Back to the Golden Age...again!

[carmine]

the great depression lasted longer because of those very programs.

So no, I am not confused by what "socialism" is or what "communism" is. People can ACTUALLY disagree politically without one side being stupid. I disagree with plenty of people but I don't think the other person is dumb or "lack understanding" I just happen to disagree with them.

No offense of course IndiaInk.

[nightwing]

Have to agree with Carmine on this one.  FDR's programs were a total bust (if well intentioned); it was the war that turned things around.

My problem with redistribution of wealth "for the good of all" is that at some point, somebody in a position of power has to make the call on exactly what the "greater good" is.  So far no politician has ever proven equal to the task, and human nature being what it is, I have no reason to expect any ever will.  I wouldn't have much use for a superhero who set himself as the final arbiter there, either.

[DBN]

Politics aside, the social crusader role for Superman just isn't going to work unless DC does a line-wide reboot. I'm sorry, but how is a story about Superman stopping war profiteers or destroying slums interesting or relevant when you have villains will the know-how and access to technology to create weapons that far surpass the destructive power of any device we currently have on the planet? With all of the blasted super-geniuses, technoconglomorates, and the maddening amount of advanced alien technology leftover from Rao knows how many alien invasions, DC's Earth should be 50-100 years ahead of us, yet it isn't.

DC wants to do social commentary with Superman? Fine, that's what Clark Kent and his job as a new reporter is for.

"But, that isn't as interesting as Superman punching the social issue of the day in the face."

Well, guess what, realism-wanting reader? The acting-without-thinking of the Golden Age Superman has the very real possibility of making the situation worse. Take the Golden Age strongman terrorizing the wife beater in Action Comics #1: what happens after the abuser gets out of jail? Louise Simonson dealt with this issue in Man of Steel #16, Superman later found the body of the abuser's wife in the city morgue. So, unless DC is going to take the leap of making Superman judge, jury, and executioner again; what's more effective? Superman beating the hell out of the guy or Clark Kent calling the police to deal with a domestic disturbance and taking a more thought-out approach to the entire situation?

Side-note: I believe MOS #16 was the 1st part of a two-parter with Dan Jurgens. Read more about it here http://www.supermanhomepage.com/comics/comics.php?topic=special-reports/dan-jurgens

[Klar Ken T5477]

Y' know those old Denny O'Neil/Neal Adams GL relevant titles just didn't sell and GL got cancelled back in the 70s and hard to share back pages from the Flash.

Reboots and relevancy don't last for the long haul.

It's not 1934 anymore. Nor 1938.

Shame all of the real creativity died with Mort and Julie -- and with them the SF writers who created myths not marketing gimmicks. 

Bleccch.........

[countryboylife]

Again. Perhaps, such was said in 1986, and yet I fail time and again to see it.

A new golden age would be nice of course.

[Adekis]

Y' know those old Denny O'Neil/Neal Adams GL relevant titles just didn't sell and GL got cancelled back in the 70s and hard to share back pages from the Flash.

Reboots and relevancy don't last for the long haul.

It's not 1934 anymore. Nor 1938.

Shame all of the real creativity died with Mort and Julie -- and with them the SF writers who created myths not marketing gimmicks. 

Bleccch.........

I despise looking to the "good old days" with nostalgia and the recent past, present and future with disappointment, overlooking everything good about them.

Those GL comics you're talking about? They may not have sold well, but they're remembered thirty years later as being classics. They're decent stories too. Maybe a little preachy.

Those "myths not marketing gimmicks" were created to keep kids interested, by a man who had so little respect for his audience that they had the attention span of a goldfish. Weisinger said that. He thought kids had short attention spans, so every six months he'd introduce a new thing. Know who else did that sort of thing? The much hated Dan Jurgens, in the nineties. The gimmick marketer himself. I honestly enjoy some of those dark age 90s stories better than some (not all) of Mort's own gimmicks.

Weisinger was a bad boss, stifling his worker's creative talents. This is a well known fact. He also hated Superman. He was jealous of his powers, and eventually quit the job because of it.

Julie Schwartz was great. But it's not like he did things too differently from other hated people. John Byrne tried to lower Superman's power level and tell more character based stories. If that doesn't sound familiar, it should, Julie Schwartz did the exact same thing. The difference? Schwartz did it better. But don't try to claim he did something different that made him special, he just did it a different way.

Writers today are just as creative. In fact, they have to be more creative, because we expect constantly high quality stories. They don't always deliver. But sometimes they do. And on those occasions, it is VERY unfair to hold them up as inferior, just because it's not the sixties anymore.

As for me, I'm going to look at the future with a sense of optimism that Superman will actually get better instead of getting worse. Who knows? It could happen.

[Lee Semmens]

Weisinger was a bad boss, stifling his worker's creative talents. This is a well known fact. He also hated Superman. He was jealous of his powers, and eventually quit the job because of it.

I don't know exactly why Mort Weisinger quit; I did read somewhere (I wish I could recall where) that he suffered a serious nervous breakdown in 1970, which perhaps not at all coincidentally was his last year as editor.

[Johnny Nevada]

I'm a liberal (yes, even us leftys like the Man of Steel!), but even I'd rather see a more Bronze Age than Golden Age style Superman.

Though I recall even the Golden Age version eventually stopped being a vigilante (the earliest version) and became fully on the side of the law...