Originally Posted by
Doctor Know
I have been searching my DTV DVDs for an interview about Superman they did for the special features. I can't remember if it was Paul Levitz or Marv Wolfman. However, they said something to the effect of finding most of the Silver and Bronze Age stories innocuous and boring. For instance, a story would start with Superman coming back from some grand adventure in space; that we didn't see. Only for him to go to his day job in an office and have a monotonous misadventure with Lois and Jimmy that was common for that era.
The Bronze Age certainly has more memorable/standout stories than the Silver Age, despite the volume of Silver Age titles.
Kryptonite Nevermore - Superman #233-238 and #240-242: Denny O'Neil's Sandman Saga.
Action Comics #472-473: Debut of Faora-Ul. The man-slayer of Krypton. At this time in Superman's history, General Zod was a second tier villain. Faora was a murderer on Krypton and played for blood on Earth. This story from 1977 was used as inspiration for the Zod, Ursa (Faora) and Non (Quex-Ul) we would see in 1978/1980 of Superman The Movie and Superman II. Since Donner filmed both flicks at the same time.
Action Comics #528-530: A reprogramed and "reformed" Brainiac assists Superman in stopping a planet-eating machine planet (that is not Warworld). Only to reveal his true color, but Superman ends up imprisoning Brainiac in the machine planet's core.
Action Comics #544 - Action Comics #546: Where George Perez redesigned Luthor and Brainiac. Luthor dropping his Superfriends Tactical attire for the famous Power Armor. Brainiac went from being a green skinned alien with not pants, in a flying saucer. To an exo-skeleton machine, with the beehive head and the flying skull ship. The culmination of this story involved Superman leading the JLA and New Teen Titans against the New Brainiac.
Alan Moore's Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow (Superman #423 and Action Comics #583) and For the Man Who Has Everything (Superman Annual #11).
Steve Gerber's Phantom Zone Series #1-4 and DC Comics Presents #97.
All these stories are from the Bronze Age. While Superman wasn't completely without hitters from this era. Given the volume of titles he was on, his list should be a lot longer and a lot stronger. Compared to what his contemporaries of the time were doing such as:
Spider-Man (Stan Lee, Len Wein, Gerry Conway, Roger Stern)
Batman (Denny O'Neil, Neal Adams and Gerry Conway)
Daredevil (Frank Miller)
Uncanny X-Men (Chris Claremont and John Byrne)
New Teen Titans (Marv Wolfman and George Perez)
Fantastic Four (Stan Lee/Jack Kirby and John Byrne)
Iron Man (David Michelline)
Legion of Superheroes (Paul Levitz)
Justice League of America (Gerry Conway from the Satellite years through the Detroit years)
Without thinking about it too hard, you could list a plurality of stories from the 60s, 70s, 80s era of these titles with ease. For Superman, that didn't happen until post-Crisis. What I noticed about the Pre-Crisis Superman titles and that has continued to today. Is author and artist teams who aren't committed to stay on Superman's books for more than a handful of issues. You get a joker who does 6 issues (or enough to fill a trade paperback) and they think accomplished something. Count the number of dime o' dozen day one origins that never get sequels Superman has sometime.
Looking at the list above, you noticed most of those creators gave 4-10 years on a property before leaving. Like Mark Grunewald's 10 year run on Captain America (1985-1995). I didn't list it above because it's Modern Age to 90s. If more author's stayed longer than a handful of issues, maybe there would be more memorable stories we could all call back to. At the same time, for the Silver Age and Bronze Age, it was also a matter of demographics. Superman's core audience was younger kids. So the Saturday morning cartoon nature of the various comics didn't really matter. Spider-Man is also geared toward kids, but it's been successfully pulling off continuity storytelling since it's inception. Maybe Superman should take a cue from Spider-Man books... (The John Byrne Run stands menacingly in the background waiting to be embraced).
Fear not. At least some people dig Byrne's run. Myself included.