The Official Superman Thread

[storyteller]

Superman wasn't really being mean to Lois. Lois refused to listen and she got *****y about it and later refused to talk about it.

 

[Mystirious]

He was still a real jerky jerk to her

 

[Micah12345]

It's pretty clear someone is messing with his mind anyways. I don't see the big deal.

 

[Assassin]

So, i was right, Superman was a waste of time. Screw you JMS, stay away from the marriage you heartless mother ****er

Superman dropped until further notice.

Looks like Superboy is the only book in the family i have on my list now.

 

[Tron Bonne]

Well, JMS isn't writing anymore, so you won't have to worry about his heartless on the marriage

 

[hippie_hunter]

Yeah it's a completely different writer. It's why it feels completely different, like Superman being a flat out dick as opposed to being a dick to people who deserve it. Or none of the heartwarming moments like Superman burning the stash of drugs, or staying to to stop that girl from jumping, or helping Detroit get revitalized, or even stopping that kid from being abused.

While JMS wrote Superman a little heavyhanded, at least he did a good job at it. At least you could feel that Superman genuinely trying to connect with the regular people. Roberson on the other hand, feels like he's taking JMS' story but there is just none of the heart nor intelligence within it. It was crap.

At least Phil Hester is doing a good job doing JMS' story in Wonder Woman.

 

[Tron Bonne]

Yeah it's a completely different writer. It's why it feels completely different, like Superman being a flat out dick as opposed to being a dick to people who deserve it. Or none of the heartwarming moments like Superman burning the stash of drugs, or staying to to stop that girl from jumping, or helping Detroit get revitalized, or even stopping that kid from being abused.

While JMS wrote Superman a little heavyhanded, at least he did a good job at it. At least you could feel that Superman genuinely trying to connect with the regular people. Roberson on the other hand, feels like he's taking JMS' story but there is just none of the heart nor intelligence within it. It was crap.

At least Phil Hester is doing a good job doing JMS' story in Wonder Woman.

Didn't he basically threaten to beat the dad up if he didn't hear from the kid or something? For some reason, that doesn't warm my heart. Besides, as others have said, it seems there's some kind of mind altering stuff going on, which might even explain why Superman turned into such an *******.

 

[hippie_hunter]

Didn't he basically threaten to beat the dad up if he didn't hear from the kid or something? For some reason, that doesn't warm my heart. Besides, as others have said, it seems there's some kind of mind altering stuff going on, which might even explain why Superman turned into such an *******.

Yeah, but I tend to think that a person who beats their kid up, deserves a bit of an ash kicking.

 

[SuperJ]

so.........did I just read correctly that Superman threatened Lois physically and verbally!!??

please don't tell me that they're going to ruin the Clark/Lois marriage.

heck......they already ruined the Peter/MJ marriage...........

what's next.........is Clark gonna make a deal with Mephisto to retconn everything in exchange for his marriage...........

 

[Watchman]

Heart warming and intelligent? I found it to be cold, forced, and awkward.

 

[yenaled]

Am I the only one that read that someone is messing with Superman's mind? So that his actions since Grounded began haven't really been his actions at all.

So him shouting at Lois isn't a problem at all.

 

[Two-Face=Badass]

Heart warming and intelligent? I found it to be cold, forced, and awkward.

Moreso, I found it utterly condescending not only to the readers, but even more to the characters he was talking to. Hell, he was practically lecturing to anyone who questioned why he was taking a walk instead of saving lives.

 

[Colossal Spoons]

Supes was acting strangely in the recent issue. That lady at the end had better be influencing him somehow

 

[Mystirious]

He's being mind controlled by the crazy lady who slapped him in the first part of Grounded

 

[Colossal Spoons]

Aaaahh, forgot about that

 

[Mystirious]

I wish that I could too Spoons

 

[Assassin]

Open up superman #707, it still says JMS's name on top under plot.

 

[Mystirious]

Whoever wrote it it was pretty lame like most of Grounded has been

 

[BrianWilly]

heartwarming moments

Your heart is warmed easier than mine, it seems.

