In the late '90s. Grant Morrison, Mark Waid, Mark Millar, and Tom Peyer wanted to band together to write a revolutionary new Superman series for the new millennium.
http://www.superman-through-the-ages.com/portal/History/2000/SUPERMAN2000.php
Would Superman 2000 have been amazing or a letdown?
>>79658416
>Suddenly young Clark doesn’t just know his Ma and Pa through sight, touch, sound--he knows the exact timbre of their pulse rates, he can look at their DNA and recognize their distinctive electrical fields and hear the neural crackle and release of chemicals which tell him they’ve changed their minds about something
Sounds too Morrison-y for my liking.
>>79658416
>Mark Waid
>>79658416
And morrison tried to do the same with waid and simone and the MArvel family years later, just to be cucked by Johns
>>79658416
Would've been amazing for sure.
>>79658883
Wait, wat?
>>79658416
This is that pitch where they said Superman shouldn't love Lois because he looks at her like we look at monkeys right?
Cause thats the dumbest shit.
>>79658537
>>79658843
Most of the stuff in this pitch was recycled by Morrison for All Star Superman and to a lesser extent Action Comics, and by Waid for Birthright, interestingly enough. The idea they had was that Waid would crack the whip hard enough on Morrison to get scripts in on time and fill in for him when he couldn't.
>>79658416
Hard to say. Lois and Clark only just got married in 1996 so it would've been a short enough time to eliminate the marriage and not worry about it. On the other hand the memory molecules thing wouldn't have gone over well (and Waid and Morrison seemed to acknowledge this in interviews; back in 2000 Waid denied that it was what they were going to use and Morrison said they kind of realized it meant the villain would win).
But imagine how drastically different the comics landscape would've been if this had happened. If it went through:
Millar and Morrison would've stayed at DC and not be around to launch Ultimate X-Men and New X-Men. Waid wouldn't have gone to Crossgen.
It also might mean Morrison and Millar would've been more receptive to the idea of taking over Wildstorm (this was something Millar mentioned years ago, he said Run was part of that. And I think Quitely confirmed in an interview, but I'm not sure about that one)
Millar may not have gotten the superstardom the way he did from Marvel. Would he even have written the Ultimates? Would he even have escaped Morrison's shadow?
Maybe Millar might've had problems at Wildstorm, but his love of Superman might've overcome it.
There'd be no Birthright or All Star Superman because a lot of stuff from those would've been in the 2000 run, and they'd already have established an origin for Superman. In fact a lot of other Superman comics would be vastly different.
>>79658958
No, that's Millar's idea, it was part of what Millar said he'd do on Superman if he did it solo.
Reading this is genuinely fascinating. Just reading it, I can see it how it influenced future Superman stories like Red Son and All-Star Superman.
>>79659271
I recently read Waid's Brave and the Bold again and realized he used the Red K idea in this for the issue where Power Girl teamed with Wonder Woman, it has Superman undergoing a more horrifying transformation under Red K.
The Toyman idea is probably one of the worst parts about this proposal, in my opinion.
>>79659271
>>79659338
Also the way Luthor is described matches this page by Millar.
>>79659521
He's also like that in Red Son
>>79659434
Best Toyman right here.
DC doesn't give a fuck about him, but he still is.
>>79660080
PeeGee x Hiro is my OTP
>>79658843
This new meme hate for Waid is hilarious.
>>79660311
Hi SJWaid!
>>79658416
>Tom Peyer
>one of the most boring writers that ever worked at DC
We dodged a bullet there.
>>79658416
I'd read a book just about the crazy shit in the fortress.
>>79658416
Anyone else get a OMD vibe from Mxy removing Lois's memory of Clark and Superman to save her life? Part of me is questioning if Millar might have shared it with Quesada and Quesada turned it into what we got in OMD.
>>79659082
It really would have changed comic history
>earth 2 grant and mark are still best friends
>>79661048
There's definitely a OMD vibe to it, but at least it seems better executed.
>>79658537
yeah, but Milllar would have grounded it.
>>79658843
Eh, this was pre meltdown waid. Just like byrne...
>>79658920
Morrison wanted to do a 52 style monthly with all three plotting and taking turns writing. This isn't nearly as good as Ross who wanted to take over a monthly Shazam series post 52. Johns and Didio both wanted something...darker.
>>79661048
They did crib from it. JMS said in an interview that Quesada wanted JMS to show them having a decent relationship (which matches with the four planning to make the Lois/Clark marriage look good). Also remember that Loki was originally intended for OMD instead of Mephisto (hence the favor). Loki is closer equivalent to Mxy than Mephisto would be.
>>79659521
Narf!
>>79661113
Agreed
>>79660816
The memes keep coming and they don't stop coming
>>79658416
I like that it failed.
