Discussion with friends prompted me to do a reread of the post-Crisis Superman.

Interesting that Byrne included these very sad details to the Kents’ pasts; miscarriages, stillbirth, a brother mangled by a farming machine.

Clark raised the Titanic.

Clark adopts a costumed hero persona because people are scum.

I don’t think Clark designing his costume is as elegant as inheriting it from Krypton. But I think I know why Byrne did it this way: so Superman and his mission could be wholly devised by Clark himself; Clark the human being. Makes his alien origin incidental to his morality.

The much maligned glasses disguise. As someone who started wearing glasses in his thirties, i can tell you this actually works. I’ve taken off my glasses and stood right next to people who know me and they were startled when they recognized me.

The first of several unnecessary demystifications of Superman’s powers. This kind of “logic” stuff is a hallmark of Byrne’s work. To wit, Martha observes that skintight clothes don’t tear or even dirty. I WONDER WHY! The real reason is because it’s easier not to draw all that.

Amazing first page. Love everything here. So much detail, fashion, movement, urban environment. And a classic superhero flying through it.

Does anyone know if the credits were on this page in the original miniseries?

Behold this clever sequence of Superman oppressing an economically disadvantaged citizen.

Superman may be overstepping by putting his hands on this Suicide Girl’s radio but as we’ve learned recently, the police are called quite a lot to deal with noise complaints. He’s probably more right than wrong.

Byrne has this liquor store getting held up by several baddies with machine guns and a bomb. Dunno if this was an 80s crime thing or what but I don’t think we’d see that now. I think with some exceptions we always see superheroes fighting supervillains.

Lois Lane’s modern 80s apt. Glass desk. Cat. Not sure what the art is. Lois rocking the bathrobe-and-heels combo, which your mileage will vary on.

But notice how Superman doesn’t like brie cheese? Kinda wonder if that’s a misguided macho thing on Byrne’s part. Brie is delish.

This interpretation of Lois is clearly inspired by Margot Kidder’s in the Donner film, and would carry over into the best ever version of Lois; the animated series vision designed by Bruce Timm and performed by Dana Delany. This kind of Lois VERSUS Superman VERSUS Clark dynamic.

(The loss of this dynamic is why I kinda peaced out on Superman comics as a younger man. All this wonderful tension was dissolved when they got together. Like Niles and Daphne, Ross and Rachel, Charlie Brown and the football. The story feels over. But I realize people dig it )

Scenes like these are IMO used disingenuously by people who like to sound very smart and pithy by saying Batman is a billionaire who beats up poor people. Like, sure; but what he’s doing here is in service of stopping a supervillain. I think it’s a meaningful distinction anyway.

Also is that first page a Watchmen reference?

Byrne wisely resists explaining how Batman, a human being, could elude Superman. The answer is because he’s the goddamn Batman. This page has stayed in my memory since the first time i read it.

Many superhero origin retellings include some conspicuous artifact that’s peculiar to that story’s time or its author’s idiosyncrasies. In Man of Steel, it’s Magpie.

Incidentally she has gruesomely murdered the economically disadvantaged citizen Batman was menacing earlier.

I love how Byrne spots Batman’s cape and cowl in his work on the character.

Incidentally I like this speech Batman gives about the tension of fighting insane people. Noobs think this stuff isn’t in the text but it has been since I’ve been reading cape comics.

Let us pause for an appreciation of John Byrne’s fabulous fashions for Lois Lane in the 1980s. I honestly love all of this. Curious what @bettyfelon and others think.

Confirmed, credits on the art. I’m guessing they were removed like Watchmen’s were to make the trade feel more like a novel and not a compilation. Usually I’m against this because pages are designed w/ credits in mind, but I think this works better w/out . https://twitter.com/simps/status/1274973530480754692?s=21 https://twitter.com/simps/status/1274973530480754692

Thanks to everyone who pointed out the wall art is likely a framed kimono, a trend in 1980s interior decor.

Also more than one person theorized Superman’s distaste for Brie was due to his Midwest background, so I was possibly too uncharitable to Byrne in my earlier speculation.

