Post Crisis Changes You Liked and Didn't

[sunofdarkchild]

I found it really weird that Superman's ideal fantasy world would be a place that had no Lois, no Jimmy, no Ma and Pa, or anyone he met in lifetime on Earth. Yes, would desperately want his home planet back, but to be that dismissive of everyone he ever actually cared for in real life never sat well with me, no matter how well 'For the Man Who has Everything' was written. I'd take the other extreme over that characterization any day of the week.

The biggest problem with the 'Superman as immigrant' idea is that he's a child immigrant. He was brought up in American culture from when he was a toddler at the latest. The closest parallel I can think of is the kindertransport where a lot of Jewish children were brought to England before the Holocaust, many of whom never knew their birth parents were Jewish. I knew a man who didn't know he was adopted or Jewish until he was in his 60s when he came across the adoption papers proving he was in the kinder-transport. He started learning about Judaism as an elderly man. Kara is closer to the 'Ellis Island' experience in that she was actually raised in Kryptonian culture and human culture should be alien to her.

[Vordan]

I found it really weird that Superman's ideal fantasy world would be a place that had no Lois, no Jimmy, no Ma and Pa, or anyone he met in lifetime on Earth. Yes, would desperately want his home planet back, but to be that dismissive of everyone he ever actually cared for in real life never sat well with me, no matter how well 'For the Man Who has Everything' was written. I'd take the other extreme over that characterization any day of the week.

The biggest problem with the 'Superman as immigrant' idea is that he's a child immigrant. He was brought up in American culture from when he was a toddler at the latest. The closest parallel I can think of is the kindertransport where a lot of Jewish children were brought to England before the Holocaust, many of whom never knew their birth parents were Jewish. I knew a man who didn't know he was adopted or Jewish until he was in his 60s when he came across the adoption papers proving he was in the kinder-transport. He started learning about Judaism as an elderly man. Kara is closer to the 'Ellis Island' experience in that she was actually raised in Kryptonian culture and human culture should be alien to her.

You’re talking about For the Man Who Has Everything right? That story was with (I believe) Pre-Crisis Kal who saw himself as Kryptonian first and foremost. The JLU adaption of that story kinda brought more into line with Post-Crisis. His dream girl was a Lois/Lana merge. Kal was a Farmer I think instead of a bureaucrat.

[Ascended]

Yeah, FTMWHE was the classic pre-Crisis Superman, not the post-Crisis version. It made total sense for that guy to envision a perfect life on Krypton. It would've made less sense for the post-Crisis Superman, and zero sense at all for the early Byrne version who considered his dead homeworld and culture nothing more than a "curiosity."

[phonogram12]

If we're talking about Byrne's MOS exclusively, about the only thing I liked was Byrne continuing Miller's take on Batman and Superman's relationship. If we're talking up until the New 52 started, John Henry Irons, Kon-El, and the slow, but sure reversal of most everything that they changed Post-Crisis.

Fer real, I really hated most all the changes DC made to Superman Post-Crisis. With a fiery white hot passion.

[Kuwagaton]

I found it really weird that Superman's ideal fantasy world would be a place that had no Lois, no Jimmy, no Ma and Pa, or anyone he met in lifetime on Earth. Yes, would desperately want his home planet back, but to be that dismissive of everyone he ever actually cared for in real life never sat well with me, no matter how well 'For the Man Who has Everything' was written. I'd take the other extreme over that characterization any day of the week.

The biggest problem with the 'Superman as immigrant' idea is that he's a child immigrant. He was brought up in American culture from when he was a toddler at the latest. The closest parallel I can think of is the kindertransport where a lot of Jewish children were brought to England before the Holocaust, many of whom never knew their birth parents were Jewish. I knew a man who didn't know he was adopted or Jewish until he was in his 60s when he came across the adoption papers proving he was in the kinder-transport. He started learning about Judaism as an elderly man. Kara is closer to the 'Ellis Island' experience in that she was actually raised in Kryptonian culture and human culture should be alien to her.

