Sounds like a recipe for success, Emery! The road to riches is laid before you...!

With that formula in mind, I begin to perceive a method of saving the JSA and bringing them forward into this new, new, new DCU. Have JSA stand for Juvenile Sentencing Authority and parole hostile, attitudinal, borderline-murderous teens into the care of a government agency run out of Ted Grant's gym.
Ted Jr. a.k.a. "Wildcat" (crazy fighter guy #1) The team leader, is barely older than his charges, but already has seen more of life on the mean, super-powered, black ops streets than these kids can imagine exists...
Jay Garrick a.k.a. "Speed" (crazy fighter guy #2) lives fast and hard, stealing fast, taking down rival gang members fast, and loving their girlfriends fast... A kid who has never had the breaks sure ain't gonna put any on now... 
Al Pratt a.k.a. "Damage" (crazy fighter guy #3) is a short guy... Short tempered, short sighted... The only thing about him that isn't short is his sentence.  But don't sell him short... He'll bite your f'ing kneecap clean off!
Canary (crazy busty fighter chick) She'll sing for her supper, sure, or whatever else it might take... But don't try to cage this bird. She knows what she wants in life, and your seed isn't it.
Lance (archer guy) Son of a beat cop with a thing for Canary. Killed two men with a bow and arrow at the age of six and hasn't put them down since. Don't call him "Larry."
Alan Scott a.k.a. the Ring of Fire, (archer/gun guy) has got a good head for math, could be an engineer, but he found this ring, see, and the green fire it spews burned down his house and killed his family. He hates the damned thing... but it also gives him everything he wants... guns, knives, bigger guns, bigger automatic guns... Don't tell HIM what it costs to get what you want in this life. He knows, brother... He knows...
Spectre (busty ninja assassin chick) is a Mystery. Unbeatable. Unstoppable. So why did she let herself get caught...? She's up to something... God only knows what...
Doctor "F" (busty archer/gun chick) Pure hate and hostility with a talking tramp-stamp tattoo of a helmet and incantation pulling her strings. Go ahead. Do the joke about her talking out her ass. She will "F" you up!

There we go! NOW can the JSA come out and play with everyone else in the new, Stormwatch-Reborn DC Universe??

Oh, sorry. Forgot the bouncy alien hooker with the swords! Thunder Johnny, upbeat boy-prostitute from a dimension of elves with his pink-lightning katana swords, Tammy and Tabitha, would be perfect for this part!

Getting slightly more serious for just a moment.... only slightly...

The heavily derided "triangle" of Lois, Clark, and Superman was a vital component of the Superman concept not solely as a plot element, as Dave would prefer it, but as subtext. It went directly to who these characters were and their relationships with one another. It provided tension and action even in scenes where other matters entirely were being discussed. But Dave tells us that if stories and plots where it's a central issue can't be produced, clearly it was of little importance.

Does it really matter to the story what Clark's income level is? I mean if the story this month is that Clark fights a space alien, does it matter how much he makes? So why not make him a billionaire? He can be a billionaire reporter, working nine-to-five as a lark. That'd be fun. Let's make him a billionaire.
Does the color of his costume really matter to the plot? I know there was some bit with alien, friction-proof dyes, but that doesn't matter if the plot is that Lois is being hypnotized into marrying Satan, right? Superman can fight Satan in a yellow costume just as well as a blue one, right? Does it matter to the story what name he uses in his "real life?" I mean, the whole "raised Earthling, raised alien" debate aside, does it matter to the STORY what name he goes by? If the story is that a foreign dictator is kidnapping members of the press and plans to show off his new rocket program by launching them all into space, does it matter if the name on the press pass is Clark Kent or Philo Philpott?

So, really, marketing considerations aside, Superman can be banana-colored billionaire Philo Philpott, because none of that is any more intrinsic to the STORY than was the "wonderful triangle."

JB's question of "how much of this can I keep?" was ignored by the creators who married off Lois and Clark to keep pace and grab a headline alongside the TV show "Lois and Clark." Fans like Dave who argue that the original relationship of the characters were unnecessary ignore that SOMETHING was propelling those stories for all of those years. Should we really be taking the Superman concept apart, piece by piece, to see at which point the thing stops working entirely? Sales would seem to indicate we passed that point some years back...

You know what has proven unnecessary? The marraige. It was unnecessary to the needs of the story from the moment it occured. The writers who killed Iris & Madelyne, put Ray and Jean on the path to divorce, and drove Mera insane were not "opponents of marraige." They were writers of serial fiction.

