Bringing back Golden Age Superman

[L.R Johansson]

Yeah.

I want him back. Seriously, if we can have Superdad back, then I don't see why we can't have Superman back as well.

There are still unmapped worlds in the Multiverse I believe... and then there's the hint of an infinitude of worlds that exist outside the orrery as well, as implicated in Multiversity.


I know what you're gonna' say tho'... "But L.R...! Geoff Johns killed him off but good! Bludgeoned him to death as a comment on the facetiousness and callousness of online fans!"

It doesn't matter... He's Superman - we've seen versions of him beating death and returning before - he can do it again. It's superhero comics - they always trump the odds eventually, and Superman is the embodiment of that theme, of the very idea.


If I were to do it... I'd use Hypertime, AND the Flashpoint-event - in that moment, when time and space became maleable again, Superman Prime (of DC One Million) reached back in time, or rather, an ASPECT of Superman Prime did - the one that is composed of the Golden Age Superman - Kal-L - and changed it - making his past, original aspect, aware of the change in the Multiverse coming, and letting him split himself and Lois off, creating Hypertime-ghosts, that then preceded to exit into normal space, and the Infinite Crisis!

And subsequently dying...

But two aspects lived on, in Limbo - Superman Kal-L Clark Kent and Lois Lane-Kent.

And now... the time has come, to shatter the walls between the continuums again, to rebuild his entire world, to reforge the Justice Society of America, for the Champion of the Oppressed to rise again! To save the very soul of superhero fandom - perhaps even one, single tarnished soul - a young boy that embodies those problems...?

THIS, LOOKS LIKE A JOB FOR... SUPERMAN!

[Ascended]

And now... the time has come, to shatter the walls between the continuums again, to rebuild his entire world, to reforge the Justice Society of America, for the Champion of the Oppressed to rise again! To save the very soul of superhero fandom - perhaps even one, single tarnished soul - a young boy that embodies those problems...?

THIS, LOOKS LIKE A JOB FOR... SUPERMAN!

SOLD.

Though if it were me, I wouldn't say its the *actual* original Superman. I feel like that guy had his time, and bringing him back is sort of disrespectful, like drafting an old soldier into a new war. I dont think I'd want to see it. Yeah, I know Johns did it in 06, and I thought it was disrespectful then too (despite the admitted "cool" factor), even if I did like the way he twisted Superboy Prime. Perhaps if Kal-L hadnt been treated like a pawn and killed off so poorly, I might have accepted it. But still, that man's story is done and he deserves peace. Or rather, he deserves better than being handled by modern day DC. Again.

I'd just like to introduce an older Superman who just happens to have an almost identical history and personality. That way we dont taint the original legend any more than has already been done. Maybe call him Kal-LL, just out of respect.

And I'd make it a huge thing. Kal-L, the one and only, back in action and ready to fix the crap out of the world. He's not as young as he used to be and he's out of patience; so as a young kryptonian in a t-shirt once said, "Treat people right, Metropolis, or expect a visit from me!"

Old man Superman; he's a little gruff and tired of your s**t, but he's still like the coolest grandfather you could ask for.

[JBatmanFan05]

I want Golden Age Superman comics again, and no, I don't mean E-2 Superman like Johns wrote.

DC needs a super pulpy old fashioned pulp comic/line.

DC just does not get that some Superman fans are especially old school nostalgia classic lovers turned off some by modern takes on Superman and others.

[Sacred Knight]

DC is not in the business of giving options. You take the crap they dish out. Until you remove your plate, at least.

[victorsage]

Well they did bring him back as you shown... then they had him get beaten to death by a copy of himself, that he basically treated like a sidekick. Then he was brought back again as a zombie, and his adopted daughter/cousin Powergirl killed him. I don't think they are going to bring them back again.

He's gone out with his boots on a few times now. I'd rather just have stories told in that style with him, Lois, Jimmy, Perry, and the rest of the classic cast.

I'm still in the camp though that believes they are going to do the "Kal-L/Kal-El" dynamic with Post Crisis Superman and 52 Superman, was Post Crisis taking Kal-L's position. Which makes sense, since he is not only the modern day "Mr. and Mrs. Superman" with his Lois, but he was also Kal-L's last ally when he was alive.

