Superman Through the Ages! Forum

A character like Superman has had multiple different takes on him. Some have been more popular than others and some have been very, very disliked or at least controversial; others were swept under the rug very soon.

I got the idea for this thread from the discussion about Superman being a vegetarian. I for one, don't have as much a problem with this as many people seem to.

For one thing, characterization-wise, it seems like an extension of Superman's clean-living. He doesn't smoke or drink (poor soul)...is it really that much of a jump to say he doesn't eat red meat?

And I think it's perfectly in character for Superman to be intelligent and give in to some of the eccentricities that very dedicated people have - vegetarianism among them. Doc Savage, Superman's anticedent, took this a little further; he was, if you think about it, was not just eccentric, he was a downright weirdo: he exercised two hours every day in the days before just about every white collar person had a gym membership, and he didn't smoke when just about everybody smoked.

I'm not a vegetarian myself, so my position on Superman's vegetarianism does not come from a defensiveness about the choice.

I also like Superman's Aura-Vision.

In proof that people get their opinions by looking at the opinions of others, if you look at some other boards, it's just about common wisdom that this is the worst idea ever. I'm not saying all views are like this, but there certainly is a kind of view on something that people just take for granted as being true without looking deeply at it. An example would be the so-called awfulness of artists like Don Heck and Mike Sekowsky. People are only NOW looking back at their work and saying, "a-ha! Heck wasn't as bad as all that."

I think it's really, really trippy that Superman with his vision, sees living things in a totally different way.

It transforms his respect for life and makes it more interesting, because instead of being a rule, he respects life because he has a sense of awe, wonder and mystery about it.

I also like that there is more than one survivor of Krypton. I also like that there are quite a few!

"How much is too much?" At least when it comes to Krypton survivors; I'd like to err on the higher side of that question.

Even people that like the idea of say, Supergirl and the Phantom Zoners, always qualify their statements with something like "...well, I'm not in favor of TOO many Kryptonians, though."

Krypton "works" as long as it blows up. After that, you can have as many survivors as you want.

Superman is kept emotionally identifiable because he doesn't have a home, he's an alien that's accepted the world over but ironically is very much apart from it all. Somebody very sentimental about where he came from. This characterization can work with as many Kryptonians around as you like.

And Krypton is ultimately too interesting a world to just shut the door on entirely. Uncle Morty, God bless him, didn't think it's possible to have too much of a good thing, and that's where we get guys like Dev-Em and the Kandorians, as well as tons of Kryptonian gear like a box of superweapons invented by Dev-Em.

It's no coincidence that Cary Bates, a guy that understands Superman very well, also wrote several episodes of GARGOYLES. Specifically, he wrote the episode of GARGOYLES where the Gargoyle Clan - who previously believed they were the last of their race, discover that they really aren't, that there are Guatemalan Gargoyles that look like Mayan serpent carvings, and Japanese Gargoyles that keep alive the old Samurai and Ninja ways. The loss to the series was negligible and the gain was infinitely greater because of the supporting cast that was added.

(I forget if Cary Bates wrote the Samurai Gargoyles episode, but I know for a fact he wrote the Guatemalan Gargoyle one.)

Ultimately, the existence of characters like Kara and the Kandorians, like the Guatemalan Gargoyles (voiced no less, by very sexy Hispanic actors), add more to the Superman world's richness. You can tell more stories about Kara alive than dead. She offers more alive than dead.

And let's face it, a rule like "no other Kryptonians" just won't work. It hasn't worked, because it does the one thing in not just comics, but serial fiction in general, that you just can't do: close a door. This is why the post-Crisis rules of "time travel only works a single time once" or "no alternate universes" didn't hold. Okay, yeah, there was the general climate of lassais-faire malaise and idiocy that typefied the post-Crisis DC, but even in a strong editorial grip, the rules would inevitably be broken: they closed a door.

I also don't mind Superman working as a newscaster.

The reason that Superman working as a newscaster was acceptable whereas Supeman going back to being a newspaper reporter in the Andy Helfer-edited years is unacceptable, is in approach.

As a newscaster, Clark Kent behaved like Clark Kent should; he was mild, unassuming, bland and somewhat forgettable.

In the Helfer/Byrne/Kesel years, Kent was successful and admired, a top reporter, and had a column and won awards. See the difference? I'd rather have Clark Kent act like Clark Kent as a newscaster and still have there be a difference in the secret identity, than have one where he is characterized wildly and abnormally.

I also liked Clark as a newscaster, actually; there was something trippy about him being a celebrity too. Maggin mentioned this in Superman: Last Son of Krypton, pointing out that it was a tribute to his acting ability that both Superman and Clark could appear on the news and nobody guessed his secret.

