Do people still think the Post-Crisis writers were better?

[godisawesome]

I think I’d view it as a more focused and competent editorial system and editorialphilosophy, rather than necessarily better writers of greater “freedom.”

My main complaint about the Post-Triangle Era Superman books is that editorial inconstancy and bad leadership often undid whatever good work a writer did before, and often lead to talented writers and up-and-comers fleeing the books more than anything else.

The Post-Crisis Era began really as just a Bronze Age staff getting new continuity to play with, and there were plenty of missteps as there were in any other era - Byrne’s Sleaze story is rightly a moment of shame for the era, for instance.

But editorial then knew how to strike where the iron was hot, manage multiple books, and to let things develop and grow on each other. Most of the ‘00s-‘10s Superman books had moments of brilliance or promise, that then wound up being dropped and ignored within a few years.

[Jim Kelly]

I think a lot of people ended up with the impression that DC was ashamed of the pre Crisis matetial. But they recruited a pre crisis writer along with a number of pre crisis superfans who eventually built the mythos back up from largely what was missing in the beginning. The 1987 collection of greatest stories wad also one of very few reprints from the era. The approach they had looks better in hindsight though: do not by any means touch the old continuity and you'll effectively world build. Incorporate the stuff you're breaking from and you get Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis, New 52, or another reboot that doesn't stand on the same level as the original. Although they still irked Byrne by using Garcia Lopez for the promotional art, haha.

As far as not great stories go, it's very subjective but I'd put the likes of Superman #416, DCP #87, or other stories not based around the end of the line against anything modern.

There were some definite winners and losers among the writers, post-Crisis.

It seems to me that the old system favoured rewarding those who were faithful to the company (with some notable exceptions where editors punished talent by not giving them work). If a writer or artist lost one book, the editor tried to find something else for them, so they would have a steady paycheque. A writer who was a good soldier could expect that his sacrifices would pay off.

So it seems like Cary Bates had put in the hours and should have been rewarded. He had his own idea for how to reboot Superman, but he was passed over in favour of John Byrne. Garcia Lopez would have been the legitimate successor to Curt Swan but they didn't use him--using Byrne and Ordway--at least he got to do the promotional art which would have been a well-paying gig.

I didn't really care for Marv Wolfman's pre-Crisis run on Superman--I suppose his post-Crisis work was better but he only lasted a year and then was gone. And I think he was burned out from all the work he had to do on the Crisis.

If E. Nelson Bridwell had lived, I'd say he got treated like garbage. But the Big E was fighting cancer during Crisis and died in 1987. To me his is the mind that organized the Superman mythology and created a marvelous universe out of everything that had come before. All that creativity and knowledge he invested in Superman was put in the circular file.

Others like Maggin, Pasko, Morrissey, Rozakis deserved to get better breaks, because they had been there, devoted fans of Superman--instead, guys who had no attachment to the publisher were brought in to replace them.

Crisis was a big shovel, with which management scooped up all the writers they didn't care about and cast them aside, so they could dig up other writers to do the same job.

[SiegePerilous02]

Somewhere there is an alternate universe where Alan Moore was either put in charge of the post- COIE revamp or COIE never happened and he still had a lengthy run on the character.

And we'd be better for it.

[Vordan]

While I consider the character of Pre-Crisis Superman to be far superior to Post-Crisis Superman, storytelling wise the Post Crisis ones were a step up. More mature and less childish on the whole (which isn’t to say the Pre-Crisis stories were totally childish, but they were still aimed at kids whereas Post Crisis was going for adolescents and adults).

Depends on what your definition of "better" was? Post-Crisis was necessary because Pre-Crisis was on the verge of cancellation more or less right? So whatever the preference for status quo, whatever those writers were doing wasn't connecting. Admittedly I've tried several times to read a lot of Bronze Age Superman and none of it really connects outside of maybe Moores stuff and the odd issue or two. On the whole, those stories just do utterly nothing for me. The Post Crisis Status quo has been the basis - with a mix of a lot of Pre-Crisis elements - for nearly the last 40 years of stories and outside media. To the extent their baseline ideas have been successfully translated into that, I'd say they did a pretty good job.

I do think it’s telling that the outside media project that most strongly draws on Byrne/Post Crisis Superman is Man of Steel. That’s the movie that’s obsessed with making Superman “mature” and “adult” the same way Byrne was supposed to, got rid of all the “kiddie” stuff like the Fortress or Kryptonite or the Legion or even the secret identity given how little that’s used, had him kill Zod just like Byrne did, and it failed. Superman & Lois use some Post-Crisis elements, but it feels much more strongly pre-Crisis with both Kents dead, Kryptonite in Smallville, both Clark & Lois no longer at the Planet, etc.

