story telling thoughts

[Onslaught Six]

See, I dunno, I read the first All-Star Superman trade and I really wasn't all that impressed in parts. At times it seemed like it was basically a condensation of 'everything I didn't like about Superman.'

The bit with Luthor in prison being interviewed by Clark Kent was genius though.

[Dominic]

Me endorsing a book might just scare of the pure and true readers, because the book would be preachy.

The second half of "All Star Superman" is a bit better. It has the *only* appearance of Bizarro World that is not a justification for burning an author on a pyre of his own work. And, it has the moment where Superman punches out Luthor.


Dom
-rather liked the chronovore in volume 1 actually.

[Onslaught Six]

...Oh, yeah. The bits with the Future Supermen was pretty sweet too--but that's because I love crazy alternate futures. Realistically, Superman will still probably be alive by those points.

[Shockwave]

I only have one Superman comic and that's Superman 75 where he "died". He's my favorite "Superhero", but I was kind of hoping that it was going to stick. I think the main problem for Superman is that he's too powerful. There's really no way to beat him except to attack the people he cares about or with Kyptonite and both of those are so over done it's ridiculous.

[andersonh1]

I only have one Superman comic and that's Superman 75 where he "died". He's my favorite "Superhero", but I was kind of hoping that it was going to stick. I think the main problem for Superman is that he's too powerful. There's really no way to beat him except to attack the people he cares about or with Kyptonite and both of those are so over done it's ridiculous.

Superman is one character that is never going to be killed off. I had no illusions that his 'death' was anything but 'event' storytelling. And it was pretty well executed as these things go.

Superman's not nearly as powerful as he used to be. John Byrne scaled his power levels way back from the insane silver age levels, though I think he's regained a lot of that since then.

[Shockwave]

Oh I knew it wasn't going to stick at the time. I mean if you think about it logically, they couldn't permanently kill him off and still continue to produce Superman comics. They kept saying at the time that they were trying to drum up interest in the character and sales as result. If they had said they were ending it, I would have believed that he wouldn't come back, but it was all so obviously a sales stunt.

[138 Scourge]

Worth pointing out, though, Doomsday didn't have kryptonite, magic, and he wasn't particularly concerned about going after Superman's loved ones.

So, Superman: You can only hurt him with kryptonite, magic, or by finding someone stronger than he is to beat the living bejesus out of him.

The only reason I don't read many Superman comics is because he's got the whole "Four books a month that all connect" thing going. This tends to lead to extremely boring stories that drag on forever because none of the four writers can actually do anything with this ungainly ass story that they each work on.

So yeah, I generally ignore Supe's comics unless it's something like "All-Star Superman", or even something like Waid and Hitch's run on JLA. Those stories tend to be shorter and better than the interminable retarded story arcs in the main books.

[Dominic]

There are two huge problems with Superman.

First, the character has one of the worst defined power-sets in comics. Every attempt to make them work logically arguably adds to the problem. No character invented after the mid 60s would be allowed to have Superman's power set without a very good reason.

Second, the character does not lend itself to ongoing stories. Superman type characters needs to be used sparingly. Event stories will get consistently worse over time, and idea based stories take time. I will read self-contained Superman stories, (usually out of context), but not an ongoing.


The four books a month model needs a unified creative team to work. This can be a single competent editor, or a few writers who work well together. (I am not saying that this is the actual case. But, it is a way the model could work.)


Dom

[andersonh1]

There are two huge problems with Superman.

First, the character has one of the worst defined power-sets in comics. Every attempt to make them work logically arguably adds to the problem. No character invented after the mid 60s would be allowed to have Superman's power set without a very good reason.

They seem well-defined to me. He's strong, he can fly, he has incredible hearing and sight, and then there are the various things like heat vision and 'super breath'. About half of his powers take normal human attributes and crank them up to crazy levels, hence 'super' man. The other half are pure fantasy, but I wouldn't call them ill-defined. The application of said powers may be. You never know if he'll be stronger than Mongul or not, or how quickly the kryptonite will affect him, or whether he's especially vulnerable to magic as opposed to simply not being immune to it, etc.

Second, the character does not lend itself to ongoing stories. Superman type characters needs to be used sparingly. Event stories will get consistently worse over time, and idea based stories take time. I will read self-contained Superman stories, (usually out of context), but not an ongoing.

It is hard to come up with continuing threats and challenges to someone with Superman's power levels. That's certainly true.

I've thought for awhile that one of the best uses of the character was in "Kingdom Come", where he faced not so much physical threats as the problem of being out of step with the times. And the problem of metahumans running rampant across the globe was one that he couldn't solve with all his vast powers and abilities, not while remaining true to his higher ideals. I think giving Superman that sort of moral problem is often a good direction to take when trying to find challenges for him.

[Dominic]

I agree with the moral dilemmas idea. But, that does not lend itself to an ongoing series unless you have very good writers who can consistently come up with viable dilemmas and present them in a way that credibly shows why Superman cannot solve them (based on past experience) and/or Superman not being morally stunted. (Having a canonically stupid character raises all sorts of problems, as shown in IDW' TF comics.)

Dom
-incsonsitent application of the powers makes the powers inconsistent in practical terms.