portrayed Superman in a very good way...

A Superman with no spine and no moral compass, who spends most of his time getting henpecked by the bitchiest Wonder Woman in history?

Blechh.

Don Zomberg wrote: "A Superman with no spine and no moral compass, who spends most of his time getting henpecked by the bitchiest Wonder Woman in history?"

Well, the bitchiest before All-Star Batman's at least... :-)

I wonder how much of the over-arching mood and theme of Kingdom Come can be traced to Alex Ross? Not to write Mark Waid any sort of free pass for his work on the series, but Ross was also involved in the almost-oppressively dark "Earth X" and "Uncle Sam" mini-series as well. Both of those also feature central characters who ought to have a moral compass, but are nevertheless floundering and lost. "Earth X" spends it's first five issues, as I recall, debunking the concept of heroism altogether, while "Uncle Sam" gives the Alan Moore walk-on character from "Twilight" center stage to gibber about America's failings and collapse under their collective weight.

The postings from Jim Shooter on his blog do seem to underscore a point made by Joss Whedon amongst others; That no one truly sees himself as a villain or as a secondary character. The third gunman to the villain's right in the western movie really thinks the scene is all about him.

Regarding Waid's expulsion from the world of Superman:

The interview was conducted in 2000. Waid's take on Superman's origin, "Birthright" was published in 2003.

Apparently, he was not forever barred from crossing Jordan into the Promised Land.

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Quite possibly the best description of the whole thing I have ever read!

Don, there was a resolution to that story

That's a bit like trudging your way through miles of hostile jungle only to find an abandoned gas station at the end.

I was checking around Jim Shooter's blog to read some earlier entries and I came across a post where he recounts how the first "Secret Wars" mini-series came to be. In it, Shooter explains why he decided he was the best choice to write the series and offered the following tale as an example:

Jim Shooter wrote: ...Marvel’s writers at the time, some of the best in the business, were, to a person, very possessive about the characters they were writing. To some extent, that was a good thing, indicating a love for the characters that generally showed in their work. It also led to some intense rivalries and bitter arguments regarding crossovers and guest appearances. For instance, once, writer “A,” who shall remain nameless, wanted Doctor Doom to “guest-villain” in the series he wrote. I okayed it, over the snarling objections of writer “B,” who wrote the series in which Doom usually appeared. I would not allow the Marvel Universe to be divided into fiefdoms. But then, writer “B” wrote a story “proving” that the Doom seen in writer “A’s” series was a robot, the intimation being that the real Doctor Doom wouldn’t behave so stupidly. Somehow, writer “B’s” editor didn’t realize what he was up to, and let it slip past. Writer “A” was furious…etc. Allowing any one of the writers to handle pretty much everyone else’s characters in Secret Wars, contemplated to be the biggest, most continuity-intensive crossover ever done, would have led to bloodshed in the hallowed halls...

The story about Chris Claremont using Doctor Doom in "Uncanny X-Men" and JB being unhappy with how Doctor Doom was written in that story is pretty well known to fans, so I am surprized that Jim Shooter chooses not to name names.

Plausible deniability Matt. He knew full well everyone would know exactly who he was talking about...but this let him say "who, me? I didn't name any names!"

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As "Writer B" I can tell you this absolutely did not happen. Shooter was not the one who controlled the guest appearances -- that was solely the job of the editors involved. So, having Doom appear in UNCANNY came down to an agreement between whoever was then editor of the X-Book, and whoever was then editor of FANTASTIC FOUR.

Shooter's role in "authorizing" guest shots took more often the form of what happened with the Disco Dazzler, where he ordered Chris and me to expand our two part Kitty Pryde intro to force in another introduction -- of a character we'd had no part in creating, and really wanted as little to do with as possible.

This, of course, reached its greatest extreme with the Beyonder, who was forced into stories without any consideration of what the original authors had planned.