Agreed. Will be interesting to see how they handle things if/when Clark returns to Earth.
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Yara is from a lost Amazon tribe, and is the daughter of a god (I forget which one). Jon is Superman’s son. The connections to the lore are there for both. With Jace, the only connection I see so far is the name & outfit. Understood others have taken on the role of Batman before, but there was always a connection to Bruce Wayne’s Batman in some way. Even Batman Inc was an endeavor run by him. I could live with something as simple as Jace being inspired by Batman or something he did, but I didn’t even get that vibe from what I read. Granted, maybe I should give things some more time to simmer, but it just didn’t catch me enough to do so.
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Jon and Jace I’ve decided to pass on, Yara though I like most as a character of this trinity.
For Jon it’s really John Timms’ art that I like, because I’ve found that whenever someone draws Jon I cannot stand it. Tom Taylor’s storytelling is just okay me. So ultimately I would have just been buying SUPERMAN: SON OF KALEL for the art, and even that’s not a strong enough reason for me.
Similar for I AM BATMAN. If Olivier Coipel were the regular artist on this series that would be a strong enough reason for me to buy it. As it stands, the art on this series has not been to my liking at all and I dropped the series after the first issue.
And I dropped WONDER GIRL after her first issue too, but again I do like Yara as a character.
I didn’t know that WONDER GIRL may be headed towards cancellation. I guess I’m not totally shocked. I imagine I AM BATMAN is not long for this world either. I give it 12 issues, 18 issues tops.
SUPERMAN: SON OF KALEL I’m guessing will last at least 24 issues. He’s Superman’s son, so that has to count for something.
Of course, I say hurry up with another Crisis already and just reboot everything. 
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I’ve personally have had enough big universe altering events, at least for a little while.
Would much rather they spend more energy and resources doing more Black Label or out of continuity stuff, than another reboot.
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They do need to do something quick. DC has been a mess ever since Future State started. The artwork has been subpar and the storylines are generally uninteresting and hard to follow. I long for the days of Rebirth.
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Jace is Lucius Fox’s son. Granted he doesn’t have close ties to Batman, but I don’t think he’s any more tangential than Jean-Paul Valley.
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That’s Azrael, right? apologies for my ignorance on the matter. Not 100% familiar with his backstory, nor have I read when he took over the Batman role. Naturally, I would have to go back & read it to judge for myself.
It’s panels like these that bug me a bit:
I get Jace wanting to be his own hero and wanting to do things his way. The writing in those panels feels like it’s repeatedly trying to paint Batman (Bruce) in a less than favorable light, which in and of itself is not the end of the world for me. It’s just… and sorry for repeating myself… I find the character’s choice to do what he does as Batman a bit baffling. If he wants to be more “for the people”, “closer to the ground”, and all that good stuff… why put on the suit and use the name of a person he perceives to be the opposite of it?
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A fair point - if the intent is to portray Bruce as out of touch so that Jace can be a Batman for the people, I don’t like that either. I read that particular scene more as just Jace stating his opinion- he can of course be wrong.
Yea, Jean-Paul Valley is Azrael.
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I’m reading stuff as it comes to DC Universe Infinite, so I can only speak to their Future State appearances but I really like FS Yara and Jace. Jon was interesting when he was playing off other characters (Yara, in particular) but I’m less interested in the whole living-up-to-Superman thing. But historically I’ve always been a fan of legacy heroes who aren’t directly connected to their predecessors (Kyle Rayner, Jaime Reyes, Linda Danvers) so that’s probably a big part of why Yara and Jace are more interesting to me.
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I get Jace wanting to be his own hero and wanting to do things his way. The writing in those panels feels like it’s repeatedly trying to paint Batman (Bruce) in a less than favorable light, which in and of itself is not the end of the world for me. It’s just… and sorry for repeating myself… I find the character’s choice to do what he does as Batman a bit baffling. If he wants to be more “for the people”, “closer to the ground”, and all that good stuff… why put on the suit and use the name of a person he perceives to be the opposite of it?
Yeah, therein lies kind of the whole question of why I AM BATMAN exists in the first place.
In THE NEXT BATMAN: SECOND SON everything made sense – to me, at least. And everything in I AM BATMAN makes sense to me too, but it does beg the question why are they doing this.
Briefly, DC of course pitched a Black Batman to John Ridley. Initially he didn’t want to do it because he didn’t feel he was the right writer. Working with Ben Abernathy I guess is what finally sold him.
