Controversial Superman Opinions

[Kuwagaton]

Lol. I felt really weird about For Tomorrow at the time. As a massive Jim Lee fan I also don't think it's his best character. But just the same I will continue to own every piece of Superman art that he does and in a somewhat comical reading I've come around to liking Azzarello's take. I think All Star Superman and For Tomorrow should have switched names.

Agent Z dislikes Morrison/All-Star so he doesn’t agree with the consensus

I think Morrison's overrated in the sense that they couldn't offer enough Superman in a given story for me to say "THE best" although I'm pretty sure I give each storyline a solid 8.5 consistently

[The Frog Bros]

Lol. I felt really weird about For Tomorrow at the time. As a massive Jim Lee fan I also don't think it's his best character. But just the same I will continue to own every piece of Superman art that he does and in a somewhat comical reading I've come around to liking Azzarello's take. I think All Star Superman and For Tomorrow should have switched names.



I think Morrison's overrated in the sense that they couldn't offer enough Superman in a given story for me to say "THE best" although I'm pretty sure I give each storyline a solid 8.5 consistently

I don’t care for Jim Lee’s Superman, feel like he’s not ideal for his art style. I feel like even his cover for AC #1000 just feels a bit generic, imo.

[Agent Z]

Agent Z dislikes Morrison/All-Star so he doesn’t agree with the consensus

When did I say I disliked All-Star Superman? Or Morrison in general?

[marhawkman]

Let's not pretend everything from pre-crisis was so great.

DC has yet to make the world in DC comics as great as it was pre-CoIE. CoIE permanently damaged the brand, and they've written a lot of good stuff since then, but the overall scale of the universe just... hasn't grown to be what it was before. Sure, it wasn't all good. But... there was a lot of amazing stuff.

[Agent Z]

None of them from Post-Crisis that's for certain. Whole reason this franchise in near constant disarray is because the Post-Crisis writers never really came to understand who or what Superman is.

A lot of pre-crisis writers didn't understand him either.

It's that exact lack of humility that is the source of this franchises woes. Pre-Crisis Superman followed a setup that made him into one of the greatest fictional heroes in print. Man put fifteen years into Superman, I'd take his word over any Post-Crisis writer.

You'd take the word of a fictional character over real life people?

Never said they were. It's just better than the bland wasteland of the last couple decades.

I can name a lot more

Like don't you think it's strange that the generally agreed upon greatest modern Superman story is All-Star Superman if Post-Crisis Superman. Or that something like One Piece is the biggest comic book since the Original Superman despite it having a nature and tone very at odds to what Byrne advocated when he was "fixing" Superman. One Piece arguably is a lot closer to Silver Age Superman stuff than Byrne's muted and grounded affair.

I think it's strange to act as if Silver Age Superman isn't himself a massive departure from what Superman originally was.

Also, Post-Crisis Superman does not end with Byrne.

[Kuwagaton]

DC has yet to make the world in DC comics as great as it was pre-CoIE. CoIE permanently damaged the brand, and they've written a lot of good stuff since then, but the overall scale of the universe just... hasn't grown to be what it was before. Sure, it wasn't all good. But... there was a lot of amazing stuff.

The grass is always greener. By 1984 Superman had almost fallen out of the top 100 for sales. We're talking about years that produced Sword of Superman, the Alan Moore stories, #400, etc.

I think the goodness of that boils down to creative direction personally. I'll take Bates even today over Williamson, but Williamson doesn't have to do a great story despite an outdated status quo.

I don’t care for Jim Lee’s Superman, feel like he’s not ideal for his art style. I feel like even his cover for AC #1000 just feels a bit generic, imo.

Haha well that's like the weakest part of his weakest part. Despite some legendary covers Jim Lee has never been all that great with making them dynamic and that particular cover seems like an afterthought.

On a Lee art tangent: I never thought his team with Williams and Sinclair was impressive outside of the demonstrated loyalty. Some of For Tomorrow looked too rough for a story basically created as a 12 issue art showcase.

[Vordan]

When did I say I disliked All-Star Superman? Or Morrison in general?

You complain all the time about people holding them up as the gold standard which I suppose is not quite the same as disliking them, but you definitely don’t rate them as the end all/be all that some do.

[marhawkman]

The grass is always greener. By 1984 Superman had almost fallen out of the top 100 for sales. We're talking about years that produced Sword of Superman, the Alan Moore stories, #400, etc.

