Controversial Superman Opinions

[mathew101281]

Um no they aren't. That isn't how they were created.

The Fourth world made its first appearance in a Superman spin off title starring Jimmy Olsen, Metropolis was and continues to be a major location in the New Gods franchise, being the home of Intergang and the main earth location in many early and modern fourth world stories. The New Gods have more interactions with Superman then any other major DC character.

[Carabas]

The Fourth world made its first appearance in a Superman spin off title starring Jimmy Olsen, Metropolis was and continues to be a major location in the New Gods franchise, being the home of Intergang and the main earth location in many early and modern fourth world stories. The New Gods have more interactions with Superman then any other major DC character.

The New Gods predate Kirby even moving to DC. They weren't created to be put in Superman's universe. They were created to be their own thing. he originally had planned to do them at Marvel.
They first showed up in Jimmy Olsen because Kirby asked to be put on DC's lowest selling book.

[SiegePerilous02]

Yeah, I don't really consider the Fourth World to be part of Superman mythos. I don't think the two properties need to be "married."

Bruce Timm brought the Fourth World into S:TAS because he felt like the Superman mythos didn't have enough to it to carry a show. I think he was wrong, and we've been kind of paying for it ever since with the perception that Darkseid and co. are now part of Superman's world.

[Johnny Thunders!]

Superman in Supertown is a pretty intentional placement of the New Gods in Superman’s universe.

[Johnny Thunders!]

I mean Don Rickles is a part of the New Gods universe so yeah Superman fits.

[Jim Kelly]

Had Jack Kirby stayed at Marvel and been allowed to do his Fourth World idea there, then it would have spun off from THOR. That would mean that the New Gods would be in the same universe as Spider-Man, Ka-Zar, the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer, the Inhumans, Morbius the Living Vampire, Howard the Duck, Wolverine and Alpha Flight. And Darkseid would have been available to use in all the comics those characters appear in.

I don't see where's the fire. As a result of Kirby coming to DC, that universe got the Fourth World and it co-exists with Jimmy Olsen, the Demon, Batman, Superman, Swamp Thing, the Doom Patrol, Deadman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, the Green Lantern Corps, the Teen Titans, the Phantom Stranger, Man-Bat, Green Arrow, Kobra and Ricard Dragon Kung-Fu Fighter. If Orion and Lightray interact with any of those characters, it's totally legit.

[Johnny Thunders!]

I would argue that Superman in Supertown introduces ideas about Superman that resonate with greater meaning today than any Darkseid Superman story. I think people just don’t like the idea that Darkseid has some sort of singular polar conflict with Superman. It’s true, Orion and Highfather seem redundant if Superman’s around. I guess it’s like Loki being the Silver Surfers nemesis. (Though Galactus origin was first told in Thor so who knows.)

[Carabas]

I don't see where's the fire. As a result of Kirby coming to DC, that universe got the Fourth World and it co-exists with Jimmy Olsen, the Demon, Batman, Superman, Swamp Thing, the Doom Patrol, Deadman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, the Green Lantern Corps, the Teen Titans, the Phantom Stranger, Man-Bat, Green Arrow, Kobra and Ricard Dragon Kung-Fu Fighter. If Orion and Lightray interact with any of those characters, it's totally legit.

The fire is that a section of fandom has gotten it into their heads that the New Gods are not DCU characters but Superman characters, and that Darkseid is linked as closely to Superman as Ra's Al Ghûl is to Batman.

[Jim Kelly]

Superman is a DCU character, so if the New Gods appear in his comic, that's the deal with a shared universe. The same goes for Ra's al Ghul. Batman fans might cry about it, but it's legit for Ra's to square off against Deadman, Richard Dragon, Green Arrow or Wonder Woman.

I get why it bugs people. It bugs me sometimes when Superman's characters get taken away from him and given to other franchises. But that's how the shared universe works. And sometimes canned cconcepts have to go looking for any safe harbour they can find. So when the Fourth World titles got cancelled they had to survive by finding other titles to host them. The same goes for Green Arrow, Deadman, Adam Strange, Elongated Man, the Legion of Super-Heroes, the Demon, Captain Atom, Martian Manhunter, the Creeper or Aquaman. Beggars can't be choosers.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened to Batman if Julius Schwartz hadn't come along and reinvigorated the character when he did. Batman was increasingly falling into Superman's sphere, to the point where he was arguably as much a subordinate concept in the Superman franchise as the Legion of Super-Heroes or the Bizarro World. Had the Caped Crusader hung on by occupying the Superman titles, that would have been fair. You do what you have to to survive.

[daBronzeBomma]

The fire is that a section of fandom has gotten it into their heads that the New Gods are not DCU characters but Superman characters, and that Darkseid is linked as closely to Superman as Ra's Al Ghûl is to Batman.

Not just in their heads. Actively nurtured by DC/WB for the last 20 years:







Animation, comic books, merchandise, etc: DC is quite solidly feeding the Superman v Darkseid rivalry.

