Comic Book Legends Revealed: Was Alan Moore Going to Write Superman?

[Coyote2010]

All respect to Curt Swan, trust me, I would and have bought volumes of his work. I would love an omnibus or two spotlighting the best of the best from Swan, the Legion on up to the Super titles. I absolutely love the Splash Page to The Last Days of Superman.

It seemed like in the Silver Age Boring, Plastino, Shaffenberger, Andru, and Swan did a nice job of keeping things fresh visually.
Even Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow seems more engaging than Swans work from that era. Maybe Perezs pencils made all the difference.

I think it was iconic definitely, but it couldn't be called cutting edge or innovative, and that has been a criticism for Supes.. Superman, Gibbons Superman, Perez's Superman, except for Gil Kane, we didn't see those books during Swans heyday. Actually Gibbons Superman did happen..Still I was excited when Byrne came on board but I wanted to see a big best of retrospect like his FF. I still reread Byrnes FF.

I would have loved Moore and Garcia Lopez taking Superman into the nineties and beyond. A nice Swamp Thing sized run.

[Brannon]

About Marshal Rogers, I'm a fan of his work, but I can't place him on the same level as Lopez or Byrne. In fact, I'd place Aparo above him, certainly on Batman. Roger's has always been a bit of a puzzle for me. His detail and anatomy seemed to vary from page to page sometimes! When he nailed it, he was amazing, though.

I think what we find with the fans and creators who obviously favor the Silver Age Superman is often a lack of knowledge and or love for the Golden Age Superman in favor of the version that took off in the 50's during the baby boom years. This is understandable, but I always felt that this was what Byrne was trying to get at. As a Marvel guy, I think he had more of a liking to the tone of the early "pulpy" Superman stories over the somewhat silly stuff that started coming out during the Silver Age which was eventually overshadowed by the superior Marvel work of Lee/Kirby/Ditko, which he obviously favors.

I agree with Moore that most of the Silver Age concepts are fantastic ideas. I think when those ideas are divorced from the childish goofiness of the era, while retaining their charm, they are at their best. I can read those comics and enjoy them, but it's almost impossible to do so without viewing them an a parody or satire of the times filtered through the lens of childish fantasy.

[dupersuper]

a schism in their fanbase is beyond me. It's only now starting to heal, and it took Grant Morrison to do it.

Odd sentiment from some one who seems to live to push the schism open...

Now that you mention it, it amazes me to compare Byrne's art during the Superman post-CoIE reboot with his run with Gail Simone on Action Comics, which was meh at best.

Yeah: his art has gone way downhill. It always feels claustrophobic and sketchy and...well...pointy to me these days.

[666MasterOfPuppets]

Yeah: his art has gone way downhill. It always feels claustrophobic and sketchy and...well...pointy to me these days.

Absolutely. It seems he's not putting that much effort into his art anymore.

[King Krypton]

Absolutely. It seems he's not putting that much effort into his art anymore.

I remember when there was a big stink over Nelson DeCastro redrawing panels when he inked Byrne on Gail Simone's Action run. The thing is, I saw scans of the original pencils where in some panels, Byrne's facial expressions didn't match the dialogue or the mood of the scenes. There was a panel where the Repulse illusion tells Superman, "No more warnings for you, dear heart," and Byrne drew a completely insane look on her face that was the total flip side of the line. Nelson was FIXING Byrne's art by redrawing as necessary, and that sequence was a case in point. And there were a lot of times where Nelson was lavishing details on panels where Byrne's pencils were really, really spare. But then again, I noticed Jerry Ordway was also doing a ton of heavy lifting when he inked Byrne on Claremont's JLA run. Again, the raw pencils were pretty lacking.

Much like my feeling that Swan overstayed his welcome, I think Byrne coming back to Superman during Simone's run was a mistake. You can't go home again when your art skills have slipped as much as Byrne's did. He wasn't at his peak anymore, and Nelson's inks could only do so much to help it.