Thats why we went away from doing crossovers for quite a while, because we wanted to let every book get its grounding. then flamed out. Thats comics a lot of the time, honestly, but here, it was like comics on Red Bull. But [if you cancel and replace them], you find out that you were getting even more diminishing returns. We were starting over! The New 52: A Battle Of Superhero Suits. The experience of Fialkov and Diggle echoed one of the stranger examples of creator struggles going public. It took an editor coming in from Vertigo into the superhero editorial offices to make that a long-awaited reality. Thats the process. Three years might not sound like a long period of success, but quite honestly, you got to remember where we started. Rather than following her traditional arc where she was offered to Black Adam as a slave whom he freed and wed, it looks as though Adrianna will be one of the explorers to find and free Adam . Its easier to pull somebody back than to push them forward, when youre standing behind. . If youre gonna do it and undo it five minutes later, then why do it in the first place? Its pulling you underground. Superman NEW Suit Breakdown! Greg called me up and hes like, What are you doing? It featured a pair of closed curtains, upon which was projected one word: REBIRTH. A month later, on February 18, DC revealed exactly what Rebirth would be: another relaunch of its entire superhero line, effectively bringing the New 52 to an end. They would skip the next one, because they lost faith in your ability to deliver on their expectations. Therefore, you just got a jumbled sense of past continuity, new continuity and a mix with half hearted reintroductions that really didnt work for the story, and didnt really satisfy the long term fans. The New 52 promised a modern update of the DC universe, with the goal of pulling in a larger, younger, and more diverse readership, but straight, white men overwhelmingly made up the writers and artists behind the reboot. Tom Wellings Clark Kent donned a black costume with a dark trench coat in the ninth season of Smallville. I was sharing a studio with Becky at the time and she asked me to join her on the project that would later become Gotham Academy. The New 52 is what I would hope the market would be, with all these diverse comics: Here are my romance books, here are my war books, all that stuff out there. But the other side of the coin is, you want to have a Superman that plays alongside the Justice League book. I just think the angle of the entire relaunch was askew. There was a small war/adventure line there, which is so weird to think about from a mainstream publisher these days in comics. I started writing for DC in 2012. It takes dream interpretation onto a whole new level. We loved Grants new ideas and takes on Superman, because theres something really original and fresh going on there. 13 months after the launch of the New 52, Marvel embarked on its first branded line-wide relaunch Marvel NOW! Superman & Lois will balance the story of an unusual nuclear family with supervillain action setpieces - and feature a brand new Superman suit design. If an outline or story wasnt working, creators were asked to rewrite. But I was overall disappointed in the choices that were made [in the first three years of the line]. $125. Again, ideas of what would be the one or two or three things that will change coming out of Flashpoint. So youd do something and then youd hear from a different group that one of the characters you mentioned [being] in the past wasnt in the past anymore, because they had a new origin. Action Comics #9 New 52 (DC, 2012) 2nd App Calvin Ellis Rags Morales Variant VF+. Either way, its pretty exciting. For everyone who participated in this oral history, there were three key players who declined because the memories werent something they wanted to revisit. The impact of the churn went beyond simply finding new concepts for new comic book series. Im out. It wasnt emotional or anything. Well be the editors; you got to go, and you got to push the ideas and see. Can we improve on that? So this twisting of reality could be the very thing that the shadowy, perhapsWatchmen-themed villain of the DCU was intending to prevent. I would say this wasnt much different, except that it was across the board for everybody, and ideas were getting kicked back a lot harder and faster because editorial really wanted this to feel like a true reboot. Our only struggles came in the way we saw the use of our supporting cast and the overarching plot. You had multiple war books and a Western in there! It wouldve been easy to simply yank our books from the schedule at that time if they turned out to be stinkers, so the risk of trying out a new style of Batgirl story or a fresh IP involving an original set of characters in a Gotham City boarding school was minimal. There was a level of inconsistency in the storytelling as I explained, we did a lot of planning up-front to get to the New 52 launch. Its funny: Comics, which gave birth to these characters, are allowed to reinvent themselves when they change mediums, like a TV show or a motion picture. Man, there are some strong series in that line of New 52 books. $50. I worked with editor Rachel Gluckstern, and I thoroughly enjoyed working with her. Outside of comics, meanwhile, Hollywoods coinciding superhero boom came along just in time for the New 52s updated origin stories to inform Warner Bros. Justice League, Wonder Woman, Suicide Squad, and Shazam! So we fed that two times over. DC Rebirth Finally Erasing The New 52 Changes? Oops. Diane Nelson has showed a lot of faith in us. First things first: We had a change in management. It was just difficult without more set rules. I probably looked at hundreds of versions with underwear. One other other possibility lies in DC's New 52 revamp - in 2011, the comic . We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. The downside of success is a level of, I dont want to use the word arrogance, because thats wrong. How we got to 52 was an interesting thing, because originally it was 40. Warner Bros. Television and The CW have released the first official look at Tyler Hoechlin's new costume for Superman & Lois, the forthcoming family superhero drama that centers on Clark Kent . A future version of Superman wore a modified black costume when he appeared in Batman Beyond. Youve heard of birthday suits, but we prefer to think of Supermans black outfit as a rebirthday suit, since its tied to the Man of Steels resurrection. $59.95 + $25.05 shipping . Conner Kent's Comic History Explained. The New 52 is a 2011 DC Comics event marking the relaunch of its entire line with the publication of 52 new comic series, all beginning at #1. In December 2012, Gail Simone announced that she had been fired as the writer of the Batgirl title. That was a lot of the motivation behind Vertigo the DC universe was very successful, so it