than anything in those Gotham books. Action Comics saw the conclusion of the multi-year run of Phillip K. Johnson as the writer and a rotating art team led by Rafa Sandoval and Max Raynor, including a change to a far more family-inclusive book. On the other side, Superman got a fresh new launch with Joshua Williamson, the man behind a ton of DC’s big projects as of late, and Jamal Campbell. 

Tony: I think Johnson’s Action stumbled just a little bit but overall finished nearly as strong as it started. The Superman family stories were fantastic, and the tapestry that he wove of a new Metropolis mixing alien refugee and the DC Universe, it just worked.

The big villain of the final arc though, that worked much less so. An alternate reality daughter of Batman and Talia from a one-shot many readers had forgotten about or skipped… It was a weird choice that fell flat. Maybe Johnson planned on a little more story and it got cut short by editorial edict? Maybe other story beats got higher priority? I don’t know, but it didn’t work. I loved what this story did overall, and I’m nervous a few parts of it — the Superman family in particular — are going to end up forgotten and cast aside. It reminded me of the Rebirth era of Detective Comics in the best ways and I wish it got more time to breathe.

Williamson and Campbell started with a story that was pretty but not a lot of substance. I think it’s grown quite a bit since then. It’s still young, but I see the potential in stuff like the Luthor Revenge Squad, SuperCorp, and the Superman/Luthor partnership more than I did early in the run.

I’m not incredibly hopeful about the new era of Action Comics though. The opening issue from Jason Aaron was probably the worst issue of Superman I’ve read since the New 52 era. It was an interesting idea that just fundamentally misunderstood pretty much everything about each character involved.

Meanwhile, I will read World’s Finest until the heat death of the universe as long as Mark Waid and Dan Mora remain the creative team. My favorite DC book every month. 

Scott: I need to catch up on Action Comics but generally I found myself liking a lot of what Johnson was bringing to the table. There is a wonder if things were meant to wrap up with so little fanfare or if sudden plan changes came about. Chiefly this Superman Superstars initiative that indeed brought us this Aaron story off the bat. 

I have no real desire to dive into the Aaron stuff because there just seems to be something missing with his writing these days. Stack this or some of his more recent big name stuff next to his Thor work or some other earlier things and anyone would be forgiven for not believing it’s the same writer. 

On the other hand, I’ve mostly liked the Superman series for the reasons you mentioned. It’s growing and has some potential. Williamson is a writer that sometimes is cooking, when he really finds his groove, and other times at least turns in fun stuff even if it’s not fully hitting all the marks. Not sure I’m big on him handling both books for his Brainiac event, since the man has his fingers in so much of the DC Comics pie these days. Personally, I’m never keen on the publishers picking one (usually a white guy) person to handle the vast majority of their big stuff and do anything they want to do book wise. 

Spread the wealth. Especially since as we’re discussing, here and more below, the Superman line feels practically empty compared to his Bat themed pal. Letting one guy, even if for just a few months, monopolize what little space there is just feels wrong. No matter how good the stuff turns out to be.

Also, remind me to catch up on World’s Finest, all the praise you’ve given it has me intrigued.

Tony: I’m not a big fan of revisiting those cultural milestone stories like Kingdom Come and Dark Knight Returns. The current arc though has Mora and Tamra Bonvillain emulating Alex Ross while still doing their style. It’s stunning.

I’ll say this about Williamson- he’s a character writer not a high concept writer. I think that’s why his Green Arrow clicked for me. Even with the crazy scifi high concepting the plot, it worked because it was character based. Williamson seems to have realized that with his Superman, and made the same shifts- he’s centering Lois and Clark, bringing Jimmy Olsen back to the front, he’s humanizing Luthor by adding his family, he’s developing Mercy Graves- and that’s all to the series’ benefit.

Scott: When writers realize what their strengths are, it makes things so much better. Williamson is 100% as you said, a better character writer. Not a thing wrong with that, despite what the internet will try to say sometimes. We come back to these comics for the characters, more so than the big bold action/concepts at times (not always though). Sure action is a tasty treat, but personally I’d take a well written character exploration over mindless action any day. 

To your point about Kingdom Come, I’m very much in the same space. Yet, I trust Waid more than others. The man knows how to play with the feeling or idea of nostalgia, without it being the bash you over the head situation that almost all other Big Two nostalgia ends up being. Imagine that, a way to touch back to something of the past without just redoing it or writing as if you’re in that time period still. Wild. 

A Super Family:

Scott: It’s interesting how much the family of Super characters in the modern era slips in and out of prominence. Sometimes we’ve had runs where they are all running around, many with their own books, and then other times they are cameos or show up far less. Currently, only (the newly named Paige) Power Girl has her own book. Though Jon Kent/Superman (Adventures Of Superman: Jon Kent) both Steels (Steelworks) and Conner Kent/Superboy (Superboy: The Man Of Tomorrow) had books throughout 2023. 

Right now it appears there won’t be any Super additions at least partially through 2024. There will be an all-hands-on-deck event through the two main super books, The House Of Brainiac, so there is that. 

Tony: This is something that bugs me. In my opinion, certain characters should perpetually have a series. The main members of the Superman family should be at the top of that list- Supergirl especially. There’s also no reason Steel, Superboy and Jon should be in limbo with only miniseries to their name for the last 12 months. Power Girl slipped completely under my radar, and that kind of annoys me because I usually love Williams’ work.

