Pre-Flashpoint Superman; Was it that bad?

[Anis]

I'm a new comic reader and I started reading Superman comics because I love Man of Steel. I used to think of Supes as a boring, overpowered, too vanilla Superhero. Now that I've read some of the highly recommended Superman stories (Kingdom Come, Secret Identity, Red Son..etc) I realised he's such a fantastic character when the writer got it right.

I don't like the new 52 version of Supes. He's still a big gun but I feel like he's lost his 'Superman' aura. He's no longer the paragon of virtue, the hero of the other superheroes. In fact, right now I can't even find a book where Supes, in any universes, is still a good guy let alone THE good guy.

However, I keep hearing that pre-Flashpoint Superman was written even worse. How bad could that be? When has the big blue from All Star Superman become irrelevant?

[Hilden B. Lade]

Well, one of the the worst Superman story imo ever occurred pre-Flashpoint, courtesy of JMS...

Superman: Grounded, a boring pretentious self-important mess that reduced the Man of Steel to simply put, a morally superior douchebag who amongst other things lectures aliens escaping from their oppressive homeworlds about illegal immigration, threatens Lois (his own wife at this point in continuity) to prevent her from running a newspiece, etc.

However, as a whole, pre-Flashpoint Superman's quality varied depending on who was writing him at the time...

[Anis]

Well, one of the the worst Superman story imo ever occurred pre-Flashpoint, courtesy of JMS...

Superman: Grounded, a boring pretentious self-important mess that reduced the Man of Steel to simply put, a morally superior douchebag who amongst other things lectures aliens escaping from their oppressive homeworlds about illegal immigration, threatens Lois (his own wife at this point in continuity) to prevent her from running a newspiece, etc.

However, as a whole, pre-Flashpoint Superman's quality varied depending on who was writing him at the time...

Thanks. And I'm writing Superman Grounded off my to-read list.

Is there any pre-Flashpoint Superman run that I shouldn't miss?

[Hilden B. Lade]

Thanks. And I'm writing Superman Grounded off my to-read list.

Is there any pre-Flashpoint Superman run that I shouldn't miss?

Superman: Birthright by Mark Waid and Superman: Secret Origins by Geoff Johns are both good retellings of the Superman origin, although I prefer Birthright.

Geoff Johns overall had a decent run on Superman.

If you're interested in reading about the earlier adventures of Superman in the pre-Crisis days, you can go pick up either the Chronicles (collecting every Superman story in chronological order of publication) or Showcase volumes (which star the Silver Age Superman). Keep in mind though, the Showcase volumes are all in b/w.

Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, by Alan Moore, essentially a "last story" featuring the Pre-Crisis Silver Age Superman in the wake of COIE.

Some good Elseworlds stories featuring Superman include Red Son, Kingdom Come, and Secret Identity.

IGN actually put together a decent list of the best Superman stories, all of them pre-Flashpoint: http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/06/...stories?page=1

[Anis]

Superman: Birthright by Mark Waid and Superman: Secret Origins by Geoff Johns are both good retellings of the Superman origin, although I prefer Birthright.

Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, by Alan Moore, essentially a "last story" featuring the Pre-Crisis Silver Age Superman if you're interested in Pre-Crisis Superman.

Some good Elseworlds stories featuring Superman include Red Son, Kingdom Come, and Secret Identity.

IGN actually put together a decent list of the best Superman stories, all of them pre-Flashpoint: http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/06/...stories?page=1

I've read all of those you mentioned except Birthright which I've already bought but yet to read. it's good to know I didn't miss those great stuffs.

Thanks for the link. There're a few titles that I haven't checked out yet, might give them a try.

[manduck37]

It was kind of hit and miss, like any comic title really. I think how bad it was tends to get exaggerated due to a few really bad stories, like grounded. Though there was a pretty strong Superman line in the 90's and The Death of Superman was a pretty huge deal. Not to mention that the follow ups, like Funeral for a Friend and Reign of the Supermen really showed off the huge impact Superman had on the DC Universe and his paragon of virtue status. The two periods of post-crisis Superman that really hurt the character were John Byrne's era and the JMS Grounded fiasco. Byrne took Superman and started to mold him into the government lacky from The Dark Knight Returns, as he thought Miller's idea of Superman was the way to go. Which of course completely ignored the themes of Miller's classic Batman tale, why it was Superman who appeared in the story, and what TDKR was really about. So Superman was President Regan's go to guy and he started to become that morally superior douche-bag that was mentioned. Around the time of JMS's grounded, Superman was that douche again, not solving any problems but preaching to everyone and hadn't actually appeared in Action Comics for sometime. Now, the period of time between those two eras, Byrne's relaunch and tenure on the character and the end before Flashpoint with JMS, actually had some really cool stuff. Kurt Busiek had a really fun run on Superman with Camelot Falls. Geoff Johns did Secret Origins and Brainiac. Jurgen's run in the early 90's was fun too. So it had it's dark spots to be sure, but it wasn't all bad.

