Either getting Pre Crisis or Post Crisis settled is the key to fixing Superman.

[Kuwagaton]

Their outfits were very similar but Kryptonian culture was completely different, between Brainiac, the criminals, how the parents acted, etc.

It's kind of the cartoon in a nutshell. For all it seemed to take from the ten years prior, most of that stuff was just brought back into the reboot in the first place. Intergang and the huge Kirby influence came in the 90s but started with Jimmy Olsen in 1970. The art deco city of tomorrow came to the comics later, based on the cartoon. Wolfman swears by his own take on Luthor foremost, but Byrne would cite things from the golden age, where Luthor was a mob boss. Hackman hardly played a scientist and Maggin also asserts his own hand in creating Lexcorp... so it's like you can say the Clancy Brown Lex was an evolution (realizing all his scientific prowess and cunning could bring, becoming less hands on) that could have occured without the comics following Man of Steel.

I think by pre-COIE what we really mean is Earth-One Superman--although because of DC screwing up the names for the Earths by making alternative versions of Earth-One and the other multiple Earths, it's no good anymore to say Earth-One Superman and be sure that people know which one you mean.

It was a little frustrating to me when I first read the Superman Archives, because the Siegel & Shuster Superman never became that Superman that was in the 1960s. They seemed to ignore a lot of the science fiction potential of what they had created and there wasn't too much development of Superman's large supporting cast. In the serials it's even worse, because the crooks have none of the brilliance that they had in the comics. There's a really mundane sense to Superman that continues in the comic strip, radio and TV adventures. You can see a bit of something percolating but it isn't quite there yet.

It's only late into the 1950s where everything seems to come together and you have this energetic and enthralling surrender to all things super and fantastic. And yet that's matched by characters that can spend a whole story trying to find a job or look for the best birthday present. It's like they never said no to an idea. Even though Mort Weisinger was supposed to be a horrible task master and apparently imposed his own plots on the writers, there must have been a lot of blue sky thinking, because the comics are just bursting with novel ideas and take your imagination off in different directions of adventure.

I was a little disappointed in what came about because of that. That raw, grounded aspect that just seemed to disappear was what I liked and I see that a lot of people tried to reinstall those feelings later. One of my first comic experiences outside of the regular publishing line was the Man of Tomorrow Archive series, and I was distinctly and immediately let down that the first encounter with Braniac felt nothing like what I'd read from before or since. It's like that raw grit went over to Marvel with its Spider-Man.

And this may just be me again, but I call it Earth 1 to separate the older stuff from the graphic novel series. I have to admit that as tough as it is for me to enjoy the 50s and 60s at times, the fact that "Earth 2" always comes back and "Earth 1" is just accepted as having turned into the main line makes me wish for a set of spin offs like Sacred Knight suggested.

[Jim Kelly]

I feel like it's too bad that John Byrne's mission statement was to reboot Superman, because he was a good classic artist and writer. The best things he's done at DC have been those things that evoked the classic comics (in my opinion). When he did the pocket universe story, he had the chance to show what he could have done with Superboy and the Legion, which made it all the sadder that this wasn't something that could last. I like his Wonder Woman far more than others, because he brought in a lot of the Bob Kanigher goofiness, as well as reviving the classic Jay Garrick and the JSA. Likewise all of his work with Kirby creations celebrated that 1970s vibe. And for me his magnum opus was GENERATIONS.

While some of the Man of Steel reboot might have been his idea, I think he was forced to make a greater split with the past stories than he would have liked. And initially we were led to believe that most of the old Superman adventures had happened (just slightly different on account of some of the changes) somewhere in the five year gap. I had been hopeful that Byrne and others would do Times Past stories to re-establish how many of those adventures from the previous five decades had happened (albeit with certain updates). But once John Byrne had left, it became clear to me that DC was trying to ditch everything from before 1986.

[Vordan]

Byrne has said that he would’ve been fine with bringing in more Pre Crisis stuff but DC didn’t want it. They wanted him to come in and “Marvelize” Superman and that’s exactly what he did. Wasn’t until later that they realized “oh **** we really shot ourselves in the foot by declaring so many ideas with potential off-limits”. And the utterly ridiculous ways writers had to work around the edicts, like how they excused the existence of Zod or Brainiac ultimately showed that DC would’ve been better off updating old concepts rather than tossing them in the trash.

