3: Like I said, 75 years worth of superman comics and some of them, mostly 40's superman comics, are worth more than i'll make in my lifetime.
Fair enough, but even among modern works there's still a ton of picking and choosing. And furthermore, many modern storylines pretend Golden Age Supes doesn't exist, or brushes it under the carpet by relegating it to another dimension. In the same way, some fans have a bind spot when it comes to the less than illustrious origins of their favorite caped icons.
It's a lot closer to Forgotten Realms than ASOIAF. I can play Baldur's Gate 2 without feeling compelled to play Demon Stone. If I actually wanted to read any of those novels, I could read Icewind Dale without reading the other 150 books.
This may be true, but the way superhero comics present themselves to the non-comic book public says nothing of that. You can only arrive at this conclusion after having been a dedicated fan for some years.
And I would argue that the Forgotten Realm books, as a whole, are low on the totem pole of high fantasy, no matter how good some individual works or related properties are. If you say to me "I'm a fan of Forgotten Realms", I'm going to give you A Look. So when I see "I'm a fan of Superman" I have a similar gut reaction.
Would you keep reading ASOIAF if George Martin keels over and Brandon Sanderson finishes it?
Yes and no.
Yes, because I'd be curious to see how well the acclaimed Branderson handles ASOIAF.
No, because I wouldn't consider it "ASOIAF". To me, it would be "Branderson's ASOIAF", whereas the original would be "GRRM's ASOIAF". I would never say "I'm a fan of ASOIAF", but would specify exactly which property, the original, the continuation, or the adaptation, I'm referring to.
Superhero fans clearly can't do this because there's just too many disparate takes on any given hero to tie them all under a neat umbrella, so every claim of "I'm a fan of Superman", to me, is actually "I'm a fan of the bits of Superman that's actually worth reading."
Which can mean anything.