In fact, I liked the whole WGBS thing: Clark getting chewed out by Morgan Edge and Steve Lombard pulling pranks on him. There was something very pleasant and chatty about those scenes. Maggin and Bates both wrote well-paced dialogue and Swan conjured up the office environment brilliantly. I would gladly have read a whole issue of just Clark hanging out at the office, talking to Lana and Lola and giving Josh Coyle ulcers. It got even better when Vartox became the building security officer; pity that was so brief. Come to think of it, it was a good setting for a sitcom.

I also miss super-genius Superman, who is gradually making a comeback thanks to Kurt Busiek. I don't know why people tend not to like that aspect of the character. He was always in control. The Byrne incarnation of Superman was too naive and temperamental, which says more about the writer than the character himself; the guy should have been around the track a few times, know the score, be secure and not blow his top. HE DOES NOT SUFFER MENTAL ILLNESS AS A RESULT OF EXECUTING ZOD AND COMPANY IN COLD BLOOD. Sorry, lost my cool there.

Kandor. Old Kandor, I mean, with people strolling around in tights and headbands, driving hovercars in a sort of Lilliput Utopia. I haven't entirely followed the introduction of the new Kandor, and I'm not really sure how it's supposed to work, but it certainly doesn't look like the place I knew as a boy. I miss the way old Krypton was depicted too, like an Art Nouveau I Love Lucy.

Superman and Batman being such good friends. This has more to do with the treatment of Batman's character over the years, of course. It was nice to know that Superman knew this fellow he could talk about anything with. Now when Superman shows up at the Batcave he gets hissed at.

Aaah, there are lots of things I miss that most people probably hate. It's almost impossible for me to read one of the old comics without coming across a bit that I know is corny, but really works for me.

Curt Swan's offices felt very true-to-life. I was watching NETWORK recently, and struck by how accurate Swan was in depicting the "look" of an office in that period. As much as I enjoyed the Animated Series, their beautiful Daily Planet was hyper-stylized; it looked like a cross between the inside of an Opera House and the General Motors Futurama from the World's Fair. As great a look as that was, the Planet benefits from feeling like a real office and a real place.



I don't think these things are ideas that most - or even lots - of people hate. I mean, I was thinking of something like sticking your middle finger out and saying, "Yeah, I liked 'Master Mesmerizer of Metropolis.' So what?"

The one idea I never would want to see back is Kandor. The reason is, Kandor's story is finished.  The city was regrown, etc. They got a Happily Ever After, in other words. Bringing Kandor back in some form would be as pointless as bringing the original Swordsman back.

Oh, I thought everybody hated them on the general principle that the things I like usually tend to be very unpopular. In that case, I can't think of anything, really, although I did quite like the Master Mesmerizer story now that you bring it up, because, come on, a pair of glasses?

I know what you mean about Kandor, but still.

Julian Perez writes:



Aside from the fact that my favorite storyline ever has Clark eating beef bourgignon, I have no particular interest in his diet one way or the other.  The only vegetarians I don't like are the holier-than-thou militant variety, so as long as he doesn't proselytize, Supes can eat what he likes with no grief from me.



Plus he had a mortal fear of females and had a habit of making a "trilling" noise subconciously.  He was a nut.  If you've ever seen the movie "Twins," you know Arnold Schwartzenneger played a guy raised by scientists on a remote island to be a mental and physical superman...and he's also a complete and utter dork and weirdo.  That's pretty much Doc's origin, and that's pretty much how he turned out.  Actually, for my money it makes Doc more endearing to know that for all his superhuman talents, he's as messed up as any of us in the end, just in different ways.  



I think if people dislike this power, it's because it's usually associated with trippy hippy types in tie-died sun dresses.  Just the existence of auras is debatable, and the debate veered off into something like religion before it ever got a chance to be scientific.  Giving Superman the power to "read" auras is almost like making him a wiccan or something, and that's going to gall Middle America for sure.



I'm currently reading bits and pieces of the "Krypton Companion" book and at the end, there's a roundtable discussion with creators from various eras.  The question comes up about Superman being the sole survivor and how important that is.  The most militant champion of the "sole survivor" rule is, predictably, Byrne.  

But let's consider for a moment the differences between pre- and post-reboot mythos.  In the Weisinger and Schwartz eras, we had stories of Jor-El and Lara, the Phantom Zone, Kandor, Kara, Krypto...all adding to a huge and rich tapestry.  In the Byrne reboot, we got one guy with no appreciation for his roots...just another guy in longjohns like all the rest.  He might has well have been bitten by a spider or hit by a gamma bomb for all the difference it made.

