Your favorite 10 year period for Superman?

[tib2d2]

Which span of 10 years is your favorite for Superman? Could be due to a great show being on the air, movies that were out, a great run of comics by a creative team during that time, etc. Maybe its the first 10 years you started reading Superman comics?

[Adekis]

I guess either '58 to '68, when most of the Silver Age explosion of whimsicality happened, or maybe 1989 to 1999, when the post-Crisis era started to really be underway, with a devotion to setting and cast that I don't think has ever been matched in Super-History. Though I'd love to read more from the '75-'85 period when the Bronze Age was doing a lot of building on top of the Silver Age mythology - but I haven't read enough to say for sure!



Weirdly three of my favorite runs, Kirby, Siegel, and Morrison, are absent from all these - but there was too much else going on elsewhere during the time period of those runs that I wasn't a huge fan of. Like I love Kirby on Superman, but not O'Neil, for example.

[DABellWrites]

I don't have one, but I'll be checking this thread to see what others say.

[Jon Clark]

Ten years is a long time. The only time Superman had any stability for a decade would be editors like Wiesinger and Schwartz or Curt Swan's art.

I'd say the triangle years but I think they were well into decline a decade in . They might have been there even by 1996 if i went for the 1st Post Crisis decade.

Best guess would be 1973-1983 give or take a year. I got into comics as a young kid around the mid 70's and my back issues later went back a few years before that but are incomplete. I know that Action Comics just before the Crisis had gotten real bad and Superman had a lot of imaginary stories. So I suspect 1985 wasn't a banner year over all. I'd expect on the other end it would be just after Denny O'Neil left with his magic lynx and we got a steady stream of Maggin/Bates and Pasko that we'd get closer to a decade starting.

[Jim Kelly]

This is like trying to choose between my children. Fortunately, I don't have to make that choice--it's purely academic.

On the one hand, I really like the period from 1958 through 1967. I only came in at the end of it and I would have liked to have been there when all those comics were coming out, to witness it. The comics are stupid, ridiculous, bonkers, fantastic, heartfelt, confusing, provocative, ignorant, lazy, ambitious, intelligent--and I love them.

On the other hand, there's the period from 1970 through 1979, which I was around for most of it. I didn't get very many comics in 1970, but I did buy ACTION COMICS 385 at the beginning of 1970 and then in 1971, I really started to get back into the Superman comics. This was the period when I read the most Superman comics. And a wealth of stories from the 1960s and 1940s (not very many from the 1950s and a few from the late 1930s) were reprinted in those comics, too--so I had the best of both worlds, reading the new stories alongside the vintage tales.

I looked forward to reading each issue of SUPERMAN and ACTION COMICS every month--with stories written by the likes of Leo Dorfman, Cary Bates, Martin Pasko and Elliot S! Maggin--and art by Curt Swan inked by Murphy Anderson or Bob Oksner. I like that world where Clark lived at 344 Clinton Street and took the bus every morning to work at the Galaxy Building. He had many friends and associates. Metropolis was populated with several different recurring characters. It felt like a real place you could visit.

But the earlier period had stories by Edmond Hamilton, Jerry Siegel, Otto Binder, Robert Bernstein, Jerry Coleman, Leo Dorfman--and art by Curt Swan, Kurt Schaffenberger, Al Plastino, Wayne Boring, Jim Mooney, George Papp and John Forte. New concepts and mythology were introduced and there were adventures on other worlds and in other time periods.

[phonogram12]

Probably the '50s because this is one of the only times one of my all-time favorite artist's (Dick Sprang) has ever worked on him consistently (on World's Finest).

[Jely4me]

Byrne through Jurgens, until the Red/Blue thing, then I liked Loeb and some of what Johns did. Superboy and the Legion were among some of my first comics when I was 3 in 1974, along with a smattering of Superman, Brave and the Bold, Peter Parker, Cap, the Hulk, Detective and The FF. Point is I have a little bias for Wildfire and that era of the Legion. The Swan Superman I liked some and others not so much. I went with Byrne/Ordway as my favorite because of their Marvel work, and name recognition.

[Sacred Knight]

1992-2002. I think the triangle was the last time of consistent good-to-greatness for the character. Started slowing a bit by the turn of the century, but still at the very least was a solid product.

[Johnny Thunders!]

Maybe from Superman 300 up to Action Comics 500. Chris Reeve, DC Comics Presents, Worlds Finest books, Neal Adams and Garcia Lopez covers. Maybe not as groundbreaking as the Silver Age but definitely my era.


Edit: actually Action Comics 500 came out too soon to qualify for decade, so I’m going to say 76-86. Superman 300-400! I recently have been reading some of the late pre crisis Superman books by Maggin and Bates. It reminds me of the late Silver Age period where the Sci Fi elements seem emphasized more.

[bat39]

Hard to pick...as Jon Clark rightly mentioned earlier in this thread, there's seldom been a 10 year period of consistency for Superman.

On a purely personal level, I might go with 1996-2006, since this was the period when I was first exposed to Superman and which shapes a lot of my understanding of the character across media. The STAS, and later on the JL/JLU shows, were my first real exposure to Superman. Superman Returns came out at the end of this period, and while its far from my favorite Superman movie, its the first one I ever saw in theatres and taken by itself its a pretty enjoyable movie. And the comics of this period were the first Superman comics I read, with the status quo of the Lois-Clark marriage (and for a time, President Luthor). Whatever Happened to Truth, Justice & the American Way? is one of my all-time favorite Superman stories, and Birthright is one of my favorite Superman origins.

Yeah, thinking about it, this period really gives you the best of both worlds. It starts dead-center in the Post-COIE era and progresses the classic status quo with the marriage. At the same time, in other media, you have more ''classic'' takes on Superman that still blend in modern elements, like the DCAU and even Superman Returns to a lesser extent. And eventually, you start to see more ''classic'' Silver Age-inspired stuff in the comics as well, albeit modernized.

Last but not least, while I haven't watched much Smallville, that show started during this period too and no doubt had a significant impact on the Superman franchise. So there's that.

[Jim Kelly]

The original post said nothing about consistency. Why does a ten year span of time have to be consistent to be a favourite period in time? A span when lots changes can be just as enjoyable.

[bat39]

The original post said nothing about consistency. Why does a ten year span of time have to be consistent to be a favourite period in time? A span when lots changes can be just as enjoyable.

I think Jon Clark meant consistent quality - at least that's how I interpreted it.

I can't really find anything during 1996-2006 that I personally felt was bad, or which large sections of the fandom felt was bad. Well, there's Superman Returns which a lot of people don't like, and I don't even think that film inspires some of the sharp criticism and even visceral hatred that the Snyder Superman films do.

[tib2d2]

The original post said nothing about consistency. Why does a ten year span of time have to be consistent to be a favourite period in time? A span when lots changes can be just as enjoyable.

Correct, was looking for your personal favorite 10 year span of being a Superman fan.

[superduperman]

The ten year period Smallville was on the air.

[sunofdarkchild]

The 90s for me. By the time we got to the proposal they had worked out the initial kinks with the Post-Crisis setup and the line became consistently great until after the turn of the century. So many books, so many great characters in Metropolis, Clark himself was the most fleshed out I'll ever see him, such tight continuity and consistency. The Triangle era Superman will always be my favorite Superman.