Best and worst power changes?

[Steel Inquisitor]

I liked when Superman turned into an electric being. Loved his suit design.



Didn't like what they did with Guy Gardner.

[Sutekh]

Loved the electric blue Superman, just kinda wish it was a different character.

[DrNewGod]

When did Wonder Woman get the power to fly? To me that is a great one since I have always thought the invisible plane was just beyond stupid, and am happy it has been phased out in favor of Diana just being bale to actually fly instead.

I'm a fan of the Glide+Invisible Plane combo as it helps distinguish WW from DC's Flying Bricks, but that's not answering the question you asked.

Diana being able to fly was a Perez contribution in her 1986 Post-Crisis reboot. Perez wrote some good WW stories, but I suppose I dislike her being able to fly because I conflate it with Perez lessening the Amazons.

He regressed the Amazon's from a hyper-advanced civilization to one stuck in The Bronze Age (the historical one, not the comics one), and basically converted them into pawns of Olympus' fickle deities. Wonder Woman is existentially about the power of women, and Perez's revision basically undermined that. Busiek handled the theme much better with Winged Victory in Astro City; I wish he'd been writing WW in 1986.

[Kurt Busiek]

Busiek handled the theme much better with Winged Victory in Astro City; I wish he'd been writing WW in 1986.

0.jpg

I did write Wonder Woman in 1986!

Not that I'd have minded writing it longer...

kdb

[scary harpy]

Loved the electric blue Superman, just kinda wish it was a different character.

I second this.

[Agent Z]

I'm a fan of the Glide+Invisible Plane combo as it helps distinguish WW from DC's Flying Bricks, but that's not answering the question you asked.

Diana being able to fly was a Perez contribution in her 1986 Post-Crisis reboot. Perez wrote some good WW stories, but I suppose I dislike her being able to fly because I conflate it with Perez lessening the Amazons.

He regressed the Amazon's from a hyper-advanced civilization to one stuck in The Bronze Age (the historical one, not the comics one), and basically converted them into pawns of Olympus' fickle deities. Wonder Woman is existentially about the power of women, and Perez's revision basically undermined that. Busiek handled the theme much better with Winged Victory in Astro City; I wish he'd been writing WW in 1986.

The Amazons had advanced technology from Jiminez's run onwards and Rebirth had them with advanved technology again. Both had a Wonder Woman that could fly under her own power.

[achilles]

Probably not going to be the most popular view here, but IMO the Amazons should pick one area to excel at; either the fantasy arena with swords and magic and all, or the super science one....but really, a lot of others in DC already have that done better. My choice would be to simply do what Perez did. Given that it's a unique niche in DC.

Unless you happen to be a fan of the idea of Kryptonians suddenly having fairly widespread magic powers and great skill at hacking at each other with swords and spears as well as keeping their tech. I personally am not.

[Riv86672]

Probably not going to be the most popular view here, but IMO the Amazons should pick one area to excel at; either the fantasy arena with swords and magic and all, or the super science one....but really, a lot of others in DC already have that done better. My choice would be to simply do what Perez did. Given that it's a unique niche in DC.

Unless you happen to be a fan of the idea of Kryptonians suddenly having fairly widespread magic powers and great skill at hacking at each other with swords and spears as well as keeping their tech. I personally am not.

I can see your point.

[DrNewGod]

0.jpg

I did write Wonder Woman in 1986!

Not that I'd have minded writing it longer...

kdb

Ha. I didn't read that when it came out. I need to go back and look at it.

[Adekis]

Well, it depends on when in the golden age. As clearly indicated at first "nothing short of a bursting shell could penetrate his skin." Got knocked off a boat in Action #2 (needed to brace against rail). In Action #4, he indicates a speeding train could kill him. He definitely did have vulnerabilities. Now, they may not have been consistent then, but they aren't now, either.