The most success Superman seems to have is when they take those old Pre-Crisis elements and update/modernize them rather than get rid of them the way Byrne did. That’s what everyone after him did too. Makes me think that if DC had gone with someone else to reboot the character, and didn’t mandate tossing everything out from Pre-Crisis, Superman as a franchise would be in a better place.

[Jim Kelly]

[Edited my post, because I got it wrong about what was said in the interview--so I've taken out my errors in memory.]

In the interview that Bates and Maggin did for AMAZING WORLD OF DC COMICS (circa 1974), they seem to be of the mind that the comics should be for kids primarily and that it was unfortunate if they were being aimed at older readers.

I agree. I would rather not have the comic written for me a grown up and would rather they were still meant for kids. It just seems selfish of my generation that we wanted the comics to age with us and screw anyone younger. Not all comics, but Superman comics definitely should have been mainly for young readers. The thing is I can still enjoy comics aimed at young readers--I get a lot out of them--but kids can't enjoy comics written for old guys like me. There were enough adult magazines back then--we didn't need every comic book to chase after us, as well.

[SiegePerilous02]

While I consider the character of Pre-Crisis Superman to be far superior to Post-Crisis Superman, storytelling wise the Post Crisis ones were a step up. More mature and less childish on the whole (which isn’t to say the Pre-Crisis stories were totally childish, but they were still aimed at kids whereas Post Crisis was going for adolescents and adults).

I do think it’s telling that the outside media project that most strongly draws on Byrne/Post Crisis Superman is Man of Steel. That’s the movie that’s obsessed with making Superman “mature” and “adult” the same way Byrne was supposed to, got rid of all the “kiddie” stuff like the Fortress or Kryptonite or the Legion or even the secret identity given how little that’s used, had him kill Zod just like Byrne did, and it failed. Superman & Lois use some Post-Crisis elements, but it feels much more strongly pre-Crisis with both Kents dead, Kryptonite in Smallville, both Clark & Lois no longer at the Planet, etc.

The most success Superman seems to have is when they take those old Pre-Crisis elements and update/modernize them rather than get rid of them the way Byrne did. That’s what everyone after him did too. Makes me think that if DC had gone with someone else to reboot the character, and didn’t mandate tossing everything out from Pre-Crisis, Superman as a franchise would be in a better place.

Yes, the pre-Crisis stuff badly needed more mature story telling with focus on continuity, which appealed to the audiences at that time. We got some of it with Moore and Gerber, and Maggin had a lot of stand alone classics, but I can see why this wasn't grabbing people at the time compared to Marvel's output. I think you nailed it that the mythos and character were great, the actual storytelling needed work.

I think jettisoning the pre-Crisis stuff and brining Byrne on board was a deadly one-two combo in the long run. Byrne was a hot commodity back then, but his stuff hasn't aged very well in either writing style or art. Had continuity not been rebooted and he was brought on to the book to overhaul it/bring it into a new direction without chucking everything (which he would have been willing to do), I think it'd be easier for it to have its success and then shift gears more easily once it started to run its course. Or if we had to absolutely reboot, we'd have been better off with somebody else. Either the slim chance of Alan Moore or the Frank Miller/Steve Gerber proposal that never got off the ground.

George Perez's Wonder Woman is also dated and clearly a comic from the 80s, but I still think it holds up better than Byrne's Superman. I think because Karen Berger was editing it, so it ended up a cross between a superhero book and a Vertigo book, plus Wonder Woman's Silver/Bronze age didn't yield much good results anyway unlike Superman's. But even with Perez, I think he could have overhauled her book without starting from scratch.

[Jim Kelly]

Actually what I wanted in the 1990s was a three level approach to Superman and Batman. I was reading the Vertigo stuff and admiring that and wishing there could be that kind of treatment for those guys. At the same time I loved the Johnny D.C.--and I was getting the SUPERMAN & BATMAN MAGAZINE that was marketed to kids.

I don't see why they couldn't have done three distinct lines--one for adults with stories that had consequence and maybe decisive endings; one for the mainstream comic shop readers; one for kids.

[Kuwagaton]

ByrneÂ’s Sleaze story is rightly a moment of shame for the era, for instance.