[dogwelder]

I wish DC would bring back the Superman Chronicles and Archives so I can continue to enjoy that magical era of comics.

[Ishmael]

I wish DC would bring back the Superman Chronicles and Archives so I can continue to enjoy that magical era of comics.

This. I really wish the archives would continue.

[Kuwagaton]

DC is not in the business of giving options. You take the crap they dish out. Until you remove your plate, at least.

Kenji, Woman, Girl, and Boy.

Not that I wouldn't want to see the Superman family version of Kal L, but he's redundant by comparison.

[DieHard200904]

I wish DC would bring back the Superman Chronicles and Archives so I can continue to enjoy that magical era of comics.

Yeah, didn't go as far as Batman Chronicles, but the line which sells more gets more in Chronicles, sadly enough.

[dogwelder]

There is gonna be a 12 year gap of Superman stories I will never get to read.......except a few reprints in some of DC's 100 and 80 page reprints from the 70's.

[Jim Kelly]

In the early days of reprints like the Giants, DC couldn't reprint anything much earlier than 1954, because they didn't have the plates. And then when they developed a technique to produce reprints for older work, they mainly focused on the wartime Superman stories. So there's always been this gap of about seven years where very little has ever been reprinted. We get a few more new reprints from that time, every so often. But mostly DC keeps reprinting the same stuff from between 1938 - 46 and 1954 - 1965--as far as pre-Crisis Superman goes.

I don't think DC can bring back the Kal-L that existed in the old multiverse. The one who was on Earth-Two. Too much water under the bridge.

That wasn't really the original Superman--it was a compromise of different bits of continuity to create an Earth-Two Superman. While I have great affection for that character, I'd just as soon they revived the original Superman--warts and all.

[Steven Ely]

I want Golden Age Superman comics again, and no, I don't mean E-2 Superman like Johns wrote.

DC needs a super pulpy old fashioned pulp comic/line.

DC just does not get that some Superman fans are especially old school nostalgia classic lovers turned off some by modern takes on Superman and others.

Totally, as long as it's written in the Jerry Siegel style, like the Fleischer cartoons, with the Joe Shuster, Paul Cassidy, John Sikela and Wayne Boring art style. Pete Poplaski, Steve Rude and Darwyn Cooke could capture that today.

Murray Bishoff: "Do you think that the way Superman comic books are today (1975), supposedly so much more sophisticated than they were in the old days, that your vision of Superman would be the proper one to go back to if you had some control?"

Jerry Siegel: "Well, if I had any say-so I should hope, I don't see why there couldn't be some editions of Superman that could follow that format. I don't think it would be harmful, it might even be helpful. They might find out the character and there might be millions of people out there who would like a simpler, direct, but very powerful version of Superman."

Murray Bishoff "You actually never had Superman being totally invulnerable."

Jerry Siegel: "No, no."

Murray Bishoff: "The robots could actually beat him down — they didn’t fall apart as soon as he walked into the room. You’d prefer a more human Superman."

Jerry Siegel: "Well, yes, yes, and from the very beginning Superman himself had pretty much a sense of humor about the whole thing. One of the reasons why I gave him that attitude was because the whole concept in itself was such a wild, wild, wild thing, I think, I felt the only thing that would breathe any real life and believability into it was if Superman himself didn’t take the whole thing that seriously."

Joanne Siegel: "He had a sense of humor."

Jerry Siegel: "Except that he was very serious about helping people in trouble and distress, because that’s the way I felt."

Joanne Siegel: "He kidded himself, but he took crime and injustice seriously."

Jerry Siegel: "Now, it has been said that Captain Marvel had a great deal of humor in it and that Superman was absolutely humorless, but that just is not true. If you look back at the early stuff, you’ll find that Superman was kidding around quite a bit when he was tearing tanks apart and kicking airplane squadrons here and there and everywhere, and so there was a spirit of fun in the thing. And as a matter of fact, Joe and I, when we first started going into comics, we had intended to do a comedy strip, so we were very comedy-oriented and that’s why Superman did have this sort of comedy flair to it."
http://www.comicconmemories.com/2009...en-to-it-here/

DC is not in the business of giving options. You take the crap they dish out. Until you remove your plate, at least.

