Goodbye, Superman

Cafe Society
1

I love the character of Superman. I’ve been buying all the Superman titles off the newsstand/comic shop for 28 years without missing an issue. I’ve picked up back issues and have every issue of Superman and Action back to about 1954, and most of the secondary titles from about 1960 on.

I loved the wild “anything goes” weirdness of the Weisinger years (“Great Scott! Myxtzptlk has turned that submarine into a giant banana!”), I loved the bizarre (and all too brief) Kirby stuff (“Goody” Rickles? Giant Green Jimmy Olsen?!), I loved the depth and thoughtfullness of the Elliot S! Maggin years where Maggin examined what the responsiblities of a Superman were and weren’t. I loved his explorations of the idea that ultimate power doesn’t have to corrupt. I liked the Bates years, with their “comfortable old slippers” feel. He didn’t do anything new or exciting, but he told competent stories.

Then Byrne took over and like a child destroying something he’s not bright enough to understand*, all the history, richness and depth were gone. Krypton was no longer interesting, it was sterile. Clark was no longer an everyman that readers could identify with, he was (to paraphrase Byrne) “A brie-eating yuppie”, and gone was a Superman smart enough to know that killing was wrong, Byrne had Superman kill, because Superman was to dumb to know that killing was wrong until he tried it out. :rolleyes: (A few years later, there was another story about how Superman was too dumb (as a late teen) to know that driving drunk was wrong until he tried it out. )

Anyway, Byrne left, and slowly others (Roger Stern and George Perez, mainly) began to repair the damage that Byrne’s slash-n-byrne writing had done, and largely succeeded.

Then came the Death and Resurrection of Superman. So-so story, though I’ll give 'em points for innovation. But since then, the books have been floundering downhill. There have been issues here and there that’ve been good, but nothing that really clicked with me. Then, recently, four new writers and artists took over the four Superman titles.

I can usually ignore bad art, but this goes beyond the pale: Superman’s now being drawn as an anime-version of The Hulk. His chest is 7 feet wide and he has teeny little legs. Gone are the sleek lines of a Curt Swan, or a Wayne Boring or a George Perez, Superman now looks like a circus freak (If any of you remember Megaton Man, he now looks something like that).

But beyond that, I’m sick of the Superman writers teasing and pissing on older fans like me.

The current team of writers seemed to be floundering. Stories were meandering, characters no-one cared about were introduced and disapper without a ripple (remember Kancer or Tumor or whatever the hell it’s name was? Remember the purple ram-horn guy in the Superman outfit from the fake Kandor? Neither do I.), stupid mega-plots drive the book (what the hell happened in World at War anyway? It was gibberish) at the expense of telling stories. I was getting set to quit the book out of sheer boredom when the writers brought back the “real” Krypton about a year ago. It wasn’t a good story, but I’ll admit it caught my interest. And, I enjoyed seeing more of Byrne’s damage being undone. And as a final bonus they brought back Krypto. I thought that this would be the start of something good. The writers seemed to be having fun playing with the concept of a super-powered dog…that was a dog. (The silver-age Krypto wasn’t really a dog. Dogs shouldn’t think in complete sentences.) I could overlook obnoxious art if the stories were interesting.

Unfortunately, apparently the reason they brought back the ‘real’ Krypton was to ruin it ("See? We gave you the ‘real’ Krypton. But now it’s dark and ugly. And we’ll maim Lara. On panel.) and the reason they brought back Krypto was to butcher him. Boy, I’m impressed :rolleyes:

And that’s it. The final straw. I quit. I don’t want to pay to see a corpse being defecated on.

I love the character of Superman, but y’know what? The guy running around isn’t Superman. Sure, they can call him that, but sorry, he’s not. They’ve undermined everything I cared about with the character and I’m sure that Seigle and Shuster would be appalled at what’s been done to the first and best super-hero of them all.

I’ll save the money I woulda spent on the Superman books and buy back issues or Archive Editions. At least there I’ll get to read Superman stories again.

Goodbye, Kal-El. It’s been fun.

