Would you buy a New 52 Superman book if DC brought him back?

[The World]

Not really. New 52 Superman was much more enthralled with his power while Pre- and Post-Crisis, Superman far more restrained and aware of the consequences of not holding back. He didn't think that his power made him "the shit" the way that New 52 Superman did.

I don't even know where to start with this but I wonder when the Post-Crisis guys started trying to cuddle up with the Pre-Crisis era? I remember when you bunch hated anything having to do with it and were all angry when stuff from back then got folded back into it.

Regardless stop trying to paint Pre-Crisis Supes with the same meekness as the Post-Crisis one. Siegel and Shuster never intended for him to be some hand wringing chump the character devolved into over post-crisis.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

He's confusing an acknowledgment of isolation, and a lack of relatability with feeling superior. Those things were acknowledged at certain points. Now if one doesn't like that in their Superman, more than fair. But it was never shown that he felt superior to them just because he had powers. Its a false equivalency that because he enjoyed his powers and the things he could do, he felt it made him better than anyone. Just like any incarnation of Superman, Clark was taught by Jonathan early on that that's a bullcrap mindset. So there is no citation for that. But he did acknowledge it made him feel different and isolated.

I'm going to need a citation for that. That's not at all how Morrison wrote him. Johns didn't write him like that in his brief run either and I don't think Pak did either.

Edit: Yeah I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I remember the exact opposite. He cared deeply what others thought.
Attachment 72972
Attachment 72973

I'd say threatening people simply because you have the power to do so is the sign of a man who is way too enthralled with his power:



Yes, the man is a sleezy business type, but heroes who resort to those kinds of tactics are more along the lines of terrorists.

This article laid out the difference between New 52 and Pre-Flashpoint Superman perfectly:

New 52 basically established Superman as a shoot first ask questions Alpha Male, where he was always more level headed boy scout.

[Sacred Knight]

He's not doing anything there that pre-Crisis Superman, and hell even post-Crisis Superman hasn't done, I'm afraid. That's proof of nothing to back up your argument of a staggering different approach for this Superman compared to any other.

Glennmorgan was a criminal. That very fact tells you everything you need to know about why he's doing this. He is wont to put the fear of god into criminals. Any incarnation.

That article is pure garbage too; full of misinformation and yet another in a long line of the strange phenomenon of pretending Superman didn't exist (for 50 years no less) before 1986. The only point that had any basis in reality was the creative turnover.

[Vordan]

I'd say threatening people simply because you have the power to do so is the sign of a man who is way too enthralled with his power:



Yes, the man is a sleezy business type, but heroes who resort to those kinds of tactics are more along the lines of terrorists.

This article laid out the difference between New 52 and Pre-Flashpoint Superman perfectly:

"Where he was always a more level-headed boy scout".

But he wasn't though. Supes was not at all a Boy Scout. Hell he's very rarely EVER been a Boy Scout. He wasn't a Boy Scout in the DCAU for instance. Secret Origins has him fist-fighting the U.S. military. Remember how quick to anger he was when Kara showed for the first time in PC? He wasn't level-headed there at all. Plus New 52 Superman was just starting out. He's a Superman that's only begun to figure out how he wants to operate and behave. He also faces backlash for his actions there, and comes to regret them.

And I have laugh at bold. Remember this?
AC1.jpg

[superduperman]

In terms of his personality, I don't think there is any real difference between New 52 and pre-Flashpoint Superman. Once you got passed the T-shirt and jeans phase, I don't think he acted any more irresponsibly than he did before. Part of the reason I supported New 52 was because I felt his history was a mess and he needed a hard restart. By 2010 he had had at least three separate origins and nobody knew what "counted" and what didn't. He needed some kind of clean slate. And now we're here again. You can say that there was no real difference between pre and post Crisis Superman but go back and tell that to all the Legion fans who just lost Superboy. I'm sure there were plenty of people who could parse out the differences between their personalities. Now, if your complaint is that characters like Lois got pushed to the side, I would say that's fair. But that strikes me as more a case of bad editorial than anything else.

