Post Crisis Changes You Liked and Didn't

[Jokerz79]

There was an edict for a long time after post crisis to simplify Superman and make him unique again which I liked and while Pre-Crisis Superman was my first Superman Post Crisis Superman was the version I loved.

Changes I liked:

1: Business Lex Luthor.

2: Lois Lane becoming more of a self efficient golden age style reporter it started in the Bronze Age but solidified in the Post Crisis Era.

3: Lois and Clark finally getting off the will they won't they pot and doing it.

4: Krypton I think the more alien Krypton emphasized the importance being raised on Earth had to developing Superman also the look of Kryptonians were cool IMO.

5: Jonathan and Martha I just love Clark having a place to go to be himself.

6: Speaking of which Clark being the real persona with a slightly bumbling Clark as a mask with the idealized man mask of Superman.

7: Kandor being a city of aliens love the concept of Kandor but think when it's Kryptonians it takes away from Superman.

8: The adding to the Super Family with Steel and Kon.

9: Phantom Zone being an alien prison I like a few Kryptonian villains like Zod and minions but prefer most to be non Kryptonian threats.

10: Linda Danvers, Kara is my idealized Supergirl but I loved Linda and wish she'd be brought back as Superwoman and the former Supergirl with it revealed she is Kara's adopted cousin.


Dislikes:

1: Clark not being Superboy in the Legion. I'm ok with Clark not being Superboy in Smallville but he should had traveled to the future and be him with the Legion like in the cartoon or something.

2: Batman and Superman's more antagonists relationship.

3: While eventually rectified Krypto and more importantly Kara missing from the mythos.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Liked:

-less ridiculously overpowered
-Lois Lane's new depth
-LexCorp
-the larger S-sheild
-Lana Lang's new role as Clark's childhood confidant
-Ma Kent being alive

Disliked:
-Pa Kent being alive into Clark's adulthood
-Football star Clark
-Jor-El & Lara's life on Krypton being devoid of wonder and adventure
-the mess it caused with the Legion of Super-Heroes
-Lex's massive intellect being ignored
-erasing Kara Zor-El from history, along with the Phantom Zone criminals

[Miles To Go]

Changes I Liked

-Lex Luthor being the cutthroat corporate bigwig Clark could seldom touch, also liked him becoming a father.

-Johnathan and Martha Kent

-Jimmy Olsen's family history and brief experiences with Cadmus and his fallout with Supes

-Lois being assertive and falling for Clark and not Superman

-Cat Grant's complex relationships with her son Adam and the Edge family. Led to a great #metoo moment that'd win awards if it were printed today I feel.

-Ron Trope.

-Lana attempting to have a family with Pete Ross


Changes I Disliked

-The date with Wonder Woman. Led to them being 'ship-teased for years, even after he married Lois. Glad DC have almost entirely cut her off from the line now.

-The Many, Many, Many Versions of General Zod. Just f'ing pick one.

-Sam Lane being an enemy of Clark and dragging Lois' sister into his plans. I liked him better in the early post-crisis stages where he was more down to earth and just annoyed at Clark.

-Lana unable to move on from Clark, ruining her family with Pete Ross.

[KurtW95]

I think I liked all the Byrne changes. And the 90s era. I would say the thing I dislike the most is what happened with Supergirl. Her Earth-One origin is significantly better than any of the ones she got afterwards IMO.

[qwertyuiop1998]

liked
1jonathan and martha live and guiding clark,they family realtionship really give me warm feeling,and give more convincible reasons why superman is a easygoing,lovely person
2kon and steel join superman family
3superboy is come from a parallel universe which created by time trapper,this give superboy more tragical feature(but i don't like superman never join legion,but luckily geoff bring this concept back)
4superman blue,his color and ability design is cool
5supergirl,all versions
dislike
1superman never joined legion,and legion age has been reduce to teenage,not contemporary with superman
2business luthor,or more strictly,luthor's intellect has been ignored,not make me feeling luthor is a worth archenemy for superman

[sunofdarkchild]

Can't really think of much I disliked. Ma and Pa being alive, the greater focus on Clark, the powers being 'move a mountain' instead of 'juggle planets,' Lex as a businessman, focus on humans instead of Kryptonians, an actual explanation of what was wrong with Krypton, it worked incredibly well and created a coherent world and continuity with incredible world building and development. And Linda Danvers is my favorite character from the entire franchise.

