As much as I love the work of John Byrne and enjoyed his revamp of Superman, whenever I close my eyes the image of Superman in my imagination is either Swanderson or Schaffenberger.

It is an interesting "road not taken" scenario. If JB had not gone over to DC for Superman, would we have gotten two more years of Fantastic Four and a couple of other landmark Marvel projects? Would JB have never felt the desire to go independent, and we would have never gotten Next Men?

JB's "Man of Steel" was the draw to sample the DC universe.

Since I only had access to the "Superman" title proper, not "Action" or
"Adventures of…," as a kid I was disappointed the run by JB was short
lived.

(Edit: missed the 's)

Edited by Ed Deans on 24 August 2010 at 11:22am

JB's "Man of Steel" was the draw to sample the DC universe.

Conversely, JB was my draw to sample the Marvel Universe!

I was a dedicated diehard DC fan and all those Marvel books were just strange and weird. Then I was at a local comic convention, and there seemed to be a big fuss about these two guys and the book they were doing. One of the guys I knew: Terry Austin, who'd inked Marshall Rogers on Dectective. The other guy, John something-or-other, I didn't know him. But he drew nice pictures.

A week or two after the convention, I was at the spinner rack at the local drug store and on a whim I bought this issue of that comic book those two guys were working on:

Wow! Not a bad place to jump onboard considering the ride over the next twelve issues! After reading through this issue a few times after getting home, the next day I was hitting all the convenience and drug stores within biking distance to pick up all the Marvel comics I could.

I wonder who or what their 'back-up' plan was (if there was any)?

I'm assuming Wolfman was a lock to revamp a Superman title (on account of his Crisis 'buzz') but I wonder what other high profile creator could've been pegged back then.... I can imagine Walt Simonson, Marshall Rogers, Jim Starlin....

Ah, the fun of What if? <g>

Those Man of Steel Supermans are really well done. I was looking at some of the scans of the originals a while back and was amazed at how well-inked they were too.

I'm glad JB did such important work on that series as well. Superman was depicted in that series as having such strength. Probably my favorite depiction in the last 40 years.

On the other hand, I'll never forget when Chris Browne, Dik Browne's son, came to our art school and was talking about his work with Hagar the Horrible. He spoke of other projects he was doing and mentioned a comic book that he had worked on previously. He told us that......

"YOU HAVE TO BE INSANE TO DRAW A COMIC BOOK!" It is so much work.

Thanks for the hard work, JB. It is definitely worth it for us to read and see your work. I hope it doesn't take too much of a toll out of you! We appreciate you.