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Post by kirby101 on Mar 13, 2024 8:54:45 GMT -5
Death of Superman might have been a gimmick, but it was also a good story and one of the biggest selling comics of all time. By that time Byrne was gone and Mike Carlin was overseeing the books.
I liked the Byrne reboot, it was the first time I liked the Superman books (not a fan of Silver Age Superman) I don't think Roy doing a Superman nostalgia book would have worked.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2024 9:00:21 GMT -5
In the end, maybe this boils down to a question of what qualities a successful rebooted Superman would need to have. I personally feel that the best way to "depower" him is to tell stories more focused on the life of Clark Kent, dealing with street-level ordeals that can't be solved with powers. It's exactly why I love Lex Luthor as corporate mogul and why the Triangle Era is my favorite. I also think Clark needs to be wholesome and emblematic of all the virtues we aspire to, showing us that good character and integrity save the day every bit as much as super powers.All that considered, I think Paul Kupperberg might have been an interesting choice to reinvent Superman. of course, he was even less of an A list name than Roy Thomas in 1986. Love that statement, and Kupperberg is a great thought, I find that an intriguing "what might have been"! |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2024 9:04:47 GMT -5
Yep, another good example of someone who really just "got it" in my opinion as well. I believe Superman is timeless in many respects, and the likes of Morrison and Cooke seemed to get that. Timeless is such a good word to capture this, it's more than just "retro is cool"! |
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Post by MDG on Mar 13, 2024 10:54:18 GMT -5
Going out on a limb, you know who could've done a great Superman reboot? Keith Giffen!
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,872
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Post by shaxper on Mar 13, 2024 11:02:50 GMT -5
Going out on a limb, you know who could've done a great Superman reboot? Keith Giffen! I'd prefer him on Jimmy Olsen, myself. |
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Post by Cei-U! on Mar 13, 2024 11:44:15 GMT -5
Now I don't know that Roy would have had a "Dark Knight" magnitude impact on Superman by any means, but he is one of the few creators I can think of at that time who seemed to have some magic with characters who might have stuggled to be relevant in the 80's in other creators' hands. On the other hand, Roy completely screwed the pooch when he tried to reinvent Captain Marvel for the '80s with the horrifically awful "Shazam!: The New Beginning."
Cei-U! I summon the shudder!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2024 11:50:11 GMT -5
Going out on a limb, you know who could've done a great Superman reboot? Keith Giffen! I predict he would have simultaneouly tanked DC's flagship IP and been completely brilliant. And I would have enjoyed every minute of it  Joking aside, Giffen would have been really interesting depending on WHEN during the 80's he took the project on, I feel like he would have been reined in editorially more in the fashion of the earlier Legion material he did with Levitz, but if could have gotten the right mix of "mainstream hero" with Giffen "wit", that could have been really fun. Going out on a limb, you know who could've done a great Superman reboot? Keith Giffen! I'd prefer him on Jimmy Olsen, myself. I like this idea too, and bet he could have had more freedom to let loose! |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2024 11:50:46 GMT -5
Now I don't know that Roy would have had a "Dark Knight" magnitude impact on Superman by any means, but he is one of the few creators I can think of at that time who seemed to have some magic with characters who might have stuggled to be relevant in the 80's in other creators' hands. On the other hand, Roy completely screwed the pooch when he tried to reinvent Captain Marvel for the '80s with the horrifically awful "Shazam!: The New Beginning."
Cei-U! I summon the shudder!
No argument there  |
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Post by MDG on Mar 13, 2024 12:32:40 GMT -5
Going out on a limb, you know who could've done a great Superman reboot? Keith Giffen! I predict he would have simultaneouly tanked DC's flagship IP and been completely brilliant. And I would have enjoyed every minute of it Joking aside, Giffen would have been really interesting depending on WHEN during the 80's he took the project on, I feel like he would have been reined in editorially more in the fashion of the earlier Legion material he did with Levitz, but if could have gotten the right mix of "mainstream hero" with Giffen "wit", that could have been really fun. Whenever I mention a mainstream creator, you can assume I mean "...before they went off the deep end." |
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Post by tonebone on Mar 13, 2024 14:28:36 GMT -5
IMO at that time the only writer that could embrace Superman's past and make it interesting in 1986 was Alan Moore. His Supreme in the 90s was a great home to Silver Age Superman plus his excellent Superman Annual featuring Mongul showed he "got" Superman. But, would you have gotten to Supreme if it were not for Byrne's Superman? Byrne famously threw out all of the "silver age silliness" (some would call it "charm") that "bogged down" Superman. Moore's Supreme was a call to remember and embrace the charm of those stories, and show how it shaped and defined the modern-day version of the hero. I don't think you would have gotten that version of Supreme if it had not been (inadvertently) set up by Byrne. |
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Post by tonebone on Mar 13, 2024 14:36:13 GMT -5
I think Roy Thomas would be a great "steward" of the Superman character and mythos, but I don't think he would have been able to restrain himself enough to "reinvent" the character. His whole super-hero writing career has been slavish to the continuity of the characters. He was reading comics in the Golden Age, and loved to weave even the most minute details from that time period into the stories he wrote. That's part of why people loved his Invaders and All-Star Squadron. He was able to write engaging and immersive stories while still including those little * footnotes to comics from 50 years before. I think he would have done a great job with Superman, but there's no way he would be able to resist calling back to all the continuity that DC wanted to forget.