[Kuwagaton]

It was his idea to nix Superboy and other Kryptonians, despite not being on board with some of their solutions then and just regretting the whole experience now. As he told it at least once, he's disliked the Legion from the time they were introduced. Makes it sound like a monkey's paw, where he wanted to get rid of all that and have a rookie Superman but then lost control of it all. Despite how weird the Time Trapper stuff and Millennium were though, I think it all went very smoothly. A later team could have just blown it up like a more competent Rebirth if it wasn't so successful.

Didn't seem like things went well for Helfer, pity Carlin wasn't brought in earlier I guess. That seems like such an anamoly, a Superman editor with strong work ethic and a good working relationship with his crew. Cavalieri was also pretty cool, Mark Schultz once mentioned how shocked he was by how little he had to deal with authority.

[Jim Kelly]

If you think about the pocket universe explanation for five minutes it doesn't work for most of the Legion continuity that had been established. The only thing it really solves is having a Superboy in the Legion at some point in their past. But if your interest is in the Legion and keeping all their history intact (which had been up to that point in time), then the pocket universe is no good. The odd thing is, they eventually threw out that explanation and everything else for the Legion, yet they kept Matrix. The ways of DC are mysterious and impossible for our little minds to comprehend.

[Doctor Know]

If you think about the pocket universe explanation for five minutes it doesn't work for most of the Legion continuity that had been established. The only thing it really solves is having a Superboy in the Legion at some point in their past. But if your interest is in the Legion and keeping all their history intact (which had been up to that point in time), then the pocket universe is no good. The odd thing is, they eventually threw out that explanation and everything else for the Legion, yet they kept Matrix. The ways of DC are mysterious and impossible for our little minds to comprehend.

I think either Byrne or Perez said DC's strategy with reboots is, "get rid of everything! But don't throw anything".

The issue with the Legion was brought about by TPTB forgetting about it after COIE and the effects the timeline changes would have on them. Granted, Superboy and Supergirl both had significantly reduced roles on Legion for several years at that point. So it's easy to understand how it slipped TPTB minds. It's funny, because Marvel's strategy with reboots is to cram it all in and make everything fit. With the ever compressed, ever expanding, sliding timeline.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I don't really see an issue with Pre-Crisis or Post-Crisis these days, particularly since Infinite Crisis managed to reconcile the two in a way that feels satisfying to both versions. Yes, fans may quibble over certain specifics, but I think the broad strokes of all incarnations are nicely represented in the current Superman.

Like with most long-running characters, the strongest elements have remained while the weaker ones have fallen to side.

[Jon Clark]

I don't really see an issue with Pre-Crisis or Post-Crisis these days, particularly since Infinite Crisis managed to reconcile the two in a way that feels satisfying to both versions. Yes, fans may quibble over certain specifics, but I think the broad strokes of all incarnations are nicely represented in the current Superman.

Like with most long-running characters, the strongest elements have remained while the weaker ones have fallen to side.

I'd agree with you on a lot of the elements but to me the question of whether he is basically Clark or basically Superman is a core issue to the character.

Either you have the "Superman is what I can do, Clark is who I am" approach that Byrne used or you have the "and who disguised as Clark Kent" approach that permeated the Silver Age.

Byrne's take seems closer to the X-Men. Clark grows up as a regular kid until his powers manifest. At his core, he is a human being trying to adapt to gaining tremendous power. He's Tom Welling wishing for a "normal" life even while he is using his powers responsibly. He's Henry Cavill and JMS' Earth One guy who need to be shoved into making a public debut by outside forces even if the end result is still Superman. He's the nice guy next door but with superpowers.

