posted May 29, 2001 12:49 PM    

I liked that Tomar Re story, too, Solarlord. With Dick Dillin doing the pencils.

posted May 29, 2001 12:56 PM       

He proved that power-levels don't freaking matter when you write the icons as people and make their challenges intresting on multiple levels.

posted May 29, 2001 02:25 PM       

This is actually a newly-developed opinion. Although I own and have read "The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told," I held off in making a final judgment. I want to like Silver Age, I really do. As a curio, I will admit the stories are interesting. Many (but not all) of the story elements are intriguing as well. But honestly, the quality of narrative and its execution is so poor that for me, their real entertainment value is quite low. The stories are not siple, they are simplistic.

Exposition is blatant. Characterization is either shallow and two-dimensional or maudlin and forced. Superman's feats don't strain credibility, they break it. The veracity of simple human interactions ring hopelessly false and contrived. There is absolutely no sense of danger in the stories because you feel the creators themselves took the material less than seriously.

Again, elements of these stories may be good. Sometimes the general plot may not be so bad (ironically, the synopses of the stories that you're liable to find in and around the internet are more enjoyable than the stories themselves). The execution is where the trouble lies.

There is no comparison to the Superman comics of today: The stories now are deeper, with more characterization, more truth, and seem to express more thoughtfulness from the creators. Superman now has dynamics. The situations he finds himself in and the solutions he devises are, though fantastic, generally not as ludicrous. I feel I have more of a stake in this Superman. I feel that his experiences occur in a reality more like mine. I find his current adventures much more satisfying, indeed, exhiliarating.

posted May 29, 2001 02:54 PM       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Village Idiot:

There is no comparison to the Superman comics of today: The stories now are deeper, with more characterization, more truth, and seem to express more thoughtfulness from the creators. Superman now has dynamics.

---

Yeah, like that recent story where Clark revealed that he's a fan of the Beasty Boys (the bachelor party issue).

The Pre-Crisis Superman never had that kind of depth.

------------------
Bizarro Mark

"No arsenal or weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women."

posted May 29, 2001 03:12 PM       

But as you say yourself, many of the ideas and concepts in the stories do have alot of merit. Whereas in modern comics we seem to have the exact opposite. We have some really wacked out, convoluted, under done, over done, and some outright stupid ideas that are executed with sophistication and depth.

Also though, do keep in mind that the preception of comics being just and only a kids medium (not to mention the Comics Code) was so much more entrenched than it is today. So you'd often have very high minded ideas needing to be funneled through in a simplistic fashion.

There was also just a different style to comics writing then. Much of the time this style worked very well. Many other times it didn't.

I say its time to marry the two. The better ideas to the better execution.

Also one thing I want to clear up is that 70's Superman is not exactly the Silver Age Superman. Technically he's the Bronze Age Superman which was basically an evolution of the Silver Age Superman minus alot of the sillier and more annoying things of the Silver Age version.

LOL. Also, bizzaromark has a very good point. Not all the execution in modern in Superman comics is high-brow.

posted May 29, 2001 03:14 PM       

Bwa-ha-ha-ha! That was funny. I'm actually laughing as I'm writing this.

But you also bring up a good point: Who did the pre-crisis Superman like to listen to? I'd be surprised if such a personal character element was ever addressed, which goes back to my thesis.

posted May 29, 2001 03:49 PM       

Here here. On the other hand, I'd be more on board with the idea if we could clearly define what we mean by "good ideas." Good ideas to me are continuity, history, mythos. Villains such as Parasite, Braniac, Metallo, and yes, Luthor. Elements like Supergirl, Kandor, and Krypto. This is the stuff that endures; this is the stuff that works; and this is stuff that's already incorporated into the Modern Age.

Bad ideas are "Krytonian birthday sicknesses" (which somehow evolved, yet flies in the face of natural selection). A Krypto that thinks like a human instead of a dog. A Luthor who would rather "best" Superman than actually pose a serious threat. Ludicrously convenient glass domed flying saucers. Casually lifting and flying away with buildings. Terra-man.