Good catch from @HowardtheDuck95. The digital version is recolored. The original is far warmer. Interesting changes. If you’re interested in the topic of recoloring old comics, check out José Villarubia’s writing about it here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10163251815750117&type=3

The lettered credits are curious. Maybe @droog811 or @blambot or @swands or @SimonBowland or @deronbennett could weigh in. The credits styling seems so incongruous with the art and title. I wonder if this was a contemporary style. 1986.

More of the long lost Clark vs Lois dynamic I love. I fully own the possibility that I might be the minority on this, but I wince when I see Lois Lane in a kitchen with her loving family etc. I prefer Lois Lane tearing someone’s asshole open. Especially Clark Kent’s.

My thinking about Lois Lane is very in-line with that of Dana Delany, who performed her voice on the Timm cartoon. In this interview, we talked about LL as this flawed, brilliant, foolish, mean, romantic, glamorous, rugged, unflappable mess of humanity. https://comicsalliance.com/dana-delany-interview-lois-lane-superman-animated-series-flashpoint/

It was obvious from the jump that the post-Crisis Lex was inspired by Trump, but in hindsight it seems Byrne & Co were too generous to Trump and unfair to Lex. But here we see the trappings: gaudy possessions, tacky clothes and hair, bragging about his wealth and importance.

Lex as this corporate super criminal is a great idea that I believe is attributed to Mark Wolfman. See here the very relatable frustration Lois expresses about everyone knowing Lex is dirty but being unable to prove it in court. This resonates still, decades later.

A great showcase for Lex and Lois; he tries to own a piece of her by giving her an expensive dress she can’t except as a journalist or as a woman. She knows what’s really behind his “gift,” especially one so intimate as a sexy dress. She’d rather go naked than be Lex’s trophy.

Pity about these ambiguously Latino terrorists.

From Byrne’s pencil to God’s eyes...

I love this simple emotional root of Lex’s hatred for Superman: humiliation. Lex was happy to have Superman in Metropolis if he worked for him. Instead Superman had him arrested. It’s not about alien panic, or Lex wanting to save mankind, or about losing hair. It’s just HATE.

Which is not to say there haven’t been wonderful alt motivations/layers to Lex vs Superman. But the purest is hate. We used to criticize stuff like that as one dimensional. But as this Lex’s inspiration demonstrates daily, it doesn’t take more than hate to get up in the morning.

Amazingly prescient, John Byrne. Here, Lex performs an offensive mimicry of a person with brain damage. Who else have we seen do something like that?

(Sidebar: lest anyone mistake my praise for elements of this John Byrne work for any kind of love beyond the page, here’s a list of just some of the variously stupid and terrible things he’s said about all sorts of people and things. NOPE. ) https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Byrne 

Lucy Lane trues to kill herself because all she ever wanted to do in life is be a flight attendant.

(don’t worry, bizarro saves her)

I like that she has platinum hair and a far less glamorous style to make her visually distinct from Lois. Many artists don’t think of this.

Lois is an asshole.

I think I would wear this Clark outfit. Pretty sure I do have that tie. But look again; does that look like Superman? It does not. Byrne follows his own rules and the disguise works.

Just an awesome page. Sometimes you need to break from story-story and remind the reader what’s awesome about the hero.

Here’s where Byrne’s decision to keep Krypton out of Clark’s life really pays off. You get this wonderful sequence of pages of Clark just freaking out as Krypton reveals itself to him for the first time.

This might be my favorite scene in Man of Steel. We learn here that Clark broke Lana’s heart. It’s really sad but also really real. What are you supposed to do in this situation?

More agony as Clark endures the kryptonian Wikipedia download. This is a good, economical way to put a lot of backstory into place for later plot convenience.

Remember the shot of Jonathan Kent wacking this apparition with a shovel; it will be directly referenced years hence.

Final page of THE MAN OF STEEL restates, perhaps somewhat overstates, the reboot’s central mission: Clark Kent is a guy; a human guy; he’s an American; and he just happens to be Superman. He’s not an alien, an earthling.

Later work on Superman, even nominally in this continuity, would lean more into the sci-fi and kind of supplant Clark’s human upbringing with kryptionian backstory. Which is fine. More than one way to skin a cat. Especially DC cats, which IMO are more “elastic” than Marvel cats.

