How would YOU have rebooted Superman in 1986?

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Well, I certainly don't consider you a strawman and I apologise if I've given that impression And yes, I agree that I might have inadvertantly glossed over the fact that you are insistent primarily on Pa Kent being dead, and not both of them.

Ultimately though, I suppose that the only thing I really disagree with you on is the issue of Pa Kent's death being one of the 'best parts' of the origin. As you've just said, how Jonathan is used as a character depends on who's writing him and how he's been written, and I agree with that. I suppose the difference is that you think Jonathan being dead is important enough to close off that option completely to writers who want to use him, while I come down on the side of keeping him alive as long as possible to keep the option open, because his dying isn't really fundamental to the origin in my opinion.

When it comes to Rebirth, if, when the dust settles, they make it so that Jonathan and Martha were alive when Superman started out and that Jonathan was killed during Brainiac's attack while Martha died a few years later - but definitely got to meet her grandson - I would be totally happy with that arrangement. A lot of Post-COIE stories with the Kents can be fully in canon, there's scope for flashback stories to depict the relationship between the adult Clark and his parents, and to even show Lois' relationship with them, and of course, as I've mentioned, have Jon meet at least one of his paternal grandparents. As it stands though, both the Kents died before Clark went off to college and never got to see their son become the world's greatest hero, or a top reporter, or start a family of his own. Now people might argue that Superman needs a little tragedy in his life, but I don't think someone who's already technically an orphan and the sole survivor of an entire RACE necessarily needs more tragedy, especially so early in life. Let the tragedy come later, possibily as a result of the actions of one of Superman's villains.

The reason it's best to kill off Pa before Clark becomes Superman is precisely because of all the things you listed there. There should be a pang of tragedy about the fact that Jonathan Kent never got to meet Lois or his grandson or have any kind of relationship with them. It should sting a little that Jonathan Kent was one of the primary factors in making Kal-El of Krypton into not only Clark Kent of Smallville, but Superman, the World's Greatest Hero. Yet he doesn't get to live to see all his work come to fruition.

Because life isn't always fair. Nobody gets everything they want. Even Superman. Especially Superman. And that is an extremely important lesson for Superman to learn.

However, the great thing is by splitting the difference and keeping Ma Kent alive, you can get literally EVERYTHING you would get by keeping Pa Kent alive without that oh-so-important lesson that makes Superman work so much better than he does with Ma & Pa both being around. She can have that relationship with Lois. She can be the world's most adorable grandma to Jonathan Samuel Kent. She gets to feel that pride that she and her beloved late husband raised the world's greatest hero.

It's perfectly understandable for fans to be protective of the characters they love. They don't want anything bad to ever happen to them. They want them to be happy. They want things to always work out for them. But that's not how good drama works. There's a reason the symbol for drama is this:
and not just this:

You need both happiness and sadness to make the character work, particularly one as idealized and perfect as Superman. Without that tragedy and loss, beyond simply being from a dead world, the bright and hopeful optimism and hope Superman represents doesn't shine as bright because it's based upon no real foundation of real pain that the character has had to overcome. It's one of the reasons Batman and Spider-Man resonate so well with people. Beyond the powers and gadgets and costumes, great superheroes draw in audiences because under all the crazy awesome stuff, there's some real sadness to it all that makes it all work.

[bat39]

The reason it's best to kill off Pa before Clark becomes Superman is precisely because of all the things you listed there. There should be a pang of tragedy about the fact that Jonathan Kent never got to meet Lois or his grandson or have any kind of relationship with them. It should sting a little that Jonathan Kent was one of the primary factors in making Kal-El of Krypton into not only Clark Kent of Smallville, but Superman, the World's Greatest Hero. Yet he doesn't get to live to see all his work come to fruition.

Because life isn't always fair. Nobody gets everything they want. Even Superman. Especially Superman. And that is an extremely important lesson for Superman to learn.

However, the great thing is by splitting the difference and keeping Ma Kent alive, you can get literally EVERYTHING you would get by keeping Pa Kent alive without that oh-so-important lesson that makes Superman work so much better than he does with Ma & Pa both being around. She can have that relationship with Lois. She can be the world's most adorable grandma to Jonathan Samuel Kent. She gets to feel that pride that she and her beloved late husband raised the world's greatest hero.