Instead of one superman run, we got Three Polished Superman classics.
>>79661277
No
that waa a three part seriea with Waid on Billy, Moz on Freddie and Gail on Mary
Wait, is this the one where they were gonna make him a vegetarian because he suddenly developed Hippy-Vision?
>>79666622
You must be a lot of fun at parties
>>79666622
>>79666909
I am a lot of fun at parties, I bring brisket .
>>79666400
Offended GamerGate so he's in for a cucking
>>79658843
Waid was good until like 07-08, casual
>>79661277
>>79666586
Fuck, either way this could've been great.
>>79658416
I like it. I just want Superman stories that say fuck you to "BUT MUH RELATABILITY" and just make him full-on Supergod, complete with crazy-ass meta stories.
>>79674834
Siegel and Shuster wouldn't have made him a timid nerd who can't talk to girls if he wasn't supposed to be relatable.
>>79674895
Oh yeah? What's relatable to being some sue who can juggle planets. Batman is way more relatable and this is why he beats Clark every time when it comes to popularity.
There are some really cool ideas in that pitch, but there's a lot of dumb bullshit in there too (they literally wanted to OMD Lois and Clark). Most of the best ideas were used in later stories that these guys wrote separately (Red Son, Birthright, All Star Superman), so I'm glad things worked out the way they did.
The soft relaunch in 2000 also gave us the Joe Kelly and Joe Casey runs, so no, I wouldn't change a thing.
>>79674943
You're rusing but Superman is the same fantasy as Spider-Man at his core and it genuinely does make him boring when he's written as a perfect Jesus figure who literally eats sunshine and doesn't poop. It's not about powers, it's about personality.
>The man with a code against killing eats murdered animals? Regardless of his farm upbringing, can we justify a Superman this aware and attuned to life in all its forms being a carnivore?
Christ, Waid.
>>79675108
Got me. That's kind of how I had to explain Superman to someone who was asking me how he isn't some boring sue, the best explanation I could make on the top of my head is picture Spider-Man's deal on a grander scale. I also hate Super-Jesus with a passion, it's as bad as Bat-God.
>>79675227
Imagine a Superman that knows objectively that DCU cows have souls and are just as sentient as humans, but still loves Beef Bourguignon too much to give it up.
>As we approach mid-year, we unleash our Big Story. The unthinkable has finally happened. Luthor and Brainiac, working together, have finally unearthed the secret of Superman’s dual identity--
>--and they tell the world.
>Superman is totally and irrevocably exposed for the first time, and the consequences are more disastrous than he ever imagined. In less time than it takes to tell, his personal life has been destroyed as souvenir hunters snatch everything in his office and apartment; his parents have been hospitalized by a vengeful Parasite; the Daily Planet has likewise been leveled by his enemies, with Jimmy and Perry barely able to escape with their lives--maybe. And Lois may as well just paint a target on her head. For sixty years, we’ve been telling readers why Superman’s secret identity is important. Now we show them.
There's a germ of a good idea in here. Poison memories is fucking retarded but I kind of like the idea of putting the genie back in the bottle on a universal scale. Like Mxyzptlk offers to remove the memory of Superman's dual identity, but it has to be EVERYONE, even Lois. And Lois, being Lois, insists that Clark go through with it, because if they don't, Clark's entire life is ruined, and Superman's along with it.
Like, a less shitty, less contrived One More Day.
>>79658416
>getting rid of the briefs
It was a fucking awful idea then and still an awful one now
>>79675378
Is it though? The whole reason it was the standard for superhero costumes in the past was to help break up the colors and "because that's what superheroes wear!". That's not to say I hate it ether, it's easy to explain in-universe as being inspired by the JSA and other golden age guys and is the iconic look.
>>79675374
The face that it's a weirdo reality warped that's already an established part of the cast and not the fucking devil makes it sit a lot easier.
>>79675532
*fact, not face.
>bring back the Clark masquerade
>make Superman much smarter and much more powerful
>bring back the Superman/Lois/Clark love triangle
>kill off Pa Kent
>give Superman a bunch of weird alien shit in the fortress of solitude
What the hell is so forward-thinking about this? It's just silver age Superman.
I really like their idea of making Superman the front-and-center star and getting rid of all the dumb subplots that plagued post-CoIE Supes, but most of the "new ideas" they list just undo everything Byrne and company did. I'm honestly shocked they didn't get rid of Lexcorp and make Lex a generic evil scientist again.
My biggest thought on the Clark/Lois OMD thing is that their mission to make everyone love the marriage and cry when it's taken away is good storytelling but not the kind that flies in comics.
Like fans can look back at something that happened a long time ago and accept that Gwen Stacy's death was a good story or Barry Allen's sacrifice was noble and touching, but in the present there is no bigger crime than making the reader feel sad. They'd be kicked off the book and the marriage would be back in six months.