Some of the dated stuff aside, the only real weak link in MAN OF STEEL is the Bizarro issue. It feels aimless and ultimately pointless, since Bizarro is killed in the end anyway. It’s something that might have made a good one in done in the subsequent series, though.

Anyone reading this familiar with pre-Crisis Superman? I’m not. Curious to know more about what Byrne changed. Not just story but also visuals. Obviously the krypton redesign, the 80s fashions. What about Superman himself? What about corporate Lex vs supervillain Lex?

Oh yeah, no Superboy! As I understand it, this change royally fucked up the Legion for quite a while. Someone please elaborate on that.

But it did give us 90s Superboy, which I wouldn’t trade for anything. https://twitter.com/mightygodking/status/1275308534780047361?s=21 https://twitter.com/mightygodking/status/1275308534780047361

Following MAN OF STEEL was the new series, SUPERMAN, with a new #1. Rare at that time.

Bad #1 cover. I don’t know what they were thinking. I actually thought i couldn’t find issue #1 in back issue boxes, flipping past this cover because I thought it must be a rando later issue.

Just my opinion? If I was developing a new Superman series with a new #1 and my writer was like “Let’s launch with METALLO!” I’d be like J Jonah Jameson and be like “get the fuck out of my office.”

But also this comic has outsold anything I’ve ever done so

This should have been the cover.

Even now there’s debate within dv/marvel about “story covers” vs “cool covers.” The above cover is very story; you see the villain, hero in jeopardy, callout copy. On paper it works, in practice it doesn’t. This image is more commercial IMO.

Im a big believer in a kind of inception with comics fans. I think a lot of the most popular characters are popular in large part because there’s so many iconic images of them looking cool, so readers think of them as cool. The lower tier characters don’t get those opportunities.

Interesting that Lois and Clark have a mutual flirtation despite being work colleagues. There’s no question from the context that they both consent to the dynamic, but it does show how much things have changed; I suspect that would be something acknowledged in the text today.

Is this the first instance of alien panic connected to Superman? In any case I think this single page of story has proved influential.

BTW this guy was set up in MOS. Byrne obviously had a roadmap.

I get why Byrne used Metallo out the gate; to establish kryptonite, a crucial piece of lore, and showcase that even Superman can get the shit kicked out of him (Byrne and Terry Austin are very good at depicting this). I think Metallo is just underwhelming. Easy for me to say tho.

According to the trade I’m reading, this comes next. This is interesting from an editorial standpoint. To me this reads like a Teen Titans story with a phony Superman in it. And it’s the first new Superman story after SUPERMAN #1. Don’t like it. But TT were very popular then.

Even though it looks like a gigantic L-shaped penis in the sky, Luthor’s skyscraper and it’s interior decor are somehow more tasteful than Trump’s.

Here’s a story cover that totally works, but I think a more elegant alternative cover would be the splash page with Clark’s face instead of Lana’s. As ever I prefer more evocative “silent” covers to the explicit ones.

This is the second issue of Byrne’s run and I think it’s much stronger than the first, but your mileage will vary. The cover hook is about the secret identity, but it’s really about what a bastard Lex is, which we see by his graphic mistreatment of women. It’s kind of a lot.

We see Luthor employs an all-female staff. He says they’re the best at their jobs, but we also see him required them to wear revealing skirts, threaten, harass, and coerce them into sex. Roger Ailes did all of these things IRL. We also see Lex had Lana tortured to lure Superman.

This feels like a lot for what’s ostensibly a children’s entertainment and it could certainly be criticized as employing sexist tropes. But dramatically it works, and as someone who read this as a boy I can say that nowhere else had I seen so clear an example of this kind of man.

In our scene we talk a lot about the messaging of superhero stories. There will never be a true consensus on what is and isn’t appropriate or the right way to depict something like this. All I can say is that in this instance, because Superman hated this kind of man, I did too.

Superman is driven to rage (Superman has feelings, he has emotions, even negative ones), but Luthor wins this one with the kryptonite ring. This poisonous artifact, Lex’s rejection of the female scientist’s conclusion that Superman is Clark; all of it speaks to his insane HATE.

