Superman Through the Ages! Forum

That is to say, if a comic and its cover promise to have this story element, would you buy it up right away?

For me, the list would be something like...

TURN-ONS:

Superman fighting in space. Oh hell yeah. If it's got Superman with spaceships, aliens and space gladiators, heck yeah, I'm buying. In fact, I bought the Kurt Busiek SUPERMAN series because of the promise there'd be some outer space asskickery on alien planets. Mongul or Roger Stern's creation, Maxima, are also real crowd-pleasers.

Superman/Supergirl team-ups. Not just Superman and Supergirl in the same book, e.g. SUPERMAN FAMILY. Man, they really, really need to do this much more often; perhaps annually, like the JLA/JSA or the Challengers of the Unknown/Doom Patrol team-ups. The best example of this kind of story would be the first issue of the Marty Pasko Amalak story arc, and one Cary Bates story where Superman and Supergirl adopt an alien robot and then the Galactic Golem attacks. The thought of Superman and his cuz going into battle together gets me all a-tingly!

Clark Kent being a hero on his own. I loved that Animated Series episode where Clark Kent, using guts, detective work, and investigative journalism, saved a man from death row. In fact, it was great to read the Johns/Busiek Superman where he was a gutsy reporter taking on Lex only with a printing press and the truth.

World of Krypton. Boy, Krypton and Jor-El were cool. I've never bought a Superman comic for the backup story except "World of Krypton."

Monsters! Len Wein especially did this the best: give Superman a giant beast that can match him, that only really Superman can handle. Chemo, for instance, or the Galactic Golem. In fact, I'd say Superman needs more monsters. Titano is terrific and sympathetic, if only they got rid of that ridiculous Kryptonite Vision power.

Superman in a relationship. Especially if its with someone other than Lois Lane, the way he got serious with Lana near the mid-eighties.

Superman team-ups. Supes needs a team-up book like he had with DC COMICS PRESENTS, because it's interesting to see him team up with lower-powered characters (essentially, everybody in the DCU) like Black Lightning or the Challengers of the Unknown, and do things like explore the rest of the DCU: visit Adam Strange's Rann, for instance.

Minor, "nuisance" villains being used as serious threats. This is also called "Paskoism," after the guy that did it best. Who can forget the shock of Toyman murdering his replacement? Or Bizarro being duped by all and sundry? Then you have the Prankster's astonishing story in the Busiek/Johns "Up, Up and Away" arc, where he defeated Green Lantern with itching powder that prevented him from concentrating.


TURN-OFFS:

Superman vs. Wizards. I don't think this has ever been done well, ever - with the possible exception of Busiek's story featuring Arion, Lord of Atlantis. There could be a graveyard filled with Superman's forgettable wizard enemies: Denny O'Neil's Moximus (remember him?), to all the interchangeable magic-using hot chicks from Yellow Peri to Wolfman's Syrene to Gail Simone's Queen of Fables. These sort of characters don't belong in Superman's world.

Supervillains with one power. Who was that forgettable Marv Wolfman villain that later appeared as a member of the Fatal Five in NEW TEEN TITANS? Snore. Generally, if you have really one power and a costume, you shouldn't be taking on Superman. Hear that, Live Wire?

Nuisance enemies used in 'nuisance' stories. As long as I live, I never, ever want to see another J. Wilbur Wolfingham story, or another Prankster or Toyman story where they're "goofy." Ditto for Bizarro World. Ugh! Use them straight or not at all.

Well, that is one reason why I hated "Weather War Over Metropolis".  Why would a one-power wonder like Weather Wizard want to take on the Flash by involving the most powerful being on Earth?

Well, if you notice, Weather Wizard never directly confronted Superman in that issue except at the end.

Weather Wizard was able to take on Superman the same way Lex Luthor does: as a contest of wits, and presenting Superman with a mystery (the weird weather phenomenon), and like Lex, he was ultimately beaten in a contest of wits.

Seems really convoluted to me.  Here's a guy who stole his brother's weather technologies, he uses them on Metropolis and gets Superman involved, just so that he can use a Kryptonian method to possibly get Superman to kill the Flash?  Seems like a crazy idea, after years of failing in getting the Flash, up the odds by trying to control an even more powerful being?

Actually, I don't HATE the story - as with many Bronze Age stories I just find it contrived and over-burdened.

Some things that really annoy me:

Superman explaining why he has to handle this alone, especially by mentioning that all his pals are off in space. This is an unnecessary bit of exposition that writers sometimes do: some menace has Superman on the ropes, and as he flies off to the Fortress of Solitude to see if he can scare up some kind of weapon, he muses that it's a pity Supergirl (or the Justice League) can't help him because she's off on a mission in space. This happens so often you can't help wondering if Supergirl is some sort of missionary. It annoys me because it's a sort of dramatic cop-out, almost as if the writer were begging you to "Suspend your disbelief, okay? Work with me here".

Team-ups that sound exciting and then turn out to be really dumb. Let's face it, most of DCCP was like this. you'd get some team-up that sounded as if it would be great, but then it would turn out to be written by Some Guy With a Familiar Name, with pencils by Joe Staton and inks by a summer intern. The Black Lightning issue would have been really good if it had been a crime story, but instead it was people turning into weird monsters. (There were some stand-out issues, though, especially early in its run: Superman and GL, Swamp Thing, Sgt. Rock, Mr. Miracle. Those were good.)

Vartox never getting a break. Come on, ease up on him.

Hello, honey, I'm home! This only applies to current comics, but Superman being married makes me quite irate and want to smite someone.