Why would anyone think that Superman has to be the ONLY survivor in order for the story to work?  The only way to keep the pathos going is to have constant reminders all around the guy of what he lost.  Kandor doesn't take away the sting of losing Krypton, it makes it more excruciating.  Every visit there reminds Kal-El of the life he might have had, and every time he sees the bottle it's a reminder that he can't solve every problem (incidentally in the same book, Len Wein admits he was wrong to enlarge Kandor in Superman #338, saying "the concept of a city in a bottle is a lot cooler than what I left it as").  The Phantom Zone is also a rich concept; it's got to torture Superman that so many of Krypton's worst offenders survived when so many good people did not.  And the responsibility of acting as warden to those prisoners is huge; how to reconcile his own belief in fair play and due process with his fear of releasing these terrible people when their sentences are up? All of this stuff just makes the mythos so much more interesting, and makes Superman's life so wonderfully complicated; defender of Earth, caretaker of Krypton's legacy, warden to the universe's worst prison, failed savior to a city of captive liliputians.  It's great stuff.  I say if you've got writers with the chops to handle the concepts as they were back then, the more survivors the better!  Bring 'em on!



Well, that one never worked for me.  I don't think it hurts the character or anything like that, it just doesn't interest me.  I got tired of seeing Clark run off set on commercial breaks or when the tape was rolling so he could fight crime or whatever.  Somehow it just degenerated into cliche for me a lot faster than the newspaper thing.  Also I don't care what Maggin says, if the guy's on a national newscast there's no way somebody's not going to see through that disguise.  It's one thing to act the coward around your co-workers, but if all you've got to do is read the news off a teleprompter, there's not much opportunity to show what a nervous nelly you are.  All you are is a pretty face with flapping lips...and hey, wait, doesn't that face look a lot like Superman?  As far as I'm concerned, the first time Clark did a story on Superman and they showed a portrait of Supes in a little box over Clark's shoulder, the jig would be up.

But your question was, what did I like that others did not?

Umm...not much, really.  Guess I'm just part of the herd.  :lol:

Does Plastino's art count?  I've heard him bashed, but I liked him fine.

I think Len Wein is one of the greatest writers of his or any time, so I don't know if I entirely agree with him here. What he did was something that had such utter chutzpah that it's certainly got entertainment value. Hey, they hired a Marvel guy for his "coolness" and ability to shake things up, and by God, he did!

The other reason is, if you know the future about something, there's only so long that you can push the future events further in the ill-defined future. For instance, there's only so long the Legion can push off the events of the Adult Legion story starting to come to pass.

A young Mordru is right now running about the 20th Century. Eventually, at some point, he's going to have to go into the Sleep Prison (and for the most part, stay there).

There was also one Roy Thomas Golden Age-set story where the Nazis summoned and mind-controlled Thor (THE Thor). Obviously,  Thor couldn't stick around, because it was destined that he would not return "until the dawn of the Age of Silver."

A scheme to mind-control a Pagan deity? Gee, I wonder where it all went wrong.

By the Legion's time, we know for a fact that the survivors of Krypton, enlarged Kandorians, lived on the planet Rokyn. They mention Rokyn in (for instance) "The Five Legion Orphans" in 1967. Eventually, Superman's going to have to enlarge it somehow.

The Bizarro World

While many people have reprints of Jerry Siegel's Adventure Comics run, the origins of the Bizarros, and especially their planet haven't been reprinted. Htrae is a planet of lifeless clones that predates the Borg...except it's funny! Siegel's run is the only reprinted one, and they are reprinted all in one book so that the format seems repetitive. This contributes to a lack of respect for Bizarros and Bizarro culture. Personally, the only way I found out some of my Bizarro information was from the Great Superman Book, and I've now copied this information here: Bizarro (http://superman.nu/wiki/index.php/Bizarro)
One good thing about the Supermanica article...is that it contains none of the Adventure Comics information. It's about 8 thick pages of only Superman and Action Comics info.

Superboy

While popular for over 40 years, this idea has fallen out of favor with many: Superboy was Clark Kent's first secret identity. This training ground in Smallville is the reason that Superman doesn't end up like...well, Nietzche's Superman (or Overman) after the Kents DIED (that's right, they're stone dead!)

Composite Superman

I ran across a conversation on a certain Superman board the other day, and the consensus was that Composite Superman was lame. First of all, without knowledge of his origin, it simply looks like somebody sewed together a half-Superman/half-Batman costume. Part of the problem also lies in the comtempt for the idea that Superman and Batman are best friends that complement one another. Who knows, maybe Superman's optimism is what kept the insane Frank Miller Batman from ever happening for all those years!

And I like the aura-vision too. Sure, there is scientific debate about auras, but we're talking about SUPERMAN comics here.

I really, really don't like the Bizarro World, at least in the form that it ultimately took.

Uncle Morty did the right thing by replacing the Tales of the Bizarro World backup with Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes. Bizarro World is ridiculous, but not in a good way; it's ridiculous in the sense that a totally backwards society would not be workable.

A similar criticism can be levied against Qward, a "society dedicated to evil." I think the Talmud said that there's no such thing as absolute evil; evil men are all entirely practical.

That is, until later writers (notably Steve Englehart in GREEN LANTERN CORPS) transformed Qward into a much more "real" kind of society; one that isn't dedicated to evil as an abstract concept, but nasty, nasty pieces of work that are nonetheless evil, but a very human, ruthless kind.

