What is your favorite period of Superman comics?

[Maximara]

Dan Jurgens isn't the best writer in the world. He's good at gimmicks that sell comics...in fact, all he really did was turn the old imaginary stories into "real" stories- the death and wedding. And Zero Hour was just plain awful...it was like "Look at me! I can do Crisis on Infinite Earths too! I'm cleaning house!"

Actaully the wedding was a 'real' story before Jurgens did it. See the online comic "Superman Takes a Wife." (Action #484) writen by Cary Bates which has the 'original' Superman (Earth-2) finally marrying Superman.

During the Silver and more so in the Bronze age Superman's powerlevel had gone up and up and away. We even had a joke about  how powerful
Superman was during this period:

Superman saves a forgotten civilization in the Andromida galaxy, then moves a planet out of the way of a comet in Quazar 26 100 million light years from Earth, and finally saves Lois Lane from Lex Luthor all in 2.2  seconds.  "Slow Day" thinks Superman.

Superman was so powerful that magic and even Krytonite were appearing with annoying regularity. Byrne's reboot brought some badly needed fresh air to Superman. But things started to go haywire when it became clear that the Legion books were not going to reboot their history despite the fact LSH v3 #18 had left them a perfect out to get rid of Superboy and the whole 9 yards.

Then DC had it Legends crossover which shoved the LSH continuty problems in everybody's face. Then they had the LSH try and find out what was going on and so the Pocket Universe was created though Byrne had it an alternate reality while the Legion writers in typical blundering fasion had is a Pre-Crisis world the Trapper somehow saved (if history was rewritten their wouldn't be anything for the Trapper so save. He exists at the end of time not the beginning). Then the grim and gritty hits both books and aside for the few bright spots (like the early part of the Dominus saga) things basicly go south.

[Gangbuster]

That's true. I hadn't thought of the Earth-2 Superman wedding...at that point he wasn't the "main" Superman, though...but you're right.

I have heard a lot of complaints about Superman's power levels. It's clear that Byrne was trying to return to the Action Comics #1 type of Superman. (Unfortunately for Superman fans, it seems that he read Action Comics #1 but didn't concern himself with much of the Superman legend after that, except Lana Lang.) But therein lies a problem. In the original comics, "nothing less than a bursting shell could penetrate his skin." Superman is the original, and he needs to be set apart somehow. If a bursting shell could penetrate his skin, that makes him no different from Wolverine, the Punisher, or Spider-Man. So to some extent, I think that Kal-El's power levels are always increased out of necessity. That is, after all, the difference between man and superman. Humanoids on Krypton are supposed to be much more highly evolved than us, or even the mutants that exist in some comics.

Lifting a car over one's head was sensational in the 1930s. Moving a planet is excessive, but I think there is a balance somewhere inbetween that favors a very powerful Superman.

[Genis Vell]

Byrne's Superman was similar to Siegel's and Shuster's version: a man with empowered abilities.
A normal man can jump... Superman can fly.
A normal man can run... Superman can run at great speed.
And so on.

Silver Age Superman, instead, was too much distant from a normal man: can a man use superhypnosis or superventriloquism? Usually not. So, Byrne decided to make Superman an £empowered man (not divine like) again.

I like both versions, so I have not problems with this change.

[Maximara]

Byrne's Superman was similar to Siegel's and Shuster's version: a man with empowered abilities.
A normal man can jump... Superman can fly.
A normal man can run... Superman can run at great speed.
And so on.

Silver Age Superman, instead, was too much distant from a normal man: can a man use superhypnosis or superventriloquism? Usually not. So, Byrne decided to make Superman an £empowered man (not divine like) again.

I like both versions, so I have not problems with this change.

Also the Silver-Bronze Age Superman was so powerful that to give him something to do you had him running into red sunrays, Kryptonite, and magic as if there was somesort of Anti-Superman Emporium around. Ay least the Golden age power of super facial muscles quickly disappeared as that would have really made the character even harder to handle.

[Gangbuster]

The problem with this (common) argument in favor of Byrne's Superman is thus:

The Silver-Age Superman WAS Siegel's Superman. He wrote Superman until the last few years of the Silver Age, so it's not like someone betrayed his original vision and Byrne set it back in place. Byrne just got rid of it and went back to Action Comics #1, which Siegel had progressed 30 years beyond.