The Man of Steel

I recently read J. Michael Straczynski and Shane Davis‘ Superman: Earth One. It was an interesting take on the character that updated him for a casual bookstore reader. The retelling of his origin story has been quite prevalent in 2010/2011. Aside from Earth One Clark’s 10-year origin story finally comes to a close on the small screen in Smallville. Geoff Johns and Gary Frank added another layer to the current Superman origin in Superman: Secret Origin. Maybe the most exciting piece of new is  David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan announced they will be tackling the Superman and  his origin in a new feature film with Zack Snyder in the director’s seat.

It is always interesting to listen to creators talk about Superman. Most times they talk about their first introduction to Superman and note the medium it was in. If the introduction was in a form other than a comic they will next tell you what their first Superman comic was. Lastly they usually talk about what defines them for Superman for them. Most times it has something to do with his origin.

The nature versus nurture aspect of his origin always struck me as interesting. Though, the question of Superman being inherently good is an interesting one and in most cases the answer is the parenting of Martha and Johnathan Kent is what shaped his morals. An essay I recently read, touches on the idea that this aspect of his origin sets him apart from most super-heroes. Batman, Spider-Man, and recent changes in Green Lantern’s origin show that something tragic happens to them to define them a hero. Superman’s heroic actions are more complex and can’t be distilled down to one tragic event. He didn’t need something horrible to happen to him for him to choose to do something good with his gifts.

I can’t say I remember my first Superman comic. I grew up reading stories from my father’s comic books. I remember loving the 80-Page Giants and Annuals with stories of Superman’s family. Those old books were filled with crazy ideas like super-pets, Lois having Superman’s powers, people cheering for Lex Luthor, and Superman’s new powers of the week. Though, I found this all highly entertaining, it wasn’t until I saw Superman: The Movie that my interest became concrete (specifically this scene). Shortly thereafter I received my first Superman comics of my own.

The books came in a three-pack of poly-bagged comics Toys’R’Us use to sell which included a piece of cardboard with trading cards printed on them. The three books were a few issues into the revamped Superman run John Byrne was handling. As a child I remember being put off by the angry nature of all the covers (1, 2, 3). The books were a big departure from the ’60s covers I was use to. I don’t think I actually really read them until a few years later. Only later on in life would I come to find out this revamp was a big deal.

So with all the retelling and revamping going around this past year I have decided to take a look back at this ’80s revamp. It has been a while since I have read theses stories. I will start with the 25-year-old mini-series that started it all, Superman: The Man of Steel and follow the path set out by Collected Editions’ DC Comics Trade Paperback Timeline.

Superman: The Man of Steel #1 is written and illustrated by John Byrne, inked by Dick Giordano, colored by Jon Costanza, and lettered by Tom Ziuko. My illustration above is inspired by the first issues cover.

John Byrne breaks the issue down into 4 parts. The first, “Prolouge: From Out the Green Dawn,” takes place on a doomed planet Krypton where Clark/Kal-El/Superman’s biological father, Jor-El removes a young Kal-El’s artificial womb from the “gestation chambers.” Jor-El explains to his wife Lara that their planet Krypton which they have ruled over with science was dying and he was sending their son to another planet where he could live on with the powers of a god. Lara is disgusted at the primitive nature of this planet (Earth). The chapter ends with Kal-El’s spaceship shooting off from an exploding Krypton towards Earth.

I remember being semi-shocked and not to thrilled with the changes made to Superman’s origin. I had spent a good 8 years believing Superman’s biological parent’s were caring and loving Kryptonians. This story portrayed them in a very cold manner. Though the kid I was, was perturbed with this change, I do think it was a smart one for Byrne to make. This really brings a nature versus nurture aspect to Superman’s origin that may have not been there before. In Silver Age Superman comics, Superman’s Earth and Krypton parents personalities could have probably been interchangeable. Now we have a question if Clark had not to grow up on Earth would he be a different man as Kal-El on Krypton?

Another interesting notion Byrne brings to the table is that Superman did not technically leave “the womb” until he reached Kansas. This makes him a natural born citizen of the United States of America. I take issue with this. Even though I would say Superman is as American as Apple Pie and Baseball, he’s not the natural born citizen kind. He was created by two immigrants Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and I think Superman is the same. As much as he is an American citizen he will never President. As much as he is accepted and idolized he is always an outsider. To not make him an immigrant takes away a big part of the dual nature of  Clark’s double (and sometimes) triple identity.