Put it this way, story quality wise, I would say post-Crisis Superman started going downhill about 2000. If not before then. The whole Brainiac 13 or whatever it was call that turned Metropolis into the version from the cartoon was a dumb idea. Return to Krypton just kind of undermined a lot of things in the past. Birthright threw everything that came before out the window and by the time SO rolled around, nobody knew what his history was. For better or worse, I would argue something like New 52 was probably necessary one way or another. DC sabotaged the character to the point he was hard to follow even for long time readers and impossible for new ones. Now, I'm not arguing that we bring back New 52 and replace the current Superman with him. Undoing the marriage was one of the main things that turned people against the New 52 from the start. But I do think that an alternative for people who don't like the marriage and a kid might not be a bad idea. That was really all I was thinking with this thread. And New 52 fans didn't exactly get the send off we wanted. To all those who say "Oh, he's a merged version of both" I ask: Other than the armor that nobody liked, what traits from his New 52 history has he kept? Because by the look of it, he's the pre-Flashpoint Superman with an armor phase.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

"Where he was always a more level-headed boy scout".

But he wasn't though.

And I have laugh at bold. Remember this?
AC1.jpg

Well, I would say there's a difference between smashing an empty car and dangling a man off the side of a building. But, again, Superman, for several decades was a level-headed guy. The more hotheaded tactics he employed in the GA were reigned in for the most part. And, that's a good thing. After all, Superman is not the Hulk. At the same time, though, it didn't ever mean he stopped fighting for the little guy.

And there's nothing wrong with Superman being a bit hotheaded in his youth, but New 52 Superman didn't really learn to reign it in that much. Him threatening businessmen wasn't the only instance of hyper violence. Like the article states, he did just beat the crap out of the rest of the JL when he first met them.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

I don't even know where to start with this but I wonder when the Post-Crisis guys started trying to cuddle up with the Pre-Crisis era? I remember when you bunch hated anything having to do with it and were all angry when stuff from back then got folded back into it.

Regardless stop trying to paint Pre-Crisis Supes with the same meekness as the Post-Crisis one. Siegel and Shuster never intended for him to be some hand wringing chump the character devolved into over post-crisis.

Level headed and diplomatic does not equal "hand-wringing chump." That is faulty logic.

[Sacred Knight]

The car's only empty because he picked it up, with them still inside it, then shook them out of it like ragdolls before smashing it. Considering they may have been hurt being shaken out of the car like pennies from a piggy bank, what he did there was more violent than what he did to Glennmorgan.

That's not to say there's not an example of New 52 Superman harming a criminal physically. He beat up a wife-beater and broke some bones. Brought up for the sake of full disclosure, I'm not saying early power-level New 52 Superman didn't bust up a criminal or two. But that's all within the realm of the Siegel/Shuster inspiration Morrison was taking from. Nothing new. Maybe new to some fans who didn't know of this stuff before, but not at all new or unusual in the then 75 year history of Superman.

[Vordan]

Well, I would say there's a difference between smashing an empty car and dangling a man off the side of a building. But, again, Superman, for several decades was a level-headed guy. The more hotheaded tactics he employed in the GA were reigned in for the most part. And, that's a good thing. After all, Superman is not the Hulk. At the same time, though, it didn't ever mean he stopped fighting for the little guy.

And there's nothing wrong with Superman being a bit hotheaded, but New 52 Superman didn't really learn to reign it in that much. Him threatening businessmen wasn't the only instance of hyper violence. Like the article states, he did just beat the crap out of the rest of the JL when he first met them.

He was a hot-headed idiot but that was fun part for me. Like I said I prefer Supes early years being ones where he's more short-tempered because its part of a learning process and he has to grow as a character in order to reign that in. I like him being more GA. (Also as an aside, GA Supes does way more than smash an empty car, he hangs a guy from a telephone pole and beats up a wife-beater. He also does this):
LetsGo4aRide.jpg
God I love those Golden Age strips. You may notice that this basically what New 52 Superman does because Morrison is specifically homaging those stories.

Anyway I think the big difference between PC and New 52 is that PC basically starts off the bat as the classic "Superman". He acts about how you'd expect an in his prime Supes to act. That's boring to me. I like Year One stories to explore early failings and how the characters grow into the roles, so I liked Morrison more.