Fenris

*Proof of this: Byrne, when he decided to turn Luthor into Kingpin, explained how he thought the “Superboy made Luthor bald” origin was stupid. Um…except that that was never the whole reason. He apparently didn’t bother to read the source material. Even in the original version of the origin from the late '50s, there was much more to it than that. He also thought that Superboy was stupid because 'everyone knew Superboy couldn’t die ‘cause he grows up to be Superman. So what’s the point of Superboy stories?’ :rolleyes:

2

I’m sorry you’re so upset Fen. Personally I like the post-crisis Krypton. The old style was too Buck Rogers for me. Krypton as it is now is much more alien. I also like the fact that Kal-El wasn’t technically born until he reached earth. He’s a naturalized U.S. citizen, and thinks of himself as a earthperson, rather than a visitor. The way it is now, Superman really is Clark Kent. I never liked the idea that Clark was just a character he assumed to protect his identity. He grew up as Clark, and that’s how he should think of himself. Superman is the costume. I agree that not everything Byrne did worked, but I do like the Clark Kent part of it, and I’m glad the Kents are alive. There was never any need for them to have died. And thank goodness Clark and Lois are married. I had gotten really tired of the pre-crisis status quo.

You’re right about characters appearing and disappearing, which seems to happen when new writers take over. I sometimes wonder why some story ideas sort of end without any warning.

But in spite of that, I think the writing at the moment is some of the best. It was sad to see Krypto die, and I think the alternate Krypton is going to end up being a creation of Brainiac 13, but the Worlds at War series was, I felt, quite good. Some of the stand alone stories, such as The Shame of Smallville and Missing, are among the best ever written. They help show why Clark is a hero, not the powers, as cool as they are, but his desire to help people. The powers just give him a way to do that.

I think “the guy running around” is more like Seigel and Shuster’s Superman than he had been for a long time, and I’m sticking with him.

By the way, I’m 38, I grew up reading comic books and still love them, and Superman has always been my favorite character, even when I didn’t care for the writing and art, such as Curt Swan’s.

3

Fen -

IANASF (Superman Fan - I grew up a Marvel Silver-Ager and X-man fan - bought Giant-Size #1 off the shelf, then stupidly sold it a couple years later - and the only DC stuff I usually have liked has been the darker Batman and the Watchmen) - BUT:

Your post hits home. It is so, so disheartening when something that is so centrally important and has so much opportunity is squandered by the wrong stewards. They either don’t get what is at the essence of the character, or they do conceptually but don’t have the artistry to bring that essence out in their work. Every now and then you get The Dark Knight Returns which takes a stale character and reinvigorates it with possibilities, but mostly, we don’t.

It’s like rock n’ roll songs - everybody knows that have 3 chords and simple lyrics (usually), and 99% sound awful and stale. Only rarely does some artist come by and not only work within the rules, but celebrates the rules and crosses over the line of some rules, but does so in a natural way.

Sorry you are dissappointed in your old standby. I hope he comes back soon…

4

Have you heard that Jude Law has been picked to play Superman in Superman Vs Batman?
I hope he does the American accent, I don’t think Superman should be British.

5

We have an accent? :slight_smile:

I remember how magical Superman was when I was a kid. Not the comics, really, but just the whole mythos. When I did finally get into comics, around fourteen, Supes was just to…bland for me. This was around the time of Crisis, I might add. I always wanted to like the guy, but the magic just wasn’t there. (Or, at least, my perception of what Superman should be)

And I more than feel ya on the Byrne issue. “Chapter One” anbody?

6

That’s cool! This is a topic over which reasonable people can disagree, (even though you’re wrong! :wink: :stuck_out_tongue: )

While I like the Kents being alive, I think it dramatically undermines the character: the Kent’s death showed that as powerful as Superman was, there were limits. He was unable to save the most important people in his life. It added a touch of tragedy to an otherwise pretty happy character.

