What do you think of Superman titles post crisis late 80's and the 90's comics?

[Matches]

Binged a big mid to late 70's and into the 80's Superman/Action run and like them.

Seemed kinda like reading "one shots" tbh because things did not continue much like modern books do



I have a buddy who has all Adventures, Superman, Action and Man of Steel from post crisis all the way to 2002. Was thinking about buy the full run. It comes to around 80 cents to $1 an issue but was hesitant because I have not read any of these yet

[manduck37]

I think you'll enjoy them. Actually, probably my favorite era of Superman comics is referred to as "The Triangle Era". They had little triangles on the cover with numbers in them, so you'd know the reading order. Dan Jurgens was on the books. This was probably when Metropolis felt most "alive" to me. The supporting cast throughout the city was just great. Some good characterizations for Superman, Lois and the crew. When it lead to "The Death of Superman" it really had an impact on the city and the world. It's just some of the best Superman out there, IMO.

[Matches]

I think you'll enjoy them. Actually, probably my favorite era of Superman comics is referred to as "The Triangle Era". They had little triangles on the cover with numbers in them, so you'd know the reading order. Dan Jurgens was on the books. This was probably when Metropolis felt most "alive" to me. The supporting cast throughout the city was just great. Some good characterizations for Superman, Lois and the crew. When it lead to "The Death of Superman" it really had an impact on the city and the world. It's just some of the best Superman out there, IMO.

Awesome Ty! hard to buy big physical comic runs for me, piecing things together is so expensive so when I see a huge run I want to own, I have a lot of thinking to do lol.

[Kuwagaton]

Yeah. So two other characters, Batman and Spider-Man, were on the same track in running several titles a month. But Superman binges are infinitely more cost effective and I think offer a pretty ridiculous range in terms of content.

Through brilliant creators and editing the titles were often seamless from week to week. There was a revolving lore between street level metropolis and the Kirby works introduced in the seventies.

I like a lot of the episodic stuff from 1970 to 1986, and 1987-2003 is such a good compliment. You're in for a treat if you can binge. Of the last 85 years I would say 1989-1991 and 1998-2000 are some of the brightest. The pre triangle era started with Action Comics #643

[phonogram12]

I liked Jeph Loeb's run on Superman and Joe Kelly's on Action.

[Matches]

Yeah. So two other characters, Batman and Spider-Man, were on the same track in running several titles a month. But Superman binges are infinitely more cost effective and I think offer a pretty ridiculous range in terms of content.

Through brilliant creators and editing the titles were often seamless from week to week. There was a revolving lore between street level metropolis and the Kirby works introduced in the seventies.

I like a lot of the episodic stuff from 1970 to 1986, and 1987-2003 is such a good compliment. You're in for a treat if you can binge. Of the last 85 years I would say 1989-1991 and 1998-2000 are some of the brightest. The pre triangle era started with Action Comics #643

Cool TY. Was there much space type villains, out of this world creatures in the post crisis runs? Just curious because I do like that stuff.

Believe it or not I got kinda bored with Batman in the 90's due to so much common, city type stories

[Kuwagaton]

Space didn't get a lot of focus. This is a weird example but if you look at a late 70s kinda stretch, Action Comics #500-520, I'd say:

Almost even split between exploration of lore, alien centric and time travel stuff combined, general superheroics, metropolis focus, off planet, and general kookiness.

Meanwhile Action Comics #650-670:
Significantly even chunks of metropolis orientation and broad superheroics, and the other half made up of time travel, off planet, kookiness, and the supernatural. This era was meant to have each Superman title follow one another so self contained stories were less than half (9/20) of the content actually.

I gotta tell you that this took me a few minutes to synthesize to the best of my ability to describe and it was fun to think about, lol

[Matches]

Space didn't get a lot of focus. This is a weird example but if you look at a late 70s kinda stretch, Action Comics #500-520, I'd say:

Almost even split between exploration of lore, alien centric and time travel stuff combined, general superheroics, metropolis focus, off planet, and general kookiness.

Meanwhile Action Comics #650-670:
Significantly even chunks of metropolis orientation and broad superheroics, and the other half made up of time travel, off planet, kookiness, and the supernatural. This era was meant to have each Superman title follow one another so self contained stories were less than half of the content actually.