[Agniwolf]

Not just in their heads. Actively nurtured by DC/WB for the last 20 years:







Animation, comic books, merchandise, etc: DC is quite solidly feeding the Superman v Darkseid rivalry.

that armor is really cool

[Kuwagaton]

The most well regarded stories aside from DoS are outside of the main continuity, like Red Son or All-Star. Post-Crisis Lex had his moments, but as a whole seems so much less of an engaging character than his Silver/Bronze age counterpart.

The most well regarded stories are merely the most convenient. Self contained and often reprinted. For the whole silver age, about twenty years, you often see people mention the same five stories or so, a few being imaginary and thus not quite contributions to the long term mythos. But they're easy, so they're there. Marvel fans can recall entire decades of progressive stories. Batman doesn't even quite have that, but he has about as much sheer material as Superman so it works well with his inherent popularity.

Death of Superman is pretty average but extremely well read. Same with a lot of them. People circle to it because it's easier than finding stuff that require seeking.

Yeah, I don't really consider the Fourth World to be part of Superman mythos. I don't think the two properties need to be "married."

Bruce Timm brought the Fourth World into S:TAS because he felt like the Superman mythos didn't have enough to it to carry a show. I think he was wrong, and we've been kind of paying for it ever since with the perception that Darkseid and co. are now part of Superman's world.

Fourth World never stopped being part of Superman, so it wasn't on Dini. Cadmus, Newboys, Wild Area, Morgan Edge, Turpin, etc.

[Adekis]

Not just in their heads. Actively nurtured by DC/WB for the last 20 years:

Animation, comic books, merchandise, etc: DC is quite solidly feeding the Superman v Darkseid rivalry.

I agree, I just don't always think it should be that way. I'm a much bigger fan of making Darkseid Orion's nemesis exclusively, and making Superman's nemesis Brainiac. Of course, it's not gonna be that way, Darkseid has name recognition and Orion, frankly, doesn't, and most of Darkseid's name recognition comes from his fights with Superman. Still, the Kirby purist in me maintains that only Orion can defeat Darkseid.

Maybe there's some kind of Sisyphusian beauty to Superman's repeated attempts to kill Darkseid if only Orion can actually do it, but that's never been played up. Not to mention that all the stories where Kal-El does kill Darkseid don't help.

[Stardust]

Um, I never stated it was his fault. I blamed the writers.

But the writers aren't at fault either if people don't buy the books of D-List characters in large enough quantities to meet the expenses for publishing the comic in the first place. Unless they wrote a shitty story.
The only writers you can blame are those whose name is big enough to be able to launch new series, they could take on marginalized characters and push them to the front line again.

Yes. It isn’t like the League shows up every time there’s rampage in a Superman story. Why was the League needed in this story if Superman could apparently handle it on his own?

Because in the first story Doomsday showed up he couldn't handle it on his own, he more or less died. Unless you are mixing and matching your argument with subsequent appearances of Doomsday again. Those shouldn't have happened at all.

They could have handled a Hulk expy with less intelligence.

Now you are mixing in and out of continuity knowledge.
I don't think Doomsday is a good villain, and I don't think they should have reused him, but they didn't want to make him only a Hulk expy. They wanted to make him a force of nature that couldn't be reasoned with, and that idea isn't that bad in itself.
I think they failed in protraying the needed destruction to get this point across, but in the end at the beginning of the 90s they didn't have a long list of desaster movies, to take cues from to make it look "realistic". Because they failed in this he is only seen as a Hulk-expy, and in subsequent appearances they never undid that first mistake and instead made him more of a joke.
But saying a new character is able to beat so and so, isn't the problem per se, it's the implementation that is important.

Um, they do? Why?


Eh, they don’t have to make a character the most powerful or at the very least leave it ambiguous as to who it is.

Because it is only human to be intersted in "who is the most powerful" If you leave it open, you get a lot of stories which are only contests in "my character is more powerful than your character", and to me that's a way to lower the quality of stories as a whole.
I don't care whether Superman is the most powerful, but I do care about the "Worf-Effect", if you want to look up TV-Tropes, when Superman is perceived as the most powerful, but only gets used to prop up every new character they want to show as "more powerful than Superman".

Again, they ramped up his power level almost immediately. He still plays second fiddle to Batman at best (though that’s better than what most have)

I know that you say that you don't blame the character, but you still seem resentful towards Superman in this sentence, that he has it better than most.

[SiegePerilous02]

Because it is only human to be intersted in "who is the most powerful" If you leave it open, you get a lot of stories which are only contests in "my character is more powerful than your character", and to me that's a way to lower the quality of stories as a whole.
I don't care whether Superman is the most powerful, but I do care about the "Worf-Effect", if you want to look up TV-Tropes, when Superman is perceived as the most powerful, but only gets used to prop up every new character they want to show as "more powerful than Superman".

And there was also long stretches of history where Superman was the most powerful all around, and the world continued to turn. It didn't negatively impact the stories of other characters in any way. Then again, there were less company wide crossovers then, but maybe we should tone down on those instead of nerfing Superman so everyone else gets a fair shot of saving the day before the are inevitably upstaged by Batman?

Speaking of the Worf-Effect, Superman is even the page image. That just about says it all, and his treatment in the first season of JL is prominently mentioned. I remember when that was first airing, other kids I knew were always like "I thought Superman was the best, but all he does is get beaten up. He sucks."