Here’s a scan of the original art for that MAN OF STEEL splash page we discussed earlier. Cc @THEBRYANHITCH. https://twitter.com/fukutopia/status/1275329633299423233?s=21 https://twitter.com/fukutopia/status/1275329633299423233

Original art from one of the Teen Titans pages above! https://twitter.com/judahthehammer/status/1275337116306808833?s=21 https://twitter.com/JudahTheHammer/status/1275337116306808833

Concurrently with the Byrne books they ran this series, which I gather was until then called SUPERMAN. They retitled it but kept the numbering, so this is kind of a new first issue. The Jerry Ordway cover reflects that perfectly. It stands out even today.

Series ( re)numbering is a complicated topic in DC/Marvel series and I’m glad I have nothing to do with those decisions. If it were up to me, though, I would relaunch series whenever there’s a new long-term creative team or major change in creative direction. If not, no renumber.

Wolfman & Ordway use Cat Grant’s first appearance to express unambiguously that Clark is hot and hot people think he’s hot. I’m guessing this was a conscious break from the vision of Clark as a sexless bore a la Christopher Reeve etc.

Cat Grant confemporizes the daily planet. She’s a sexually confident woman, divorced, single mom, covers entertainment in an apparently salacious manner. She’s positioned as a less scrupulous journalist than Lois, and as a romantic interest for Clark. I love a love triangle.

This first issue of ADVENTURES contains not only the first appearance of Cat Grant but also Suicide Slum and Professor Hamilton, both of which would become key elements in the post-Crisis Superman universe and beyond. Cat and Hamilton have appeared numerous times in TV and film.

It’s a trip to see this early Ordway art. Much looser a style than he would later develop. Something kind of Steve Rude-esque about these images (or perhaps Steve is Ordway-esque?)

More of Lex being a real fucking bastard. I can think of a time in the last five years where, if I’d tried this take, it’d have been criticized for being too cartoonishly evil. But now we vividly understand how true to life this kind of sickness and misogyny really is.

A cool detail they slip into Lex’s backstory here and in the sequence above is that his pre-Crisis characterization as a kinda mad scientist hasn’t been jettisoned. He’s acknowledged as a brilliant scientist in his own right, but one who’s moved on to other (eviler) things.

I don’t think I knew Hamilton was a kind of desperate, crazed, suicidal maniac in his earliest appearance. Lex steals his invention, he seems to get a guy killed, holds a prostitute (or “street strumpet”) hostage, and goes to jail. Later on he’s played as eminently a good guy.

Back to Byrne and another team-up issue of ACTION. Based on the few issues of the line so far, it seems SUPERMAN is the main book with all the major super villains; ADVENTURES is the metropolis world building; and ACTION is for post-Crisis Superman to meet other rebooted heroes.

Interesting to see Superman refuse the call for selfish reasons. Also I think this is the first mention of his vulnerability to magic, which I believe was another main rule of the post-Crisis character.

Now onto what is the first DC comic I can remember buying off the newsstand. Or at least, asking my mom to buy off the newsstand. I read it countless times. This is a great cover too. Good jeopardy, inoffensive copy.

This sequence of Clark running from the omega beams is fucking rad. The bystander dialogue is a lot of exposition. It’s funny to think the average person is so familiar with Daily Planet office politics. But holy shit this is cool.

These pages scared me when I was a kid. Claustrophobic, smothering.

So I read this issue when it came out in the late 80s. I lived overseas so it wasn’t easy to get back issues. I don’t think I read the second part for like 25 years. This was the cliffhanger I was left with. Iconic Darkseid stuff. Byrne was very good at the Fourth World.

Besides everything else wrong with it, the Comics Code had such an ugly badge design. It offends me that it’s pasted onto this lovely Jerry Ordway artwork.

But look at that rad cover. Good example of a story cover that’s still cool, no wack cover copy either.

A “problem” I see with a lot of 80s artists is the tendency to ape Kirby when drawing Kirby characters. These two Byrne/Giordano pages are good examples IMO. It’s homage of course but it’s conspicuous. Even the maestro Steve Rude can’t seem to help himself on that score.

I’m four issues into Byrne era (or ten if you count MOS) and Superman’s already gone to Apokalips, led a Hunger Dogs revolution, banged an evil witch lady, and helped kill a lot of people under her spell. This feels like an unearned epic to me reading this now, but at the time?