I gotta tell you that this took me a few minutes to synthesize to the best of my ability to describe and it was fun to think about, lol

Ha! Man, I love comics so much to explore.

[Ascended]

I strongly recommend the Triangle era. And for context, I'm generally not a fan of post-Crisis Superman.

But the Triangle era? You'll be hard pressed to find a better, more developed take on the supporting cast, Metropolis, and some of the villains (most especially Lex). In my opinion it's one of the high points in Super history; rarely have we had it as good as we did during the Triangle years. I just wish I had known back then how good we had it, I would've appreciated it even more than I did. The four books (five, if you include the quarterly Man of Tomorrow) flowed together seamlessly, maintaining a consistent, unbroken weekly narrative that lasted for years. Books were never late (that I recall), the quality didn't dip, you basically had a single weekly title rather than multiple separate books. The modern market wishes it could pull off what the Super books did back then.

Very much focused on Metropolis, not a ton of higher-concept stuff and Clark was far more limited (and less interesting, if you ask me, an Everyman who was good at everything), but we did have a quality source of Kirby-flavored weirdness in the form of Cadmus Labs, which was a constant source of entertainment and weird sci-fi.

Somewhere around 1997/98 or so, things start to go off the rails. Supporting cast grows so bloated Clark gets squeezed out of his own stories, plots start to get a little thin. You'll know you're approaching that point when a Rush Limbaugh proxy joins the Planet staff. From there, it's not long before the quality drops. But still, the Triangle era is just about the only post-Crisis material I will always recommend.

[Kuwagaton]

LOL very much agreed. Dirk is kind of a harbinger and it's like man, they must really like Ash and Scorn a lot, huh? For me the Electric power was a bit of a shark jump and even if it recovered very well that was still a saga of like 60 comics where they just couldn't find a stable surface with the idea. Many of the good qualities were still good but you can just imagine what it's like being about 400 issues into one era.

[Ascended]

LOL very much agreed. Dirk is kind of a harbinger and it's like man, they must really like Ash and Scorn a lot, huh? For me the Electric power was a bit of a shark jump and even if it recovered very well that was still a saga of like 60 comics where they just couldn't find a stable surface with the idea. Many of the good qualities were still good but you can just imagine what it's like being about 400 issues into one era.

Agreed, the electric powers jumped the shark. Interesting arc, I especially enjoyed Clark asking The Ray for advice on how to handle them, but this was very much the beginning of the end.

I wonder what things would look like now, if DC had stuck with the new powers and kept working on it until they had a 'stable surface' to work with? Not something I'd want, I enjoy the physicality of Clark's normal powers far too much to want a permanent replacement, but stuff like All-Star and My Adventures with Superman have touched slightly on the energy side of things (Clark expanding his protective aura in ASS, going Dragon Ball in MAWS), which was interesting.

Dirk, Ash, and Scorn! Those were their names! I couldn't remember for the life of me. But yeah, they all got real old real fast.

[Jim Kelly]

I love it when I'm reminded that all those piles of comics I spent so much money buying new are now essentially worthless. If I had been smart, I would not have bought any comics in the last thirty years. Think of the money I would have saved. Then I could read them all now dirt cheap. What a wasteful life I've lived.

[Ascended]

I love it when I'm reminded that all those piles of comics I spent so much money buying new are now essentially worthless. If I had been smart, I would not have bought any comics in the last thirty years. Think of the money I would have saved. Then I could read them all now dirt cheap. What a wasteful life I've lived.

Reminds me of the people who say "If you weren't a smoker, you could have a sports car by now!" I look at them, the non-smokers, and I wonder where *their* sports car is?

If you enjoyed the comics, then the time and money wasn't wasted. And if you hadn't bought them, you'd have burned the cash on something else. The hobby is stupid expensive now, we're way past the point of this being 'disposable entertainment' but if you like them and you didn't put yourself in debt buying them? What else matters?

[The Frog Bros]

Lol, sounds like a daily convo in my house with my wife (she being a non comic person).

[kingaliencracker]

Pretty much my favorite era of Superman is from 1986-1993. This was peak Superman for me.