I'm not super familiar with 80's comics, especially DC stuff from the time. BUT, if it's anything like how Marvel was, the books will probably be bogged down with narrative text until mid 90's when art took some control of the story back from the writing. (Ymmv on that, of course. It was arguabley due to the influence of the Image founders on the rest of the business.)
Another thing to consider is that word count will vary depending on the writer. Books were definitely wordier the farther back you go, but some writers are worse about it than others.
Tales of Judgment. Also here, instead of that other place.
good luck D.B.B.
From the mid-90s to about '99 I read Superman. It started with the death of Superman, through the Reign of Supermen (great story arc), and stopped right before the whole Superman Blue fiasco.
From what I remember, I never felt like the text was too heavy. And during that time, it most certainly wasn't boring. I can't speak for the rest of the Superman comics from any of the titles outside of that time frame, so all I can say is hang in there. It has to have gotten better by '93.
@Rylas
Kill 'em all. Let XP sort 'em out.
Oh my god - you guys should read some DC comics from the '60s if you think the '80s and '90s books were too wordy. At the NYCC I picked up some super cheap issues of Doom Patrol from around... 1968, I think. I figured they'd be a quick, fun read on the train home.
Holy crap was I wrong. It was like trying to read a text book in comics form! Not because the material was deep or anything, but because the characters just Never. Shut. Up. they were constantly wise-cracking, or spouting exposition about every little thing - even things that were happening in that very panel. "Cliff, look, Rita is getting into that car with a shady looking guy!" I just wanted Cliff to say, "No kidding, Larry, I'm looking right at her, just like you and all the readers!" It took me like three times as long to read one of them as it does a standard comic and by the time I was done, I felt mentally exhausted.
As for the topic at hand, I read Superman from Byrne's relaunch in... was that 1987(?) to about issue 35 or 40 and then dropped the title. I didn't drop it because it was too wordy though, just because the stories sucked IMO. Not sure if it ever got better because other than the Death of Superman event, I haven't read any Superman comics since then.
(Sometimes, I wish there could be a Dev thumbs up button for quality posts, because you pretty much nailed it.) -- Ghost Falcon
Superman v2 and Adventure of Superman both started in January 1987.
Also I wasn't aware of how much Clark was confused about his love life... He thought he loved Diana, while pretty much Dating cat, while Trying to get a date with lois and being in love with her while having Lana love him and wished things turned out differently...
Well, this is all meant to be the response Post-Crisis to the 'Superman has no life' argument that plagued him during the Silver Age. Byrne pushed for (and got) the approval to put more of the focus on Clark and turn both he and Superman into romantic leads.
The first twelve or so issues of his run nearly always have Clark being somewhere where he gets five o'clock shadow or something so he can look more 'manly'. And yeah, the whole stuff with Diana is just overblown hype...I should point out that Byrne is directly responsible for a particularly notorious issue of Adventure Comics where he's teamed up with Big Barda and they are mind-controlled by an Apokolips character called Sleeze, who basically gets them to make porn....
Make of that what you will.
S.
Part of Sister Flame's Clickey-Clack Posse
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read it...it's a two issue story, and Superman was too pure to make the porn...Barda however apparently wasn't pure enough to resist to make a porn before that though.|
Originally Posted by SuperOz
Well, this is all meant to be the response Post-Crisis to the 'Superman has no life' argument that plagued him during the Silver Age. Byrne pushed for (and got) the approval to put more of the focus on Clark and turn both he and Superman into romantic leads.
The first twelve or so issues of his run nearly always have Clark being somewhere where he gets five o'clock shadow or something so he can look more 'manly'. And yeah, the whole stuff with Diana is just overblown hype...I should point out that Byrne is directly responsible for a particularly notorious issue of Adventure Comics where he's teamed up with Big Barda and they are mind-controlled by an Apokolips character called Sleeze, who basically gets them to make porn.... Make of that what you will. S. |
And the Diana thing he had a crush on her...and then they went on a date and then he didn't want to date her because she viewed him as god like, even though she herself technically would have to be considered a goddess and eventually becomes one >.> weird.
