A 75th BIRTHDAY SALUTE coinciding with SUPERMAN WEEK…
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It’s SUPERMAN WEEK! Because there’s a fancy new movie coming out! Click here for the COMPLETE INDEX of columns and features! Look, up in the sky! — Dan
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I’m long on record saying that John Byrne’s too-brief run on Superman in the 1980s is the all-time best version of the Man of Steel in comics. That’s not always a popular opinion, I’m aware, but I stick to it. Years ago, I wrote a piece called WHY JOHN BYRNE’S SUPERMAN WAS THE GREATEST MAN OF STEEL EVER.
I’ve reprinted it many times, especially on his birthday — he was born 75 years ago today, on July 6, 1950 — but for SUPERMAN WEEK, I promised that I’d only publish all-new material. So here are 13 COVERS from that storied run — all but one issue from the flagship title:
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MORE
— The Complete SUPERMAN WEEK INDEX of Columns and Features. Click here.
— Why JOHN BYRNE’S SUPERMAN Was the Greatest Man of Steel Ever. Click here.
July 6, 2025
I enjoyed the run. I can appreciate it even more now decades removed from its original release. John really tapped into the history and made it his own take. I personally wasn’t a fan of his Lois and his take on Luthor took some time. Those covers are pure spinner magic that would have fit in perfectly with earlier eras. At the end of the day, I just miss seeing new stuff from John. He retired much too soon.
July 6, 2025
Great choices. Including my favorite with Byrne’s self homage to FF 249 with the Legion. Great stuff.
July 6, 2025
Totally agree, when I think of Superman it’s Byrne’s version I see in my minds eye.
Check out X-Men Elsewhen on his site for something new and great.
July 6, 2025
While I wasn’t a fan of his take on Superman, and what he viewed as the ‘barnacles’ of the Silver Age, I cannot deny that his artwork was spectacular.
July 6, 2025
I will admit, as an avid collector of DC at the time, with Marvel being much more peripheral, I was not really aware of John Byrne until Man of Steel (though I remember, in anticipation of the series, people in the know at my frequented comic book stores were discussing Byrne’s switch to DC and the amazing page rate he getting for the series–some $300 per page as I recall, which felt like an amazing amount of money to me then–as the minimum wage in 1986 was $3.25 an hour).
But I concur with Dan, I think the Byrne run on Superman was excellent. I enjoyed the revisions to the mythos, esp. with Ma and Pa Kent as still being alive and the revisioning of Krypton as a scientifically advanced, if very antiseptic world, and with Kal-El even being born on Earth via his Kryptonian gestation chamber crash landing there. Plus, I liked the revised Clark Kent, who was not only the primary identity as an American mid-westerner, but was also more confident, capable and athletic (rather than prior, longstanding Clark the Coward or Kent the Klutz).
But I must say, if there was one thing I loved about the Byrne Superman was Byrne’s artistry. I grew to dislike much of 1980s and 1990s [etc.] superhero art as characters acquired more and more that huge steroidal body-builder look which was quite off-putting to me, and in some contexts very contradictory–as seeing the look on Batman, for example, in contradiction to his lythe acrobaticness as far better captured by the physical idealism of Neal Adams or Jim Aparo (plus the growing stylization in comic art didn’t suit me either–the latter artists’ classical idealism really being my preferred template for the genre (though that stylized massiveness was perfect for Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight).
Byrne’s Superman, as conforming to that template, was certainly physically well-developed, with the broad muscular chest and shoulders–as it should be with his super strength (vs lythe gymnastics)–but Byrne always made him beautifully proportioned even with the noted musculature, still holding on to that idealized naturalism that goes back to the Greco-Roman visual tradition. Interestingly, 1980s and 1990s [etc.] steroidal superheroes have their art historical corollary with the Mannerist phase of Renaissance art [the latter 1500s] where figures readily acquire very massive and hulking Michelangelesque proportions, even if and when depicting farmhands, milkmaids and butchers. I’ll take Byrne’s classical idealism any day.
July 6, 2025
I remember really enjoying these back in the day. I didn’t recall so many of these covers having the zanier elements of previous eras, like Lois running off with Mister Mxyzptlk. So much fun!
July 6, 2025
“I’m long on record saying that John Byrne’s too-brief run on Superman in the 1980s is the all-time best version of the Man of Steel in comics.”
Agreed. I reread the run in the recent hardcover collections a few years ago and it generally holds up really, really well. Byrne’s version of the character had a swagger and a simplicity that most other comics versions of the character lack.
July 6, 2025
A magnificent artist! (“Kick Me!” LOL!)
July 7, 2025
This is my definitive version of Superman; John Byrne made me a Superman fan, when previously I had little more than a passing interest in the character…
July 8, 2025
Omnibus, please DC.
July 9, 2025
his Generations series was fantastic.