Superman Through the Ages! Forum

Ok, so it's six issues in.  I've been reading Superman and Action Comics.  I have attempted to pick up some of my old favorites (Green Lantern, Legion of Super-Heroes, Justice League).

My thoughts so far?

It's crap.  In fact, it may be worse crap than before the reboot, if that's even possible.

I'm 47, and a life-long Superman fan.  I am in a somewhat unique position, inasmuch as I'm a man who spent his first fifteen summers on his grandparents' South Dakota cattle ranch.  Out there, the nearest paved road is 45 miles away.  The nearest town (Wall) is less than 2000 people (though during tourist season, it's much larger -- it's a tourist trap on the way to the Black Hills) and is 50 miles away.  The nearest city (Rapid City) is around 30,000 people and 90 miles away.  The largest city in South Dakota (Sioux Falls) is around 150,000 and 400 miles away.

So I've lived on a ranch near Wall, South Dakota.  I've worked the ranch.  I've herded cattle and fixed fences.  My family still owns some land, and it's my intent to ultimately retire there and perhaps keep bees.

Also on the ranch when I was growing up: a rather shocking supply of DC Comics from the 1950s-1970s.

(Did I mention that I have four uncles?)

I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, a city of about 150,000 at the time.  I lived the entirety of the 1990s in Chicagoland, where I earned a living in IT.

So let me tell you:  I seriously identify with Superman.  Smallville is Wall, SD.  Metropolis is Chicago.  Ma and Pa Kent are my grandparents.  Their ranch is the Kent farm.  I left the country to make my fortune in the Big City, same as Clark.  I had one or two interesting adventures there (nothing super-heroic, but I was almost shot in a drive-by -- I was a bystander, not the target).

For my money, there is no better Superman writer than Elliot S! Maggin.  Maggin got it.  He understands.  Maggin's Superman is someone I totally understand.  I sympathize, I empathize, and I am engaged by Maggin's Superman.

Maggin's Superman is the man I hope I'd be if I had powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men.  I understand how he thinks and what he thinks about.

I was engaged by Byrne's Superman initially.  Byrne also seemed to get it.  He didn't get it the way Maggin did, but he came pretty close.  I could still empathize.

Then the inmates started running the asylum and it all went to hell.

I could no longer identify with Superman.  To me, the shark was jumped when Smallville changed from Wall, SD to Lincoln, NE.  Let me tell you something:  there's a difference.  Let me give a concrete example:

The area around my grandparents' ranch has a high rattlesnake population.  This is bad for both humans and livestock.  If you see a rattler, you get the pistol out of the glovebox, load it with a shot shell, and kill the rattler.  Always.

You do not mess with rattlers.  You do not pick them up or do anything that might provoke them.  If for some reason you absolutely must pick up a live rattler, you are drilled from an early age on the procedure:

Find a stick about three feet long with a Y-branch at the end.  Break the Y so that it will fit around the snake's body just behind the head.  Use it to pin the snake to the ground from outside its striking distance.  Then you pick it up behind the head and immediately get rid of it -- preferably by killing it.

You do not do this for kicks, you do it only if absolutely necessary.  In my case, I had accidentally run over a rattler with a vehicle.  It was wounded, not dead, but lodged in a tire in such a way that if I'd driven any farther, it would have mangled the rattler.  It also might not kill it, and in any case, it would be a nasty thing to do to any critter.  It's not their fault that they're a dangerous pest.  You kill them quick and painlessly, not prolonged and painfully.

Anyway, the best thing I could think to do with this thing was use a stick to dislodge it.  That's the only time I can think of when you'd want to do it.

[As an aside:  I must confess that when Steve Irwin turned up dead, my only reaction was to wonder how he'd lasted so long.  Every time I saw him handle snakes, I would cringe -- literally.  He did everything wrong.  Everything.  You never -- I repeat, you never -- pick up snakes by the tail.  They're all spine and muscle, they have no problem striking at someone holding them by the tail.  You hold them just behind the jaws.  All they can do is open and close their mouths and whip their tails around.  I knew Steve Irwin's luck would run out some day.  He was an incompetent schmuck.]

Beyond that, you watch where you walk.  Rattlers like to live under logs and the like, so you always kick a log before you go standing on it.  If a barn or out-building isn't on a raised foundation, you open the door and stamp your feet and make some noise before you enter.

You always wear cowboy boots.  South Dakota cowboys wear their jeans outside the boots, not tucked-in:  it's one more layer for a rattler to have to bite through.

