Does Superman editorial prefer 'bad' writing over 'weird' writing?

[Dispenser Of Truth]

Well, the main problem in this line of reasoning - which I agree with, to a certain degree at least - is that all of the countless reconstruction stories about Batman made Batman stronger, but the countless reconstruction stories about the archetype of Superman made Superman dated.

In other words, in a world where we already have Moore's and Gaiman's Miracleman - which is universally regarded as one of the most important superhero stories ever - who needs Superman anymore?

To be fair, my line of reasoning about "experimental stories" didn't include exclusively reconstructions, but simply standalone stories with good art and a little bit of inventive. I have already talked about it some weeks ago here:
http://community.comicbookresources....an-Alien/page8

Now, here I have to disagree with you. Whether the story approves of it or not, what is Dark Knight Returns if not an argument that Batman as a concept doesn't work in the world as it stands at the time of writing? A grandiose, unstoppable, uncompromising man-mountain that recruits children into his war and ends up effectively executed by the government, he's envisioned and shown as an artifact of the past that just doesn't fit anymore, and the aftermath of that, starting with Year One, was redefining him so that he could. Miracleman similarly took the idea of the super-man to its own ending, with a perfected over-being and his pantheon gazing wistfully over a saved Earth that he's unwittingly frozen in amber, but that was in turn matched by the likes of Samaritan and the Superman of All-Star and Secret Identity, which worked towards justifying the conceit in light of that. The problem is, those weren't main Superman titles.

I don't think we can especially continue this - not the right thread - but this reminds me, I'd really recommend you check out Al Ewing's novel Gods of Manhattan. It's the second part of a trilogy - preceded by El Sombra and finished with Pax Omega, at set in a larger pulp/steampunk universe established by another writer - but it stands well on its own (though I'd absolutely recommend the other two chapters as well), and stars a reworking of the Superman/Doc Savage concept that I think you'd particularly enjoy, as it very precisely and interestingly defines his environment, cast, goals, capabilities, motivations and rationale for his actions in a way that's emotionally effective, well-thought through and doesn't render the archetype unrecognizable. It's not 1:1 How Superman Should Work, but I think you'd agree it's a fine template.

[Myskin]

Now, here I have to disagree with you. Whether the story approves of it or not, what is Dark Knight Returns if not an argument that Batman as a concept doesn't work in the world as it stands at the time of writing? A grandiose, unstoppable, uncompromising man-mountain that recruits children into his war and ends up effectively executed by the government, he's envisioned and shown as an artifact of the past that just doesn't fit anymore, and the aftermath of that, starting with Year One, was redefining him so that he could. Miracleman similarly took the idea of the super-man to its own ending, with a perfected over-being and his pantheon gazing wistfully over a saved Earth that he's unwittingly frozen in amber, but that was in turn matched by the likes of Samaritan and the Superman of All-Star and Secret Identity, which worked towards justifying the conceit in light of that. The problem is, those weren't main Superman titles.
.

Well, that last line may seem a detail, but IMHO it isn't. The feature of those characters (I mean Miracleman, Doc Manhattan, etc.) weren't included in Superman titles. When those stories were written, could they have been Superman titles? Maybe, or maybe not. We'll never know for sure. What we know for sure is that DKR was a Batman story, and it basically made Batman immortal, or at least paved the way for Batman to become immortal.

We can argue about a meta-commentary in DKR - the whole "Batman as a dated concept which doesn't work in modern world and therefore he needs a restructuring". I wouldn't be so sure, because in Miller's story old Bruce Wayne (even before becoming Batman again) is an incredibly rich and interesting character. He is regretful, sorrowful, and full of inner demons (in a non-commentary way, if this makes somehow sense), and the level of writing is basically novel-like. However, DKR made it 100% clear that Batman, as a character, can support countless narrative approaches. He can be old, he can be a psycho, a knight, a hero, a fascist, and he will always be Batman.

