Would anyone like to superman in his original/first costume again?

[manwhohaseverything]

Since, we are back to the trunks and cufflinks costume by removing the reborn suit(much to my dislike). Would you like it, if superman is to wear his original look with his original s symbol again,for a run or two? . The original costume felt like it wasn't made by a professional designer to look good and appealing in front of people(even though, it was). It felt down to earth in a way. It was awesome and gave of the vigilante strongman vibes in spade.(This isn't me making fun or being sarcastic. I love the original costume. It felt like something that wasn't created by having a round table conference)

[manwhohaseverything]

Bonus round, fight

[Adekis]

Yeah, absolutely. Some of my favorite Superman stories ever go back to Golden Age looks, even if not quite to that particular one. The issues of the Dominus arc where he's in the '30s fighting Nazis and trying to help Jews in the Holocaust is maybe my favorite Superman arc ever, and Superman Smashes the Klan is similarly shaping up to be a modern classic. And there's a hell of a lot of space to work with, and a lot of cool exploits to be done with that kind of Superman, no doubt.

[Last Son]

So are you saying you don't like the classic suit(since you said you dislike that they ditched the Reborn suit to revert to it), but you do like the golden age look/s? To be honest, I've never understood the hoopla over golden age stuff. I think the classic suit is an improvement over the constantly work-in-progress golden age designs where the symbol would change from one issue to the next and the cape symbol would change colors. But I'd also argue the golden age suits aren't necessarily more homemade looking than the classic suit outside of the fact that the earliest illustrations could be a bit less polished than what came later. It seemed like it was more modern illustrations of the golden age look that gave the suit a homemade vibe. Besides, the classic suit can be made to look homemade too. It's not as if the classic symbol or the V boots are so complex that they couldn't have been home made creations themselves.

I even think the social crusader aspect is a bit overstated since it wasn't like he was always out fighting racism and other prejudices and the stories could sometimes be pretty uninspired with uninteresting subject matters that were probably only relatable to people who were around in the 30s and 40s. Now I'm not saying I would mind if they did go to the golden age look on a temporary basis, I just think there's no reason to turn Superman back into his early golden age self, although making Superman more of a social crusader isn't a bad idea as long as the things he deals with are more relevant than slot machines in a convenience store.

[Tzigone]

No, I'd not prefer the switchback. While undoubtedly part of my reason for thinking the newer-style emblem more attractive is because I'm used to it, I also think newer style emblem is a much better business move. It's the symbol that's part of American consciousness. It's the symbol all the spin-off used. It's much, much more marketable.

[manwhohaseverything]

No, I'd not prefer the switchback. While undoubtedly part of my reason for thinking the newer-style emblem more attractive is because I'm used to it, I also think newer style emblem is a much better business move. It's the symbol that's part of American consciousness. It's the symbol all the spin-off used. It's much, much more marketable.

It is iconic . But, that hasn't helped the decline in superman, if we are talking business. Just simplify the character itself. No more trying force some great meaning. No more "symbol of hope". Just a dude in a strongman like costume.

[manwhohaseverything]

So are you saying you don't like the classic suit(since you said you dislike that they ditched the Reborn suit to revert to it), but you do like the golden age look/s? To be honest, I've never understood the hoopla over golden age stuff. I think the classic suit is an improvement over the constantly work-in-progress golden age designs where the symbol would change from one issue to the next and the cape symbol would change colors. I even think the social crusader aspect is a bit overstated since it wasn't like he was always out fighting racism and other prejudices and the stories could sometimes be pretty uninspired with uninteresting subject matters that were probably only relatable to people who were around in the 30s and 40s.

Now I'm not saying I would mind if they did go to the golden age look on a temporary basis, I just think there's no reason to turn Superman back into his early golden age self, although making Superman more of a social crusader isn't a bad idea as long as the things he deals with are more relevant than slot machines in a convenience store.

No, i am just saying. It feels i guess - i don't particularly have a word for it. You see my first hero was the phantom. I loved tintin as a kid. So i get the tone of those characters when i read goldenage superman, you know. I don't get that vibe when i read classic superman.classic superman is just another superhero.dime a dozen.
you are wrong superman didn't fight prejudice. Aside from the war effort rhetoric against the Japanese. Superman has confronted prejudices more than maybe any other character of the era.
I was never talking about permanent change. Just for a run or two.

[Last Son]

I just meant that in a lot of golden age stories, I guess I felt like they didn't live up to all the talk of Superman being a social crusader. So while I'm sure there were stories of Superman dealing with real social problems, I guess maybe there was a lot of trivial subject matter too. Looking through them, I guess I felt sometimes like Superman was dealing with things that were kind of beneath his skill set. Now I know fighting supervillains and big battles and catastrophes have become cliche in comics over the years, but I think those earlier stories could have used more of that. Like why not have more characters like the golden age Metalo(who didn't appear again until the bronze age) instead of 100s of gangsters and unscrupulous mine owners?

