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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132691
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| Posted: 28 January 2018 at 5:49pm | IP Logged | 1
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Sort of why this Forum exists! ;)
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132691
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| Posted: 28 January 2018 at 6:00pm | IP Logged | 2
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Ma and Pa Kent are still alive. While, IMO, them not being around by the time he moved to Metropolis was an incidental detail (newspaper strips not really having the space for side trips back home), there’s a segment of fandom that considers the deaths of the Kents to be a significant rite of passage for Superman. It’s a firm reminder he can’t do everything, it’s a dramatic line in the sand between Superboy and Superman, etc. ••• It's an artificial "line in the sand". The death of the Kents -- specifically Jonathan's death -- played a pivotal role in the earliest versions of the story. On his deathbed Pa Kent tells Clark he must use his power for good, and Clark goes off and invents Superman. This scene was kept even after the introduction of Superboy. Even after the mythos had expanded to show Clark had been "using his power for good" for a decade or so. The scene no longer had a place in the mythos, and since it never really worked anyway -- was Pa afraid Clark would run off and become a supervillain without he and Ma keeping him in check? -- I got rid of it. And with the scene gone, there was no reason for the Kents to die. Deeply disturbing it was, tho, to hear the cries of "fans" who wanted that innocent old couple killed.
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Greg Kirkman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 May 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 15775
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| Posted: 28 January 2018 at 8:27pm | IP Logged | 3
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Personally, while I respect the lengthy and storied history of the character (and do see the merit in all those Silver Age barnacles), I prefer the cleaner, stripped-down iterations. My three favorite versions of the Superman mythos are Siegel and Shuster’s original, SUPERMAN- THE MOVIE, and JB’s.
And, while I respect the place in the canon that elements like Superboy and the Legion held for many years, I just think that Clark becoming SuperMAN as an adult (without a prior career as Superboy) is cleaner and works better, as does having the Kents alive and well to give him an ongoing connection to his Kansas roots. The death of the Kents is nowhere near the same pallpark as the death of the Waynes or Ben Parker in terms of providing the hero with motivation for doing what he does.
If you examine those three favorite versions of mine, you’ll see that the common link is the simplicity of each. The origin was initially just a one-page explanation for Superman’s powers, after all. Getting into all the minutae of Krypton provided many good stories, but I prefer Superman stories set in the here and now. He’s the last Kryptonian, period. So, get on with the show!
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Marc M. Woolman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 April 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 2096
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| Posted: 28 January 2018 at 9:12pm | IP Logged | 4
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I never understood the dislike for JB's
Superman. As a kid, I'd read the silly
Superman stories (and loved'em!) As a
young teen, the Superman stories were
boring.
JB's Superman was serious AND exciting.
Had JB been able to stay on and have a
lengthy run, I'm sure if he had woken up
one day and declared "my god! Beppo must
return!" He could have reintroduced any
elements that fandom just had to have, and
he would have pulled it off, perfectly.
I still hold up JB's Superman as an
excellent example of how to do a reboot.
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Michael Hogan
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2053
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| Posted: 28 January 2018 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | 5
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I have only one issue with JB's tenure with the Man of Steel: DC's
machinations caused it to end much, much too soon.
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Greg Kirkman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 May 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 15775
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| Posted: 28 January 2018 at 10:09pm | IP Logged | 6
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never understood the dislike for JB's
Superman. As a kid, I'd read the silly
Superman stories (and loved'em!) As a
young teen, the Superman stories were
boring.
JB's Superman was serious AND exciting.
+++++++++
I tend to agree with the notion that people were simply embittered by the fact that all of the pre-CRISIS minutae had been wiped away, making their Superman-nerd-trivia scorecards useless. All of that time people spent studying the history and geographical formations of Krypton no longer mattered.
MAN OF STEEL # 1 may very well have been my first actual Superman comic (aside from the 1985 SUPER POWERS action figure’s mini-comic, which was quite literally the beginning of my life as a nerd), and I think that JB’s run marvelously captures what the spirit of the character should be. It feels very much like a modernization of the character Siegel and Shuster created, blended with the best elements of the first Chris Reeve movie. No Kryptonian baggage, less god-like powers, and a Superman defined by his humanity and compassion more than his physical abilities.
A few years back, I finally sat down and read the first few years’ worth of Siegel and Shuster comics, and was blown away. Their Superman was a social crusader who did the right thing because it was the right thing, and took great joy in standing up for the little guy. I found it incredibly uplifting and inspiring. For me, that’s the core of Superman, and I think JB’s run reaffirmed that in a fresh and exciting way.
