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Too bad, i´d love to read Robinson’s Silver Age!!!! Maybe it could be the new 52 universe silver age!!

The way I’ve read about the Lois & Clark casting, Kevin Sorbo was thought to be better for Superman, and Dean Cain for Clark. I don’t know if that’s true, but since the series gave Lois a lot more emphasis than she usually gets, as well as the Clark-Lois relationship, it does seem to make sense.

The first item is a bit nit-picky. Gerard hadn’t technically been cast as Superman in Lois and Clark, but it sounds like he was certainly in the running until they saw he’d been Superboy. So it’s a bit of a stretch just to focus on whether or not he’d been cast …he did lose out on the role because he’d played the character before.

Did I misread or did you say the Superboy/man legend was untrue then go on to prove it was in fact true… ?

Did I misread or did you say the Superboy/man legend was untrue then go on to prove it was in fact true… ?

The former.

Dude, I sent in the question about the Silver Age on 4/5/2010, it even included a scan from an article in Wizard in which Robinson is quoted about the plot for the story.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y220/ManofTheAtom/robinsonsilverage.jpg

Cool stuff, Michael, thanks! That was before Robinson gave the interview, so I didn’t put two and two together with regards to your question from April 2010. But I’ll add that into the piece now!

Awesome

Brian does get caught up on how he chose to word the legend at times. From a purely technical standpoint, change “cast as” to “considered for” and the status of the Superman legend is true. For most people, however, the spirit of what’s being communicated would be the same in either instance, and the rest is just semantics.

From a purely technical standpoint, change “Gerard Christopher” to “Margaret Thatcher” and then you really have yourself a legend!

Seriously, though, the legend IS that he was cast. Google “Gerard Christopher cast as Clark” and you will get multiple stories saying he was cast as Clark until they discovered that he was on the Superboy TV series. That is the legend being debunked here. It is a prevalent FALSE story. So I debunked it here. That it also allowed me also to tell a cool story about his reading in front of the producers was gravy (really cool gravy, though!).

I think that a more accurate wording would be that he read for the part but was not cast because of his past association with the role.

I agree with both sides. Technically Brian is right, he did debunk a myth, but it could definitely have been worded more clearly. Count me among the initially confused. I had to reread the myth before I realized what he meant. When I saw the word “False” without any qualifier, I thought the whole legend was going to be untrue, like for example he was disqualified for a totally different reason.

A qualification in the status is fair enough. I do do those frequently enough, so I’m fine with adding that.

That’s a crying shame about Robinson’s Silver Age. I recall reading the Golden Age and thinking what an awesome story that was. I recall working in the local comic book shop as we all eagerly awaited Chaykin on Silver Age. I’m truly sad to learn it won’t be happening ever.

Yeah, I’m bummed The Silver Age never came out. Didn’t know Chaykin was to be the artist. How awesome would that be ?

I’m sure if DC published it, it’d still sell. Those two names on the sequel to the Golden Age = $ale$

That Terry and the Pirates strip is quite wordy piece, not exactly a shining point of comics storytelling…but amusing to note how “22 Panels That Always Work” it has been executed…

That Terry and the Pirates strip is quite wordy piece, not exactly a shining point of comics storytelling

I beg to differ, just being wordy isn’t in and of itself bad storytelling. It was wordy, but it was great writing. I never read the strip before, but in a single strip I totally grasped who they people were and their personalities immediately. And it was inspiring. And I think as storytelling it was very good because I liked the contrast in the last panel, where it’s silent. By filling the other panels full of words, the contrast makes the silent panel at the end that much more powerful, as you can tell the powerful words are marinating in Terry’s head and he has just been sent off to become a man.

Going slightly off topic, for my money, that Superboy show was the BEST live-action realization of super-hero comics ever. Sure, it was low budget, but the kinds of stories and their tone were like the best of the Silver and Bronze eras combined. Not surprising, when you consider the number of scripts written by the likes of Cary Bates, Mike Carlin & Andy Helfer, Denny O’Neill, and J.M. DeMatteis!

