Comments on: Choose Your Own Excuse: Why Did Superman’s Story Change?

By: forgot\boutdre

forgot\boutdre — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 22:32:53 +0000

@T.

You’re the only moron around here, sorry.

By: forgot\boutdre

forgot\boutdre — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 22:32:02 +0000

Read Busieks response to Rich Johnston

Oh and Johnston’s supporters are teh stupids

By: JillPantozzi

JillPantozzi — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 04:30:14 +0000

Via DiDio’s facebook when someone asked about the kitten: “rarely comment on production problems but can’t blame the kitty. I’m a cat lover myself.”

By: Flash's Lightning

Flash's Lightning — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 01:45:07 +0000

I’m siding with Rich on this. Honestly, what does he have to gain by making stuff up? I could see if people involved were trying to punk him (don’t even get me started on the asinine Frank Cho/Kurtz idiocy from years back), but what would be the point here?

Rich does the best job out of anyone else at reporting rumors. And that is his job – stop trying to make him seem like an inept reporter. He’s not a reporter, he’s a rumor gatherer, and he’s pretty good at it too, with a good track record.

He doesn’t say he’s 100% right, he puts stuff out there and lets you decide. Nothing wrong with that.

By: T.

T. — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 18:50:28 +0000

Rich’s account sounds really stupid, as if DC was run by a cabal of morons. Therefore I believe it, given the rest of the decisions I’ve seen them make since 2001.

By: Bloodmage

Bloodmage — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 18:25:25 +0000

I can totally see the kitten story being true. DC gets tons of criticism for Superman being cheesy, and here he is rescuing a cat out of a tree. Remember the whole Joe Quesada Superman comment? “Here’s DC with the biggest @%$# in comics, and they have no idea how to use it” or something to that effect. Well, stories with the most powerful and recognizable of your heroes saving kittens from trees isn’t going to alleviate that…

By: Charles J. Baserap

Charles J. Baserap — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 17:25:51 +0000

And people are hating on Rich, yet most of what he said about the relaunch wound up being 100% dead on even though people were making the same comments…

By: Charles J. Baserap

Charles J. Baserap — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 17:25:14 +0000

I think people are making a mountain of a molehill with the whole thing, and this whole “DC is so cowardly they wouldn’t put a Muslim character” thing is old, considering they just had a Muslim Batman, a two parter with Power Girl that just wrapped last week featuring a Muslim hero that PG was even sponsoring for the JSA, the whole Goyer/Citizen situation, and a radical Christian terrorist in this week’s Green Arrow, the constant Church = Bad Guy motif and religion is root of all evils in the awesome and sadly canceled Azrael, among much else.

By: John Smith

John Smith — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 16:03:20 +0000

Name your sources and then others can evaluate their likely veracity, Rich. Until then, no one has any reason not to think you’re just making things up.

By: Lawrence

Lawrence — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 14:38:31 +0000

Does anyone else think that this story ended with Sharif dying? If so, it’d kind of makes complete sense why DC scrapped it.

Conservative news outlets would be mad that DC for creating a new muslim hero that was killed by Americans, while Liberal news outlets would be mad at DC for creating a minority character only for him to be killed. If this was the case, then DC scrapped the story because it would create a controversy that overshadowed the actual content/message.

However, I’m hoping they’ll publish the story in the eventual “Grounded” trade as a “missing” chapter.

By: Rich Johnston

Rich Johnston — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 10:28:33 +0000

It’s not satire. I know, I know.

I got an email a week or so ago from a DC employee saying “Who knew a kitten could get Dan so mad”. I had no idea what this meant and got no responses from followups.

Yesterday I hear from another DC employee the kitten story. So I start emailing and calling. Many people hadn’t heard any Superman 712 issue, but those that had, all of them, confirmed that they’d heard the kitten story.

After publishing the story I then heard from others confirming the kitten story. Even Heidi MacDonald who tries to brings some balance to the whole thing, confirms she’s heard the kitten version from some sources.

And yes it’s insane. But this is the company who pulped a print run of Superman because Clark Kent was drinking a bottle of root beer on the cover with his dad.

And isn’t it telling that Superman editorial used a fill in story featuring a dog? Of all the stories they could have used? And one that itself had been replaced a number of times in the past?

I’m confident in my sources on this one. But I have been wrong before. Probably will again.

By: DanielT

DanielT — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 02:54:55 +0000

C’mon! Unless he swears on a stack of Korans otherwise, Rich’s piece has to be satire.

By: caleb

caleb — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 02:26:47 +0000

I don’t know Kyle; Sims names just as many sources as Johnston does, so his saying more than one person told him something isn’t really any more convincing than Sims’ extrapolation, which is at least supported by examples and logic. Reading Johnston’s piece, there’s no way of knowing if he talked to anyone (Sorry to be a jerk, Rich; I assume you did, but I don’t know you did) or, if they did, they were actually telling the truth.

By: John Smith

John Smith — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 00:56:27 +0000

Right, Rich’s sources, like this one dude who told him something, and another dude who said something, and a third guy, too! For all anyone knows, Rich’s sources are as nonexistent as his class and his ethics.

By: Kyle Garret

Kyle Garret — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 23:09:53 +0000

The only problem is that Rich has (from what he’s said) multiple sources. And while Chris Sims’ article is excellent, he doesn’t mention any sources that support his theory. Nothing Roberson says backs it up.
So unless multiple people decided to yank Rich around, the more ridiculous explanation has more support.
Then again, it’s entirely possible that whoever decided to pull the story did it for the reasons Sims suggests, yet has told everyone it’s the reason Rich suggests.