And rereading some of the SUPERMAN FAMILY issues with Bizarros in them, I don't find the Bizarros all that funny; the sense of humor was based on something like "You low down, disloyal cur..." "Stop! No Bizarro lets himself be complimented!" I mean, taxonomically speaking...can that even really be classified as a joke?

Bizarro himself is an interesting figure, a sympathetic monster who often doesn't understand what's happening around him (and is occasionally duped, as Pasko had him be) but divorced from the Bizarro World and its kinds of stories.



Is Superboy really that unpopular? My understanding is, the idea that Superboy may be back only really upset the hardcore Helfer/Byrne partisans (who grow less and less numerous every day), but the universal response is a type of hesitant curiosity.

To add my two cents:

Krypto and Superboy are two ideas I like, even though it seems like most current comic fans can't stand the former (due to the lack of "realism") and thanks to the past 20 years worth of comics/media adaptations (Lois and Clark, "Smallville") are too used to the idea of Superman starting his career as an adult (plus general Silver Age resentment/the fact they're used to the recent Kon-El Superboy/etc.).

The idea of Clark fighting crime in secret around Smallville and Metropolis before starting his career doesn't seem to make said fans revolt the way Superboy does, though (see: "Smallville", among other things); never mind that that's what the Superboy concept was meant to be, as a "training period" for Clark. Plus, can't imagine doing a lot of his deeds "in secret" (like saving an airplane from crashing, say)---some things would demand open use of his powers...

Other disliked ideas I like:

Bizarro: Thought the Bizarro World stories were amusing, but also like the "pathos" Bizarro as well.

The Superman Museum: I've gotten reaction from current fans who think the idea of Superman having a museum is "silly", but have no problem with the Flash Museum. Never mind that seems akin to building a museum to Scottie Pippin while relegating Michael Jordon to just a statue (as good as both players/heroes are)... :-p

Superman being able to travel through time/space under his own power: Various people seem to think it's "too powerful", never mind that the Flash still has the ability to do the time-travel bit (among other heroes), or that the existence of wormholes/etc. could somewhat rationalize the idea of space travel, or that it's not like he'd be using his time-travel ability to do it every day (just as Flash only uses it occasionally)...

The Super Pets:

Iron Age fans hate them, and that should be reason enough to love them. Their stories are lots of fun. Sometimes with a strong social message!

Other Kryptonians:

Come on now, nothing is cooler than evil Kryptonians, plus John Bryne hates the idea, so that automatically means it's the greatest idea ever.

Bizarros:

One of the best Bizzaro stories ever happen in the 1980's with the intro of the Bizarro Justice League. http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=38843&zoom=4

Superman's supersuit:

A whole book can be written on his suit! The real suit never rips and the cape can stretch across a football field!

The fake (Iron Age) Superman wears a costume is forever tearing and ripping like the peice of (BEEP) that it is.

I think the original concept of Bizarro -- that of a tragic, deformed clone of Superman -- has tremendous potential.  Bizarro, done right, could be and has been at once scary and sympathetic, like the Frankenstein Monster.

On the other hand, Bizarro world is just dumb.  The mere existence out there, somewhere, of a cube-shaped world is enough to ruin the suspension of disbelief about Superman's entire universe.

I actually like some of the Bizarro World stories, though as Julian says Jerry Seigel's sense of "humor" is highly suspect.  But they work only as gag strips, like Super-Turtle.  Whenever they cross over into the "real" world of Superman, everything falls apart.

I think they made Bizarro a clown because to take him too literally would be terrifying.  Imagine a mentally challenged creature with an inverted sense of right and wrong flying around with the powers of Superman.  And if he's really the "opposite" of Superman, then why doesn't he have a code in favor of killing?  If Superman goes out of his way to avoid taking a life, shouldn't Bizarro spend every waking moment trying to destroy life?

As for Superboy, even Byrne admits it was a mistake to get rid of him.  Again in "Krypton Companion," he says he wishes he'd kept him so he could write stories about Superman "learning the ropes."  Just as well he didn't though...with Byrne writing, we'd probably have seen stories about Clark using his X-ray vision to spy on the girl's locker room or read the Answer Key to his school exams.  Of course then he'd learn such things were "wrong," but as written by Byrne, the only way Superman ever knew right from wrong was to try both.

People have to remember (and they don't) that those comics were written for kids. To a 10-year-old, the Composite Superman is incredibly neat and makes for an exciting adventure. That's certainly how I felt when I first read his second appearance ("The Return of the Composite Superman") as a kid. I wasn't able to read the first adventure till I saw it on Nightwing's Superman website. Naturally I'll always think the sequel is better, but I do think it has better art and a better story anyway.

I loved the idea of the Composite Superman, of course, but can fully understand why the character had to be killed off. (Superman and Batman never really defeated him, and probably never could. He just ran out of power.) As for Bizarro and his world, I could do without them. Same for the Super-pets.

