Millers Superman hate is debatable, while his Superman was a government tool, Miller has himself said that he loves the character in an interview, claiming that he only wrote Superman that way because it was what his Batman story required, and that if he wrote a Superman story the character would be very different.
I'd also like to point out that despite his "Superman-as-a-tool" version, the scene in TDKR where he stops the nuclear bomb, the narration, his absolute love of earth,all of it seemed like very true to who the character is. at least IMO
Until he portrays Superman in any sort of positive light, I have to take any comments by Miller about the character with a grain of salt. If he loves Superman as much as he claims, then he should try not writing him as a *****e sometime.
Yea, the Simon/Kirby Sandman stuff is remarkable to that end. I would even argue that their Fighting American stuff is better though, as it was Kirby just coming into that 60's style of his, but still retained alot of the 40's style. And Simon's writing, the satire, was really creative and fun. It's a bit difficult to put Kirby over Eisner and Eisner over Kirby, especially as they really did out-do each other in different time periods. And Eisner, as both writer and artist, for me anyway, told many more stories that resonate with me. While I will never get sick of looking at all those insane double-splash pages found in his Demon work, it's Kirby's writing that just doesn't do it for me as much as it should. Eisner, Kirby and Ditko are probably the Holy Trinity of comic book artists, though. After that, i'd probably start ranking 1st greatest, second greatest, third greatest and so on. Kinda like with the Beatles. There are The Beatles, and THEN there is the #1 great rock band, 2nd greatest and so on. The untouchables followed by the damn good, if it were.
Kirby's writing itself was really good but his scripting-especially in the 70's-was hurtin'.
I think Ditko was a genius, but I don't rank him in my personal top three. I pretty much go 1.Kirby 2. Eisner 3. Adams 4. Wally Wood 5. Carl Barks. But he's in the top ten easily. What is amazing about Ditko is that he is totally one of a kind. There's countless Kirby imitators and you even see people with a lot of Eisner in their work, but Ditko is one of a handful of comics artists like Basil Wolverton and Robert Crumb that people don't even dare to swipe.
Miller as an artist is still impressive to me, regardless of his writing. ELEKTRA LIVES AGAIN has some of the finest artwork I've ever seen and is probably Miller's best illustrated work. While Lee doesn't seem to hate Superman, i'm a little annoyed by how every illustration of Superman i've seen by Lee, Superman always looks pissed off and scary. David Finch does the same thing, a notable example being his cover for Action Comics #900. I shouldn't be scared of Superman. I don't need to feel like Superman is gonna rip my face off. It just feels edgy to be edgy, with a character that doesn't need to be edgy like that.
My issue with Miller's work is that it is all over the place in terms of style (which is okay) and quality. I have tons of issues with his writing, his misogyny, his overbearing negativism, etc. He is a good storyteller, although I often dislike the story he tells. I appreciate some of what he does but I like very little of it.
And yeah, Lee's Superman has the pissed off thing going, but then again, Jim Lee draws the same kind of character for every character more or less. All his men are extremely muscular, all his women are hot in a scowling sort of way, etc. Only characters who are designed to be very different like Joker break these patterns when he draws them.
With the Lennon/McCartney thing, I was never too fond of any of Lennon's solo work, and McCartney had alot of hit or miss stuff, hence the comparison. So while Lee didn't do much of anything of note, Kirby's stuff was a bit hit or miss. I'm not too keen on his Kamandi. I've yet to read any of his New Gods stuff, though I want to(my comic shop has some back issues for cheap, so I might buy a few and then decide if I should move onto the hardcovers)and as I've said, his Demon stuff feels a bit stilted. As for his OMAC stuff, i'm just not too interested in it. I feel that Kirby needed a writer who could really make his stuff pop, and considering that the first 102 issues of Fantastic Four is probably one of the top 5 greatest runs ever, i think the comparison of Lee/Kirby or maybe even Simon/Kirby to Lennon/McCartney is an apt one. As for Ditko, I think outside of Dr. Strange for Marvel, his Charlton Comics stuff and any and all of his non-superhero stuff in the 60's is his best work. I like his Spider-Man stuff, but Dr. Strange and Captain Atom really blow that stuff away. When he's drawing horror and supernatural stuff, his work really shines. Just like it would have been cool to see a Simon/Kirby Batman book, a Ditko drawn Spectre book would have been pretty stellar.
I liked the first few solo albums by Lennon, and once Paul got going, a lot of Wings was pretty good-much better than people felt it was at the time, IMO. An important thing to note is not only did Kirby do relevant work after he left Marvel, he also did a ton of work before he came back to Marvel/Atlas in the late 50's...while Stan did tons fo books for Timely/Atlas, none of them were really anything special. Stan's whole career is based on the SIlver Age Marvel period, while Jack did important work from the 40's til the 80's. I do think the Stan-bashing goes too far, and one look at a 60's Lee/Kirby book as opposed to a 70's Kirby solo DC book shows how important Stan's contribution was, but the fact that there are basically no Stan Lee books from the 70's-and the total failure of the Lee/Buscema Silver Surfer title shows clearly who was the more creative of the two.
What is a shame about Ditko is that after the 60's, he never got a real chance to keep with a title for long. He'd create something awesome like the Creeper or Shade the Changing Man, then 10 issues later it was gone. I think the last time he got a real good run was on Marvel's ROM book, and the results were excellent.
I think pretty much all dialogue was cheesy in '60s comics. Certainly in all of the ones I've read.
To a degree, but the difference is Stan's dialogue was great cheese, while Jack's dialogue was poor cheese.
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