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Post by zaku on Mar 13, 2024 18:29:05 GMT -5
By the way, they actually tried to do a mini-reboot of Superman in the 1983 with Marv Wolfman (who at the time was probably one of the hottest writer ad DC). And they changed a good chunk of the then-current status quo. For example: - Lois Lane and Superman broke up (from what I don't now, however they broke up
- Clark Kent and Lana Lang started dating (and having a relationship? Really when they talked about these things is was so ambiguous in the comics at the time...)
- Lex Luthor got his famous armor
- Braniac got his robotic appearance
- Vandal Savage became a Superman villain
As you can imagine this minireboot didn't set the world on fire. Probably the only thing that even the most avid comic readers remember from this period is Lex Luthor's new armor, and I think only thanks to the cartoons and toys.  At this point the only thing that could really relaunch Superman was making a clean break with the past. Half measures were useless. For most readers, the Man of Steel was just a super scout who had acquired his greatest enemy due to a bout of early baldness. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2024 19:26:24 GMT -5
At this point the only thing that could really relaunch Superman was making a clean break with the past. Half measures were useless. For most readers, the Man of Steel was just a super scout who had acquired his greatest enemy due to a bout of early baldness. To me Superman being a "super scout" wasn't so much the problem, and I'll refer back to what shaxper wrote here: ...but it's important to keep in mind that Superman's greatest value to Warner at the time (and still today) was as a license/trademark. The Chris Reeves movies were still dominating at the box office, and a six year old shaxper was buying the action figures, wearing the pajamas, and watching Super Powers: Galactic Guardians on TV. So, while DC wanted to make Superman's books a success again, they also didn't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. They were only going to allow so much change. That's more how I remember it, as a kid Superman was actually a pretty cool character, I watched Super Friends and the movie, bought the Super Powers figures, had a halloween costume one year, etc. The problem I found was that the comics themselves at the time were just not that good overall with some exceptions (DC Comics Presents was often a good title for instance). There was a Superman I felt like I "knew" from those other outlets, and the comics just didn't seem to live up to it. I'll go back to my original premise, I think the problem was he was no longer "super scout" enough, a lot of the fun and zany charm of the past was gone and the times had changed considerably so understandable why that happened, but it kind of neutered what made him interesting in the first place. Said another way, he had a great past but the comics had been breaking away from that for awhile and not in an interesting way for the most part. It was like, don't make Superman too great or fun because heroes aren't supposed to be too great or fun anymore, but don't go full on New Teen Titans and rock the boat too much. Where could he go? Hence why I still think embracing the "timeless" qualities of Superman (to borrow that term from driver1980 again) may have been the more compelling alternative creatively. And shaxper , I meant to mention this earlier, I will never forgive Byrne for Action #592/593. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 13, 2024 20:43:31 GMT -5
Call me crazy; but, Mike Baron would have been an interesting choice for a Superman writer. He had a journalistic background, which would speak to developing that side of Clark Kent and he handled beings of immense power well, in Nexus and kept them interesting. I don't think DC would have given him the freedom to go where he might, though.
That is largely the problem I see with several potential writers. Moore, I think would have done a fantastic job, if he was inclined, with the right artists in collaboration.
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Post by chadwilliam on Mar 13, 2024 20:52:39 GMT -5
Guess we all had the same thoughts 😅 Let's face it...Alan Moore made everything better back in the day. End of thread lol. I felt that while Moore did a good job of evoking the craziness of the Silver Age with Supreme, he never so much as hinted at the heartfelt sincerity that a lot of those stories contained. The corner of the Superman universe dealing with Red Kryptonite and wacky girlfriend shenanigans, sure, but the isolation of a selfless character in a world dependent upon his goodness just seemed too big a concept for Moore to be able to handle. As a result, Supreme just felt more like parody than pastiche to me with the silver age flashback sequences all too often serving to illustrate how ill-equipped the guy was at navigating the modern world. Of course, Supreme came ten years after the Superman reboot so who knows how much of what he did in 1996 would have even been in the back of his mind at the time of the reboot, but even in the 1980s, his Superman just seemed a little more naive than earnest in my opinion ( For the Man Who Has Everything, for instance, even ends with Superman telling Lois that he was a big-headed egotist who thought that the world couldn't get on without him). To put it another way - I don't think Moore could have written a Superman who could have delivered that "I never lie" line in the 1978 film the way Christopher Reeve had. As a re-invention, I'm sure it would have worked perfectly in the cynicism of the times, but Grant Morrison's All-Star Superman would still have had to come along to remind readers that if you want to truly evoke the spirit of the Silver Age, you need more than Red Kryptonite transformations and goofy secret identity hi-jinks. |
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