There were always snake-bite kits in the house, in the barns, in the graineries, and in every vehicle.  We were taught practically from infancy how to treat a snake bite.

Failure to do otherwise is usually deadly.

Why?  Because the nearest hospital is so far away that if you're bit by a rattler you simply won't make it there.  If you're bit, you either treat yourself or you lie down and die where you happen to be.

Really.  That's how it is.

This produces an entirely different kind of personality than city-folk -- even a small city like Lincoln, Nebraska.  You are highly self-reliant, you learn to take precautions, you don't ask for help as a rule.

This is an environment that produced Superman.  It's the environment that Maggin and to a lesser extent Byrne got.

Nobody since has gotten it.  They keep trying to fix things that aren't broken, and in the most predictable, unartistic fashion imaginable.

So here we are, six issues in to the latest pointless reboot.  My thoughts:

Grant Morrison doesn't get it.  Sorry, but he doesn't.  I don't understand this Superman at all.  He is not a man raised on a farm near Smallville, Kansas (pop. 2000).  I don't know this guy at all.

Worse, he kind of strikes me as a jerk.  I don't know why, exactly, because he's written fairly sympathetically.  But he just strikes me the wrong way.

Maybe it's that he looks so damned young.  I'm sorry, but Superman is 29 and looks about as mature as when Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson drew him.  This Superman looks like he's 15.

And he always looks pissed off.  Whatever he's doing, he looks indifferent or angry in some way.

I'm afraid I must mention the costume.  I'm sorry, but it's crap.  It wasn't broken, so why did they make some lame attempt to "fix" it?

I put down comics back when Doctor Mid-Nite did an in-panel autopsy on the horribly burned body of Sue Dibney.  JSA had been my last bastion of decent, family-oriented, well-written, well-drawn, fun, engaging adventures.  Then they frakked even that up.  I've barely picked up an issue since.

Bottom line:  ain't no way I'm spending a penny on these hack-rags.  Call me back when you've replaced the editor with Elliot S! Maggin.

Dakota Smith

This version of Superman is not likely to resonate with anyone from the Midwest. Morrison is writing the character from a New England/Big City Eastern perspective. He said as much in early interviews that he was basing this version of Superman on Bruce Springsteen. Which would work if the character was raised in upstate New York or somewhere similar out East.

However, it doesn't work since the character was raised in Kansas. If your character was raised in Kansas and you are basing them off rock stars, then you obviously go with John Cougar Mellencamp.

Now, Mellencamp and Springsteen's views are similar, but their work is different and it resonates with different people. Farm Aid vs We Are the World, Rain on the Scarecrow vs The River.

Maggin once said that his Smallville was located somewhere in New England and that it was the Salkind movie that moved it out to Kansas.

It'd be nice if DC could get away with locating the New 52 Smallville back to the east coast, but I don't think they could get away with it at this point.  Removing Superman's super-briefs is one thing, but messing with Smallville is far too sacrosanct.

I don't know if I would go so far as to say the Kansas location is sacrosanct.

In the early Superboy stories, it seemed like he was living in Metropolis or a suburb thereof. Eventually the town was established as Smallville, but this seemed to be close to Metropolis. So somewhere in the east, but not exactly clear just where. Just like it was never made clear what state Metropolis was supposed to be in.

Was it ever established just where Clark was growing up in Superman the Movie? I honestly forget, even though I remember a lot about the movie. I know that the scenes on the farm were filmed in farmland outside of Calgary, Alberta. I think Superman III was also filmed in and around Calgary.

On the Smallville TV show, those farm scenes were filmed in suburban/rural areas outside of Vancouver, while the Metropolis scenes were filmed in Vancouver. Unlike the modern comics, which seem to establish Metropolis as on the eastern seaboard and Smallville in Kansas--the TV show seemed to suggest that Smallville was close to Metropolis--which would mean that Metropolis was in Kansas or a neighbouring state and very far away from either coast. Yet Metropolis is on the water. The building that subbed for the Daily Planet on Smallville was the Marine Building which overlooks the Vancouver harbourfront.

Frankly, I was never impressed with the Kansas location. I have no sense of Kansas, as I've never been there--I've only been to a few of the United States and none in the midwest. But it seemed like they were picking it as a stereotypical state--because that's where Dorothy was from.

Since most comics have avoided naming where Metropolis is (although some writers try to put it in New York or New Jersey), I think the same should hold true for Smallville. It's part of the whole mystique of Superman that he exists in this surreal world that corresponds to our own but isn't clearly identified with landmarks of our world.