Things I can never get enough of:

Shenanigans in the office. Steve Lombard wearing giant monster hands he swiped from the props department, Josh Coyle taking his ulcer pills, "What shall we do for lunch, Clarkie?", that sort of thing.

Clark Kent acting like a grown-up. This is just more of the preceding point, really, and maybe I only liked it when I was a boy, but stuff like helping his neighbour, Mrs. Moskowitz, with her wheelchair, having a toffee apple with Lana, paying bills, you know, hanging around and being a person.

Superman using his powers with style. Stopping a tidal wave by building a big glass barrier with the sand on the beach, sewing up a crevice in a street with a cable and a lamp-post, cooling a volcano by pushing a rainstorm on it. You don't get much of that nowadays, but I get the feeling Busiek is sort of gearing up for it.

Inventive excuses for running away to change to Superman. Very hard to do, and rarely seen, but every now and then Clark really gets inspired when he needs to create a diversion so he can run off to change. My favourite is in "The Luthor Nobody Knows", where he gives Roy Raymond indigestion with his heat vision so he can pretend something is wrong with the chicken salad. Not bad, and also, pretty cold-blooded. Now Roy's lunch is ruined and the cafeteria will get a visit from the health inspector.

Vartox. Hooray for Vartox!

Likes:

Superman actually using his brain in a story and by extension when he uses his powers in more inventive ways.

Space, I'm a sucker for a well-written cosmic story. That, and I still want the Daxam/Krypton connection story that has been hinted at for years.

Super-Family team-ups.

Post-Crisis only. Stories about Clark's travels around the world before his debut in Metropolis.

Superman legacy stories ala DC One Million.

Superman's connection to Rao. Kryptonian mythology, really.

Dislikes:

Mind-Controlled Superman. Especially when done by a bloody used-car salesman.

Zod-at this point, the General is even more overexposed than Hank Henshaw was during the '90s.

Superboy/Supergirl as members of a second-rate team like the Titans. What's the point of the other members when one Kryptonian can defeat 99.9% of this team's villains? Superboy/Supergirl should only be members of the Legion at this age before joining the Justice League.

Evil Mxy. This concept has worked in one story and one story alone, Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow.

When Superman fails to use his brain in a story i.e. firing a pirate ship's cannons at Bizarro or throwing boulders at another Kryptonian. Is he too stupid to realize that his opponent is invulnerable? Or when he conveniently forgets that he has other abilities than flight and super-strength.

The Kent Boarding House for Sidekicks. Or, when Clark shirks his responsibilities and dumps his problems on his parents. Nope, no immaturity there.

You know what I miss in comics?  Remember when there would be captions in the Schwartz books that would give a little science lesson?  Like:

"The Flash can saw through trees because of how fast he is moving... just like a piece of paer caught in a hurricane can slice through a tree trunk"

Or something like that... I learned more from those comics than I did in school!

Things I like
Jimmy Olsen  either crossing dressing or turning into a monster.

Things I dont like
Superman mind control.

ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

things i like:
silver age sillyness: superfamily, mutant crossdressing olsen, Luthors baldness anxiety, mass hypnotism, super****ery, sexual innuendo, superman-batman-robin love triangle, superfortress, superbaby SUPERMONKEY!

Space adventures: they are fun

Supermans goodnaturedness: the only person who can say he fights for "truth justice and the American Way" without making me wince

Krypton mythos: thats my big beef with the golden age, not enough kryton mythos

life story of superman: complicated yet fun, allways an extra fact to find in a comic book

Imaginary stories: i like these for the same reason for "what ifs" they could take it wherever they wanted

Krypto: i want one

Superman Emblem: pretty much outgrown Superman, and the only comic book thing you can have as a T-Shirt emblem or Tattoo without looking a complete dork (although the tatoo is a dodgy one)

things i dont like:
the Daxam problem: while its ripe for stories it doesnt seem to make superman so unique and special when theres an entire other planet filled with people of nearly identical power

overuse of superman robots: could basically be used as a cop out tool back in the sixties... these robots could do almost everything  superman does it seems so.... why doesnt superman make an army of super robots to patrol the planet? (i think that became obvous after the ending of Superman red/blue

evil Mxy: yes i agree this is one villian who shouldnt be a bad guy

Mind control: overdone

superman acting as a angst ridden crybaby: whatever happened to the man of tomorrow? emotional problems

reflecting on how superman cant save everyone: dont break the dream

Things I like:
1. Superboy stories, real Superboy stories.
2. Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes stories.
3. Krypto stories.
4. Steve Lombard
5. Vartox
6. Superman/Batman team-ups (although I'm quite satiated with Superman-Batman)
7. Any team up story, particularly any team up with Captain Marvel, any individual JLA member and lesser knowns.
8. Any Golden Age Superman story written in modern times (I used to LOVE All-Star by Roy Thomas, especially with Supes, and Bog's Golden Age Superman riff - wow..)
9. Superman in the JSA,
10. Superman adventures in space (cosmic level problems the Guardians have to enlist their ace in the hole - Superman, cause the Lanterns need help, or just helping out other civilizations),
11. Cosmic Superman stories (a la Sword of Superman) - boy what would that story be like redone today.
12. Superman/Kirby-verse cross-overs
13. Fun Bizarro, Prankster, Toyman and Mxy stories.
14. Deadly Luthor stories (let's keep giving reasons why Luthor is Supes number one villain please),
15. World of Krypton stories,
16. Any Superman/Mon-El team-ups,
17. Modern Superman Family team-ups (S-girl, P-girl, E2 Supes, etc.)

