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

[oneveryfineday]

The Silver Age comics were more like a demented sitcom with a neurotic God-like alien prankster as the star.

I laughed at this more than I should, but yes, I heartily agree XD I also have a weird sense of humor so maybe I shouldn’t enthusiastically recommend SA Supes to anyone looking for a “proper” Superman story

Is there anyone on these boards who likes the Silver Age?

[Jim Kelly]

I laughed at this more than I should, but yes, I heartily agree XD I also have a weird sense of humor so maybe I shouldn’t enthusiastically recommend SA Supes to anyone looking for a “proper” Superman story

Is there anyone on these boards who likes the Silver Age?

The way you put the question suggests that there's someone would not like these comics.

Classic comics were like going to the circus--or maybe watching THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW. You opened the comic book and it would present various forms of entertainment. If you didn't like one act--not to worry--there was always another act coming up that might be what you're in the mood for.

[Kuwagaton]

I don't know if I think the post-Crisis writers and arcs and storylines were better, but those teams were phenomenal at balancing

I don't always think their version of Clark/Superman himself is the best, frankly. It got better as time went on, but there's a while there where I'm going "jeez, can he please be a little smarter, more competent, more progressive?" But that balance of the expanded cast of Metropolis, its aesthetic, the Planet, including several of the characters' professional lives, with the science fiction action adventures of Superman, is undeniably a highwater mark for the franchise!

Plus the Simonson and Bogdanove team is definitely in my top five favorite writer / artist collaborators in the history of the character!

Maybe top three, heck.

People are still writing about Superman as a "Christ like savior" as of this month, so I miss him being "a quarterback with powers." Mainly the guy Byrne did create but with the growth as a character after Byrne left, with his ratio of human interest and superheroics split down the middle.

Not that the writters weren't solid,but I'd echo others here in that the editorial team over the late 90s (Mike Carlin and Joey Calveri) were highly competent editors who were collaborative with their writers. I'd even put Eddie Berganza's early run with Jeph Loeb and Joe Kelly in that category up until around "Our Worlds At War."

It's weird that those creators came in as Berganza did, so it's not like they made him good. But boy was he better with the Reloaded group than after.

I don't remember that from SECRET ORIGIN (but I wasn't able to find all the issues at my local shop at the time, so), but I do remember, I think, seeing Steve Lombard in the ACTION COMICS run. That got me excited, not much came of that. And as always with Geoff Johns, he chose to ignore what other writers had done with the character. Steve was supposed to be like Broadway Joe Namath, a guy who had been a great football quarterback who then became a sportscaster. The Johns Lombard didn't seem like he'd ever been a great athlete, or had the heroic nature of Steve Lombard. Yes, Lombard was a jerk, but he had other admirable qualities. And I believe the Johns version was balding.

Were there other characters from 1970s Metropolis--Clark's neighbours, people he knew in the city, co-workers, T.V. personalities--that Johns used? Or people from Smallville?

Johns is great at working in easter eggs, but they have that Cliff notes approach to them.

I laughed at this more than I should, but yes, I heartily agree XD I also have a weird sense of humor so maybe I shouldn’t enthusiastically recommend SA Supes to anyone looking for a “proper” Superman story

Is there anyone on these boards who likes the Silver Age?

I guess it's my least favorite. Like I enjoy the focus on comedy but most of the time don't actually like the comedy. Siegel had some great stories and the newspapers did a great job as an outlet for both his sophisticated voice and utilizing others like him, but the comics themselves are more fun for ideas than for stories. It wasn't exactly Herbie Popnecker.

[Jim Kelly]

The period between about 1957 and 1967 has more ideas than just about any other time in Superman history. They are the source for so much that's been revived ever since.

I think you guys just are reading the wrong anthologies. The variety is wide. I could easily find tragic dramas, farflung adventures, zany absurdist post-modernist fables, weepy romances, screwball comedies, surreal imaginary fantasies, and good old fashioned super-hero vs. super-villain action. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Dralokonda]

Any recommendations?

[Johnny Thunders!]

I think when it comes to classic anything, you have to adjust your expectations. They are different then modern comics but they are equally rewarding. It’s like expecting old movies to be modern.

[Venceremos]

Yes. Especially during 1988 to 1994 or so.

[Lvenger]

I grew up with the Post Crisis Superman comics and I have a lot of nostalgia for the Post Crisis/Pre Flashpoint period of Superman and DC Comics' history. I grew up with the DCAU STAS and Justice League cartoons, I loved the Kents being a part of Superman's life, I loved the focus on Clark Kent and Superman's humanity and I loved that Lois and Clark were finally married. However, after reading some Bronze Age Action Comics given to me by my uncle, I started to see the appeal of Pre Crisis Superman. Superman felt like he lived in his own corner of the DC Universe, his stories were grander in scope, he didn't play second fiddle to Batman or job to the newest character in DC's roster. Furthermore, the cosmic soap opera one & done stories were an interesting contrast to the multi part story arcs of the Post Crisis Superman I was more familiar with. When writers like Cary Bates and Elliot S! Maggin were writing their A game, Bronze Age Superman combined the pathos and philosophy that would be the focus of modern comics with the whimsical imagination of the Silver Age.

TLDR; There are some things I prefer about Pre Crisis Superman such as the grander mythology, whereas in other ways I think the Post Crisis writers improved on Superman's characterisation and personality.

[Jim Kelly]

Back in the early 1980s, I didn't have a lot of time for comic books, moving around, living out of a duffle bag, trying to do a lot of other things. So I didn't get to read as many comics as I had before that. And a lot of my Superman reading fell through the cracks.