It's perfectly understandable for fans to be protective of the characters they love. They don't want anything bad to ever happen to them. They want them to be happy. They want things to always work out for them. But that's not how good drama works. There's a reason the symbol for drama is this:
and not just this:

You need both happiness and sadness to make the character work, particularly one as idealized and perfect as Superman. Without that tragedy and loss, beyond simply being from a dead world, the bright and hopeful optimism and hope Superman represents doesn't shine as bright because it's based upon no real foundation of real pain that the character has had to overcome. It's one of the reasons Batman and Spider-Man resonate so well with people. Beyond the powers and gadgets and costumes, great superheroes draw in audiences because under all the crazy awesome stuff, there's some real sadness to it all that makes it all work.

I agree you make some good points. Incidentially, I'm definitely not one of those people who doesn't want any tragedy to befall my favorite characters. Case in point - unlike many on these boards, I'm totally in favor of Nora Allen being killed by the Reverse-Flash when Barry was a child. I think it adds something to Barry's story, and to his dynamic with the Reverse-Flash.

With Superman, I just don't think the Kents dying necessarily adds something to the story - though there have been versions which have done it well. Again, unlike a lot of people here, I actually liked the way Jonathan's death was handled. It worked well with one of the themes of that particular story - namely the fact that the world might view Clark as a hostile force, and Jonathan's desire to protect him from that was overwhelming enough that he sacrificed his life. I also liked the way they handled BOTH their deaths in Morrison's New 52 run - having it be the result of a 5th dimensional imp's tampering with Superman's history.

But as much as I like those stories, in the end, my opinion is simply that having them alive is another part of the Superman 'sandbox' that is accessible to writers.

I must say though, that in the course of this discussion, I've come to understand maybe why their deaths may have been so important to the Pre-Crisis Superman mythos. In the Golden Age, Clark didn't know anything about Krypton and his status as its sole survivor. So the death of his foster parents, who basically raised him to become Superman, did play the part of a major turning point in his life. His deathbad promise to his father is what really motivated him to put on that suit and become Superman. And in the Silver Age, Clark pretty much grew up knowing all about Krypton, and somehow the tragedy of the situation eluded him, so its the deaths of the Kents which may have been the first real bit of personal tragedy he faces in what has otherwise been an idyllic life as a kid superhero. It also marks a transition from Superboy to Superman. Post-Crisis though, Clark's childhood was not as idyllic as his Silver Age one, his discovery of his alien nature and sole survivor status in itself was a life-changing experience, and you also have the aspect of him traveling the world and seeing the problems facing humanity first hand which, in addition to the Kent's moral compass, motivates him to eventually put on that suit.

To put it simply, the relative complexity of Post-Crisis storytelling, and beyond, does away with the need for the kind for the old origin story cliche of the parental figure dying - especially in a story where one set of parental figures, and an entire society, have already died.

[Vordan]

What are the Kents actually going to do though? What storytelling opportunities do they give? For the most part the Kents have been trotted out to do the same cliche story over and over again.

Superman: Gee Ma and Pa I feel conflicted about [insert moral conflict]. What should I do?
Ma & Pa: You should do the right thing Clark.

Yeah no s*** thanks for that brilliant observation. If a writer had the balls to actually show some conflict between Clark and his parents, have them actually argue about what “the right thing” to do actually is and have them disagree then I could see an argument for keeping them around. But for the most part that’s not what happened, they just spout some cliche saying. The Kents being dead means Clark has to solve moral problems on his own, he gains some tragedy that he actually feels since Clark doesn’t feel Krypton’s death personally like Kara does, and it teaches him the limits of his powers. All stuff I’d say is core to the character and far more important than Clark showing up at the Kent farm for some warm feels with Jon.

[Comic-Reader Lad]

I'm of the mind that the period of Superman stories from 1986 to 1996 (reboot to wedding) were the best in Superman's history. The characters had depth and layers; the stories were intriguing and well-plotted (and well subplotted), and the villains were realistic threats.

