I think that at this point many people consider "mentally unstable naive farmboy from flyover state" as a core characteristic of Superman.

Quote Originally Posted by Vordan View Post
Went to YouTube and to a popular pirate site, you can usually tell the big storylines by what people are viewing there. As you can see, Injustice is insanely popular. Look Yoda they put out five years worth of material for I1, 72 issues for I2, a prequel, a retelling of the first game’s story with Ground Zero, and a goddamn crossover with He-Man. Injustice to Superman is like Flashpoint for Flash or Blackest Night for GL, I’ve seen people unironically say it’s one of the best Superman stories. If you want to pretend it’s not that popular or well known, go ahead, I’ve wished many times myself that were true, but this is the story that has really hooked in lots of people in regards to Superman. People now see Lois dying as a guarantee Superman will go evil because of this story. It’s not a coincidence that we’ve gotten so many evil Superman stories after 2013.
This reminds me of what Tynion said (if I'm not mixing him with someone else) about 90s and how many of the current writers grew up reading comics from that era. How long before we start getting writers and artists for whom Injustice Superman is the Superman?

As for mandates on what to do and what not to do... You might say how Waid's Irredeemable has something interesting to say, but he still decided to do an evil Superman story in the first place.