Superman Through the Ages! Forum

I say no.

Just take some of the greatest comic book ideas ever created, they have all had low points and just plain bad runs. Is that the character's fault? No, it's the talent's fault, the writers and the artists working on the book, not the character itself.

Superman is loved by everyone here, but in truth that is because of the amazing writers and artists that have worked on the book. When we had bad writers and artists on the books, Superman was unreadable, LOL!

Same thing with Captain Marvel, why was he so great during the Golden Age yet DC has never been able to really recreate that magic? Because, the people who were choosen to work on his comics were not as good as Otto, C.C, and Kurt.

The Fantastic Four by Kirby and Lee was an amazing run, they (FF) were not quite as good since.

Marvel Man was nothing but a boring Captain Marvel clone until Alan Moore came along.

So when people complain that Batman's comics have been unreadable what they really mean is that those writers are not as good as Bill Finger, Dennis O'Neil and Steve Englehart! Not that somehow Batman as a character isn't any good anymore.

I can not think of a single character who is always great no matter who is writing the book.

Therefore, we are all really fans of writers and artists rather than Characters, more so than we might be willing to admit.

What do you all think?

I don't suppose there is. But you had better define what you mean by "character".


How can you separate the character from the creative team? We were talking about Green Lantern recently. If Mr. Nodell had drawn up his plans for Green Lantern, written out a list of his attributes, described his personality, created a costume, etc., is that the character? No. The character is more. The character is Alan Scott, Green Lantern, the train wreck, how the man acted in his first story, what he said and where he went. And he's redefined again in the next month's comic, and so on. The initial sketch by the creator is left far behind, and rather quickly.

If that's what you mean by character, I think you're right.

But there's still more to it.


You can't separate a big success from its time and place, and give all the credit to the drawings on the paper. There's also the audience to take into account; or, put another way, the market of the time (and place). Captain Marvel was such a success because of these things. Otto Binder, for all his personal trumpet-blowing, was not the be-all and end-all of Captain Marvel's success. And as for C C Beck: how good an artist was he really? Perfect for the time, and perfect for the character at that time. But didn't the likes of Bob Oksner work on the Marvel Family in later years? Oksner is a fantastic artist, and far superior to Beck. Something of the readers of that time responded whole-heartedly to Beck's concepts (noted for their simplicity), also of that time.


Not "rather than". It's inclusive, I think. The character is what the creative team of the moment, in communion with the reader and the marketplace, says he is. It's how he's portrayed, and how he's received.

You can't say to me, "the character of Batman". I would have to ask, "Which character out of a hundred different Batmans?"

If you asked me to write a description and make some sketches about who and what Batman is, I'd be a mess. WHAT do I leave out, and WHAT do I put in? So no "character" is foolproof.

When Jerry and Joe made Superman, they created the formula for Coca-Cola. Only by messing with it can you get something TRULY awful.

Mark Evanier told an annoying, name-dropping anecdote, as he is wont to do, about a meeting between Curt Swan and Jack Kirby, who was then working for DC. Curt shook his head and said "Man, I just had to draw a really bad Superman story."

And Jolly Jack perked up and said, "It's possible to tell a bad Superman story?"

True, Superman has had some unimpressive talent, but the worst I can really say about Gerry Conway's Superman tales is that sometimes they made no sense or were unbelievably derivative. But they were still, for the most part, readable, and there were a couple good ideas in there: Whirlicane was cornball cool, and Superman being a proactive environmentalist because of Krypton's demise was an interesting and gutsy insight. And Superman vs. Dinosaurs NEVER gets old.

Even the Marv Wolfman stuff in the late eighties, with businessman Vandal Savage, or the forgettable Dennis O'Neil occasional fill-ins, are at worst, readable. Doesn't set my world on fire the way Bates-Maggin-Wein did, but still, I didn't feel like I had wasted my money.

(I will shoot myself in the foot here somewhat by mentioning the Gil Kane Superman Specials - the only time I've ever felt cheated reading Superman. Even the most forgettable WORLD'S FINEST issue ("WHO IS QUANTUM...AND WHY DOES HE WANT TO KILL SUPERMAN AND BATMAN?") looks like WATCHMEN in comparison to that. Holy Christ.)

