Originally Posted by
DochaDocha
I'm going to use an analogy that I'm going to regret somewhere down the line, but here goes.
Superman mythos should be like the Garden of Eden. There are so many good ideas you can pull from. If the Man Upstairs says you can do whatever you want except such and such, then instead of complaining about that one apple tree you can't eat from, even if they're by far the tastiest looking apples you could imagine and you like apples more than anything in this world, then make do with the pear tree, the peach tree, the strawberry bushes, etc.
Years ago when the DCAU was still running, there was the famous Bat-embargo, where everything Batman-related other than Batman and a few of his vehicles and gadgets were completely off limits to Justice League Unlimited. This pissed off a lot of fans, but the creators worked around it, and did good stuff. I think there were times when the Superman writers were able to do good stuff between 2012-2016 despite that one restriction on them. I know I liked the Pak run, and so did various others on this board. Johns took the reins for a year and tried to do his own thing, etc. Specific to Pak, he made Lana more interesting in the books than she was in years. It's just too bad they never told us what she did for a living.
And really, just because Superman was dating a Justice Leaguer all of the sudden meant there couldn't be stories where he hung out with Jimmy? Or start a blog with Cat Grant? Hell, everyone knows the character who got affected the most was Lois, and did that stop Scott Snyder from doing "Unchained"? Did that stop Gene Luen Yang from writing Superman and Lois' adventures and bonding in his book?
There were a lot of missed opportunities in New 52 and ideas that might've sprung up but had poor follow-through. I think the idea that the SM/WW relationship killed creativity on what to do with all the other gazillion things they could've done just seems overly harsh. If you want to say it was bad idea from the get-go, I can't argue with that, but of the bad stories that we got during New 52, the fault mostly lies on writers and editors, and not one aspect of the New 52 Superman timeline.
Just to clarify, I'm not saying Lois was the forbidden fruit (but the best tasting doughnut is the forbidden doughnut!) that should be avoided or whatever, I'm just saying if writers were really hung up on that relationship (which I would argue they weren't, especially Pak), that's not enough of a stumbling block for me to feel like they couldn't produce quality stories.