Byrne's run is a pretty complex argument... on one hand the guy had a phenomenal work rate, first class storytelling and aesthetics in art, and the writing competency to carry two books chock full of ideas in a new era. But you know, I have spent hours of my life trying to understand why he did that to Barda, and I have to say it's the one thing I can't begin to justify. Just the weirdest and worst kind of idea between the covers of a Superman comic as far as I get it.

There were some definite winners and losers among the writers, post-Crisis.

It seems to me that the old system favoured rewarding those who were faithful to the company (with some notable exceptions where editors punished talent by not giving them work). If a writer or artist lost one book, the editor tried to find something else for them, so they would have a steady paycheque. A writer who was a good soldier could expect that his sacrifices would pay off.

So it seems like Cary Bates had put in the hours and should have been rewarded. He had his own idea for how to reboot Superman, but he was passed over in favour of John Byrne. Garcia Lopez would have been the legitimate successor to Curt Swan but they didn't use him--using Byrne and Ordway--at least he got to do the promotional art which would have been a well-paying gig.

Bates went on to do one of my other favorite runs after Crisis in Captain Atom. Maggin for what it's worth despises the rebooted Superman, so I can't see that as a snub. And I figure Garcia Lopez was way too slow.

That covers very few of the willing and able previous creators but I think there were decent reasons to bring new voices to the line.

While I consider the character of Pre-Crisis Superman to be far superior to Post-Crisis Superman, storytelling wise the Post Crisis ones were a step up.

The heart of a lot of these discussions is that people feel this way. I honestly get that he's written different but can never see him as a different character.

I do think it’s telling that the outside media project that most strongly draws on Byrne/Post Crisis Superman is Man of Steel. That’s the movie that’s obsessed with making Superman “mature” and “adult” the same way Byrne was supposed to, got rid of all the “kiddie” stuff like the Fortress or Kryptonite or the Legion or even the secret identity given how little that’s used, had him kill Zod just like Byrne did, and it failed.

The thinking was thay those ideas made the line too convoluted for a launch. The way the Legion came back and considering stories like Millennium, convoluted was fine just so long as the reader experienced it, rather than having it horded in the character history.

When you look at the New 52, they gave a throwaway line about Superman being five years deep and then established Kon and Kara in the same span of time. Looks like something they maybe tried to avoid in the 80s.

[Robanker]

As with every era, it was a mixed bag. There are so many extenuating circumstances involved and a glut of stories that make it pretty much moot discussing unless you get some petty satisfaction out of dunking on someone's work.

Look, there were clunkers and some truly awful moments (Supes and Bards make a porn... I scrubbed it from my mind, don't they stop just short of actually doing the deed?) but again, that's true of every generation. You can't prop one up at the expense of another without being a massive hypocrite.

[Kuwagaton]

Yeah, from the dialogue it didn't actually happen

[DochaDocha]

Yeah, from the dialogue it didn't actually happen

Okay, my memory is fuzzy here, but did the dialogue indicate it didn't happen, or did the dialogue indicate that they hoped nothing happened?

[Agent Z]

edited post.

[Agent Z]

A lot of the dislike of post crisis is largely an overreaction to certain bad ideas. It isn't perfect but it isn't the unmitigated disaster so many think it is and it has a lot more going for it than Flashpoint and arguably pre-crisis to some extent.

[The Frog Bros]

[Edited my post, because I got it wrong about what was said in the interview--so I've taken out my errors in memory.]

In the interview that Bates and Maggin did for AMAZING WORLD OF DC COMICS (circa 1974), they seem to be of the mind that the comics should be for kids primarily and that it was unfortunate if they were being aimed at older readers.

I agree. I would rather not have the comic written for me a grown up and would rather they were still meant for kids. It just seems selfish of my generation that we wanted the comics to age with us and screw anyone younger. Not all comics, but Superman comics definitely should have been mainly for young readers. The thing is I can still enjoy comics aimed at young readers--I get a lot out of them--but kids can't enjoy comics written for old guys like me. There were enough adult magazines back then--we didn't need every comic book to chase after us, as well.

Alan Moore was in this camp as well. I think there is a fine line that can be effectively straddled if done well: writing foremost for kids (or young adults) without having it be childish. I think there's sometimes an unfair assumption that if something is meant for children it therefore has no merit for an adult. There is definitely something to be said for the intended audience and the effect is has on the stories/books overall.

[manwhohaseverything]

Yet,it's these guys who wrote stories that many kids would find either boring or not for them.