| Author |
|
Andy Mokler
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 January 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 2799
|
| Posted: 29 June 2006 at 2:30am | IP Logged | 1
|
|
|
Hey JB, being "taught" Superman by your Man of Steel and Superman/Action runs, I guess I've come to consider your interpretation as how the character should be. I'd read Superman and Justice League of America and other titles that featured Superman to one degree or another but your run coincided with my late teens and I really paid attention to those books and thought that your telling perfectly defined the character.
In stark contrast, I just saw the new movie tonight. I'm literally depressed. All the slick effects and modern film making technology wasn't enough to ...okay, I really, really want to vent but this isn't about the movie. The movie just led me to wonder about Superman's potential as an interesting subject.
Which is my question for you. Is Superman the toughest character in comics to write? Can you explain your approach to writing a compelling story about him and not just falling back on "Lex Luthor surprises Superman with (gasp!) some more Kryptonite".
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
e-mail
|
| |
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132234
|
| Posted: 29 June 2006 at 5:58am | IP Logged | 2
|
|
|
Is Superman the toughest character in comics to write?**** He shouldn't be. Superman is just a decent guy who does the right thing for the right reasons. He cares about his adopted planet, and the people on it. To the best of his ability, he tries to right the world's wrongs, but he understands that humanity must proceed along its own path, and the best he (or any single person) can do is try to keep us falling off that path. Those who have trouble writing Superman are the people who do not believe such simple honesty and decency exist. They cannot find it in themselves, so they doubt it can be in others. They look for Superman's "feet of clay", or they crank the basic model up to cliché levels.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Charles Valderrama
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4721
|
| Posted: 29 June 2006 at 5:27pm | IP Logged | 3
|
|
|
JB, that reasoning is why i enjoyed your run on SUPERMAN to
this day. No one writes him with such understanding.
Curious... do you consider Superman's rogues (besides Luthor)
hard to write? I only appreciated them once they appeared in the
animated series.
-C!
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
| www
|
| |
Ron Farrell
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Posts: 1518
|
| Posted: 29 June 2006 at 10:18pm | IP Logged | 4
|
|
|
I could understand if someone said it was tough coming up with new menaces for him to fight, but as JB points out so well, writing his character should be straight forward.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Andy Mokler
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 January 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 2799
|
| Posted: 30 June 2006 at 12:54am | IP Logged | 5
|
|
|
I guess maybe that would have been a better way to phrase the question. I admit, my mind is like a big, white void when I try to think of a compelling story and although I feel that I have a good handle on how Superman should be portrayed, coming up with storylines that challenge him as a character seems pretty tough to me.
I'm sure there's been plenty of discussions about such things but Superman seems to never utilize his abilities. Catching him off guard, although that should be pretty tough to do in itself, is at least believable compared to him charging into a situation and not scanning everything with his x-ray vision before he gets there or going so fast that he couldn't be hit, etc. I assume that part of the motivation behind having him get hit with bullets and bombs is to show how tough he is but it always made me think he wasn't very bright. Yes, I'm sure he's used to most things bouncing off of him but after that first kryptonite bullet wouldn't he learn that he's not 100% invulnerable?
I don't know, I guess I'm just frustrated by how poorly so many interpret ol' Kal-El. JB got it right. I think Alex Ross has got a good handle on him too. After that....? Anyone know of more that I should check out? The last story before JB took over on the character was pretty moving. Alan Moore I think.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
e-mail
|
| |
Jonathan Graver
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 30 April 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 195
|
| Posted: 01 July 2006 at 3:22pm | IP Logged | 6
|
|
|
Roger Stern (Action Comics), Gail Simone (Action) and Paul Kupperberg (DC Comics Presents) come to mind.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Andrew Bitner
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 June 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 7480
|
| Posted: 01 July 2006 at 3:52pm | IP Logged | 7
|
|
|
Start with finding a villain Superman has never/rarely fought before and go from there (to borrow an idea from another thread). How would Bane, Sinestro, Trickster or Professor Zoom (to choose four random examples) commit a crime in Metropolis, knowing they'd face Superman? And how would he fight guys he's never battled before? Would they have a strategy for fighting Superman?
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Matt Linton
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 13 December 2005
Posts: 2022
|
| Posted: 01 July 2006 at 4:15pm | IP Logged | 8
|
|
|
It's interesting that Superman and Captain America, probably the two most confident and heroic characters, are often viewed as "boring" or "irrelevant". I think that's more of a statement about how the world has changed, and a pretty strong argument for why we need characters like that to look up to.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Thomas Moudry
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5060
|
| Posted: 01 July 2006 at 4:40pm | IP Logged | 9
|
|
|
Charles Valderrama: Curious... do you consider Superman's rogues
(besides Luthor) hard to write? I only appreciated them once they
appeared
in the animated series.
I was thinking about Superman's villains a couple of days while I was on
my
daily walk. I've never been all that impressed with them--outside of
Luthor when he's written well.