[SiegePerilous02]

If Morrison or a like minded writer like Pak or Seeley were writing it, I would absolutely give it a shot. Either as a replacement for Earth One/an Ultimate-style book or a mini-series or ongoing set in the current Superman's early days. I don't think much about Rebirths continuity because it gives me a headache, but I see no reason why t-shirt wearing social justice crusader Superman cannot be this Superman as a younger man. All other reboots of the origin are inferior. Swap out that eyesore of a Jim Lee costume, and we have a perfect Silver Age-like Superman before he settled down with Lois and had a kid.

Then it wouldn't be a New 52 Superman. The SM/WW was purposely sabotaged by Johns and Tomasi anyway. It wouldn't be hard at all to reignite it.

I've no problem with a Superman ending with Lana, but then it just needs to be another Earth Superman, not a New 52 Superman.

Morrison's run is the best of the New 52 era, and it barely featured Diana. That relationship is in no way essential for a New 52-style take of characterization to work. It benefits neither of them anyway, especially her. In the establishing run of the era, Diana had a couple pages of appearances, all platonic, and Lois had more focus. Even if they weren't married anymore, Morrison still established Lois as The Endgame even for New 52 Superman.

Oh god, I really don't want to get dragged into this argument again. But, the key difference between what happened in 1985 and what happened in 2011 was that Pre-Crisis to Post-Crisis actually had a comprehensive approach to continuity and kept a lot of what made Superman Superman. The transition from pre-Crisis to post-Crisis actually retained a lot of the story threads that existed before COIE and a lot of franchises continued on almost uninterrupted. And while Superman was a harder reboot than the other franchises, Post-Crisis Superman, in terms of personality and demeanor, was still closer to his Pre-Crisis self than New 52 Superman was to either. Not to mention that a lot of the continuity changes from COIE were undone in later years.

Post-Crisis Superman didn't relegate Lois Lane to an almost non-existent role in the Superman franchise the way New 52 did. Post-Crisis Superman didn't have a drastically different aesthetic. Post-Crisis Superman wasn't plagued by bad writing brought on by editorial/creative spats for the majority of his existence. These are all things that made Post-Crisis more palatable. The way DC handled to the New 52 was a mess compared to the way Post-Crisis was executed. However, at the same time, if there was as direct a link between the creators and the fans in 1985 or 1986 as there is today, well then, maybe the changes of Crisis would never have happened or been reversed a few years later like the New 52 was.

A casual glance at the lore proves this statement entirely false. Kara, Krypto and the Legion connections were exiled from continuity, the Kents were still alive, Krypton was completely changed, the villains were overhauled drastically, the childhood friendship-turned-rivalry with Lex went bye-bye, Superman was now the first of a new generation of superheroes with the JSA predating him instead of the one who started it all, etc. It wasn't continuing story threads, it dumped the entire continuity in favor of revamped origins and new plots. They were both hard reboots, the only difference is you like one more than the other. Despite the fact that the one in 1986, IMO, had ideas in its foundation that ran counter to who the character is. MOS#6 with Clark proudly declaring himself an American and not caring about where he came from is a big middle finger to Siegel and Shuster, nothing in the new 52 is as wrong for the character as that.

New 52 as a whole was a mess compared to Post-Crisis, but Post-Crisis was still itself a mess. One that had a far worse establishing run. I blame the one two punch of the Byrne run and TDKR for the "All American Naive Farm Boy/Boy Scout" BS that the character has been saddled with off and on ever since. Yeah, those ideas were eventually moved on from and all that stuff that was jettisoned made its way back in some way shape or form, but it could it was too little, too late. It didn't start out as the old continuity, and they could never change it back no matter how many retcons they attempted.

This is complete nonsense. Its far more accurate to say that personality changes were largely negligible both times around. Some notable instances but nothing that would confuse anyone who had knowledge of more than one era of Superman's vast history.

Agreed.

Well, again, I said Superman was one of the properties that went through a harder reboot from Crisis. But, from Pre- to Post-Crisis, the trappings of Superman remained familiar: the Daily Planet, Lois Lane being his main love interest, the aesthetic, his maturity level, etc. New 52 kind of took to destroying all of those things. I mean, people have even postulated that there was a reason DC wanted to make New 52 Superman so different from what had come before.

