I disagree about Superman playing sports. It is as unfair as when male transvestites play against women in sports -- the genetic advantage is beyond the natural variance for the group the sport is meant to be a fair competition among. A Kryptonian vs human men is as unfair as a human man vs human women.
I enjoyed Man of Steel. Byrne had just done a wonderful few years on FF - he was a good storyteller / writer / artist. He was not just respectful of the Lee / Kirby material, he recognized it was the pillar of the franchise and used that material to tell a good story. His portrayal of Dr. Doom and the psychology of Victor von Doom was the best.
Man of Steel was, at the time, excellent. The tweaks mentioned above were OK. Granted, I was in 8th grade. DC had Byrne do the reboot, take over Superman, and do a team up book. Jerry Ordway (and maybe Roger Stern) were on another Superman title as DC was cherry picking the talent that made Marvel in those days #1.
Then it all went south. Byrne says that he was told that his version was an "alternate" Superman, and his stuff was not the mainstream story. Within 2 years it was all over. Turns out that DC got a lot of angry mail that Superman was being "changed". Being unable to handle criticism, DC scrapped the whole thing, let Byrne take his talents elsewhere, and the descent began....
Thanks for that info--I didn't know any of the inside baseball back then.
How interesting that DC ripped this reboot out of the canon while Dark Knight Returns, which was not supposed to be canon, has become de facto canon--or at least had a huge impact on canon.
Do you remember anything, specifically, that pissed off the fans about this reboot?
It was the older fans, and it was the Time magazine cover that did it. Probably boomers - no surprise there. Most of my early teen peers loved "Man of Steel", and when we heard Byrne was on the book it was a Big Deal. We'd seen his epic run on X-Men. I personally loved Alpha Flight. So Byrne on Superman was cool.
Turns out the older crowd saw the Time magazine cover, got wind of the changes and didn't like much of it at all, and wrote letters. Dick Giordano did a bunch of the inking, and he was also either the Publisher or Editor in Chief at DC at the time. He'd shepherded in the Wolfman / Perez New Teen Titans, Crisis on Infiinite Earths, The Dark Knight Returns ... like Jim Shooter at Marvel, he'd made DC fun again, turning it from a campy wack company with bad comics to something cool.
Byrne doesn't pin it all on Giordano - it was a slow train wreck to be sure, but this book is really good and has TONS of information on Byrne's career. I believe a chapter is on "Man of Steel" and the move to DC. The dirty details are in it.
Again, no one I knew, or anyone at Big Apple Comics (Broadway and 93rd Street) had any problem with Man of Steel. We loved it. Superman was boring and had grown very stale.
*Side note. The last issue of the original Superman run and Action Comics "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow" is great. Not only did they use regular classic artist Curt Swan, they brought back Gil Kane, and the Action book had finishes / inks by George Perez. They're both written by Alan Moore. Turns out they all worked together, and Moore and Perez not only showed much respect to Swan and Kane, but loved working with them. That was supposed to be the end of the original run - from the Golden Age. A few weeks later Man of Steel came out.
Thanks very much for the comments, and for that link.
I had never been into Superman, but I do remember thinking they had finally made him interesting, at the time. I started buying Superman and Action Comics for a while after Man of Steel.
I disagree about Superman playing sports. It is as unfair as when male transvestites play against women in sports -- the genetic advantage is beyond the natural variance for the group the sport is meant to be a fair competition among. A Kryptonian vs human men is as unfair as a human man vs human women.
But but but sex is just a social construct! Anything a man can do…
Anyway, granted. Superman is an extreme example of a genetic advantage.
John Byrne's GENERATIONS was good. It got me up to speed on not only the Superman canon but the Batman canon as well.
Was it faithful to the existing mythos, or did they tweak the canon, too?
Surprisingly faithful. Exceedingly faithful.
I enjoyed Man of Steel. Byrne had just done a wonderful few years on FF - he was a good storyteller / writer / artist. He was not just respectful of the Lee / Kirby material, he recognized it was the pillar of the franchise and used that material to tell a good story. His portrayal of Dr. Doom and the psychology of Victor von Doom was the best.
Man of Steel was, at the time, excellent. The tweaks mentioned above were OK. Granted, I was in 8th grade. DC had Byrne do the reboot, take over Superman, and do a team up book. Jerry Ordway (and maybe Roger Stern) were on another Superman title as DC was cherry picking the talent that made Marvel in those days #1.
Then it all went south. Byrne says that he was told that his version was an "alternate" Superman, and his stuff was not the mainstream story. Within 2 years it was all over. Turns out that DC got a lot of angry mail that Superman was being "changed". Being unable to handle criticism, DC scrapped the whole thing, let Byrne take his talents elsewhere, and the descent began....
Thanks for that info--I didn't know any of the inside baseball back then.
How interesting that DC ripped this reboot out of the canon while Dark Knight Returns, which was not supposed to be canon, has become de facto canon--or at least had a huge impact on canon.
Do you remember anything, specifically, that pissed off the fans about this reboot?
It was the older fans, and it was the Time magazine cover that did it. Probably boomers - no surprise there. Most of my early teen peers loved "Man of Steel", and when we heard Byrne was on the book it was a Big Deal. We'd seen his epic run on X-Men. I personally loved Alpha Flight. So Byrne on Superman was cool.
Turns out the older crowd saw the Time magazine cover, got wind of the changes and didn't like much of it at all, and wrote letters. Dick Giordano did a bunch of the inking, and he was also either the Publisher or Editor in Chief at DC at the time. He'd shepherded in the Wolfman / Perez New Teen Titans, Crisis on Infiinite Earths, The Dark Knight Returns ... like Jim Shooter at Marvel, he'd made DC fun again, turning it from a campy wack company with bad comics to something cool.
Byrne doesn't pin it all on Giordano - it was a slow train wreck to be sure, but this book is really good and has TONS of information on Byrne's career. I believe a chapter is on "Man of Steel" and the move to DC. The dirty details are in it.
https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Masters-7-John-Byrne/dp/189390556X
Again, no one I knew, or anyone at Big Apple Comics (Broadway and 93rd Street) had any problem with Man of Steel. We loved it. Superman was boring and had grown very stale.
*Side note. The last issue of the original Superman run and Action Comics "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow" is great. Not only did they use regular classic artist Curt Swan, they brought back Gil Kane, and the Action book had finishes / inks by George Perez. They're both written by Alan Moore. Turns out they all worked together, and Moore and Perez not only showed much respect to Swan and Kane, but loved working with them. That was supposed to be the end of the original run - from the Golden Age. A few weeks later Man of Steel came out.
It should have all gone down better.
Thanks very much for the comments, and for that link.
I had never been into Superman, but I do remember thinking they had finally made him interesting, at the time. I started buying Superman and Action Comics for a while after Man of Steel.