[superduperman]

LIKES:

Businessman Luthor. If someone was an truly evil genius, this is what they'd do.

Keeping the Kents alive into his career as Superman. They should get to enjoy their son's success.

Having Lana in on his secret. This doesn't get talked about much but if they were truly dating, it would make sense.

Krypton. I like an alien Krypton. It makes more sense than a Buck Rogers future version.

Ditching the Legion. This is going to get me into a lot of trouble but having him fight villains as a teenager knowing full well he's supposed to grow up to become Superman is reckless and irresponsible. The Legion would know they were putting him at risk. And trying to look a thousand years into the future is...tricky at best. They were still using pushbuttons and holographic pac-man games in the mid-eighties stories. There's no way you're going to get it accurate. It's sort of like looking at the original Star Trek and saying that's for sure what the 23rd century is going to look like.

DISLIKES:

No powers til puberty. I don't know why this bothers me as much as it does. Maybe it's because my first exposure to Superman was the Donner movies with him lifting the truck over his head as a toddler so that just got ingrained in my mind as what he should be able to do. Maybe it was the Ruby Spears version being the first version I ever really got attached to. It sounds stupid, I know, but that's how I feel. I doubt DC is going to make that canon just to appease me, though.

Him playing football in high school. This was a blatant abuse of his powers, far and away. He knew by then he had super powers. He knew this was cheating. To go back to the Ruby Spears version: him playing football with ordinary teenagers is like a grown adult playing with little kids. He knew better. Smallville handled this much better. Pa knew it was cheating regardless of how careful he was.

Brainiac: I'm sorry but their Brianiac was just plain stupid. Alien collector of worlds all the way!

Protoplasm Supergirl. This was a mess that was completely unnecessary. It served no purpose. There were better ways to do a Supergirl. TAS proved that.

The Batman relationship: I get that they wouldn't trust each other at first but the whole "He'll always be an alien!" mindset ten years into their relationship is just stupid. Fortunately, they ditched that later on.

[Jokerz79]

LIKES:

Businessman Luthor. If someone was an truly evil genius, this is what they'd do.

Keeping the Kents alive into his career as Superman. They should get to enjoy their son's success.

Having Lana in on his secret. This doesn't get talked about much but if they were truly dating, it would make sense.

Krypton. I like an alien Krypton. It makes more sense than a Buck Rogers future version.

Ditching the Legion. This is going to get me into a lot of trouble but having him fight villains as a teenager knowing full well he's supposed to grow up to become Superman is reckless and irresponsible. The Legion would know they were putting him at risk. And trying to look a thousand years into the future is...tricky at best. They were still using pushbuttons and holographic pac-man games in the mid-eighties stories. There's no way you're going to get it accurate. It's sort of like looking at the original Star Trek and saying that's for sure what the 23rd century is going to look like.

DISLIKES:

No powers til puberty. I don't know why this bothers me as much as it does. Maybe it's because my first exposure to Superman was the Donner movies with him lifting the truck over his head as a toddler so that just got ingrained in my mind as what he should be able to do. Maybe it was the Ruby Spears version being the first version I ever really got attached to. It sounds stupid, I know, but that's how I feel. I doubt DC is going to make that canon just to appease me, though.

Him playing football in high school. This was a blatant abuse of his powers, far and away. He knew by then he had super powers. He knew this was cheating. To go back to the Ruby Spears version: him playing football with ordinary teenagers is like a grown adult playing with little kids. He knew better. Smallville handled this much better. Pa knew it was cheating regardless of how careful he was.

Brainiac: I'm sorry but their Brianiac was just plain stupid. Alien collector of worlds all the way!

Protoplasm Supergirl. This was a mess that was completely unnecessary. It served no purpose. There were better ways to do a Supergirl. TAS proved that.

The Batman relationship: I get that they wouldn't trust each other at first but the whole "He'll always be an alien!" mindset ten years into their relationship is just stupid. Fortunately, they ditched that later on.

Oh god yes forgot about Brainiac definitely one character I didn't like the changes.

[Clark_Kent]

This one is tough. PC Superman was my Superman...I started reading Superman comics with Superman #26 (voodoo doll cover, Invasion! tie-in), and it wouldn't be until around 2000 that I even read any Superman comics older than Byrne's Man of Steel. So naturally, as my first exposure, I enjoy everything about the Post Crisis era more than any other.

