If you could change ONE thing about each Superman era....

[Bored at 3:00AM]

This can be an editorial, or creative change, but it needs to be somewhat plausible. No bringing people back to life or putting people on the books before their time

Seigel & Shuster Era

This one is easy. I would change the despicable treatment of the creators of Superman by National Comics to ensure they not only got a fair share of the profits of their creation, but remained the main guiding force behind the character. I have no idea whether that would have ended poorly for the character and would have resulted in Superman no longer being as large a figure in popular culture, but I would like to see what Superman would have become if Siegel & Shuster had been allowed to introduce Kryptonite (which they called K-Metal), and have Superman reveal his secret identity to Lois as early as 1940.

The Weisinger Era

While I think this was a particularly crazy, creative and weird period of Superman's history that produced some amazing classic elements that continue to this day, I have only heard horrible things about Mort Weisinger as a human being, so I would rather Julie Shwartz be given the reigns earlier to see what he might have accomplished with Superman with his stable of creators.

The Shwartz Era

Likewise, I would have liked to see what could have happened if Shwartz had left the books earlier, and handed the editorial reigns to one of his younger, hungrier proteges like Elliot S. Maggin, Len Wein or Marv Wolfman.

The Byrne Era

Creatively, I think John Byrne did wonderful work with Superman and brought a lot of new readers to the character that might otherwise have never been interested. However, I wouldn't have asked Byrne to reboot the entire mythology as DC editorial did. Byrne has been quite open about the fact that he would have been perfectly willing to take over Superman as he was, making changes to the status quo within his stories, much as was done with Batman, whose broad strokes history remained the same, but with specific retcons being made along the way to modernize the character. I think Byrne work on the character in retrospect often feels too much like a reaction against what the Pre-Crisis character was, rather than simply trying to tell the best Superman stories he could.

The Triangle Era

I think this era was largely successful, both creatively and commercially, but too much time was spent trying to make the character "cool" and "hip", which only had the result of making him look even less cool (I am looking at you Super-Mullet and 90s pony-tail). There was also too much focus on bringing back Pre-Crisis elements without fully bringing them back, which satisfied no one. Pick a lane. Lack of a singular creative vision here is extremely evident. It seems like neither DC editorial, nor the creative teams were on the same page, particularly once Loeb came on board.

The Post-Infinite Crisis Era

There was a clear direction at the start of this era. Johns & Busiek both seemed to be in agreement about what they wanted to accomplish, which was to stop the half-measures and equivocating and simply merge the Post-Crisis and Pre-Crisis elements of the Superman mythos into one cohesive whole, but they tripped right out of the starting gate when the Kuberts' family issues stalled the first story arc, and the new origin of Superman wasn't established until years later by Secret Origins, leading to pointless confusion. I would have Johns & Frank do the origin first, then allow the books to proceed from there. Without a strong foundation, its difficult for any revamp to succeed.

[Robotman]

Undo the fact that Jack Kirby’s Superman was redrawn during his time writing/drawing Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen.

Erasing Kirby’s art. Unbelievable.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Undo the fact that Jack Kirby’s Superman was redrawn during his time writing/drawing Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen.

Erasing Kirby’s art. Unbelievable.

Oooo. Good one.

I would give Jack Kirby free reign on more Superman books, actually. Perhaps a more prominent role for Superman would have made the Fourth World more commercially successful

[Carabas]

Seigel & Shuster Era: they never sold it. DC still doesn't own one bit of Superman. Which snowballs into a lot more creators hanging on to their creations.

New 52 Era: didn't end.

[Miles To Go]

New 52: Never existed.

[Korath]

The New 52 was acknowledged as a parallel Universe from the main Earth from the get go, with D.C. putting the main stories on hold for one or two years, while setting up all the changes, and then it would have run alongside the New Earth lines.

[Rod G]

Seigel & Shuster Era: they never sold it. DC still doesn't own one bit of Superman. Which snowballs into a lot more creators hanging on to their creations.

New 52 Era: didn't end.

I can get on board with that.

[Kuwagaton]

While I think this was a particularly crazy, creative and weird period of Superman's history that produced some amazing classic elements that continue to this day, I have only heard horrible things about Mort Weisinger as a human being, so I would rather Julie Shwartz be given the reigns earlier to see what he might have accomplished with Superman with his stable of creators.

have you heard the accounts of Julie's behavior toward women?

But with this era, I only wish that they pre empted the good treatment of women in comics. Lois, like Sue Storm at Marvel, was in a terribly misogynistic bubble until they swung too hard in the other direction by the early 70s. Ironically Lois appeared as a rather strong character in the years before the silver age, even if those bits are still dated by now.

They probably could have taken a stronger early position to counter Marvel, because by the late 60s it seemed the damage had already been done even if sales may have still been there.