Prior to Crisis (not necessarily since 1938 but for at least close to 25 years) Superman had been a character who was almost born super. He'd remembered his Kryptonian origins for his whole life. As much as he loved the Kents and learned from them, he always knew and accepted he was not like them. They and everyone else he knew were more fragile and saw less of the world around them. He didn't view himself as better, just different but didn't think of being like them as "normal" anymore than one of us would view "normal" as the loss of our senses or mobility. Clark was his attempt to communicate on our level, but it was just a part of a greater whole and not necessarily the central part. He was at the end of the day something more than a man, acting like a man.

And those two approaches can't really be balanced or combined. Either you approach Superman as a regular Joe and then add in the powers or you approach him as so much larger-than-life and then try to fit him into the regular world. You can't do both. I think most of the problem with Superman the past 10-20 years has been caused by trying to do both. You either got disjointed characterization when a creative team was pulling in different directions or a single creative team with no clear idea of how to approach the character.

[manofsteel1979]

I feel like it's too bad that John Byrne's mission statement was to reboot Superman, because he was a good classic artist and writer. The best things he's done at DC have been those things that evoked the classic comics (in my opinion). When he did the pocket universe story, he had the chance to show what he could have done with Superboy and the Legion, which made it all the sadder that this wasn't something that could last. I like his Wonder Woman far more than others, because he brought in a lot of the Bob Kanigher goofiness, as well as reviving the classic Jay Garrick and the JSA. Likewise all of his work with Kirby creations celebrated that 1970s vibe. And for me his magnum opus was GENERATIONS.

While some of the Man of Steel reboot might have been his idea, I think he was forced to make a greater split with the past stories than he would have liked. And initially we were led to believe that most of the old Superman adventures had happened (just slightly different on account of some of the changes) somewhere in the five year gap. I had been hopeful that Byrne and others would do Times Past stories to re-establish how many of those adventures from the previous five decades had happened (albeit with certain updates). But once John Byrne had left, it became clear to me that DC was trying to ditch everything from before 1986.

There's strong evidence Byrne indeed initially intended for many Pre-1986 stories to still be canon.Look no further than his Lori Lemaris retelling that was basically verbatim the original story from the silver age,only tweaked slightly to reflect the changes wrought by Man of Steel. They even reference Lori's death in CRISIS.


I imagine the idea was to leave that 5 year gap undefined so Byrne and Wolfman or later writters if they chose to could reference past stories if they wished. Unfortunately,once Wolfman and Byrne left ,Jurgens and the new teams that came after were more concerned about building their own Superman mythos and eventually with Zero Hour the Man of Steel mini series that once took place over the course of 5-7 years in continuity now took place over the course of perhaps a year or two at best ,which eliminated any "wiggle room" for any previous to 1986 elements or stories to have taken place.

This wasn't initially a problem,but as Jurgens and Co.'s initial run was winding down and other creators who were coming on ,those new writers wanted to use everything,but found out a good chunk of the classic Superman mythology was walled away,and the gymnastics that had to be gone through to bring that stuff back while having it co-exist with modern stuff led to the cluster that became of Superman in the early 2000's.

[bat39]

I think the best approach really is to have the Post-COIE Superman with all the trappings and mythos of the Pre-COIE version. That seems to be the direction that they're going in right now, and its really been the direction in which things have been moving for the last thirty years or so.

The contemporary characterization of Superman, where he self-identifies as Clark Kent, embraces his Kryptonian heritage as Kal-El, and projects himself as 'Superman' and as the 'mild-mannered reporter' Clark Kent is by and large the right way to approach the character from a psychological perspective - though of course, a lot of things can be interpreted differently by different creators.

I also like the idea of Clark having a human family and roots on earth - including one or both of the Kents being alive, and his being married to Lois.

That said, I think its just wasted potential if you take things off the table with regards to elements like Supergirl, Krypto, the Phantom Zone, Kandor, Red Kryptonite, LOSH etc. Writers can choose to use them or not to use them, but they shouldn't be written out of continuity altogether the way they were back in 1986.

The approach to Superman IMO should always be 'additive' rather than subtractive. Retcons should aim to incorporate as much of his mythos as possible and smooth over contradictions, not to erase things from continuity altogether.

[Steven Caldwell]

I would like to see Jurgens continue from his story in Action Comics 999. Everything was going fine then. Suddenly, the dark clouds rolled in and we were subjected to the "lets deconstruct everything Superman is" mentality. ugh

[Yoda]

I would like to see Jurgens continue from his story in Action Comics 999. Everything was going fine then. Suddenly, the dark clouds rolled in and we were subjected to the "lets deconstruct everything Superman is" mentality. ugh

The books were set for shakeups regardless of Bendis. Lois was set to be dropped from the books for an extended period of time and the advance solicits for the TPB's all hinted at shake ups to the status quo once they returned to Metropolis which Tomasi & Gleason were forced to incorporate before Bendis. The Jor El revelations were going to cause some sort of shift.

[Jim Kelly]

As far as Clark Kent goes, I don't see that much of a problem. Different writers write characters differently. This shouldn't surprise anyone. Ten different writers will produce ten different versions of Clark. And ten different actors will play ten different versions of Clark.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Gardner Fox, Bob Kanigher, Bob Haney, Frank Robbins, Denny O'Neil and Archie Goodwin each a wrote their own version of Bruce Wayne--they are so distinctive from each other that you could hand me a Batman story without a writing credit and I could tell you who wrote it just based on the Bruce Wayne in that story.

John Byrne is really into the big, tall macho guy character--he writes that guy a lot. So it's not surprising that his Clark is that guy and he isn't very deep. Elliot Maggin is into complexities of psychology--his characters have an outer self, a self that they tell themselves they are, and a self that they don't know but which actually motivates their actions. Cary Bates is more into archetypes--his Superman is one archetype, Clark Kent is another.

I don't relate to John Byrne's Clark, because I find any macho pose is just a mask--it's men trying to protect themselves from honest emotions for fear that they can get hurt by others if they show any trace of what they think is weaknesses. On the other hand, I don't agree with Maggin that Clark is some pet project of Superman's--although that might be what Superman tells himself. Clark is the real man and not a mask, because the real Superman is a nerd, he wears his heart on his sleeve and he does need to hide from others for fear of being found out.

[The World]

Just create two Supermen and push them into totally different directions. Let main Superman be a family man, who's human first, bring back the Kents, kick Krypto to the curb, basically reset the guy back to the 90's-late 80's in characterization and mythos and keep him there. Use your big ol' multiverse to follow a Superman that is Superman first, probably don't bother with the typical set up since you would already have that going full blast in the main titles, no Kents, no marriage, no kid, whatever. Just old school Superman stuff. I nominate this guy.




Older Superman kicking ass and travelling the multiverse. Not afraid to ring somebodies bell and not above saving a puppy stranded in a lake. This guy gets tossed a lot of weird stuff that wouldn't fly in the main titles.

[Ascended]

I wouldn't be against the idea of an alternate reality Superman getting some consistent panel time. I mean, I've been waiting for the Justice Incarnate title with President Superman for years now!

But splitting things and making one of them "post-Crisis" and the other "pre-Crisis" feels like giving up to me, somehow. We *can* have a successful, fully integrated Superman who embodies the best of all eras, who all fans (or most of us anyway) can get behind and enjoy.....it just takes some interest and effort (and DC generally lacks both when it comes to Clark).

I mean, yeah by all means bring back Kal-L. He's the best! But I dunno if the answer is "A Superman for both groups of fans." And after the treatment Kal-L got from Johns......I just wanna see that guy get the peace and rest he deserves. I hold the "original" Superman in very high regard and don't trust DC to not take a crap on him (again).

But if they did go this route I wouldn't mind seeing Morrison's t-shirt Superman in the pre-Crisis role. I think at this point there's more differences between Nuperman and current Superman than there are between current Superman and Kal-L. Current Clark has got to be in his 40's or so, is grown and mature, experienced, married, is raising a kid.....he hits a lot of the same notes that Kal-L used to. Nuperman, with all his rash youth and Golden Age spirit (not to mention the costume) stands out comparatively, and if you're going to have two Supermen running around, one embodying pre-Crisis and the other post-, I think you'll get more differences and mileage out of Rebirth-current Superman and Nuperman than current Superman and Kal-L.