Worst versions of Superman?

[Ascended]

If anything palls across, it's the work of Jack Kirby, with Turpin, Cadmus, Intergang, the New Gods, and the Wild Area being so prominent. To say completely void of good stories and to say the life of the being sometimes known as Superman didn't matter... at the very least, I don't agree. To see him tow the Earth, lead the Justice League, date Wonder Woman, visit Krypton and meet Kryptonians (wiping out pre-crisis level zoners and subsequently going on space adventures for an 18 issue story), whip Mongul only to come back and give Jimmy elastic powers (there's one issue where we get a three man team of Superman, Jimmy, and Plastic Man)... I feel like that stuff deserves a dedicated chance or second chance.

Anyway, I could never call a mainline Superman the "worst" because it's never hopeless.

Superman Returns has to be my least favorite Superman story.

Oh, the Kirby stuff has definitely left an impression on the whole industry, but that began before the Crisis. I was speaking specifically about the early post-Crisis Byrne material casting a shadow that has saddled the entire era with complaints that stopped being relevant (more or less) by 98 or so.

[Embryonic Superman]

I think Kuwagaton was referring to the Kirby material being such a prominent part of the Post-Crisis era, specifically after Byrne left and the Triangle team of Jurgens/Ordway/Stern/Simonson took over. I loved it, but that was my entrance to Superman and my introduction to those characters, so I naturally just took them to be Superman concepts (and they sort of were, but only in a backdoor kind of way via the old Pre-Crisis Jimmy Olsen series). I suppose a modern equivalent to it would be the way the main Superman book has relied on other DCU concepts rather than anything from Superman's neck of the woods: Batman, Damian, Frankenstein, Sinestro, Parallax, Deathstroke, etc. However, the difference was that the Triangle era really massaged that Kirby stuff into Superman's world and gave it a home for the better part of a decade, for better or for worse.

Agreed that no mainline version of Superman should really be listed here. I had my issues with the New 52 version, but even I can step back and respect what they were going for and that he has his fans. Superman Reborn really helped get me over my partisan biases when it comes to the different iterations of the main continuity Superman. Which is great, because now I can focus my hatred on Injustice Superman like everyone else!

[Kuwagaton]

Yeah, that's it. I mean like how the Guardian just by himself managed to star in a handful of stories in the few years stretching shortly before and immediately after Exile. Even Misa got to co-star in the 3D comic special.

Even though Superman can always team up with Scott or Orion, that presence in regular stories was pretty exclusive to 88-99 in Superman history. It had more storylines tying to Kirby on Olsen than what Byrne laid down, aside from if you count Matrix Supergirl and Lex getting cancer.

I wish they didn't have supporting cast extremes. Like either we see a whole issue about Ashbury, or it's like now where the only cast has been Jon and Lois. At least Lombard stepped up last week.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

I genuinely cannot comprehend how anyone could say that Christopher Reeve's Superman is anything but one of the best ever - let alone one of the worst. That's like saying Batman from the Animated Series is one of the worst versions of Batman ever.

I mean, I know this is like uh just your opinion, man, but surely we have to draw the line somewhere.

[Triniking1234]

Nobody mentioned debut Superman who just didn't give a *** and let villains die even when he could've saved them.

[s]I kid [/s]

[Lightning Rider]

I really must defend Kingdom Come Superman. Someone with such a capacity for love must also feel a capacity for great pain and regret. Superman going evil can't be on the table, but Superman having a moment of despair, being a bit broken and needing to repair his sense of self and justice, I feel we have to let the character have that capacity. We almost owe it to him to be able to feel that. Doesn't feel right to love him for being able to save the world every day his relationship with Lois, and then say he can't suffer like any of us would when that's taken away.

[Agent Z]

I really must defend Kingdom Come Superman. Someone with such a capacity for love must also feel a capacity for great pain and regret. Superman going evil can't be on the table, but Superman having a moment of despair, being a bit broken and needing to repair his sense of self and justice, I feel we have to let the character have that capacity. We almost owe it to him to be able to feel that. Doesn't feel right to love him for being able to save the world every day his relationship with Lois, and then say he can't suffer like any of us would when that's taken away.

Him being upset over Lois' death isn't the issue. Him throwing a giddy fit when the world high fives Magog for killing the Joker and then proceeding to come back and beat his sense of right and wrong into the younger heroes is the issue. At least Injustice knew its version of Superman was a scum bag. Kingdom Come is basically Waid being a cranky old man yelling about how much comics of today suck while using Superman as his mouth piece

[Lightning Rider]

Him being upset over Lois' death isn't the issue. Him throwing a giddy fit when the world high fives Magog for killing the Joker and then proceeding to come back and beat his sense of right and wrong into the younger heroes is the issue. At least Injustice knew its version of Superman was a scum bag. Kingdom Come is basically Waid being a cranky old man yelling about how much comics of today suck while using Superman as his mouth piece

I saw nothing bad about Superman having self-doubt following tragedy and then trying to reign in reckless heroes who had become as bad as the villains. It's pretty much what I'd expect from him.