The creepy, sterile Krypton (admittedly wonderfully imaged by Mike Mignola) makes it lucky for Supes that he was sent away, again undermining his loss. Byrne’s Superman has never had any tragedy in his life (under Byrne. He’s also an idiot: the scene in Man of Steel #6 where Supes just tosses all the art, literature, science, etc of Krypton away as “meaningless” was so…stupid and shallow)

I just reread a bunch of Supermans and Actions from 1977-8 or so, and I’ll agree that the Clark Kent from then wouldn’t work today…he’s too much of a wimp. (And Steve Lombard would have been in SO much trouble…), but the “Clark is a stud who was a football hero, pulitzer-prize winner, etc.” is too much in the other direction. “Mild-mannered” works better than Clark Kent, studmuffin or Clark Kent, uber-wimp. Think of Reeves’ performance in Superman 1. That’s the Clark I want back.

But I could live with all that. I dropped Green Lantern when Ron “Tease” Marz dangled a fix for the Hal Jordan damage once too often. The slaughter of Krypto is exactly the same thing. I’d have kept buying, however bored I got, just out of inertia. They had to work to make me quit. I don’t mind reboots or characters moving foward (I’m all for the Lois/Superman marriage), but I don’t want my memories spit upon either and it feels like that’s what they’ve done. What was the point of bringing back Krypto only to kill him. He wasn’t around long enough for new readers to get attached so the only purpose was the Marz scam: promise something that’ll bring old readers back, then don’t deliver. I think that was the final straw.

Fenris

7

When I saw this thread, my first thought was “Jeez, they’re not killing him off again, are they?”

I was an avid collector from about 1979-1995, so I saw the pre-and post-Crisis in detail. The main difference that I can see it that Byrne and Ordway’s stories are marketed to teenagers and young adults while Wayne Boring stories from the fifties are geared to children. That doesn’t necessarily make one better than the other, but as I entered adulthood, I appreciated stories that didn’t talk down to me.

As for bringing back Krypto, Byrne didn’t really kill him, but zapped him with gold Kryptonite so he lost all his powers and superior intelligence, effectively turning him into a normal dog. That whole story was an attempt to reconcile the Legion of Superheroes with the rebooted lack of a Superboy. Krypto has had a few cameo appearances, mostly in dream sequences.

Of greater significance was Superman’s later return to that alternate world and his execution of three Phantom Zone criminals and picked up a genetically engineered creature that would become the new Supergirl. THAT was a turning point.

8

The problem I’ve seen with the Superman books of late is that everybody wants to be the definitive Superman writer…which is a little hard to pull off when the character is split between four writers. (Aside: I honestly thought the early 90s’ crew, that being Simonson, Kesel, Micheline and to a lesser extent, Jurgens, were just trying to tell Superman stories with no ego-trip agenda involved.) As Fenris succinctly pointed out, Byrne’s agenda was to rewrite Superman strictly according to his vision, not necessarily a good vision. (Kinda makes Byrne look like a 60s’ serial villain, or the Anti-Monitor.) Same applies to the current crew, with Loeb in particular. Out of all of them, Joe Kelly is the one I trust the most…although a lot of his Zod crap casts serious doubts on what to believe.

The problem with this agenda nonsense, of course, is that it foresakes objectively good storytelling in exchange for the author’s storytelling, period. I’ve chatted with Byrne: he’s told me outright that his philosophy is “never give the fans what they want.” Sigh. It’s the artistic equivalent of giving a dehydrated man a wine spritzer because, dammit, I made the spritzer and you’re going to like it, and if nobody but my small fan following likes it, that’s their problem.

The solution: kill two of the Superman books (Man of Steel has always floundered, and I’d hate to see Adventures go after 700 issues, but you can’t kill a book named Superman and it’s blasphemy to kill Action) and bring on writers who are just going to write. None of this “bold new direction” crap by bringing on anybody with a hint of a revisionist agenda. No Grant Morrisons, no Alan Moores, no Mark Waids, period. (Aside #2: I once got an angry letter from Mark Waid when I accused him of plotting to take over DC Comics.) Just…somebody who cares about the character and wants to give the readers a good time.

9

I’ve got to agree with Fenris here. Not to long a go, I was reading all four superman titles monthly. Along comes Braniac 13, and I really didn’t like it - other than the “Lex Luthor, riot survivor” bits, it was just a bunch of gratuitously unnecessary continuity changes so that the creative team could have a unch of fun new toys to play with. Because I didn’t like it, I quit reading much in the way of Superman stuff for a while.

