It’s closer than that for me. The Loeb series, while definitely highlighting the differences between them, also made me feel the bond they share as close friends. World’s Finest is fantastic, but I feel like it could use a little bit more of that. Maybe it’s because I read Superman/Batman all together a couple years ago, not month to month like the current series.
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I love both, so I can’t choose.
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Yeah they’re both great, and there’s absolutely zero need to choose 
.
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Not my best buddy’s fault he is “only” the third most popular superhero in the world. He was number 1 for around 50 years.
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Okay, @Vroom, okay… I see how it is…
Moth will remember this.
Alright! Moving on to Adventures of Superman: Jon Kent #3:
My feelings on this issue and storyline are… mixed. On one hand, there are some interesting things at play here. On the other, this brings back a lot of the issues I had with Injustice.
Let me start with the ideological thing that has always bothered me the most about Injustice (and Squadron Supreme, for that matter): Outside all of the shock and gore which I covered in my reaction to the last issue, there’s a way in which Injustice can be read as a Libertarian fairy tale. To be clear, I’m not saying that it is this, but I am saying it can be read this way. In Injustice, Superman can easily be seen as the tyrannical hand of big government quashing individual liberties while independently wealthy Bruce Wayne is the force for good and freedom. That, more than anything else, is my problem with Injustice (or Squadron Supreme or the “A Better World” episode of Justice League, or the myriad other times this story has been told).
Of course, it’s not that simple. Injustice and the stories like it are trying to tell a story about the complexities involved in the question of freedom vs. security. By restricting individual freedoms, you can achieve more security, but you end up creating a dictatorship in the process. However, the more you increase individual freedoms, the more you open the door for people to abuse those freedoms to harm others. It’s a complex problem that we struggle with in the “real world,” and I don’t think anyone has a clear answer to it. Obviously, the answer isn’t to become a tyrant like Superman does in Injustice. Yet, I also do not believe the answer lies in maximum individual liberty, and, yeah, it does bother me that Injustice can be read (not that it should be read, but can be read) as an argument for this.
This brings me to why I see promise and danger in bringing Jon into the world of Injustice. Throughout Son of Kal-El, Jon had been driven to be a proactive Superman. Jon has acknowledged there are imminent problems facing the world and has asked Kal why he hasn’t done more to solve them. I’ve liked this about Jon and his willingness to do things like stand with refugees seeking asylum or back up protestors. He has been a more proactive Superman than say… his father was in the 90’s. I love that about Jon and it has gotten me to begrudgingly accept the whole Superman has a family thing.
In the Injustice setting, though, Jon is face-to-face with the most extreme example of a “proactive Superman.” The Injustice Superman is so focused on fixing the world’s problems that he has completely ignored individual liberties. And, again, this is not the answer. Yet, I also think Jon is right in wanting to be proactive and can potentially find a better way of doing so. It may be asking a lot from this story, but I hope that’s the direction it’s going in. If this story ends up being something that pushes Jon towards that golden middle ground between being proactive without quashing individual freedoms and, perhaps, redeeming Injustice along the way then I am all for it. I think that would be a really interesting and worthwhile story to tell. That being said, if this ends up simply reiterating the “tyranny doesn’t work” message that is obvious and that we have been served countless times before in stories like Injustice then… I’m going to be pretty disappointed. I will be REALLY disappointed if that lesson is then used to convince Jon to be less proactive in the future.
I think this story will be very crucial to Tom Taylor’s run on Jon Kent and to how it moves forward. It could honestly go either way, but I am still interested in seeing where it goes.
Enjoy your time on top for now, Bruce… Enjoy it while you can…
I’m a little surprised (not wildly surprised, but a little) that Loeb’s material has gotten a bit of heat here. Would @CaptainYesterday or @TheRealDetectiveChimp be interested in expanding upon why they feel that way? I’m not looking to debate since I don’t feel strongly enough either way to do so, but I am curious as to what potentially turned you off about that era.
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I am enjoying it.
For Loeb
1- he has been accused of racism many times, and they were discussed on this site.
2- his recent Marvel work is downright hated.
These are not good for internet popularity
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I wasn’t aware of this, but, having given the issue a quick glance, that is disappointing even if I’m giving Loeb the benefit of the doubt.
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I remember reading all the footnote links (except for Buzzfeed).
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Keep in mind, I read these as they were released.
On Loeb
Superman/ Batman started later and I have no issue at all with that comic. Loeb’s Superman was really up and down. Then Steven Seagle came in and it was a total disaster.