At the time DC was running its first post-crisis crossover, LEGENDS, which was Darkseid-based IIRC, so that’s presumably why Superman went to Apokalips so soon into the run. Maybe it was organic to readers then. To me it felt really jarring. We’re still getting to know Metropolis

Another excellent Jerry Ordway piece. Again, no wack cover copy. No idea why the trade people blacked out the issue number. But so far the Ordway covers are more iconic and IMO age better than the story-specific, copy-heavy Byrne covers.

Interesting and dark detail. The story acknowledges that Superman killed innocent people while under whatshername’s spell, but doesn’t remember. Orion and Lightray decide to spare him the guilt so he can remain the champion he is.

I remember this issue from when I was a kid. Pretty heavy stuff. Lone gunman does mass shootings all over metropolis, in the name of justice for Vietnam vets, he says. Turns out he was a draft dodger whose brother was maimed and he feels guilty.

First Maggie Sawyer I think.

The trade editors put the Byrne and Ordway covers together in a way that illustrates my point. One is like scenes from the book, the other is like a movie poster. Both totally valid approaches, both great art. But I do think the Ordway ones are more powerful and aged better.

Cool Byrne action.

Ordway is really good at people being sad but also Superman blowing someone’s clothes off.

Little scenes like these are all over Byrne’s Superman work. He’s very into explaining powers, the limits of powers, etc. I really like this reboot’s de-powering of Superman, which they definitely used in the cartoon too. But I’m not wild about these little info downloads.

I do like this demonstration of Superman’s powers. “He’s flying the ship from the inside!” Also cool splash of the thanagarian fleet. Interesting color. Anyone have the original? Curious if it was colored quite this way.

Another little info download: Superman can take a breath deep enough to oxygenate his blood for an hour in space. Neat. Imposes a limit on his cosmic activities, which is good for plots, and allows the artist to draw him doing cool super shit w/out a spacesuit or mask.

See, Hawkman needs an oxygen mask. No one likes to see this.

Kilowog mentions losing his home world in the CRISIS. I’ve never been clear on this. Did characters remember Crisis on Infinite Earths or not? I thought only the Psycho Pirate and Pariah did.

Is this the first example of a non-GL lending their will power? I do remember a great Lobo scene where his will was so strong he overpowered G’nort’s ring.

This is a funny Lois bit.

So Lois gets exposed to (not gamma radiation) and turns into (not She-Hulk). Saw what you did there!

Apparently the first appearance of Jack Kirby’s Dan Turpin in the Superman reboot, recruited into Major Crimes by Byrne’s Maggie Sawyer. An auspicious pairing that would become indelible in Superman media for years, and another major source of story for the animated series.

Notice above the quotation marks Byrne uses around random nouns. This is a Byrne tic that carries over into his forum posts, with no consistent pattern. It’s so conspicuous that back in the old internet days, us snotty kids would parody him by “saying” “things” “like” “this”.

TWIST: it wasn’t Lois! It was Kitty Faulkner, which is a cool name. Love Byrne’s fashions for women as always; Maggie looks awesome Somehow buy she’s a super cop. Also love the harmonious contrast of ultra modern, gay Maggie Sawyer with comic book retro, tough guy Dan Turpin.

Back to Ordway and Wolfman, who have staked their claim on the more human stories. Here we see Clark wrestle with his responsibilities as a reporter, a hero, a lover, a son. Great stuff. And great, bold storytelling choices from Ordway, who owns Pa Kent as far as I’m concerned.

Finally we get to the first story I find myself just skimming through. It’s the Metal Men. I’ve just never liked the Metal Men. Or Firestorm, or Metamorpho, or any science heroes like that, because I was a shitty student. I call these types of characters Homework Comics.

Big fan of hunky, hairy Clark Kent. They really take a lot of time to reinforce the idea that he’s a babe, possibly to emphasize the break away from dorky Clark.

Awesome Byrne panel.

THIS IS SO SAD

I think Superman debuting as an adult and skipping Superboy is a great idea. It’s more dramatic. More accessible. But it totally fucks up the Legion. The explanation storyline is really confusing to me as someone who hasn’t read that Legion material, but it’s also quite moving.

I’m just glad I wasn’t one of the editors who had to make those decisions. They had ramifications for decades.

