posted
Bat-Oval offically returns with Bruce. Just to confirm how right you all were.
From: Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada | Registered: Sep 2004
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SUPER AWESOME!!!
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
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Set
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
posted
Meh. I grew up on stories of the Batman later referred to as the 'Earth 2' Batman, so I was used to the black-on-grey bat, with the 'yellow circle' bat being the new Coke I didn't much care for.
I'm not a huge fan of Frank Millers work, but I liked him getting rid of the yellow circle.
The new cape, 'though, looks hawt. It captures the over-the-top-ness that McFarlane used to use, while look more 'bat-like' than his work.
And hey, piping. Gotta have piping. Possibly even some crown-molding.
Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
So, as I wait for a crucial trade to arrive to resume my reviews, I've gotten to reflecting on a recent realization brought on by working on my retro-review of Bronze Age Superman: namely, there is not one era of Superman that I can honestly say I like!! In my review, I termed it "The Emperor's New Spandex", and I think it's newly relevant given how history has recently been repeating itself, with the gimmicky (and arguably obnoxious) Silver Age=Geoff Johns era giving way to the earthbound (and arguably dull) Bronze Age=JMS-and-whoever-follows-him era.
Personally, I think the core of the problem has always laid in Superman's varying personalities over the years. From the two-fisted tough guy of the Golden Age, to the calculating cad of the Silver Age, to the wishy-washy modern guy of the Bronze Age and beyond, it's hard for me to get past the iconic status and get a firm fix on Superman, let alone find him sympathetic.
Now, in my opinion, and please excuse the self-promotion, the key to getting Superman to work is to play up the incorruptible purity of his heart, as I tried to in my fanfic "Truly Super." But even there, it's from the point of view of one of Superman's costumed colleagues, Green Arrow, so the icon still looms large. And in my retro-review of "Underworld Unleashed", at the time I praised the use of Captain Marvel's incorruptibility as the key to Neron's defeat as the best use ever of that character in the DCU. But upon reflection, it should have been Superman in that role.
Purity of heart is really the only thing that can possibly keep Superman relevant, and I'm not saying he should inhabit a whimsical never-never land like Captain Marvel, I'm saying he should inhabit the everyday world, but stand for everything decent and noble in humanity. This world needs such a role model more than ever. That no writer has twigged that in almost 75 years is baffling to me.
But what do the rest of you think? HAS Superman ever had an extended run with more than glimpses of his potential?
Set
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
posted
Enormous freaking response deleted by my shiny new keyboard, which I HATE!
Grr.
Anywho, short(er) version.
Superman (Shazam, etc.) are characters that have immense power, and yet show restraint, moderation and good judgement in their use of that power, instead of just flagrantly abusing it and imposing their will on those weaker than themselves (as they would in a more Authority / Ultimates style universe). At one level, comic books are a power-fantasy. And, to that particular subset of the fanbase, a character with great power, who *chooses* to only use it in a mature, grown-up and responsible fashion is frustrating and boring and 'boyscout.'
We live in a world where talking heads on TV joke about how prisoners deserve to get raped, how torture is justified, how certain people deserve to be poor or homeless or jobless, because they are lazy or stupid, etc, etc. I’ve been flat-out called naïve and unrealistic *by Christians* for attempting to live my life by the teachings of Jesus, and Superman is certainly no Jesus, but, in living by a certain code, and demonstrating respect for life, law, liberty, etc. he’s, to a certain subset of the fans, utterly 'unrealistic' and 'naive.’ (Because, if he wasn’t, if his deliberate and moderate actions were seen as mature and responsible and wise and eminently American in character, then they might have to re-evaluate their perception of themselves as ‘grown ups’ and ‘patriots.’)
Super 'heroes' like Wolverine, Jackie Estacado, etc. share the stage with characters like the Suicide Squad, Youngblood (hell, most Image characters), Deadpool, the Punisher, the Sentry, etc. and the popularity of these ultra-violent line-crossing 'edgy' characters only makes Captain America, Superman, etc. look 'naive' or 'unrealistic' or 'boring' by comparison, and by the evolving 'standards' that we see on TV.
