Hey, the first Terra-man (the space-cowboy type, not the boring eco-nut type) was fun. And had Neal Adams art. I grant you that Terra-Man got progressively lamer as time went on.
And to drag things back on topic, Terra-Man is not essential to Superman.
Fenris
I agree that the death of the Kents does a lot for the character but then again, so does having them around. Look at how they were portrayed on Lois and Clark, for example. Yes, it’s a very “human” thing to lose one’s parents, but it’s also a very human thing to keep in touch with them, and you can’t have both. Besides, Ma Kent has to survive at least long enough to sew his costume (“and besides, this way it shows off your muscles”).
It’s a different character, maybe, but it’s still Superman.
Did the boring eco-nut version of Terra Man even make more than one appearance? I’m obviously not a fan of the original one but man in terms of steps down in the post-crisis revamp he probably had the biggest drop. Him and Metallo who got screwed by the “only one chunk of kryptonite on earth” deal…
Superman has to be the good guy. I mean through and through, to the point where losing his temper is a major story, not just a couple of panels inside the story.
He has to battle REALLY super villains. Yeah, Superman can always be relied on to save the crew of a sinking freighter, but if it’s not world domination and good vs. evil, it’s not good enough.
Superman has to love Opal, er, Lois.
He has to be alone. Strange visitor from another planet. Clark has to be a little too much of a nerd to ever really fit in. Can’t ever marry Lois and settle down. It’s the Fortress of Solitude, not the Fortress of Parties.
He has to fail once in awhile. He can’t change history, he can make a mistake that hurts someone he loves, and the above mentioned evil supervillains can beat him – at least for awhile.
Flying, bullets bouncing off, blue suit, red cape, kryptonite.
I think he showed up a second time in a “Let’s make fun of him” type appearance.
IMO, most of Superman’s bad-guys were screwed from their original appearance. Metallo was (Byrne turned him from the creepy “Man with a kryptonite heart” to the boring “Let’s make him look like Terminator 2 which I, John Byrne, just saw” version although he wasn’t the most screwed by the “no kryptonite” thing: the Kryptonite Kid/Man was royally screwed!). As we discussed, Luthor was, until the revamp in the '90s, Bizarro was (Byrne just ripped off the original Superboy story with Bizarro), Toyman was (though that wasn’t Byrne: whoever took over after Roger Stern left and made Toyman a child-killer :rolleyes:, umm…who else…Myxtzptlk wasn’t screwed, but he was diminished. He wasn’t the wacky “Daffy Duck” guy from the '40s (“Hey! Anybody seen McGurk?”) and he wasn’t the creepy one from the '60s. He was just a gambler. Yawn. Braniac was turned into a boring version of Mervel’s Mentallo (and when one considers how exciting most people find Mentallo, that’s going some!). I’ll give Byrne credit for one of 'em though: I loved his Prankster.
Terra-Man’s big problem is that he shoulda been a member of Flash’s Rogue’s gallery: He’d have fit in just fine with the Trickster or Captain Boomerang. But for Superman? Not so much.
Chronos: I like having the Kents around but I really do belive that in the long run, it’s a negative for Superman. But I agree, it’s not an essential.
Fenris
Y’know…
…as silly as this sounds, a good test might be to flip through some of the Superman “Elseworlds” stories and see what the authors purposefully included in the story and what they didn’t. Since the concept of Elseworlds is intended to transplant the mythos into another era, but leave the essential character intact, the pattern of these stories might indicate what’s important to the Superman genre. (In other words, if “x” makes it into an Elseworld, “x” is probably important to the Superman mythos.)
Off the top of my head:
Superman: Speeding Bullets: Still has Perry, Lois, and Luthor.
Superman: Last Son of Earth: Still has the Kents, a planetary cataclysm, a baby in a rocket, the Els, Perry, Lois, Jimmy and Luthor.
The Superman Monster: Kryptonite, the Kents, the rocket, Luthor and Lois.
…all that came to mind. (Superman has noticeably less Elseworlds stories than, say, Batman.)
Hmmm, just about everybody so far has said that Lois Lane is essential. I’m inferring that’s just because of the secret identity and so that he can have a love triangle with himself; are there other reasons? I’ve never seen Lois Lane presented as anything other than a dull character – the closest she came to being interesting was in The Adventures of Lois and Clark, and still I was annoyed more often than anything else.
I think that the only essential parts of the story are:
The secret identity is incidental – I’ve seen plenty of Justice League stories that I loved, and Clark Kent never appears. I also think that his being raised by the Kents is essential. They teach him what it means to be human and what it means to fight for what you believe in. What makes Superman Super isn’t his powers, but how he chooses to use them.
One thing I loved in the first season of the old Adventures of Superman TV series (maybe the most violent kid’s show ever) was Phyllis Coates’ portrayal of Lois. Yeah, she did her share of being the victim, but she was tough as nails, to the point of slapping a bad guy. She also was a hot-shot reporter, whose expose of the underworld got her an invitation to testify in front of the Senate. And she was curious about Clark/Superman from almost the first scene of the first episode.
Superman needs Lois to preserve the “outsider” quality I and others have talked about. He can love her, she can love him, but he can never be 100% at ease or 100% open with her.