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This is something that came in my mind today. This is somewhat depressing to think as I am a huge superman fan. Just think about it, last 5 big events at DC and superman was ignored as though he is blue beetle(sorry ted kord fans). In final crisis he appeared in LO3W and SB but in main story arc he was totally absent. He returned just in time only to provide a deus ex machina plot device. Honestly how many of regular comic readers knew about miracle machine? In sinestro corps war they sidelined him but it was expected as it was a gl event. But then biggest comic event since infinite crisis came blackest night. Freakin scarecrow had more role in this event than your supposed icon in it. The blue ring choosing barry allen instead of "greatest protector of life" was wanking at its worst. In brightest day everyone from green arrow to batman to freaking booster gold was a part of event but they sent clark to a road trip and removed him from his own book for two years. Now they are splitting lois and clark and hooking him with diana. Mark my word DC will pay for it. If barry and iris remained married which is absolutley crap and just a rip off of lois and clark relationship except all that 31 century mumbo jumbo, geoff johns would never know what hit him. Now when green lantern has all but bombed at box office, geoff should know that gl+flash=superman formula will never work. So do us all a favour and stop gl and flash wanking. They are great heroes but replacing superman NAH. Remember "sucess is temperory but class is permanent."

If D.C. wants the superman franchise to survive they are going to have to make superman share the spotlight with other characters. Marvel has mastered this and has been very successful at this. the D>C. franchise is to dependant on one character, and as loved as superman is, if superman comics are struggleing then the entire franchise will struggle. With the exception of batman of coarse D.C. has nothing really to offer other then supes. In marvel you have thor,captain america,the fantastic four, silversurfer,the x-men, wolverine, spiderman and the list goes on. Theses heros all share the spotlight in comics. Thanos,magneto,galactus,tyrant there are tons of villans in marvel that share the spotlight but do not HORDE it.

I guess people get tired of seeing the same guy do the same thing,over,over,over,over and over again. Superman is the single most popular hero on the planet. However to put all your eggs in one basket is a bad idea. As far as your quote goes " sucess is temperory but class is permenent" this is true but nothing last forever. Superman dont need a new outfit. HE needs new abilities and needs to perform less Outrageously over powered feats and he needs more reliable writeing. In combination with share the spot light a bit more with captain marvel and other characters i think the franchise will be revitalized.

It's not DC, it's Geoff Johns. His pet characters needed the spotlight...

edit: Superman has been sharing the spotlight just fine in the past. Look at GL. All through Sinestro Corps and the like, GL was doing really well, but so was Superman.

Recently, it's just bad.

Well, the last couple of events have been GL and Flash driven, so yeah, it makes sense for those characters to be the main draws instead of Superman. I, for one, am glad that during Blackest Night/Brightest Day, Superman didn't play that much of a role. I mean, outside of him being Superman, what role should he have played? Trying to make him the primary character in an event focused around the various colors and entities would have probably hurt it more.

The fact of the matter is Superman's ongoing titles have been pretty bad, ironically since Geoff Johns left Action. I don't think it's DC trying to sabotage Superman; it's the fanbase at large that really don't seem interested in the character. If sales are an indicator, than it would have made perfect sense for Johns and DC to continue to push GL - likely its biggest property for the past couple of years alongside Batman - in favor of Superman, who's not really doing all that much. Johns has his pet characters, sure, and the guy is virtually single handedly retconning the DCU and has for years, but the lack of Superman's relevance isn't his fault.

Originally posted by -Pr-
It's not DC, it's Geoff Johns. His pet characters needed the spotlight...

edit: Superman has been sharing the spotlight just fine in the past. Look at GL. All through Sinestro Corps and the like, GL was doing really well, but so was Superman.

Recently, it's just bad.

i agree, but lets put it this way get rid of supes and what does D.C. do? My point is that D.C. is way to dependant on one charater.

Originally posted by JakeTheBank
Well, the last couple of events have been GL and Flash driven, so yeah, it makes sense for those characters to be the main draws instead of Superman. I, for one, am glad that during Blackest Night/Brightest Day, Superman didn't play that much of a role. I mean, outside of him being Superman, what role should he have played? Trying to make him the primary character in an event focused around the various colors and entities would have probably hurt it more.

He could have been the Blue Lantern deputy though instead of Barry Allen...

Originally posted by zeel
i agree, but lets put it this way get rid of supes and what does D.C. do? My point is that D.C. is way to dependant on one charater.

Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, the JSA etc.

They have plenty to choose from imo.

Originally posted by JakeTheBank
Well, the last couple of events have been GL and Flash driven, so yeah, it makes sense for those characters to be the main draws instead of Superman. I, for one, am glad that during Blackest Night/Brightest Day, Superman didn't play that much of a role. I mean, outside of him being Superman, what role should he have played? Trying to make him the primary character in an event focused around the various colors and entities would have probably hurt it more.

The fact of the matter is Superman's ongoing titles have been pretty bad, ironically since Geoff Johns left Action. I don't think it's DC trying to sabotage Superman; it's the fanbase at large that really don't seem interested in the character. If sales are an indicator, than it would have made perfect sense for Johns and DC to continue to push GL - likely its biggest property for the past couple of years alongside Batman - in favor of Superman, who's not really doing all that much. Johns has his pet characters, sure, and the guy is virtually single handedly retconning the DCU and has for years, but the lack of Superman's relevance isn't his fault.

Superman could have been handled better without being a main character in Blackest Night. They treated him horribly imo.

Superman is actually kind of a hard hero to write, you need to make him much more than just another hero without him stealing the spotlight in every comic he appears. There is a subtle balance which is hard to achieve, specially when you're not writing Supes book.

I actually liked Superman's Blackest Night mini; it was one of the few that didn't seem...blah. As far as the event itself goes, most of the deputy lanterns were B and C listers, and I think having Superman as the Blue Lantern Deputy over Barry, while Superman certainly personifies hope, would have probably had the title shift focus from Hal and the GLs to being more about Superman in the end.

In the end, I ultimately agree that the quality of Superman's ongoings have suffered, especially as World of New Krypton peaked and quickly downward spiraled from there.

Wasn't there a rumour that DC could lose superman to the Siegel/Schuster family? Couldn't this be the reason?

It's not that I complain about GL it's flash. If you consider PC superman a silly character than you have to agree that flash is fastly approaching that track. Let's see a guy who can make a speeding superman look like statue, has no limit on his speed, his aura is now considered superman's bio-electric field, can even breath in space, steal all your speed, time travel at a whim, faster than anybody untill writer says so, has most ridiculous enemies "Turtle and the top" any one, can't be defeated by less than a skyfather if written right, his enemy can change entire universe by manipulating speed force. This is almost as ridiculous as PC lex controlling time with orange juice. I say retire superman and give flash his role in dcu. Just because he is cool and all that stuff doesn't change the fact that flash (barry allen mind you wally is one of my favorite) is as one dimensional as they can get.

They need to give us a new Superman cartoon. Batman has had lots of cartoons, but Superman has been ignored.

The character is evolving quite fine...trouble with this character is that it will always kick in hyper drive evolution....only thing DC can do is to keep him under chain...it already tap into god levels during the pre-crisis...

As for the question, nope, Superman will always be the love child of that frickin b itch of a Stepmother known as DC Comics.