Well, Bizarro was interesting and rather pitiable and sympathetic because ultimately he was not totally evil; that required somebody really nasty, like the orgiinal Toyman in that Martin Pasko story, to get him against Superman. Like I said, somebody that is the reverse of Superman in every way couldn't exist, or would be very different, so the "Frankenstein Monster" take on Bizarro makes more sense than the "backwards" Bizarro. (Does Bizarro live underwater? No. Is he black? No. He isn't backwards!)

As for the Super-Pets...well, I did like the absolutely surreal image of them coming to the Legion's rescue during the "Hand of the Luck Lords" story. My favorite character, at least in the art, was Streaky, because Curt Swan drew Streaky blasted by all these bolts from spaceships, and Streaky just kept that dumb, glass-eyed animal look as if he wasn't noticing what was going on!



(Though I have yet to get an explanation for why Proty can move and maneuver in outer space in zero-gee. He was never given a Flight Ring, and he has no flight powers independently. Also, is it possible that the Proteans can survive in space without suits?)

I do also like Comet   One thing I really like about superhero comics is that relationships are highly abnormal and often tragic. This is where a blind chick falls in love with a big tang-colored rock guy, or a mutant and an android get married. Alan Moore is especially good at understanding this; look at the talking dog/human love affair in TOP TEN! Comet's story had a great deal of human emotions to it. There were stories where Supergirl clutches his neck and he thinks something like "If only I were human, I could tell her how I feel."

My thoughts on Krypto were made clear in another thread.

As for Beppo, Streaky, Mynah the Super-Bird, Krypto Mouse, and the rest...their appearances are very, very small and they were humorous, cute comedy stories. I can no more dislike them than I can dislike that story where Aunt May becomes a Herald of Galactus.

Would I want to see any of them in a regular, mainstream Superman story, where he fights Lex Luthor or something? No. Loathe as I am to say it, the Iron Age guys have a point: Krypto (and maybe Comet or Proty) was the only character that can remotely be taken seriously in the context of an adventure story, even one that skews young.

I haven't owned a dog for decades and maybe that's the reason I find myself more inclined towards Streaky.  My favourite Streaky appearance lately is in the Mike Allred solo "Titans party" story.

I don't know how one of the 4 main ridiculous super pets is any more "realistic" than any other.  Maybe Super-Mouse, but not Comet, Streaky, Krypto, and Proty (my least favourite aesthetically and in practice but a great concept --what would a pet of the future be like, especially if "owned" by Chameleon Boy).  These four are essential to the classic Superman family stories.

I don't like the form that it ultimately took, either, and maybe it was Siegel's fault. Superman made the world square-shaped so that they would let him leave, but after that point in the early 60s, the Bizarro World never developed any more, and it had lots of potential. Bizarro started out as a very tragic figure, he left and colonized a dead planet, but after Siegel's run the element of tragedy was completely gone. And those are the only stories that have been reprinted, like I said.

You guys must not be buying the Showcase Superman books. What are you waiting for? They are cheap and MUST HAVES for all true Superman fans.

I'm in two minds about Bizarro.

Wasn't Superboy's Bizarro story the first Bizarro? I have liked this comic since I was a kid, and it's actually very sad, if I recall correctly. I haven't dug the issue out, but I remember it as a tale of good intentions gone wrong, with tragic results. (A Superboy story from the 50s I believe.) I could find the issue and write a synopsis if anyone's desperately curious.

I remember Bizarro mainly as this: a tragic duplicate of Superboy from a very good and sad story.

I never liked the Superman (ie. grown-up) version. I would have said: let well enough alone. The Superboy one didn't need a sequel or any further development.

As for more ideas that I like but that other people don't seem to...

I don't mind "The Master Mesmerizer of Metropolis."

Okay, their solution was a little cracked, but STILL, I can't blame Marty for trying here. I can understand the spirit of the story: why DO the glasses make an effective disguise, anyway?

Some people say that Superman is based on suspension of disbelief and no matter how far you go, you have to, at some level, accept that glasses can be a disguise. My response to this is that if an idea is any good it should be able to withstand obvious questions, and that suspension of disbelief works for some things and not others: in other words, believing a man can fly requires some imagination, but glasses tricking people is just plain gullibility.

The explanation the movies gave for why glasses could be a good disguise is interesting, too: there's no real "trick" to the glasses; Superman is just a really good actor.

I do like the idea of different colored Kryptonite, too.

Many people think that different colored kryptonite needlessly complicates what should be a very straightforward idea (a radioactive rock that can kill Superman) but Kryptonite is so...magical a substance, almost...that it seems unfair to just have it do one thing and serve only one purpose. It was interesting to see Alan Moore's "Supremium," from SUPREME, which was less like Kryptonite and more like LSD: unknowable, mysterious, and a little scary.

