Misconceptions about Superman

[Johnny Nevada]

Re: Earth-2 vs. Golden Age Supes: Some sources theorized/designate the name of the Golden Age (vs. Earth-2) Superman's world as the never-depicted-in-the-Silver/Bronze Age-comics parallel world of "Earth-2A", a world where the Daily Planet existed in the 40's and Luthor was bald, Perry was editor, etc., all as originally published in the 40's comics...

Re: Various cities' locations:

As I wrote for Wikipedia (before I got annoyed with various hijinks in the Superman-related entries I was working on and stopped writing for it), Metropolis doesn't have an exact location, but usually is treated as a NYC-style east coast city (too many stories involving Metropolis' harbor IMO to be anywhere else), along with Gotham City (ditto re: harbor-based stories), with some comics of the 70's and 80's treating Metropolis and Gotham as twin cities on opposite sides of a very large bay, with Smallville somewhere within a day's driving distance to Metropolis. A map in an 80's Superboy comic I have (*somewhere*---if anyone's interested, will find it and scan it in/upload it) depicts the area Smallville's in, as being nearby Metropolis and Gotham City.

Central City pre-Crisis was usually treated as being in the midwest, with one story showing it as in Ohio; its Earth-2 counterpart, Keystone City, was cited IIRC by Roy Thomas as being in Pennsylvania (since Pennsylvania's the "Keystone State"---get it?). Rather it were Pennsylvania over its current post-Crisis/Zero Hour/etc. location of Kansas (?!), as a twin city to Central City (and both cities' formerly seperate identities pre-Crisis lost to some goofy Minneapolis/St. Paul imitation)...

[MatterEaterLad]

Were there comic sources that talked about Earth-2A?

[Johnny Nevada]

Were there comic sources that talked about Earth-2A?

Apparently (per this site: http://www.io.com/~woodward/chroma/atminor.html#aEarth-2), it was only so labelled by E. Nelson Bridwell in a "Superman Family" letter column, and thus is in the same hypothetical category as Earth-B...

[JulianPerez]

For all you Elliot Maggin fans:

Maggin was quite clear on where it was that Green Arrow and Black Canary's Star City is: it's a substitute Boston. During the Elliot Maggin/Cary Bates JUSTICE LEAGUE story where Superman arrives on Earth-Prime, he notes that "New York is where Gotham City is, Boston where Star City is, and...I can't find Metropolis anywhere!" The S!-man also gave Star City a phenomenally futile baseball team, the Star City Colts, that hadn't won a championship in nearly a hundred years (the similarities to the Boston Red Sox suggest themselves).

I have no idea where people get the idea that Star City is supposed to be a fictionalized Seattle; possibly because of confusion over the Mike Grell miniseries, where Green Arrow went to the ACTUAL Seattle...

[Lee Semmens]

Wasn't it John Byrne who started the whole business about Smallville being in Kansas?

Now, I know some people regard anything by Byrne on Superman as akin to the tablets Moses was handed on Mt. Sinai, but I thought in the Silver and Bronze Age it was clearly established that Metropolis was on the east coast, and Smallville a few hours drive away, at most, certainly vastly closer than the Midwest.

[MatterEaterLad]

As far as east coast, I suspect it was more Bronze Age than Silver...

[Super Monkey]

Smallville is in New Jersey I like that idea.


Central Jersey used to be quite rural, it still has farms, but not as much as before, South Jersey is still very rural for the most part.


http://www.visitsouthjersey.com/new-jersey-parks-farms.asp

[JulianPerez]

Wasn't it John Byrne who started the whole business about Smallville being in Kansas?

It was more the first Superman movie, actually...they had beautiful cinematography, giving Superman a sort of bucolic farm country look. It should also be noted that Superman in the comics did not really grow up on a farm. His parents sold it early on to buy a General Store.

Perhaps a moment can be taken here to point out something about the comics that are important: they're what every other version is based on and what they say ought to be given priority over television or film or radio versions as the definitive version.

At some level, there is some intuitive understanding of this. Let me give an example:

A woman in the library noticed my Captain America coffee mug, and asked if I was a comics lover. I said I was. She then asked this: "I really like the X-Men movies. About Wolverine and his past, though...how did it all REALLY happen?"

See the implication there?

Sure, movies and television can do good things, and understandable allowances can be made for them because you can't cram in 40+ years of history into 2 hours, but ultimately the comics are how it "really" happened, and the rest are "dramatizations," the story equivalent of the "re-enactments" on AMERICA'S MOST WANTED or UNSOLVED MYSTERIES.

So, if the comics strongly implied that Smallville was East Coast and very near Metropolis and did so for DECADES...well, that's it, then.

This was why Ostrander's HAWKWORLD pisses me off to no end, but the "Starcrossed" movie doesn't: in "Starcrossed," it wasn't "really" Hawkman (actually, go back and see they don't actually call that character "Hawkman"), however, HAWKWORLD is supposed to now be how it all "really" happened...but the thing is, it wasn't, was it? Where's the Absorbascon and the Gentleman Ghost?

Now, I know some people regard anything by Byrne on Superman as akin to the tablets Moses was handed on Mt. Sinai

Not holy enough, apparently, if MAN OF STEEL was recently retconned away in favor of the Waid version

Does anybody STILL think this?

My impression of Byrne's current reputation is that he is viewed as the comics industry's Michael Jackson: a  has-been that did several good things in the seventies and eighties before he was totally taken over by eccentric and unsavory personal behavior and some really awful work in the 1990s, a reputation he escapes from by insane surroundings that border on alternate universe; Wacko Jacko had his Neverland Ranch, Byrne has his sycophantic Robotics Forums.

Yes, I know that SUPERMAN THROUGH THE AGES's whole raison d'etre and fabricated group identity is as David in front of the Byrne/Carlin/Helfer unconquerable Goliath, but with MOS gone, Byrne's version is dead as a doornail and even mainstream comics fandom has turned against him.

Allow me to dramatize:

COMICS FANDOM: BOOOOOO!
BYRNE: What's this? They're booing me!
ROBOTICS FORUM: No, no sir, they're shouting...Boooo-yrne!
BYRNE (to fandom): Are you shouting Boo, or Booo-yrne?
COMICS FANDOM: BOOOOOOOO!
UNCLE MXY:  ...I was shouting Booo-yrne.  :wink: [/list]