The Superboy series was syndicated and didn't last very long. I remember when it was still on the air. Lois & Clark catered more to women which is why it was on sunday at 8 were it also couldn't really be viewed by a majority potential new gen of kids since they have school and such. I myself used to watch it since I used to go to bed around 11 but I did find it fairly boring.
If it wasn't for STAS and then JL and JLU I don't think the 90's and early 2000's would've done any favors for Superman across media that caters to a vast audience.
I also forgot about Smallville. That's probably the most relevant version of Superman's story to today's general audience and it wasn't one that was even consistently good.
Superman is viewed as kind of a joke still for the most part compared to the likes of Spider-Man, Batman and the X-Men. Like Superman Returns came out and they mostly laughed it off screens and considered it boring and weird.
Then with Man of Steel people always still point out how it "underperformed" financially or how they over analyze it's mediocrity even though it still actually made pretty good money and was fairly received despite all that. He gets no respect.
This affects people's perceptions of what Superman is to the point that most ignore the comic books altogether even if they actually start collecting comic books regularly. You see it every time a new reader pops up in any DC forum on the internet. They always start with Batman comic books. Once upon a time people used to start with Superman and now they don't even consider it.
Hell we live in a world where Iron Man and Thor now have more fans than Superman. That's crazy to me as I remember those characters being obscure at best to most people, including regular comic book readers once upon a time.
WB has a lot of work to do in helping to make Superman truly worthy of his status as the first superhero not just in comic books but also in modern superhero movies that began in the late 70's.
Good luck to them with the DC slate of movies because that is make or break for Superman. He'll be carrying the weight of an entire universe on his shoulders for the first time in live action on the epic scale it needs to be in. If they don't botch this up it could end up being pure magic. I hope it really works out and ends up far evolved from what MOS provided.
When I was a younger kid in the late 80's Superman was the hero in the greater public consciousness then Batman really crept up after 1989. Hasn't stopped since. Since then Superman has had way too many long stop gaps across media compared to Batman and it's hurt his brand significantly.
Most people now approach Superman with reluctance. It's kinda sad to see and probably shouldn't be that way but it is what it is. Hopefully though it could go back to being that a kid could consider Superman the hero once again fairly soon.
I find your saying very clear and right. I personally think of all this in a more aggressive way myself.
You're right about Iron Man and Thor being more famous now, I'm also a child of the 80es and Superman was bigger than now. I also think you're right about DC messig with the character, but I disagree about the writing teams ' fault.
I think it's geneal ; Batman was not a big big thing until Frank Miller DK and Burton's Batman. That (+ Btas) cemented the whole überbat situation. Problem is : it made batman strong while/by smashing Superman down.
Right now, Superman is a joke. Having batman winning every single one encounter between the two, or having superman being ridiculous ("for the sake of silver age old times", cf Batman the brave and the bold) when both hero are together, or having the fact that most of the DC universe is built like Gotham City instead of being like a mosaic of different cities/culture, IS what probably take Superman to the bottom of lame, yeah.
The only true opposite to this batman problem, is the Flash. G. Johns creted a whole world in Central City where only the flash's way works efficiently.
Since batman is a franchise, a product and not a character, they won't torpedo their own product, so I don't see things going better for Supes anytime soon.
Since then Superman has had way too many long stop gaps across media compared to Batman and it's hurt his brand significantly.
Agreed with that too, of course.
Last edited:I'm going to miss seeing the classic Superman and the Clark/Lois marriage/relationship after Convergence is done.
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DKDetectiveElementary, Dear Robin (he/him)
SwordOfMorningSuper Moderator
