What was wrong with the Bronze Age Superman?

[DBN]

Alan Moore ... understands Superman better than any writer currently working in comics.

Kurt Busiek is doing pretty good. Grant Morrison is up there too.

*cough*Mark Waid*cough*

[ShinDangaioh]

A lot of the Bronze age stories played around with Superman's mind or emotions.
 Lois and Lana get infected by the same disease that killed John and Martha Kent.
 Supergirl and Kandor try to convince Superman that Krypton wasn't real.  The restoration of Kandor itself.  
Superman prentending to be all his villians to help cure a person who thought he was Superman.
 My favorite is when the Superman Revenge Squad made Superman a coward and he beat them by telling a tv crew to keep a television camera on him.  
Then there was when the Parasite drained all the emotional support  for Superman from the world(Superman looked into a photo alblum and used the memory of Ma and Pa Kent to beat the Parasite)
And a bit of humor when the Ambush Bug brought a piece of red K to apologize to Superman with and Superman and Ambush Big switched minds(The Ambush Bug in Superman's body and Supes in the Bug's body)  Kobra showed up during that little nonsense

[Super Monkey]

Alan Moore ... understands Superman better than any writer currently working in comics.

Kurt Busiek is doing pretty good. Grant Morrison is up there too.

And even better, they are both now writing Superman comics.

The Iron Age is officially over, at least for Superman.

[Vic George 2K6]

What puzzled me about that era's Superman was Clark Kent's rather schizophrenic journalism career -- in some issues he would be working for the Daily Planet, in others he would be anchoring WGBS news.  Eventually around CRISIS, Lois Lane also becomes both a roving reporter for WGBS and a journalist for the Daily Planet.  I mean, where could they put the brakes on which kind of journalism Clark's going to do?

[JulianPerez]

Would it be so very terribly heretical to say that, as much as I love him, my favorite Superman was done by Garcia-Lopez, not Swan?

In general, the Bronze Age or the Schwartz years were amongst Superman's high points; maybe the highest point. My favorite was the Elliot Maggin-penned Superman/Atom/Green Arrow team-up where they parachute into Kandor to stop a robot composed entirely of Junk. Len Wein, one of the most truly creative professionals around, was shaking up the status quo, having Superman regrow Kandor and encountering Chemo and the Galactic Golem. There were space opera stories involving the Superman Revenge Squad (including one where he turned into a lizard-thing to go undercover), and all the while Martin Pasko was revitalizing the Rogues Gallery with characters like Master Jailer, returning the original Toyman, changing Bizarro's powers, and introducing the Atomic Skull. Steve Gerber, one of the greatest writers in the entirety of comics history, did his love letter to Superman, the PHANTOM ZONE miniseries. Then there was Supergirl becoming an adult; my favorite was that Maggin SUPERMAN FAMILY where she moves to Florida and battles an Aztec Priestess. Maggin also was telling a lot of stories featuring Luthor as a very sympathetic, pitiable and far more fascinating villain.

And then...oh, and THEN...we had Cary Bates. I can't even begin to list his achievements: the first story arc with Vartox, the three-parter that introduced Terra-Man (and had Superman return from the dead), the story that featured Faora, THE Zoner, beating Superman up with pressure point tricks, his "Wrath of Khan" transformation of Lex Luthor, and that JLA story arc he did with Maggin that has the heroes visit Earth-Prime.

What was WRONG with Superman in this time? Most of the flaws starting to show up near the end, of exhaustion.

First, too many magic using villains. I honestly can't tell apart any of the magic-using hot chicks that were introduced in the last few years: Syrene, Yellow Peri...remember when SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE and ELIZABETH came out around the same time? Man, those two just run together, don't they? I can think of a scene, but I don't know which movie it was from.

And then there was "El Diablo" himself, Gerry Conway, other writers may be worse, but he was the most totally mediocre writer in comics history. Gerry Conway is the Bono of comics: a dull-at-best contributor whose fat hiney is hauled out of the fire by the Edge's ripping guitar. All I can say is, Conway must thank his lucky stars he's got Don Heck on pencils during part of his JLA run, and his best bud Roy the Boy was there to plot his ARAK, SON OF THUNDER. I can't even start to list the bad stories Conway inflicted on Superman in this period, but my all time favorite stupid idea was when the Superman of Earth-1 and Superman of Earth-2 merged to form one double-sized super-Superman. Trust me, it all makes as much sense as it sounds like it does.

Essentially, what Conway's saying is, Superman is one of those combiner Transformers, merging to form the Super-Megazord or whatever.

[TELLE]

What puzzled me about that era's Superman was Clark Kent's rather schizophrenic journalism career -- in some issues he would be working for the Daily Planet, in others he would be anchoring WGBS news.  Eventually around CRISIS, Lois Lane also becomes both a roving reporter for WGBS and a journalist for the Daily Planet.  I mean, where could they put the brakes on which kind of journalism Clark's going to do?

I initially was confused but think Maggin integrated the two nicely in his novels.  In hindsight, it seems a realistic turn of events, someone "graduating" from print to video, but keeping one foot in either world.  It was certainly true of the first generation of tv journalists in the 50s.

[Uncle Mxy]

Would it be so very terribly heretical to say that, as much as I love him, my favorite Superman was done by Garcia-Lopez, not Swan?

I always think of G-L as the guy who drew the best Lois, and when he's on, his Superman is smashing.

[forgottenhero]

What was wrong:

1) The whole Clark-as-WGBS-anchorman idea.

2) The idea that everything from the Weisinger years had to remain canonical even though the style of writing had drastically changed.

I don't think the idea of rebooting Superman was so bad. It probably should've been done in the early 70s, rather than 1986 (O'Neil's run was an attempt at a revamp, not a reboot). I just think that what Byrne did was too radical an overhaul.  It was one thing to redisign Krypton, another thing to so thorougly change was Krypton was...