What Post-Crisis elements would you KEEP?

[JulianPerez]

Steel/John Henry Irons is a keeper.

Everybody says Steel. I don't know why that is. I honestly don't really see it.

Intercompany ideas aren't very interesting. I'd rather have a first rate Iron Man than a duplicate Iron Man at another company. And as much as I admire Steve Englehart's work, let's face it: Moon Knight will never be Batman because BATMAN is busy being Batman.

Manchester Black? Wasted potential. Bring him back and turn him into a major supervillain player.

Amok? Good idea, wasted in one issue. Again, build him up into a major baddie with some serious firepower.

Who?

The rainbow blur effect when Superman hits warp speed? Come on, you gotta love that.

That was a pretty neat looking effect, and shows they put some thought into how Superman's FTL worked. Remember how mindblowing Hyperspace was in Alan Moore's SUPREME?

Doomsday can stay so long as he's a henchman for either Darkseid or Brainiac. Otherwise he stinks as a solo villain and shouldn't be bothered with.

I'm not so sure I share your feelings on this. The point of Doomsday is to have a monster big and bad enough that Superman would lose a fight to him, and seriously, Superman doesn't lose fights to big monsters. Doomsday has no clear motivation, no real personality. One might argue that it is unfair to say this, and after all, he's a big monster, how much personality can a monster have? That's ignoring how interesting Stan Lee for example, was able to make Dragon Man or the Hulk, or how much character King Kong possessed despite not being able to speak.

[Gangbuster]

My purpose in saying Steel is not his spectacular armor that shoots railroad spikes, or wondering why such a person flies around with a big hammer...

He's the only person, in the post-Crisis world, with the character of Superman. Even the post-Crisis Superman doesn't have Superman's character and morality...so since John Henry is the only person worthy of taking on the mantle of Superman, I nominate him!

Plus, the idea clearly comes from George Lowther's 1942 Superman novel. It's a logical extension of it.

[King Krypton]

Manchester Black - telepathic British vigilante who susbscribes to the "kill your enemies and revel in the collateral damage you cause" school of superheroing, and who wants Superman dead because Superman represents what Black percieves as an old, outdated order that needs to die along with the scum of the earth Black professes to oppose. (In his battle with Superman, Black vowed to kill not only Superman, but the JLA as well in order to enforce his "might makes right" message on the world.) Bascially, it's a clash of ideologies, and Black's got the power to enforce his at all costs.

Amok is an anti-alien racist who wants Superman dissected and killed because he thinks Superman is the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. (He also had an embarrassing run-in with Superman years prior, when Superman caught him in the midst of one of the most hilariously pathetic ransom attempts of all time.) Armed with technology from the evil Furturesmiths, he goads Superman into battle, trying to rig the circumstances so that Superman gets painted as the bad guy. (This whole OMAC/Infinite Crisis mess is a revisitation of the same theme: bad guys out to paint Superman as a menace to humanity.) And Amok doesn't care who he kills or maims in his attempts; he holds Superman accountable for every bit of death and damage. There's something very unsettling to me about a bad guy who would go to such lengths, and it does lend itself to a very realistic possibility. Why wouldn't Superman's enemies try to set him up as a menace who needs to be killed at all costs?

[Gary]

I can't see pre-crisis Luthor transitioning into being a businessman. The problem is, he'd be too good at it. Remember that Cary Bates story (early eighties, I believe) where Luthor temporarily reformed? In what seemed like a few weeks he had come up with everything from a cure for cancer to a device to neutralize nuclear weapons worldwide. Now if he becomes a businessman, think of him doing the same thing but charging for it. By a year or so he'd own the entire planet.

[MatterEaterLad]

You're right, I can't either...

For some reason, I didn't hate his character that way, it gave good opportunity for his intellect and science savvy...

But in the long run, I could never really imagine what he would do in a world where he killed Superman and ruled billions of people with an iron fist...

[Gangbuster]

Manchester Black - telepathic British vigilante who susbscribes to the "kill your enemies and revel in the collateral damage you cause" school of superheroing, and who wants Superman dead

A British villian?

Well, I do know of one British person who is evil. He happens to write comics, though...

[JulianPerez]

My purpose in saying Steel is not his spectacular armor that shoots railroad spikes, or wondering why such a person flies around with a big hammer...

He's the only person, in the post-Crisis world, with the character of Superman. Even the post-Crisis Superman doesn't have Superman's character and morality...so since John Henry is the only person worthy of taking on the mantle of Superman, I nominate him!

Hmmm, I see your point about Steel's "serve and protect" Silver Age mindset.

When DEATH OF SUPERMAN happened, I honestly thought Steel was the "real" Superman out of the four. Superboy was clearly a clone, the Last Son of Krypton KILLED (which disqualifies him right there) and Cyborg Superman was too creepy to possibly be considered.

There was something about Superman's soul migrating (now shown to be a red herring), but the best proof that Steel WAS Superman is that he acted like Superman; in fact, he was the only one that didn't say he really was Superman.

In fact, one might argue Steel was more Superman than the "Superman" on display in that miniseries was.

[Captain Kal]

Agreed re: Steel.  He's a keeper.

So, John Henry Irons can't use his Steel armour anymore since his nervous system was supposedly damaged so he can't handle being linked to his armour anymore.

While I might buy into his needing a direct feedback system for this, surely the inventor extraordinaire and all-around genius could devise a passive system that merely sensed his body's neural and muscular activity to drive the armour systems that way.  Even a passive physical system that had tiny pressure switches on the inside or even sensed the minute stresses of his body flexing against the suit's insides would be doable.  John's ability to wear powered armour should not be completely gone given the above alternatives.  Heck, he should be able to get past the direct neural interface problem itself if he devised an AI buffering system that acted like an intelligent fuse to protect him and do a lot of the background interface work like our own spinal cord and lower brain functions do for our brain-body interfaces.

I do not buy into the idea that John is incapable of being Steel anymore.

DC has copped out and emasculated the most innovative concept in the Superman mythos: The Black Superman.