However...if I dig deep enough, my 'favorite' likes would be:

1. The generally larger world. It was a result of the books being so closely tied into each other that the writers had space, but I loved how Superman's world felt lived in. Metropolis had distinct districts, like a Suicide Slum, or a Hobs Bay, and distinct characters that lived there. When your books are essentially a weekly format (even before the Triangle Era, the books were still feeding into each other), you can afford to every now & then to feature Superman on only 4 or 5 pages while the rest of the issue was dedicated to Perry, Bibbo, or even Guardian or Cat Grant. And it seems odd at first to pick up a Superman comic that doesn't have much Superman in it, but it paid dividends later on with the storytelling. Jerry White was a big focus of an arc where he & Jimmy were shot & Blaze tried to claim their souls. Superman went to hell to fight for them, but Jerry didn't make it. We felt for Jerry's loss and we felt bad for Perry, because the writers had time leading up to the Blaze arc to have Jerry hang around a little. These days, Jerry would be introduced, shot, and killed in the span of a couple issues and it would never really be mentioned again, but back then his death fed into more stories later with Luthor & Perry. And that's just one example. I loved the larger cast and the larger world.

2. The larger cape. It had such a presence on the page, and I loved seeing it get torn up in fights.

3. Clark was a real person. Clark Kent should have as much of a right to chasing his hopes and dreams as the rest of us do. Being Superman shouldn't rob him of that. "My" Clark wanted to be a novelist, so he wrote one. He wanted to be a good reporter, so he worked hard at it (his first story notwithstanding lol). He can be Super and still be successful as a man, and Post Crisis Clark proved that. I know people get up in arms over him thinking of himself as human first and Kryptonian second, but this was a guy who grew up thinking he really was human. He was like 17 when he was told about the ship...if I found out tomorrow that I was adopted and I was actually from Ireland, sure I would be interested a bit in learning more but I would never consider myself anything but an American because this is who I am and what I know. If that makes.

Everything else I love about the era, you already know because I pretty much love all of it. If I have to have dislikes though...

1. Football star. This didn't bother me at all as a kid, but now it bugs me a little.

2. Writing about himself to get the job at the Daily Planet. I thought the Lois & Clark tv show did this the best: Clark applies at the Planet but Perry turns him down. "This is the Daily Planet, not the Borneo Gazette!" So Clark finds a story worthy of the Planet, writes it, and tries again. Nothing at all to do with his powers, nothing to do with Superman. Just Clark being a good reporter.

3. Lara-El. I know this Krypton was cold and sterile, which is fine, but I'd have preferred if she had been more on the same page as Jor. She freaked out over the shirtless farmer, she seemed a tad bit excited when asking Jor if Kal would rule the planet. I liked this Krypton, but I like the idea more of a cold Krypton with these two rebels who will do anything to save their unborn child without seeming uppity about it. Lara came off a bit too "high society" I guess, shocked by this world of barbarians Jor picked out. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I wish she had found as much positive emotion as Jor had in those final days (he even tells her he loves her).

[Sacred Knight]

Disliked:
The birthing matrix having Clark technically born on Earth
Kents alive into Clark's adulthood.
Superboy history wiped out.
Legion History wiped out
Elimination of Kara Zor-El's existence
Elimination of General Zod and all other Phantom Zone criminals
"Clark is who I am, Superman is what I can do"
Sports star high school Clark
Not-at-all-mild-mannered adult Clark
Cold and desolate Krypton that Superman doesn't care about
Too far nerfing of his powers
Superman/Batman frenemies
Milton Fine Brainiac

Liked:
Business man Lex (got better though when mad scientist was mixed in)
More independent Lois
Greater fleshed out Lana
Expanded Metropolis supporting cast/settings
Superman's costume (longer cape, larger S, slightly darker royal blue)
Superman and Wonder Woman as besties

Far more dislikes than likes. Its basically become this weird dichotomy with me. I grew up on the Superman that the post-Crisis reboot created. Byrne was gone by the time I came on board thus some details changed, but it was largely the same platform. And I loved it. I still love the memories of it and many specific storylines. But I've grown to almost hate the foundation as its just so counter-intuitive to Superman as I broadened my reach of his history and past stories and my tastes have changed.

