>>149992502
His art on X-Men made him popular.
He was also fast, as everyone pointed out and not only could draw but also write (and for long periods of time), which also boosted his exposure and popularity.

To get an idea of what a different time it was, when he was doing Alpha Flight, it outsold all DC books. His run on Alpha Flight was from #1-28 before he jumped over to working on Hulk, so you can see by this chart here that even the later part of his run was outperforming all DC titles.

> but you had Alan Moore, Frank Millar, and Jack Kirby all using their own comics as rebuttals to his Superman while he was still very much active.

>Kirby
Kirby and Gerber took a jab at Byrne because Byrne was talking about how he was a happy cog in the Marvel Machine in a rebuttal to Kirby and Gerber's issues with Marvel.

>Miller
Which comic are you talking about? Morons are claiming Dark Knight Returns was a rebuttal to Man of Steel even though Miller was working on DKR not just long before Man of Steel, but long enough before that Byrne said in an interview he was going to hint at the Batman and Superman animosity in DKR, in Man of Steel. So I hope you weren't referring to DKR.

Besides, Byrne is friends with Miller and still is.

>Moore
Which book? Supreme? That was Moore objecting to what DC in general was doing with Superman.