I think that made Superman more accessible not less. I know some people think the reality of Marvel Comics make them more identifiable, but I was always put off by the fact that all the heroes lived in New York. Which was this impossibly far away place. It was a lot easier to imagine that the DC fictional cities were not so far away.

Because my parents grew up on farms in Saskatchewan, I could identify with Superboy and believe that his world was like the world of my parents.

But I don't read the new Superman comics, so it doesn't make much difference to me what they do now.

I did live in Kansas for a short time as a kid and I found the Kansas in Smallville kind of funny. It doesn't have mountains and hills, it's just flat. Remember that scene in Superman Returns that showed young Clark leaping over fields? THAT is Kansas. Nothing but corn and sunflowers as far as the eye can see. For a young kid with developing super powers, it's not a bad place to grow up. You have plenty of room to use them. At least in terms of practice.

As for the new 52, I just find them boring. I'd been collecting Action, Superman, and Justice League and to be honest, Justice League is the most interesting among them. It's like Morrison is trying too hard to tap into the thirties Superman and while that's an admirable goal, he's squeezing in too much, too soon. Brainiac kidnaps half or Metropolis just after Superman escapes from the military?

The flashback scenes with him as a kid are odd as well. He can't fly but he still has the cape. Um...okay. And the purpose of that is what exactly? Jeans and a T-shirt in the early days I guess I can get over but what is he doing wearing that cape around his neck? He isn't even being Superboy. My feeling is the same as it was after SO came out, they don't know what they want to do with him and are trying to appease everybody.

I hope things get better once they move onto the next storyline or flesh out his backstory a little better but to be honest, I probably won't keep spending the money if it doesn't.

He's got a reason why he wears in cape in Smallville, it's just kind of a silly, Silver Agey kinda explanation.
It's his security blanket. That's why he keeps it in his pocket at all times, even while hiding the rest of his action suit elsewhere. Weird, no?

Anyway, I rather like the New 52's take on things. There may be a lot of stuff and a lot of ideas crammed into too little space, but with Morrison that's par for the course. I might have liked to see jeans-Superman for a little longer, but we'll always have flashback story-arcs like Batman has so many of, especially since it's coming out that people are interested in that early era of Superman.

Anyway, it makes sense that the new interpretation is being knocked in a site largely devoted to the Silver and Bronze age versions. I like most past versions of Superman, obviously, or I'd never have joined this site.
I do enjoy the New 52 as well though, even if that makes me a minority around here. Oh well.  ;D

I can assure that our abilities to fly does not come from our capes!  I mean we can do it with out them.  They are just fancy accoutriments.  Batman for instance he has no flying powers but he utilizes his cape so much that all the things he can do with it give him a tactical advantage in most everything he does.  He can glide with it because he solidify it when given an electrical charge. His technology is so advanced that it almost becomes a super power.  I like my white with gold trim.  I can still do what I do though if I went and put it on a hook for a while.   It's just in our circles they say that if a super hero hangs up his cape, he is done.

  Now, I had seen this overlay map once, where Our cities like Metropolis, Gotham, Central City, Fawcett City all our cities were shown where they would be in relation to the other cities.   Metropolis would be New York, Gotham would be Chicago , I think Central City would be Milwaukee,  Fawcett City would be Gary Indiana.    Anyway something like that. 

I have enjoyed the Superman issues so far, moreso than the Action Comics ones. They really harken back to the spirit of the early 70s. I do like the fact that the Legion comes to Smallville to meet him, though I doubt we'll get Superboy (the real one) back.

I've actually been enjoying Aquaman so far  8)

8 issues in and both Superman and Action are a wash. Still no synergy between the titles and one is still taking place in the past. If they are going to be using concepts from the Superman 2000 proposal, then bloody well hire Mark Waid to write Superman. The Giffen/Jurgens team is just subbing until another long-term team can be put together anyway.

Supergirl has the best storytelling out of the bunch so far, but it is hamstrung by the decompression. The first 6 issues could have easily been done in half that.

Superboy has the most potential (being the most interesting take on the character to date), but the writer keeps losing focus on the main character.

I don't think I could disagree with you more.

Eight issues in and Action is fantastic. The fact that Action takes place "five years ago" doesn't mean anything to me except that it's more of a continuity comic than Superman. The extended story of the last eight issues, chronicling Superman's shift in focus from a hero who fights corruption, organized crime and tries to help out the little guy (not that he stops doing any of those things) into a more cosmic hero, was pretty interesting to me, and I look forward to more.

