Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 09:16:50 -0500 
From: Anatole Wilson <aw3a+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Superman's strength (was re: I'm not buying Superman #75!)

>I think that the problem that everyone is facing here is the fact that
>everyone believes that Superman should be able to beat anybody in a fight.
>I happen to believe that there are quite a few hereoes that could beat Supes
>easilly.  Hal Jordan and Valor come to mind right away, but given a chance
>J'onn or Wally West (I know that this is stretching it) have a chance in a
>fight with the big guy.  The new Superman was vulnerable, much more than any
>GL.  People who say that this or that hero could beat Doomsday are probably
>right, but they weren't there.  I think that this whole "death" storyline
>may be a way of letting people know that everyone in the universe is
>vulnerable.  Even Superman.  So when he comes back, maybe he will take every
>villian more seriously.
> 
>Just my opinion.
 
Joe C.


My fear is not that Superman will take every villain more seriously, but
that the writers will take him *less* seriously. One thing Jerry Siegel
and Joe Shuster (and Mort Weisenger and Julius Schwartz) realized early
on was that if Superman was going to be the mightiest being on Earth,
his foes would have to be more clever and present challenges that took
more than muscle to defeat. That's why Mxyzptlk and Lex Luthor were
created--they knew that to keep Superman interesting, they had to keep
the villains interesting as well. It was hard work.

Superman's reduced powers have just allowed the writers to become lazy.
Now, when they don't have any ideas, they just invent some character
who's really strong or has a lot of firepower to come in, trash
Metropolis a bit, and then get into an issue-long slugfest with
Superman. And if the writers are really lazy,they can bring Lobo in to
kill an issue or two. Oooh, look at those sales go up!

And to make it even easier on the writers, Superman's intelligence isn't
any greater than your average guy on the street. I do think they got
carried away in the '60s, when they had Superman performing brain
surgery, but c'mon, they can do better than this.  

Reducing Superman's powers, stripping him of his space traveling
abilities, and removing his status as the first and greatest of all
heroes has made him just a red and blue face in the crowd. 

Bringing him to earth isn't the way to make him interesting. Let him
soar the Universe, take on foes that are worthy of him--intellectually,
not just stregth-wise--rebuild the characters and history that made him
a hero *distinct and separate* from all other heroes, and Superman can
resume his place as the world's *greatest* superhero.

If you want to see how Superman should be handled, read "Superman vs.
Mohammed Ali" (a great comic that suffered from bad timing), and the two
Superman novels written by Elliot S! Maggin. The former shows why and
how Superman could be a great hero not only to the earth, but to the
whole galaxy, and the latter novels  portray a three-dimensional
Superman who developed his personality and his morals as he grew up--not
when he reached his 30's. (That story about killing the kryptonians in
another dimension and THEN deciding she shouldn't use his powers to take
justice into his own hands still makes me sick.)

And everyone's asking why Dream and Darkseid were at the
funeral--because Superman IS the world's greatest hero, and they KNOW
it!!!!

Oh. Sorry. I got carried away again. This is all just my humble opinion.
But everyone's entitled to share it.


Anatole Wilson                  "If anyone objects to anything I say,
-----------------                I am prepared not only to retract it,
                                 But to deny under oath that I ever said it
                                 in the first place."     
                                                               

Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc