What do you think of STAN LEE'S SUPERMAN?

[MatterEaterLad]

Matter of preference, I didn't like most of what happened in the Bronze Age, and funny, for some of the exact reasons a lot of other people loved it...

[JulianPerez]

Well, the politics in Stan Lee and Maggin are generally used for humorous purposes (Maggin and Lee alike cracking jokes about hilariously overt political corruption and grafting) instead of to make a point - using politics to take things less seriously, as opposed to many writers of the 70s, who used it to make things MORE seriously.

This brings up an interesting question, which is: how much of Maggin is influenced by Stan Lee? The answer is probably a great deal, especially in terms of approach: characterization, humor, and strong worldbuilding - comics before and after Stan Lee are very different. But more likely, the similarities of the style between the two may have more to do with the fact that the two are very similar men. Look how different the plot-centered stories of Cary Bates were, and Cary Bates had a very different sense of humor, and ethnic and regional background than Maggin and Lee did.

If Maggin never reached some of the heights, he also never hit Lee's depths, either. In one crucial way, Maggin's work was an improvement over Lee: he never used the details of the Cold War. Lee can be difficult to read sometimes, because his "Cowboys and Indians" use of the Cold War to create Communist Gorillas and lobster creatures or whatever don't jibe with the type of paranoid, ugly conflict that the Cold War WAS, very different in tone from World War II; getting preachy and staging the conflict as "good vs. evil" was ignoring how complicated the world was and turns big ideas into small ones. Maggin, thankfully, was over the Vietnam hump and just focused on telling stories. He left the Cold War to Cold Warriors.

[MatterEaterLad]

It does seem to be a fair comparison...

But I have to ask...Superman did team up with Batman a lot, he did his JLA stints, how much more would make it so that he was "more a part of the DC universe?"...

[Gernot]

Having Supergirl stay the same age as Robin and joining The Teen Titans would've been a BIG step in the right direction, M-E Lad.  It would've given the \S/ a LOT more exposure, I think.

[MatterEaterLad]

Well, the Titans could have used the juice, no doubt...but Supes didn't need any exposure, right?

[Psybertrack]

Supergirl was busy being a member of the Legion of Super Heroes and going to school and the prom . She never would have had time for the Titans.

[NotSuper]

I always preferred Supergirl being in the Legion myself. Perhaps because the team has always been associated with the Superman family and it featured more alien characters.

[Psybertrack]

Supergirl fit right in with the LOSH.  In fact because there were so many others with powers galore in the legion, the writers could make it more interesting  in the stories.  The Emerald Empress and her eye and the other villains could really give her a challenge.