GwenStacyFanBoy

12th June 2012

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Scott Lobdell is writing Superman. Rao have mercy.

(This is totally my opinion! Feel free to disagree!)

If you had ever met me, you would know in just just a few minutes that there is one passion of mine that I truly love. That would be Comics and more specifically, Superman comics.

Back in September DC comics decided as a marketing ploy (or as a legal roundabout) to essentially reboot DC comics.

Now rebooting is an idea that is not entirely new to the medium, but DC, knowing that this would alienate many readers, decided to scale back on that word and instead go for a “re-launch”. What’s the difference you ask? Well a re-launch doesn’t end with b-o-o-t, it ends with l-a-u-n-c-h. And that’s where the differences end. 

DC was smart enough to try and market this re-launch to both new and old readers, promising that they weren’t going to alienate those who had been reading beforehand.

Well they have alienated most of their readers, and by the look of their Nielsen ratings, they have not garnered that many new readers, or new readers of any other demographic outside of men in their early 30’s.

Well the time has come for this long-term DC fan to put his foot down. I’ve put up with ten months of this re-launch and I can faithfully say that I am reading far less DC titles than I ever have in all my time as a reader. I have dropped Teen Titans, Superboy, Green Arrow, Green Lantern titles, and Detective Comics. I am near dropping Batman, the Flash, and now Superman.

Superman is a title that has had its fair share of horrible stories and lulls. When they announced the re-launch of all DC books, it seemed like Superman was an afterthought. They gave the book to George Perez, a talented and great artist who has a rich history with DC for art on titles such as Teen Titans and Crisis On Infinite Earths, just to name a few. Perez is not known as much of a writer. So what does DC do? They give Perez reigns over writing duties on Superman. And how does this end up? Not very well in the least.

After Perez’ short stint on Superman the title has been given to Keith Giffen (one of my favorite writers) and Dan Jurgens (the man behind the gold, that is Booster Gold, and one of those who are responsible for the great Superman stories at the beginning of the 90’s). Clearly their run is not hitting all the levels at DC, nor is it making it strides with the readers, which is a shame because given the chance I’d love to see what those two guys could do with a long run.

No, instead we are now expected to read Scott “ Red Hood and the Outlaws” Lobdell writing his version of Superman.

I don’t think I can possibly stick around for this. I am trying my hardest to see what is so appealing of Lobdell. His writing is tacky, stiff and all around just plain bad. He flip flops on his characters and likes to give little or no mortal coil to them. They all lack any form of character arch as well as reliability. Sure he has the echoes of what might seem like relatable characters but its just a very hallow shell (oh so they do eat pancakes! I can relate!). I’m not saying Lobdell is the worst of the worst, but he is a form of 90’s comic book writers that were just there for the sake of filling the page with some pointless words as the artists would fill the page with boobs, guns and pouches. They go hand in hand. No style, no narrative and just plain shock value. I can’t say I look forward to any of these three elements being present in Superman.

I’m sure at some point in his long career Lobdell is bound to write something I might enjoy or that he might have one good story in him, but I find that hard to believe, coming from the man that turned Starfire into a sex object and erased all of Superboy’s history.

What do you think of this news?

I feel like I’m stuck reading 90’s Marvel in my DC.

Original Article

Tagged: scott lobdellcomicssupermandcnew 52dc comics