It was an interesting experiment. That Alan Moore story was much too recent to really comment on back then, but it helped create a full picture of what Helfer, Byrne, Wolfman, and others were doing. The modern Superman at the time was a character who came to earth as a very small child and his nostalgic memories ruined earth for him, for all the time he actually spent being an earthling. They instead made the same guy a historian: no matter how much one learns, as a studying adult without experience there is no nostalgia.

Pre crisis Superman came from a word scrambled version of earth and identified as a foreigner, Post crisis came from a foreign land and saw himself as a naturalized earthling.

The most narrow of preferences for me personally comes down to the fact that 90% of his experiences come from Earth regardless. Strangely I can't help but think of 21 Savage, a rapper who was outed by ICE as a Brit. No one was any the wiser (he came to the US between 7 and 12 depending on the source) but sure enough his wiki lists him as a British rapper, when nothing abour him had or does imply that aside from his private documents.

[DochaDocha]

The JLU adaption of that story kinda brought more into line with Post-Crisis. His dream girl was a Lois/Lana merge.

I thought that was kind of cutesy, in line with some of the Pre-Crisis stuff that had the two as rivals, but it was a reminder to me about how boring the Supes/Lana stuff was in STAS where Superman had essentially no feelings left for Lana.

I accept Byrne's run for what it was. When I first read it, I didn't have much dissatisfaction, and got a lot of pleasure out of reading it. Any gripes I might've had comes from years after-the-fact, when I saw certain disappointing trends emerge within the Superman line. Basically, I see a lot of Post-Crisis Superman to be focusing on some unfortunate "less is more" philosophy, in that creators and editors were convinced by focusing more on Superman's limitations, people would find the character more interesting. So, we get stuff like "Clark is who I am, Superman is what I do," in order to ground the character. That in itself isn't such a bad thing, but it got taken to such extremes for certain writers to interpret Superman as a stupid hick. Seeing him interact with his Mom and Dad can be lovely and heartwarming, but it sort of got taken to the extreme in which he repeatedly had to go to them for advice because apparently a Superman who was taught early in life is less interesting than a guy who has to learn his lessons later and can't apply what he was taught in childhood into his adult years.

You can like multiple versions of the same character, for multiple different reasons, but in the end you're probably going to like one version more than the others. I generally like Post-Crisis Superman, but I think a lot of post-Byrne writers took some of Byrne's ideas and ran off the deep end and gave us a lot things I really dislike.

[Jon Clark]

I thought that was kind of cutesy, in line with some of the Pre-Crisis stuff that had the two as rivals, but it was a reminder to me about how boring the Supes/Lana stuff was in STAS where Superman had essentially no feelings left for Lana.

I accept Byrne's run for what it was. When I first read it, I didn't have much dissatisfaction, and got a lot of pleasure out of reading it. Any gripes I might've had comes from years after-the-fact, when I saw certain disappointing trends emerge within the Superman line. Basically, I see a lot of Post-Crisis Superman to be focusing on some unfortunate "less is more" philosophy, in that creators and editors were convinced by focusing more on Superman's limitations, people would find the character more interesting. So, we get stuff like "Clark is who I am, Superman is what I do," in order to ground the character. That in itself isn't such a bad thing, but it got taken to such extremes for certain writers to interpret Superman as a stupid hick. Seeing him interact with his Mom and Dad can be lovely and heartwarming, but it sort of got taken to the extreme in which he repeatedly had to go to them for advice because apparently a Superman who was taught early in life is less interesting than a guy who has to learn his lessons later and can't apply what he was taught in childhood into his adult years.

You can like multiple versions of the same character, for multiple different reasons, but in the end you're probably going to like one version more than the others. I generally like Post-Crisis Superman, but I think a lot of post-Byrne writers took some of Byrne's ideas and ran off the deep end and gave us a lot things I really dislike.

