A Sermon Supreme #1: I Don't Want Origins to Honor the Past.

[Gangbuster]

I would become a softy. Lois Lane would suspect that I was vulnerable to marriage, and spend an entire comic series trying to convince me of it. I would begin to seek out a "Superman family." So I think the most pivotal part of the story, that differentiates between Golden and Silver Age versions of myself, could be the sudden arrival of Kara.

This is a pretty good idea. It explains the change in Superman's personality in a natural way. Though one problem is, Superman didn't have to take responsibility for Supergirl. Superman chucked her in an orphanage; it wasn't a THREE MEN AND A BABY deal only with a teen.

What more loving thing could you do for a stranded Kryptonian child than put them in an orphanage where they would be adopted and raised in a small-town environment by two good parents? Really, how would Kal-El know any better?  

[TELLE]

-finding Super Monkey
-...

How could I forget the most pivotal point in Superman's life?

Re: Clark and Lex

I love the sequence in one of the Maggin novels where university Clark wants to tell Lex his secret but is kidnapped by Lex before he can and Lex won't cop to his real identity.  Or other Maggin moments when Clark and Lex talk as adults.

[Daybreaker]

So what would this history be like?  How would you combine everything from 1938 to 2005?

[JulianPerez]

instead, how could we reconcile all those events into one continuity? (And can I just I love Al Schroeder's web-site, 'Schroder's Speculations' that seeks to do just that with nearly 70 years of continuity... however, trying to put it into a 'real world' historical perspective! http://www.novanotes.com/specul.htm ).

Thank you for bringing me that link to my attention. Al Schroeder combines intensive knowledge with a great creative aptitude.

I love Phillip Jose Farmer, he was an old school fanboy of a type that doesn't exist anymore: detail-centered, fascinated by minutiae, adoring characters, treating characters seriously as if they were real, and seeking to create connectivity and connections where none previously exist.

I think it was in an interview with Messner-Loebs when someone asked him: "Why in this issue of JLA did someone use a tractor beam when other means would have been more efficient?" And Messner-Loebs responded "Oh, that is so cute! I didn't think fans asked that kind of question anymore."

Every time I read someone saying that "if they get things and characters wrong it doesn't matter, only stories matter," I feel like slapping that guy in the face.

Now PJF on the other hand, he was a fanboy's fanboy. I remember he once wrote a bioography of Doc Savage that involved him dismissing some novels as having "never happened." For instance, one was set during the 1939 World's Fair...but as it was published a month before the Fair opened, it could not have "actually" taken place!

[TELLE]

I love Tarzan Alive! by Farmer along with most of his related fiction.

The fans, some of whom read this forum, who devote equal attention to Superman are equally awesome to me.  The E. Nelson Bridwell's of the world make Superman fandom fun and rewarding of deep study!

[NotSuper]

Re: Superman's change of attitude

The easiest answer as to why Superman changed is because the world did. The Golden Age Superman was more willing to do what he considered the right thing, regardless of what the system felt was right. The Silver Age Superman preferred to work with the law and had to make compromises. It almost parallels how our country was.

Personally, I think Superman should be somewhere in between these two portrayals. He should try to work within the law whenever he can, but he also shouldn't be too restricted by it. There's no reason he can't fight both slumlords and Brainiac.

[Gary]

One thing you may not have considered is that Superboy clearly has the same attitudes as the "soft" Superman.

Thus for your idea to work, you either have to say the Superboy stories never happened, or the "hard" Supey was just an abberation between two long periods of "soft".

[NotSuper]

One thing you may not have considered is that Superboy clearly has the same attitudes as the "soft" Superman.

Thus for your idea to work, you either have to say the Superboy stories never happened, or the "hard" Supey was just an abberation between two long periods of "soft".

Actually, you could explain that by saying that youth was what made Kal "soft." He was more idealistic as a kid, as many of us are.