Maybe that's overly cynical.
>Eddie Berganza approved this
I don't know how I feel about that.
>>79658416
>"The alcohol on his breath killed exactly 15 billion bacteria. There was no way I could save them."
MAN OF MURDER
>>79675275
>I also hate Super-Jesus with a passion, it's as bad as Bat-God.
Is Superman actually Batman's son?
>>79676095
And Wondy's the Holy Spirit.
>>79676095
All I know is the hierarchy goes
Batman>Goku/Madara/Itachi/Aizen/Slappable Jap #52>>>>>>>>Superman
>>79675227
That's clearly Grant.
>>79676454
Waid used it in Birthright, though
>>79676406
Which reminds me of a humorous idea I had for a Superman plot. I would have made fun of the WW2 covers by having a story where Superman is accused of racism towards the Japanese by some guy he doesn't even know and wacky hijinx happens as he tries to clear his name. "Superman says Slap a Jap" would've been a Daily Planet headline or something.
>>79676454
Except Morrison doesn't believe he has a code against killing.
See:Final Crisis
>>79676559
That plot could work well with public domain superheroes who had WW2 covers that went further than making fliers that say "Slap a Jap".
Which means you best start writing that story before someone else does.
>>79658416
>The "cosmic reset" notion has been replaced by a policy of "include and transcend" with regard to past continuity.
>>79676758
It depends entirely on what he's facing though. Generally he does not kill living beings. But depending on the enemy and the situation, he may kill.
Like Brainiac for example. Technically he is not a living thing, but as the most advanced AI in the entire universe, as a self-aware being, he is, in a way, a living thing. But Superman sometimes is okay with killing him considering all the trouble Brainiac causes. In Morrison's JLA: Earth-2 story, the main bad guy ending up being the organic living computer of that Earth and Superman did more or less straight up threaten to kill him.
And in FC, Superman and Batman BOTH made exceptions to their rule since Darkseid was a literal god and was bringing down the entire Multiverse, more or less the entirety of existence. They had every right to kill him and saw as much.
Not him, but yeah. If it comes down to it, he may do it if he basically HAS to.
>>79678269
>the main bad guy ending up being the organic living computer of that Earth
The organic living computer Brainiac of that Earth, I'm sorry.
>>79678176
I always wanted to see how it'd look if someone put together a mega-continuity including all the Pre and Post crisis stories and now the New 52. Of course things would need to be rewritten but it'd have elements of all of them to be used at any time.
>Since Superman in our currently-operating timestream wasn't the first super-hero, we’d like to restore his prominence by reaffirming that he is most certainly the greatest. We see Doctor Fate, near the end of his group’s life, telling the JSA that their work is all but over. That the first age of heroes was but the prelude. That soon, the greatest hero of all will arrive from the stars and it will it will be the task of the entire JSA to find him and teach him about the world of the costumed crimefighters. This little addition to the past gives Superman a new grandeur, a fresh religious dimension, and ties him more directly into the development of superheroics in the DCU (although having said that, we want to keep Superman's adventures on the periphery of the Universe, in the sense that we don't really mention the JLA much or refer a great deal to other heroes. The JSA should be seen as some misty Olympian group of supermen from the past, guys who are now dead, gone or replaced by the greatest hero of all.
Eeeeeeeeh. It diminishes the character if he's fated to be fantastic. And they obviously GOT that concept, because the very next paragraph is about how they want Jor-El to fire blindly, instead of shooting baby Kal to Earth where he's guaranteed to be powerful. Plus, having the JSA fawn over him like that is telling the readers he's great, not showing WHY he's great. It's the same as having your brand new villain kill some C-list/alternate reality hero - it's cheap.
>Brainiac has adjusted Lois’s chemical memory of Clark’s secret identity so that it’s killing her.
I get wanting to retcon the marriage, but... dudes. No. Plus, wanting to get rid of the marriage brings up an issue that their revamp simultaneously does and doesn't address - what happens when Superman, the lone alien, observer of humanity, realizes he's never going to be able to have a partner? And how are readers going to relate to him if he feels he can't even try?
>CAT GRANT moves in on Clark while Lois is away. She doesn’t get it. Lois and Clark always seem to be sparring, so why does Clark keep her at arm’s length? Cat should now be the character in the book who suspects something about Clark. Truth is, she can’t figure out why she’s so powerfully attracted to this klutz. It’s like he’s got super-pheromones or something...
Four guys, three of whom are some of the best writers in comics, and this is the best characterization they could come up with for Cat Grant? Bleh. (Though I've always thought Morrison had problems writing good female characters, and his fingerprints are all over this proposal, so this may just be another example of that.)
The Fortress feels a little too Silver Age. It's hard to write believable challenges for a character who can write on the heads of atoms, has portals to other times, infinite access to the Phantom Zone, etc.
