Pre-Flashpoint Superman; Was it that bad?

[godisawesome]

I'm not an expert on these eras, but overall, I probably preferred the early 2000's over the early 1990's, mostly because I think the mid-90's featured a lot of stories meant to make big headlines, including the Death of Superman, his return, his wedding, the Electric phase, and others, but the early 2000's felt much more stable and normalized to me. It was as though they got a lot of stuff out of the system and tried to tell more straightforward Superman stories.

As for where to start, though, I'd probably just say read chronologically.

I think some of the appeal of the early 2000s was that we got to see the crazy 90s stuff streamlined and their consequences being embraced. President Lex and Brainiac 13 were actually pretty cool, the flirtatious Lois and Clark characterization was a hell of a lot of fun (still my main argument for why the marriage was a better component to the characters than making Superman single), and that Parasite as LOIS story had my favorite Super-family moments hand in hand with the best Batman and Superman issue I've ever read.

[daBronzeBomma]

All fair points. Truth be told, Post-Crisis Superman ended when the Post-Crisis creators that had worked on the character in some capacity since 1987 left the books(I.e. Jurgens and Ordway), which I would say September 1999. Loeb and Kelly's run usually is lumped in with that era as there were no major long lasting continuity changes and they still referenced the previous era fairly regularly,however they played a little fast and loose with the "rules" of Post-Crisis and the stories had more of a bronze age vibe. That version was 2000-late 2003. Then Post SUPERMAN #200 we had the mini-boot that attempted to tie Birthright into the main titles that lasted from 2004 until INFINITE CRISIS. Then of course, post Infinite Crisis and Geoff Johns' run .That version more or less was the one that ended in 2011.

So in reality we had:

POST CRISIS: Begun 1986 (MAN OF STEEL mini series)
Ended 1999 (Superman (vol2)#150

POST CRISIS REDUX: Begun January 2000 (SUPERMAN:Y2K #1)
: Ended Dec 2003 (SUPERMAN(vol2)#200)

PRE-INFINITE CRISIS: begun January 2004 ( SUPERMAN #201)
ended 2006 (ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #649)

PRE-FLASHPOINT: Begun 2006 (SUPERMAN #650)
Ended august 2011 (SUPERMAN#714)

So really when talking of Post-Crisis to Post-Flashpoint...we are talking of four versions in reality.

Just wanted to say "very well done!"

That clears up a lot in my mind.

Personally, I refer to that whole 1986 - 2000 period as the Iron Age of SuperHero comics.

And obviously, there's the Modern Age, which for DC at least, clearly starts in 2011 - present.

It's the weird time in between, 2000 - 2011, with all the reality changes (INFINITE CRISIS and FLASHPOINT) and multiple Superman origins (BIRTHRIGHT and SECRET ORIGIN) where it becomes way harder to define.