As for some recommended reading:
Secret Origins by Geoff Johns
Brainiac by Geoff Johns
Superman: For All Seasons by Jeph Loeb
Camelot Falls by Kurt Busiek
For The Man Who Has Everything by Alan Moore

Those were the ones I could think of to add to Hilden's list.

[Prime]

New 52 Superman ain't that bad when written by Pak.

You should check out Superman and The Legion Of Superheroes by Johns.

[DochaDocha]

Well, one of the the worst Superman story imo ever occurred pre-Flashpoint, courtesy of JMS...

Superman: Grounded, a boring pretentious self-important mess that reduced the Man of Steel to simply put, a morally superior douchebag who amongst other things lectures aliens escaping from their oppressive homeworlds about illegal immigration, threatens Lois (his own wife at this point in continuity) to prevent her from running a newspiece, etc.

However, as a whole, pre-Flashpoint Superman's quality varied depending on who was writing him at the time...

Basically everything I was about to say. It wasn't bad, on average, but it ended on the sourest of notes.

EDIT: There was also that awkward 2-year period on Action Comics ending about a year before Flashpoint when Superman didn't appear. Overall, pre-Flashpoint made a bad last impression.

[BBally]

Thanks. And I'm writing Superman Grounded off my to-read list.

I'd say only read part of JMS run on Volume 1 and skip to Chris Roberson's run on Volume 2 since Roberson is actually readable with some actual passion.

[Jim Kelly]

i bounced between being really enthusiastic and really depressed in the five years prior to FLASHPOINT. There were a lot of developments that I liked and then when those went awry, i was pulled back into depression.

The problem with Superman for more than ten years has not been the creative talent but rather the publisher. The editors are weak and can't stand up to the dictates from on high. Writers are pulled off a series and a new writer is parachuted in. There's never a chance for a single creative vision to win out, because every writer is being second guessed by the non-writing executive level of the company.

This is why books that are outside of continuity, where a writer is given the freedom to do what he wants, tend to be more successful (from a creative perspective, at least).

[Kid A]

The problem with pre-Flashpoint Superman is that even before JMS made him utterly toxic, there's still no classic must-read Superman run. It was like two decades of dull run of the mill stuff. Maybe Superman didn't need a reboot for this, but it seems like writers are finally embracing the whole sci-fi Hercules idea of Superman.

[Auguste Dupin]

The problem with pre-Flashpoint Superman is that even before JMS made him utterly toxic, there's still no classic must-read Superman run. It was like two decades of dull run of the mill stuff. Maybe Superman didn't need a reboot for this, but it seems like writers are finally embracing the whole sci-fi Hercules idea of Superman.

Well, For All Seasons is sometimes considered a classic......for some reason (yeah, it's pretty decent, or even good, but that's no classic).
Some people would say "What's so Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way".....but I would disagree with them quite strongly.
Other than that....not sure.
Overall, it wasn't always "that bad" (but it did went on for about 30 years, so it would have been alarming otherwise), but Pre Flashpoint Post Crisis Superman did have a pretty hard time on the end, from crying in a corner because Batman told him "the last time you inspired anyone was when you died", to a more than a year long story arc where he loses his dad, sees his adoptive son trapped into the Phantom Zone and witnesses the genocide of the entire remains of his people while two of his worst ennemies were celebrated as heroes for being the orchestrator of this very genocide, all without having been able to make a single difference in any positive way. And then, "Grounded" turned him into a self righteous d.ck, lecturing people in the most condescending ways while making idiotic decisions, to the point that people were starting to wonder if it was supposed to be a plot point of some sort. Spoilers: it wasn't.
So yeah, by the end of it, he was an impotent wreck that accumulated failures, making you wonder why every one acted like he was Earth's Greatest Hero.