The villain revamps are interesting enough, though we've now seen most of these emerge in various forms over the years. (Though not the Toyman or Kryptonite Man concepts, and probably for the best. Toyman the Gargoyle? Ron Troupe, the Were-Kryptonite Man? Yikes.)
Overall, the proposal feels very much like a return to the Silver Age Superman, which wasn't bad for the time, but would've had a much harder time fitting in with the modern era of comics. There was a good reason John Byrne brought his power levels down so drastically with the post-COIE reboot - it's hard to write good stories with omnipotent beings.
>>79659271
Yeah, you can see a few of the elements for Red Son and Birthright, but damn, this is almost a first draft for All-Star Superman. Solaris, Parasite, the relationship with Lex, the Fortress, the Silver-Age level of power...
>>79679340
A foursome including MARK MILLAR and you single out GMo for problems with female characters?
>>79666549
>Red son
>Classic
>>79679340
That's who Cat Grant is. What would you do with her?
>>79675227
Look, when you can HEAR cows being slaughtered a few miles away, it kind of ruins your appetite for beef.
>>79679340
At the very least it's a less idiotic "return the silver age to Supes" story than the god-awful Jeph Loeb stuff that we got.
>oh what's that? You learned a lot about Krypton from various sources? Nah sorry Kal we were rusing you, it was silver age Krypton ALL ALONG
>>79675275
Batgod is fun. So is SuperJesus when executed right.
Except for Dini, Name atleast three modern writers who can write Batman better than Morrison.
>>79679340
As opposed to what? To me it sounds like they looking at Adventures of Lois&Clark version of Cat and giving it a bit of a comic appropriate spin.
>>79678269
>Like Brainiac for example. Technically he is not a living thing, but as the most advanced AI in the entire universe, as a self-aware being, he is, in a way, a living thing. But Superman sometimes is okay with killing him considering all the trouble Brainiac causes. In Morrison's JLA: Earth-2 story, the main bad guy ending up being the organic living computer of that Earth and Superman did more or less straight up threaten to kill him.
I kind of wondered if Kieron Gillen was taking a poke at that during his Iron Man run.
>>79679427
Speaking of Millar, I finally found a site that had his planned ideas for Superman (the one that didn't involve Waid, Morrison, and Peyer). It was on Fanboy Rampage and I don't know if I can post the URL because blogspot URLs just don't go through.
Also these were from 2004, so I have no idea if he changed his mind on any of them.
>On his connection to Batman: "[Superman and Batman are] both orphans. They absolutely understand each other and know that there's nobody else they can count on as much as they other. PS I know Superman isn't an orphan in this dreadful period he's been under seige (from 1986 until Hitchy and I fix him again), but the true understanding of the character is, like Bambi, he loses his Mum and Dad again. All the iconic heroes do whether it's Superman, Bambi or Batman."
>On why Bryan Hitch is his ideal Superman collaborator: "Hitchy's even worse than me. Although he looks much older and has trouble sleeping through the night without a piss, Hitchy is only three weeks younger than me. Thus, we grew up on the same Cary Bates Superman comics aged 6-14. Exactly the same comics. We were also 8 years old when we saw Superman and Hitch, like me, can repeat the entire movie line for line. You should hear our daily phone chats. They're a hymn to Superman. Fixing this mess has been our destiny. It'll happen. Not for a while, but it'll happen."
>>79679863
>On Clark Kent: "Clark is a pair of glasses. Superman doesn't need glasses. He puts on the glasses for no practical reason; just to dress up and pretend to be this mid-westwern guy he's not as a means of rubbing shoulders with the people on this planet. Superman would have thought he was human until puberty. Until maybe 12. The easiest way to understand it is to think of Jesus in the temple and the moment where his mother has to tell him the truth. He always knew he was different and alone. This is when it was all explained to him. He could still love his parents, but Clark is him trying to understand what humans are all about. As Elliot Maggin puts it, Clark Kent is a living, breathing work of art."
>On Lois Lane: "Superman doesn't love Lois. Clark loves Lois and Superman tries HARD to love Lois, but he can't because she's the wrong species. But he tries. Again, Maggin sums it up beautifully. It doesn't have to be complicated... Clark loves Lois, Lois loves Superman, Superman loves Clark [...] Perfect. This is also one of the reasons Superman shouldn't be married to Lois. It's just stupid. It makes no sense and destroys the whole dynamic. Superman is God, Jor-El is the Holy Spirit and Clark Kent is Jesus. The Kents are Mary and Joseph and Lois is Mary Magdelene. She's the NYC girl who's fucked her way around the city and found nobody who measures up. She's just had it with men and is focusing on her career... then Superman shows up. This is why Margot Kidder was perfect for the role and why Lois should be played by someone around 30 even if Supes is being played by a 25 year old. You'll see what I mean when we fix it."