So what happened to that pocket universe the time trapper created for Superboy? I’m confused. Is it still out there? Because I want to know if depowered Krypto is ok.

This came out of nowhere. An Erik Larsen issue. I’ve never seen this. Curious fill-in choice; his style is wildly different than Byrne and Ordway, whose work I would very broadly describe as part of that Neal Adams school. Larsen is very not that. Reminds me of underground comix.

Playing armchair editor I’d guess the deadlines were looming and young Larsen stepped up to finish it on time. Sometimes when you need a fill-in, you go with whoever can guarantee completion, even if there isn’t a strong style match. But these people are HEROES to editors.

People are telling me the pocket universe Smallville was destroyed.

....

....

....if it’s the last thing i do, I’m going to go back and save that dog.

Some great covers from this trade. You see Ordway really pushing the concepts, and Byrne proves me wrong on cover copy again because that Superboy vs Superman cover is compelling as fuck.

Clever storytelling from Byrne.

Man I don’t even know. I guess Byrne was experimenting with contrasting his naturalistic figures with an exaggerated one but IMO the results make it seem like a Star Trek alien is running around in the middle of this world of human heads.

Mike Carlin takes over as solo editor around now. Till this point he’d been working with editor Andy Helfer, who’s overseen some amazing DC projects including the Superman reboot, JLI, and most influential for me personally, the original Legends of the Dark Knight.

Helfer’s is one of the names that stood out when I first started to figure out what comic book editors did. For a good chunk of DC history, Helfer’s name was on a lot of really cool, arguably experimental stuff like THE SHADOW. He also invented the Paradox Press imprint at DC.

Carlin’s first solo issue as editor is this ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN that introduces Jose Delgado, who’d later become the costumed hero Gangbuster. Featuring art assists from P Craig Russell, this issue dealt with Luthor’s manipulation of the poverty and gang crime in Suicide Slum.

Stories like this demonstrate how cape comics were always political. Luthor uses his wealth, power and malevolence to create chaos in this multi-ethnic community for his own ends. That was always political. What’s different now is half the country doesn’t think that’s wrong.

Byrne’s take on Suicide Slum was perhaps less nuanced than Wolfman and Ordway’s........

I think that might be a caricature of Ice-T?

But even in Byrne’s work, Superman remains the vehicle for this unmistakably political message about the scourge of inequality in America. That’s what he was created to be, from his earliest stories.

We come now to one of the worst and most infamous Superman comics ever. An apokaliptian villain called Sleez hypnotizes Superman and Big Barda into making pornography, the profits of which he will use to raise an army.

Darkseid makes Mr Miracle watch it.

In the end, Superman chases Sleez through the sewers where Sleez lights a match so he can avoid capture by dying in a shit-fueled inferno.

The Sleez issue is rightly maligned but I confess that after reading it just now there’s some pretty funny storytelling. It’s a ghastly concept but in terms of pure comicbookery it’s got some quality.

A running subplot has been Superman’s powers malfunctioning as a consequence of absorbing all of (Not She-Hulk’s) energy. This anticipated Grant Morrison’s recurring image of the golden supercharged Superman, and the idea of too much energy harming him, by some years.

Wonder if this Byrne story about Superman’s out-of-control powers was an inspiration for the MOS film climax. We see the villain putting Superman in a choke hold so as to aim his heat vision, flying into buildings, destruction. Except here Superman isn’t doing it on purpose.

Love the innovative storytelling of Wolfman and Ordway in their book. Here they use a play structure to tell a sad story about Perry White’s wayward son getting mixed up in gang crime, and how Perry can’t protect him from himself or his own reporters. It’s rough emotional stuff.

Here are the first two and last two pages of this issue. Now while the characterizations are a bit dated, the drama is not. This is pure Lois and Clark drama, they just keeep missing each other. I love it.

Jose Delgado becomes Gangbuster. He decides that with the authorities unwilling and Superman seemingly unable to help his community, he needs to step. But unlike other vigilantes he pauses to reflect and realizes it makes him feel sick. But he has to do it, for justice.

Some great covers from this collection. Seems increasingly likely that story was in the Man Of Steel soup, but maybe they left out a crucial ingredient.