The only thing that I wasn't crazy about was that we lost both Supergirl and Superboy.

I would have kept the Superboy angle, but retconned it so that he only operated as Superboy when he went to the future to be with the Legion. That keeps the Legion's history completely intact, and also allows Superman to have "started" his superhero career as an adult in modern times.

As for Supergirl, no post-Crisis Supergirl matches the original -- and there have been several. Even Jeph Loeb's introduction of post-Crisis Kara Zor-El in the early 2000s did not feel like the real deal.

It's a shame we had to lose both Supergirl and Superboy and I hate what it did to the Legion, which has never recovered, but I prefer to focus on how much we GAINED from the Byrne-reboot and the subsequent work done by Mike Carlin and his writing team.

I think that's what a lot of retcons miss nowadays. They're so intent on taking away stuff, but they fail to REPLACE it with story elements that are more interesting. That's why the Bryne-Superman and the Perez-Wonder Woman are so fondly remembered. We gained a whole lot more than we lost.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

What are the Kents actually going to do though? What storytelling opportunities do they give? For the most part the Kents have been trotted out to do the same cliche story over and over again.

Superman: Gee Ma and Pa I feel conflicted about [insert moral conflict]. What should I do?
Ma & Pa: You should do the right thing Clark.

Yeah no s*** thanks for that brilliant observation. If a writer had the balls to actually show some conflict between Clark and his parents, have them actually argue about what “the right thing” to do actually is and have them disagree then I could see an argument for keeping them around. But for the most part that’s not what happened, they just spout some cliche saying. The Kents being dead means Clark has to solve moral problems on his own, he gains some tragedy that he actually feels since Clark doesn’t feel Krypton’s death personally like Kara does, and it teaches him the limits of his powers. All stuff I’d say is core to the character and far more important than Clark showing up at the Kent farm for some warm feels with Jon.

To be fair, Zack Snyder tried to solve this problem by putting Clark and the Kents at odds with each other by making the Kents some kind of Ayn Rand devotees who believed that their son didn't owe the world a thing and should maybe allow innocent children die in order to protect his secret.

That's one interesting way of doing it

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Post-Crisis though, Clark's childhood was not as idyllic as his Silver Age one, his discovery of his alien nature and sole survivor status in itself was a life-changing experience, and you also have the aspect of him traveling the world and seeing the problems facing humanity first hand which, in addition to the Kent's moral compass, motivates him to eventually put on that suit.

I dunno about you, but using your godlike powers to become a popular football jock while dating the super-hot redhead next door sounds a tad more idyllic than having to pretend to be a dork in order to protect your secret at all costs. Yes, the storytelling during the Silver Age was far less sophisticated because the audience was much, much younger, but Clark's Post-Crisis youth was a gross over-correction and thematically disastrous in terms of making him sympathetic to readers.

There's a reason that Loeb, Waid and Johns pulled back hard on that concept as soon as possible and that no other version of Superman, even the Byrne-esque DCAU version, adopted that idea because it was an absolutely terrible notion that casts Clark Kent as the exact kind of person who the average comic book reader is NOT.

[Jon Clark]

I've never bought the death of Krypton as a personal tragedy for Superman outside of the Silver Age. The Golden Age Superman might have gotten a sense of tragedy after he finally discovered Krypton and saw Jor-L, but for most of the others Krypton was a bunch of dead people Superman never met. It has as much tragedy as being told about a flood that hit your town a century ago. You feel bad for the people back then, but personally it has no effect on your life.

So while killing the Kents may or may not be crucial to the story, it's a bit much to argue Jor-El and Lara could have the same emotional impact on Clark as the two people he has known since infancy as his parents. From Clark's perspective, short of super-memory, his connection to Jor-El and Lara would be the same whether they were the cold genetic donors of Byrne's Krypton or the passionate couple mourning the loss of their child. Prior to Jor-El's recent return they were just names of dead people.

[bat39]

I dunno about you, but using your godlike powers to become a popular football jock while dating the super-hot redhead next door sounds a tad more idyllic than having to pretend to be a dork in order to protect your secret at all costs. Yes, the storytelling during the Silver Age was far less sophisticated because the audience was much, much younger, but Clark's Post-Crisis youth was a gross over-correction and thematically disastrous in terms of making him sympathetic to readers.