allowed Vertigo to be much more experimental and take more chances, because financially the company was meeting their numbers with the success of the superheroes. To maintain interest in the line as a whole, on every anniversary of the New 52s launch, the entire line would feature a month of stunt programming replacing the regular series with flashback material or a collection of villain-themed one-shots. But the relaunch soon ran into trouble. Publisher Jim Lee, art director Mark Chiarello, and artist Cully Hamner redesigned nearly every character in the DC universe, leading to mainstream coverage of Wonder Woman wearing pants (they were changed to shorts before the comics saw print). You just have to figure it out. And the simple fact that the three were longtime friends and allies by the time Clark and Lois had their son, Jonathan, it places their time together at well over a decade - largely breaking the premise of the New 52 in one detail. Unfortunately for . And then when you start to fade, then you have to scramble to find ways to compensate for that. I made my fair share of mistakes and learned a lot along the way, leading to what I feel is much stronger work during the Rebirth era and beyond. We were trying to have our cake and eat it too, as the old expression goes. Readers learned that the suit was designed to help the weakened Superman absorb more solar energy. You get so focused on the churn of the bottom, youre not focused on maintaining the success at the top. Not to diminish the great work that was done on the titles themselves!! On a personal level, it was a lot of pressure on me because I honestly truly believed the line had to be relaunched at some point. We've explained Superman's new Rebirth origin already, but this week's Action Comics #978 shows how pivotal the Man of Steel is in the fabric of the DC Universe. I didnt even realize who was in a room, or who I was talking to. Vicariato Apostlico del Darin. A lot of editors working very hard to get great stories out there. Behind the scenes, many creators were dealing with confusing and contradictory instructions given to them by editors and executives, or worrying about their job stability as the company tried to regain the momentum the New 52 had in its initial weeks. Henry Cavill'sblack-suited superhero has been commemorated on an exclusive tee in the DC Shop. 6 and Superman / Wonder Woman Vol. (Dont judge him, it was the 1990s and he was going through a phase.). I mean, its interesting, because ultimately, the office was constructed to support somewhere between 60 to 80 books on a monthly basis. I used to be forceful in some conversations, because I was so focused on what needed to be said and done with the characters story. So, sometimes editors have a very clear vision and could convey that to you, other times less so. Did you wish that Superman and Lois Lane could have raised Jonathan with help from their old friends Bruce and Diana? OK. Superman's black suit, also known as the Recovery Suit and sometimes the Regeneration or Solar Suit, was first introduced during the comics' Reign of the Supermen storyline, which followed The Death of Superman. Their enthusiasm was infectious. One writer, who asked not to be named in this article, described their experience with editorial on one title as a complete nightmare, adding that their direct editor was the worst editor Ive ever worked with; he literally rearranged the page order after the art had been finished, not to tell the same story in a different way, but to complete a completely different story, which I then had to write dialogue for and follow up with something that made even slight sense in an already-prepared second issue! Only 25 of the companys ongoing series would continue past that point, with 24 new series launched to accompany them as part of a new program titled DCYOU. Sadly, the encore didnt last long, and Superman soon switched to an electric blue outfit (we can only imagine what Bruce had to say about that one). This is not necessarily a list of DC's weirdest tales, but the ones that try their hardest to defy rationalization. DC Comics The New 52 LEX LUTHOR Armored Suit Deluxe Action Figure . Sometimes it can be frustrating. In New 52, Batman begins wearing a costume as early as his adult years after . The outside world recognized [the] New 52 as a great jumping on point for them, and latched on to our interpretations for [the] New 52 to make it their interpretations in other media. While the Man of Steel is best known for his iconic red and blue uniform, Zack Snyders Justice League will feature Superman in a new, much different looking black costume. We used to see that all the time: If you did an event, and it was successful, the next event would have to be even more successful. When youre creating 52 series simultaneously, you have to give everybody a certain amount of latitude to be able to tell their stories, without the stories impacting each other, because ultimately, it slows the process down, and it also impedes the creativity of it. The gender diversity was much commented upon in particular at launch, only two women were employed on DCs 52 new books, writer Gail Simone and artist Amy Reeder driving DC to respond to the controversy months before the line debuted. But the sense of bravado now I got it, now I can prove anything. So realistically, were working with the [in-house] staff that we have. Not just my teams, but so many of our friends who work in comics and illustration so many people whod been trying to make books like this for DC and Marvel for years! Yet, it has a G.I. If it didnt work, then we sort of just discounted it and put it on the side and moved forward. Superman's suit in The New 52 was made of armor from the ship, while the cape was made of a blanket. Thats the dead zone, where once you fall into that mud, youre trying to dig yourself out, but youre just sinking quicker and quicker. If an event was a failure, and had no effect on the line, nobody would buy the next one. It made it tough to create a cohesive storyline, though, with sudden interruptions like that. Stealth suit,The suite is equipped to operate along the full electromagnetic spectrum.It senses what . Still, the Recovery Suit has never really been forgotten. Thats when the DC Ink and DC Zoom books wound up being created, where we knew, This is the right direction, we know theres a market for this, but the periodical might not be the best way to deliver it. Its one thing to make poor creative choices, but the dysfunction involved in making the comics is something that remains a difficult topic for many to fully address. 2) #13, the "Electric Blue" suit is shown inside a display case at the Fortress of Solitude. It was also seen in adaptations of the Death of Superman story, like 2007s Superman: Doomsday and 2019s Reign of the Supermen. The story concludes with . 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