Look at the soaps and tell me how many perfect, wonderful,  and secure marraiges there are to found there. Serial fiction demands that some elements be kept while others are sacrificed in the headlong rush of events. Perry. Jimmy. The Daily Planet. These elements are well established and likely to survive the end of the story whatever happens to them in the middle, but there are no guarantees. Once something is put into the story, it is up for grabs, it's fate uncertain. This was the case with the "wonderful triangle," and it's elimination has proven a mistake. Now that the marraige is out there on the scary, threatening highway of serial fiction, it's defenders are rushing into traffic, trying to steer this car, that ice-cream truck, this gasoline tanker away from the precious, heart-warmingly constructed little wedding chapel set there in the median. Frankly, the effort looks ridiculous.

The writers killed Iris because Barry's book could survive without her, and even gain some traction. Then they killed Barry and the book gained decades worth of running track from that. Later, they undid Barry's death (for awhile anyway) and gained a little more space from that trick. In serial fiction, you eliminate what is not necessary and turn it into fuel to move ahead. Once the marraige, formerly a logical endpoint, was put into play, it became vulnerable. To pretend that it in itself is some sort of sacred shrine to be forever preserved is unrealistic, and worse, hypocritical considering what was torn down in order to build it.

What's more, we know the book can survive without the marraige. The book did far better before it was imposed upon it. The Lois-Clark-Superman dynamic was once the stuff of magazine articles, college theses, and scholarly debate. The marraige is only of outside interest in that it marks the end of all that. The creators of the Superman strip married off the characters and immediately saw the pitfalls of their decision. They reversed it within weeks. The creators of the books wisely avoided the trap for decades. The recent hails of critical acclaim that Superman has received have been for All-Star and Earth-One, versions of the character without the heavy, downward drag of the marraige upon him.

Superman does better without the marraige and always has. If it's not too late to save him, he likely always will.

The Lyra Ler-Rol story from "Superman's Return to Krypton" was mocked earlier.
Could Clark, Superman, and Lois meet other people back then and fall in love? Yes. The premise now is extremely narrow, but, once upon a time, it was broad enough for such things to occur.
Lois could fall for the Ugly Superman, or Hercules, or the Alien Replacement Superman of the month, and the series could survive that.
Superman could consider renewing a relationship with Lori or beginning one with Luma Lynai, and good stories would result. Maybe not stories to Dave's taste, no, but classic tales that still thrive in reprint form today.
Even Clark could find romance now and again, taking up with Lana in the Eighties while Superman and Lois were "on a break" or finding in Sally Sellwyn a woman who could truly love him for who he was, all questions of identity and super-powers aside.
Nothing ever moved much beyond the opening stages in these relationships, but as unmarried characters, Lois and Clark could date. It allowed for any number of storytelling options.
If you lock yourself and the readers into the narrow, tunnel-vision concept that Only-Lois-can-date-Only-Superman you're not serving the premise well. We know those two crazy kids will get together one day and work it all out. We're just not there yet. And ideally, the series never should be. Once everything's worked out, the series is done.

"Oh, but it isn't! Look how it has carried on since...!" Yes. Look. Boringly. Tediously.

Dave may love the idea of Superman finding comfort and reassurance in the arms of his wife every night, just like a really good episode of "The World According to Jim," but that's not a Superman story. Lots of people like "The World According to Jim." The ratings for that show were high, and that's great. But it's not Superman, and as a reader of Superman, I'd like the stories to be, well, Superman stories and not warm, snuggly, hugs-aplenty sitcoms.

The tension, the enjoyment, the "questions hiding in the background" that the "wonderful triangle" created are gone now. Wasted. Tossed aside. The characters today have nothing whatsoever happening behind them at all. Oh, except they're affectionate and supportive and "there for one another." I'm sure the phrase,"We're in this together!" comes up a lot. How...exciting... And different...
Artificial subtext and heavy-handed over-arching plotting is desperately pumped into the books in a futile attempt to bring back some element of interest, but none of it works.
"Talia As Ghul takes over Lexcorp! And Lex is President! That's interesting, right?" No... No, it really isn't.
"Um... Jimmy's homeless! That's cool, right?" Not really.
"Superman has a son, just like in the movie! But different!" Seriously, are you still talking...?
"Lois' Dad is an alien-hating Thunderbolt Ross* and now she's Betty!" Please stop.
"New Krypton!!" Zzzzz....
"Superman's going for a walk!!" Well, that has possibilities, especially if he told Lois he was just going to the corner for a pack of cigarettes...

Really though, the Superman titles with a married Superman and Lois are deadly dull. Sales are in the toilet, and all it does in the mind of the public is make Superman even more of a middle-aged, conventional, white-bread, establishment sell-out. The potential "World According to Jim" crossover audience somehow isn't tuning in for all the warmth and hugs...

*Someone should be, I guess, since Ross himself is busy consciously betraying every belief he's ever held with each tank, building, town, and life that he destroys...

Kip Lewis wrote: "Actually Brian with the right writer and artist that wouldn't be a bad title, (well except for that last bit), as long as they didn't package it as JSA."

From your lips to DC Editorial's ears, Kip. Get me my agent on the phone!