>>79679870
>On the current version of the character: "[Kingdom Come] is close to perfect. Waid gets it. None of the other American writers do, though Loeb comes close. His only weakness is getting caught up in the whole farmboy thing. The farm is where he grew up and knew he was NOTHING LIKE THESE PEOPLE. He affects it for the Clark persona, but that's it. He's as Kryptonian as Jesus is divine. Did Jesus shag Mary Mag? I don't think so. Superman should never shag Lois. It's insane and what happens when artists start touching tyoewriters. Jimmy is the reader-identification figure and the comedy relief. PS I'm saving everything else for the launch. No other ideas from me here, I'm afraid, in case some cunt nicks em."
>On mixing metaphors: "No brimstone for Superman. He's interesting enough without it. He sees Earth the way immigrants saw America 100 years ago. He sees a chance for hope and a new life after losing his homeland as a kid. He loves people because he recognizes their great potential and, like Krypton, he wants to encourage them towards the Utopia his father sent him from. Forget Byrne. Read the Bible."
>>79679887
>On the previous pitch Millar had made with Grant Morrison, Mark Waid and Tom Peyer: "The pitch we did was very late 90s and all the things I WOULDN'T do if Superman was being revamped now. It was nice, but it was the whole retro 60s thing that Grant's into as opposed to what I'd want to do myself. This thing was pretty good, but would be absolutely wrong for now. It still had Superman married to Lois and all that shit. There was another draft Mark Waid added with Earth getting a mind-wipe to forget that stuff and it had some nice touches, but I'd just start from scratch."
>On how close Superman is to humanity: "Humans were apes less than 50 million years ago. Kryptonians are what we'd be like in 20 billion years. I have this all worked out as part of the proposal. In the last two years, I've filled two entire ring-binders with the plan. There's some AMAZING stuff in here. Hitch has also been doing little design doodles for the last five years. It's fate that we met."
>And when some people disagree with Millar's idea of the perfect Superman: "Anyway, you're all wrong and I'm right ;) It'll make much more sense once Hitch and I deprogram you from 18 years of John Byrne and Mike Carlin."
>>79679863
I appreciate that at least he doesn't follow the"Superman and Batman could never be friends" line of thought.
>>79679895
>It still had Superman married to Lois and all that shit. There was another draft Mark Waid added with Earth getting a mind-wipe to forget that stuff and it had some nice touches, but I'd just start from scratch.
Well huh, I forgot about this part. Now we know who added that and that there were two versions.
>>79679863
>>79679870
>>79679887
>>79679895
This sounds horrible.
>>79679943
And this was Morrison's words on it:
https://sites.google.com/site/deepspacetransmissions/interviews-1/2006-2010/newsarama---all-star-superman-and-much-much-more
>NRAMA: Now, it’s one of the worst-kept secrets in comics that some years back, you, Mark Millar, Mark Waid and Tom Peyer put together a proposal for the Superman books. Has anything from All-Star Superman been taken from that original proposal?
>GM: Very little, actually. I think there are a couple of little things that I re-used from there, but I can’t remember what they were. Maybe one of the climactic Luthor beats survived.
>I kind of wanted to rethink the whole thing for All-Star, because the Superman Now! pitch from ‘99 was a very specific story, and we had a very specific plan for it, coming off the continuity that was in the Superman comics of the mid-1990s, All-Star, I think, is a purer vision of Superman.
>I’ve read a few speculations over the years about how we were going to use that proposal to end the Supeman/Lois Lane marriage. In fact that was actually something we decided we didn’t want to do. I remember Mark Waid and the guys and all of us sitting around thinking of ways to end the Superman marriage – and we talked about it for a long time, and we got to where we were talking about things like “memory molecules,” and we finally said, “This is ridiculous! The only way to do this is to keep the marriage and make it work!”
>>79658416
It would have been amazing, and we'd realise this as we reread it. At the time it would have been so insanely overhyped that nothing could do anything but disappoint.
>>79679870
I have to admit, I don't really buy the "Superman is the mask" idea, because I'm not clear on what Clark is pretending to be when he's Superman. He does have superpowers. He doesn't need glasses.
But I think it's just more complex than one being the mask and one being the real him. Clark is always him, he's just lying about different things at different parts of the day. And there are three distinct Bruces: Batman, "Bruce Wayne", and the real Bruce.
Also yikes at that description of Lois.
>>79679959
>It was the only thing we could do with what I still think was a bad idea. The marriage damaged the dynamic of Superman comics quite severely, but if we broke up the relationship of these two great fictional lovers, Superman would immediately seem ineffectual and ultimately beaten by his foes, walking around for the rest of his life not knowing Lois was ever his wife or whatever.