Which is not to say that the current series doesn't have its ludricrous moments. I'm still waiting for an adequate explanation as to how Superman directed Krypto to use not just heat vision, but non-lethal heat vision (!?). And of course, there's the "1000 years in Valhalla" debacle.

I think most of the pre-crisis Superman, the parts I like, are either already part of the new continuity, or are becoming part of it thanks to the new team. And I like it.

posted May 29, 2001 04:13 PM       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Village Idiot:

But you also bring up a good point: Who did the pre-crisis Superman like to listen to? I'd be surprised if such a personal character element was ever addressed, which goes back to my thesis.

---

I don't recall that Superman listened to any specific artist or style of music. There were times when Superman was pictured in his Fortress of Solitude either composing his OWN music (cool!) or listening to strange, other-worldly music he encountered in his many travels around the galaxy. To me, this fits the character much better than the banal attempt to make Superman "relevant" or "hip" and linking him to a specific band or style of music.

Secondly, and more importantly, I don't think it was ever stressed because, frankly, nobody really cared or thought the information was that important. Superman stories were about pure ADVENTURE, created for a much younger audience....personal details like music preference would have been pretty pointless in that day and age.

------------------
Bizarro Mark

"No arsenal or weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women."

posted May 29, 2001 04:38 PM       

Yes, well, anyway, you're right about the perceived standard that the creators felt that they were working towards: entertaining young children. However, richer characterization is not necessarily the exclusive domain of adults. Moreover, as adults (ok, arrested adolescents) we can appreciate a more nuanced characterization with stories that speak more specifically to our own experience.

posted May 29, 2001 04:50 PM       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Village Idiot:

Moreover, as adults (ok, arrested adolescents) we can appreciate a more nuanced characterization with stories that speak more specifically to our own experience.

---

Nuanced characterization? I don't think so. I just don't see what you're seeing in the current Superman titles.

Would you can Superman's all-too frequent temper tantrums of late "nuanced characterization"? You know, the stories showing him destroying planetoids and trashing stuff whenever he's frustrated? The only time that something like that was EVER shown in the Pre-Byrne Superman was when Supergirl died and Superman "popped a bolt". The dramatic power of that sequence shook you to your core, unlike the all-too common sight of the current Superman up-ending tables and punching the ground everytime he's angry.

And how about Lois Lane's horribly "one-note" personality? I find nothing about her character (as it's currently portrayed) the slightest bit "nuanced" or subtle.

I'm just not buying your theory that the modern Superman comics are so much more sophisticated than their 1970's predesessors. Different? Yes. More sophisticated? Hardly.

------------------
Bizarro Mark

"No arsenal or weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women."

posted May 29, 2001 05:36 PM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by SOLARLORD:

Superman no. 257 featuring Green Lantern Tomar-Re as the GL who assigned the sector of the galaxy Krypton inhabited.

A fantastic story as Tomar Re realy feels the pain of failure for having not been able to save Krypton.

---

Absolutely - and you can find it at http://theages.superman.nu/tales2/greatestGL/

I don't see why there's anything wrong with finding Lara gorgeous - especially in this story

posted May 29, 2001 05:42 PM       

But taken within the context of the story itself, indeed, Superman has had trouble managing his anger lately. For a "Superman," he's been proven fairly impotent (Luthor as President, etc.). As an outlet, he chooses to pummel inanimate objects. In private.

Further, its not too far of an interpetive reach to suggest that he also does this for the same reason that many others would: to remind himself that he indeed has some power. A physical guy taking a physical (albeit non-productive) measure.

This is a Superman who feels things. A man who, like us, is subject to his emotions. A person who doesn't just "do" things (like thwart the villain by creating an air vortex of some kind by flying in circles), but also reacts to his world, sometimes unwisely. This is a deeper Superman, and a deeper, and yes, more sophisticated way of telling the story.

