Rank the Superman runs of the past ten years

[Superbat]

I was thinking of the Superman runs of the past decade and it made me sad.

From best to worst, I rank them like this.

1. Greg Pak
2. Paul Cornell
3. Chris Roberson
4. Brian Bendis
5. Grant Morrison
6. Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason
7. Dan Jurgens Rebirth
8. Geoff Johns
9. James Robinson
10. Gene Luen Yang
11. Greg Rucka and Eric Trautmann
12. George Perez
13. Dan Jurgens New 52
14. J. Michael Straczynski
15. Scott Lobdell

[Myskin]

I should have stopped reading this cr@p more than ten years ago.

[Dispenser Of Truth]

Not counting New Krypton era stuff since I didn't read it, and only mainline books rather than counting stuff such as The Coming of the Supermen or Superman Smashes The Klan as 'runs':

13. Gene Yang and John Romita Jr./Howard Porter: The god wrestling arc was a dope idea but holy cow, how is this the guy who went on to do Smashes The Klan?
12. JMS and Eddy Barrows: Not quite as bad as you remember, but still exceedingly bad.
11. Scott Lobdell and company: Some good ideas, even one or two outright good issues, but the lows were so shockingly low here.
10. Dan Jurgens and company (Rebirth): Soulless, lifeless, brainless, pointless.
9. Peter Tomasi/Patrick Gleason and company: This squeaks over Jurgens on a HAIR because of a handful of genuinely quality issues and Jon, even though its lows are lower.
8. Dan Jurgens/Keith Giffen (New 52): Offensively bland.
7. George Perez and Jesus Merino/Nicola Scott: See above, but Merino and Scott drew it.
6. Geoff Johns and John Romita Jr.: I want to call it squandered potential, but the ways in which it was squandered were kind of inevitable between Johns' own inclinations and him not sticking around for long.
5. Scott Snyder and Jim Lee/Dustin Nguyen: For-real squandered potential, but it was at least a hoot with some quality character moments.
4. Chris Roberson and Eddy Barrows/Jamal Igle: Working off a broken foundation, but boy did Roberson give it his all trying to make it work.
3. Brian Bendis and company: Could go higher, could go lower depending on how it shakes out in the end.
2. Greg Pak/Aaron Kuder and company: Fundamentally compromised on basically every possible level, but a minor miracle in spite of that.
1. Grant Morrison and company: Not even close.

[Vordan]

1. Grant Morrison AC - An honest to God attempt at addressing casual whining about Superman while still staying true to the character. Too powerful? He starts off at Golden Age power levels and is regularly getting bruised and beat up. When he gets more powerful the enemies get stronger with him so you constantly feel like he’s in real danger. Too perfect? He’s got clear and in your face flaws like his pride, anger, etc. Boring? This guy has some clear political opinions and beliefs, this isn’t the bland centrist Post Crisis incarnation. Pissed this chance was wasted.

2/3. Tomasi Rebirth and Pak New 52 - Both of these runs I have pretty similar opinions about. Tomasi was the stronger of the two because it stayed mercifully free of the crossover bull that plagued Pak. I enjoyed the Superfamily adventures, the return and focus on classic Superman Rogues like Eradicator, Bizarro, and Manchester Black. It got a very satisfying ending with issue 45. Pak has a ton of cool new rogues and updates to existing ones like Doomsday, but man did the crossovers suck the life out of the book.

4. Scott Snyder - Some cool ideas and character moments dragged down by Wraith being another “Doomsday but can talk” adversary although his sacrifice was pretty cool. I’d rather have seen more about other countries anti Superman weapons Snyder teased.

5. Geoff Johns New 52 -Recently reread it and it’s better than I remember but Johns doesn’t stick around long enough to deliver on the potential as usual

6. Yang had some cool ideas like the wrestling gods but overall it’s compromised by editorial and crossovers even more than Pak

7. Lobdell - Some cool moments like Clark quitting the planet dragged down by boring villains like H’el

8. Jurgens Rebirth - A few ok arcs dragged down by continuity clean up and a focus on Hank Henshaw along with one of the worst versions of Zod ever written. Spamming “KNEEL” gets really irritating after you do it nonstop Jurgens.

9. George Perez - Totally compromised by editorial incompetence

10. JMS - I should go reread this after reading JMS autobiography Becoming Superman, knowing his family history might cause me to read Grounded in a new light, but I didn’t enjoy it at the time.

11. Rucka - Really bad but Rucka didn’t even want the book, Didio promised him WW Earth One if he did it and then screwed him over so I don’t blame Rucka for this. Funny how he’s dealt with aged up Lois and Clark kids twice now though.

12. Jurgens New 52 - Boring as hell

13. Robinson - Boring as hell


Roberson was called in to clean up Grounded and did a good job, but it was too late to keep me around. Cornell’s The Black Ring was amazing as I’ve stated before. I can’t rate Bendis yet until he’s done.

[Flash Gordon]

Grant Morrison's AC was literally it for me in terms of enjoying SUPERMAN. I liked a lot of what Lobdell was doing in SUPERMAN and his ideas were rock solid- just poorly executed.

Bendis has had some strong stuff, I'm just not really reading many superhero titles these days.

Everything else has been varying degrees of horrible.

SO, I'd say Morrison and Bendis are the only 2 that have done quality work with SUPERMAN (with a nod to Lobdell, too).

