Clark Kent leaving the Daily Planet...

[kingdom warrior]

Who here Actually reads the Newspaper Anymore ?
Or Any Current Superman Title for that Matter ?.

I read the paper still it's nice to get up in the morning go get a cup of coffee and read the paper around other people and have real conversations with real folk.....

I use to read Superman until i decided enough is enough with over paying for garbage.....4 years and running I see i have not missed a thing....lol

[bleit1701]

I'm certainly not defending the silly things DC is doing to an Amercian Icon but didn't Clark leave the Planet to do the WGBS news. Or did he slipt his time? Either way it's not completely unheard of. I remember him doing the news with Lana but Perry and Lois were still around.

Who can forget Steve Lombard.

[madmarva]

This change is the least offensive to me of any that DC has made to Superman. But it will make it more difficult to utilize his supporting cast, which is one of the best in super hero comics when handled properly.

What would have been more realistic is if he was laid off and then started a blog. No journalist would quit a job in today's job climate, just to write a blog. I've had more then 30 co-workers who have been laid off and probably that many more who have been re-assigned, bought out or accepted reduced pay for the same or more work. And that's with a mid sized paper.

[ctc]

>didn't Clark leave the Planet to do the WGBS news

Back in the 80's, yeah. Okay, hands up; how many people were offended when Clark worked on television?

I think this is a GREAT idea 'cos it shows they're honestly trying to make the character more relevant to a new audience. (Like they did back in the day when he was on tv.) It's also not a weird/inappropriate/illogical change, it makes perfect sense considering how much the newspaper industry is contractiong. ('Course I bet he ends up working for the online version of the Planet in a few months. Everything old is new again.) The weird thing is having him work at a paper after whatever reboot it was that put him back at a paper. Yeah, "we're trying for a new audience" indeed, 'cos the kids today LOVES their newspapers.

>What would have been more realistic is if he was laid off and then started a blog.

THAT is a fantastic idea! It's relevant, adds some pathos and would be a chance to demonstrate Clark's ability to roll with the punches.

Don C.

[madmarva]

It was actually the 70s when Clark was made a TV broadcaster for WGBS, which also owned the Daily Planet. It was one of the tweaks Julie Schwartz made when he took over editorial reins of the Superman titles from Mort Weisinger. DC returned him to The Daily Planet around the time the first a Superman film came out.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Clark did double duty for the Planet and WGBS for much of the late 70s and early 80s.

Again, it's not a horrible change, despite losing the supporting cast (the best in comics), BUT, as I said before, a change this big mid-stream telegraphs that they have no clue what they are doing from one month to the next.

Chris

[ctc]

>it's not a horrible change, despite losing the supporting cast (the best in comics)

I don't think they'll lose anybody.... at least not anyone major. There's all sorts of ways to keep them connected.

>a change this big mid-stream telegraphs that they have no clue what they are doing from one month to the next.

I don't think it's neccessarily midstream. Changes have to happen SOME time.... but I do think you're right that it's a bit ad-hoc. Ties in with what I said before; they're still looking for a way to make the character relevant and appeal to a newer audience and they're experimenting a bit 'cos they're not too sure how to do it.

Don C.

[Earth 2 Chris]

I think the lack of a true direction makes it even harder for old fans like myself to swallow changes. Sure DC didn't have their continuity of what happened and what didn't worked out post-Crisis, but Byrnes' Superman launch was rolled out pretty effectively without the hiccups we've seen from this reboot. Those changes were pretty drastic at the time, and most rolled with them, because I think most readers felt the creators knew where they were going, and were pretty confident they'd stay on the titles long enough to implement them. Until Byrne jumped ship 2 years later, they did in fact do just that.

I think DC made a mistake by hedging their bets and just not annoucing this was a new universe, and to forget what you knew before. I think older fans would have been more forgiving had they just come clean...and had their stuff together before hitting that big red button.

Chris

[jwyblejr]

Actually,they should have put him on TV instead. Imagine a farm boy like him working for something along the lines of CNN or Fox News.

[Figuremod73]

Actually,they should have put him on TV instead. Imagine a farm boy like him working for something along the lines of CNN or Fox News.

They should have put him on tv and made him a WORLD reporter. He would see all kinds of action that way.

[kingdom warrior]

Honestly I've said it before this is where a comic devoted just to Clark as a reporter or now freelance reporter would come in handy as a filler to all the other books.....

[madmarva]

I think the right writer could do an excellent Daily Planet Comic or backup series. It could feature ground level stories about Superman's exploits from the points of view of witnesses or survivors of the various calamities that occur in Metropolis, as well as delving into Metropolis politics, technology, entertainment and even human interests. Having a being like Superman in a city as well as Luthor and all the villains would affect every aspect of the city. Those stories could play out in the comic.

[ctc]

>Those changes were pretty drastic at the time, and most rolled with them, because I think most readers felt the creators knew where they were going

I think you're right but I think that was more a function of us being young, naieve and inexperienced over any external, industry related circumstance. Changes like this happened all the time with nobody caring (as my rant in another thread showed....) and really; this isn't that big a change for the character. It makes sense in context, it doesn't affect any of the core values or aspects of Clark, and it can still be used to facilitate the same general kinds of story.

I wonder if for a lot of folks this is so difficult not because of Superman specificly but 'cos it's yet another reminder that print is dead, and the world is moving on.

>They should have put him on tv and made him a WORLD reporter.

That's a neat idea, but it'd make protecting his secret identity a LOT harder. Then again; the Planet's best reporter couldn't recognize him without specs for 60 years....

>It could feature ground level stories about Superman's exploits from the points of view of witnesses or survivors

That's a neat idea too, but it'd require a different kind of story, and DC seems wary of leaving the straight up superhero formula these days.

Don C.

[jds1911a1]

I am not a fan of Blogging, facebook or twittter, this is as close as I ever get to "social media". I am enough of a dinosaur I want to hold my comics and read the paper. I know nothing how blogging works form an economic standpoint - does one get paid for this or is it like website hosting you sell advertising and hope,
From the aspect of Clark kent in this era it is propably an overdue change. Newspaper has been in trouble for a decade (it was even a focal pointin Superman 4 in the mid 80's and a couple epsodes of Lois and CLark in the 90's) if he is blogging presumably he answers to no one - no deadlines to be missed when he is saving the world. And the modern superman has the information superhighway so he doesn't the need a telex or newsroom to know where he is needed
TV would have been the choice 10-15 years ago but like the 70's WGBS days how would he handle a disasster when he was on the air.

[knight errant00]

If they reallly wanted to "modenize" it, they should have set something up where the Daily Planet is a Breitbart- or Daily Kos- style news site . . . Perry White's baby that Kent gets recruited to after having a middling successful blog of his own that maybe broke some big news story courtesy of Clark's alter ego. Lois Lane could be one of the site's star writers who's irritated and threatened by this new guy. Heck, they could even have a Daily Planet office, but a much smaller set up -- part of a floor in an office building -- or better yet, it's the resurrected name of a great old paper from the 30s that's been long out of business and they're occupying office space in its old building, which could still have the globe on it but is 90% offices for lawyers and investment groups and dentists and whatnot (We have a building like that downtown here -- the old Globe-Democrat building . . . the paper's defunct, but the building still stands with its globe and all). None of them whould have to be at the office regulalry (working online and all) but they could on occasion meet there.

I think that's why this feels very last-minute and not-thought-out -- I can read this news and give you a scenario that updates the whole thing yet keeps the essential elements and relationships intact -- why can't the "big-shot" creators running it?