I think a large part of that was Byrne's approach. He had originally thought he was doing for Superman the same thing Perez did with Wonder Woman. His Superman was meant to be Year One Superman who was still feeling his way and learning the ropes. The problem was that he was writing that when the powers at DC were setting it up for an experienced Superman who was at the high point of his heroic career. So Byrne and Wolfman were establishing things for Superman (1st appearance of Brainiac, Mxyptlk, Toyman …) late in his career. And were using things that were new (like the living Kents or Lex as a supporting character) but needed to both establish them and make them seem like they'd been in place for decades.

[DochaDocha]

Also, one last thing that I don't think Byrne's run was responsible for, but accidentally set the table for other writers to feast on: Superman's life had pretty much everything going for him, it created an environment for "Evil Superman" to emerge as soon as you chipped away at his happiness. Clark was an enviable guy, he had no longing for the lost world of Krypton (which was implied to suck, sort of, anyway), his parents were around to give him advice repeatedly, he got married, etc. Now, we didn't have to deal with "Evil Superman," really, for at least a decade, and in fact writers did a good job of resisting it. But then some guys started running with it, and we've been stuck with this stigma for some time.

Anyway, that's one of the accidentally appealing aspects of Morrison's Action run. Superman himself might be kind of a carefree guy, in Morrison's words, but the double life he chose to live wasn't all glamorous and Superman didn't seem like the guy who was good because his life was good/easy.

[Jim Kelly]

So ultimately a lot of the problems that emerged for me with the DC characters after Crisis would have been moot if they had simply rebooted everything at Year One and gone forward from there. When I was reading COIE, I had prepared myself for that to happen. But I guess, because they didn't want to make the Teen Titans into teens again and reverse everything George and Marv had done, the rest of the DCU couldn't be rebooted back to square one. So that's why we got this clunky system that was never designed to operate properly.

[Kuwagaton]

It's crazy how competent Helfer, Carlin, and Cavalieri were considering that above them it wasn't even being figured out how old the Titans were supposed to be.

Also, one last thing that I don't think Byrne's run was responsible for, but accidentally set the table for other writers to feast on: Superman's life had pretty much everything going for him, it created an environment for "Evil Superman" to emerge as soon as you chipped away at his happiness. Clark was an enviable guy, he had no longing for the lost world of Krypton (which was implied to suck, sort of, anyway), his parents were around to give him advice repeatedly, he got married, etc. Now, we didn't have to deal with "Evil Superman," really, for at least a decade, and in fact writers did a good job of resisting it. But then some guys started running with it, and we've been stuck with this stigma for some time.

Anyway, that's one of the accidentally appealing aspects of Morrison's Action run. Superman himself might be kind of a carefree guy, in Morrison's words, but the double life he chose to live wasn't all glamorous and Superman didn't seem like the guy who was good because his life was good/easy.

I think it's safe to say they would have just been doing these stories regardless. Sure it never really came up before then, but that's not long in coming out of a time where they would redraw the Kirby face because of the danger of being off model. Evil Superman was still essentially avoided all throughout the newer era even at its most edgy, when threats like the Manhunters or Conduit would take everything away from him. At the very least it pales in comparison to the pipe struck by the Batman staff with Death in the Family.

[Truman Burbank]

Post-Crisis largely presented a more realistic and all-encompassing take on the entire mythos and made it better.

The change that bothered me most was Clark just up and leaving Smallville as soon as he found out about the rocket. It didn't fit, and I was fine with that being retconned later. Byrne had some other missteps as well (the Manhunters story, all the weird sex stuff), but I look at those more as poor stories rather than poor changes or characterization (excepting Luthor in the World of Metropolis mini).

[Jim Kelly]

The problem with treating Superman too realistically is that there are some things that need to be in his stories that can't be explained in a strictly realistic world. The problem for Byrne was that he started to explain too much, using what he thought was science. Without realizing it, he was using science that is full of holes and makes no sense when you take a hard look at it. But because this Superman was supposed to work in a realistic world, readers were looking at Superman in a rational fashion that they would not have bothered doing with the old Superman.

At some point any Superman creative team has to hand wave and say that it shouldn't be taken so seriously.