And Lois. You cannot tell me that Lois does not have more depth than her Pre-Crisis counterpart. Silver Age Lois had two dimension: spunky reporter getting into trouble, in love with Superman. She evolved. Now Lois now has a history. She has a family. Her personality is the product that family, for whom she had mixed feelings. She loves Superman, but struggles with that at times as well. This is a much more complex characterization than anything I could find in "Superman in the Seventies."

And in terms of more subtle nuances, as an example, look at how Superman's fear is conveyed. Rarely blatantly articulated, often indicated obliquely. Sometimes, like us, Clark is bold and confident. Also sometimes, and also like us, he's insecure. The best example of the exploration of these themes is in "Superman for All Seasons." Moreover, the presentation of all the characters in Superman in the Modern Era is clearly done with more verisimilitude, more sophistication, and more nuance than you're likely to find in the seventies.

Whew. This was a long one. Thanks for listening (or skimming, as the case may be).

posted May 29, 2001 06:12 PM       

It reads like the true story from which the legends spun off, and all the previous incarnations are those legends, fun to read for some, but no match for the Superman who really lived and inspired those tales. From 1986 through 1999 I beleved that Lois and that Clark, that Metropolis, that (those) Lex Luthor(s), those plots worthy of Dickens.

In the last year and a half it has watered down somewhat, it doesn't have the same "real" quality, but it still is kind of on the track.

posted May 29, 2001 07:22 PM    

It's tough arguing with the brass that they should pop for higher-grade paper, or transfer their printing contract to some place in Canada where they do OFF-SET printing. Or do full-bleed art. But Schwartz looked at some old newspapers when he was in '97, and before you know it--through well placed investments and horse-betting--Julie's a bazillionaire and actually buys out Time-Warner. Now he can make DC do anything he WANTS!

So they do all the conversions. They have to have a lot of lead time on production, though, because they don't have computers. John Costanza actually has to letter all those beautiful fonts himself, by hand--no computer program for him. And the colouring department have to do everything with airbrushes, and photographic plates--no computer separators here. Of course all this can be done (and was being done at magazines like Heavy Metal) in 1977--it's just a lot more expensive than using the computer systems we have now.

Next B.O. (Be Original) Schwartz directs Bates and Maggin and Pasko to write differently. He lays it all out for them--subjective point of view, no thought balloons, no resolution of a plot in a single issue, different characterization in tune with the mood of the 1990s rather than the 1970s, depowered heroes, overpowered villains. This isn't rocket science of course--Maggin, Bates, and Pasko know how to write, so this is just applying different conventions than the ones they have been using (but in movies, tv, soap opera, pulp novels, and Hemingway, there are different conventions, too--so these writers can do this new style while standing on their heads if that's what Julie wants).

Curt learns how to do the knew lay-out style while playing a game of solitaire.

posted May 29, 2001 08:52 PM       

I've always maintained that you MUST read these books in the spirit in which they were written...

You simply cannot read these books (Silver-Age, etc.) using or looking for the same things you do today in comic books...

It just doesn't work and won't work for you if you insist on comparing them in this way...

Although I will tell you all, there are some GREAT stories from those ancient times that would literally blow the socks off some of the stuff we get today...

Its been my experience that there is one particular writer who has mastered the genre and writes Silver-Age stories with a modern twist... His stories are, in almost every respect, the logical predecessors of those Silver-Age books...

The author???

None other than the GREAT Alan Moore!!!

He is THE absolute master of this subject and you can’t help but wonder the depth of the well of his imagination... He alone has made the transition of the various ages and molded them into his own...

I love the old books (and I literally have1000’sof them) I really do, but I will tell you this...

I still think this is a Great Time to be a Superman fan!!!

------------------
"I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself... A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself..." D.H. Lawrence

posted June 03, 2001 06:49 PM    

I was suggesting, however, that the conventions of the seventies--whether at Marvel or DC--were different than the conventions of the nineties.