[DochaDocha]

Well, For All Seasons is sometimes considered a classic......for some reason (yeah, it's pretty decent, or even good, but that's no classic).
Some people would say "What's so Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way".....but I would disagree with them quite strongly.
Other than that....not sure.
Overall, it wasn't always "that bad" (but it did went on for about 30 years, so it would have been alarming otherwise), but Pre Flashpoint Post Crisis Superman did have a pretty hard time on the end, from crying in a corner because Batman told him "the last time you inspired anyone was when you died", to a more than a year long story arc where he loses his dad, sees his adoptive son trapped into the Phantom Zone and witnesses the genocide of the entire remains of his people while two of his worst ennemies were celebrated as heroes for being the orchestrator of this very genocide, all without having been able to make a single difference in any positive way. And then, "Grounded" turned him into a self righteous d.ck, lecturing people in the most condescending ways while making idiotic decisions, to the point that people were starting to wonder if it was supposed to be a plot point of some sort. Spoilers: it wasn't.
So yeah, by the end of it, he was an impotent wreck that accumulated failures, making you wonder why every one acted like he was Earth's Greatest Hero.

Batman's quote is one of the most accurate meta statements that was ever made about Post-Crisis, Pre-Flashpoint Superman. I guess the other memorable Superman story that came from this era would be his origin story, which got told three separate times.

This might be a pointless exercise, but I look at the 1990's and how it brought some of the most popular superhero franchises to Saturday morning cartoons. We got Batman, X-Men, Spider-man, and Superman. On the Marvel side, they went out of their way to take some of the most talked about stories in the respective franchise's runs and made them into longer story arcs. I don't think BTAS ever really went beyond 2-part episode arcs, but they had a few like "Robin's Reckoning" and the origin of Ra's al Ghul, and based those heavily on the comics, too. I look at DCAU Superman's run from 1996-2006, and I try to think of what from the era in question was translated into animation. Not a whole lot, and nothing half as memorable as the adaptations-from-comics we saw in those other three series.

That's not necessarily a indictment of Post-Crisis, Pre-Flashpoint Superman, because it's kind of silly to expect everything to blow your mind, but other than the death and his three discrete origin stories, there's not a lot of in-continuity timeless classics.

[Auguste Dupin]

Batman's quote is one of the most accurate meta statements that was ever made about Post-Crisis, Pre-Flashpoint Superman. I guess the other memorable Superman story that came from this era would be his origin story, which got told three separate times.

This might be a pointless exercise, but I look at the 1990's and how it brought some of the most popular superhero franchises to Saturday morning cartoons. We got Batman, X-Men, Spider-man, and Superman. On the Marvel side, they went out of their way to take some of the most talked about stories in the respective franchise's runs and made them into longer story arcs. I don't think BTAS ever really went beyond 2-part episode arcs, but they had a few like "Robin's Reckoning" and the origin of Ra's al Ghul, and based those heavily on the comics, too. I look at DCAU Superman's run from 1996-2006, and I try to think of what from the era in question was translated into animation. Not a whole lot, and nothing half as memorable as the adaptations-from-comics we saw in those other three series.

That's not necessarily a indictment of Post-Crisis, Pre-Flashpoint Superman, because it's kind of silly to expect everything to blow your mind, but other than the death and his three discrete origin stories, there's not a lot of in-continuity timeless classics.

Yeah, I think it kind of hit one of the biggest flaws of Superman's recent stories: nobody knows how him "inspiring" others is supposed to work, or what he's suposed to inspire you to do. Is it to show restrain (which I guess is an argument but still, "Superman inspires us to do nothing" doesn't sound very good)? To stand up to big guys that could beat you up when it's right (except nobody's seeing Superman as an underdog, so it kinda goes "yeah, that's easy for him to beat up people he has superpowers")? It was never clear. It's used as an excuse for neutering him, making sure he never takes stands because he has to "inspire", but how he does that is never specified.
As a result, well.....he wasn't inspiring at all. He was just that big guy that was good to have around when Parasite was destroying Metropolis.
His death is of course an exception, because dying to save the world is something that is very easily to understand as inspiring.

And yeah, I actually did wonder why they never really adapted any of the storylines in the cartoon. Not even his death.

[Flash Gordon]

I'd say Pre-NEW KRYPTON you can find some entertaining stories, the triangle era was fun.

JMS made SUPERMAN toxic though, WAR OF THE SUPERMEN didn't help either. He was pretty much a mess Pre-NEW 52. Needed a reboot badly.