Help Me Like Superman

Eric_C

I am a Marvel boy at heart, but like most of us I also cross into the other universe a lot as well. Howeverm it is really only for Batman and Green Arrow, or the big storylines. I always want to expand and to me that means trying to get into Superman. However, I just don't like Superman. But I want to like him. He is boring to me. But I don't want him to be boring. I bring this up in part because of how much I don't care about Man of Steel coming out and also as I just kinda seen in my comic collecting how I really lack anything Superman. I love Smallville and I loved Superman Secret Origin by Johns. Outside of that he never appeals to me. He was never that cool to me in the Crisis storylines. I only like Siperman/Batman stories because of Batman. I hated All Star Superman, with a passion. I was confused pre-New 52. I hated Morrison's attempts on Action Comics post-New 52. I turn to you peeps to help me like him. I recognize how much he means to the medium and I want to open my eyes to the world of Superman.

CaptShazam

You just helped reinforce my dislike of Superman.

nweathington

Try Loeb and Sale’s Superman for All Seasons. If that doesn’t make Superman at least somewhat appealing for you—and there’s nothing wrong if it doesn’t—then you probably will never like Superman.

Eric_C

Thanks @nweathington and glad I could help @CaptShazam

DoctorDoom

The best Superman I ever read was Superman #75, where he died.

90's, sure, but he went out like a beast.

Yes, I know, I probably didn't help. Sorry.

fredzilla

nweathington said:

Try Loeb and Sale’s Superman for All Seasons. If that doesn’t make Superman at least somewhat appealing for you—and there’s nothing wrong if it doesn’t—then you probably will never like Superman.

I agree. I really enjoyed Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen's Superman: Secret Identity. One of the best Supeman books I've ever read.

jaydee74

I agree with both @nweathington and @fredzilla on their choices. I still love to read Superman: For All Seasons so much. It's such a great story and Secret Identity is also quite amazing. If you like Elseworlds stories, I would also recommend Superman: Red Son which is the story of a Superman that crashed landed in Mother Russia and that's a good story. The other one is called Speeding Bullets which basically has Superman being found by Thomas and Martha Wayne and is taken in as their son. That's also a very cool story.

jaydee74

There are other stories as well from Superman that I like a lot. There is one that is pretty recent that was written and drawn by Eric Powell that deals with Bizarro which actually was a great story. I also liked the story "Last Son" that was co-written by Geoff Johns and Richard Donner. There are others too but this is off the top of my head.

nweathington

I second and third accordingly Secret Identity, Red Son, and Speeding Bullets. And all three have great artwork, so even if you don’t like the stories, you’ll have that going for you.

Eric_C

Thanks @fredzilla, I love Busiek and Immonen so that sounds good to me. And thanks for the other ideas @jaydee74, I love Johns doing Supes in Secret Origin, so I might like that as well.

fredzilla

I think a large part of your problem is that you're looking for consistently strong Superman books, and I don't know if you'll find any. There are runs and specials that I think stand out, specifically the ones mentioned here, but I think a lot of people are in the same place you are. I like Superman, but the only time I think I ever collect him is because of the art or the writer, not specifically the character. I've found the digital Injustice: Gods Among Us fun, partly because Superman is different from the past iterations.

Chuck_Melville

I have never understood how or why anybody would find Superman boring. Being stuck in bad stories, yes, but boring? I do not comprehend.

I recommend picking up any of the collections that compile the stories from post-Crisis up to just short of Superman 2YK, basically the so-called Byrne Superman from 1985 - 2000. That was the best and most readable period for Superman.

LibraryBoy

Definitely have to back up the love for Superman: Secret Identity. Very well-written and, as an Elseworlds, stands perfectly on its own.

Mr_Cosmic

Superman: Secret Origin is really good, imho. I'm not sure it would help you like Superman but it is a nice place to start for someone looking to get into the character.

