|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Jul 4, 2022 11:21:28 GMT -5
I think I remember Byrne drawing President Reagan and it looked pretty good. Looks ok to me.
I think that is down to Karl Kesel, in comparing faces, in Legends #2. It looks to me like he did some fixing on those specific people. The linework is very different. |
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Jul 4, 2022 11:26:12 GMT -5
I'm lukewarm on Luthor as businessman. I think the best version of it is the hybrid in Superman TAS and Justice League, where he was still a scientific genius, around which he had built a corporate empire. My preferred version is still Elliot Maggin's Bronze Age take, as Luthor had more personality, though more in his novels than he was allowed in his comics. That Luthor ran a big operation and used all kinds of false identities and cutouts, did noble things and criminal things. The billionaire Lex kind of lost that mental might, until it was slowly added back in.
|
|
|
|
Post by Duragizer on Jul 4, 2022 22:46:46 GMT -5
I think I remember Byrne drawing President Reagan and it looked pretty good. Looks ok to me.
Byrne's admitted to tracing when he really needed to capture a likeness, too. And goddamn, do I LOATHE the notion of Superman chumming it up with Reagan. It's almost as bad as the porno issues. |
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,833
|
Post by shaxper on Jul 5, 2022 6:28:17 GMT -5
. Her histrionics over her disability are extreme, and there are some troubling implications about the message for the handicapped, although I can understand it as the story of one particular woman, whose sister is also capable of extreme behavior. Strap in. Byrne's unsettling depictions of people with handicaps is about to get even worse. |
|
|
|
Post by mistermets on Jul 5, 2022 10:03:48 GMT -5
. Her histrionics over her disability are extreme, and there are some troubling implications about the message for the handicapped, although I can understand it as the story of one particular woman, whose sister is also capable of extreme behavior. Strap in. Byrne's unsettling depictions of people with handicaps is about to get even worse. I've read that one before but don't remember it. I'm curious how Byrne balances a relatively fresh take on Superman with a DC where other people have been superheroes long enough for there to have been several Teen Titans iterations. |
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,833
|
Post by shaxper on Jul 5, 2022 12:22:13 GMT -5
Strap in. Byrne's unsettling depictions of people with handicaps is about to get even worse. I've read that one before but don't remember it. I'm curious how Byrne balances a relatively fresh take on Superman with a DC where other people have been superheroes long enough for there to have been several Teen Titans iterations. Quite simply, it goes unaddressed. I think that's why they left Nightwing out of the Action Comics #584 crossover; it complicates things too much. You'd think the same logic would apply to Wonder Girl, of course. But, short of their interacting in a major crossover event, I believe this is the only time Superman and the Titans interact between 1986 and 1991 (I'm still wading through 1992). Nightwing does appear with Superman in Action Comics Weekly #642, but no backstory gets explained there either. |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2022 12:38:05 GMT -5
Ah, at the time I wondered why Nightwing wasn’t in the crossover.
Shaxper, I enjoyed Byrne’s reboot as a kid and an adult, but you do notice things as you revisit stuff. Your posts are making me think of things I hadn’t considered, so thanks for that!
|
|
|
|
Post by badwolf on Jul 5, 2022 13:43:25 GMT -5
. Her histrionics over her disability are extreme, and there are some troubling implications about the message for the handicapped, although I can understand it as the story of one particular woman, whose sister is also capable of extreme behavior. Strap in. Byrne's unsettling depictions of people with handicaps is about to get even worse. I don't know why you would think that character was meant to represent disabled people in general. Superman even rattles off a list of others who aren't like this person in the same issue.
|
|
|
|
Post by mistermets on Jul 5, 2022 15:41:07 GMT -5
The Man of Steel #6
This issue is a bit of a Smallville spotlight, and there's a good sense of a familiar lived-in community, with a very different sensibility from Metropolis. This issue highlights how Superman has two home bases, and there are some nice details (Clark going to the kitchen to grab rhubarb pie as a midnight snack, Clark mingling with people arriving on a bus from Metropolis so that no one asks he got to Smallville.) And then the story starts. The main thing that happens is that Superman has a vision of Krypton, and gets his first understanding of where he came from. There's a nice point where Pa sees Jor-El's ghost appear to hurt Clark, and goes to save him, but it's mostly anticlimactic. Usually Byrne nailed the big moments, but this is an exception, and raises weird questions. If Superman knows everything about Krypton, shouldn't that be shared with scientists, anthropologists, and so on? The secrets of Krypton could be something to explore later, but it's dispensed with so quickly.  This issue also brings back Lana Lang, revealing that she's been traumatized by the discovery that her high school boyfriend had superpowers, and wasn't all that interested in a life with her. This is another big moment that Byrne doesn't sell very well. I don't think it's inherently a bad idea, although ten years after Clark became Superman might be the wrong place for the story, and it's already a crammed done in one with Clark discovering Krypton, and Pa Kent trying to save the day. This requires nuance, subtlety and psychological depth, and we don't really get it here. The issue ends anticlimactically with Superman mulling things over by himself. There's a mystery that will be resolved in Superman #1, which helps make the mini-series seem even more incomplete. I can understand some of Byrne's decisions here. He started it with Smallville and Krypton, so he ends things that way. This is a big moment for Superman, as he realizes that he considers himself human. There are some story engines from the future, with Superman's awareness of his Kryptonian origins, and a tenuous renewed friendship with Lana Lang. It just feels perfunctory, as if Byrne wanted to get the character growth out of the way. I'm conflicted on the grade here. Usually, I'm an easy grader, looking at things like craft and storytelling. So on that level this would be a B. However, there's something to be said for missed opportunities, and how others would be limited from featuring these big moments because of how Byrne chose to introduce the Post-Crisis Superman. I could understand a D grade. I'll average it out. Grade: C Overall Grade for The Man Of Steel: B+ This probably wasn't the best way to introduce a new Superman, but the storytelling is pretty good, and in other issues, Byrne lands quite a few of the big moments.
