More info on Superman's new continuity

[Aldous]

But I really did like the Superman art - I thought Lois could have been cuter though.

John Byrne can't draw women.

[Permanus]

The only thing I really liked about Superman:MOS was how much a kick I got out of Byrne's Superman art.  (As I wince waiting for tomatos to get thrown at me.) 

After all the stuff I've said about John Byrne, it's sort of time I admitted that I quite liked his stint on Fantastic Four. Wow, confession really is good for the soul.

[Aldous]

The only thing I really liked about Superman:MOS was how much a kick I got out of Byrne's Superman art.  (As I wince waiting for tomatos to get thrown at me.) 

After all the stuff I've said about John Byrne, it's sort of time I admitted that I quite liked his stint on Fantastic Four. Wow, confession really is good for the soul.

I really liked his FF. Some of his best work.

[JulianPerez]

I love John Byrne as an artist back in his heyday. His action scenes have such a WHOOF in them, a crazy energy I haven't seen since Kirby. Like Kirby, he's got that "if you trip, you fall in his panels" quality.

His best work, for me, is the crazy IRON FIST. Don't get me wrong, he had some great inkers on UNCANNY X-MEN that gussied him up (Dave Cockrum, anyone? Terry Austin - Names are familiar to comics fans as the Apostles are to Mexicans), but his fight scenes in IRON FIST had this wild, multiple-panel imagery about it.

I take it back: my all time favorite Byrne work is one where he did what he does best, the layouts, in the Roger Stern AVENGERS annual right after the Nebula story arc. His corridors felt huge, and his running characters looked like they were streaking.

As a writer, working by himself? I dislike Byrne very much. He so desires to leave his mark on comics but he doesn't have the talent for it, so all he really contributes are ideas that alternate between destructive and inappropriately regressive.

There's a quality to Byrne's ideas, a "Byrnistness," for lack of a better term, that leaves an idea simultaneously annoying and totally contrary to the spirit of a character. Galactus being a force of nature instead of a 3-D person. The Metal Men being a plastic polymer instead of the metals they're NAMED AFTER AND HAVE ALL THE PROPERTIES OF; Namor being "nuts" instead of an honorable, proud, complicated character with a grudge against the surface world that is legitimate; the Scarlet Witch being the center of the Marvel Universe (what does that even mean?); Superman's invulnerability being due to a forcefield. The Vision and the Scarlet Witch's children being a part of Mephisto's soul (which in the words of one critic, "makes about as much sense as it sounds like it does").

"Byrnistness" is the only way I can describe this stuff. It's a combination of thinking really deeply about something, yet totally missing the point.

To say nothing of the ideas of his that are so laughable, they literally remind one of bad fanfic. Remember the ALPHA FLIGHT issue he established Diablo had a girlfriend he never mentioned but was immortal like him?

There's also Byrne's totally wrong belief that characters are only interesting the way they are in his first appearance. He made the Vision an emotionless robot again, scrapping all the stories where the Vision experienced emotions and proved his humanity time and again.

He wanted to return Wanda to the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Anyone who's familliar with Wanda's spectacular growth as a person into an assertive woman, finds her returning to an organization she joined as a weak willed, impressionable girl to be absolutely unbelievable no matter how much strain she was under.

As for Byrne's FANTASTIC FOUR...it was great the first year or so (Aunt Petunia being a sexy dame was fantastic) but it jumped the shark in the most spectacular way ever: the Terminus, the single most derivative villain ever, Johnny Storm being a teenager, and replacing the heart of the team, the Thing, with a cheesy marketing gimmick like the She-Hulk, and the lech-inducing plots that surrounded her (remember the one centered on her sunbathing naked on the top of the Baxter Building?).

[Permanus]

Oh, that She-Hulk story. There was an awful lot of lechery in Byrne's FF (in fact, in much of his work), often in the form of a female character disportin' in the altogether for the flimsiest of reasons - like when the FF come across this ancient Roman city somewhere in the jungle, which finally crumbles to dust: Sue just happened to be wearing a toga, which suddenly disintegrates on her. Or off her, rather. None of the guys suffered that fate. Funnily enough, he toned that down in his Superman stint. Editorial input, I guess.

For all that, there were several standout issues on his run, like the one were Franklin Richards turned into a blonde Jesus Christ and the Negative (whoops, almost wrote Phantom) Zone trip, though that borrowed heavily from several outside influences. But then, there were quite a few dull ones, too, like Terminus.

I never read his IRON FIST, but I can see how his energetic style would fit the character. At least, his style was energetic then - at some point he seems to have become completely deflated, perhaps as a result of boring himself by only having a repertoire of two faces (generic male and female). Also, the guy can't draw wildlife for toffee.

[crispy snax]

there is a creepy factor to john byrnes work... say in superman and batman: generations 3 when he has a young teenage lana lang kiss a superman who was (physically) in his fifties... it just came across as a bit... odd.

that and another plot line was about two future supergirls who (for pretty much no reason) were stuck at 11 years old for several hundred years.. and an "awkward" relationship to an alien...

maybe just me

[Permanus]

Isn't it glorious how the contributors to this forum manage to turn just about any topic into a John Byrne-bashing party?

[JulianPerez]

Isn't it glorious how the contributors to this forum manage to turn just about any topic into a John Byrne-bashing party?

I can't speak for anybody else, but bashing Byrne isn't as fun as it used to be. When John Byrne was a superstar artist and considered by the entire earth to be a genius, if you didn't like his AVENGERS WEST COAST you were a voice in the wilderness. Those were the days.

Nowadays, Byrne is seen as a megalomaniac surrounded by an army of bootlicking psychophants, the Byrne Robotics Forum, where he periodically insults Steve Irwin and leches after Asian porn queens.

I'd never thought I'd say this, but I actually feel sorry for John Byrne.

Also, I hate all the smug jackasses that laugh at him like cowardly jackals mocking a sick old lion. A statistically high number are hipster dipshits (fans of Morrison, naturally) that laugh at statements of Byrne's, about how seriously he takes comics.

I feel like grabbing these people, shaking them, and saying "You know what? Byrne's right and you're wrong! Whether the Scarlet Witch chooses Wonder Man or the Vision IS serious business. It's life or death stuff! Haven't you ever been a fan...a REAL fan...of anything in your life, ever?"