Plus, it was kind of cool when very rare types of Kryptonite popped up. One of the few Conway stories I liked featured Superman saving the day with White Kryptonite. The fact that somebody got use out of White Kryptonite had entertainment value and coolness in and of itself.

Finally, I like the Jeph Loeb Supergirl, a character that sells well but for some reason people don't seem to like. I think they made the right choice in having her be feisty and independent. The problem with bringing Supergirl back is, you can't bring her back with her original characterization, as a hero-worshipping and slightly ditzy blonde, because the thing is, like Kandor, her story already got resolved: we watched Supergirl change from being a girl to being an independent, adult woman. They skipped the middleman and brought her right to the "end" of her Bronze Age "cycle," and so we're pretty much guaranteed to see something new.

Plus, I don't mind the outfit, either. Supergirl's cute, and I'm not hypocritical enough to say to say I'm bothered by fun-spirited cheesecake.

I think the Loeb Supergirl is something to rejoyce over, because as much as I admire Peter David as a writer, Supergirl went from being a very straightforward concept - Superman's girl cousin - to being something else that's very strange and only tangentally connected to the Super-universe.

Nope. I'm still waiting and hoping that DC will continue publishing the Man of Tomorrow Archives, in color. I do have the B&W 500-page reprint of the Fantastic Four comics, but I care about them less.

I couldn't agree more!

You will know from previous posts how much I detest the Eighties' ditching of the super-costume. I never saw anything so stupid in Superman comics as his cape getting ripped in half almost every issue, and the Man of Steel having to collect a fresh batch of capes from his mother. Holy Hannah! That was so stupid.

I always loved the idea of the super-costume, made of Kryptonian material stowed away in the rocket. It made such incredibly perfect sense!

When I started watching the George Reeves TV show recently (the authentic live-action Superman), I was very pleased to note his origin story included the super-suit made from Kryptonian material.

Although the current issue of Superman (#646) shows Superman sporting a ripped cape on the cover, in the story itself his cape remains completely intact and he even uses it to catch the pieces of a collapsing building.

:s:

Cool! Someone needs to scan that :)

Perhaps when you update this page http://superman.nu/a/comics3.php

it would be one of the great ways to show the difference.

I always liked the fact that the suit was not only indestructible, but apparently infinitely elastic as well; it was always a blast to see Superman stretch his cape out to catch falling debris. That's how I do my housecleaning.

Widely disliked ideas about Superman that I like. When I think of "widely disliked ideas" I tend to think of things people who dislike Superman in general dismiss him for like his morals, his power levels, his costume, and his disguise. All of which I enjoy very much. I'll address some of the ideas that have been posted already.

Super-costume: It should be nearly indestructible. Besides, wouldn't you want that if you spent alot of time going into burning buildings, being shot at, moving at high velocity and being covered in various forms of alien energy and slime?


Kryptonians: I think it should be limited to The Phantom Zone and Kara for the most part but with some wiggle room. Krypton should be a dream and a memory that is always kind of in sight but just out of reach for him. Sure he can have a module or crystals with Kryptonian history but nothing too interactive. It's a world and a family that he will never know. That's the tragedy of it. I've also always thought the writers were shooting themselves in the foot when they have him find out too much about Krypton to start with. I think it would be intresting if Krypton were like a puzzle he was trying to peice together.  The culture, the language, why what happened happened. Through the course of his life and career he gets bits a peices of it. To start with he should only have like a single message from Jor-El and Lara telling him his name and that he is the last. For Kara I like the STAS sleekness of having her be from a sister world. So you get all the simplicity of the "supermans cousin" version while still having him be the last son. It boggles my mind that DC looked at that they only took from it the costume and slapped it onto Linda whatsherface. It's right there! You can have your cake and eat it to! He can be the last son and you still have a Supergirl that makes sense!

Super Pets: Something I've enjoyed in regards to the animated incarnation of Krypto is that the way it's set up you can sort of take it or leave it. His origin is very clearly tied to STAS but at the same time you don't see Krypto on JLU. Krypto has Kevin which I think is a wonderful touch.They kind of have their own cartoony corner where they have fun adventures. Superman still shows up and there's that link. He's still a Superman's best friend. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I have no problem with cute and playful concepts such as this but I kinda prefer they sort of have their place or at least are not a constant presence. But I'll also admit to gettin kick out of stuff like having Poison Ivy open a door and there's Krypto floating with his heat-vison eyes ready to go or harrassing Catwoman with doggie licks.

Bizzaro: Again I gotta go with the animated series stuff. He's a clone, there's only one of him and he's not actually evil yet at the same time still dangerous as he is Superman's power without a stable intellect to guide it. Also like the STAS version I want him to have some form of childlike personality but not the extreme backwards talk of the recent comics version or the other extreme, the blank monster of Ross's Justice series.