They really should have done The Silver Age.

Whoa! I read that article about Robinson’s “The Silver Age” way back then, but had completely forgotten about it until I saw that scan! It’s a damn shame the project never happened.

Seconding Perry’s fondness for the Superboy during the Christopher run (first season is best forgotten).
The Caniff speech was wordy, but it works for me. And of course it was in an era when we were in the middle of the war and talk like that would have meant more (and flying was a lot cooler in people’s eyes).
I remember Clark Kent’s one time in uniform in WW II was when he did a story on the maintenance crews by volunteering as one of them.

Checked out “how to spot a Jap” at the link. Almost mild compared to a lot of anti-Japanese propaganda.
Even the Bowery Boys got in on this subject (back when they were the East Side Kids), harassing a local store owner who turns out to be a Chinese-American rather than Japanese.

Say what you will about the Superboy TV show, but Stacy Haiduk was an infinitely better Lana Lang than Kristin Kreuk. This is known.

I think Brian’s on the money here. All we really know is that Christopher had a good audition. There’s a big difference between that and being cast.

Sorbo has the build for Superman all right, but not the face. And Clark Kent… fuhgeddaboudit. Can you even picture him in glasses?

I loved Cain’s Superman when I was a kid, so I think it worked out for the best. As for Sorbo, if you want to see him play a superhero who’s always right, that’s what Andromeda’s for.

Golden Age – probably the best comic book story I have ever read IMO

Final Frontier probably the 2nd best comic story I have ever read IMO

Once again, I agree with T.

Naturalistic dialogue isn’t the be-all, end-all of storytelling. People from Dostoyevsky to Cervantes had very wordy dialogue. They’re still geniuses. I really wish people stopped mocking comics from the past for “wordiness.”

Never saw the SUPERBOY TV show. One of those shows that never made it into Brazil, I suppose. Watched LOIS & CLARK for the first couple of seasons, but soon I grew tired of it. I never liked the typical superhero TV show that didn’t involve supervillains or other superheroes, just the one superhero fighting against normal people.

I do remember Robinson’s proposal. I had wet dreams about it at the time, I was so crazy about Robinson. How things have changed…

Ah, Kevin Sorbo, the littlest Hercules. He may have made a good Perseus or Jason, but he always seemed (to me) too small to really be a good Hercules.

Similarly, I remember thinking that Dean Cain would have been a spot-on Kyle Rayner GL, but had neither the size nor presence to pull off Superman.

I liked the Superboy show in the 90′s because they did a Bizarro episode that was pretty cool for a TV version, but I’m not sure what season that was.

Ok, perhaps a bad choice of words…I didn’t mind the actual number of words or how natural the talk sounds like, just how it was presented, as a series of talking heads. It’s like Caniff came up with the text and then remembered that oh yeah, this is going to the comic page, he should probably do some pictures to go with it.

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I vaguely remember hearing about that Superman story. That’s pretty funny. I also seem to remember the bit about it being between Cain and Sorbo.

That Terry strip gets me, in my patriotic bone. Salute! And I definitely agree with T and Rene. Just because it’s wordy, doesn’t automatically make it bad comics. Like T said, the silent panel is even more effective due to the wordiness of the rest.

That said, there are some comics that ARE too wordy, and don’t take advantage of what comics can do.

I definitely remember that Wizard article about the Silver Age. I may have come across it recently when I was looking something else up. Chaykin definitely would have been a good one for it.

Robinson sure likes Jim Harper, huh?

I remember a Superboy scene where they had Bizarro Lana and Bizarro having breakfast and it was very reminiscent of the old Bizarro tales.
And yes, Stacy Haiduk. And yes again.
Plus Sherman Howard, who played Lex from second season, had the raw hate that was so characteristic of Silver Age Luthor.

“Ah, Kevin Sorbo, the littlest Hercules. He may have made a good Perseus or Jason, but he always seemed (to me) too small to really be a good Hercules.”

I saw Sorbo in person in San Diego at the Hard Rock Hotel… the guy is HUGE.