There's a reason that Loeb, Waid and Johns pulled back hard on that concept as soon as possible and that no other version of Superman, even the Byrne-esque DCAU version, adopted that idea because it was an absolutely terrible notion that casts Clark Kent as the exact kind of person who the average comic book reader is NOT.

Okay 'idyllic' is not the right word, especially with the Byrne Superman...but what I meant was that the guy did grow up with strange abilities that he didn't know the origins of. And when he was 18 he learnt about the rocketship and that was the major life-changing experience that prompted him to leave home to explore the world - setting him off on the odyssey that culminated in him becoming Superman. Whereas Pre-Crisis Clark already spent his childhood as Superboy and was pretty much Superman in all but name - the deaths of the Kents was the moment that marked a kind of end of innocense, in a sense, and a transitional period in his life that culminated in him becoming Superman.

As far as the average comic-book reader goes, he's not a billionaire orphan who watched his parents getting gunned down in front of him and devoted his life to waging a war against crime either. But its the pain that Bruce goes through, and the feeling of rage born as a result of helplessness, that a lot of people do relate to, or at least can understand. With Clark, the approach taken to try and make him relatable was that he's basically an ordinary guy trying to do the right thing, and with his powers, his scope for doing the 'right thing' is massive. By 'ordinary guy' they didn't mean that he had to be a dork - he could be a popular high-school jock as well - but 'ordinary' in the sense of "not an alien being trained to save the world".

[Bored at 3:00AM]

As far as the average comic-book reader goes, he's not a billionaire orphan who watched his parents getting gunned down in front of him and devoted his life to waging a war against crime either. But its the pain that Bruce goes through, and the feeling of rage born as a result of helplessness, that a lot of people do relate to, or at least can understand. With Clark, the approach taken to try and make him relatable was that he's basically an ordinary guy trying to do the right thing, and with his powers, his scope for doing the 'right thing' is massive. By 'ordinary guy' they didn't mean that he had to be a dork - he could be a popular high-school jock as well - but 'ordinary' in the sense of "not an alien being trained to save the world".

You are slipping into extremes again. just as nobody is relating to Batman as a billionaire orphan training obsessively to avenge his parents' murder, nobody viewed Superman's relatability through the prism of "an alien being trained to save the world". People aren't meant to relate to young Clark Kent as an ordinary guy, they're meant to relate to his sense of alienation and awkwardness as his body is going through strange changes he doesn't understand. Nobody relates to being a popular high school quarterback, and those that would are generally NOT reading comic books.

[Jon Clark]

Okay 'idyllic' is not the right word, especially with the Byrne Superman...but what I meant was that the guy did grow up with strange abilities that he didn't know the origins of. And when he was 18 he learnt about the rocketship and that was the major life-changing experience that prompted him to leave home to explore the world - setting him off on the odyssey that culminated in him becoming Superman. Whereas Pre-Crisis Clark already spent his childhood as Superboy and was pretty much Superman in all but name - the deaths of the Kents was the moment that marked a kind of end of innocense, in a sense, and a transitional period in his life that culminated in him becoming Superman.

The problem is that outside of the DCEU we didn't get much angst out of Clark's youth, He seemed relatively unbothered by his unique abilities. The whole football angle hangs on Clark being able to assume he is fairly competing. If this is a kid bothered by being able to effortlessly lift cars or survive thresher accidents on a daily basis, his football antics take a different tone. Even the discovery of the rocket and Clark's world tour seem like someone breaking out of a cocoon more than being disturbed by it. Maybe if we'd seen some signs that Clark left Smallville to distance himself (even briefly) from the Kents and that "lie" it might give him depth that Byrne glossed over.

As far as the average comic-book reader goes, he's not a billionaire orphan who watched his parents getting gunned down in front of him and devoted his life to waging a war against crime either. But its the pain that Bruce goes through, and the feeling of rage born as a result of helplessness, that a lot of people do relate to, or at least can understand. With Clark, the approach taken to try and make him relatable was that he's basically an ordinary guy trying to do the right thing, and with his powers, his scope for doing the 'right thing' is massive. By 'ordinary guy' they didn't mean that he had to be a dork - he could be a popular high-school jock as well - but 'ordinary' in the sense of "not an alien being trained to save the world".