[marhawkman]

I even think the social crusader aspect is a bit overstated since it wasn't like he was always out fighting racism and other prejudices and the stories could sometimes be pretty uninspired with uninteresting subject matters that were probably only relatable to people who were around in the 30s and 40s. Now I'm not saying I would mind if they did go to the golden age look on a temporary basis, I just think there's no reason to turn Superman back into his early golden age self, although making Superman more of a social crusader isn't a bad idea as long as the things he deals with are more relevant than slot machines in a convenience store.

"Social Crusader" isn't a synonym for racism though. It's the most obvious possible social injustice to complain about. Relevant social ills don't wear swastikas and goose step down the street. they hide in the shadows disguised as ordinary parts of daily life. such as having an economy where debt is treated as a tradable commodity.

[Jim Kelly]

The petulant fan in me wants a proper timeline for the original Superman--something that the Earth-Two Superman (so-called Kal-L) never followed. In this chronology, new stories of Supes pre-ACTION COMICS 1 would establish how he adopted the S badge and why he abandoned it for the S triangle and then the other shields that came after that. And also why his footwear changed--and how he tried out different capes, some with an S on the back and some not.

All the latteday stories that pay homage to the original Superman are scattershot--pulling from different sources that doesn't work with the publishing history of the character. This is not something I should be so fussy about yet it is. I guess there are worse things to obsess on.

[SuperCrab]

I even think the social crusader aspect is a bit overstated

Doesn't he both side with a wife being abused by her husband and save a guy from being executed in the first issue of Action Comics in 1938? If those aren't both in the first issue, they are both in early issues. I'd say for it's time, those are definitely both social crusader type things. Back then a lot of people thought husbands had the right to hit their wives- it was frowned upon, but often considered nobody's business. Capital punishment was also much more popular than it became in later times. So, those were actually even more social crusading stories then in their societal context than they would have been considered retroactively.

One could say that the capital punishment thing isn't really that much of a social crusading thing because the guy who was going to executed was really innocent, but they did show a guy sentenced to death who was innocent and make that the crux of the story, which is still a point of view that might cause some people to rethink the death penalty, and contrary to the view of some pro-death penalty extremists that innocent people are never executed in the US (Which is demonstrably untrue, BTW).

There were also some anti-corruption stories where Superman stood up to bad politicians and mob bosses and the like.

There was at least one where Superman got the leaders of warring parties together and at least hinted at the futility of war and the importance of peace (Says the guy who punches someone in every issue, but still ). Actually, I can't think of the issue off the top of my head, but sometime in the last decade there was a big time homage/recreation of that using a modern Superman (Not sure which one, but it'd be either New52 Superman, Rebirth Superman, Reborn Superman, or, if we're considering him separately, Bendis Superman (He's really Reborn Superman, but Bendis writes him better). Maybe it was a brief aside in the arc where Jor-El manages to cause thousands of crisis situations all at once simultaneously on earth and Superman keeps rushing to put out the fires (Literal and figurative) at once, but even he can't keep up with it all (Did Jor-El ever apologize for that or explain himself in a way that diminishes his culpability, BTW? Seems odd to send your son off for the summer alone with your biological father who likes to start problems that kill people just to prove rhetorical points. I realize that he had his past extensively altered and that he was sort of made evil by being exposed to circumstance and rhetoric he never would have encountered without extra-dimensional meddling, but it's not like he had his past changed back by the time he took Jon out to see the galaxy- Did he?).

Finally, Clark being an investigative journalist kind of works as a progressive occupation.

All that said, I know it wasn't like, say, every issue 1938 Superman was specifically standing up for the poor or doing something that touched on a progressive issue or position. And nothing was quite as direct a real world political stance as Captain America punching Hitler (That came out before Pearl Harbor was bombed and the US entered World War 2, so it wasn't just par for the course). But this Superman was a little different from some of the more conservative Superman we saw later IMO.

[SuperCrab]

Actually, in some ways, I think the previous Superman who New52 Superman is most similar to is the 1938 Superman. A social crusading man of action who stands with the poor, shows a bit more aggression, and is intentionally a bit more intimidating at times. Issue #1 of the New52 iteration of either Action Comics or Superman showed Superman taking a corrupt rich guy and dangling him out a window by his legs.

[Powerboy]

I think it would be good for a little while or in a run set in the late 1930s or early 1940s although the boots in the images don't look like the original boots.

We've already got "Superman Smashes the Klan" where he's wearing the Max Fleisher insignia. But I think the original insignia would be best in a period setting.

As an addition to what I said, I wonder if part of this is based on a feeling by many fans, myself included, that Superman has generally moved so far away from his roots that people consider him irrelevant. But I don't think making him less powerful or putting his costume or temperament back to what it was long ago is going to help because those people who say, "He's too powerful", "He's too perfect", etc, will still say those things.

I did love the early "Nu" stuff circa 2011 with the bluejeans and the shirts he paid someone to make for him along with the recreation of some of his earliest exploits like beating up a wife beater. In fact, he was the Golden Age Superman except more thoughtful. It made him feel like a guy who lives in the neighborhood and is using his powers to make things better rather than a mythical figure up in the sky. Not that there's anything wrong with the latter. It's really the version I grew up on. But I think it's good to occasionally go back and again explore the original essence of the character.