As soon as I picked back up reading Superman, here comes the whole “alernate Krypton” business, and I knew it was trouble. Not only did it not make any sense, but the writers made a deliberate attempt to avoid it being tossed out of continuity by having Krypto step out of it. I’ve got a bit of a sense for political maeuvering, and I couldn’t help but see Krypto that way: You’ve got a writer who wants things one way, and he knows that others won’t like it, so he makes a deliberate gaping wound in continuity in order to render his pet ideas difficult to ignore, and harder still to fix.(for the absolute nadir of this kind of behavior, see Clone, Spider under heading Marvel).

Not only did that turn me off again, but I knew (I mean, knew[/u)], that Krypto would end up dying in some unpleasant manner, because that was a necessary prerequisite to putting that bit of continuity behind them.

So, along comes “Worlds at War”, and it did stink as of a bull’s excreta. Sorry, photopat, but it did. I hate, hate, hate these sort of massive extended crossover “event” storylines anyhow, but especially I cannot stand the ones that require you to have every single panel of each part in front of you to comprehend. "Worlds at War went far beyond that. The individual issues that I first picked up and tried to read simply didn’t make any sense. When I tried to relate them to one another, the juxtaposition of different issues (which are after all supposed to be telling a single sequential story) still made no sense in relation to one another. It wasn’t any sort of lack of reading comprehension skills on my part; rather it seemed as if the whole point of each issue was to be a puzzling ordeal. So, rather than be permanently rendered as confused as this guy:

:confused:

I simply gave up on it, and figured on reading the eventual trade paper collection of the storyline.

Unfortunately, once I tried to resume reading, I was only able to glean two things about current Superman continuity:

  1. It is heavily, perhaps totally, influenced by “Worlds at War”.

  2. As far as I can tell, “Worlds at War” was worse than I had originally imagined.

My attempts to read Superman after the whole mess went down have been more than simply a puzzling ordeal (which would be reason enough not to follow it), they’ve been downright painful. Furthermore, DC seems to be giving every indication that this is the culminations of the Superman books’ creative direction over the past few years, and therefore things are likely to continue in the same direction. Frankly, if that’s the case, they’ve lost me as a reader. If they fix things, I’ll come back, but I’m still going to be skeptical - there would need to be a direct editorial commitment to a total, 180-degree turnaround, similar to what happened with X=Men. I really don’t see that happening, not without the sort of sudden, precipitous dropoff in paid readership that occasioned that title being revamped.

Then again, I never thought that Marvel would have the testicular fortitude to fix X-continuity, so … we’ll see.

Until then, I’ll just have to read Batman instead. Poor me.

10

Um, no. Not that one.

What Fenris is complaining about happened this year, and has nothing to do with the Time Trapper’s Pocket Universe.

11

I think Karl Kesel is a great writer. His work on Harley Quinn is great.

Now, as I have met Karl and Barbara Kesel, I am biased.

The Superman office is VERY controlling from what I have heard, and the writers have as much freedom as the X-Writers do. Very little at times.

12

The one shots that tied into Our Worlds At War were quite good, IMHO.

The JSA, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, and Nightwing one shots really made the entire ordeal worthwhile.

13

Exactly. As a matter of fact, it happened in the issue that came out two days ago. A friend of mine pointed out that this is only part 3 of a 4 part series, so Krypto may not be dead, in which case, this rant will’ve been (in part) null and void. It’s still possible that they’s miraculously heal Krypto, send the ‘real’ Krypton to some other dimension where it’ll never be heard from again, etc. But I doubt it.

And if it’s the case that Krypto is butchered, Lara mutilated and Krypton ruined, the writers brought back something bright and innocent simply to piss on it.

I thought the “It’s fun to break other people’s toys” mentality died in the early '90s, with the coming of Waid and Busiek (who, among others, have made their bones repairing the toys that other, lesser talents (John Byrne to name one) broke) More recently Kevin Smith and JMS have been undoing vast amounts of slash-n-Byrne* type damage from the post-Watchmen '80s.