I removed my plate. The last Superman book I got was published by IDW in 2013. And that cover art is by Pete Poplaski.

IMG_0004gghjggjhj.jpg

[L.R Johansson]

SOLD.

Though if it were me, I wouldn't say its the *actual* original Superman. I feel like that guy had his time, and bringing him back is sort of disrespectful, like drafting an old soldier into a new war. I dont think I'd want to see it. Yeah, I know Johns did it in 06, and I thought it was disrespectful then too (despite the admitted "cool" factor), even if I did like the way he twisted Superboy Prime. Perhaps if Kal-L hadnt been treated like a pawn and killed off so poorly, I might have accepted it. But still, that man's story is done and he deserves peace. Or rather, he deserves better than being handled by modern day DC. Again.

I'd just like to introduce an older Superman who just happens to have an almost identical history and personality. That way we dont taint the original legend any more than has already been done. Maybe call him Kal-LL, just out of respect.

And I'd make it a huge thing. Kal-L, the one and only, back in action and ready to fix the crap out of the world. He's not as young as he used to be and he's out of patience; so as a young kryptonian in a t-shirt once said, "Treat people right, Metropolis, or expect a visit from me!"

Old man Superman; he's a little gruff and tired of your s**t, but he's still like the coolest grandfather you could ask for.

Sure, it doesn't necessarily have to be EXACTLY Earth-2 Superman, I suppose, but it would be cool to have that old, grizzled 1940's Superman back - I'm certainly open towards doing a new, sort-of amalgamated version - that takes into account as many different Golden Age depictions as possible, to create a new kind of "classic" Superman.

Still... it'd be cool to see him cheat death, one more time... But yeah, I can kind of see how he should be allowed to rest as well - it's just that I suppose I feel that it's WRONG the way he was taken out... bringing him back to get manipulated and bludgeoned... that just irks me.

Had he been allowed to remain in paradise, like the ending of Crisis on Infinite Earth's intended, I would agree more with ya'.


Actually, you know what? The Superman introduced by Joe Keatinge in Adventures of Superman - the one that starts out in 1938, and then changes the entire world - until he's finally reborn as a... well, a variation of Superman Prime, and then heralds into a new UNIVERSE - that Superman, perhaps with a few tweaks to toughen him up a bit (I didn't like some of the Post-Crisis tendencies he had...) would be an awesome Superman to use.

What do you say? Relaunch of Adventures of Superman, set on Earth-22?

So many cool characters to use...

Classic Metallo (reporter, murderer, moustache and all)
Alexei Luthor
Ultra-Humanite

You could even introduce newer Superman-villains, but tweaked into Golden Age variations! : D Like, how the heck would Doomsday work, if he was created back in 1943?

[JBatmanFan05]

Totally, as long as it's written in the Jerry Siegel style, like the Fleischer cartoons, with the Joe Shuster, Paul Cassidy, John Sikela and Wayne Boring art style. Pete Poplaski, Steve Rude and Darwyn Cooke could capture that today.

Exactly. I'd get Matt Wagner in on this too probably. I always say that the Fleischer cartoons are the purest distillation of Superman (this peak of Golden Age Superman after his raw evolution in the comics).

[L.R Johansson]

Exactly. I'd get Matt Wagner in on this too probably. I always say that the Fleischer cartoons are the purest distillation of Superman (this peak of Golden Age Superman after his raw evolution in the comics).

Oh yeah, definitely. For reference, here's some of those artists take on Superman:

Steve Rude


Darwyn Cooke


And I'm gonna' throw in my OWN personal pick:

Chris Samnee. = )


Anybody that's read his Captain America knows that he's good for this time-period, he's got that style down PAT! And I rather like how he can be a bit gritty at times too, even though it's got that cartoony feel.

http://36.media.tumblr.com/2aa5b58cb...17po1_1280.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nHLhozn1zs...0/cappunch.jpg