I've always thought part of the original (pre-Byrne) appeal of Superman was the idea that all of us insecure Clark Kents sympathized with the idea that no one around us could see what was just a pair of glasses away. Clark (the act) wasn't supposed to be us- he was supposed to be how we might think other saw us. Look at most of the popular people in those Superman stories. Steve Lombard, braggart who was the butt of most of the back-fired jokes. Lana, who as an adult came off vain and catty. Morgan Edge, who started off as a villain and still maintained a slightly bullying demeanor as a boss. The series wasn't good at selling average people as admirable more often giving preferential treatment to bumbling Professor Potter or slightly goofy Jimmy Olsen than to Joe Average.

[Kuwagaton]

Clark needs to fail at least once because it’s the moment where he comes to understand that even he has limitations. He can’t save everyone, and accepting that fact is part of his character growth. Also from a practical standpoint, it’s boring to read a happy go lucky dude who has never faced any setbacks lecturing others about the importance of hope and optimism, when he himself has never had to deal with despair.

My issue with the Kents is that they are part of the larger problem with modern Superman and that is the greater mechanisms trying to move Superman away from being a Superhero first and foremost. Much of the modern era has been trying to re brand him so that he'll be more relateable, Farmer in a cape, farmboy at heart, Clark first, etc. Why is the guy who arguably is responsible for the mass popularization of superheroes trying to so hard to push it into the background? The Kents are there to be loud resounding identifiers that Superman is a "farmer". The married life is there to make sure he isn't spending too much time stopping evil and helping people. The largely semantic fueled "His name is Clark not Superman" helps to make sure the extraordinary is secondary to the mundane.

For whatever reason some people see Superman at the conceptual level as intimidating and the Kent's help alleviate that by bringing him back down to being a "farmboy at heart". A lot of modern Superman is about bringing Supes down a notch to where people can find him palatable, hell Hoechlin!Supes is this mentality embodied.

Finally from a pure pride angle, it irritates me when people try to alter Superman to fill some emotional void they feel exist within Superheroics. If you really need a hero with parents he regularly visits use the imitators and you can start with Batman.

I dunno about you, but using your godlike powers to become a popular football jock while dating the super-hot redhead next door sounds a tad more idyllic than having to pretend to be a dork in order to protect your secret at all costs. Yes, the storytelling during the Silver Age was far less sophisticated because the audience was much, much younger, but Clark's Post-Crisis youth was a gross over-correction and thematically disastrous in terms of making him sympathetic to readers.

It's interesting to me that this one tangent of the Kents alive makes him both too difficult and too easy to identify with to the reader. At the most extreme I get the impression that he's a leech on his parents and too independent for his own good, making $80k a year. It doesn't look like there's much approval for the finished product, but I guess that's still appreciating the complexity?

Bored at 3AM, for one thing he didn't date Lana and that, as it was pre-crisis, was a huge part of her character trajectory. She was the sympathetic one (I never want "sympathy" for Superman outside of tragic events, personally), and Clark was the one readers may not (but may) relate to: the guy oblivious to the one who loves him.

What are the Kents actually going to do though? What storytelling opportunities do they give? For the most part the Kents have been trotted out to do the same cliche story over and over again.

Superman: Gee Ma and Pa I feel conflicted about [insert moral conflict]. What should I do?
Ma & Pa: You should do the right thing Clark.

I mean Alfred is a popular character. Aunt May endures beyond her own death. What if you cut back their appearances in the comics but gave them stories from their perspective and a very deep personal history? That's the best I can explain for someone who doesn't get them being alive. Check out Action #847 by the late Dwayne McDuffie.

I won't say there's a lot of mileage there but I dunno if anyone argues they should be more prevalent than Perry anyway.

People aren't meant to relate to young Clark Kent as an ordinary guy, they're meant to relate to his sense of alienation and awkwardness as his body is going through strange changes he doesn't understand. Nobody relates to being a popular high school quarterback, and those that would are generally NOT reading comic books.