Except it wasn't very different than what came before aside from the costume, which was an easy fix. Everything in the New 52 era had its roots in the Golden and Silver Age, there is no way to convincingly argue otherwise. He was actually pretty tame compared to the original, and was starting to mature by the end of the first arc.

In the Morrison run, the Daily Planet was still very much there as was Lois as his peer and main potential love interest. Jimmy was his pal. He met the Legion of Superheroes as a kid. Obscure old school characters like George Taylor, Susie Thompkins and Xa-Du came back. Whatever other flaws there were in the execution of their first meeting, Kara was a Kryptonian again and didn't have to wait until the YJ generation to exist. Krypton's society resembled pre-Crisis. Krypto was there. Really, all the standard trappings were established early on, if they wanted to transition back to a pre-Flashpoint setup, all they had to do was change the costumes back and have him break up with Diana and get with Lois. The complete obliteration of the New 52 era beyond that was completely unnecessary.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

Glennmorgan was a criminal. That very fact tells you everything you need to know about why he's doing this. He is wont to put the fear of god into criminals. Any incarnation.

Yeah, he should put the fear of god into criminals. But how you fight criminals is important. The super villains and the bank robbers who literally present an imminent physical threat? Yeah, those guys you punch out. But the guys who are sleazy and corrupt but don't go around killing people? Those guys you fight through the system.

Plus, peoples' opinions on who's corrupt and/or a criminal in that way differs from person to person. There are people who think Donal Trump and Hilary Clinton are criminals, but people who think that THAT is the way to fight them is the reason we get people like Cesar Say who just got arrested for sending bombs in the mail.

[Korath]

I'd say threatening people simply because you have the power to do so is the sign of a man who is way too enthralled with his power:



Yes, the man is a sleezy business type, but heroes who resort to those kinds of tactics are more along the lines of terrorists.

No, that's being a Champion of the Oppressed, and not letting a system crafted by corrupt peoples in position of powers to always protect them stop him. That's scene is why New 52 Superman isn't the current one. The former fight for those who can't, the other fight for the status quo.

[The World]

Level headed and diplomatic does not equal "hand-wringing chump." That is faulty logic.

He wasn't level head, he was squeamish coward who became Superman because he had a panic attack and had to have his mom and dad fix him a suit so no one would recognize who he was. He's the only Superman ever to be reduced to Batman's whipping boy, had his intellectual ass handed to him by Dick Grayson when he lead the Outsiders, caved into the JLA wanting to brain wash Batman, got kicked out of Gotham on his sorry ass during NML, and probably an assortment of other embarrassing stuff I haven't even read yet. He's the reason people see Tyler Hoechlin get the ever living crap knocked out of him, admit he's a sorry ass hero and think he's a good representation of Superman. Because for the last 20+ years DC has been serving up "Farmer in a Cape" when they needed to be sending out Superman.

I could post things written by Superman's CREATORS that would make anything written in the N52 look like he just got out of boyscouts. In the Golden Age Supes straightened out Men, Women, and Kids and certainly wouldn't have been playing second banana to a whinny angry billionaire which was the exact type of person he would have kick from one side of the country to the other.

[Sacred Knight]

Yeah, he should put the fear of god into criminals. But how you fight criminals is important. The super villains and the bank robbers who literally present an imminent physical threat? Yeah, those guys you punch out. But the guys who are sleazy and corrupt but don't go around killing people? Those guys you fight through the system.

Plus, peoples' opinions on who's corrupt and/or a criminal in that way differs from person to person. There are people who think Donal Trump and Hilary Clinton are criminals, but people who think that THAT is the way to fight them is the reason we get people like Cesar Say who just got arrested for sending bombs in the mail.

Superman does it both ways. He does go through the system but he does that part as Clark Kent. He exposes dirt there with the pen. Here he's using might. And still he didn't physically harm him outside of scaring him. He does indeed save that for those imposing immediate physical violence on someone else or is threatening whole groups of innocents.

[Celgress]

...New 52 Superman best friend is Lana Lang, and the woman he loves is Diana Prince.

Yes this, please.