If I were to guess, John Ridley would probably had rather done more of THE OTHER HISTORY OF THE DC UNIVERSE.
At least I know I would rather he did more of that. 
Black Lightning is one of his favorite characters, so that may be something he’d rather work on too. This is just pure speculation on my part though, of course.
Anyway, back to Jace: again, everything about SECOND SON made sense to me. And that’s where they should have stopped, in my opinion.
The things that you’re talking about with regards to I AM BATMAN, the only explanation I can come up with is merchandising and licensing. DC wanted Jace to be a version of Batman and so he has to look the part.
They apparently didn’t want Jace to have his own look and identity, so we have what we have today. We have Jace bagging on Batman while dressing just like him.
Editorial mandates can sometimes end up with weird results.
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Thank you for that very effective and succinct summary. Agreed.
I also really liked Second Son. Really fleshed out Jace and his history. It’s what prompted me to continue reading with I Am Batman.
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I completely agree with your opinions especially with the new Batman. I don’t understand his motivations.
Maybe I am also too attached to Batman Beyond. Terry is an alternative Batman with a motivation. So another alternative besides Terry that just does things without firm purpose is not my thing.
If other people like it I am happy it is there for you but it isn’t for me.
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I agree, why does every comic charector have to be changed to another race or gender. Don’t think I will be buying any new comics ever again
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None of that happened w/ Yara, Jon or Jace, so I’m not sure who you’re talking about here
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This happened yesterday (as of this posting) and I just noticed it, but I guess WONDER GIRL is done…
Even me, who says just reboot everything, is surprised.
This is too bad. I really like her as a character.
They’ll probably do another series with her after this Wonder Woman event is over.
What I really hope they do is something live-action with her. They passed on a CW show, which may have been for the best…
No, but an HBO Max show could be something pretty cool.
I guess they could potentially have a Batgirl show, a Supergirl show, and a Wonder Girl show.
(I guess they’ll have to create some shows with guys at some point.)
Anyway, switching gears with just a random thought on Jace:
Jace as Jace Fox I’m still interested in. I like him and feel that John Ridley did a really good job fleshing out a character that previously only appeared once or twice before. Jace as a Batman though I just do not care about at all. And never did even when they first announced Future State.
(Hell, I really don’t care about Bruce Wayne as Batman.)
I would love Jace in a series though where he’s something other than Batman. Maybe something like that GRAYSON series. Or something like VIGILANTE: SOUTHLAND. But of course there was next to zero chance that DC would try something like that with Jace.
A new character, and Black, and no costume? That would have cancellation written all over it. But it’s what I personally would’ve liked.
A direct continuation of SECOND SON is what I would want, but that was never really in the cards, I suppose.
What they did by making him a version of Batman is pretty much what you would had to have done. So I guess I can’t really fault them for making that call…
I suppose they could do something live-action with Jace, but I think it would be a mistake for him to be a Batman in live-action too.
In live-action on HBO Max they could probably get away with a GRAYSON or VIGILANTE: SOUTHLAND take with Jace. You have a much larger audience with TV than the comic book market.
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Agreed. I think the Trial of the Amazons stuff bloated the first few issues of Wonder Girl. The focus should have been on her and the beginning of her journey. The character really is very nicely rendered by Joelle Jones, in both the writing and art departments.
What’s too bad is some of the variant cover art for Trial of the Amazons shows Diana & Yara fighting. Hopefully it’s just a rough introduction and then we get to see a friendlier bond develop between the two.
Also agree. Well, it’s not that “I don’t care at all” about his version of Batman. I just… didn’t like what I read very much? May still check out the series again when it’s part of the service here.
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Wonder Girl: Loved it! That scene in #7…those who’ve read it will know.
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Superman: Son of Kal-El: Fun book. Not my favorite current Superman or Taylor title (those are Action Comics and Nightwing, respectively), but still a fun read.
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I Am Batman: I haven’t been reading it, but now that the first two issues are on DCUI (and in the words of Bale’s Batman), “I’ll look into it.”
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What if all of them are just so DC has the big three when they enter the public domain?
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Nope. When say Batman enters public domain the domain gets access to 1939 and only 1939 Batman elements. They get nothing from say Dark Knight Returns, the Animated Series, or New 52. They have to wait for all that to come to public domain first to use them. By the time that happens there will just be other stuff they want that are still owned by DC. That will make any serious adaptations outside of a few basic parodies more practical to go to DC with.
In addition to many popular elements came after the copyright was extended in 1977 making it a wait until almost certainly at least 2200 for most things anybody making them would actually want.
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