May your adventures never end (good bye superman)

[Prisoner 6655321]

So, every few months I sit down with a pad and paper and start sketching out my comics pull list for the upcoming quarter and that's what I'm in the process of doing right now. Like most working Americans, I just got a bit of a tax increase in my last pay and while this increase isn't killing me financially I figured I'd take it as a sign to slim down my pull list a bit more ( last quarter I dropped a whopping 15 titles ) bringing my monthly ongoing to 20 and various minis to 5.

Anyway, the big shocker this time is that (last time I wound up dropping LOSH, Superboy and Superman) I'm planning on dropping Supergirl and Action fairly soon. The first round of drops had more to do with the individual titles; LOSH hasn't really been much besides boring to me since around the time they traveled back to help Superman with that whole New Krypton thing. Superboy never had much chance I suppose, I'm not crazy for teen heroes and I just haven't been feeling Kal's (or most of the young justice line) since the reboot. Looking back I guess the Superman title never had much of a shot with me, the fist several issues were all over the place and by the time Scott got onto the book I had already remembered why I fell out of love with his x-men run all those years ago.

Action and Supergirl are a bit different though. I've really liked these books but my goal was to bring my pull list down to a certain number and so a number of books had to go and while I thought these books were good, I think all the books on my list are pretty good and... you get the idea.

Anyhow, this kinda struck me because really, I'm a huge fan of Superman and while I'm dropping the entire Superman family while keeping titles of other DC heroes that I like not as much due to things like the stories and what not in those books. It struck me that this would not be the case pre-flashpoint.

Honestly, not many of the changes related to Superman himself has really turned me off. The only things I'm not crazy about is making him younger (not just younger but more inexperienced... Hellboy has had more adventures then this incarnation of Superman) and undoing the marriage to Lois but this doesn't really take away from Superman to me. What bothers me the most is the stripping away of the major mythology surrounding Superman; Bibbo, Gangbuster, Jimmy Olson and the Newsboys, CADMUS and all that other stuff.

I get that this theoretically makes Superman “simpler” for new fans but for me it just kinda guts the concept. In a way, to me, Superman is only as good as people he inspires. The guy can do anything but he can't do everything and he can inspire others to do even more than the most powerful guy in the world. That's a huge part of the appeal to me and it's pretty much entirely lost in the post-flashpoint era.

What struck me here was a bit of Final Crisis when he was going through the multiverse to save the people he loved but failing to even be aware of Flashpoint. Yeah, Superman is a fictional character and so he only does what the creators make him do and isn't aware of anything really but keeping in mind Superman's role in FC and Grant's role in remaking Superman (and no I don't blame these shortcomings on Grant Morrison... Action has probably been my favorite of the Super titles) I can't help but to feel pre-flashpoint Superman let down all those great and quirky folks he inspired who no longer exist in recognizable form in the new DCU.

Anyway, goodbye for now superbooks... May your adventures never end.

[The Duke]

Prisoner (as in Number 6?)

There is close to 70 years of great, good and okay Superman stories out there to read. Again. And again.

[Prisoner 6655321]

Prisoner (as in Number 6?)

There is close to 70 years of great, good and okay Superman stories out there to read. Again. And again.

Good guess, the Prisoner was good stuff but 6655321 was Alex's prison number in the novel A Clockwork Orange (which was far superior to the even still amazing movie due to the fact that the last bit kinda adds a moral to the story) and you're right about the backlog of stories. Heck, I'm not even giving up hope for the future but at this time Superman's just another hero who can fly and shoot lasers out of his eyes, no more significant than Apollo or Martian Manhunter.

[zryson]

Hi Prisoner 6655321 there's a lot of dis-satisfaction with the current Superman-related comic books atm. Its a shame but many of the new 52 is a turn-on.

[Prisoner 6655321]

Hi Prisoner 6655321 there's a lot of dis-satisfaction with the current Superman-related comic books atm. Its a shame but many of the new 52 is a turn-on.

Yeah, I'm not 100% against the post-flashpoint era, it's got some good things with it too. Heck, some small amount of the Superman stuff isn't even all that bad in my book but what was lost (in regards to the Superman corner of the DCU) is much more than what was gained imo.

[The Duke]

Good guess, the Prisoner was good stuff but 6655321 was Alex's prison number in the novel A Clockwork Orange (which was far superior to the even still amazing movie due to the fact that the last bit kinda adds a moral to the story) and you're right about the backlog of stories. Heck, I'm not even giving up hope for the future but at this time Superman's just another hero who can fly and shoot lasers out of his eyes, no more significant than Apollo or Martian Manhunter.

I think there's a veddy good chance that D.C. as a whole may well change sooner rather than later.

[stk]

What bothers me the most is the stripping away of the major mythology surrounding Superman; Bibbo, Gangbuster, Jimmy Olson and the Newsboys, CADMUS and all that other stuff.

I don't see those things as "stripped away" so much as maybe some of them just not having happened yet. Although I admit the possibility Gangbuster will ever happen at all in the new continuity is remote.

But as far as Jimmy & the Newsboys, Cadmus, etc. goes, how is it different from what happened post-MoS continuity? The original stories were no less "stripped away" so they could be re-told in a new way in the post-Crisis continuity.

[MajorHoy]

I don't see those things as "stripped away" so much as maybe some of them just not having happened yet. Although I admit the possibility Gangbuster will ever happen at all in the new continuity is remote.

But as far as Jimmy & the Newsboys, Cadmus, etc. goes, how is it different from what happened post-MoS continuity? The original stories were no less "stripped away" so they could be re-told in a new way in the post-Crisis continuity.