I think Superman is pretty fun and interesting too, especially in moments like the one in the most recent issue where Superman has to tell someone not to take a picture for their Facebook page while he's in the middle of a fistfight in downtown Metropolis, or when a robot breaks into Kent's office building and he leaves to enter in another window to fight it. It's great world-building.

Supergirl is okay from what I've read, though you're right about the decompression, which in my mind ruins it.

As for Superboy though, it's probably one of only three New 52 things I'm bitter about: losing Conner was a pretty big blow, and I'm not feeling anything close to a similar attitude from the new Superboy. (The other two were Dick Grayson becoming Nightwing again and Wally West disappearing seemingly forever.)

In addition, I'm looking forward to the upcoming Superman Family Adventures the way a kid looks forward to Christmas.

Overall though, I'm a pretty big fan of the New 52 and most of what it's done, even as I continue to enjoy Superman's classic adventures.
(http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m168/Koji_Tsunami/exception.gif)
^{(how I feel expressing support for those comics around here)}

The problem with a "continuity comic" is that it handicaps the writer on the other book. The same thing happened during the OYL jump after Infinite Crisis. There were certain plot points that couldn't be touched on until 52 was finished or concepts introduced in the OYL books that were supposed to be explained during 52 that never were addressed. IMO, Superman should have been held back until the introductory story in Action was complete so both titles were on the same footing.

As for the rest, we'll just have to agree to disagree. I've read the books, don't like them, and wouldn't read them if I had to spend my own money on them as opposed to borrowing them from a friend. Why keep reading? The same reason I watched Smallville, in some areas, I find the writing so bad that it's good.


Aside from the Jeff Lemire run, I was never a fan of the Johns retconned Superboy. I preferred the previous incarnation under Karl Kessel and Peter David. The revamped Kon-El is pretty much the Kessel version had the Newsboy Legion never broke him out of Cadmus.

I live in New York- I have never seen the FF flitting about except in a movie theatre.

I realize that Action's lack of full disclosure is hurting Superman, but I don't want Action to stop, I just want Superman to be accessible and easy to understand, and Action to carry the longer-running storyarcs.

Much to my enjoyment, that seems to be exactly what's happening. I get Superman, and I understand it without foreknowledge, and Action needs a bit more of background reading. I think they're both fantastic, obviously. Win-Win from my perspective.

Yeah, pretty much. I just don't find that to be a very cool concept. I liked the Smallville-dwelling Wonder Girl dating Conner more than I liked the hotshot Superboy from the 90s. Sure he was fun, but I never felt any connection to him, where Conner just seemed likable in a way he didn't back when he was wearing the jacket.
And the new Superboy is just a strange bizzare departure from what I know and love.

It's now being reported that Scott Lobdell is taking over for Giffen/Jurgens on Superman. I'm sorry, but this is getting ridiculous. Three creative changes in a span of a year and the character still isn't established and has no solid direction in his main book. At this point, I'm calling the relaunch a colossal failure.

The Batman books have a solid direction as does Wonder Woman. Hell, Supergirl has a solid direction and a stable creative team for once. Even the Superboy book that is currently losing focus due to a crossover has a direction in the sense that the same writer is handling the crossover.

Superman? Nope. The Scot is still writing stories set in the past and doing multiverse issues. So, the Superman character in the present day is still not a defined character. You'd think they learned when they pulled the hot potato creative changes during the Supergirl relaunch and the character didn't get a solid direction until issue 30 and had to be developed outside her own book, but no, here we go again.

I dropped the book like a hot potato when Dan Jurgens came on board.  A horror show that we've already been through, thank you very much.

As far as the no clear direction thing: to me this is more evidence that the reboot (yes, it is a reboot) was decreed from WB.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was a decree from WB, but even if it wasn't, it's obvious they're just trying to make money. I don't begrudge them that at all, considering that's what companies are supposed to do.

I like what Giffens and Jurgen have been doing so far. The writing isn't spectacular by anyone's standards, particularly not when combined with a Mister Majestic enemy they just had floating around, so yeah, I think the book could probably use some more inspired writing, but here's the thing: I like it anyway.

I like the status quo it established of Lois running the news instead of being a paper reporter while Jimmy acts as camera man, I like Jim's relationship with Clark and the way the scenes at The Planet are written, I like Superman's dialogue and internal monologue in a fight and the pragmatic way he reacts to everything around him, and I absolutely love the art. The outside covers are consistently crap, but the interior art is consistently great, especially since Jurgens and Giffen started. I hope that level of art-goodness stays.

