What exactly was wrong with him?

I've only read a couple of New 52 Supes, those being Unchained, Johns run, and The Final Days (which are said to be the few good stories he had)

What are some story lines with him that shows the flaws of New 52 Supes?

He's only bad in the early JL stuff and maybe people not understanding what Morrison was doing for like the first two issues of Action.

Lobdell's run was bad but mostly because it was a mess and not really characterization.

Most of the complaints are status quo related not new 52 Superman himself. People didn't like that he wasn't married and both his parents were dead. And before the comics came out DC was talking a bunch of nonsense about him "embracing his alien side" but that never actually materialized in the books (thank God).

His costume is also ugly unless drawn off-model enough to make it look like thick fabric.

Dc wanted to have it's cake and eat it too. You had Morrison talking about bringing back the socialist, non-boy scout Golden age Superman. But George Perez had him as this kinda pathetic guy moping outside Lois's apartment and flying about in that dumb ass armor costume. And then Morrison's run was derailed by that weird time-travel story, meaning the new version never got clearly established. From there on it was pretty clear DC had no clear direction for the character.

>He's only bad in the early JL stuff and maybe people not understanding what Morrison was doing for like the first two issues of Action.
>His costume is also ugly unless drawn off-model enough to make it look like thick fabric.

I think these were the two primary factors because the fall into the idea that first impressions matter. Assume someone only read Justice League #1 and Action Comics #1 in September. They would think that Superman is more arrogant and quick-to-fight and that he changed to an overdesigned version of his original costume.

If they had a glimpse of what Superman was like in the present day to contrast against these scenes, then the reader could quickly understand "Oh, so in the past Superman was more headstrong and quick to anger, then he got wiser." and half the complaining would be gone.

Also didn't Superman #1 give the impression of a brooding Superman? He also wasn't with Lois. That also added to the negative reception New 52 Superman got.

So right in the first month people had a negative look toward the New 52 Superman. I still followed through Action so I enjoyed Morrison's run but I could definitely see how everyone should've done better for the first month launch.

I only hated his costume

>From there on it was pretty clear DC had no clear direction for the character.

And this was the other problem. I think they asked Morrison way too late in the game to participate because from his interviews he thought he was just going to do one arc and maybe come back another time. So he did (I think) 18 issues set in the past and it meant that no one else knew what direction the present-day Superman should be taking. Then they also did the Superman/Wonder Woman romance to get attention. And I know Perez had problems with the way editorial was handling things so he left and I can't remember who came on board, Jurgens or Giffen? They were on there at some point till Scott Lobdell took over. Then at some point Johns took over probably to right the ship but he had to leave because WB was only allowing him one monthly book because of his other TV/film commitments.

This.

Also OP weird that you cite Unchained when that was pretty awful.

I think overall most peoples' problem was that, being so much younger, he didn't really have that clout he's always had.

The entire New 52 era felt like a bad fanfiction from a teenager trying too hard to be cool.

What is the problem with the armor? I really liked it

Because no one could figure out what he was supposed to be. Was he supposed to be a return to Golden Age anti-corruption Supes? A darker, edgier version of Post-Crisis? Literally Post-Crisis just younger? No one bothered to coordinate, and by the end he became so disconnected from how people viewed the character his sales dropped like a fucking rock.
>LINESLINELINES
>Nothing breaking up the blue
It was shit.

The main problem as some have pointed out were the lack of direction or ideas about where the character was going (not that this really existed for say The Flash once Manapul and Buccellato left, Earth 2 after Robinson, etc. The issue here is just as much with Editorial, in selecting writers (Lobdell) and in direction.

Irrespective of Perez's issues with management, his arc was not that interesting, well characterized or written. Ditto for Jurgen's follow-up. Lobdell then fucked up that title and the innumerable cross-overs hurt.

The first two trades of Batman/Superman are worth checking out. Johns run wasn't anything really interesting or new. Morrison three trades worth of Action were far superior.

Pretty much everything that remains (all the Lobdell stuff, especially H'El and Return to Krypton, and especially DOOMED is simply a variation of shitty crap or crappy shit, and except for some of the art work and the rare image or page here and there, just badly done crappy shit/shitty crap.

The New 52 design overcomplicates an already effective design. It also implies that Superman is wearing armor even despite Jim Lee saying that it isn't. The New 52 Earth 2 Superman design was a better one.

I already hated the lines on the New 52 armor but it didn't hit me how bad it was till I saw that Bugs Bunny/Legion variant last Wednesday.

By the way, no ones remember hin in DCU, now? How this work with the new Superman?

>Unchained, Johns run, and The Final Days (which are said to be the few good stories he had)

Those are literally the only good ones.

Morrison and Pak's runs are okay, but nowhere near what Superbro fans would have you believe. Everything else fucking sucks.

>it didn't hit me how bad it was till I saw that Bugs Bunny/Legion variant last Wednesday.
That's because of the disparity in the art style. Look how thick all the line art is in the panel you posted. It becomes much more jarring to add details like costume lines.

In other art styles, the costume lines aren't obtrusive at all, and simply compliment the line art as a whole. Pic related.

The high collar and unbroken blue make him look like some kind of totalitarian asshole.

Superbro and Superdad were incomplete. They were two parts of a whole all along. Superbro was Superman Red, and Superdad was Superman Blue. When their bodies merged into his complete form, continuity changed too. Certain aspects of both origin stories combined together to create a whole new origin. Some parts of Superbro's history were removed completely, like his romance with Wonder Woman. The rest of the world remembers the new Superman origin. And he's still a dad too.

That's the problem though. You need a suit that can work with a variety of styles. I've seen it in 3D form and it still doesn't look good. I mean the best I can say is "Well at least it wasn't an Injustice costume." Jim Lee and Rocafort drawing it well (and even that's debatable to me, but there's no denying they depicted it the best compared to other artists) doesn't sell me on it when other artists' depictions (and not just the one who did the Bugs/Legion variant) make it look substandard.

It reminds me of the Heroes Reborn Iron Man armor. Great when Jim Lee draws it, awful under everyone else.

>Bugs Bunny/Legion

I don't disagree with you but Rocafort (sp?) can usually make this kind of stuff look good (it's backgrounds he seems to have problems on). I'm with it overcomplicates the design in unnecessary ways when they were changing other things around. I think essentially what Lee wanted with a lot of these was to get away from the idea that people were wearing spandex.

Likewise, how the CW costumes (just as the Singer X-Men costumes and so many other recent costumes) feel like a combination of leather, kevlar, and other things - just about everything short of spandex or nylon like material.

The costume was fine, the character was fine after the first few issues and god DAMN that is one sexy Superman. It's just that everything else in the New 52 straight blew donkey. It was as if DC had been taken over by brainless edgelords the way Marvel has been by sjws. Thank god these events weren't simultaneous because if they had been I wouldn't be reading comics at all now.

>literally

Provably incorrect. No one highly reviews any of the single issues or the collected trades indicated by you whereas, with the exception of the solitary geek blogger, you can't find a review on the internet from an actual site that would be blurbed by a publisher (any publisher - Big 2 or smaller) that doesn't rate the 3 trades of the Morrison run as among the very best of the entire New 52

Lobdells run was fun