Last fall, we learned that DC Comics’ new incarnation of Superman, Jon Kent (the son of Clark Kent and Lois Lane), would be less a superhero and more a social warrior, leaving the battling of supervillains to others while he tackled climate change. And in Superman: Son of Kal-El #5, it would be revealed he had a boyfriend.
“The idea of replacing Clark Kent with another straight white savior felt like a missed opportunity,” Tom Taylor, the writer of the new comic, said. So instead, Taylor revealed that the new Superman “had to have new fights — real world problems — that he could stand up to as one of the most powerful people in the world.”
While the left collectively cheered for DC Comic’s “bravery,” others lamented the blatant wokeness of the comic series. In addition to going woke with the social justice nonsense, DC Comics also changed Superman’s longstanding motto from “Truth, Justice, and the American Way” to” Truth, Justice, and a Better Tomorrow.” The company’s direction was enough for the comic’s colorist, Gabe Eltaeb, to quit DC Comics.
So, how did this new woke version of Superman do? Well, it turns out that going woke is kryptonite for comic sales. According to the site Bounding Into Comics, while orders for the comic had an initial boost, it went from the 6th-most comic book sold in November to not even breaking the top 50 in December.
“That’s right, the flagship Superman book at DC Comics is not on a Top 50 Comic Books by Units chart only 5 issues in,” the site reports.
If DC Comics thought going woke would revive the company, they lost that bet. “There’s been a lot of speculation about the health of DC, nothing quite says you are screwed like this,” says YouTuber Comics by Perch. “In terms of health of the company, sit with this for a second. 50 DC titles. The top 50 DC titles, 48 of them are Batman books. It is the Batman company. Just forget the rest.”
“No part of that is good news for DC or even close to it. That’s where we are at,” he added.
Gee, I wonder who could have predicted this?
As the saying goes, “go woke, go broke.” So how long will it take for companies to figure this out?
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