The last few years of Superman comics haven't been enjoyable to me. New Krypton, Grounded, etc. all bored me to death, the last time I liked a Superman comic before the New 52 was when Busiek was writing it. I wish Superman had a writer of that caliber again now, sure, but just because it's not as good as that awesome run doesn't keep me from enjoying it, because at least it's more enjoyable than what I had to put up with before.

And I really do think a lot of the stuff is fun.

I flip thru the new stuff at the store and it is all wretched. So-called photo tracings called art and writing a nitwit could do.

Frankly I'd rather read about Jimmy's romance with a viking robot designed to get Lucy jealous for the one billionth time than pay $ for that drek. But then again those books are the world are not marketed to what I want.

The Avengers flick got me jonesing to read "new" material so I bought some Ditko Spideys -- new to me anyways. And I'm reading them in reverse order.  When I get to the end her'll be bitten.  Now That's HIGH concept.

Nine issues in, and my opinion hasn't changed about Action and Superman.  The protagonist remains unengaging and a bit of a jerk.  Not worth spending money on.

Worse, they've now frakked up Earth-Two.

I like the idea of a multiverse.  While I understood what they were doing with Crisis on Infinite Earths, I think the DC cosmos lost a great deal when they eliminated infinitely parallel worlds.  There are some really good stories in a multiverse that have never been tapped.  The Phantom Zone has got to be some kind of parallel reality.  What if super-criminals like Darkseid who can't possibly be held in any Earthly prison are sent to alternate Earths -- ones where human beings never evolved?  It's a perfectly humane sentence for an immortal:  ample food and water, nice scenery ... and no one to bother.  Ever.

Or what if some character crossed over to an alternate universe so nearly identical to his own that no one notices the difference for months?  Over in the other books, this character has disappeared entirely, but in his own, everything seems to be going fine -- including occasional visits from other super-heros.

After a few issues, the character discovers they're in an alternate universe whose sole difference is that the Liberty Bell cracked ten years later.

As I say, lots of interesting stories in a multiverse, and DC was the worse for eliminating it.  I like that New 52 has brought that back.  I dislike what they've done with it so far.

Earth 2 is no Earth-Two.  I wish it were, but it simply isn't.

Here's the deal:  Earth-Two is where the Golden Age characters lived.  That was the cool idea.  It gave continuity to the past and gave readers a warm fuzzy feeling that the character from the old comics were still running around out there.

This Earth 2 is just an alternate universe.  We've seen those.  There are neat stories in the multiverse, but the appeal of Earth-Two was that it literally was the characters of the Golden Age.

If they wanted to make it a cool idea, this Earth 2 would literally be Earth-One of the pre-Crisis Silver Age.    Having reinstated the Multiverse, Earth-One now exists out there, somewhere.  In fact, so is Earth-Two.

That's the cool idea: the nostalgia of the heroes of the past and present meeting.

That said, I like Power Girl and Huntress very much.  This was the origin PG always deserved rather than the continually hacked-together mess that her post-Crisis backstory became.  She's a refugee from a disaster in an alternate universe:  perfect.

I must mention that her costume is, if anything, even less practical than the original.  Yes, I know she's always been the women's libber with the giant circle displaying her cleavage, but this costume has literally painted a nipple with a target around it on her left breast.  I mean, seriously?  It smacks of a slutty lower-back tattoo.

Huntress also works, but only the Batman's daughter is a cool idea.  DC's previous attempts to shoe-horn the Huntress into the post-Crisis continuity didn't work for the simple reason that the Huntress isn't the cool idea.  The Batman's daughter is the cool idea.

The two of them are a nice team after the friction between Superman and Batman post-Crisis.  PG and Huntress work as the Superman/Batman team we'll never see again.

Those two work.  Jay Garrick and Alan Scott, not so much.

I'm on the fence about the idea that Jay gets his powers from one of the Amazons' fallen gods.  "Heavy water vapors" is, indeed, a bit too naive for modern audiences.  So is "struck by electrified chemicals," for that matter.  But the best part of the Flash is that he's always been science-based.

Well, he was until they invented the Speed Force and frakked it all up.  But when the character is written well, he's science-based.

So I like that it's not "heavy water."  I'm not sure I like it being magical.

What I really don't like is the character.  Jay Garrick was a frakking scientist and this kid seems like a loser, unlikable, and too frakking young.

The two cool idea of the Flash since the Silver Age are the multiverse and the Flash "legacy."  Whether it's Barry getting the idea to become a super-hero from a Golden Age Flash comic or Wally having an accident exactly like his uncle's, it's got a "family" feel.  It's lost now, and in its place is this snot-nosed loser.