Oh, and you think you don't like Thunder Johnny now, but just you wait 'til he starts crooning Lionel Richie seductively from a men's room stall... "Cei U, Say me, say it for always... That's the way it should be..."

I haven't posted any of my stuff in the sketchbook thread, Kip, but I could try out for that role if I had to.

Let me see if I have any digital images readily available to upload.

I'll meet you over there in a few minutes...

Brian, are you saying that Barry Allen is not as intrinsic to The Flash as the Clark-Lois-Superman triangle is to Superman? I'm not being facetious, I'm just unclear on that point.

Brian, why is that whenever I ask for examples of where the triangle was put to good use (or really any), I get insults?  I can give you stories where the “triangle” was decidedly one sided – Lois wants Superman; neither Clark nor Superman seemed to really reciprocate.  The closest he came to doing so during this period were times when it seemed like if he was going to date anyone, it would be Lois (or maybe Lana), but he didn’t want to date/marry because he was too dedicated to defending the world against evil.  I can give you stories where there was no triangle – it was strictly will they or won’t they with Superman and Lois.  I can give you other stories where there was no triangle – it was strictly will they or won’t they with Clark and Lois.  But stories where Clark really wants to be with Lois but she won’t give him the time of day because she’s hot for Superman?  Aside from the “initial fascination” period during JB’s run, I can’t think of any. 

I get the subtext argument, but I feel that’s been undermined by literally decades of stories where she discovers/realizes the truth and is convinced otherwise.  That’s not “if only she knew…,” that’s…  I don’t know what that is.

(BTW, the DC crew married them off because they wanted to.  The only tie to Lois and Clark was the timing of the event.  They were going to do it around #75, but were asked to delay awhile, so they killed him off instead.)

Beyond that, I know that DC has produced a lot of stories that haven’t gone over well over the years.  But how many of those really wouldn’t have happened at all if Clark and Lois hadn’t been married?  The problem isn’t lack of ideas or need for other drama because they can’t spend issue after issue of Clark pining after Lois pining after Superman or doing an “exciting new direction” where one or the other dates someone else for awhile.  The problem stems from the Events that companies feel are What Readers Want; their “need” to try to replicate the success of the whole “Death of Superman” event however many years ago.  As for some of those other stories, as you say, serial storytelling.  The guy’s had a book a week or every other week for 15 years since he’s gotten married.  Bound to be some clunkers in there, somewhere.  (And before you knock them for a dearth of universally recognized classics; how many were there before?  When people talk about “classic Superman,” it tends to be in terms of elements (Clark, Lois, Daily Planet, kryptonite, etc.) rather than specific stories.)  Critical acclaim or not (I’ll have to take your word for it on Earth One), can you really use Earth One and All-Star Superman as examples of what DC should follow – yet another take on the origin and a series that was written as “The Last Superman Story?”  One has been done to death and the other seems rather limiting long term.

If you prefer Superman single, more power to you and I hope you enjoy what’s coming.  I prefer him married and find it insulting when people think I’m wrong to do so.  When characters have been around for awhile, there are bound to be nuances to the characters and status quos that change over time and everyone is going to have their preferences.  I’m only stating mine.

If I come across as insulting to people who DO like the triangle, I apologize.  The problem I have is that I can’t find examples of what the folks say they miss.  (Well, I have, but that was over in John Broome’s Green Lantern.)  It’s like there’s nostalgia for something that never actually existed.  I’m open to being convinced otherwise, but give me something to work with.

Based on the stories I’ve read (most of the GA Archives, all of the Showcase Superman and Superman Family volumes, misc. reprints of other stuff during those time periods, all of the Julius Schwartz period, Man of Steel up until Superman #175 (inc. concurrent titles), and the Rucka/Simone/Verheiden period up until #700, except for some Busiek issues which I’m working on getting), I like the characters better as people who understand each other rather than as participants in a continuing bit.  Or maybe it’s because as a member of Team Lana I prefer to not be in a situation where I can get my hopes up that she’ll finally land him.  Whatever.  But the Saga of Superman is about the last survivor of a doomed planet who has sworn to protect his adopted home and lives as one of the inhabitants either to maintain closeness to those he has sworn to protect or because he tends to think of himself as one of them (depending on which version we’re talking about).  Keep that, and it’s Superman, no matter what’s going on with his love life at the time.  (So yes, fair argument against New Krypton and Grounded, although conceptually Grounded seems like a story that would make more sense with the Pre-MoS “Superman is Kal-El/Kents long dead” version of the character than the current version).  Ending the story with “Good job with the aliens Clark” rather than “Clark, HOW do you always get the best Superman scoops?” doesn’t strike me as the crucial element that brings the whole thing down.  Plus as a fan of the work rivalry they have, I like it better when she can take him to task for writing his best stories about himself.