[BBally]

1. Grant Morrison
2. Paul Cornell
3.Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason
4. Greg Pak
5. Chris Roberson
6. Brian Bendis
7. Dan Jurgens Rebirth
8. Geoff Johns
9. James Robinson
10. Gene Luen Yang
11. Greg Rucka and Eric Trautmann
12. George Perez
13. Dan Jurgens New 52
14. J. Michael Straczynski
15. Scott Lobdell

[SiegePerilous02]

Pretty much just Morrison's AC.
Nothing else in any recent eras (New 52, Rebirth, etc) have done anything for me from what i've read

[Sacred Knight]

This decade I'll still take all of the New 52 over anything done since. Even the maligned Superman title which, while always lacking in execution and a firm direction and team, at the very least had interesting ideas. Morrison/Pak Action runs though are easily the top two of the decade. Pick either for the top spot, can make a case for either.

[Fergus]

1, Morrision

2, Tomasi and Gleason

3, Pak

4, Jurgens

[Yoda]

Tough to do.

1. Bendis/Tomasi/Gleason/Jurgens - It all kinda muddles together for me. All three have their missteps and faults, but I'm enjoying them on the whole and I'm interested in where things are going.
4. Snyder/Lee - You can almost pretend it's not New 52 Superman if you squint hard enough. It's a pretty fun run and the only good Lois in the New 52 more or less.
5. Morrison - I really am not as enamored with this run as everyone else is. The first arc is solid and it's interesting but it goes off the rails after that really quickly. Really, I'd rank 0-4-7,8, 13 (if that's the Krypto issue) here and drop the rest of the run in with the rest of the New 52 garbage.
6. Pak/Kuder - These read like journeymen issues to me and outside of the context of the general failure the New 52 Superman was on the whole, so nothing particularly special. I liked the beginning of Truth and Lana's interesting even though Pak wanted to use Lois and wasn't allowed to apparently. Kuder's art is spectacular though. I would like to see Pak get a crack at Superman now.
7. Johns
8. Robinson
9. JMS/New 52 Superman - With the exception of Johns, these runs are just garbage. JMS was the first to get me to drop the books. Then the New 52 Superman book succeeded in accomplishing that in record time as well.

[manwhohaseverything]

1, Morrision
2, Tomasi and Gleason
3, Pak
4, snyder
5,jurgens lois and clark i forgot that

[OpaqueGiraffe17]

Morrison
Jurgens
Tomasi/Gleason
Snyder and Pak
Johns

Those are the good ones. The rest did nothing for me. Bendis being my least favorite.

[kingaliencracker]

Morrison
Tomasi/Gleason
Jurgens

That's it for me, and none of those were especially memorable long-term.

[Lvenger]

1. Peter Tomasi/Patrick Gleason
2. Grant Morrison
3. Dan Jurgens
4. Geoff Johns
5. Scott Snyder
6. Paul Cornell

The rest are either bland or awful rubbish that fail to capture what Superman comics are supposed to be about. Grounded, Truth and Bendis in particular have been the worst runs for me.

[Kuwagaton]

1. Action Comics vol 2, #0-18: Morrison had no fill in writers in an all new continuity away from Berganza and the obligation to other stories. He'd have had to try to rank lower, really. A clever take on mashing up old ideas to create something pretty new and one of the best foundations we've seen put down as a result. At the time it seemed absolutely certain that creators would be running in the line after him because it delivered the New 52 premise better than virtually anything, being young and jazzed up without that Heroes Reborn vibe. #14-18 is kinda just some obligated big finish but this is still in some ways the only coherent take we have had.

2. Superman Convergence/Lois and Clark/Action Comics #956-1000 + Special: a pretty steep drop in terms of ingenuity, but Jurgens is unfortunately the only other creator who didn't worry about "how" to write Superman. None of that nervous energy, dread about how to save the character, or shaky landings on needless reinvention. Forty plus issues, double shipped and weaving in with another title while editorial still hasn't stopped struggling to work out the details of the whole initiative? No problem. For all the decompression and linewide instability it felt really good to have steady hands at the wheel. For basic reasons #1000 just has to be the best issue since Morrison's #13.

3. Adventures of Superman vol 2: dynamite vignette anthology. I really don't know how many stories there were but few of them were misses. Many of them were basic and safely average, but I almost always had fun. The last few print issues were fantastic, it was a really great cross section of comic creators overall. I'd really kill to see creative teams like Parker-Samnee, Marz-Shaner, or Ordway-Rude have a real go.

4. Superman Rebirth/Supersons: all hands on deck with Tomasi and Gleason taking the lead. Every main arc seemed to rush the ending and the quality was all over the place (Sons was exceptional in that regard), but overall a very good stream of issues. Actually I think as a monthly, stripped down and spaced out more effectively, with better emphasis on Clark and Lois, this would have been the best run in about 20 years.

5. Greg Pak's Action Comics + Batman/Superman: better remembered for potential more than anything. His start was excellent on both fronts and that's really why I rank him. His heart was really in it, he took those bum line directions and made the best out of them. In those five years he wrote the only Superman who actually felt like a young person to me.

6. Superman Unchained: Snyder is probably the best example of nervous energy being applied to Superman, in that he got to tell his brief story without interference and ran in every direction as if he wouldn't be doing the character again. And like Johns, he's the type to say that in interviews and then work that exact idea out on panel if not have a character directly say it. It's kind of a by the numbers almost fanfic story. I think it was pretty difficult for him to write and that the cameo in the first Swamp Thing was so great because he directly wrote the pre flashpoint Superman there. But if we're talking about a decade half taken up by the New 52, this is one of the better recommended collections and easily the prettiest imo.

7. New Krypton: freaking massive, very well ambitious. I just don't like using the world of Superman as set pieces and reducing characters to archetypes and plot devices. Kind of just a big story with nowhere to go.

The rest are either too small, negligible, or don't really feature enough Superman for me. The Bendis era is a huge convo but it's so tricky because it's not close to over and not consistent enough to confirm or deny.