Just like what we were saying about Batman, there’s something odd behind the scenes here that I just don’t get.

Scott: Yeah, as they say, the math is not mathing right now. 

Supergirl had a hit (in the terms of CW) TV series for six years. She is poised to be one of the few characters right away getting big screen treatment in the new James Gunn-led DC movieverse. They just named an actress, Milly Alcock from House Of Dragons, to play the role for a film adapted straight from Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s limited series Supergirl: Woman Of Tomorrow. 

Yet, she’s only had some short-lived books and appearances in most of that time. 

Steel was a character who leapt above all the rest to be included right away in the Superman & Lois television series. One of the main cast. 

Yet, only a mini alongside lots of time in character limbo and sporadic appearances. 

With the boys, one moment Superman is a dotting father and father figure, the next he’s borderline “Batman forgetting Damian’s existence” level. It makes little sense for such a well-liked family of characters to be down so much. There is no way that these characters can be more popular in the wider culture than they are in the place they originated, and thrived for decades upon decades. Much of the audience devouring these books now were the ones reading the books in the impactful legacy-centric years of DC. Now they don’t want these characters?

I’m not buying it. 

Tony: Yeah exactly. So many of them carried books of their own for years, almost a decade in Conner’s case, and well over that for Supergirl when you add together the different incarnations of Kara/Linda/Matrix, etc. Jon has Super-Sons and his two Superman series under his belt. Even Kenan (love his integration into the family) carried his own series for what, 18 months? There’s something confusing about how they suddenly aren’t carrying series any more, much the same as what we were saying with Robin and Batgirls earlier this week.

In my opinion, DC has a deeper bench of characters that can carry a series on their own than Marvel does. Kara is probably their second most successful female character (behind Wonder Woman and edging out Harley because of her longevity). Yet she continually has these long gaps without a series. I do not get it.

Scott: Despite what I might say about New 52 or DC Rebirth (and I have many things to say), they both still realized the value of the wide bench of characters. Legacy characters might have had origins or lives switched, but a whole wide swath of them still appeared and even carried books. Your opinion is very spot on. As much as I love Marvel more than DC, the latter has spent decades hyping up their “B Tier” and even “C Tier” characters way better than the competition. Sure the Trinity is vastly unbalanced in comic representation, but it’s better than some of the comparable characters on the other side. 

Something smells behind the scenes right now, and I really want to know what it is. If these characters are popular enough to carry entire wings of non-comic adaptations, there is no way they can’t have a comic title. 

Hell, give us five less Batman side pieces and we could use that publishing space for some super stuff. Give it a try DC. 

The Super-Men:

Scott: Just like a lot of comics currently, Superman has dipped his toes back into more multiversal titles. So if one can’t find the flavor they like in the current canon comics, there are some others to try out. Among them is Robert Vendetti and Gavin Guidry’s Superman ‘78: The Metal Curtain which is a sequel to the Superman ‘78 comic of 2022 that follows the original 1978 movie continuity. Christopher Priest fans can see his take on the Man of Steel in the limited series Superman: Lost alongside artist Carlo Pagulayan.

Tony: I loved the first Superman ‘78 series, but I missed the debut of the sequel. I’ve decided to pick it up in trade though. Vendetti is a writer whose interpretation of Superman I really and truly love. He wrote the majority of the digital first Superman stories that ran through the earliest days of the pandemic, and the first ‘78 series was fantastic. He gets Superman on a level that not a lot of writers do, and the guy is an extremely underrated writer.

Meanwhile, I just did not like Superman: Lost at all. Priest’s take on Superman just misses the mark for me. I understand a certain segment of fans enjoy it, but it just doesn’t work for me.

Scott: Everything I’ve seen or heard about Superman: Lost has turned me off completely. I respect what Priest has done as a creator, but there is just something about the works he tackles these days that holds little interest to me. Could just be a style thing, or something else, I’m not sure. 

What I hear about the ‘78 stuff though does seem more my speed, as I did enjoy some of those Venditti digital stories you mentioned. Gosh that was a wild time with that deluge of digital first stories coming out across the lines, some of them flash in the pan but there were quite a bit of them that were straight fire. 

I almost included the Dark Knights Of Steel in this or the Batman one, but honestly not sure where it falls as I read the first issue only. Seems like more an overall DC Elseworlds than anything else. Wild that there is also so little alternate universe or such exploration of Superman. At least he has a bit more than Wonder Woman’s none. DC, please please start giving us more stuff to chew on that is not Bat-flavored. 

The Wrap-Up:

Scott: Okay, so we’ve done a pretty good dive into all that the Superline had to offer in the year past and the time we’ve had of 2024 so far. Time for us to bring it to a close with a bit of reflection. First, looking back, what are your overall feelings and thoughts about what the line had to offer? Secondly, is there anything, in particular, you are hoping for or are looking forward to so far Superman/Family wise in 2024?

Tony: I really truly hope the Superman Superstars initiative on Action Comics is successful in the end, and that we see a return to prominence for the line. Seeing Kara, John Henry, Nat, Conner, Kenan and Jon back in lead roles, if not solo series, would be great. We’ll see.