>So we opted to keep Lois Lane and the marriage intact. It’s kind of an interesting reflection of what recently happened in Spider-Man, where they did choose to magically unmarry the hero to predictable howls of protest. Then again, I actually think they’ll be able to make that one work if they just grit their teeth for a couple of years until the new status quo becomes accepted, so who knows?
>>79679960
>At the time it would have been so insanely overhyped that nothing could do anything but disappoint.
That's probably true, and also if they had gone with dissolving the marriage and getting rid of Lois' memory of Clark being Superman, then I think there would've been at least some angry outcry.
Did marvel rip this off to separate MJ and Peter in OMD?
maybe.
I just realized there's no mention of Supergirl or Superboy or Steel or any other Superman Family hero.
I always wondered if Morrison didn't like Supergirl, since she's not in All-Star Superman, or if she just would have ruined the ending.
>>79674895
I always thought Clark was far more normal than nerdy Parker. He played football and such.Its part of why I like American Alien
>>79659521
turning Luthor into a shifty business man instead of a mad scientist was the best decision made.
>>79680098
Morrison seems to prefer the SuperFamily angle only when its with Captain Marvel
>>79680079
I think as someone mentioned above, it's very, very likely. Mxyzptlk is compared to Loki in the pitch, and in JMS' run, Loki owed Spider-Man a favor. It was likely intended to setup Loki erasing Spider-Man's marriage to save Aunt May's life.
I'm amazed that no one at Marvel ever sat down and realized using Mephisto was a terrible idea.
>>79680098
I think he didn't include Supergirl because otherwise she would've been able to be Superman's replacement, similar to the Silver Age Death of Superman story. We also don't see Superboy or Steel in All Star Superman, either.
>>79679895
Also http://io9.gizmodo.com/5071161/wanteds-millar-reveals-ending-of-his-epic-superman-movie-pitch
has Millar saying how his Superman film series would begin and end:
>I want to start on Krypton, a thousand years ago, and end with Superman alone on Planet Earth, the last being left on the planet, as the yellow sun turns red and starts to supernova, and he loses his powers.
We actually do see hints of that in his Flash run (I think it was in the Black Flash arc, where Wally and the Black Flash were racing and Wally says something about an old man wearing red boots watching the sun go nova or something) and Red Son kind of hinted that, too.
>>79680187
The Marvel Family feels far closer knit together than the Super family. And much of the now deemed "classic" Super family is relatively new, so it wouldn't have the same appeal to Morrison as the Marvel Family that from very early on existed the same way it does today.
>>79658416
Every
>revolutionary new [something] series for the new millennium
is a guaranteed shit. There were no excepsions whatsoever and will never be.
>>79680187
He wrote a good Kara in Final Crisis but kind of shafted her in Superman Beyond.
Kind of a lousy image to have the whole army of Supermen while the only Supergirl figures are dead (Overgirl) or don't do much (Kara). I read once there was some miscommunication and Earth-11 Superwoman was intended to be there, though.
>>79680339
>I read once there was some miscommunication and Earth-11 Superwoman was intended to be there, though.
Given that Manhke had to draw that issue as a fill-in artist, I could see that.
>>79680244
>>79680187
keep in mind that the Superman Family didn't come into being in its most nascent form until 1958, when Supergirl was first introduced. The impetus for it was also that Otto Binder, the man who had written most of the Golden Age Captain Marvel stories was working heavily on the Superman titles and was reintroducing the same concept there as the then defunct Fawcett characters. Before that, Supes was a loner who actively discouraged anyone from getting close to him or taking up residence in Metropolis. In the later silver age, Supes became gregarious and courted a large supporting cast of non-powered, powered and even canimal supporting characters.
So yes, Supergirl is essentially a palette swapped Mary Marvel, created by the same writer.
>>79680388
Yeah, but these guys love Silver Age Superman, and you can't love love Silver Age Supes but leave out Kara. Not if you're cool with Zod and Krypto and the whole bottle city of Kandor.
>>79658416
http://www.superman-through-the-ages.com/portal/History/iron.php
dat saltiness
>>79680730
Supergirl is probably the least genuinely loved out of all the major silver age elements, though. I mean, let's face it. Kara had just about no good stories under her belt except for the first few where she was a supporting character and a couple of her Legion appearances. other than that she was just a bland Superman with tits, with a carbon copied supporting cast and secret identity shenanigans. There's not a lot to be nostalgic for, and it diminishes Kal's loneliness which had always been a major aspect of the Weisinger era Superman
>>79658416
This is a great site. I wish it covered the current New 52 / Convergence era with more depth.