LibraryBoy

Mr_Cosmic said:

Superman: Secret Origin is really good, imho. I'm not sure it would help you like Superman but it is a nice place to start for someone looking to get into the character.

Exactly... I think it's probably better for someone to find Superman stories they like than to worry about trying to like the character as a whole. I think a lot of comic fans (or geeks in general, really) tend to think they need to like/acquire/devour EVERYTHING of a given character/show/property/whatever, but it's a lot easier to find examples of a thing that you can enjoy than it is to like The Whole Thing, because for my money, not a lot of Whole Things stand up well to scrutiny.

shroud68

Superman suffers from having such ridiculous stories right up to Modern Age. Look at some of his Bronze and Copper Age stuff and it still smells of Silver Age. On a whole Superman did not get better til Post Crisis. Compare his stories to Amazing Spiderman or even stable mate Batman in that era. Ras A Ghul, Death of Gwen Stacey , these stories have relevance today while Superman fought Terra Man.

Elsiebub

The stories that made me really like Superman were all written by Alan Moore.

The best is "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?". I read this very nostalgic Silver Age-y story while caught up in the early '90s shock-value/Image/grim'n'gritty boom, and I still loved it. I loved it even though I had almost no idea about the history it was referencing because... I didn't need to. The greatness of the character comes through here very strongly.

Other than that... it was things like Moore's runs on "Supreme" and "Miracleman", both of which are sorta Supes analogs at times, which made me love the character and also feel very, very annoyed that very few of the bajillion Superman issues produced since then captured much of the same spirit.

As far as more recent comics go, I liked what I read of Johns' "Action" run. You can probably find many issues of that in dollar bins. And I liked the odd Busiek/Pacheco "Superman" issue.

I can't really strongly recommend anything else for a sort of entry-level "make me like this character" story. I've never read "Man for All Seasons" but I would assume it's good.

For the record, I liked Morrison's "All Star", but not nearly as much as most other people seem to. Many have said that this is one of the few Morrison books that they can unabashedly love, but to me it just seemed to rely too much on surface-level nostalgia at times. Still a good series overall, I guess. I detested his "Action" run while it was coming out, but I recently reread the whole thing and it holds up and fits together MUCH better than I thought it would. All in all, I don't think Morrison is suited to Superman anywhere near as well as he WANTS to be or TRIES (so damn hard) to be.

But, yeah, I would try to find "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?". It is billed as the "last" Superman story, but for me it was the first Superman story that made an impression on me.

Eric_C

Chuck_Melville said:

I have never understood how or why anybody would find Superman boring. Being stuck in bad stories, yes, but boring? I do not comprehend.

I recommend picking up any of the collections that compile the stories from post-Crisis up to just short of Superman 2YK, basically the so-called Byrne Superman from 1985 - 2000. That was the best and most readable period for Superman.

Do you know of any collections of that Byrne stuff?

Eric_C

And thanks guys for the help

Chuck_Melville

Eric_C said:

Chuck_Melville said:

I have never understood how or why anybody would find Superman boring. Being stuck in bad stories, yes, but boring? I do not comprehend.

I recommend picking up any of the collections that compile the stories from post-Crisis up to just short of Superman 2YK, basically the so-called Byrne Superman from 1985 - 2000. That was the best and most readable period for Superman.

Do you know of any collections of that Byrne stuff?

Off the top of my head, the Man Of Steel trade, which collects the mini-series that retold Superman's origin for the 80's and related his first few years as a hero, included his first encounters with Bizarro, Lois, Luthor and Batman. That book has been kept in print almost since after the original mini-series was published. A quick peek at Amazon shows the Superman: The Man Of Steel series of trades which, so far as I can tell, reprints both the Byrne and the Wolfman/Ordway stories.

There's also Superman/Batman: Generations by John Byrne, which is an Elseworlds series about the Superman & Batman team that spans the years and (as the title suggests) the family lines into the future. A good, fun read.

jaydee74

If you liked the Superman stuff you read by Geoff Johns, he has done more. He did a great Brainiac story.