Dislikes
1. Any Superman whinning.  I HATE that!
2. Kryptonite stories (unless it's an ingenious Kryptonite trap.  For as many times as he's been exposed, he should either have an immunity by now - a la Kingdom Come, or he'd best be darned prepared or finally it should be so darn rare it is like an event for it to come into the possession of anyone - e.g. Kryptonite no more.)
3. Any magic story that makes it affect him like Krptonite (Virtue and Vice JLA/JSA story was one of the few clever times where it seemed to make more sense than usual.  As essentially Superman was on "another world" so-to-speak, it made sense to see Superman's powers behave erratically but magic and kryptonite don't have to be the same thing.)
4. Krypton is a "cold world",
5. Krypto isn't intelligent,
6. Where's the real Superboy? (although I did like Conner, but call him Skyboy or something, or leave him dead I guess),
7. E2 Superman is as powerful as E1 Supes (see their 1st meeting in JLA/JSA Crisis events pre-COIE),
8. Superman isn't super-intelligent,
9. Superman isn't as fast or faster than the Flash,
10. Superman and Bats aren't friends,
11. President Luthor?
12. Batman keeps a K-bullet?  Superman would never worry about going out of control, and frankly he'd turn to the Guardians to help him stay in check if it ever happened.

That's my short list.

Well, this has inspired me to make a list of dislikes (sorry Angel, I just dislike a lot of what you listed 8) )

1. Superman connected to the Green Lantern Corps, ughh, a copy of Marvel universe building that's beneath the "Man of Steel". 

2. Any Guardian "lecture" to Superman - who are these cats, late 1950s additions to a re-written character?

3. "Sword of Superman" and all that jazz, Superman is obviously already the greatest man in the cosmos, he's seen it all and defeated it all.  DC might have benefited from remaining true to its characters' own identities with a yearly JLA crossover rather than ape the Marvel grand universe concept.  Why should DC have copied Marvel, Marvel (Timely, or whatever) tanked in the 40s and was dead for almost 20 years!  During the late 60s, DC had a small opportunity to do something different - while they still had sales and distribution advantages.

4. Anything WGBS, good gravy, why was the "Man of Tomorrow" saddled with a hip TV station, dated caricatures like Lombard, and taken away from his primary role as hard reporter?  And then put on television (total destruction of a believable secret identity)!!!!

5. The demise of the innocence of Smallville - young Kents, stories of Superboy abandoning his parents and hurting them to trap Nazis (etc.), Superboy meeting "Bigfoot", Lana sexually frustrating the "Master Jailer" in her youth - overwrought stories like that.

I'm probably going to get a lot of flak for saying this, because it's so ingrained in people's minds, but I really don't see what's so great and vital and important about the Superman/Batman team.

It's become such a "tradition" that I don't think anyone's thought over how little the team-up makes sense.

Apart from all questions of a severe difference in power level and the fact Batman and Superman are hardly a "balanced" team...the two characters are thematically not compatible.

Batman is a pulp-style adventurer detective dealing with madmen, gangsters, killers, and jewel heists. He'd be buds with the Shadow and Doc Savage, and all superficiality aside, he and fellow urban vigilante Spider-Man would have a lot in common. It's ridiculous to imagine Batman in an alien space arena or on the bridge of the Millennium Falcon.

Superman is a science fiction hero that fights space conquerors. He's from another planet, fights aliens, goes into space, etc.

It's not even a question of a power level difference. Superman and Flash Gordon are compatible with each other, for example.

What the Superman/Batman Team is, is a crashing together of two very different kinds of characters in very different kinds of stories. It feels like one of those embarassing "crossover" fanfics that combine two things in a way that totally miss the point of both - Astro Boy meets Conan.


Amen, especially if Dave Cockrum is involved.

You know, it's funny: except for Plastino, I can't really think of a single "bad" Legion of Super-Heroes artist. Even someone like Mike Grell, whom I don't usually like, produced workable, good Legion art. The Legion art pedigree is astonishing: Curt Swan, Cockrum, Stanton, Starlin, even the weird and detailed Joe Sherman (who did Earthwar, the best and biggest of Levitz's "everything but the kitchen sink" Legion tales).

I'd buy the Legion without Superboy, of course (they're just interesting enough on their own) but Superboy always added something.


No, I can't agree.

Matching wits with a fat man in a bow tie that hurls cream pies is totally beneath Superman in every way.


Really? I always liked the idea of Krypton as an ice planet (which it most likely would be, with a weak, dying red sun). The best example would be the semi-polar Krypton seen in The Animated Series, which had a very fascinating look.

Bad LSH artist, Julian?  Two words -- Pete Costanza.  Hate, hate his DC work on LSH and Jimmy Olsen.  Over at ACh where the house style was Lou Wahl (Kurt Schaffenberger) and Ogden Whitney somebody polished Costanza's pencils to look like the house style.

I thought Plastino was fine on the LSH but I favor John Forte and Curt Swan. By the time of Cockrum's run I wasn't reading funny books anymore (for awhile anyway) 

I think a case can be made for not liking the Superman/Batman team, it is a little weird to see Batman in space etc. Superman being helpless in a classic Batman "mystery" wouldn't have worked that well either.

But since the team-up was a relatively early occurence, I was used to it and liked it as a kid.

I, too, was a big fan of the World's Finest team especially the stories scripted by Ed Hamilton.

