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Post by Action Ace on Jul 9, 2015 21:35:40 GMT -5
And, to answer my own question... I despise Superman. Always have. I don't like him. Over-powered. Boring. Particularly the Silver/Bronze Age version. Not even Alan Moore could make me like him. So I was pretty shocked that I actually like the original Superman by Siegel & Shuster. His first year or so is a damn fine read. Yeah, the writing and art are rough and simplistic, but at least they're interesting. Supes isn't the quasi-God he would become, but fights actual injustice, wife-beaters, corrupt industrialists, war-profiteers. It's exciting and fun Populism. A close second would be the Fleisher cartoons. Really a quality follow-up to those early stories. My Superman is the original. And he's the only one I've had even a modicum of interest in. If you like Superman at a low power level like the Golden Age, don't like the original costume, can't stand the secret identity thing and enjoy Superman standing up to "The Man" and punching out cops...then your Superman is right now. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 9, 2015 21:44:54 GMT -5
I haven't read much early-bronze age... I think I'd like that period. I'd probably have to pick the original, though.... I loved Superman as social crusader.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2015 22:33:53 GMT -5
As a kid I only read a handful of Supes stories until the Byrne reboot and most of my exposure was through TV (George Reeves and Superfriends in particular). I've gone back and read a lot of Gold, Silver, and Bronze Supes and was regular reader from the Byrne reboot through to the Electric Blue/Red stories of the Triangle era, but what I enjoyed the most was probably still the Fleischer cartoons. However, when I think about what I would want Superman to be to enjoy it on an extended basis, the Superman I turn to is the Bruce Timm driven Tim Daly voiced Superman of Superman: The Animated Series.
-M
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Post by chadwilliam on Jul 9, 2015 23:32:20 GMT -5
Great topic. I also have a fondness for the original Superman as well, but I am going to throw my vote behind the Silver-Age Weisinger version. I find this Superman most interesting for those very reasons Slam gives for disliking him. I completely get where Slam is coming from, but I still maintain that Silver-Age Supes is thoroughly fascinating precisely because he is so very god-like. It is what sets him apart and it is what makes him for me a subject of fascination. It was Superman's seemingly unlimited store of powers (and the very existence of kryptonite I feel is an error and is itself the real bore in the mythos)that made him a creature of almost bizarre character, and indeed of great loneliness and melancholy. He wanted to belong, but he never really could. As a god he was a freak, and this has made him to me rather more interesting than his National rival Batman. His freakishness gave rise to humour, even some derision, but above all of to a state of permanent exile from those he swore to protect. In this sense Superman emerges as DC's most surreal character.
This element of tragedy you mention always brings me back to an issue of Action Comics I first read in Superman: From the Thirties to the Eighties. More specifically, to Action Comics 399 in which Superman is pulled out of history to be studied as a being of great historical significance and curiosity alongside Lincoln, Washington, and Custer. Upon being told that the reason he has been plucked from this precise moment in time is due to the fact that he is about to embark on a mission that will cost him his life - as is the case with Lincoln, Washington, and Custer - Superman is asked to return to 1970 so that he can lay down his life for Earth. Superman's immediate response is "No!" He asks why he should simply accept death and why does anyone have the right to demand such a sacrifice from him. Of course, because he's Superman, he goes back to his own time and survives the mission due to the twist in the tale, but that demand he makes that he be given a reason to die has always stayed with me for the following reason.
Metropolis/the world has always gone to great lengths to honour and celebrate the Man of Steel, but since reading that story, I see these celebrations as part of an unspoken bargain the world has made with Superman. A bargain of "We'll praise you, cherish you, applaud you, and love you with every fibre in our being, but we do this as repayment for the day when you'll have to give your life for us". It's a deal Superman understands and goes along with not because he expects or wants to be honoured and celebrated, but because he understands that all those Superman Day events held around the world will one day help assuage the guilty consciences on the part of those who asked him to deal with that asteroid/invader/threat that only the greatest hero in the world could have handled though it would mean not coming back from.