I hated the bulk of the post-Watchmen '80s.

It was fun watching Moore (and to a much lesser extent, Miller) deconstruct Super-Heroes in Watchmen, Miracleman and (to a much lesser extent) Dark Knight. But Moore, at least, has been smart enough to realize that while deconstructing is a fun game, building something lasting is even better, if harder.

Byrne’s vision of Superman was shallow “Let’s make him trendy”, “Let’s get rid of all that complicated stuff about him having past tragedies. A happy life easier to write!” “Let’s get rid of the whole ‘Wimp on the outside, Superman underneath’ wish-fulfillment thing”, “Let’s get rid of that whole complicated Luthor/Superman relationship. The Kingpin is so much easier to write.”, “Let’s get rid of everything complex, or involving or deep and make him a big, dumb, flying, grinning, brick.”

I’m sick of a Superman who’s an overmuscled buffoon, barely able to tie his shoelaces, let alone actually catch a super villian (when’s the last time Lex went to jail?).

I miss the Superman who always saw the best in people, even his one-time friend Lex. The Superman who, despite multiple tragedies (Krypton, Luthor, the Kents) still tried to keep a positive outlook. The Superman who had nearly ultimate power but wasn’t corrupted by it. The Superman who had to be taught by the Guardians that just because you can do the right thing doesn’t always mean you should. The Superman who’s philosophy was summed up by Elliot S! Maggin as “There’s a right and a wrong in the universe and it isn’t all that difficult to tell the two apart.”

Instead we get a big, kinda-dumb guy who hits people a lot.

< sigh >

Fenris

*Don’t think the term “Slash-n-byrne” is fair? Look at what he’s done to other people’s work. West Coast Avengers was Byrne trying to undo everything Englehart and Thomas had built, Byrne’s Wonder Woman was an attempt to get past all that complicated ‘feminsim’ and ‘humanism’ stuff that Marston and Perez dealt with and made Diana yet another big, dumb, grinning Byrne muscleman (or woman). His Demon undid all of Moore and Ennis’s work. His Hulk attempted to undo Peter David. The guy doesn’t write, he un-writes.

14

Um…this may result in my being chomped by a giant wolf, but I think that Byrne was one of the best artists to work on X-Men. The Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past are classics for a reason, and it’s not just Chris Claremont’s writing.
Please don’t hurt me…

15

[Quote]

And TheOnlySaneOne didst spake thusly:
Um…this may result in my being chomped by a giant wolf, but I think that Byrne was one of the best artists to work on X-Men. The Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past are classics for a reason, and it’s not just Chris Claremont’s writing.

[Quote]

Oh, hey, Byrne’s stuff was fine in its day. I largely wouldn’t trade his Fantastic Four days for anything, and I thought his few issues of She-Hulk were hysterical. It’s just that Byrne’s evolution as a comic creator froze somewhere in the mid-80s’…possibly the fact that he inherited Curt Swan’s pencil changed his brain from 50% ego, 50% talent to something like 95 to 5.

Seriously, man…his style is stuck. The only growth of his I’ve seen is his integration of computer graphics into his Wonder Woman run, which I thought was a neat step. But his drawn artwork has remained largely the same, his inking is terrible and screams for Terry Austin’s help, and his writing is–

–I’m lacking a good description here, but it’s far from entertaining.

16

Just so we’re clear, even though I’m upset by what’s happened to my favorite character, I’m still aware that it’s just fiction and that people can reasonably have different tastes. I’m not gonna hurt anyone for disagreeing. Some stuff in a comic discussion has fact to base it upon. Flash did have an in-continuity story where a Woody Allen-esqe imp explained that Flash’s powers came from magic. This is an unarguable fact. Flash #168. But reasonable people can disagree abou the meaning of the story, the quality of the story and even if the story should be in-continuity.

Anyway, I agree with you about X-MEN (and think Byrne probably didn’t get enough credit) and his FANTASTIC FOURs are among the best runs on the book. But from the time he took over Superman onward, his artistic style has ranged from so-so to awful and his writing (outside of NEXT MEN, BABE and the other book in that line) which were pretty good, actually) has been utterly abysmal. Every time he gets a book, he decides to “restore” the characters to his ideal vision of them. And, in general, his vision of the characters is "However they were when I was reading them in about 1974. The stupid “Superman’s powers are all psychic” comes from APAs from that era (and it was a joke John.)