Alan Scott ... ok, I'm just going to say it:  pandering.

Look, I have no problem with gay characters.  I thought it really worked with Apollo and Midnighter in The Authority (not in Stormwatch -- that's just a pale imitation of the original).

I think that it makes total sense that Wonder Woman would be gay.  However, in Diana's case, I would use her background to explore some aspects of the character.  Rather than make her "here, queer, and in your face," I'd write her as just being matter-of-fact about it.

It's an island of women where men haven't set foot in a millennia or two -- of course they're lesbians.  Duh.  Don't have her talk about it or be public about it.  It's a society where lesbianism is the norm, it's not a big deal, and nobody goes around trying to "scare the stiffs" because there are no stiffs to scare.

Then you put this character into her first interactions with men -- not only in her lifetime, but in her entire culture's history.  And what if ...

What if she experiments with men?

I mean seriously:  the vast majority of women she knows in Man's World have sex with men.  What if she started wondering, "Do I actually prefer women, or was it just that I know nothing else?"

It's a perfectly valid question, and better still it invites all sorts of conflict of the kind usually reserved for homosexuals:  tension at home when her mother finds out she's sleeping with men, hysteria from activist groups that she's gone to the other side, conservative talk-show hosts tripping over themselves to interview her ...

It takes everything that homosexuals have to deal with and turns it on its ear.  It could even wind up that Diana isn't into men after all.  The opportunity for commentary is there, and DC won't do it.  Instead, she'll just have "a strong lesbian" to try and pander to lesbians.

Sadly, this is exactly what they're doing with Alan Scott.  Sadly, it has precedent.

Green Lantern has always been a reflection of his age.  In the Golden Age, when magic was of interest to the 10-year-old readers of comics, GL was magical.  In the Silver Age, when technological progress was king and test pilots the daring knights of the sky, GL was a test pilot.

Then they frakked up GL completely by making him a super-villain.  Still, he was a reflection of an age where culture had turned toward pop psychology.  Consequently GL had a psychological bent.

The next GL was an artist.  This coincided with a strong advancements in pop art.  I don't mean Art in museums, but rather commercial art:  CGI in advertising, new blockbuster movies with CGI, etc.

It wasn't of long-term interest to the public, however, and eventually the test pilot was back.  Only this time he was an Air Force officer, to coincide with a decade of war in the public consciousness.  Additionally, private-citizen test pilots had long since been legislated out of existence.  The only way Hal Jordan could possibly fly advanced jets today is if he were in the military.

(This also make Hal a less interesting character, by the way.  Hal's hallmark is that he's an individualist who wields the most powerful weapon in the universe.  Making him a part of an Earthly collective -- even the military -- just isn't Hal Jordan's style.  He's an Old West US Marshal in space -- with all the individual latitude that implies.)

Now we've got a gay GL because it's become vogue.

The cool idea about GL is that he's an intergalactic cop with a magic ring.  A gay GL would make sense -- to be honest, I could see that working for Kyle Rayner or even Guy Gardner.  Perhaps John Stewart, depending on which version of him you mean.

But not Alan Scott.  I'm sorry, but that's just pandering.  They're shoe-horning the character into a sexuality that was just never intended.  Alan Scott always came off as a pretty conservative guy.  The 1970s had him occasionally taking time off from the JSA to run his business (which ultimately failed because he spent so much time ring-slinging).  I could see writing Alan as a Rupert Murdoch:  king of a media empire with a strong conservative bent to it.

But this Alan Scott is just ... bland.  They're pandering, and it shows.  You can tell this for certain because they're hedging their bets.  They didn't make Hal Jordan gay:  he's GL #1 and you can't afford to piss off the fanboys.  Instead, they made GL #2 or #3 or #4 gay -- and GL of an alternate universe, to boot.

Pandering, pure and simple.

The triumverate of Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman of Earth 2 we barely get to know ... which is probably just as well, since DC likely would have frakked them up as well.

In any case, the only thing I've actually enjoyed so far has been Power Girl and the Huntress.  The rest ... meh.  The lunatics are still running the asylum.  I fear they'll run the entire damned industry into the ground.

Where are you, Julie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Schwartz)?  We desperately need you!

Dakota Smith

George Perez did a Q&A session at the Superman celebration and confirmed that DC is a directionless mess on the character. Some quotes:




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b9Llfv-AQ0

Too many Chiefs, not enough Indians.