|
|
|
|
Post by Duragizer on Jul 5, 2022 15:57:37 GMT -5
This issue also brings back Lana Lang, revealing that she's been traumatized by the discovery that her high school boyfriend had superpowers, and wasn't all that interested in a life with her. This is another big moment that Byrne doesn't sell very well. I don't think it's inherently a bad idea, although ten years after Clark became Superman might be the wrong place for the story, and it's already a crammed done in one with Clark discovering Krypton, and Pa Kent trying to save the day. This requires nuance, subtlety and psychological depth, and we don't really get it here. And you won't really get it in any of Byrne's writing. Maggie Sawyer might be the one exception. |
|
|
|
Post by badwolf on Jul 5, 2022 16:06:47 GMT -5
This issue also brings back Lana Lang, revealing that she's been traumatized by the discovery that her high school boyfriend had superpowers, and wasn't all that interested in a life with her. This is another big moment that Byrne doesn't sell very well. I don't think it's inherently a bad idea, although ten years after Clark became Superman might be the wrong place for the story, and it's already a crammed done in one with Clark discovering Krypton, and Pa Kent trying to save the day. This requires nuance, subtlety and psychological depth, and we don't really get it here. And you won't really get it in any of Byrne's writing. Maggie Sawyer might be the one exception. Lots of it in FF. |
|
|
|
Post by mistermets on Jul 5, 2022 16:20:57 GMT -5
This issue also brings back Lana Lang, revealing that she's been traumatized by the discovery that her high school boyfriend had superpowers, and wasn't all that interested in a life with her. This is another big moment that Byrne doesn't sell very well. I don't think it's inherently a bad idea, although ten years after Clark became Superman might be the wrong place for the story, and it's already a crammed done in one with Clark discovering Krypton, and Pa Kent trying to save the day. This requires nuance, subtlety and psychological depth, and we don't really get it here. And you won't really get it in any of Byrne's writing. Maggie Sawyer might be the one exception. I suspect a major problem here is story length. With The Man of Steel, there's a focus on done in one stories, which doesn't allow things to be seeded. The Bizarro issue would have more impact if we saw the comic where terrorists hurt a supporting character, and her struggles adjusting. Byrne is also the type who thinks that infodumps are a good thing, and that shorter, more efficient stories are the ideal. It seems a major missed opportunity was some kind of Legends of the Dark Knight style series, exploring the moments in between the ten years covered in The Man of Steel. What was it like for Clark using his superpowers around the world before anyone knew about Superman? They made a ten season TV show about that! What was Lex's first real battle with Superman? They had a history between The Man of Steel #4 and #5. Who were the bad guys in Metropolis while Lex Luthor was in Argentina? What were his first team-ups with Barry Allen like? This was probably not on Byrne's mind at the time, and I don't think he cared either way about whether he left good space for other writers to explore. Untold Tales of Spider-Man wasn't published until a decade later. Legends of the Dark Knight would start in '89. That said, the existence of the Superboy comic shows that there's a market for Superman's early adventures. Before I get into the regular run, I'm going to take a detour for one of those early adventures set in the Post-Crisis continuity: Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's Superman For All Seasons. |
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,833
|
Post by shaxper on Jul 5, 2022 21:42:31 GMT -5
Shaxper, I enjoyed Byrne’s reboot as a kid and an adult, but you do notice things as you revisit stuff. Your posts are making me think of things I hadn’t considered, so thanks for that! I never want to convince someone NOT to enjoy something, so I apologize if I had that effect on you. This is just a very dear run for me (as well as possibly my favorite review thread of all time), so I can't not jump in whenever I hear Byrne getting more credit than he deserves. It's pretty much everyone who worked around him that made the Post-Crisis Superman great while Byrne seemed to almost purposefully drive it into the ground at times. |
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,833
|
Post by shaxper on Jul 5, 2022 21:43:54 GMT -5
Strap in. Byrne's unsettling depictions of people with handicaps is about to get even worse. I don't know why you would think that character was meant to represent disabled people in general. Superman even rattles off a list of others who aren't like this person in the same issue. Well, I did my best to explain that in my review, but I don't want to sidetrack this review thread with discussions about my own. if you want to take me on over there, by all means throw that gauntlet down! |
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,833
|
Post by shaxper on Jul 5, 2022 21:46:39 GMT -5
It seems a major missed opportunity was some kind of Legends of the Dark Knight style series, exploring the moments in between the ten years covered in The Man of Steel. What was it like for Clark using his superpowers around the world before anyone knew about Superman? They made a ten season TV show about that! What was Lex's first real battle with Superman? They had a history between The Man of Steel #4 and #5. Who were the bad guys in Metropolis while Lex Luthor was in Argentina? Hear hear! What about 15 year old Lois earning a job as reporter at The Planet? We got three limited series in 1988, each attempting to flesh out more of Superman's origin and world, and yet more time was spent on Millennium, Perry and Alice White's love triangle, and, well, Jonathan and Martha Kent's love triangle than anything substantial and worthwhile to the average Superman fan like this. Byrne needed an editor with a backbone. Instead, he sent Helfer packing, while (from all outward appearance) Carlin was kissing his butt. ...and he stormed off half a year later anyway. |
|