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jul 9, 2015 23:34:00 GMT -5
I suppose if I had to narrow it down, "my" Superman, in terms of the comics, would be the John Byrne reboot era to the Death of Superman (1986-1993). My opinions have changed over the years and I do see now that a lot was lost because of Crisis. I think Bronze Age Superman, from what little I've read, is massively underrated and might become my favorite comics version once I've read enough.
In terms of movies/TV, Superman I & II and Superman: The Animated Series are neck and neck. I think the Timm/Dini series did a good job of amalgamating Pre and Post Crisis concepts into a streamlined Superman mythos. I particularly liked the idea of making Supergirl an Argonian, as opposed to a Kryptonian. I've never really liked the idea that there were other survivors of Krypton beyond Superman.
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Post by Prince Hal on Jul 9, 2015 23:50:19 GMT -5
Great topic. I also have a fondness for the original Superman as well, but I am going to throw my vote behind the Silver-Age Weisinger version. I find this Superman most interesting for those very reasons Slam gives for disliking him. I completely get where Slam is coming from, but I still maintain that Silver-Age Supes is thoroughly fascinating precisely because he is so very god-like. It is what sets him apart and it is what makes him for me a subject of fascination. It was Superman's seemingly unlimited store of powers (and the very existence of kryptonite I feel is an error and is itself the real bore in the mythos)that made him a creature of almost bizarre character, and indeed of great loneliness and melancholy. He wanted to belong, but he never really could. As a god he was a freak, and this has made him to me rather more interesting than his National rival Batman. His freakishness gave rise to humour, even some derision, but above all of to a state of permanent exile from those he swore to protect. In this sense Superman emerges as DC's most surreal character. Excellent analysis. |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jul 9, 2015 23:58:34 GMT -5
Silver Age Superman was surreal not just because of his godlike power, but because he completely ignored physics. It's one thing to suspend belief that someone can fly without a method of propulsion (Technically, telekinesis or gravity control could work.) but how does one explain moving planets or literally sneezing out dead solar systems? I posit that Superman actually had the power to manipulate reality, like a 5th dimensional Imp, and this is real reason why Mxy was so obsessed with him.
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Post by Prince Hal on Jul 10, 2015 0:08:56 GMT -5
I wish I could narrow it down to one.
Grew up with George Reeves' raffish Clark Kent and bemused Superman on TV, Mort Weisinger's bi-polar Superman (the godlike isolato of "Return to Krypton" in one issue, the ant-headed victim of Red K in the next) and Wayne Boring's majestic Superman in the funnies.
Even as a kid, I loved each of them.
And Superboy, too, a hero who could juggle planets but could be as vulnerable and unsure of himself as any of the 10-year-olds who read his adventures.
Like Cei-U, I loved the Golden Age version, too, once I saw the reprints, read Feiffer, and saw the Fleischer cartoons. Elegant and exuberant in print and on screen.
And Christopher Reeve, soaring into space, smiling that irresistible smile we would all be able to flash if we could move worlds, was sensational.
Since those days, admittedly drenched in the autumnal tones of nostalgia, Superman hasn't had the same allure for me except in stories here or there: "For the Man Who Has Everything' the Swamp Thing and Demon team-ups in DC Presents; "Whatever Happened To... etc." Mullet-Superman; Electric Superman, et al just didn't do it for me.
So I have many favorites. Which is fine. With characters like Superman or Sherlock Holmes or Hamlet, you're going to see aspects of them you haven't whenever they are portrayed by knowledgeable, caring interpreters. I enjoy that.
But if I were going to a desert island, and could only bring one of "my" Supermen, gee, I guess I'd go with Mort's.
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Post by Earth 2 Flash on Jul 10, 2015 0:14:36 GMT -5
Movies - Henry Cavill
Comics - I like the current de-powered Superman. I have never followed Clark Kent before, but I find the current storyline intriguing.