Gil Kane notwithstanding, Superman's two worst periods are: the 1950s, and the 1990s, and for the EXACT SAME REASON: Superman's identity is ignored. What does Superman giving powers to a sargeant in the army for some insane labyrinthine reason have anything to do with what Superman comics are supposed to be about? What is this page-vaporizing crap about Jimmy Olsen's screwy hijinks with a magic wish totem staff? What about Superman...y'know, fighting evil, or doing incredible deeds that don't involve teaching Jimmy a valuable lesson?

And don't get me started on everything Carlin and his bonehead buddies did wrong in the grunge and Crystal Pepsi decade.

Superman (any any other character for that matter) is only really bad when you ignore what he's supposed to be about. This is why it never ceases to amaze me when people wonder just why it is that Elseworlds and suck go together like stink on a monkey. Gee, no spit!

Here's my point, in a nutshell: I think there are some characters that, as long as you stick fairly closely to the concept, it's downright impossible to mess everything up...even if you've got less than stellar talent attached to it.

Off the top of my head here, the best example of a character that is impossible to really "ruin" is Danny Rand, Iron Fist. If you think about it, none of Iron Fist's many series, even the Byrne/Claremont one, were really, technically, any "good." But nonetheless, because of the book's cheesy, funky, cool charm, while there's certainly been some "bad" Iron Fist stories, even the worst are readable and entertaining.

Elongated Man is another character whose stories and concept are so likeable, that as long as the writer sticks to it, it's not possible to truly tell a BAD E-man tale. Even the "potboiler" stories that Gardner Fox and E. Nelson Bridwell wrote as backups in DETECTIVE COMICS that were clearly just those two guys cashing a check, are nonetheless cute and fun.

Here's the inverse of this question: is it possible there are some characters that are the reverse of foolproof, that even if you place talent on them, they STILL aren't any good no matter what?

The one that comes right to mind is Luke Cage, Power Man. I've never read a single story with Power Man that I really like, and it's not for want of good talent - even Stainless himself was put on Power Man, and if he couldn't bring life to Cage, nobody can.

Then you have the always troubled Martian Manhunter, who is the trust fund kid of DC comics: he keeps on flunking out and changing majors every semester, but Daddy's money keeps him coming back. Bottom line: if it was possible to tell a good Martian Manhunter story, I think somebody would have done it by now.

Is that you, Bill Clinton?

I disagree with the 1950's, since it was in fact one of the best!

Proof:
http://superman.nu/tales/1950s.php
http://superman.nu/tales/1950s-2.php

(http://When Jerry and Joe made Superman, they created the formula for Coca-Cola. Only by messing with it can you get something TRULY awful.)

Truth be told, the 60's and 70's Superman was pretty far removed for the 40's Superman, yet most people consider those versions better. In fact, I find the Golden Age Superman... well.. rather boring. If people were forced to keep to that formula, Superman wouldn't had made it past the 1940's.

Of course, I was overgeneralizing for the purpose of making my point – there are some great fifties stories just as there are some great nineties stories too (nearly all by Roger Stern).

A lot of them are posted on the website. However, looking at that page, I’m struck by one thing about a lot of the stories on this site: I’ve read them somewhere before. Seriously, is there a single fifties collection that doesn’t have “Super-Key to Fort Superman?”

(Incidentally, is the “Richard Levins” that donated “Superman Duels the Futuremen” to this site the SAME Richard Levins that was the AVENGERS WEST COAST artist during “Operation: Galactic Storm?” Because WOW. He’s one of my favorite underrated Marvel artists along with Amanda Conner and Brett Blevins. I always heard he was a classic Superman fan.)

But for the most part, almost all of the best Superman stories of the Silver Age would have to wait for the 1960s and for that genius, Ed Hamilton, to hit his stride.

There was one story in my SUPERMAN SHOWCASE that I did indeed like very, very much, and that was the story where Superman discovers he has a lion head. I loved that one, because of how emotional and heart-tearing sad it was, with Superman living life as a freak, not wanting Lois Lane to see him...yet nonetheless trying to make the best of a bad situation. It also had Lois as heroic as well: she likes Superman no matter what he looks like. I love that it didn’t go the easy way out and have Lois’s kiss restore him to normal – the failure there was absolutely tragic.