While many of us are quite capable of appreciating and even being inspired by a hero that stands for something or has some sort of principles or standards, an audience that has grown up on cop shows in which only the cops who bend the rules or intimidate the suspects or the prosecutors who engage in backroom shenanigans or government agents who ‘Gitmo’ their prisoners ‘get the job done,’ someone like Captain America or Superman ends up seeming like a big wuss, for actually living up to the standards and principals of their country, faith, etc. instead of conveniently tossing them aside to ‘get the job done, by any means necessary,’ and then making excuses for why it had to be done ‘because they would have done it to us!’
In the last decade or so, DC has flirted lasciviously with the ‘bad Superman’ concept, to placate the fans who want to see him cut loose and just do whatever the hell he wants with all that incredible power, even if they’ve done it by proxy, with characters like Black Adam, Superboy Prime and the Exterminator. I suspect they know that they are playing with fire, and that once they take the actual Superman character down this road, there will be no coming back. Some of the newer generation might even think that would be cool, while others might consider the thought of even Superman becoming just another violent thug as abhorrent as the idea of a gun-toting Captain America.
I actually kind of loved the last page of Legion of Three Worlds, for this. Geoff extended a mighty middle finger to the Prime fanboys, demonstrated *exactly* what he thought of their ‘knock some more heads off!’ ‘ Prime rocks!’ and ‘I hope he kills a bunch of those losers!’ posts on the messageboards. They got exactly the ‘Superman’ they wanted, unrestrained, showing off his power, and he was outed as a petulant immature emotionally-insecure loser, which somewhat annoyed his biggest fans, who claimed (rightly) that Geoff crapped all over them. I suspect that, as long as Geoff is a big name at DC, we won’t be seeing more than these sorts of by-proxy (Black Adam, Prime) or temporary stints at a ‘dark’ Superman, that he wants to keep at least some of these characters less ‘realistic’ and more filled with inspirational and *heroic* qualities.
Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
Set, you make an outstanding case for a genuinely heroic Superman, and I agree with everything you said, so please don't be offended, but I must point out that my question was:
Has there ever been an extended Superman run of true quality that offered more than glimpses of his potential?
quote:Originally posted by Fanfic Lady: Set, you make an outstanding case for a genuinely heroic Superman, and I agree with everything you said, so please don't be offended, but I must point out that my question was:
Has there ever been an extended Superman run of true quality that offered more than glimpses of his potential?
Don't know if you'd consider All-Star Superman "extended", but it's huge on quality.
From: Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
"All Star Superman", regardless of its relative merits, is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the month-in-month-out, multiple titles, shared-DC-Universe Superman.
posted
I can't say if there's been any extended run showing his potential, but I certainly share the dislike for the forays into bad-ass Supes. With the latest take on the character (which I haven't read) in which he walks around America, so to speak, I would have thought they were going for basic goodness and empathy with the common folk. Maybe good, heroic Superman can't sustain an extended run - only go for a mini-series - regardless of the era and the audience.
Purity of heart is certainly Superman's distinguishing characteristic for me - or it could be. Incorruptible goodness speaks truth to power, and can kick ass if it has to.
Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns took that goodness and twisted it into a duped Superman, at the beck and call of the U.S. government, who eventually had to be purified by the Sun. (Valor was also cast into that role in DnA's Legion run, working for President McCauley.)
posted
After many reviews I'm a bit pressed for time but wanted to link to this thread which doesn't answer your question but gets at the topic from another angle (and you might find interesting)...
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Very cool thread, Cobie. It should be required reading for every prospective Superman writer. Which only makes me wonder more than ever how it is that it's always been so hard for most of his actual writers to get him right.