There really isn't that much difference between seventies Marvel and DC. The difference was more obvious in the sixties.

But things like the rather overused first person narrative (where did this start becoming so popular--Dark Knight Returns? or Watchmen?), full bleed art, defined arcs that stretch over months or even years (there were arcs on Superman in the seventies--a few of them have been mentioned in this thread--it's just that they weren't made out to be "arcs"), special colour effects and lettering effects (Swamp Thing had special lettering effects in the early seventies, but these all had to be done painstakingly by hand), interlinkage up the whazoo, and stories slanted toward a particular cultural milieu that didn't exist in the seventies--things like this seem to add narrative depth because the young reader is so enmired in the culture that he automatically understands that these conventions are signs of narrative depth.

I bought Thriller (the comic book) in the eighties and I thought it amazing for its new narrative innovations. But it didn't sell--because the readership wasn't ready for it. Nowadays those innovative things that were done in Thriller are routine for any comic book.

Same thing sort of with Wasteland--although I think the mainstream medium is still not ready for an anthology title like Wasteland (Flinch doesn't come close--nowhere near Dell Close).

Same thing sort of with Kirby's Fourth World. Kirby was ahead by a few years. He needed the direct sales market to support his book and it didn't exist yet (certainly not at DC). The stuff Kirby did back then is being done now, even in the Superman books--although there are no writer/artists who are capable of producing four bi-monthly interlinked books these days (maybe Byrne if he could get his act together). The closest thing to Kirby is Moore on the ABC books, but there's no overt linkage with his books and he only scripts, he doesn't draw.

But these are obvious examples--if one researched back through the history of comics one would find works that are magnificently complex, while still remaining dead simple in their execution.

posted June 09, 2001 04:58 PM    

----twenty-five SWANDERSONs twenty-five

Superman

1) # 237 (May'71) "Enemy of Earth," story: Denny O'Neil, 22 pages.
--I could probably include all nine issues of the Sandman Saga, but that would take up too many slots on my list, so I've decided to include just a couple of representative stories. This is a personal favourite because it's the first issue I bought (after not reading Superman for a couple of years) and it introduced me to all the changes. But I like it for other reasons, too--like the ants. Lois is on assignment in South America, there's a marching army of red ants coming ever closer to her, while Superman is exiled in space. Swan and Anderson were great at doing very realistic, very detailed flora and fauna. The ants are amazing, and when they grow to giant size, watch out!

2) # 242 (Sept. '71) "The Ultimate Battle," story: O'Neil, 22pages.
--The big you'll never forget it conclusion to the whole saga. Chinese demons, a sand creature, a couple of homeless guys, a blind oriental sage, and the Metropolis Marvel. When they said "Ultimate," they meant it.

3) #243 (Oct. '71) "The Starry-Eyed Siren of Space," story: Cary Bates, 18 pages.
--after nine issues of earth-bound story-telling we get a completely different kind of story, set in outer-space. Mainly a Star Trek tale, this story is pretty standard science fiction stuff (two highly advanced energy beings in containment cells want to know what it's like to have real bodies), but what I like about it are all the wierd hanging unresolved details. For some reason at the start of the story, unwittingly, Superman has flown back in time (as he realizes at the story's end), but just why this was important is never made clear (it's for us to imagine). There's mention of a space-legend about starry-eyed sirens (another promising story possibility that remains unresolved). And the story finishes with some other guy who also looks like Superman and has his powers (never resolved) wandering around space in the distant past. I also like the skeletal monster that comes to life.