With me, it's not so much that stuff has no longer happened yet (though making Morgan Edge an African American this time seemed like an unnecessary switch . . . why couldn't they have just invented a new name for the character they introduced? ), but it seems like my enjoyment and caring for the concepts they presented just aren't there these days. (I was enjoying George Pérez' take, so of course the editors in charge screwed around with his work so much he got tired and left the book! )

And while I was really enjoying Supergirl, they messed that up by forcing the H'el on Earth crossover so soon into Lobdell's uninteresting run on Superman (and so soon after the "successful" The Culling bit).

Superman was a traditional hero, but DC doesn't seem to want / care for traditional readers on that line of books.

[Tandaemonium]

"Bibbo, Gangbuster, Jimmy Olson and the Newsboys, CADMUS and all that other stuff."

This was pretty much what I had a problem with the most in Post-C DC. I HATED all those characters, along with Dubilex, Fringe, that blind girl treating him like her Chewbacca and her diabetic grumpy dad that used to give Clark a hard time. They were all too gee-whiz, mister for me and took up way too much panel time. Actually Bibbo and Jimmy are fine as long as they're used sparsely. I remember back then when all these characters took up the majority of pages in consecutive issues instead of the title star.

[Coyote2010]

"Bibbo, Gangbuster, Jimmy Olson and the Newsboys, CADMUS and all that other stuff."

This was pretty much what I had a problem with the most in Post-C DC. I HATED all those characters, along with Dubilex, Fringe, that blind girl treating him like her Chewbacca and her diabetic grumpy dad that used to give Clark a hard time. They were all too gee-whiz, mister for me and took up way too much panel time. Actually Bibbo and Jimmy are fine as long as they're used sparsely. I remember back then when all these characters took up the majority of pages in consecutive issues instead of the title star.

I was just reading another thread about which characters have the worst fanbase, and the criticism for Superman fans was that they only except their version of the character.

I do have to agree with the above post though. It seems like in 86 when Man of Steel came out, Kirby's Superman universe was given special recognition.

[manofsteel1979]

"Bibbo, Gangbuster, Jimmy Olson and the Newsboys, CADMUS and all that other stuff."

This was pretty much what I had a problem with the most in Post-C DC. I HATED all those characters, along with Dubilex, Fringe, that blind girl treating him like her Chewbacca and her diabetic grumpy dad that used to give Clark a hard time. They were all too gee-whiz, mister for me and took up way too much panel time. Actually Bibbo and Jimmy are fine as long as they're used sparsely. I remember back then when all these characters took up the majority of pages in consecutive issues instead of the title star.

If you were referring to the Blue guy with horns, that was Scorn...not Fringe. The girl's name was Ashbury and her dad was a Rush Limbaugh analogue called Dirk Armstrong.

Hi. My name is David and I am a hopeless fanboy.

The increase of the supporting cast in the books really hit critical mass right around the time Superman went Electric and got progressively worse right up through King of the World from mid 1997 through mid 1999. As much as I liked Jurgens, Simonson, Stern and Kesel on the books, looking back now,there should have been at least some creative turn over following Zero Hour IMO."Fall of Metropolis" pretty much is the grand finale to the stories that began with the Byrne era. For all intents and purposes, that was the end of the real Post-Crisis era of Superman.Yeah, David Micheline took over ACTION, but I wasn't a big fan of his time on the character and other new voices should have been brought in to keep things going. It's clear after that the emphasis shifted from telling the best possible stories to "what's the next big event?". While there were a few highlights from time to time, that team had run it's course, and since they really had nothing new to say about Superman, they increased the spotlight to the supporting cast and grew that to the point Superman was no longer the star of his books, that is between the various events.

Now having said that, after that, DC went entirely too far in the other direction and for the longest time Superman had hardly no supporting cast outside of The Kents. Lois, Jimmy, Perry, Lana and Lex, and really since Superman hasn't had that much of a cast, although Johns did attempt to bring back Cat Grant and Ron Troupe, but it all got lost in the New Krypton shuffle. Once again Superman didn't appear much in his own books, except they populated them with new lead characters (Mon-El, Nightwing and Flamebird, Steel and later Lex in ACTION) instead of overloading the supporting cast. Different mistake, same result.


Strangely enough the only supporting cast member from the post-Crisis era I really miss is Bibbo. I hope we see him return sometime in the New 52...and hopefully Superman is still his "fav'rit"!

[Kurosawa]

Dear OP: welcome to my world after they threw away all the Pre-Crisis history. But I kept buying the books because they were Superman and I had bought them for years. What has finally given me my excuse to stop buying comics is the cancellation and renumbering of DC's big 4. Now I can just buy what I like with no obligations. My advice to all DC fans will always be this: do not get to attached to any characters, any stories or any history because they can and will be gone with the next reboot, and with DC there always will be a next reboot.

[stk]

"Bibbo, Gangbuster, Jimmy Olson and the Newsboys, CADMUS and all that other stuff."

This was pretty much what I had a problem with the most in Post-C DC. I HATED all those characters, along with Dubilex,

...who was a PRE-Crisis Superman character, fyi.

[Tandaemonium]

If you were referring to the Blue guy with horns, that was Scorn...not Fringe. The girl's name was Ashbury and her dad was a Rush Limbaugh analogue called Dirk Armstrong.

Ah yes, thank you. I always mixed up Scorn and Fringe...Jurgens had Fringe in his Teen Titans run around the same time.

...who was a PRE-Crisis Superman character, fyi.

Fair enough, but their Post-C incarnations made me hate them.

[dupersuper]

If you were referring to the Blue guy with horns, that was Scorn...not Fringe. The girl's name was Ashbury and her dad was a Rush Limbaugh analogue called Dirk Armstrong.

Hi. My name is David and I am a hopeless fanboy.

If you didn't name them I probably would have...