>>79680792
I like Supergirl a lot as a character. Supposedly the Peter David early 00's run was really good. An Anon storytimed the arc where she met Pre-Crisis Supergirl and it was great. The nu52 series wasn't bad at all during the relaunch. Not amazing but perfectly readable and they got the character right. The art was pretty good too. Also the character was great in Crisis of Infinite Earths and Final Crisis. Also I'd argue that the current tv show is alright.
There's a lot of potential for Supergirl there that's never been realized, really. Shame too.
>>79680730
There's really nothing about Silver age Supergirl that's particularly interesting or compelling enough that would make you want to bring her over to a Superman story, unless it's specifically about his and her relationship as cousins. The thing is, she doesn't add much of anything to the story herself, except if she's bringing along weird shit like the super pets in form of Streaky or Comet. Just think about it, what is her most iconic story? Dying in the arms of Superman in CoIE. The trouble with Supergirl, imo, is that writers very rarely find an appealing, lasting iconic gimmick that she can do, that isn't directly tied to her being just Superman with tits. Like, she can't hang out with Superman because that's kinda redundant, but on her own there's very little that makes her unique. That's probably why PAD's take is so popular with people, even it's kinda nuts and convoluted as fuck when you get to the specifics of it, but goddamn it at least it's memorable and very much its own thing.
>>79680889
PAD's Supergirl is a very awesome run, hopefully it gets collected in its entirety with the help of the success of TV Supergirl.
>>79680792
>diminishes Kal's loneliness
And shrinking down to hang out with an entire city of Kryptonians whenever he wants doesn't?
This is a pet peeve of mine. I think it's bunk that Supergirl reduces Superman's story. Superman isn't about loneliness and tragedy. Superman is about miracles.
The story isn't about the death of Krypton, it's about the boy who survives. He lands safely on a distant planet where he turns out to have amazing super powers, and is adopted by the nicest old couple ever.
And then he meets another survivor, who remembers Krypton and can tell him stories about his first home. Because Superman is about hope.
>>79659082
>Would he even have escaped Morrison's shadow?
He still hasn't.
>>79681091
Millar pretty much became his own man with Ultimates. In good and bad. Frankly, he seems to be finally maturing as a writer, because his writing isn't so juvenile and blatantly just shallow movie pitches anymore.
>>79660311
It's the same as with Simone where a bunch of new readers saw people bitching about something they'd recently done and assumed it must be the popular thing to hate them.
Forgive them, they've been trained for years by /v/ that all things are either "Ok" or "shit" with nothing in between.
>>79681136
Well, most of Simone more recent output has been pretty bad so some level of aversion for her works makes sense.
>>79681033
What's Silver Age Superman's most iconic story, though? How many people even read those old comics beyond the covers? People remember the ideas and the characters from that era more than iconic stories.
I just like her as a character. She's sad and lonely, hoping to find new parents and get adopted, she's rebellious and impulsive, like the times she tried to meddle in Superman's love life. She's weirdly brilliant, inventing new kinds of Kryptonite that give her cat superpowers. And she had a magic horse that was actually a centaur that wanted to have sex with her.
>>79681091
I don't know if you're delusional or living in a parallel world that is just and fair, but Millar's shadow eclipses Morrison's entire life.
>>79681057
>Superman isn't about loneliness and tragedy. Superman is about miracles.
Yes, that is definitely one way to do Superman. Do remember though that Weisinger era Superman had no Krypto, no Kara, no Kandor, no other survivors except the three Kryptonian assholes he launched back into space. The late 40's/50's Superman titles were filled with a surprising amount of angst and survivor's guilt. In the late 50's and 60's they changed that to the sense of wonder Superman in tune with the newfound fascination with exploration science fiction and interest in science in general. Once Julius Schwartz took over the Superman family fully took over, and Superman started gaining recurring villains and ongoing plots.
Then by the 70's you got the "insecure" Superman era where he was constantly doubting his place in the world, and the O'Neil soft relaunch vastly reduced his powers as well as did away with kryptonite.
Superman titles have had a lot of different contexts over the decades.
>>79681136
I hated Simone before it was cool.
>>79681175
Most iconic one? Hard to say but only because I'm more versed with Superman from the bronze era, but there are plenty of memorable silver age stories like original Red and Blue Superman story where they marry Lana Lang and Lois Lane, that one story where Superman goes back to Krypton... Some of the red kryptonite stories I've red might be from silver age too, though the one I remember the best, where he grows long hair, beard and nails and needs Krypto and Supergirl together to use their heatvision to go back to looking normal is probably bronze era.
>>79678696
That's exactly was Moz always does anyway
>>79679895
Hey, it's half the Red Son ending.
>>79681107
I've checked out Chrononauts and the one with Parlov-as-Moebius art (I can't even remember it's name..?) and the writing is really just non-existent. Those things might as well have been written by cliche-powered machines. I wouldn't call that maturing at all, vanishing rather.