Krescan

I don't see anyone else listing it but the two volumes of superman earth 1 books are my favorite superman stories

Since no one else listed it I may be in the minority though

After that is the superman cartoon episode where he races flash

Good luck maybe the new movie will be the new benchmark

Eric_C

jaydee74 said:

If you liked the Superman stuff you read by Geoff Johns, he has done more. He did a great Brainiac story.

Do you know what series/issues/trades that has that he did?

jaydee74

@Eric_C It was in Action Comics and the story itself was called "Brainiac". The creative team is Geoff Johns and Gary Frank. It is traded and the story is quite good. Here is the wiki link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainiac_(story_arc)#Collected_editions

Superchino

I recommend Mark Waid's Superman: Birthright. I am not a huge Superman fan, but this book is sooooooo good that I could not put it down and quickly returned to re-read it a few days later. I dare you not to like it!

[Deleted User]

Superman: Birthright
Superman: Red Son
Superman for all Seasons
Superman: The Man of Steel
Superman: For the Man Who Has Everything, by Moore (the animated JLI episode is also top notch)
Alan Moore's Supreme
Alex Ross and Paul Dini's Superman Peace on Earth
Kingdom Come
Justice
Superman Secret Identity
Superman Adventures
Superman the Animated Series ( if you can watch his beat-down with Darkseid, and not come out a Superman fan, you have no soul.)

It's interesting: I find myself seeing more depth to the character through certain people's eyes... Alan Moore and Alex Ross, for example.

Superman is a wonderful character, and badly written 95% of the time. But those diamonds in the rough, are really spectacular and show the character's potential as a storytelling device.

mguy1977

I wouldn't say 95% of the time more like 67% of the time. The Byrne era up through the Return of Superman was "golden" for me. It is true that if you increase the number of titles you have the risk of getting less than superb stories or art. You can have Superman For Tomorrow story arc w/ great art but the story is beyond Superman IV: Quest For Peace awful. I have a high tolerance for Superman because he is my favorite comic character even w/ the new52 redux not everything passes the sniff test. I may like this more than that but it has something there that I can appreciate. I even read Superman Elseworlds from back in the day just for something different w/ the main character Superman but w/ this twist instead.

Matthew

Matt

I'd say don't worry about not liking Superman or any character for that matter. A character or storyline I like you might not. I can pitch that story or character, but if its not your cup of tea, then I've wasted both our time.

I'd say try different things that sound interesting to you, not what's recommended. People tried to tell me to stick with Morrison's Batman run. Truth is, despite how interesting his stories might be, I just didn't care for his take on the character.

I am by far not a Superman fan, in almost 3 decades of collecting, I probably had 2 dozen issues of his titles. He's just a character that doesn't appeal to me.

Having said that, I think Man of Steel is going to be a version I'm very interested in. I want to see a version where he feels like an outcast. Where he's trying to connect with people & find his place. Make viewers question if they would really want to be Superman.

One of the things that always bothered me about the first Superman movie was how quickly everyone trusted & accepted him.

M

Eric_C

Matt said:

I'd say don't worry about not liking Superman or any character for that matter. A character or storyline I like you might not. I can pitch that story or character, but if its not your cup of tea, then I've wasted both our time.
M

Yeah, I get that. I just want to try to gain a certain level of appreciation for the character, rather then just thinking "I am reading DC, why am I not reading Batman or Green Arrow." I'm not trying to force Supes on myself, just try to be less jaded toward. However it is most likely that the Smallville version is the best that I get of the character.

Eric_C

I think For All Seasons and Secret Identity are the two winners. This is the list that I compiled of what ya'll told me. Does anybody have objections with that?

Superman for All Seasons
Superman: Secret Identity
Superman: Red Son
Speeding Bullets
Last Son
Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?
Superman: The Man Of Steel series of trades
Superman: Brainiac
Superman: Birthright
Superman: For the Man Who Has Everything