[Kuwagaton]

Some of the changes shouldn't count in the sense that they weren't permanent, like Vril Dox being stuck in Milton Fine. So with the caveat of the post crisis world expanding like any comic world, I have to say my only dislikes with the reboot were the removal of a proper Phantom Zone and the larger S shield. Everything else I like the same or more. Pretty much everything lined up more with my preferences.

As time went on, I did accept the Loeb origin retcon, but disliked the RtK II changes. I think I disliked every post infinite crisis change to the mythos.

[SiegePerilous02]

Lois and Lana getting better character writing and Lana being in on his secret.

Aside from that, I can't think of any changes that I liked. I came into the actual Superman comics around the time the pre-Crisis stuff was getting worked back in. So going back and looking at this era seems weird and I cannot get to like much of it. All the changes (except the Kents) and the expansion of the mythos and classic storylines (DOS, the marriage, Steel and Kon, etc) all could have happened without a reboot and the property wouldn't have suffered overall as a result.

[Jon Clark]

Likes:

1) The way the birthing matrix and snowstorm were used to create a scenario where Clark can be passed off a the Kent's biological child. Cute as they were the old stories with Superbaby in the Smallville Orphanage really undermined the concept of a secret identity.


2) The idea of Bizarro as resulting from an inability to duplicate Kryptonian DNA.

3) Kryptonite as a deadly element … period. No more weird concepts with Green-K not affecting Kryptonians on Krypton. It was now a radioactive element that had a greater effect on Kryptonians but given long enough exposure killed other things as well.

4) Someone else naming him Superman, It might have worked in 1938, but by 1986 it no longer made sense for Clark to have the Superxxx name in mind for himself.

Dislikes

1) The generic DCU. Not entirely Byrne/Wolfman's fault but the way Superman and the redefined Post Crisis history was handled resulted in a less impressive Superman. The merged Earths and new history meant Superman was no longer the hero whose footsteps all the others came after. The scaled back power levels meant he was just one of a dozen heroes as strong and indestructible. The loss of that power and his Superboy career meant he was active for a shorter timeframe and that his heroics were largely confined to Eath in the present. And the murky nature of continuity made it hard to define just what he did between his debut and Crisis. He went from setting the tone and standard for the DCU to being just another hero in a sea of heroes.


2)Businessman Lex: Is this really what the smartest man in the DCU would do with his time? Play act being a philanthropist and micromanage lesser minds?


3)Clark as something other than a foil for Superman. To me the whole point of the dual IS from day one was for us to relate to Clark the schlub and revel in what he was hen he took the glasses off and revealed his true self. This was the reverse.

[OpaqueGiraffe17]

Likes

Business man Lex: I’m just going to say it, pre-crisis Lex sucked imo. Him growing up in Smallville is pointless, him hating Superman for causing him to go bald is laughable. Ditching that, giving him Lexcorp was the best thing that ever happened to the character.
Lois Lane’s character and romance
Expanding the mythos
Less mild mannered Clark

Dislikes
I totally get the logic behind making Clark the only kryptonian. It’s true he does lose something when he’s not really the Last Son Of Krypton. That being said losing Kara for such a long time is a drag.
No Legion history until that got retconned
Not a founder of the Justice League
That birthing matrix thing is dumb

[Jim Kelly]

I did actually enjoy a lot of the Byrne and Ordway Superman, but going down the lists from other people I can't see anything I actually liked better than what had been in pre-Crisis Superman comics. As far as Lois being a tough as nails reporter, she was already. And as far as Lois and Clark sleeping together, they already had--I suppose that the relaxation of the Comics Code, and then the end of it completely, made it easier to be more obvious about that. But I never liked the marriage.

I think the things I liked were all side stories and characters. I liked the introduction of Maggie Sawyer. I liked that "Terrible" Turpin was a regular player (although he already existed from the Kirby days). Kelex was a nice addition (so long as it/he/she doesn't replace Krypto or the Superman robots or the Robot Teacher from Krypton). The idea of yet another love interest for Clark with Cat Grant was good--if she didn't take the place of Lana Lang, Lori LeMaris, Sally Selwyn and Lola Barnett (but she was kind of an amalgamation of all those in some respect). Other characters like Ron Troupe and Jose Delgado were good. But it's a bit sad that, to get these new characters, we had to lose the old ones--no Steve Lombard, Captain Strong, Gregory Reed, Vartox, Nathan Warbow, Josh Coyle, et al.