I can see blaming Byrne, for any of his ideas that started us down the road that led to those later writers.
If you had a problem with how Clark relatd to Krypton, then you have to think that maybe later writers wouldn't have gone that way if they weren't building off the whole scene where Superman found out his history and went "Interesting trivia, but nothing that matters to my life now"
Hate the "Clark is who I am, Superman is what I do approach"? Would it have happened if Byrne hadn't set up Clark as a regular Joe who came upon everything that made him Superman very late in life?
That one's tricky. I feel like that particular xenophobic vibe rarely got worse than that scene, and in general got better over time. In that regard, I'd be much more inclined to be upset at Byrne's writing than at other creators who came later, but partly the reason is that I thought later writers did better with Clark's relationship to Krypton than Byrne did.
"You know the deal, Metropolis. Treat people right or expect a visit from me."
I do think that the post Supergirl Saga creators manage to turn around a lot of things that weren't so good and improve on the good things. Probably the biggest downside to him leaving was losing the art, but then there were additions like Gammill and Perez so it's hard to say it was really a problem.
Is it considered a retcon if it's the same writer, though?
Replacing super intelligence with actually just being a clever person might be one of my favorite changes, because super intelligence is a terrible story idea. Once introduced it makes Superman look less than extremely intelligent when it's taken away, even though it's just as much a gift as other powers. And not only are the stories being written by people who don't have "super" intelligence, but it compounds on successors. You might have a cool scene where Superman quickly masters everything he needs to become a perfect bare handed surgeon, but where does that leave the next writer? What about the can of ethical worms opened when you have him do that for one of his friends and then it's just never mentioned again? If Lex was not obsessed with Superman, they say he could do so much good. But if Superman is just as smart and far more capable, why doesn't he just do everything that Lex would have?
I can see this version of Lana really not being as funny to most people. I mostly dig Byrne's (unintentional?) humor but when it comes to both women and sexuality, his stories would go from hilariously awkward to what would seem like a note in his HR file. Not Toriyama bad or a real life risk like Berganza, but still. Who would have thought in the few years before him that they'd be reading a comic where Superman has a wet dream? With females, where Wolfman gave Lana's good qualities to Cat, Byrne had one as a bit of a loser and the other an aggressive drunk. Lois was a strong woman, but she also got spanked literally as a young teen by Luthor. His character Maggie was kind of the winner, actually, but then it's like all the bad that could have gone to her was dumped on Barda so it's kinda null.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!
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I see a lot of the changes as being over corrections to the SA. Like the birthing matrix. Did he really HAVE to be "born" on Earth? Isn't that a bit of overkill? We get it. You don't want him exclaiming "Great Krypton!" all the time but it doesn't seem necessary to remove any and all connections to Krypton just to bring that about. Having him discover where he came from late in life seems to do that just fine. I like the way the Earth 2 Superman handled it. He found out later in life too but it didn't change the way he saw himself. He just built statues to his birth parents in his citadel and moved on with his life. And you can make Krypton alien without making it this dystopia no one would want to live.
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Last edited by Vordan; 02-13-2019 at 02:40 PM.
I liked the birthing matrix largely because it allowed for the idea that Clark was believed to be Jonathan and Martha's biological child.
As for the separation from Krypton it caused, one of Byrne's original ideas had been to send a pregnant Lara to Earth and then have her die of kryptonite poisoning. It would have been a way of demonstrating the dangers of kryptonite, according to Byrne. I think that might have been a bit more interesting. It would have allowed for Lara to interact with the Kents, to pass on through them information abut Krypton, and would have added a bit of personal pathos to Clark's origin.