[Sacred Knight]

I agree. If the aim is to make Superman more realistic then to me that aim is already on a crash course to MissingThePointEntirely-Ville. There were certainly things in his lore that needed modernization/made a little less campy. But as other, much better origins later showed, there are ways to do that which don't require throwing out so much of it or watering it down too much.

[Truman Burbank]

The problem with treating Superman too realistically is that there are some things that need to be in his stories that can't be explained in a strictly realistic world. The problem for Byrne was that he started to explain too much, using what he thought was science. Without realizing it, he was using science that is full of holes and makes no sense when you take a hard look at it. But because this Superman was supposed to work in a realistic world, readers were looking at Superman in a rational fashion that they would not have bothered doing with the old Superman.

At some point any Superman creative team has to hand wave and say that it shouldn't be taken so seriously.

Same thing happens in Star Trek. Pseudoscience abounds in science fiction. Most people deal with it.

And I didn't say "too" or "strictly" realistic. I said "more" realistic, and it was.

[Adekis]

Lemme see.

LIKES

• Metropolis - Post-Crisis Metropolis is the best that Metropolis has ever been executed, to this day! Not necessarily the best it's been conceived - I really like Morrison's idea of the "City of Tomorrow" left to rot, like Rapture in BioShock only less extreme, but in terms of feeling like a real, living place, post-Crisis has it covered! Cat Grant, Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, Keith, Maggie Sawyer, Bibbo, to me a whole lot of great characters have either roots or renaissances during this period!
  
  Not necessarily the best it's been conceived - I really like Morrison's idea of the "City of Tomorrow" left to rot, like Rapture in BioShock only less extreme, but in terms of feeling like a real, living place, post-Crisis has it covered! Cat Grant, Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, Keith, Maggie Sawyer, Bibbo, to me a whole lot of great characters have either roots or renaissances during this period!
  
  
• Lois Lane goes through a period of being really kind of mean, not just rough around the edges, but eventually mellows out to a really great medium, and I think most of the best portrayals of Lois all around stem from influences in this era.
  
• Krypton being more distinct from Earth than just "middle America with Flash Gordon tech and higher IQs" was a really, really good idea.
  
• Clark Kent being less of a milquetoast and more of an everyman has elements to it that really work well.
  

DISLIKES

• Clark Kent being less of a milquetoast and more of an everyman has a lot of its good elements mitigated by the fact he's sooo successful, and also the fact that on the back end of his pre-Crisis career he was less of a wuss and more of a Cronkite. Also, I know this has its roots in other, older stories, but I kind of hate the whole "Clark Kent gets the scoop on Superman" thing? And especially the fact that he uses his position as a journalist to manipulate the public's view on the Man of Steel! That's so completely unethical I just hate it!
  
• While Krypton losing the "middle America with Flash Gordon tech" thing was good, Krypton also lost all the joy behind it as a setting. Thus, Clark lost his connection to his heritage, which meant Superman lost Kal-El. But since Clark was no longer distinguished from Superman in a meaningful way, Superman kind of lost Clark Kent too. And his super-intellect is no longer a point of emphasis. So what does Superman/Clark have left?
  
• Pre-Crisis Clark Kent usually called Jon and Martha Kent "Dad" and "Mom". Post-Crisis, Clark usually called them "Pa" and "Ma". In other words, Byrne deliberately made him more of a hick. Come on, man, farm boys don't talk like that.
  
• Lana got really, really put over a barrel by the whole Crisis. Poor Lana. Before Crisis, a successful co-anchor to Clark who I'm pretty sure was dating him at the time? Or at least had dated him very recently, post-Crisis, a lonesome woman defined by her unrequited love for a man who thinks of her as a sister! What a mess! And to think Byrne shipped her with Clark!
  
• Last and most importantly, getting rid of Superboy really messed up the entire DCU for ages and ages. I mean you can draw a direct line from the Pocket Universe band-aid they slapped onto that gaping wound all the way to Zero Hour! Hal Jordan was still dealing with fallout from that arc in Geoff Johns' run, long after it's even questionable whether that had even happened any longer!