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Adam Schulman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 July 2017
Posts: 1717
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| Posted: 28 January 2018 at 11:18pm | IP Logged | 7
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At this late date I don't know if my opinion of MAN OF STEEL is of any relevance whatsoever, but...here goes.
There are parts I really liked and parts that I didn't. I didn't HATE any of it. It's kind of hard for me to judge it "objectively" since I know that if I'd been in JB's position at DC (I was only 12 at the time) I would done some parts of it differently if Kahn and Giordano had allowed it. But different people are different and are going to have different ideas. Such is life.
The only good reason to keep Superboy was so as not to necessitate a Legion reboot. Change some details -- Superboy's existence was merely a rumor around the Midwest, Clark spent nearly all of his time as Superboy in the 30th century, he got there via a Legion time bubble because he couldn't travel through time under his own power -- and there you go.
Why keep Supergirl (Kara) canonical? Same reason: her "thing" with Brainiac 5. Change some details to her backstory, have a special issue of SECRET ORIGINS detailing her life and her death, and that's it. Move on from there.
I think JB writing a final battle between Superman and the Phantom Zone villains -- Zod, Faora, Jax-Ur, whichever other ones were interesting enough to remain canonical -- would've been a fun read. Of course, to keep Superman as the only living Kryptonian, they would've had to die at the end of the story. (Luthor kills them with Kryptonite bullets?)
As for Kandor -- well, forget Kandor. Maybe there was a Krypton-Colu war that wiped Kandor from existence before Vril Dox/Brainiac could shrink it and capture it.
My favorite parts of MOS were the explanation of why Luthor hates Superman -- much better than the 1960 version -- and the new iteration of Lana Lang. VERY different from what went before, very different from Lois, and much more interesting.
And I always liked JB's explanation of how Superman's powers work. The only explanation that makes sense.
And the Krypton redesign was gorgeous.
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Rick Whiting
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 April 2004
Posts: 2199
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| Posted: 29 January 2018 at 12:29am | IP Logged | 8
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(A very curious element is to be seen in those who seem to have confused my origin of Superman with the origin I gave Marina. They insist baby Kal did not take on human form until Martha Kent touched him.)
_________________________
Seems to me that some folks are confusing your origin of Superman with that of Icon, who was a Superman archetype and who took human form after his adopted mother touched the space pod that he came in as a baby.
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Petter Myhr Ness
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 02 July 2009
Location: Norway
Posts: 3861
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| Posted: 29 January 2018 at 5:54am | IP Logged | 9
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I was already a huge Superman fan before MOS, so obviously I was a bit wary of all the changes, but JB quickly won me over. There's something to say for good storytelling and making changes that makes sense. Most importantly: the character of Superman remained intact!
I really liked that the Kents were now alive. And they were great and likable characters, who kept Superman human and more grounded - rather than the all-powerful alien later creators have emphasised.
There have been several new origins and reboots after MOS, but I dare say none of them had the same impact. BIRTHRIGHT was scrapped almost immediately, and SECRET ORIGIN barely made it in time before the big "New 52" reboot - where Grant Morrison had Superman running around in a T-shirt and jeans.
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Steve Gumm
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 10 May 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 1463
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| Posted: 29 January 2018 at 7:02am | IP Logged | 10
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The result of you going over to DC to work on Superman caused me to quadruple the number of DC comics I have in my collection, other than an occasional Teen Titans comic, I didn't have a lot of interest in what was going on with their comic line. Your time there was very well spent and created a lot of excitement and memorable stories, DC must have been happy as were 99.99% of the readers, as for the .01% crowd, they are never happy.
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Shawn Kane
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 November 2010
Location: United States
Posts: 3239
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| Posted: 29 January 2018 at 8:21am | IP Logged | 11
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I only read Marvel comics at the time, so Man of Steel was the first DC comic that I ever bought. I even remember feeling somewhat guilty about buying it at the time. JB's Superman will forever by my Superman.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132691
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| Posted: 29 January 2018 at 8:41am | IP Logged | 12
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I only read Marvel comics at the time, so Man of Steel was the first DC comic that I ever bought. I even remember feeling somewhat guilty about buying it at the time.•• Retrospection has told me I made a number of mistakes when I accepted DC's offer to work on Superman. Not the least of those was misjudging my Marvel audience -- specifically, their fierce brand loyalty. After all, these were people who, in many cases, were actually proud to call themselves "Marvel Zombies"! Altho the sales spiked phenomenally in the first few months, with MAN OF STEEL 1 being the first book in decades to approach the 1,000,000 mark, those numbers tapered off quickly, and told me that I had not brought new readers to the fold, but merely participated in an "event" that got the speculators foaming at the mouth.
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