4) #246 (Dec. '71) "Danger Monster at Work!" story: Len Wein, 17 pages.
--This one has a front story showing STAR labs (a new concept in the Superman stories at this time) where Superman brings a strange germ that becomes a monster, but weaved into this is a back story about some of the people at Clark's apartment building forming a vigilante group. Among those at 344 Clinton Street we get to see the doorman Frank, wheel-chair bound Mrs. Goldstein, Nathan Warbow, Mr. & Mrs. Lewis, Jonathan Slaughter, and Harold Jenkins, while the mysterious Mr. X is mentioned but never seen (Mr. X--Mr. Xavier--is mentioned in other tales, like The Private Life of Clark Kent story in 254, by Len Wein and Neal Adams, and in 258, another TPLOCK, the story by Bates, Swan, and Giordano asks "Who is Mr. X?" I believe this was all an in-joke--apparently Prof. X of the X-Men was residing in Clark's apartment building).

5) #247 (Jan. '72) TPLOCK: "When on Earth..." story: Denny O'Neil; art: C. DOuglas Swan, M. Clyde AndersOn--with the "O" in those credits lettered larger than the other letters--8 pages.
--I believe this was the first in the series of Private Life stories. "When on Earth..." do as Earthlings do. The story centres on ordinary Clark trying to help the younger brother of his secretary at WGBS. Bick has fallen in with a rough crowd, and Clark goes to the bad part of town (where the taxi drivers don't stop, they just slow down to let you off) to try and reason with the lad. There's a scene in Clark's apartment where he tries smoking a pipe and gives it up in disgust, wondering why human's smoke such horrible stuff. In the bad part of town, Murphy does a beautiful shading thing on the bottom of page five (using a wash?) that gives it all a murky photographic look. Murphy was doing stuff like that at this time. The lead story in this issue was Maggin's "Does the World Need a Superman?" which has been reprinted a couple of times--but I felt, although a great story, it's gotten too much attention and didn't include it in this list.

posted June 11, 2001 06:17 PM    

continuing
twenty-five SWANDERSONs twenty-five

Superman

5 cont'd) # 247--repenting a few errors I made in haste...Maggin's lead story, of course, was "Must There Be A Superman?" And the older sister of Bick, in the back-up story, was Amy, a WGBS receptionist, but not necessarily Clark's secretary, as I stated.

6) # 249 (March '72) "The Challenge of Terra-Man," story: Bates, 18 pages.
--Would someone enlighten me as to why this seventies villain is so maligned? I don't get it. I like this character--he's one of the best Superman villains created in the seventies (there weren't that many). He's not Darkseid nor the Joker. Those kinds of villains demand epic material--and suffer from overuse. So Terra-Man fills in for the more normal stories between the epics. He's like so many other villains in Schwartz books (Captain Cold, the Tattooed Man, Chronos, Amos Fortune, Johnny Witts)--he's not terribly handsome, an ordinary guy with a mix of the old west and space-opera functioning as a working class super-villain. He does the job and gives the artists an opportunity for interesting visuals--a winged horse, sci-fi techware, old west fashions.

In one issue we get Archie and Edith, a beautiful scene of Terra-man on his Arguvian space-steed against the twilight cityscape, Krytonian history files, and a back-up story by Bates, Dick Dillin, and Neal Adams ("The Origin of Terra-Man," seven pages). You read the lead story, and then the back-up, and then you have to go back and read the lead again because you now understand Terra-Man much better and the story reads differently the second time through.

posted June 11, 2001 07:05 PM    

7) # 255 (Aug. '72) "The Sun of Superman," story: Bates, 16pages.

8) # 257 (Oct. '72) "Superman Battles the War-Horn!" story: Bates, 16 pages.

9) # 262 (March '73) TPLOCK "Puzzle of the Telepathic Twins!" story: Elliot S! Maggin, 9 pages.

10) # 264 (June '73) "Secret of the Phantom Quarterback!" story: Bates, 16 pages.

11) # 267 (Sept. '73) "World Beneath the North Pole!" story: Maggin, 16 pages.