[daBronzeBomma]

Should Regime / Injustice Superman even count?

Because, in-story, doesn't he get his ass kicked by "the real / our" good Superman?

Doesn't that make Regime Superman less a worse version of Clark and much more an evil doppelganger of his, just like Ultraman?

And doesn't Ultraman top Regime Superman for worst ?

[Ascended]

Him being upset over Lois' death isn't the issue. Him throwing a giddy fit when the world high fives Magog for killing the Joker and then proceeding to come back and beat his sense of right and wrong into the younger heroes is the issue. At least Injustice knew its version of Superman was a scum bag. Kingdom Come is basically Waid being a cranky old man yelling about how much comics of today suck while using Superman as his mouth piece

This.

Clark having doubts about humanity and/or himself is perfectly fine (if a bit overplayed at times). Clark going into a self-imposed exile for ten years and leaving the world to rot just because people liked something he didn't is childish. Superman doesnt get a free pass for a decade of abandonment just because he got his feelings hurt.

[Jackalope89]

Should Regime / Injustice Superman even count?

Because, in-story, doesn't he get his ass kicked by "the real / our" good Superman?

Doesn't that make Regime Superman less a worse version of Clark and much more an evil doppelganger of his, just like Ultraman?

And doesn't Ultraman top Regime Superman for worst ?

Multiverse. He was the Superman of that universe. Ultraman, to my knowledge, never made any bones about being evil.
It would be like saying mainstream Supes is just a doppleganger of DCAU's Superman. Each universe has their own Superman. You call one a doppelganger, you may as well call ALL of them doppelgangers that "don't really count".

[Zero Hunter]

This.

Clark having doubts about humanity and/or himself is perfectly fine (if a bit overplayed at times). Clark going into a self-imposed exile for ten years and leaving the world to rot just because people liked something he didn't is childish. Superman doesnt get a free pass for a decade of abandonment just because he got his feelings hurt.

You missed the whole point. It was not Superman throwing a fit and sulking. It was society wanting him to become something he was not and rather than impose his will on the people he left them with the type of hero they choose who would do things he would not do. I hate the whole "he was buthurt and ran away" bull. He had a reason for leaving. Not only was he grieving the loss of everyone he cared about but the people themselves said we don't need or want you anymore.

[Old Man Ollie 1962]

Everybody dug the JB take on Superman. I didn't.

[Adekis]

To be fair the implication in the episode is that Superman left them in a remote and desolate area that they couldn't get out of. He planned to return on a regular basis with supplies for them. Now if your criticism was about his kidnapping and illegally detaining them, I'd begrudgingly agree that Superman shouldn't do things like this. But their deaths were not planned by Superman as a solution. It never crossed his mind that they would actually risk their own lives trying to escape.

I don't buy that. Superman isn't dumb enough not to know they'd try to escape. In my mind, he put them in a position where he knew they'd die, but he wouldn't have to be the one to do it. He didn't pull the trigger, but he set up a Rube Goldberg machine with an irresistible first domino so they'd activate the gun themselves. As far as I'm concerned, he straight up murdered those people, but the elaborate way he did it to allow him to keep his hands clean are the truly unsettling part. It implies he'll do anything as long as he can still delude himself into thinking he's a "hero".

Like I said before, if he'd just put his hands through their skulls, at least that would have been honest.

I saw nothing bad about Superman having self-doubt following tragedy and then trying to reign in reckless heroes who had become as bad as the villains. It's pretty much what I'd expect from him.

Deal is, his attempt to reign in the reckless heroes isn't the problem, it's the fact that he abandons humanity for so long.

You missed the whole point. It was not Superman throwing a fit and sulking. It was society wanting him to become something he was not and rather than impose his will on the people he left them with the type of hero they choose who would do things he would not do. I hate the whole "he was buthurt and ran away" bull. He had a reason for leaving. Not only was he grieving the loss of everyone he cared about but the people themselves said we don't need or want you anymore.

He can grieve, that's fine. Grief certainly isn't out of character for Superman, given that Lois and Jimmy and presumably Clark Kent were all dead. I have no idea what the heck you're talking about when you say he didn't want to "impose his will on the people". It's not like he had two choices and they were "take over the world" and "retire". The option of "understand that people are going to be happy that the fucking Joker is dead and move the hell on" seems like a perfectly obvious solution, especially since he was implicitly the post-Crisis Superman who'd racked up his own kill-count of villains anyway.

Not to mention that since he comes back to engage in a cultural moral debate (reasonable) and does in fact start holding metahumans without trial in gulags (wait stop), he engages with both an option he should have pursued before rather than retiring and "imposes his will" anyway.

[SiegePerilous02]

I think it just casts a pall across that whole era.

I think this is really the heart of it for me. You can't go that long without great stories popping up, and there were several. But the foundation, while far from terrible, I think started some detrimental trends that have haunted the character off and on to this day.

There's also stuff like evil business man Lex and the friction between the World's Finest that created some great stories, but in general I find lacking compared to what came before.