It think it's open to interpretation, but while there are times when Superman wonders whether something can hurt him, he never actually seems to take any damage. I always interpreted the Action # 2 scene as being something that he allowed to happen, because it sure didn't inconvenience him at all, the train thing, I just figured he was never hit by a train before and wasn't sure what would happen. He's still human, after a fashion, after all. He probably thinks of getting hit by a train as something that kills you, internally. There's a great scene in DeHaven's novel "It's Superman!" where a teenage Clark is in shock after being shot for the first time in 1935 or so - because it never occurred to him that being shot wouldn't kill him. I think that's basically a good approach to some of those early apparent discrepancies.

There was a series of strips in 1942 or 1943 where some crooks turn some kind of experimental weapon on Superman, and he doesn't know whether or not it'd be able to hurt him, but doesn't take the chance, preferring to toss it into space where it can safely explode instead. My point though is more like - you know how in like, "Superman the Animated Series," or the first season of "Justice League," Superman would repeatedly get hit with a ray gun, or a lightning bolt, or at one particularly galling point, an electrified manhole cover, and just yell out in pain and go flying or keel over? I think that trend was vaguely based on this misinformed idea that Superman was much weaker in the Golden Age, but he still never did that. He was never actually badly hurt, to the best of my knowledge, in the entire early Golden Age.

I really, strongly, dislike pitting the heroes against each other and establishing that one must be able to beat the other. He needs to be one of the more impressive, yes, to evoke the reaction he does in the masses in modern DC. But this idea that he must always, every time, be able to beat every other hero is just not one I agree with. And not one I think needs to be brought up in the comics. I got bored with seeing heroes fight each other long, long ago.

It's totally fair to be bored by heroes fighting each other.

I don't like it much myself in fact, but I'm just thinking in terms of a comic environment where that happens all the time anyway, and given that fact, how I'd rather have it go.
Think about the end of Justice League 2017, where Superman is going to have a friendly race against the Flash. We don't get to see how that goes, but it's the first time in a long time where I feel like Superman actually has a chance in that race. Contrast the "Impulse" episode in Smallville, where Clark can only keep up with Bart as long as Bart is running backwards, or the famous "Clark, those races were for charity" panel from the pre-Flashpoint comics. I'm not saying Flash can't be the favorite to win those races, or that Superman should be able to beat him with ease. I'm saying that I like it better when there's a chance for Superman, than where he's completely outclassed, which is the default of how that was written for years. If Superman and Shazam arm wrestle for fun, I want it to be a legitimate question, who would win, and how often one would be able to beat the other.

I don't want Superman to completely outclass everyone all the time, but there needs to be clearly visible reasons why he's usually considered "top dog". Like you said yourself, less popular heroes are given less page time and made to look less competent in team books - and I think Superman has been on the downside of that more often than the upside for much of the last thirty years, on and off.

[cgh]

The Green Lanterns’ rings not auto-failing against yellow must surely count as a good change.

[Phoenixx9]

The Green Lantern’s rings not auto-failing against yellow must surely count as a good change.

Yes. I never bought that, "Due to a necessary impurity in the Power Battery, all GL rings are useless against the color yellow." Never made sense to me.

[Tzigone]

I actually strongly prefer the vulnerability to yellow. I like heroes having some vulnerabilities.

[DrNewGod]

Yes. I never bought that, "Due to a necessary impurity in the Power Battery, all GL rings are useless against the color yellow." Never made sense to me.

Eh. It worked for kids, and was no less arbitrary than wood. If you go back, Alan Scott's green flame power was only effective against metals, although they started fiddling with that pretty early on. In a simar manner, GL was invulnerable to all but wood, but over time shifted to having to actively shield himself from harm, for the sake of having more ways of challenging him I suppose.

[Phoenixx9]

Eh. It worked for kids, and was no less arbitrary than wood. If you go back, Alan Scott's green flame power was only effective against metals, although they started fiddling with that pretty early on. In a simar manner, GL was invulnerable to all but wood, but over time shifted to having to actively shield himself from harm, for the sake of having more ways of challenging him I suppose.

Yeah, I know. But even as a kid, naw, didn't like (or find plausable) that one, neither.