I rather liked the Marty Pasko run myself. He paid great attention to the side characters, and I enjoyed the way he told darker stories while keeping Superman himself bright blue.

It's unfortunate the reviews stopped just before DC Comics Presents has that great, if intermittent, Wein/Starlin storyline introducing Mongul; that was a real high point for the series.

But hey, I tried reviewing my Bronze Age Superman run myself, and I ended up giving up after only about two years (of his comics), so I understand completely. :^)

Nope.  David Michelinie wrote the Adam Strange story and Len Wein the Metal Men team-up.  They're all great stories, though.

Cei-U!
I summon the correct credits!

I'd be so curious to hear from all those people that keep saying what unsung masterpiece Precrisis Superman was and how Byrne ruined everything, what exactly they see in it...

I just read that article. Very nice!  I've read a smattering of Bronze Age Superman stories, but this article makes me want to pick up some more!

While I've never read these stories myself and have no dog in this fight, equating sales with quality is a logical fallacy. By that logic, Jim Lee's X-Men #1 was the greatest comic book of all time.

So, we are basing an entire decade on a couple years of sales?  In the early 80s, yes, Superman wasn't selling; but, then again, very little was selling on newsstands.  More and more sales were coming from the Direct market, which was built around a nucleus of hardcore fans, not a mass market.  So yes, if you narrow it down to those last couple of years, sales were bad.  Batman wasn't setting the world on fire, either.  DC's top selling books were New Teen Titans, Legion of Superheroes, and Firestorm.  All of those books had large Direct Market followings.

If we are talking Bronze Age, we are talking 1970 until about 1985, in some definitions (1982/83 in some, 1989 in others).  That's a whole lot of years where sales were strong and at the top of DC's sales charts.  Superman's decline in sales also matches the decline in the mass market; i.e. newsstands.  Superman was a mass market title.  Newsstands, as a whole, underwent a massive decline in the 70s.  Publishing costs skyrocketed, while the economy went into the toilet.  More and more independently owned venues, like drug stores, were bought up by corporations and rebranded.  The first thing they did is start cost cutting, which in many locales included gutting their newsstands.  Newsstands shrunk or were eliminated in traditional markets, like grocery stores, drug stores, and discount stores.  Book stores pulled back on the titles they carried.  This was the decade that the venerable Life Magazine and Saturday Evening Post bit the dust (Life was revived, later).  With the loss of newsstands came a drop in sales, across the board.  The Direct Market turned out to be the industry savior, as comics were sold on a non-returnable basis (except under certain conditions) and there was little waste (for publishers).  Niche titles could be better marketed.  They grew in influence and comics lived and died based on the tastes of the distributors and the comic shop owners.  Superman was not in favor with that crowd.  Neither was Archie or Richie Rich.  Those were mass market favorites; but, with the loss of their presence on newsstands (and newsstands period), a generation of readers grew up without them.  Harvey disappeared in the 80s (Marvel was even distributing their titles, near the end) and Archie suffered badly, though they shored up things by focusing on digests that could be sold at checkout impulse racks.

The other element in this is Julie Schwartz, who continued to focus on Superman as if the newsstand was the major player, when it was declining.  He was one of the entrenched editors that fought the new DC management, in his own way.  He was eventually retired and the stage was set for the Byrne revamp.  Before that, though, Schwartz had a lot of power because Superman brought a lot of sales, right up to the end of the 70s.  Those poor pre-Crisis sales are, metaphorically, the days just before Crisis was launched.  Chronologically, maybe the last 5 years.  That just happens to be the same period when kids were dumped in favor of teenagers and fans, an audience that kept shrinking across the decades.

As for internet stories, 99% of what appears is opinion, not fact.  As for figures, it's not the numbers, it's the analysis that sets the story.  Economists have proved that for generations.  You can make the same set of figures tell 10 different stories, depending on the angle you use.  Many of these opinion pieces have done exactly that, made the numbers fit their view.

In the end, what matters are the stories and characters that speak to you, as a reader.  For many of us, Superman spoke to us across the entire length of the Bronze Age and into the post-Crisis era.  I read the character from the very beginning of the BA until just after the Death storyline, when I felt they were spinning their wheels; and, I had mostly shifted to the independent titles (and few superhero books).  I always enjoyed the character and could usually find a good story.  Sometimes it took some digging; but, I could find one.

Action 457, March 1976, "Superman's Command Performance"

Superman obeys the commands of a group of clubhouse kids without ever having met them. The mystery gets solved in a cloyingly sweet way.

Worth avoiding, 1.5/5 stars.