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Terry Thielen
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Joined: 30 May 2012
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Posted: 07 December 2012 at 6:43pm | IP Logged | 1  
Thanks James, that was a nice article.
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Trevor Smith
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Joined: 21 September 2006
Location: Canada
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Posted: 07 December 2012 at 6:48pm | IP Logged | 2  
From my earliest days of reading comics, Batman and Spider-Man
were always my favourites. That said, I thought Superman was pretty
awesome, and not for a second did I find him boring.
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Steve Musgrave
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Joined: 31 July 2012
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Posted: 07 December 2012 at 6:55pm | IP Logged | 3  
"What's so funny about Truth, Justice and The American Way?"

---

The "American Way" isn't what it used to be.
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Kip Lewis
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Joined: 01 March 2011
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Posted: 07 December 2012 at 7:05pm | IP Logged | 4  
He's a good guy, and 101 times out of 100, he'll do the right thing.
(Minus the occasional mind-control story.) What's so funny about
Truth, Justice and The American Way?

--------------------

I wonder if that is part of the problem, our definition of what is the
"right thing" is changing.
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Jason Fliegel
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Joined: 19 December 2005
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Posted: 07 December 2012 at 8:04pm | IP Logged | 5  
I think it's great when Superman is Boring.  I also like when he's Swan or Byrne.

I'll show myself out now.
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Marc M. Woolman
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Joined: 17 April 2008
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Posted: 07 December 2012 at 8:19pm | IP Logged | 6  
I don't think Superman's morals have anything to do with him being boring. It's the "classic" 50's trappings, and the "nobody can defeat him" DC way of handling him that is boring.

He never seems to have common, every-day problems that would make him easy to relate to either. Ex: the print industry is dying thanks to the Internet, yet Superman doesn't have to worry about losing his job, being unemployed, or really have any money problems at all. 
He has no romance/woman problems, or any other common-man issues. 

All of these impediments to being interesting, are not the character's fault, but the writers's and the DCU's way they always portray Superman.

Another example: No Superman villain should be able to defeat the entire Justice League. It makes the League unnecessary when Superman is more than capable of handling problems they can't. 
The whole dynamic with Superman's power-levels and abilities is ass-backwards. If Superman was at odds with the league, and they showed up to capture him, fans should be excited wondering how Superman could possibly evade the league, but instead they'd be wondering how could the League possibly defeat/capture Superman.
That's what makes Superman boring.
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Greg Woronchak
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Joined: 04 September 2007
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Posted: 07 December 2012 at 8:47pm | IP Logged | 7  
He never seems to have common, every-day problems that would make him easy to relate to either.

I never wanted to relate to the heroes I read about (especially Superman); for me, comics is escapism. Give me a hero fighting a dastardly villain within the trappings of an entertaining story and I'm content.
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Fred J Chamberlain
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Joined: 30 August 2006
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Posted: 07 December 2012 at 8:55pm | IP Logged | 8  
Terry, the guy suggesting lower income people finding Superman
interesting isn't positing new thoughts. The character's birth and
popularity during the Great Depression has consistently pointed to the
idealism of the character and great escapism within comics form of
cheap entertainment as being factors interwoven with one another.

I'll echo those that say that it is a writer that makes a character boring
or not. I often said that any character can be made interesting. john's
Namor series was the first super-concrete example of this for me.
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Terry Thielen
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Joined: 30 May 2012
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Posts: 480
Posted: 07 December 2012 at 9:07pm | IP Logged | 9  
You're right Fred. Superman was born out of the depression as a sort of wish fulfiller for his creators. It makes sense that he became the ideal that we should all dream about and strive toward. I don't think you can have a universe of heroes without at least one polarizing hero that is absolutely good. In a lot of ways Captain America is that character for Marvel. In some ways, so is Spider-Man. But I don't think we can have a superhero genre without Superman. Not just because the genre is named after him, it's that you need one absolute that all the others measure against. He's the ultimate hero. 
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Fred J Chamberlain
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Posted: 07 December 2012 at 9:18pm | IP Logged | 10  
Superman met a need when first introduced and the appeal led to
popularity. Spider-Man met a need in the form of young readers being
able to identify with a "normal" Everyman who experienced stress and
made mistakes. Different times and different cultures led to different
icons rocketing into popularity. One can argue that the Icons of the late
80's- early 90's did the same thing.
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Marc M. Woolman
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Joined: 17 April 2008
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Posted: 08 December 2012 at 12:09am | IP Logged | 11  
"I never wanted to relate to the heroes I read about (especially Superman); for me, comics is escapism. "

Yet your avatar is Spider-Man. A character who's entire popularity is due to him having every-day common problems people can relate to.

Superman stories being a boring in a nutshell: When I read a story about Superman, I want to think "how is he going to solve this problem/defeat the badguy?" not "no big deal, he's Superman, he's got this".
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Joe Zhang
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Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 12842
Posted: 08 December 2012 at 6:43am | IP Logged | 12  
I think comics fandom is on the whole insane. Whereas they condemn Superman for being boring, they want other characters to get married, settle down, have kids. They want to read about superheroes crying to each other about personal problems. Don't believe the lie, we WANT boring! 

Edited by Joe Zhang on 08 December 2012 at 6:44am
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