Super-Smarts: I don't think he should be a super genius but I do think that he should always be shown as excelling in areas that would fit his experience and expertise. I'm thinking his skill as a investigative reporter, I'd imagine he would have a very developed intrest in astronomy, I also have always seen him as someone who knows every language and can communicate with anyone fluently.

Batman and Superman: Friends: These are two of the greatest heroes ever. They would be friends. Why? Because neither one is so blatantly stupid, ignorant, and full of themselves that they would treat the other as an enemy. That's not to say they wouldn't maybe have differing point's of view on things, but I also think that Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent would be able to hang out with each other without needing to be in dramatic tension mode 24/7. Bruce would buy Clark a root-beer float and they could talk as buds.

As Superman is special amongst all the other super-heroes, so his costume is special amongst all the other costumes. Of course it should be indestructible, and it should be made from Kryptonian material. Anything else is rubbish.


Very well put.


I agree they would never treat each other as enemies in the world we know. But lately I've been reconsidering their suitability for chumsville, and I am thinking Green Lantern (the real one, Hal Jordan) is a better close buddy for the Man of Steel than Batman. Of all the versions (eras) of Batman through the decades, there aren't many who could be a special buddy for Superman.


Yes, I agree, more or less. The man has cosmic knowledge and understanding. He has seen things we can only imagine. He is widely-travelled to an extreme, both on Earth and in outer space. He is extremely intelligent, a cut above the rest of us, except for maybe Luthor.

I prefer "Super"man. For some reason, readers like seeing more man, than Superman. The other day, I watched TAS Vol 1. Superman struggled with airplanes falling in Metropolis or basic deductive reasoning skills. Give me Superman tossing planets and hyper-fast-organized-synapses. From what I read, Iron Age Superman is the archetype. While I understand why DC marvelized Superman, it sort of negates Superman's fantastic powers, sad.

 

   

Regarding Superman and Batman's relationship.... Mutual respect for each other, yes of course.......differences of opinion on how they handle situations, naturally......but I really don't see them as friends in the sense of being buddies and hanging out together

I fail to see how any of these ideas are "widely disliked." In fact, not only are none of the things you point out widely disliked, I don't think any of the things you mention are even moderately controversial.

Show of hands here - is there anyone that thinks Superman and Batman shouldn't be friends? Anybody? Even the most hard-assed Frank Miller fan understands that the reason DARK KNIGHT RETURNS was so effective a story, was that it was a shocking reversal from the way things usually are.

Busiek's been using Super-Intelligence for some time now, and the universal response is a type of curiosity, and marveling at the over the top feats that his brain makes possible. How - just HOW - is this "widely disliked?"

As for Superman's Super-Costume being indestructible...I like the elastic, super-stretchable cape with the secret compartment as well, but I find it hard to believe anyone sees this as being important enough to be hard-assed about...either for it or against it. It's KINDA cool, I suppose. Maybe I should start a thread that says "Superman ideas you like that other people are mostly indifferent to?"


Any writer that actually does this should burn in hell forever.

Suspension of disbelief for a fantasy world like Superman's, is like a house of cards. I would not compare having Krypto harass Catwoman with doggy licks to a careless card. I would compare it, though, to hitting the house of cards with a rocket launcher.


Neil Gaiman is several steps ahead of you there. He developed the idea that Superman and GL would have a bond.

I think pointing out Hal as "the real Green Lantern" sells short a lot of interesting characters. Steve Englehart in the 1980s, with his usual unpredictability, didn't bring Hal back and instead told stories with John Stewart, and he successfully set John up as a heroic character in his own right. Reading those issues now, Stainless made John so much fun, I didn't WANT Hal back. Ditto for the Englehart story arc where freaky space monster Salakk became Pol Manning!

I've often pondered the suitability of Batman and Superman together as well. It made sense, sort of, when they were DC's top two properties, but come the Bronze Age, when Batman was given an "outsider" characterization whose province was the weird and unusual, he lived in a whole different world than Superman did, and having them team up together and be bestest buddies would make as much sense as Superman being chummy with the Phantom Stranger.

I'm not saying they should be rivals, as they were in the 1980s-1990s. Jamespup hit it right on the money when he said that there's mutual respect, certainly, which is not quite the same thing as friendship.

Have you ever been to a board full of Iron Age superman fans? They hate all those ideas!

I've never been to a board that exclusively has just Iron Age fans, but I have been to a few boards with a reasonable cross-section of fans by generation and age, from teenagers to baby boomers...and fan opinion on many things is much more diverse than I think you believe it is, especially since they've got guys like Busiek doing things like super-intelligence in an enormously entertaining way.

The harcore Byrne/Helfer/Wolfman partisans are getting rarer and rarer with each passing year, and as I mentioned to Gangbuster Thorul a while back, even among people that are fans of this variation on the character have found that after all this time, they're hungry for something different. The character was exhausted just like all versions inevitably get near the end.