Who could ever forget Batman's sudden inferiority complex and Superman ("Anything for a pal") taking the cowed crusader to Kandor so Batman could wail on him with a sword?

Classic stuff. :)

Yep, Hamilton explored the relationship well by equalizing the guys, Kandor was a great way to do it, really some of the classic World's Finest stories.

I liked the cosmic stories the best, or any time Superman fought someone close to his power level. Dislikes? Well, the many, many tales from the Silver Age that had our hero pretending to be defeated, outwitted, or befuddled, only to have it turn out that he was merely playing along. There were way too many of those.

See, I've got the Superman/Batman team viewed as a whole other angle.  It totally makes sense to see them together.  Batman - the apex of human development, most dangerous man on the planet, Superman - the unofficial super human cop on Earth.  Bats would want a relationship with Supes to understand metas, Supes to better understand what humans are capable of.  Each providing insight into the other in ways that make them effective and powerful.  They're like the *ahem* Illuminati of the DCU.  That's one reason why I thought Generations had some great moments.  I could see the relationship making sense.



Yeah - I loved Superboy in the Legion.  To me it was very important for Superman to have a Superboy career because there is only so much Pa Kent was going to teach his son about dealing with meta-peers.


Maybe I'm showing my age, but I do enjoy a good frivilous stupid story sometimes.  It's like the Bog Lobo/Superman story (that had the cute plastic cutout/playset cover on it - Colorforms).  What a hoot!


Sorry, I was referring to post-Crisis Krypton.  To that I say "No, no, no, no!"  I always likened the death of Krypton to a sort of paradise lost idea - the world that died post-Crisis was a good world to die and should have.  I liked TAS Krypton, a world you hated to see die and the Brainiac angle was very clever.

What I like:

When Superman gets creative with his powers : I really like it when Superman uses his power in a very creative way; sadly this only happen in the classic books. The modern Superman seems to just blast things with heat rays or punch stuff like an idiot. I hope to see this change with the latest comics at some point. The same thing happen to Green Lantern, where post-crisis he wasn't allow to transform his ray into anything, so he just blasted things and people with a green ray from his ring and that's it. Talk about boring! Bill Finger was one of the best writers to use Superman's powers in a super creative way.

Red K stories: While green K was over use to the point of laziness on the part of the writers, and this was even worst in JLA. Red K stories were always fun and creative and many times surreal and thought provoking!

Powerful enemies: When ever Superman had to deal with someone or some monster just as powerful as him or at times, even more powerful than him, it made for some great stories.  This works far better when Superman is extremely powerful but still has these issues. Unlike the post-crisis or cartoon versions which just made him a weakling so that everyone was a threat. Which not only goes against the nature of the character but isn’t nearly as suspenseful as a threat so great that even Superman can’t stop them with muscle alone.

I can go on but I'll stop here for now.

Likes:

Superman as the caretaker of Krypton's legacy: from the statues of his parents in the Fortress, to observances of the planet's demise, to his efforts to restore Kandor to full-size, I love the subtext of Superman as Last Ambassador of Krypton.  To me, it's not necessary that he be the "last son" of Krypton (ie: no other survivors), but it was great that he was the most visible emissary of the lost world to the still-living Universe; protector of Kandor, "warden" of the Phantom Zone, archivist of Kryptonian lore, representative of Kryptonian ideals.  The books lost all of this with the reboot and have never fully recovered it.

Superboy and the Legion:  Kal fit in with this group better than any incarnation of the League, partly because the LSH had members of comparable power levels but mostly because they took on genuine, cosmic-scale threats that mattered.  Or maybe it's just because in his younger years, he was less apt to totally dominate any group he belonged to.

Clark Kent as hero: I have to echo Julian's remarks here: some of my favorite moments came when Clark played the hero, as in the "Who Took the Super Out of Superman" story where he fights Intergang without powers.

Non-Super Superman: In fact, it's suprising just how many of my favorite adventures involved Superman losing his powers, from his battles with Luthor on Planet Lexor to his secret life as Nightwing in Kandor to "Superman Under the Red Sun" and the classic "Who Took the Super..." and even up to the Jurgens-era "Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite." Fun as it is to watch Superman "bathe" in the sun or stop a tidal wave with a handclap, his non-super moments were the times he seemed most heroic to me, and the most revealing of the man behind the legend.

Red Kryptonite: an ingenious way to make the impossible (temporarily) possible, and without resorting to magic (see below).

Krypto: every boy needs a dog.  And in a perfect world, one who'd put up with you attaching a cape to his collar.

Super-Romances: Again, I'm with Julian on this one (twice in one thread...I may faint!)...anyone but Lois.  Be it Lori Lemaris, Sally Sellwyn, Lyla Leroll or, in the teen years, Lana Lang, there were tons of charming, heart-tugging romantic moments in Super-history, and I liked them. Gone forever now with his marriage to the least interesting female in the mythos.

Dislikes:

Mind Control: I'm jumping on the bandwagon here.  Besides just being overdone, and boring, it's a rip-off.  I don't buy Superman comics to see a guy in a blue and red suit with someone else's brain.  Which is why I disliked the reboot in general, come to think of it. 

Living Kents: Nothing against the old folks; they're swell, but having them available to run to every time Clark has an emotional crisis (about twice a day in recent years) is boring and stupid, and breaks one of the basic rules of heroic mythology, which is that Dad must die.

Mxyzptlk: Bat-Mite gets all the hate press, but Mxy's as bad or worse in my book.

