Does Superman really "leave" his own comics that often?

A writer at Comic Book Club Live discusses how the Man of Steel seems to have quite a few moments where he's missing from his own solo comics:

While Superman launched the modern superhero era in Action Comics #1 and has been the hero of that title for almost all of its long run, the Man of Steel actually finds himself displaced — both in Action Comics and in the Superman comics titles more broadly — more often than most other heroes. And we’re gearing up for it to happen again with Reign of the Superboys, a big crossover event in which the various characters known as Superboy — but who aren’t actually Clark Kent — take center stage in a story whose title is lifted from Reign of the Supermen! (itself a story in which the Man of Steel was mostly absent).

To understand why this keeps happening, first, let’s take a look back at other instances when Superman disappeared from his own titles. Action Comics Weekly ran for over 40 issues, from Action Comics #601 through #642. During that time, Superman was no longer the lead feature in Action Comics, which became an oversized anthology featuring characters like Blackhawk, Green Lantern, Arsenal, and Nightwing. The experiment eventually ended and Superman got Action Comics back, leading into the “Triangle Era” of the Superman titles, during which time Action Comics, Superman, and The Adventures of Superman were joined by Superman: The Man of Steel to make a functionally-weekly story.

That wasn’t the last time Superman exited his own titles, though, and while Action Comics Weekly was seemingly an experimental proving ground for characters who didn’t have their own comic, later stories that took the Man of Steel out of his own comics were more narrative-driven.

The most famous example, obviously, was the stories that happened following 1992’s The Death of Superman. It’s also illustrative of why removing Superman from Superman works so well.

Say what? That's about as effective as saying that turning the Man of Steel into a crazy villain works so well. Sorry, but when it happens far too often - and potentially far more often than it does for Batman - then it doesn't work well at all. It only hints the writers don't know what to do with the star of the show, and would rather look for excuses to spotlight other characters in the star's main comics, rather than in their own separate miniseries or even paperback developed and sold on its own merits.

Interesting that Action Comics' weekly run of 42 issues was brought up, because while there were some stories there starring other characters that worked well enough, the Green Lantern stories almost single-handedly ruined everything. That was where GL's descent into horrible storytelling first officially began after his own solo book ended, as the assigned "creators" went miles out of their way to depict Carol Ferris in the Star Sapphire guise murdering Katma Tui, and if they were trying to make a statement about the South Africa republic's problems with racist apardheid at the time, they destroyed everything based on the bizarrely implausible way John Stewart was turned into a scapegoat: he recommends that Hal steal diamonds from a mine in South Africa, which goes against what Hal was written standing for, which is opposition to stealing. And then somehow, John gets blamed. If the whole idea was to comment on racial issues of the times, they totally botched it. And then, the Cosmic Odyssey special from 1989 made things worse by making John guilty of enabling a planetload of people to die. This is why it's actually despicable Action would be turned weekly, if any stories inside were going to be that bad, and alarmingly forced. Especially considering what other horrors awaited the DCU by the turn of the century. So, while stories featuring Nightwing, Black Canary and Deadman were okay, GL stood out as the rock-bottom feature of the lot, and the whole notion Superman would be sidelined for that is addtionally miserable.

That said, the Man of Steel wasn't literally absent from his own foremost book at the time. But based on how badly written GL's feature was by Christopher Priest and even Peter David, that's why it's a shame Action had to go weekly for that.

As for the Death/Return of Superman in 1992-3, what's so "famous" about that? As I've argued before, when the storyline got around to depicting the Toyman murdering Cat Grant's son, that's what really made it tasteless, and it also came at the expense of a crooked character whom I don't recall ever being portrayed as vile as the Joker before. If that's what the Man of Steel's being absented from his own comics for, no wonder quality went way south since. And what's so "narrative-driven" about all that anyway? It's laughable.

Anyway, this new crossover they speak of is decidedly another best avoided, and while it may not be surprising nobody's willing to insist universe-spanning crossovers have to stop, it's certainly disappointing. Superman should definitely not have to be sidelined because assigned writers may not know what kind of stories to give him, and the increased focus on villains has to stop too. It's no substitute for merit-based writing.