I know that he's probably working off of JMS's actual outline -- the woman we see screwing with Superman's mind is someone JMS introduced, after all -- but it makes me happier to believe that Roberson took one look at the story thus far and said, "Jesus, this would only make sense if he was mind-controlled. OVERHAUL EVERYTHING."

Apropos of nothing, here's a review of Grounded that I really enjoyed reading:

In Superman #701, our hero runs some black drug dealers out of a foreclosed neighborhood in which they've set up shop. (These are, it should be mentioned, the first and nearly only black people he meets while walking through Philadelphia, a city with a higher proportion of African-Americans than New York City.) Superman's brilliant strategy for getting rid of the drug dealers is to set fire to the drug stashes in each of their houses with his heat vision, and then... leave. Now, I guess you can read the comic and assume that he has the whole thing under control because, you know, he's Superman. But setting a half-dozen large fires throughout a neighborhood and then just walking away seems stupid.

As he leaves, Superman comes across a magical white child who appears and offers him candy. Superman smiles, asks this random little kid to deliver a message to the drug dealers for him (?!?), and then gives a total nonsense speech. I have to show you this one in its entirety, too:

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.comicsal...perman-and-magical-white-child-1292744492.jpg

WHAT IS THAT LUNATIC TALKING ABOUT? He's arbitrarily chosen this neighborhood to keep an eye on, but the next neighborhood, well, it's just up a creek. That neighborhood has to "stand for itself." What? How hard would it really be for Superman to, say, keep an eye on both neighborhoods? My guess, since he's going to be checking in on this one only every few weeks, presumably by flying in from Metropolis for about 30 seconds: not that hard.

This is the problem with trying to tackle "real world" problems in a "serious" way with a character like Superman. He's basically God. He can walk into a neighborhood full of drug dealers and just magically destroy all their drugs and drive them off. In order to explain why he doesn't just do this all the time, or any number of other things that he could do with minimal effort that would drastically change the lives of every single person in the country, if not the world, writers like Straczynski resort to utter inanity. "Over there has to stand for itself, has to speak for itself, because it's only when over there becomes here that we can stop this once and for all." Read that sentence again. It means nothing.

"Grounded" is full of this kind of ponderous, pretentious gobbledygook, meant to show the reader how important and thoughtful it all is. Over and over, Straczynski inserts shrill arguments for how seriously the reader should take this pointless exercise in Superman solving "real" problems through glib assertions of nonsense axioms and generous application of brute force and intimidation. It's made all the more ludicrous, then, by Straczynski leaving mid-thought, before delivering any of the intellectual meat promised by the self-important build-up.

 

[fifthfiend]

As soon as JMS turned in that drug dealer plot someone should have sat him down, made him watch every episode of The Wire, then thrown him a slap.

 

[fifthfiend]

Oh man someone should totally write an issue of Superman where some dip**** comic book writer sits down to write a story wherein a beloved icon of the medium goes around spouting the writer's ******, uninformed opinions and lashing out with violence at anyone the writer doesn't like

and then

Superman walks through the door and gives the writer a slap.

 

[Mystirious]

I would read that

 

[Two-Face=Badass]

The besat part in the article is how thoroughly it deconstructs JMS' idiotic "What are you doing out there?" tract with Superman being utterly condescending using Thoreau as an example. I recall only having basic knowledge of Thoreau and even I was like "But surely his motivations for doing so were political and controversial?". Everything Supes spouted out in that issue was pure rubbish.

 

[Ultimate_Superman]

My only real issue with grounded was how every black person that pop up in the story was either lazy, had no job, sealing drugs, or playing sports talking slang. When that is not he we are at all. Not all black people act like the ones you see on Maury or BET/MTV that is only a small portion of us.

 

[Tron Bonne]

Open up superman #707, it still says JMS's name on top under plot.

Open that up and tell me who it says is the writer now

Spoiler

The greatest Superman encounter of all time