Magical Foes: Superman does not work in the world of magic.  I generally like Superman: The Animated Series, but that one with Dr Fate (who I love!) is utterly unwatchable; I haven't made it through even once.  Similarly, any comic that makes the leap from sci-fi to outright fairies-and-dragons Fantasy turns me off big time.  Into this category you may also place vampires, devils, zombies and similar creatures.

Sword of Superman and similar add-ons to the legend that add "extra layers" for their own sake and needlessly complicate one of the simplest and best origins in all of fiction.  This includes not only stuff intended to make the legend "grander" but also tinkering designed, apparently, to undermine the legend, like Frank Robbins having Jor-El and Laura floating around in space in suspended animation.

Superman lookalikes: okay, actor Gregory Reed is acceptable.  Maybe I'll give Van-Zee a pass.  But there must have been about 500 guys in the Silver Age who looked just like Superman, on both sides of the law.  Even accepting for a moment the old myth that everyone has a double out there somewhere, how does Supes rate hundreds?  Especially when he's not even a product of the Terran gene pool?

Superbaby: I mean, come on.  I love SA silliness as much as the next guy, but even I have limits.

Terra-Man: Ditto.


Julian Perez writes:


Julian Perez, meet John Forte:

(http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/268/adv312p1.gif)



Just for the record, that was Jim Sherman.  And I liked him, too.



Klar Ken T5477 writes:


Soon, it'll be impossible to forget. It's included in the upcoming Kandor TPB. ;D

Much as I agree with you on most everything there Nightwing old bean, I have take umbrage with the dislike of John Forte. 

Sure his art appears simplistic and almost childlike but that's the charm.  His women were the most lovely in the 30th Century (JF was romance artist)and his alien/futuristic technology was clunky to say the least but coupled with the space operatic stories of Edmond Hamilton, JF's Legion really fired my imagination.   

I also like Forte's inking Swan and his solo Jimmy and Lois tales.

Coincidentally enough, while searching for some representative JF LSH art I came across a few pulp covers signed by him!

(http://www.noosfere.com/showcase/IMAGES/futfic_4108.jpg)

(http://www.noosfere.com/showcase/IMAGES/futfic_4204.jpg)

Then again.....

(http://www.prismcomics.org/features/images/1229/-Revolt02.jpg.jpg)

(http://www.prismcomics.org/features/images/1229/-Revolt03.jpg.jpg)
(http://www.prismcomics.org/features/images/1229/-Revolt04.jpg.jpg)

I've said this before but it bears repeating:

John Forte posed his characters' BODIES as stiff as mannequins, and he wasn't much good with perspective, but he drew FACES superbly. Look at the expressiveness of the faces in those examples, or in any of his work. Not just when characters were angry or weeping or laughing, but more subtle stuff too.

Plus, he managed to give EVERY Legionnaire a unique hairstyle, so that you could have recognized them easily even in street clothes (even though they always wore their costumes). That was no easy task considering how many members the Legion had even then. Curt Swan HATED drawing the Legion because he couldn't remember all the costumes, let alone the hair and faces. Forte was not Swan's equal but he was his peer.

I am sorry but that artwork is terrible. All the girls faces look the same and they are all ugly to boot.

The paintings are primitive, but at least have some charm to them. So I'll give him credit for that.

Well, Beppo, now you've done it - you've honked off Triplicate Girl!  ;)

(http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1085/755593651_a825520a4c_o.jpg)

LOL, the Legion is a delicate agreement, any small thing can set them off... ;D

I hate to disagree with Continental Op, but the bodies of the Legion women are looking OK when they are doing the "twist", the faces are expressive but look pasted on and somewhat weird...

I'm quite amazed at Shrinking Violet's "Teensy-Weensy? How small of you, loverboy" remark.

Forte's faces could be expressive, but they were all the same face.  Then again, the same could be said of many, many comic artists over the decades.  And sorry, but complimenting an artist on the ability to differentiate characters by "different hairstyles" is faint praise, at best.  In fact, it's always been one of my gripes against poor artists; when you can only tell characters apart by hair color, mustaches or glasses, it's not a good thing.

What bugged me most about Forte's art...well, it was two things really.  First, his figures were so stiff and awkward.  This is something that always bugged me about Dick Dillin's work, too...either of these guys would have been fine as fashion artists, but comics require an ability to draw lithe, supple figures in action.  Second, Forte had no sense of scale or proportion.  It's hard to concentrate on the story when Saturn Girl, for instance, is 6 feet taller than Cosmic Boy, or when 16 Legionnaires file into a clubhouse the size of a phone booth, like clowns piling into a miniature car.  I'm willing to make a lot of allowances for oddball art styles, but when the art takes you out of the story, there's a problem.

On the other hand, as noted Forte could be good on inks.  I was reading one story in a Showcase volume recently and noticed a different inking style, one I really liked.  I looked up the credits and was gob-smacked to see the inks were by John Forte.  So maybe it's just a case of being assigned the wrong job.  Lord knows it's happened to enough artists.

I never liked Pete Costanza on the Legion. His work reminded me of Chic Stone inking over Kirby in FF: if cavemen drew comics on their cave walls, I always imagind they'd look something like Costanza.


I agree with all that you say - certainly Superman and Batman can learn a lot from each other, but this is a good justification for a team-up or an issue of DCCP, not a friendship that defines both characters (and which is, strangely enough, a sticking point for a lot of people), and certainly not something that becomes a spin-off series with a life of its own.

One idea I always thought was interesting was the idea of the Green Lantern/Superman friendship, especially since Neil Gaiman explored that one so well. The two most powerful and outer space heroes certainly have something to talk about to each other. They can "bond."

GENERATIONS had its moments (the Batmobile spaceship was great) but it was depressing for me, a guy that worshipped Byrne for X-MEN and IRON FIST, to see how awful his art has gotten in recent times. It's depressing because I remember when he used to be great.


When I think of a frivolous story done well, I think of the E. Nelson Bridwell Elongated Man backups in DETECTIVE COMICS, with Sue and Ralph solving mysteries and whatnot. Bridwell did what he set out to do: write a story that can entertain the reader for five minutes.

It is the "kid" part of our brain that makes us love superhero comics, sure. However, there is a difference between something being for children...and something being childish.


I never saw Pre-Crisis Krypton as a Paradise Lost, because Krypton was always a very dangerous place; if it wasn't the insane, killing machine carnivores that got you, it was the wilderness, or evil scientists trying to mutate sealife into lake monsters, or Generals trying to stage a coup and become dictator with hundreds of imperfect clones, or an Eileen Wurnos-esque female serial killer that needed to be taken down from the air.

Mark Waid, of all the writers in recent times, gets what Pre-Crisis Krypton was about: it was the Wild West, a struggle of elbow grease and guts vs. nature.

Waid has an amazing ability to pick up on these themes in a book and bring them to the forefront, make them explicit: for instance, the idea of the Legionnaires being hip, rebellious kids vs. an authoritarian bunch of mind-controlled grownups is very, VERY Jim Shooter. The guy CAN write in the spirit of a book if he chooses to.

I agree with what you're saying about the Byrne reboot Krypton; Superman needs the tragedy of Krypton for his whole identity and to make him sympathetic. But just on a visual level, the Byrne Krypton looked great. Krypton was badly in need of a makeover for decades: even as late as the 1980s, they had a "Buck Rogers" looking fifties Krypton.

This was back when Byrne could still draw. His Krypton was alien and fragile. It looks like how I always imagined the Martian cities in Bradbury's MARTIAN CHRONICLES, or the cities of the Eldren in THE ETERNAL CHAMPION.


My Marvel Zombie older brother scared me away from DC comics (which he called "Dunce Cap comics") for years and years with horror stories, told in a hushed whisper, about the existence of a dog that has Superman's powers and wears a cape.

Even at age seven, this struck me as the most retarded thing I've ever heard in my life.

The very idea of the existence of a dog with Superman's powers, is enough to rupture suspension of disbelief about Superman's entire world.

There were two - and only two - occasions where, for me, Krypto ever was actually cool, and what made Krypto so interesting in both these stories was ignored by writers immediately after:

One such appearance was in an Elliot S! Maggin/Swan Green Arrow/Black Canary backup story in ACTION. Maggin remembered that Krypto, like Superman, has proportionate superintelligence. In the story, Krypto uses his canine superbrain to figure out how to unbolt a door and work a doorknob.

(It should be remembered at this time that JURASSIC PARK and their chimpanzee-intelligent velociraptors were decades away.)

A canine with a frightening and fascinating level of superintelligence that can figure out how to open doors? That's just a great idea. No other writer really played up this aspect of Krypto.

Consider this: Krypto can probably see in color better than we can.

The other story is a Jim Shooter/Pete Costanza "Revolt of the Super-Pets." So many great insights here that were ignored, that I'm not sure where to begin. The story has the pets have definite personalities, including Krypto: he had a pride about being "important." Thanks to him, Kal-El could reach earth. The Super-Pets resent their human owners for treating them like mere pets and patronizing them.

This story showed exactly why, despite the fact the pets are so powerful, they never could do the Legion's job: they were less clever, more naive, and were taken in by a ruse that the human Legionnaires saw through immediately.


In all fairness, the Kents have not been written this way for at least a decade.

I agree with you, but not for the same reason. The most important element of Superman's characterization, the thing that keeps him likable, is the fact that he's a very lonely person. Clark Kent spends his Christmases by himself, for instance. And surrounding him with a loving family undercuts this.


Really now? Because if I was to be asked who of the STTA regulars my tastes in comics are closest to, I'd say either you or Aldous.

Who's your favorite artist? Neal Adams.

Who's my favorite artist? Neal Adams!

You think Kirby's seventies stuff is terrible. Guess what? So do I.

You like the Englehart DETECTIVE COMICS, and I really, really, really like the Englehart DETECTIVES! Ditto for the Englehart/Brunner DOCTOR STRANGE.

We both prefer realistic artists - guys like John Buscema and Kubert - over cartoony, stylized artists. We both believe (mostly) comics exclusively for kids are a waste of time.

The person whose taste in comics I overlap the least with of the regs is Telle, who I appreciate despite it all, but...

If I was forced to choose between being either a Bat-Mite fan or a pedophile...I'd have to give the matter serious thought.

This is why Superman needing a gas mask and space ship is such a turn-off to me.  He's super, darnit, and should generally travel the cosmos under his own power. 

You talking to Garth Ranzz, by chance?  :) 

Livewire (as opposed to Live Wire) has a fair amount of diversity to her powers these days.  One could arguably call her White Vulcana or Blue Vulcanita at this point.   

There was Alan Moore's take in Supreme, which I enjoyed.

It sure did.  But, yeah, that was the more disappointing aspect.  After years of gorgeous curves and subtle character indiosyncracies, the inked work let me a bit disappointed.  Also I thought Supes was a lot less bulkier than he was during MOS and the 2 years after.