I had it in my head that this was the weakest point for Superman. But now that I'm reading many of these comics--some for the very first time--I'm thinking I had it wrong.

Also, while I liked Cary Bates as a Superman writer and there are some of his stories at the very top for me--I tended to think of him as the B team writer. He was the dependable worker who could get his scripts in on time, but not the writer that sparked the most interest. The A team writers were guys like Elliot S! Maggin, Marty Pasko, Len Wein and Marv Wolfman.

But now, with reading so many Bates stories, I realize that he may just have been the greatest Superman writer of all time. In terms of output, I don't think anyone else has him beat. He wrote Superman and Superman family stories for a solid twenty years. And I think he knew every character backwards and forwards.

The early 1980s is like a retrenchment phase, where they had to dig in and hold out until the lights were turned off. But in that period, they quietly unleashed some great adventures.

[witchboy]

I laughed at this more than I should, but yes, I heartily agree XD I also have a weird sense of humor so maybe I shouldn’t enthusiastically recommend SA Supes to anyone looking for a “proper” Superman story

Is there anyone on these boards who likes the Silver Age?

I grew up in the Bronze Age era, but two or three times a year I would get to go the big city of Nashville where I would buy Silver Age Superman comics with birthday or Christmas money, and as I got older, the money I earned.
So Silver Age Superman was just as much a part of my childhood as the Bronze Age.
I love the crazy imagination of the Silver Age.
Last year or so I re-read all my Silver and Bronze Age comics. They are still wonderful, fun stories, but I do admit to being glad to get a little more serious characterization when I got to the Bronze Age. Lois in particular benefited a lot from the Bronze Age. She really was written without a lot of dignity in the Silver Age. The Bronze Age saw her more independent, less neurotic and marriage-crazed, and the Superman/Lois relationship became more mature.
That is a funny and not completely inaccurate description that the Silver Age was like a "demented sitcom with a neurotic God-like alien prankster". I can only imagine what readers will think of modern comics fifty years from now.
But yes, I love the Silver Age.

[witchboy]

Back in the early 1980s, I didn't have a lot of time for comic books, moving around, living out of a duffle bag, trying to do a lot of other things. So I didn't get to read as many comics as I had before that. And a lot of my Superman reading fell through the cracks.

I had it in my head that this was the weakest point for Superman. But now that I'm reading many of these comics--some for the very first time--I'm thinking I had it wrong.

Also, while I liked Cary Bates as a Superman writer and there are some of his stories at the very top for me--I tended to think of him as the B team writer. He was the dependable worker who could get his scripts in on time, but not the writer that sparked the most interest. The A team writers were guys like Elliot S! Maggin, Marty Pasko, Len Wein and Marv Wolfman.

But now, with reading so many Bates stories, I realize that he may just have been the greatest Superman writer of all time. In terms of output, I don't think anyone else has him beat. He wrote Superman and Superman family stories for a solid twenty years. And I think he knew every character backwards and forwards.

The early 1980s is like a retrenchment phase, where they had to dig in and hold out until the lights were turned off. But in that period, they quietly unleashed some great adventures.

Carey Bates was a strong writer. Anytime you get a story from Cates, Maggin, Pasko, Wein or Wolfman you could expect it would be good.
If you haven't read them I also recommend the two Superman novels by Maggin - Last Son of Krypton and Miracle Monday. He really gets a chance to do strong characterization for Lex who gets some hilarious dialogue.
I have noticed that Bates and Maggin wrote Lex so differently that it's hard to reconcile them as the same character. Maggin's Lex is still redeemable and is a charming anti-hero while Bates's Lex is completely evil.

[Johnny Thunders!]

I am currently reading Byrne Superman in detail for the first time . The recent hardcover includes Adventures of Superman. I am surprised how strong and cohesive the books are and how they update Golden Age Superman to some extent. They feel like typical Superman stories in some ways.

The Pre Crisis books just feel more expansive and less confined. Why can’t Superman move at the speed of light, time travel, and be the first teenage Superhero? I think every post crisis story is possible in the pre crisis universe with the pre crisis Superman but you can’t tell every pre crisis story with post crisis Superman. The character has stricter rules. I just read Superman 420 and the book handles, all in one issue, why Superman does not solve all of humanity’s problems but still have time to help inspire a disillusioned teacher. He makes an one inch ruler out of diamonds for a grade school kid. The kid miraculously can travel through dreams consciously. The ruler is a metaphor for how Superman measures humanity’s progress and potential. A lot of people recommend Superman 400 and it’s a magnificent comic, but I recommend Superman 400-420. Those books remind me of Will Eisners Spirit and Neil Gaimans Sandman. Pre Crisis Superman goes that big and small just like that.

[Nomads1]

IMHO, the Triangle era Superman was the best Superman ever. I mean, I read pleanty of pre-Crisis Superman, however, whole "can do anything" silver/bronze age Superman really bugged me. I prefered Supes in anything but his own title. Byrne's Man of Steel hit all the right spots for me, but the triangle era really took it into another level, making me a real Superman fan. Most recent writers have worked really hard to change this status in me.

Peace

[Jim Kelly]

The Pre Crisis books just feel more expansive and less confined. Why can’t Superman move at the speed of light, time travel, and be the first teenage Superhero? I think every post crisis story is possible in the pre crisis universe with the pre crisis Superman but you can’t tell every pre crisis story with post crisis Superman. The character has stricter rules.

It was like Superman was now in the Marvel Universe.