Since you frame his high school career as a bad element, I don't get why these two points are here to contradict each other. What was "meant" to do was have different people see things differently. Some people relate to this thing, some relate to that. Seeing and telling it differently, consequently, is not a misunderstanding of the character.

Byrne's telling, that we're talking about 30 years later across vaguely related threads frequently, didn't pigeonhole readers. Supergirl has a large demographic of viewers and plenty of people show up to superhero films when the buzz is good, but the comics have to go by what label we were stuck with in high school? Should they make him less successful because they assume the reader isn't successful? Or not even really successful, just play sports or have a decent social life, maybe both.

My idea of making him play high level sports for fun came directly from the golden age. Superman is good at sports, enjoys them, and ladies love his ardent personality (at least in the comics) and his supernatural prowess. Those things you just have to accept no matter which version you read.

[bat39]

It's interesting to me that this one tangent of the Kents alive makes him both too difficult and too easy to identify with to the reader. At the most extreme I get the impression that he's a leech on his parents and too independent for his own good, making $80k a year. It doesn't look like there's much approval for the finished product, but I guess that's still appreciating the complexity?

Bored at 3AM, for one thing he didn't date Lana and that, as it was pre-crisis, was a huge part of her character trajectory. She was the sympathetic one (I never want "sympathy" for Superman outside of tragic events, personally), and Clark was the one readers may not (but may) relate to: the guy oblivious to the one who loves him.



I mean Alfred is a popular character. Aunt May endures beyond her own death. What if you cut back their appearances in the comics but gave them stories from their perspective and a very deep personal history? That's the best I can explain for someone who doesn't get them being alive. Check out Action #847 by the late Dwayne McDuffie.

I won't say there's a lot of mileage there but I dunno if anyone argues they should be more prevalent than Perry anyway.





Since you frame his high school career as a bad element, I don't get why these two points are here to contradict each other. What was "meant" to do was have different people see things differently. Some people relate to this thing, some relate to that. Seeing and telling it differently, consequently, is not a misunderstanding of the character.

Byrne's telling, that we're talking about 30 years later across vaguely related threads frequently, didn't pigeonhole readers. Supergirl has a large demographic of viewers and plenty of people show up to superhero films when the buzz is good, but the comics have to go by what label we were stuck with in high school? Should they make him less successful because they assume the reader isn't successful? Or not even really successful, just play sports or have a decent social life, maybe both.

My idea of making him play high level sports for fun came directly from the golden age. Superman is good at sports, enjoys them, and ladies love his ardent personality (at least in the comics) and his supernatural prowess. Those things you just have to accept no matter which version you read.

I wouldn't be surprised if that's the reason for the backlash against the football career (not that I'm particularly keen on the football career as part of the backstory, but I have nothing specifically against it either). But honestly, Superman has always been prey to perceptions of both what the fans are like, and what the fans like in their heroes. Which is how we end up with the perception of Superman being an eternally self-sacrificing pillar of pure moral rectitude who can't entertain a single human though because he's supposed to be 'perfect'. I dunno, maybe the writers thought that fans think of themselves as pillars of moral rectitude and so can 'relate' to Superman that way. You also sometimes have the notion that Superman isn't meant to enjoy a personal life, or even the use of his powers, because that would be too 'selfish' of him.

Maybe it is tied in with people wanting to perceive Superman as a Christ figure?

[Vordan]

To be fair, Zack Snyder tried to solve this problem by putting Clark and the Kents at odds with each other by making the Kents some kind of Ayn Rand devotees who believed that their son didn't owe the world a thing and should maybe allow innocent children die in order to protect his secret.

That's one interesting way of doing it

Very true. Which is why I prefer them being dead. The Kents, like Smallville itself, represent an “idealized” America that produces a hero like Superman. However the problem with Smallville and the Kents is the same struggle WW has had with Themyscaria. What do you do with Paradise from a storytelling standpoint? It’s boring if it’s all as actually perfect if it appears, but giving it flaws can hurt the core of the characters.