Jeepers - what Krypton are you talking about?  The thought-beast, et al. were all distant jungle nature type stuff.  Heck - what you describe pretty much sounds a bit like Earth as it is (minus the imperfect clones - but I'm sure it's being worked on).  How much cooler would it be to have all that and have flying cars, ray guns, and all the rest?  I'd take a vacation to Fire Falls over Niagra in a heartbeat.


I didn't mind the architecture but just not into the whole barren world thing.  I was much more into movie Krypton, but still, I preferred the Silver Age 'ton above all.  MOS Krypton was a dying world as it was - like the final death was more a mercy than anything.  With that type of world - the story would have been more compelling that Jor-El didn't want his son to have that legacy and never even bothered to send him the data of where he's really from.

It is a little hard to figure just where the Snagriffs and the Flame Dragons lived...

and then


Smart comics for kids with quality art: the hallmark of most great superhero comics.  Bridwell is great!


Don't think to long! :)

(for the record, I choose Bat-Mite fandom.)

Julian Perez writes:


Ha!  Dunce Cap, that's cute.  Well, at age seven I thought a super-dog was an awesome idea, although I knew plenty of 7-year-olds who shared your disdain.  It'd be interesting to study just what it is in the way a person's brain is wired to make them respond one way or the other; whether they embrace silly concepts or are repelled by them.  Apparently it's decided very early on in life.

Personally, the Marvel fans I grew up around made me nervous.  They tended to be the more rebellious kids, the trouble-makers, the kids who were always in a hurry to be percieved as older than they were.  In extreme cases, they were the kids who somehow managed to acquire a copy of Penthouse magazine or a pack of smokes and whip them out to shock "squares" like me.  Marvel Comics had an edge to them; they came off as daring and risky and mature and kind of anti-establishment.  The kids who read them tended to listen to Alice Cooper or KISS, watch "Saturday Night Live" and read Rolling Stone magazine, while I listened to Beatles, watched The Hardy Boys Mysteries and read Boy's Life.  To my young mind, Marvel comics were books about disgruntled misfits FOR disgruntled misfits. In contrast, DC books were about as "daring" as Boy's Life magazine; they were reassuring, sometimes educational and just generally supportive of authority and the establishment. 

Of course as I got older I came to appreciate a lot of Marvel books, but I've never totally overcome my original take on the company and its fans.  I'm still a square.  And I still think a super-powered dog is cool.  (Though I draw the line at horses and cats). 



No, but a lot of the other things on my lists haven't been in play for years, either. 


Neal was a god to me as a kid, but the older we both get, the more the bloom is off the rose.  I don't dig his politics, his current art style or his efforts to tamper with his old stuff.  But Neal brought comics to life for me in a way no one else ever has, and he was the only artist who ever made me dream of being one myself.


Wow, what are the odds?   :D  I don't think we're in a very small demographic there.



And Englehart/Rogers DOCTOR STRANGE.  And Englehart JLA.  Other than that, I don't really follow Steve around with you and the other groupies.


As a kid, I'd have said yes in a heartbeat. Adams and his spiritual forefathers Lou Fine, Mac Raboy and Reed Crandall were my faves.  But as I've aged, I've developed great affection for "cartoony" work from guys like Dick Sprang, Chester Gould, Howard Sherman, EE Hibbard, CC Beck Steve Ditko and early Kirby.  Or guys whose work is not really "cartoony" but is quite stylized, like Mike Golden, Marshall Rogers, Howard Chaykin and especially Walt Simonson.

I think what Duke Ellington said about music is applicable to comic art: there's only two kinds, good and bad.


If you mean superhero comics, yes.  I think they should be accessible to all audiences, not dumbed down for kids by adults who underestimate their intelligence. 


I don't think you can "choose" to be either one.  Like all mental illnesses, you're either afflicted or you aren't.  :D

Weren't his poltiics a key factor in Siegel and Shuster getting the time of day from DC in the '70s?  I don't like the fact that he's hollow-earth loony, but most artists are loony, and probably ought to have separate writers for the good of the world.

What a comic for kids means is an interesting question.

Seemed to me like a good story is one that involves the imagination and maybe teaches a few things along the way (parrots have two reversed claws in a Batman story, a 60s JLA reference to the location and story of Mount Rushmore, etc). In the end, is a dog with super powers and that thinks in English any more ridiculous than gamma rays causing a scientist to have every cell in his body alter back and forth based on how angry he is?

I never saw the Marvel kids as that rebelious, mainly i saw them as kids so into it that they would probably never give it up.  For all my interest in DC comics, its still mostly how the stories bring back memories of my thinking when I was a kid.

Amusingly enough, your “forensic profiling” is spot on when it comes to my brother. He loved heavy metal music and left the house when he was sixteen.


You’d be surprised, actually.

The pendulum has swung back the other way, and we’re now living in the comics age of “everything that Kirby does is great.”
 
I mentioned before that Chris Priest retconned the Kirby Black Panther out of existence…but much more typical to pattern is somebody like Kurt Busiek, who treats the 70s Kirby stuff with bizarre veneration. Arnim Zola and Machine Man played big roles in THUNDERBOLTS, for example.

And I heard they’re re-releasing CAPTAIN VICTORY. You know, the book with the Fighting Fetus?


Yes, yes it is.

Because one you can take seriously in an adventure story context, the other you can’t.

Julian, if you can't take something seriously, then the correct way to state it would be, "one I can take seriously in an adventure story context, the other I can’t."

Some of us aren't as limited as others in our thinking.