12) # 270 (Dec. '73) "The Viking from Valhalla!" story: Maggin, 14 pages.

posted June 12, 2001 07:03 PM    

Page three, the title page, has Clark crashing through a wharf down into the water below it, all the while musing in his private thoughts, and changing clothes to become Superman and fly out of the water--ALL IN ONE PANEL. One of those things Curt would do every now and then...showing a body in motion through multiple movements all in one panel and every twist and turn leading naturally into the next--other artists would have used several panels.

So this page was featured in The Amazing World of Superman--Metropolis Edition (1973)--a black and white tabloid size edition (from Metropolis, Illinois) that I sent away for in the mail. And there was a big feature detailing every phase of how a comicbook is made. The feature showed the typed script, pencilled page, lettered page, and inked page for page three of "Superman Battles the War-horn."

Not just that, but all kinds of photographs, as well...including Dennis O'Neil typing a script, Curt Swan pencilling a page, Murphy Anderson inking, Julie Schwartz schwartzing, Sol Harrison producing, Joseph Letterese and Morris Waldinger and Gaspar Saladino lettering, Lillian Mandel scheduling the layout, Gerda Gattel proofreading, young Alan Kupperberg correcting art, Glynnis Wein doing paste-ups. Jack Adler and E. Nelson Bridwell are in there, too (don't know what they're up to). And getting together the foreign editions of DC books, Lois Baker and Milt Snappin. And photos of the engravers--Chemical Colorplate in Bridgeport, Connecticut. And photos of virtually every stage of the printing process at World Color Printing in Sparta, Illinois.

posted June 12, 2001 07:36 PM    

10) "Secret of the Phantom Quarterback!"
--Oh, poor Clark--this story marks a rather dreary turn of events in his life as it ends with Steve Lombard being hired as the resident jock in the WGBS news division. And the overbearing fella would try to make Clark's life miserable (although Clark usually turned Steve's tricks upon himself)--but he wasn't all bad (how could he be with a smart, attractive aunt like mystery-writer Kaye Daye).

11) "World Beneath the North Pole"
--begins with an insult that shoulda made a man out of Clark, as they are all at the beach (Steve, Clark, and Lois) and Steve kicks sand in Clark's face. But Clark meets Jamie Lombard--the nephew of Steve--and soon Superman and Jamie are on an adventure to the top of the world and below it to a Pellucidarian land in search of Jamie's lost father. Much as this story borrows from ERB and Jules Verne it also predicts Grell's Warlord (set in another world beneath the North Pole).

12) "The Viking from Valahalla"
--Still another lost world was Valhalla, Maine where Valdemar the Viking resided (as first seen in Superman # 260). Valdemar decides to visit the big city where his friend, Superman, lives and comes riding on his giant falcon (Skagerrak) swinging his flaming sword.

Okay, yes, I can see the point that some might make--this is silly, all these lost worlds, etc. But they accomplish one main thing--showing us an interesting juxtaposition of many unrelated elements. The sight of Valdemar upon that great falcon in the city's canyons of steel, concrete, and glass--the beauty of Anderson's inks on that marvelously detailed bird--somehow contains greater meaning than the simple plot might suggest. These scenes work on a level that goes right past the rational mind and directly to the place where dreams reside.

I also like the fact that Superman/Clark could be equally at home among some rather far-out dudes OR down-to-earth working class folk.

posted June 12, 2001 08:34 PM    

Action Comics

13) # 398 (March '71) Untold Tales of the Fortress: "Spawn of the Unknown," story: Geoff Brown (aka Leo Dorfman), 8 pages.
--At this time Murray Boltinoff was the resident editor on Action and, although he followed the changes in the other books (like Superman, Lois Lane, & Jimmy Olsen ), he didn't set trends. In fact his books seemed like a fusion of old-style Weisinger Superman and the Amazing New Adventures. There were no Sandman Sagas to be found here (or Fourth Worlds).

Keeping up the tradition were two mainstays from the Weisinger era--senior writer Leo Dorfman and young enfant terrible Cary Bates (Bates began writing for the Superman books in the mid-sixties when he was about fourteen or so).