1st official image of Brandon Routh as Superman

[JulianPerez]

I personally think George Carlin would have more respect for Superman, actually, The worst he'd do would be to tell comedy stories with the character.  

This may possibly be the most hilarious error I've ever made.

It occurs to me I'm being too harsh to Roger Stern, a writer whose work (when he isn't writing with others) that I generally like. Byrne gets a lot of crap because he totally deserves it, but the fact is, he isn't single-handedly, entirely to blame for the fact we've had years of mediocre writing. Mike Carlin is more responsibile, because he institutionalized Byrne's mistakes. Here's the thing about anything being done by committee: it doesn't raise mediocre writers up to the level of the geniuses in the pack. It drowns the geniuses out in a sea of mediocrity.

After all, Roger Stern gave the Marvel Universe the gift of the Monica Rambeau Captain Marvel, a brilliantly original character with a unique and interesting superpower (the hardest thing in comics to do is to create a superpower not seen before) with a brilliantly developed personality of assertiveness, self-confidence, and family devotion. To my knowledge, the best strong black female superheroine. It's a pity the Avengers scribes (excluding the always-genius Kurt Busiek) have forgotten her.

And Roger Stern's great run on SPIDER-MAN speaks for itself.

[shazamtd]

Personally, I think it's better to acknowledge all of Superman's history, using everything that's good and weeding out the bad stuff. But then again, I'm one of the people who's been booted out of the fandom.

I love it when other people get it.   I don't care if I'm booted out of the fandom.

I personally think George Carlin would have more respect for Superman, actually, The worst he'd do would be to tell comedy stories with the character.

George Carlin!  Another one of my heroes!

Superman's teen angst does not interest me in the least.

Angst doesn't belong in Superman anyway.  If I want angst I read Spider-Man.  As far as Smallville goes, I can't watch it.  I can't get past Tom Welling.  Clark Kent was never meant to be a pretty boy jock that the girls swoon over.  He's meant to be a well meaning nerd with glasses or a Peter Parker without the self loathing.

King Krypton, where do you find all this stuff about the comic and Smallville fans?  It cracks me up!   :lol:

[King Krypton]

You don't have to look much farther than the various comic book, Lois & Clark, and Smallville message boards across the 'Net. At nearly every one of them, there's attacks on the traditional mythos, condemnation of anything and everything predating John Byrne, and demands that either Lois & Clark or Smallville be the official canon for all things Superman from now until eternity. TO name a few of them, one of the worst offenders is Superhero Hype, whose Superman boards are loaded with Siegel-Shuster haters who think Byrne wrote the book on Superman. And outside of their obligatory movie forum, Kryptonsite is host to a lot of people whose contempt for the mythos is off the scale. And Zoomway's Lois & Clark site makes no bones about despising the comics pre-Byrne and having no use for any live-action/animated Superman that isn't Lois & Clark or a complete duplication thereof. And DC Comics.com has always been plagued with a flood of fanboys who'll lynch anything and everything pre-Byrne and post-Jurgens.

And that's just a tiny sample of how much venom is being directed at the mythos...and ultimately at Superman Returns for being closer in spirit to the original stuff. Like I said, they want either Man of Steel: The Movie, Smallville: The Movie, The Death of Superman: The Movie, or the JJ Abrams script. A Max Fleischer-based movie is the last thing these guys want, because it means they're not getting Byrne's vision, but Siegel and Shuster's.

[llozymandias]

Heck just mention on some boards (DC's own for example) that you like any non-byrne version of Superman, you get demonized pdq.  Or worse state that Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster were two of the greatest talents in comic's history & not worthless hacks.  The attitude that "my favorite version of my favorite character, must be the only version ever to be used in stories or even mentioned in conversation" :roll:  :?  takes most of the fun out of message boards.  :cry:

[King Krypton]

Well, methinks I spoke way too soon about the 1940s look of Superman Returns not being demonized....

SHH is now devoting an MB topic to the bashing of Singer's decision to go for a retro-style approach to Superman. According to the bashers, a 1940s-flavored setting with phone booths isn't "relevant", and thus is damaging to Superman. Citing Man of Steel and Smallville as the proper source material (big surprise there  :roll: ), the argument is that if Singer was smart, he'd have Superman take place in today's world completely, being contemporary in every single way and specific to this era. In doing so, they claim, Superman would be made modern and "relevant," as opposed to the "outdated" '40s look Singer's using.

If it seems like they're taking more potshots at Max Fleischer...well, it's because that's what this is, pretty much.

[Super Monkey]

I think you need to spend more time here and less time over there, stress is not healthly. I wouldn't worry too much about them, they are not worth the effort or the time.

[shazamtd]

Thank you, King Krypton.  I might check these MBs out.  I could use a good laugh.   :lol:

One of the reasons I like this forum is because it's friendly.  I like that everyone can have their opinion and agree to disagree.  

[JulianPerez]

No comic creator ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of Modern Age fans.

The fact that certain talentless writers are so very popular now (you can think of your own, there are so many to choose from) are upheld as geniuses by mouthbreathing, Metallica t-shirt wearing teens, is more or less evidence of this.

No wonder Alan Brennert, one of the greatest writers of the Modern Age, is obscure and undiscovered. No wonder Steve Englehart hasn't been able to get work in years. No wonder Alan Moore left our dimension to become a priest of the Roman snake god Cybele or whatever the hell. No wonder DC used Kurt Busiek's bad case of Mercury poisoning to screw him out of writing JLA. These guys are true geniuses, and the average Modern Age fan doesn't know genius.

The very fact they revile SUPERMAN RETURNS ought to be taken as a sign that it's worth taking a look.