I think the goodness of that boils down to creative direction personally. I'll take Bates even today over Williamson, but Williamson doesn't have to do a great story despite an outdated status quo.

The why in the "grass is greener" thing is the key part though.

[amerigo178]

Why must it always be PA who dies? Why can’t it be MA for a change?

[SiegePerilous02]

The pre-Crisis era was not immune from having duds or just average stories that aren't super amazing, but I'd say there was a stronger and more cohesive mythos and sense of history, especially when you add in the Legion. If you read the early Silver Age comics up through the Bronze age right up until COIE, it feels more coherent than the character has been since. It's not as if the entire post-Crisis era is void of quality, it obviously saved the character at the time and kept him afloat, but I think people are guilty of viewing it through rose tinted glasses as much as the pre-Crisis fans are with their era. In either era, you aren't getting high quality elevated literature. It comes down to which pulpy fictional mythos you prefer, and to me and some others the Silver/Bronze age is just more appealing than what came after. Even if we more or less got everything canon now, the road to get here was a cluster.

[Stanlos]

I have to concur with Seige on at least one point here. There were DEFINITELY some duds Pre-Crisis. And starting with 1981 cover dates it really became touch and go there. It was like they were throwing any and everything at the wall unfortunately.

[Agent Z]

You complain all the time about people holding them up as the gold standard which I suppose is not quite the same as disliking them, but you definitely don’t rate them as the end all/be all that some do.

When I've criticized Morrison, it's been their non-Superman work. And even then, I've never claimed the entirety of their non-Superman stuff is bad.

As for All-Star, I like it just fine. I don't think it's without flaws like any other story, I just don't think it's the only good Superman story we've gotten in past decades nor do I feel the need to use it when talking about Superman stories I don't like, unlike far too many Superman fans.

[superduperman]

My controversial opinion is that there was no way to save the pre-Crisis Superman without starting a good decade before COIE and throw out the entire editorial staff and ignore most of his SA mythos. Hope you're not too attached to superbaby or Krypto!

[Kuwagaton]

you aren't getting high quality elevated literature. It comes down to which pulpy fictional mythos you prefer, and to me and some others the Silver/Bronze age is just more appealing than what came after. Even if we more or less got everything canon now, the road to get here was a cluster.

It was never supposed to be "high quality elevated literature" and I think there's a huge problem with thinking somehow it's supposed to be. Like that was never what Siegel or Shuster set themselves up to believe and the genre/medium hasn't really supported that intentionally.

To that end I think even the most remarkable stories are overstated. IMO at least the most intelligent writing in its time, in the genre, was Claremont on X-Men... which was also completely ridiculous and hyper fixated on convoluted expressions of the creators' personal hangups, while editorial diced its long term narrative plot point by nixed plot point.

I have to concur with Seige on at least one point here. There were DEFINITELY some duds Pre-Crisis. And starting with 1981 cover dates it really became touch and go there. It was like they were throwing any and everything at the wall unfortunately.

I don't blame Pasko but I feel like by his time, late 70s early 80s, a lot of it had grown a little stale. The monster of the week had gone from being the Bates "Scooby Doo with aliens" to something like the generic Marvel monsters and so on.

When I've criticized Morrison, it's been their non-Superman work. And even then, I've never claimed the entirety of their non-Superman stuff is bad.

As for All-Star, I like it just fine. I don't think it's without flaws like any other story, I just don't think it's the only good Superman story we've gotten in past decades nor do I feel the need to use it when talking about Superman stories I don't like, unlike far too many Superman fans.

I'm sure I've said this too often, but while I do like Morrison's work I just find them grossly overrated. Like I've yet to rate their Superman average or below average but by the time I got to All Star Superman with issue #4 people were already calling it the best and... no. If that was limited to a comparison with the main line sure but I knew it'd end up being exalted beyond that because Morrison wrote it.

[Stanlos]

My controversial opinion is that there was no way to save the pre-Crisis Superman without starting a good decade before COIE and throw out the entire editorial staff and ignore most of his SA mythos. Hope you're not too attached to superbaby or Krypto!

I am not. I do not like superhuman child/pet with normal people. It doesn't have to be Brightburn necessarily, but that is a recipefor disaster. The Legion, IMO, can stand on its own as it has abazillion unique characters