His Spider-Man butchery was all about restoring the character to his 1974 status (Single guy, Aunt May and Goblin alive).

His WONDER WOMANs fit the early-70s mold too. In the early 70s, Wonder Woman was just a super-heroine. She hit people. That was about it. Very little of Marston’s feminist/humanist message survived. (Correct me if I’m wrong about the era Hastur: I’m thinking around the “12 Tasks of Wonder Woman” period.)

His HULK: CHAPTER ONE was an attempt to slash-n-Byrne Peter David’s Hulk (and was so bad that it was ignored from the moment it came out and was laughingly dismissed in one panel of David’s CAPTAIN MARVEL book. David showed Rick reading it, laughing, tossing the book in the trash and saying something like “Heh. Skrulls? Betty’s a PhD? Someone got paid for writing this crap?”. The fact that Marvel let David do this says alot about how Marvel feels about Byrne’s “vision”)

His bleak, horrible, disgusting SPIDER-MAN CHAPTER ONE was ignored while it was still coming out by other writers. They didn’t give him the dignity of letting Byrne finish before ignoring him. But given the indignities that Byrne did to the character…

His MARVEL: THE LOST GENERATION(?) has been completely forgotten.

His WEST COAST AVENGERs were simply an excuse to bitchslap to Steve Englehart and Roy Thomas, and again proved that Byrne doesn’t do primary research, he just shoots his idiot mouth off: one of his stated goals was to return “Vision to the emotionless android he was when he was created”. Of course, Vision cried in his first storyline in Avengers 57-58 (the title of which was “Even An Android Can Cry”), so…so much for THAT theory.

I used to love Byrne’s stuff. I went so far as to hunt down the two(?) issues of WHEELIE AND THE CHOPPER BUNCH that Byrne drew. And I still like Byrne’s stuff (even if I’m not excited by his art) when he’s not breaking someone else’s toys. His WORLD’S FINEST and WORLD’S FINEST: GENERATIONS were a lot of fun, his BATMAN/CAPTAIN AMERICA is one of the two best Marvel/DC crossovers ever. I hope he continues to find work of this nature. And I hope he learns to tell stories again, instead of un-writing other’s stories. But until then, no one should ever let him near in-continutity characters ever again.

Fenris

17

I’m with Fenris.

The Way I See It-
Supes/Clark/Kal-El/ has an inborn morality. He fights super criminals because it’s the right thing to do. He is a big, blue, boy scout. From New Year’s Evil-Gog “There is right and wrong in this world, and the distinction is not hard to make. Do right by all.”

Ma and Pa Kent-The Kents dying meant something. For all his power, Supes couldn't save his Pa from a heart attack. He experienced loss and pain. He was taught what it means to be a Superman in a wolrd of ordinary people.

Krypton-Yes, the old Krypton was cheezy a la Lost In Space, or the Flash Gordon serials. But, it was a place where Kal-El was happy. It was a place worth missing. Then I hear about “birth matrix” crap. Now, Kal-El was actually born on earth. Now, Krypton was this sterile, harsh, Kafka and Orwrell nightmare of a planet. The new Krypton makes me glad the place exploded.

Luthor- I have the issue from the 80’s where Lex finds the green power armor. He’s living on the planet Lexor at the time. He uses his genius to keep Lexor safe, healthy, and provide a great standard of living for all its people. Then, he finds the ancient Lexorian suit. He’s driven to commit crimes again. I’m still not sure whether Lex was consciously aware that he had become a criminal again. Then, Supes shows up. In the fight, Lex accidentally destroys the planet. Again, this is rather cheezy. But it added a lot to Lex. Does Lex want to be a criminal? Or is he driven by some compulsion to build gadgets and commit crimes? If Supes had never come to earth, would Lex still have become a criminal? Or is Lex’s villainy some twisted psychological response to Supes’ heroism?
Now Lex is just the ShopRite version of KingPin.