One of the best intelligent dog characters I've read is in Spider Robinson's Callahan series.  Although intended to be predominantly humorous, the stories strike me as extremely well done adventure tales.  Ralph is a mutant dog whose mutation granted him human-level intelligence.  Through a bizarre coincidence, he was selected as an experimental subject by a scientist who was attempting to implant vocal cords in animals.  The doc was pretty surprised when his first (and last) experiment immediately started talking to him.

I thought Krypto had some ripping good adventures.

Superbaby did as well, even though I personally was not as attracted to those.

Well, if there was one thing I left out it was this: "...in the world Superman inhabits."

A talking dog that solves mysteries, if it is played up as bizarre and surreal instead of something "cute" is something that might inhabit the gonzo world of DOOM PATROL, for instance. Knowing Arnie Drake, he'd probably be a snotty, accented upper-class Bavarian dog, too.

I love Ralph (and Spider Robinson - how can I dislike a fellow Heinlein fanboy?) however what must be remembered is, strictly speaking, Ralph's stories were not adventure tales in the mold of something like David Brin's UPLIFT books (another series with talking animals), but they're surreal, entertainingly incomprehensible stories set in and around a magical bar. I mean, that's very, very different than Lex Luthor fighting a dog with a cape that flies.

Incidentally, I believe Ralph was based on Phillip Jose Farmer's surgically altered talking detective dog from VENUS ON THE HALF-SHELL. Or vice-versa; it's hard to tell with a fanboy like Farmer sometimes.

There is one dog I like: Ace, the Bat-Hound. He made sense: the police use trained dogs and their sense of smell in crimefighting, so why not Batman? I love the take seen in BATMAN BEYOND, where he was a surly, unfriendly kind of dog.

"Limited in our thinking?" Yeesh, that was surprisingly harsh. From my point of view, let me describe another intellectual limitation: the inability to distinguish between something for children and something that's childish. Another limitation is so totally internalizing irony that it no longer becomes possible to distinguish between true appreciation and ironic appreciation.

One of my favourite Simpson's moments: those two 90s slackers in Homerpalooza who are no longer sure if their sarcastic appreciation for a fat old guy catching a cannon ball in the stomach is genuine, genuinely ironic, or an ironic approximation of sarcasm.

I think at one point, and at a certain level this is still true, my appreciation for things like 70s Kirby, Bat-Mite, Silver-Age plot holes and sloppy writing was an ironic appreciation borne of a genuine bafflement and anxiety over the difference between, say, a well-written Weisinger-era story, or a mid-60s Stan-and-Jack FF tale, and a Bob H. or Kamandi tale.  They seemed worlds apart. 

On the other hand, I grew up with a northern Ontario, long-hair, 70s KISS aesthetic that included the grunge of 70s Marvel, Peanuts paperbacks, and the gleaming tv idols of Superfriends and Filmation's Tarzan.  When you are a Marvel fan as a kid, all of Marvel is hyped as of equal value, and the inkers try to impose an aesthetic order that the editors cannot.  At least this seems to be the case with 70s Marvel.

Of course, as an adult, with more of a perspective on art historical matters and am appreciation for more forms of narrative, Kirby has so much more to say than the contents of most pop cult entertainments.  They are still assembly-line escapist fantasies (a form that I love) with a few dollops of philosophizing and a few original neat narrative effects (not to mention an almost unparalleled potential for visual wonder).  But Kirby, because of what he did historically and the stamp of personality he brought to even the most mediocre, warmed-over concepts, is in a league of his own.

This doesn't mean I'm buying the collected Silver Star this week.  I'd buy Devil Dinosaur but I already have all the issues and I'm thinking of getting them bound.

I simply can't find a common barometer to measure a Hulk adventure vs. a Krypto adventure.  Neither is scientifically plausible, neither is generally agreed upon as great literature in the subjective world of literary critique.

So the only thing I think that approaches something objective is that both had adventures, and people can appreciate one or the other or both.

I wonder where you are going with childish, though.  I enjoy the Simpsons but detest Family Guy as a collection of unrelated childish gags, but I'm not sure adults or teens would agree with me.

There is no difference, it's just a matter of taste.
HULK SMASH, GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR indeed.

hmm I liked Krypto.
I didn't think it was stupid at all.

Goofy? sure
stupid?? never

Of course he wasn't. 

Krypto fits fine.

Opinions don't have an effect on what WAS "Superman's World".  What WAS Superman's world was what was written...warts and all, in all eras.

I actually thought we'd been living in that age since the late eighties or so, when The Comics Journal sort of took up Kirby's cause - ironically, about the same time they started knocking on Will Eisner. I'm not a big fan of Kirby's later work either, because let's face it, it was pretty lousy. I do like Kamandi, but I have to admit it's more for its kitsch value than anything else. Anyone who thinks Kirby could do no wrong might benefit from sitting down with the complete 13-issue run of Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers.

I really liked the first bunch of Kamandi stories but then it sorta went no where.

I never read Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers or Silver Star but I will be getting the trades from Image.

As an adult who used to be a teen, I agree with you completely.

I agree with you both--while the baby Stewie and the dog Brian are funny, the show's otherwise pretty wretched, and comes off as just a lame Simpsons/South Park ripoff written by someone who apparently has a minimal attention span and a pile of old 70s/80s TV Guides.

I enjoyed the South Park episode that (over a two-part episode) ripped into "Family Guy"... :-)

Man, so much in this thread a I agree with. I can't think of a list that wouldn't have lots of things already said, but I do want to add this thread is a lot of fun.