Schultz on Man of Steel was flat out boring.
Kelly over in Action was a bit more like Loeb, but when he was terrible he was even worse.
J.M. DeMatteis came in and gave me the worst written Superman comic I’d ever read, then Joe Casey followed him on Adventures of Superman and promptly broke that record.
And the art. Please give me the more straightforward Jurgens, Grummett and Byrne over this cartoony to ugly mess.
I agitated for Eddie Berganza to be fired for making such a mess of the Superman line. If I only had the info on his even worse crimes, he would have been gone far sooner.
But there still was light in the darkness…
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I strongly feel that Kelly is an acquired taste. I enjoyed parts of his JLA run, but a lot of his Superman material also turned me off. I generally don’t have the same enthusiasm for “What’s so Funny About Truth, Justice, & The American Way” that many others do.
Issue name and #'s, please!
Millar’s work on Superman Adventures was A++ and my favorite out of all of Millar’s work. It’s one of those things that furthers my argument that it should’ve been the Superman 2000 pitch over Loeb’s revamp.
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Adv of Superman #578-587 for DeMatteis plus that horrible “Superman Where is Thy Sting?” GN in 2001.
Casey picks it up in #588 and goes to #623.
Yes folks, Mark Millar, the “light in the darkness.” Believe it or not. Between Reign of the Supermen and the Johns/ Busiek era, Superman Adventures is the best Superman comic.
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Reading those stories, it’s pretty wild to think about the direction his work eventually headed. Though, an argument could be made that DC’s reluctance to back him helped nudge him in that direction. It worked out pretty well for Millar in the end, but I can’t help but wonder what might have been.
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Might not have to wonder for long…
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Hey! Well… this will certainly be interesting…
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I’m excited for this.
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Hey fellow Superman fans!
I’m working on a meet up for DCUI fans at this year’s Superman Celebration! Let me know if you are planning on attending!!
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Sounds fun! One year I’ll make it out there, but not in the cards for me anytime soon. Hope you have a blast!
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This makes sense. I don’t sense it going in the Jon being less proactive direction, but I could be wrong.
As for my own thoughts:
- The art by Clayton Henry was pretty. He does facial expressions very well.
- The issue was a breeze to read through. That’s kind of been the case for all of Tom Taylor’s Jon Kent output: decompressed, with few moving parts. It makes for very quick reads every month.
- Jon himself has consistently been written by Taylor as quite an easygoing character. Yeah he wants to change the world & all that, but there’s this calmness that usually surrounds him. It’s hard to describe. Sometimes I think Jon could use a different alias. Not only because Clark is Superman, but because of the different presence Jon has compared to his dad.
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No. I think you’re right! The most likely scenario is that this just ends up being your standard superhero story where Jon helps overthrow the bad Superman (or something like that), and that none of what I wrote above comes into play. There were two thoughts I had about why it would go down the less proactive path. One of them involved Future State, but I think I just debunked that one for myself since Taylor didn’t write Jon’s Future State book. The second comes just from that moment where Jon remarks how his father doesn’t believe in taking that active a role and Injustice Supes mentions how it’s probably because they both feel like outsiders. It was a small moment but it was powerful enough to make me think there was a possible direction nudge there.
I could also be making the mistake of equating Injustice with Squadron Supreme. The stories are very, very similar, but they are not exactly the same. If I’m being fair, Squadron Supreme (the original) was a bit more politically charged than Injustice was. It could be that or I just really didn’t like Injustice and feel the angst of being reminded of a story I didn’t like… 
In any event, we’ll see where this goes.
They could always pull a Bronze Age and call him Superman, Jr. or Superman II 
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But do you feel a Superman vibe from Jon? I admit he puts out a good vibe, a calm & cool one like I mentioned, which Superman does give off a calming reassuring presence… but I also associate Supes with this awe inspiring larger than life feeling, which I don’t get from Jon. Maybe as he ages he’ll “grow into it”, though I think a major point of Jon Kent Superman is how he’s different from his dad. I’m going around in circles.
As for Injustice, I played the game on mobile a lot (the 2nd one), so I have an appreciation for the visuals. As a story, I think its alternate universe status lets it get away with Superman character assassination. Yeah, “our” Supes shows up to save the day in the first game, but still, given the game’s popularity an entire generation of gamers will remember the dictator as their Superman, & I dislike that quite a bit.
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