Also maybe you only read mainstream stuff, but nearly every cartoonist in the Indies write and draw their own stuff and do everything else for that matter.
True story: I bought Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN so that I could say I'd read it and impress women.
FYI, the phenomenon you're referring to here is the Positive Halo Effect in psychology and sociology. A single characteristic such as great physical attractiveness makes the person and those perceiving the person seem to have all sorts of other 'associated' supposedly related characteristics like charming personality, intelligence, good character, etc.
Interesting factual points you raise, CaptainKal, thank you for bringing it to our attention. Do you work in psychology or some related field?
And that issue sounds godawful, too. The only Byrne story that I remember being good at all was the one that introduced the revamped Lori Lemaris - and that was only bearable because it was essentially a panel-for-panel remake of her original origin story. As always, with Byrne the Robert Heinlein-esque misogyny reins supreme: Lori Lemaris was competent and likeable, so naturally she had to DIE at the end of the tale. Though the detail about whales singing their love to the ends of time was a wonderful touch.
Re: Perez' (no, the other Perez) Wonder Woman, I think what was wrong with the robot plane was that it would've stood out like a sore thumb when the treatment of the Amazons was going for a strong Greek Mythological flavor.
A character like Wonder Woman is big enough for various kinds of takes upon her; the mythological aspect is just one, and it may be successful. I for one, love how great and evil Mars/Aries became (he wears a mask because his face is the true face of war and would horrify any that look at it), or Diana's Wonderdome in Washington D.C. filled with harpies and pegasus. My problem with it, though, is that it compromises Wonder Woman's uniqueness if she flies instead of gliding, and is invulnerable (for one thing, why would she use her bracelets?) and doesn't have her bondage related weakness. It means she fights exactly like Superman does, and Superman is super enough for the both of them; characters benefit and are made stronger by uniqueness.
And I miss her half-sandals, half-high heels. I miss Amazonium. I miss her being called "the Amazing Amazon." I miss the Purple Ray. I miss those cute little Kangas that she rides on. This isn't Silver Age nostalgia (I missed most of that period, to be honest) but that stuff was just plain neat and unique and while George Perez came up with a lot of neat concepts, he did not create any ideas that were truly trippy and original enough to replace all these LSD-derived elements. I would not go as far as to say that George Perez's retooling of Wonder Woman was the clueless failure Byrne's revamp of Superman was; Perez got the character's personality very successfully, and his myth-centered approach at least had some internal consistency if nothing else.
As for his Kamandi-period work, the Fourth World stuff is very well-plotted and written (albeit slightly off-kilter as you would expect from an idiosyncratic genius like Kirby), as is the 70s Marvel Black Panther and Captain America stuff.
I'll agree with you for no other reason than to give props to Kirby's underappreciated and great ETERNALS, MAN-MACHINE, and DEVIL DINOSAUR. Kurt Busiek once said (and I agree with him) that ETERNALS was weakened because Roy Thomas later established it as being in the Marvel Universe; Kirby's concepts there were too big. Now suddenly instead of being the inspiration for mythic deities, the Eternals were MISTAKEN for the real ones that actually exist. And then suddenly mutants go from a clear-cut concept to a murky afterthought. Ditto for MAN-MACHINE; he was better off as the only android that exists because if he's the fifth or so in the Marvel Universe, he no longer can be said to experience what he's going through for the first time.
Well, if we are going to open up the can of worms known as "post-Crisis Superman Stories" we will have lots of ammunition (about 100% of them qualify).
I didn't mention any because criticising the Mike Carlin helmed stuff (to say nothing of, for the Love of God, BYRNE's work) would be like shooting a fish taped to the end of a gun.
I would NOT put any of the Jimmy Olsen issues on a list of Worst Superman comics. Personally, I prefer my flavor of Jimmy Olsen to be competent (though lacking common sense), instead of a dumb kid that swallows things he finds on alien spaceships and whatnot. Retooling Jimmy Olsen as "Mr. Action," a sleuth that solved gangster-related crimes, as well as Kirby's two-fisted approach with Jimmy as the buttkicking leader of the Newsboy Legion, made Jimmy more engaging, because his problem was that he was prone to biting off more than he can chew, instead of being stupid enough that one wonders if Superman saving him all the time is interfering with natural selection.