The Lion-Head story was interesting because it was driven by Superman’s emotions instead of by a plot that sweeps the character up in it. A story that was ahead of its time.

The SUPERMAN’S PAL JIMMY OLSEN stories...I suppose they’re exempt from criticism because I’m not the target audience they wanted. Though I am always pleasantly surprised by SUPERMAN’S GIRL FRIEND LOIS LANE because of how canny Lois was, how clever she was in solving her problems.

I'm pretty sure I could write a pretty bad Iron Fist comic.  I can see it now: Iron Fist gets a mullet, loses the ability to use martial arts/his iron fist, starts wearing a studded leather jacket and starts using a machine gun to hunt down criminals.  Or something.

On the other hand, I think Hercules was a pretty "fool proof" character for centuries until Marvel comics got ahold of him...

Is there such a thing as a fool proof character?

Yes.

Sherlock Holmes

Sure, there have been bad stories written with him, but he always comes back in one form or another.

Zorro seems to be another that gets away with being fool proof.  Zorro the Gay Blade? That movie was so removed from normal Zorro and yet it worked.

Supermonkey says:


I have to disagree.  I stuck with Superman through a lot of periods, good and bad, and a lot of creators, talented and otherwise.  I have a place on my video shelf for George Reeves, Kirk Alyn, Christopher Reeve and Brandon Routh, even though they're all different and some are definitely better than others.  But if it's Superman, I'm pretty much there.

I would argue that some characters have tremendous appeal regardless of how badly they've been handled at various points in history.  In that documentary last year, Bryan Singer said something to the effect that Superman is powerful enough to survive his own history.  I probably mangled that, but you get the gist; Superman's history is full of mediocre stories, cheesy films, so-so artwork, pathetic animation and other limitations that would have KILLED a character with less charm or resonance.  But Superman is bigger than the sum of his parts.

I believe Superman, like James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Star Trek and a handful of other concepts, has a tremendous potential that keeps us coming back even if that potential is seldom realized.  We all have a mental image of our ideal Bond movie that does not quite match any Bond movie that was actually lensed.  And we all have our own image of Superman that's cobbled together from a little of this, a little of that from various periods, with all the stuff we don't like left out.

Trust me, I know about being a fan of writers and artists.  I could never read Thor unless Walt Simonson was doing it, I never cared for Daredevil except under Frank Miller and all post-Ditko Spider-Man bores me silly.  But Superman is bigger than writers and artists, because when you get down to it, the ones who got it right are far fewer than the ones who didn't, and yet we hang around.

On the other hand, the Iron Age Superman was mucked up enough to make me quite reading, so maybe you're right...no character's fool proof -- or maybe that should be idiot-proof -- in terms of thriving under any creator no matter what.  But so far no fool has been able to destroy Superman's basic appeal, whereas comics are full of characters who only came alive once and briefly.

I agree on those points, however...


Seriously, due to how bad the post 1986 and 1990's Superman comics were, I couldn't just tell people I was a Superman fan, I had to say it with a speech about how I only liked pre-crisis comics. There were some people that only knew the Iron Age Superman and therefore, HATED Superman!!! They thought I was crazy for being a Superman fan, so I had to keep explaining myself. Thank Rao I found this site or I would had gone wacky ;) Finally other people who got it! Actually, I showed those friends some of those old great Superman cartoons, and my friends FINALLY got it. I tried reading those Iron Age stories, the more I read, the more I hated myself for wasting money on them, and I quit. I completely stop reading Superman. Same as you. So if some of the biggest Superman geeks and nerds :P could stop reading Superman, then he can not be fool-proof.

In its crudest most rudimentary state.  Like Cokem, it wasa Supernan powered by cocaine - figuratively - a raw, violent, vigilante who couldn't even fly.

When one considers what they brought to DC before other writers, editors and artists got involved how close was THAT concept to the Superman we know today?

Unfortunately, it's a collaborative process in an industry like any other industry - film, shoe making, etc -- and things get shaped those doing the shaping. 

These creations bear not only the fingerprints of not only the initial creators but those additional talents (or non talents) along the way.  And then add in the mix elements from other media and a constant reshaping of the myth, one asks:  is it the singer or the song.

It's both.  And a lousy singer can't make a good sonmg sound great.  Nor can a gifted voice save a lousy tune.