Obviously I can't summarize opinions, which vary wildly (get two comics fans in a room you get four opinions), but for the most part  the response I noted to the return of many classic Superman elements, e.g. Superboy, a Kryptonian Supergirl, etc. was a kind of hesitant curiosity.

The lowest kind of discussion on the internet is going back and forth about what words mean, but...what exactly does it MEAN to be an Iron Age fan, anyway? Because I know ridiculously few people that are exclusively fans of comics from 1980 on. Even the Mark Waid loving kids I see at the comics store that only buy new comics have at LEAST read the Byrne/Claremont "Dark Pheonix Saga" or the Lee/Ditko SPIDER-MAN. I knew one diehard Canadian Kyle Rayner fan that, when asked his favorite comic, pointed to the sixties Roy Thomas AVENGERS from "Kree-Skrull Wars" to the introduction of Ultron and Hercules.

And Iron Age fans are RIGHT to hate the Super-Pets. Like I said, suspension of disbelief is a house of cards and the pets are a giant blowtorch.

As for me, I'm a fan of BOTH Hal Jordan AND Kyle Rayner. What does that make me?

I don't think you're EITHER a classic comics fan or an Iron Age fan...and it's possible to have a wide diversity of opinion as to what from what age works.

Julian, read my darn post. As I said, I was addressing some of the things that *other posters* had already mentioned. These are not my own ideas of what I think is widely disliked. I really could not think of anything to specific. As I said at the beginning of the post, mostly of what I thought of were things that people who don't like the character commonly dismiss him for and I mentioned those. I'm sorry if you feel I wasn't on topic enough.

What does it mean to be an Iron Age fan? Well, I imagine it's someone who started reading comics after 1986(?) forward. As an example, during Infinite Crisis, some readers designated Kal-El "our Superman". I guess he's Superman you are most familiar. I know some people, with fervent passion, hate Return to Krypton and Birthright but love Death of Superman and Reign of the Supermen.

Hal vs Kyle fan feuds crack me up. If you read GL from beginning to end, it's a wonderful epic. Although I'll admit, Hal's story became more multi-sided.



I really like the following: Superboy in Smallville with Lex, Superboy in Legion, and later Superman the 1st Superhero.         

Okay, my bad. I must have misinterpreted you there.

And for the record, I hate those guys that always urge people to stay on topic. It's the nature of discussion - on the internet and elsewhere - to skeebabadoodle everywhere. You start talking about the Flaming Lips's best albums and you end up chatting about THE EWOK ADVENTURE.


Nothing in comics was nastier than the Hal Jordan/Kyle Rayner fights back in the day. It was the Civil War, brother vs. brother. If I never see another Kyle vs. Hal fight, it'd be too soon.

They almost approach the nastiness of the Moore/Connery Bond fights. ALMOST.

I blame this entire mess on Ron Marz. I'm all in favor of bringing in some interesting new GLs, but he could have created a new character and not done it in a way that was profoundly alienating.

And as always, my estimation of the incredible Geoff Johns, currently DC's greatest writer along with Busiek, is elevated. I will admit, until Johns, I wasn't a Kyle kind of guy. But Johns made me enjoy the character and understand he has a place in the scheme of things. He brought Hal Jordan and the GLC back, but he did so in a way that Kyle Rayner had a role and his fans weren't slighted - an act of admirable professionalism from a man that, by all accounts, personally didn't like the Kyle character.

In other words, Geoff Johns, unlike the Civil War, ended with everybody being happy.

It reminds me about long-standing discussions about the role of writers. People often say, "the role of the writer is to ignore what they like and use what they don't like."

My response is, "NO. You're wrong. A writer doesn't get to do that working in a universe created by others. He has to use what he likes...and what he doesn't like too. That's the difference between a fan and professional." This is why CRISIS and other such events irk me. Writers shouldn't have the option to hit the ERASE button...even on really terrible stories.

How did an innocuous tongue-in-cheek comment about a character I like, the Silver Age GL.....


.....generate all this:



I don't know what all that stuff is; but honestly, Julian -- take your Valium.  8)

It's all pointless anyway, since everyone knows that the real Green Lantern is ...

(http://superherouniverse.com/superheroes/images/greenlantern/1stappearance.jpg)

You must've overdosed on bananas or something.

This is Green Lantern:

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v203/Aldous1/1194_2_22.jpg)

Them fighting words

(http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/e/ee/175px-GreenLantern40.jpg)


see what happens here:
http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/274/gl40p1.gif

Superbaby

Or, for that matter, super powerful babies in general.

There's just something about a mischievous tyke with near infinite power—

Re: Green Lantern prefs.

I've always been an Abin Sur man myself.

Do you have this: http://galerias.monitos.cl/albums/userpics/WhosW.AbinSur-01.jpg

Ha ha!  That's pretty ugly!

I think there are actually a few published Abin Sur stories out there --one by Alan Moore?