The Triangle Era

There was also too much focus on bringing back Pre-Crisis elements without fully bringing them back, which satisfied no one. Pick a lane. Lack of a singular creative vision here is extremely evident. It seems like neither DC editorial, nor the creative teams were on the same page, particularly once Loeb came on board.

this seems like the opposite of what they went for, actually. what makes it seem to you like the creators weren't on the same page? Until Loeb, Kelly, and Berganza came on, the line ran entirely on creative communication under Carlin and Cavalieri, and the pre crisis to come back were predominantly just Kirby ideas with little to no alterations.

The one thing they could have nailed down was the electric powers, and shortened the story arc. It was great to see the big kick off from the 60th anniversary, but that was too big a change to last a year.

Including the comics after Loeb, Man of Steel for one thing went 134 between only two writers with occasional fill in issues.

The Post-Infinite Crisis Era

the new origin of Superman wasn't established until years later by Secret Origins, leading to pointless confusion. I would have Johns & Frank do the origin first, then allow the books to proceed from there. Without a strong foundation, its difficult for any revamp to succeed.

I would have made Birthright the definitive origin and skipped any major retcon aside from the Legion, which was told perfectly fine during the course of that story, imo.

And as for the New 52, I wouldn't have let Morrison or Perez do anything without the approval from one another. I have no idea how the creative musical chairs would have played out, but I'd have taken up for Jurgens, Giffen, and Diggle in their times.

[GreatKungLao]

DCEU era: Justice League was not sabotaged by studio and Whedon. Zack Snyder's cut recieved entire post production and is released in full 3 hours runtime without anything being cut or reshooted. Junkie XL is also was never replaced by Elfman.

[Carabas]

DCEU era: Justice League was not sabotaged by studio and Whedon. Zack Snyder's cut recieved entire post production and is released in full 3 hours runtime without anything being cut or reshooted. Junkie XL is also was never replaced by Elfman.

It almost certainly would have performed worse.

[DragonPiece]

DCEU era: Justice League was not sabotaged by studio and Whedon. Zack Snyder's cut recieved entire post production and is released in full 3 hours runtime without anything being cut or reshooted. Junkie XL is also was never replaced by Elfman.

Ya know, I'd hope for that too if it meant Snyder's daughter lived.

[GreatKungLao]

Ya know, I'd hope for that too if it meant Snyder's daughter lived.

It sure is implied, just didn't felt comfortable to state it straight. That was really unfortunate event.

[superduperman]

I would probably not have done COIE. Everything they've done since then has been about trying to clean up the mess it created with continuity. Part of the problem was that there were so many rules regarding what they could and couldn't do with him back then. He wasn't allowed to mature and move on. We saw this back in the seventies when Elliot S. Maggin tried to move the Lois/Clark relationship forward and was forced to reset everything back to the status quo (which, I think, was one of the reasons he left the title). Plus, getting rid of Superboy created all kinds of problems with the Legion that still have't been fully cleaned up to this day (and that isn't even getting into problems with characters like Donna Troy). IMHO, COIE created more problems than it fixed.

In terms of things like Krypto and what have you, all you would have had to do was ignore him. He didn't even make an appearance in Crisis so it's not like he was a huge part of the books at that point anyway. Kandor was already out of the picture. Supergirl was off doing her own thing. The books were already trying to move on in incremental ways anyway. Let the Superman/Lois relationship progress naturally like it did post-Crisis, let Lex "reform" and become a billionaire and everyone thinks he's gone straight except Superman who knows better. I think most of the serious changes that Byrne made could have worked with the pre-Crisis version minus bringing the Kents back (which could technically still be done because...comics). At the very least, I would have done COIE differently (Flash was pretty much on the verge of cancellation so having Wally take over wasn't a bad idea).

I don't know if that would have worked but I would have at least lifted some of the restrictions on what they could do with Superman. Maybe give him some more grounded or down to Earth stories.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

have you heard the accounts of Julie's behavior toward women?

Yeah, I was planning on mentioning that when I substituted Julie for Mort, but forgot. While Julie was likely a skeezy creep towards a lot of women, he was also well-regarded and loved by his writers and artists because he was a great editor, whereas everything I've heard about Weisinger sounds like he was an absolute nightmare to work for.

[Jon Clark]

Siegel & Shuster Era

I'd have The K-Metal from Krypton published, which hopefully would lead to Superman being a character based on change rather than the illusion of change.

Weisinger Era

Not sure if it counts as a single change but preventing the idea of Superman as a sit-com. No string of stories based on Lois trying to prove that Clark and Superman are the same person resulting in hi-jinks ensuing.

Schwartz Era

Have the Superman line under Schwartz from day one. No, not 1938, I get the rules here . But rather that Superman, Action, Superboy, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane ... all pass from Weisinger to Schwartz and are never split between editors.

Byrne era

If we are going to reboot, we reboot. Getting the whole DCU on one page is probably beyond a "single" change, but hopefully having Superman on one is not. So either Byrne gets his neophyte Superman who I slearning as he goes or he knows that upfront and handles the Superboy idea accordingly.

Triangle Era

Since ABC passes on the idea of a Lois & Clark TV show the original plans for a wedding in the comics are never postponed. No Doomsday. No speculator boom/bust. ...