Originally Posted by
Patrick Gerard
He was deliberately trying to ruffle feathers there.
I know Bendis is a HUGE, HUGE fan of Byrne's run (heck, why he's using the title Man of Steel and even the Byrne logo).
And I've been told he was very active on the DC Comics Message Boards Superman forums under a pseudonym.
As a Marvel guy, he was trying to provoke readers a bit. I'm sure he doesn't casually read a lot of comics. Few people who make comics even read their comps. And, no, that isn't what the job is about.
As for all the back and forth on whether Superman is identifiable or successful or whatever, eh. Superman has not been consistently successful since around 1994. There was a big spike for the first half of the Loeb/Kelly run that OWAW kind of killed and IMHO a lot of that was saddled on them. There was a big spike in the Johns/Donner/Kubert run. There was a small spike at the start of the New 52. You could say that there was a big Spike for Lee and Azzarello's run but, frankly, I think the book's numbers were weaker than I'd expect from a Lee book at that point, even with a lot of six figure direct market sales.
The character has been neither terribly identifiable nor successful in 25 years for the most part. I don't blame the character. I think the creators were trying to do their best and only a few creators were transparently bad choices. I don't think any of the group editors have been especially weak.
I don't really blame DiDio or Nelson. I mean, Levitz wasn't able to make a big spike either.
I suppose to some extent I'd blame the audience, pop culture zeitgeist, etc. I would blame retailers. The direct market is all kinds of bonkers because you have retailers who are almost all fans and almost all heavily financially reliant on their shops and that did a LOT to warp the comics business. And the retailers who really skewed things are mostly out of the business now but, frankly, I think comic book dimensions and pricepoints and paperstock, etc. are all completely wrong and it handicaps the market that nobody really tips over the applecart and throws out the existing format, at least as much as publishers did in the 50s, the 60s, the 70s. It is insane that comics are basically designed to fit in mylar bags and longboxes that are a certain size.
Mostly I blame WB. Because characters like Superman have had to navigate this problem for 35 years that they either fly under WB's radar and can make some sensible decisions about the content but can't get significant resources put into improving and tailoring the product to sell or they attract WB's attention and they get handed all kinds of brand feedback.
The only BIG media companies in the world I think have real strength at brand marketing at the high levels are Hasbro, Mattel, Nintendo, CBS, and Disney. Nobody else should be giving notes or setting goals from the top nor is any other company really fit to handpick TV or film directors or producers from the top. Johns is changing that to a degree at WB and I think Nelson is good people.
Superman would have done better if they'd literally just licensed him out to somebody like IDW and setup some kind of brand committee of people like Pasko and Stern with creative teams given pretty much independence from marketing and publishing initiatives at DC.
Jenette Khan is BRILLIANT but the idea that whether or not Krypto the Super-Dog could be used was down to her or Mike Carlin or Kevin Tsujihara or Jon Peters doesn't make a lot of sense to me. And I'm not knocking any one of those people as skilled and experienced people. I just don't think they had any particular instincts for how to market Superman except as a spinoff of the Batman publishing operation. Being attached to Batman and people who knew how to sell Batman hurt Superman. Superman needed to be its own universe, its own genre, have a completely divorced editorial process, its own marketing team, and basically its own publisher with its own parent company.
The good thing in my mind is that somebody like Bendis writing the book probably at least makes things run a bit more like that.