JB made Metallo scary and reinforced the Man of Steel's conflict with
Kirby's Fourth World villains, but prior to the 1986 relaunch, I always
found most Superman's villains to be, well, a touch dull--with the
possible exception of Brainiac. And the bench wasn't very deep.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
James Hanson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 February 2006
Posts: 2396
|
| Posted: 02 July 2006 at 10:51am | IP Logged | 10
|
|
|
I think this review of Man of Steel V.3 TPB sums up a lot of the good things about JB's Superman work--
The third in a
series of books collecting the mid-80’s revamp of Superman sees the
world’s first superhero fight a crazy Vietnam vet; travel back in time
and team-up with The Demon; prevent ancient human minds from possessing
modern bodies; reunite Cat Grant with her son; save the Earth from an
invasion from Thanagar; disarm a terrorist nation; and save Earth again
from a graveyard/bacteria colony.
Wow. I had to tell myself
these comics are only 20 years old. And the creators behind them are
still working in the industry. It felt like these books came from the
Silver Age. Each Superman series was independent from the other. There
are no multi-part stories running through them all. Adventures has its own ongoing subplot about a hidden group of superbeings trying to convert/kill Superman. Action and Superman
each have their own two-part story that wraps up completely in two
parts! This could literally be a person’s first exposure to Superman,
and he wouldn’t need to know anything!
While the stories are
simple, they certainly aren’t dumb. Perry White’s son is kidnapped by a
mob whose connection to a politician is being exposed by Perry. If
White doesn’t kill his story, they’ll kill his son. Superman races
against the clock, scouring the slums of Metropolis, and at one point
disguising himself to scare information out of a thug. When Superman
learns weapons used in a terrorist attack against America came from
Qurac, he destroys all of Qurac’s weapons and takes its president on a
“tour” of the many terrorist groups located in his country. This is the
clever and menacing Superman first seen in the Golden Age; using his
powers to avenge personal and national crimes.
Another aspect
of these stories that I don’t see nearly enough in today’s comics is
Superman’s ability to think his way out of problems. He deduces
Bloodsport has the technology to teleport guns right into his hands and
neutralizes it. He figures out how to frustrate an ancient race’s plans
for world domination by turning their possession powers against them.
When helping the Green Lanterns divert a mass of living matter heading
for Earth, Superman remembers what it is and how to destroy it.
And
through it all, we learn what kind of man Superman is. He wonders how
he really feels about Cat Grant, and if those feelings are clouding his
judgment. He sees that not every story has a happy ending. And his
beliefs in the sanctity of life and the value of freedom are tested and
strengthened when forces try to take control of his mind. He always
gives the villain a chance to surrender peacefully. He doesn’t like
using violence, even against a killer like Bloodsport. Superman is
portrayed as a thoroughly decent, moral, yet very human being.
If
John Byrne had written and drawn only one of the monthly series, we’d
still be calling him a legend. The fact he was able to do two series
and do them so well is just shy of phenomenal. Byrne’s heroes are
powerful, yet human. We can feel Superman’s revulsion at a scene of
carnage just from the look on his face. And no matter what Byrne draws,
be it people or aliens, modern cities or a medieval hovel, it all looks
and feels real. Much of the credit should go to his inkers, Kesel and
Giordano. They give the comics just the right feeling of grit and
weight making the art almost tangible.
But one cannot ignore the Adventures
team of Wolfman and Ordway. Their stories are more focused on Superman
solving real-world problems. One gets the sense that Superman is out of
place in the world. He finds himself uncomfortable in situations
without a clear-cut case of right and wrong. He’s drawn much larger and
more handsome than everyone else around him. He’s an invader in
ordinary life. And Superman knows this. He does the best he can, saving
lives and trying to help those in need, but he’s still out of place in
the real world.
After reading this book, I want to buy more! I
want to read short, simple stories of Superman saving lives. I want to
see him teaming up with other heroes on a regular basis. I want to see
thought balloons. (My GOD! How long has it been since a comic book had
thought balloons?!) I want to see more big monsters and less navel
gazing. Most importantly, I want to see the last 20 years of continuity
that’s held down even the mighty Superman lifted away. I want a man
whose powers are exceeded only by his love of humankind.
Superman wants to help. Let him.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Jefferson Wolfe
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 October 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 119
|
| Posted: 02 July 2006 at 5:10pm | IP Logged | 11
|
|
|
I have never written any comics, but I think Superman is so powerful, it's hard to give him something to do that he can't do. Therefore, I humbly submit that if I was writing the character, I'd probably focus on the impact he has on the people around him.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Robert White
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4560
|
| Posted: 02 July 2006 at 6:20pm | IP Logged | 12
|
|
|
Wasn't JB's Superman the last time anyone outside the core fanbase cared about the comics? I disregard events like "The Death of Superman."
The problem with DC is that, even when the run was going strong making Superman more popular than he'd been since right before "The Marvel Age of Comics", the more uptight creative minds at DC, and some fans, simply couldn't handle the fact that Marvel fans were now reading Superman. Oh how terrible!!
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Topic Closed)