[Vordan]

It's interesting to me that this one tangent of the Kents alive makes him both too difficult and too easy to identify with to the reader. At the most extreme I get the impression that he's a leech on his parents and too independent for his own good, making $80k a year. It doesn't look like there's much approval for the finished product, but I guess that's still appreciating the complexity?

Bored at 3AM, for one thing he didn't date Lana and that, as it was pre-crisis, was a huge part of her character trajectory. She was the sympathetic one (I never want "sympathy" for Superman outside of tragic events, personally), and Clark was the one readers may not (but may) relate to: the guy oblivious to the one who loves him.



I mean Alfred is a popular character. Aunt May endures beyond her own death. What if you cut back their appearances in the comics but gave them stories from their perspective and a very deep personal history? That's the best I can explain for someone who doesn't get them being alive. Check out Action #847 by the late Dwayne McDuffie.

I won't say there's a lot of mileage there but I dunno if anyone argues they should be more prevalent than Perry anyway.





Since you frame his high school career as a bad element, I don't get why these two points are here to contradict each other. What was "meant" to do was have different people see things differently. Some people relate to this thing, some relate to that. Seeing and telling it differently, consequently, is not a misunderstanding of the character.

Byrne's telling, that we're talking about 30 years later across vaguely related threads frequently, didn't pigeonhole readers. Supergirl has a large demographic of viewers and plenty of people show up to superhero films when the buzz is good, but the comics have to go by what label we were stuck with in high school? Should they make him less successful because they assume the reader isn't successful? Or not even really successful, just play sports or have a decent social life, maybe both.

My idea of making him play high level sports for fun came directly from the golden age. Superman is good at sports, enjoys them, and ladies love his ardent personality (at least in the comics) and his supernatural prowess. Those things you just have to accept no matter which version you read.

Alfred is an active part of Batman’s life. He takes care of all the menial stuff that we as readers don’t care enough to see Batman do. His snark is entertaining because it serves to ground Batman’s overdramatic persona and actions, and lets Alfred serve as a foil. While everyone else either looks up to Bruce (Batfamily), or looks to him as partners (Gordon, JL), Alfred is the only one who can assume a measure of authority over Bruce, which is amusing because Bruce typically refuses to let anyone tell him what to do. Most importantly, Alfred is a source of conflict and drama. He has repeatedly shown that he does NOT approve of Bruce being Batman, he thinks it’s going to get Bruce killed, and he wishes Bruce would give it up and live a normal life (for a billionaire)

Now just to begin I think Aunt May should also be dead, just like the Kents, she really adds nothing to Peter’s life nowadays. But Aunt May like Alfred does provide some purpose. She’s an adult authority figure that Peter respects (but not the only one, and frankly not even the best one). She’s a source of conflict in that she usually doesn’t like Spider-Man which causes Peter some personal angst. She’s a source of worry for Peter since he’s scared she’ll find out his identity and reject him, or be killed by a villain. But honestly? I don’t really see many modern Spidey fans that really care about her that much. She died in the video game and nobody seemed to mind.

The Kents don’t really have the above characteristics. Unlike Alfred they frequently are the reason Clark becomes Superman, Pa in particular urging Clark to use his powers. They are nothing but supportive of him usually. They don’t dislike his public persona or are ignorant that he poses it like Aunt May. Clark never seems worried about paying the bills for Ma unlike Peter for his Aunt. In other words they’re not a source of drama for storytelling. They’re not really deep characters. They’re simple, good, hardworking folks, which is why their deaths are a good source of tragedy for Clark, but not really characters you can tell many stories with without damaging. Zack Snyder tried to make them “deeper” and the reaction to his attempts was mixed to put it lightly.

[bat39]

Very true. Which is why I prefer them being dead. The Kents, like Smallville itself, represent an “idealized” America that produces a hero like Superman. However the problem with Smallville and the Kents is the same struggle WW has had with Themyscaria. What do you do with Paradise from a storytelling standpoint? It’s boring if it’s all as actually perfect if it appears, but giving it flaws can hurt the core of the characters.

That's the problem though...this notion that they necessarily have to represent an "idealized" America. Or that Superman himself has to be an 'ideal' more than a person.

And then people wonder why Superman is seen as boring, outdated or even santimonious...