>>79681107
He manages to write a few mature comics, but still, it doesn't fare far from his big screen writing in terms of storytelling.
I find it interesting that some people are so against Lois ever finding out Clark's identity and becoming his confidant considering it was what Superman's creators wanted his story to progress to. Before editorial smacked them with "Oh no you don't decide the stories anymore, status quo is god"
I would've actually preferred this over three non canon classics we've had. This being the building ground for Superman the following dcade would've been better.
>>79681136
Look, I've liked some stuff Simone has done, what she writes isn't high art, but it's fun for the most part. But you can't honestly say she would be where she is now if it wasn't for to the following she got from Woman in Refrigerator and bitching about other SJW stuff, her original works with DC (the whole "we shouldn't be like the Justice League, the Justice League should be more like us") so a lot of people hate her and don't read her stuff on principle, not saying they are right in doing so but I understand where they are coming from.
She also opened a terrible door that can no longer be closed from which total hacks like Kelly Sue, Keith Leth and others use to get in the industry be using a following they got from something other that their actual writing skills. She is also the only one that has used the "do SJW shit to get a following then use that following to get into actual comics writing" strategy and has actually writen shit worth giving a fuck about.
>>79681172
Neither her recent secret six, nor clean room is bad.
>>79684611
I'm not sure which I'd prefer. On one hand, this could've given a much more solid foundation to Superman comics unlike in the 00's where there were some good comics in the main line (Joe Casey's run, Geoff Johns' run, Kurt Busiek's run) but they overall direction of the line was unfocused and kept jumbling things around.
But on the other hand we have no way of knowing what would happen during their run or after they leave. Maybe it makes the Superman books be DC's highest sellers (until Jim Lee works on Hush). But we don't know if Didio would've been brought in or not (one rumor suggests that the four getting chased off was one of the catalysts for WB management to bring in Didio), or if he would've kept things as is.
>>79681091
Arguably he has. Back in the 90's he was merely considered Grant Morrison's co-writer and if people considered him as a solo writer at all, it was for Superman Adventures, which unfortunately most people didn't read at the time. Millar didn't really become a name till Authority (even if Morrison might've been assisting him) and he didn't become a superstar till he went over to Marvel.
>>79675369
I want this to be canon.
Does DC have a writer that can pull this take on Superman off?
>>79675609
Well most of those guys grew up on Silver Age Supes so to them that the status quo.
>>79659082
>>79679554
>>79675042
>At the very least it's a less idiotic "return the silver age to Supes" story than the god-awful Jeph Loeb stuff that we got.
Here's another thought, if the Superman 2000 pitch went through, that means Loeb and Kelly wouldn't have been the ones on Superman. Morrison and Millar wouldn't have gone over to Marvel (no Marvel Boy, no involvement with the X-Men) so would Loeb have launched Ultimate X-Men instead? Or would Bendis be pulling double duty? Would Joe Casey just get Joe Kelly, Steven T Seagle, and Duncan Rouleau to help him revamp the X-Men in 2001?
>>79687035
Which would you prefer the perfect X-men run or the perfect Superman run?
>>79678903
Hey namefag whats the name of your Tumblr so i can reblog this shit?
>>79675609
I think it only partially undoes Byrne. Like for instance, Ma Kent is still alive which is more like the 1978 movie than the Pre-CoIE Kents (who were both dead). Luthor is still a billionaire but they give him his super-mad scientist role again with the billionaire philantrophist role as a easy front. It's sort of like the Bronze Age Luthor where he was publically known as a supervillain but uses aliases to discreetly do other stuff to fund things, here he's publically seen as legit while he acts like a more discreet version of the Bronze Age Luthor.
The stuff in the Fortress uses a variety of stuff. The usage of the Phantom Zone calls back Morrison's JLA with Prometheus and the White Martians. QWEWQ is used as an update of the Bottle City of Kandor and Earth-Prime, Superman using the Hyperman alias (which is a callback to an old comic about what would happen if Superman had a brother) is sort of like Superman using the Nightwing identity while visiting Kandor.
And as mentioned in the thread, one draft had Lois and Clark still married since they felt it would seem like the villains won if they went with the memory erasure.
>>79679427
Eh, Millar can write competent strong and independent females like Hit Girl, Morrison can't
>>79679549
I only know Cat from the Supergirl show, where she kicks major ass and this sounds problematic
>>79680098
In Supergirl's case, at this time she wasn't Kryptonian and was being written by Peter David (who had other things in mind for her), so they figured that they'd let PAD do his own thing and leave her out of the pitch.
>>79680385
Ugh, I don't think it was "misscommunication"
It's well know that Morrison hates his mother and probably all women too.
He killed Talia and made Wonder Woman nothing more than eye candy and some weird BDSM woman.
>>79674943
Batman's a bigger self insert Gary Stu than Superman.