When we talk about Miracleman, we talk about superhero archetypes, but the subject is so large that it can include countless stories and characters - for example, I never thought that Miracleman was some kind of Superman allegory, but rather a Captain Marvel one (once again, of course, Captain Marvel is a superhero archetype, but thus the link to Superman is becoming more and more blurred). What I mean is that IMHO some of the most interesting examples - Miracleman once again, but also Doctor Manhattan, are derivative works based on Superman in the same way that Superman is a derivative work based on Doc Savage+Gladiator+John Carter. They are not intrinsecally tied, but even if they were, this wouldn't necessarily imply that since we have a very good Miracleman story, we could still have good Superman stories. It could simply mean that Superman was a step in a narrative line which gave us Miracleman, exactly as Gladiator was just a step in a path which resulted in Superman.

What I mean is... All of this reasoning can make sense from a philological/culturological point of view, but concretely speaking we have some extremely good stories about Miracleman and Doc Manhattan and so on, and very few stories about Superman. That's the point. And yes, we have excellent works like All-Star, Secret Identity, American Alien (the fact that they are not in-continuity isn't really influential IMHO). But they are very, very few. While, on the other hand, we have dozens of excellent Batman stories. Supes simply missed the train when he should have taken it.

[Myskin]

By the way... Just to clarify: I never doubted, for a single moment, that there exist excellent ideas to relaunch Superman - I suppose that in one of Chris Roberson's drawers there is a document with the most extraordinary Superman story every - but it's all hypothetical. Am I the only one who noticed that whenever we say something positive about Superman it's always about his potential, not about the reality of his stories? We all have in mind what Superman could be, not what he is.

[C_Miller]

I didn't realize that Chris Roberson, Nick Spencer and Paul Cornell were all on Superman books at the same time. That's an insane lineup of talent.

But from what I can tell, it doesn't seem like the Superman editors are all that interested in fostering unhinged creativity from their writers. If that were the case we wouldn't have had 4 crossovers in a row. Doomed into Truth into Savage Dawn into that one that Peter Tomasi is doing in his takeover. They let amazing writers like Pak, Yang and Soule just do the write by numbers crossover.

Peter Tomasi's hiring as the new Superman writer doesn't example inspire a lot of faith either. He's a great workhorse, but if there's looking for a new guy to be the main Superman writer, they should be looking for someone who's shown to be able to juggle high concept science fiction with empathetic character work. In fairness, Tomasi did well on GLC, but let's not pretend that he was the one completely calling the shots there. Tomasi I think would work well under a strong editorial control, but unfortunately the Superman office seems to kind of be a mess.

[Tayswift]

They were all burned pretty badly, but later. Spencer, Cornell and Roberson were all doing work for DC into 2012.

everyoen needs money haha. Cornell fullfilled his exclusive contract and abandoned his demon knights run (one of my fave new52 books), spencer went exclusive with marvel and said bad things about new52 and Roberson also not in good terms with DC

[LifeIsILL]

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I really like the way Geoff Johns writes Superman. In his little run in Superman and Justice League, he writes him pretty straight-forward, doesn't try too hard, and just brings out interesting stories.

[HsssH]

I'll chip in with two minor points:

1) I don't think that making a distinction between "weird" and the rest is good one. If we wanted we could make All Star Superman sound bland and ordinary too so this distinction feels a bit arbitrary to me.

2) Its true that Superman has many not-Superman stories written by various authors for various publishers. But because they were done by small publishers they don't have such effect as DC publishing DKR. Everyone who somewhat follows Batman knows about DKR, how many Superman fans are aware of Plutonian or Samaritan? Miracleman was in the limbo for years before finally being reprinted and looking at numbers it doesn't look like that many people are interested in it either.

[Bruce Wayne]

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I really like the way Geoff Johns writes Superman. In his little run in Superman and Justice League, he writes him pretty straight-forward, doesn't try too hard, and just brings out interesting stories.

Because Geoff Johns (and also Max Landis) didn't have the current Superman editorial breathing down their necks (since Johns was only there apparently as a favor to Berganza). Pak and Yang do and it comes with all worst baggage like the editorially enforced crossovers.

The total inability of DC to put a popular writer on Superman and keep him there for a long run just baffles me. It's almost as if they don't give a monkeys.

Isn't it obvious? Most of these people (other than Morrison) were forced off the book for some new flavor of the week. Rucka was forced off due to the creator changes we saw with OYL. Johns and Busiek left because of Robinson taking over the books. Morrison got tired of monthlies. Perez left because editorial wouldn't stop screwing with him. Giffen/Jurgens were a stop gap.