Also... I'm finding that the timeline is all weird for Superman from what I'm reading...because they sorta rebooted him and all the villains and such, but that was 10 years ago that his history begins but he's seemingly just now meeting everyone in his career even they all played roles in the crisis... And also Wonder Woman just made her first appearance so apparently WW and metallo, and clark having knowledge of his kryptonian roots...and the discovery of kryptonite all happened in year 10/11 according to what im reading... v.v
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So what you are saying is that Smallville didn't have it all wrong?!
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Originally Posted by Durakken
Superman v2 and Adventure of Superman both started in January 1987.
Also I wasn't aware of how much Clark was confused about his love life... He thought he loved Diana, while pretty much Dating cat, while Trying to get a date with lois and being in love with her while having Lana love him and wished things turned out differently... |
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Oh I hope you were kidding about that.
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Originally Posted by Samothrake
So what you are saying is that Smallville didn't have it all wrong?!
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"With Me - Against Me" Mission Arc 230667
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yeah, sadly this ended up being one of the biggest problems coming up out of the first Crisis. While some titles ended their runs on time, others didn't, and some titles were ongoing while the Crisis was still resolving and afterwards. the idea was to TRY and start from scratch, but editorially it proved infeasible so we ended up getting one overly confused, frakked up timeline. in Superman's case, Byrne retold Clark's history with Man of Steel and while i think he did an excellent job with it, his other titles still carried with business as usual, while trying to take place in the new timeline. |
Originally Posted by Durakken
Also... I'm finding that the timeline is all weird for Superman from what I'm reading...because they sorta rebooted him and all the villains and such, but that was 10 years ago that his history begins but he's seemingly just now meeting everyone in his career even they all played roles in the crisis... And also Wonder Woman just made her first appearance so apparently WW and metallo, and clark having knowledge of his kryptonian roots...and the discovery of kryptonite all happened in year 10/11 according to what im reading... v.v
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IMO, the reboot Superman was a better, stronger character, but they really didnt hit their stride until the early '90s when the titles all started being linked together.
I miss those comics...it was about reading....not just flippin around in a picture book with action shot after action shot !
CoX for life !!
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With Barda and Diana, that's just how Byrne's writing goes with female characters. It verges on misogyny at times, to be honest with you. He came back writing Wonder Woman for a while and had strong implications that she was either submissive or couldn't best Heracles because she was a woman....but that's whole other story.|
Originally Posted by Durakken
read it...it's a two issue story, and Superman was too pure to make the porn...Barda however apparently wasn't pure enough to resist to make a porn before that though.
And the Diana thing he had a crush on her...and then they went on a date and then he didn't want to date her because she viewed him as god like, even though she herself technically would have to be considered a goddess and eventually becomes one >.> weird. Also... I'm finding that the timeline is all weird for Superman from what I'm reading...because they sorta rebooted him and all the villains and such, but that was 10 years ago that his history begins but he's seemingly just now meeting everyone in his career even they all played roles in the crisis... And also Wonder Woman just made her first appearance so apparently WW and metallo, and clark having knowledge of his kryptonian roots...and the discovery of kryptonite all happened in year 10/11 according to what im reading... v.v |
As far as his continuity is concerned, it's DC's fault, really. They did the miniseries forming the League about a year or two after Superman's meeting with most of them. I gave up when ten years after the first Crisis, they did Zero Hour and a bunch of other 'event' series and I honestly couldn't keep track of all the continuity changes.
S.
Part of Sister Flame's Clickey-Clack Posse
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Crisis events; DC's version of Technical Support for continuity. Fix one thing, break four others.
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Originally Posted by SuperOz
As far as his continuity is concerned, it's DC's fault, really. They did the miniseries forming the League about a year or two after Superman's meeting with most of them. I gave up when ten years after the first Crisis, they did Zero Hour and a bunch of other 'event' series and I honestly couldn't keep track of all the continuity changes.
S. |
Then hire kids who think they know the Silver Age to write their books.
S.
Part of Sister Flame's Clickey-Clack Posse
as you know I'm reading them from 87' on...
It's something of a challenge to actually get through them because... well... there is too much text...especially descriptive text. it's mind numbingly boring and loads the page down with mountains of text...
So will this end "soon" (i'm on 1988's issues)
Or has this continued up into the current trends?
Please be the latter... Please...