I know the Silver Age Superman era is very popular, but I think that the Silver Age Superman was a dick, and the Silver Age Lois Lane was a shrew. I know there's a separate thread about the Superdickery website, but for the sake of expediency, I'll post the website address:
And when you have some time, Cobie, I would appreciate if you did a long, detailed post in this thread about what exactly makes the late 80s-mid 90s Superman so great in your opinion.
posted
I’ll try (you know I can’t resist an offer to be overly wordy ) but I will admit that I have not read these Superman stories since they came off the rack, unlike several other eras. I know when I was reading Superman from say 1989-1994-ish, I considered the four Superman comics to be some of the very best comics in the industry. Superman, as a franchise, has never been as good since, and after reading a plethora of other eras, it was never as good before.
A few things are more business/editorial driven: I liked the weekly format with each title leading into the next but each having it’s specific storylines & supporting characters. I thought it was amazingly well done and has never been mirrored.
I thought the creative teams were amazing. Writers like Roger Stern and Louise Simonson were fantastic, and the artwork was a joy to behold. Jurgens & Breeding were a delight and IMO have the best look for Superman ever. The Bog had an awesome, completely different style that was part-Kirby and part out there. Later in the era, Barry Kitson and others joined.
But getting at why I liked this era specifically, especially the depiction of Superman:
- The cast of characters was vast and complex. Every one of them had multiple layers. There were so many characters that writers of the last 15 years just can’t seem to fit them all in. I miss Bibbo.
- Lois was incredibly strong, savy, intelligent and above all—compassionate and a good person. All her bad qualities had been stripped away. Lois Lane during this era is perhaps the single most attractive female personality wise in the history of comic books.
- Metropolis & Smallville were completely fleshed out places with sub-sets of locations and characters. You felt like Metropolis was so big that Superman wouldn’t need to leave it.
- The villains were complex and different, and there was a great mix of new & old.
- The adventures themselves were all almost excellent from a story-telling perspective. Each issue had a complete story, even if it was a chapter to a larger story. The stories had larger themes that weren’t beating us over the head, and yet they were full of adventure.
- The adventures were also diverse. There was space-opera, super-villain craziness, social issues, gang-type stories, comedic stories, sci-fi driven stories and many more. And through all of these, even though Superman can basically beat anyone in a fight, they all seemed to be the right adventure for him to be a part of (even gang-type stuff). I also enjoyed the stories that were sentimental, like the Christmas stories by Jurgens.
- Usage of Lex Luthor was fresh for the first time in decades (and the last time). And he didn’t dominate the series; he was more a supporting character which helped limit the annoyance factor.
- Getting to the most important: the depiction of Superman himself. He was portrayed as nothing short of heroic; yet, he didn’t have any of the super-dickery qualities he had in the Silver Age. He was compassionate but not a cry-baby wuss like the 70’s at times and then the years following this era (I don’t know how that was allowed). He was tough, smart and he also liked to laugh. He was a fully–rounded person yet still maintained his iconic-ness. I didn’t think it was perfect, but I thought it was the most well-balanced depiction in Superman history.
Something to add: I didn’t see Superman as my father; my boss; my older brother; my buddy; some alien; something too abstract to understand. He wasn’t any of these things. He was Superman, and he wasn’t pigeonholed into any of those roles.
This era wasn’t perfect and not every story was a hit. Sometimes the writing or art flubbed and sometimes it just didn’t work. But I’d say 90% of the time, they were nailing it. By the end, things began to trail off and head into a territory where a lot of the good became watered down (certainly by the break-up before the marriage this era had moved on to something else). Actually, even the very beginning of this era wasn’t perfect and it took awhile to pick up steam.
Did you collect during this era, FL? Any opinions—or is it more mixed (I realize I’m lumping in a lot together when perhaps I shouldn’t but I feel its all one big era).
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
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) but I will admit that I have not read these Superman stories since they came off the rack, unlike several other eras. I know when I was reading Superman from say 1989-1994-ish, I considered the four Superman comics to be some of the very best comics in the industry. Superman, as a franchise, has never been as good since, and after reading a plethora of other eras, it was never as good before.