Aditionally, I kind of like this Val-Zod Superman of Earth 2.
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Post by dupersuper on Jul 10, 2015 0:33:56 GMT -5
[spoilers]Clark Kent[/spoilers]
...Ssshhhhh
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Post by berkley on Jul 10, 2015 0:34:02 GMT -5
I love the idea behind this thread but can't really come up with an answer for this particular character. From the time when I first started reading comics as a 6-year-old Superman has never captured my imagination, except in the most negative way when, at a later age, I began to see him as an embodiment of the worst aspects of American nationalism: triumphal pride in its very real military and at least partly imagined moral superiority to the rest of the world.
I'm not claiming that that's the most fair or even rational interpretation of the character, but it's the one that's stuck with me, and thus the one I seem to be stuck with. So I can't say there's any version of Superman that's mine: they all seem much the same to me, underneath whatever surface variations might be imposed on him from time to time.
But from Slam's description of it, maybe if I read the early Superman I'd be able to soften this view, which even to myself sounds rather alarmingly rigid and one-sided as I type it out here. One of these days I'll try to give it an honest try.
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Post by MDG on Jul 10, 2015 10:54:33 GMT -5
Silver Age Superman was surreal not just because of his godlike power, but because he completely ignored physics. It's one thing to suspend belief that someone can fly without a method of propulsion (Technically, telekinesis or gravity control could work.)... After he was a known artist, but before he took over the character, John Byrne wrote a long letter or article in The Comic Reader arguing that Superman's powers had to be mentally-based because they made no sense in the physical universe. For example, no matter how strong he was, he couldn't have enough mass/weight to stand still as a car crashed into him. Although my first exposure to Superman was the TV show (it took me a while to get used to a red-headed Jimmy in the comics) the Superman I usually think of is Weisinger's (despite my opinion of the man). 90% of the stories were goofy (esp when looking at the whole "superman family" books) but had an odd internal logic that was very attractive to a young reader. Never really enjoyed the Schwartz era too much, between attempts to make him make sense in a "real" world and Schwartz's penchant for gimmick stories. Though I think the Donner/Reeve movies hit an excellent balance between realism and fantasy. The thing I didn't like in the Byrne era was not making him an orphan. While readers coming out of the depression and into a world war probably had no trouble with Kal/Clark losing his parents (twice!) and being alone in the world, I think it was a concession to modern readers to give him not just the kents, but his Kryptonian parents in some form as well. Before Crisis, Superman always seemed like a grownup--after he often seemed like a big kid. Of course in Weisinger's world, that led to almost a fetish for memorials and remembrances (also seen in his Legion stories), including the weird "Jimmy Olsen," "Lois Lane," and "Perry White" rooms in the Fortress. |
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Post by Cei-U! on Jul 10, 2015 11:01:48 GMT -5
I agree that leaving the Kents alive was a serious mistake. Their deaths were a necessary step in his maturation, teaching Clark that there were some things Superman would never be able to change no matter how powerful he was.
Cei-U!
I summon the strength in loss!
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Post by Prince Hal on Jul 10, 2015 11:51:21 GMT -5
I agree that leaving the Kents alive was a serious mistake. Their deaths were a necessary step in his maturation, teaching Clark that there were some things Superman would never be able to change no matter how powerful he was. Cei-U! I summon the strength in loss! It also negated one of the greatest, most poignant stories of the Silver Age "The Last Days of Ma and Pa Kent," in which Superboy not only could not prevent the deaths of his beloved adoptive parents, but thought that he caused their deaths. |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Jul 10, 2015 12:15:55 GMT -5
I think the Fliesher Superman will always be my favorite, that cartoon was just so dynamic that I think it will always stick in my mind. I also really liked the Superman from Bruce Timm's animated series and the comic based on that cartoon. For more recent versions I also liked Superman Birthright and Grant Morrison's run on Action comics.
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