The second part, “Chapter One: The Secret,” deals with Clark’s father, Jonathan telling Clark the truth of where he came from. After a high school football game where Clark is doing a bit of showboating Jonathan has a heart to heart. He brings Clark to the field where he and Martha found their son in a spaceship. He uncovers the extraterrestrial spacecraft for Clark. Though Clark is shocked to find he is an alien and adopted we find out it helps him fill in the blanks of all his special powers. By this point in his life Byrne shows Clark is virtually indestructible, super strong, has x-ray vision, and can fly. HOW DID THIS NOT COME UP SOONER?!?!? This section of the book feels oddly condensed. Outside of the obvious, I wonder why he was allowed to play football? I question if Clark continued to play football after this? I hope not. I like that Clark even as a teenager had the burden of concealing his true self making him a bit of an outsider. It was something I connected with as a kid. As a kid I had some medical issues that limited my choices of sports. Being and energetic kid it’s something I struggled with during that time of my life and scenes like this I really connected with.

The third part of the book, “Chapter Two: The Exposure” touches on Clark’s early life in Metropolis anonymously doing good deeds. This all comes to an end when he saves an airplane that collides with a space-shuttle. This is where he first lays eyes on Lois Lane (she was a passenger on the plane) and is confronted by a public who wants a piece of him. This chapter works well. It nicely says, the future, by replacing a helicopter with a spaceship and plane. The love at first site with Lois is a nice touch. The thing that shines the most in this chapter is Clark seeing a dark side of humanity and he doesn’t like it.

This all leads to the final part of the book, “Epilogue: The Super-Hero” where Clark and his parents come up with a new identity to protect Clark and inspire the world. They also nerd up Clark’s appearance. These last few pages are pretty condensed and zip the story along to Clark flying back to Metropolis as Superman.

All in all this was a good read. Byrne created some plus and minuses here for me. The art was phenomenal. Byrne is visually a great story teller. It was impressive how much story he packed into a limited amount of pages. On the whole, it was daring back in ’86 and it still holds up. Next issue is Lois. I plan to get my thoughts and a picture of Lois up soon but it all depends on how busy things get.

I’ll leave you with my favorite quote about Superman by Grant Morrison:

“Because it all derived from Superman. I mean, I love all the characters, but Superman is just this perfect human pop-culture distillation of a really basic idea. He’s a good guy. He loves us. He will not stop in defending us. How beautiful is that? He’s like a sci-fi Jesus. He’ll never let you down. And only in fiction can that guy actually exist, because real guys will always let you down one way or another. We actually made up an idea that beautiful. That’s just cool to me. We made a little paper universe where all of the above is true.”

27 March Permalink

God Knows When, But He’s Doing It Again

Ahh, it has been a bit of time since I have posted here. Good intentions and all. Anyway, on to the post.

Each week Comics Should Be Good at Comic Book Resources posts a column entitled “The Line It is Drawn.” The content is a several illustrations with the same theme. Readers suggest descriptions of pictures in that theme and “The Line It Is Drawn” artists illustrate the top choices for the following week. The suggested theme last week was, “Insert a superhero character into a famous music video.” I love music and love comics so my mind went off racing.

The hard part was not knowing many music videos. I didn’t have cable to watch until I went off to college. MTV and VH1′s content mostly alluded me until I was 18. As I circled my head with the videos I could remember. They fell on Bob Dylan’s video for “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” The cryptic lyrics that sound random on first listen made my think of one superhero, the eighth and current Starman, Thom Kallor.

Thom comes from the 31st Century where he was originally known as Star Boy in the Legion of Super-Heroes. He has the ability to temporarily increase the mass and density of any object or person, and travel (or send others) between alternate universes. His uniform is also a map of the multiverse. He is sent back into the past (present day) to save the future. His trip is a rocky one, where he is shot off route into a parallel universe to his own. When he reaches the present he is diagnosed borderline schizophrenic and speaks in cryptic and on first listen random phrases. However, much like Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” his words have meaning. In his stories he is portrayed as an Oracle like character who predicts the future in cryptic phrases and because of his suit is aware of his fictional reality, often breaking the third wall.

The cryptic/random words of both Dylan and Kallor brought me to the idea of inserting Starman into the video. I replaced Dylan’s poster-sized cards with word balloons to give a wink to the camera that Kallor really knows what the deal is. I also had him bring subtle bursts of four color into Dylan’s monotone video.

If you haven’t check out the great Starman series by James Robinson and Tony Harris, which tells the story of Thom’s predecessor. Also, if you have never heard the album “Subterranean Homesick Blues” is off of do yourself a favor and give it a listen.

16 March Permalink

Sidewalking

A few Fridays ago I headed out of my apartment over to my buddy’s apartment. We were meeting to go to the Beach House concert at the First Unitarian Church. Our neighborhoods are separated by a long block of corporate businesses, so at night it tends to be creepy walking those seemingly vacant blocks. Knowing that my 160 lbs. of brutal power is much better at the backstroke and crosshatching than punching I usually take the one road with two bars on it. The downside to not worrying about getting mugged walking down a street filled with drunk douches. Because we are creatures of habit I tend to do this during the daylight hours as well.

Around 7 p.m. I headed down the aforementioned block when a kid, probably just passing the legal age to drink asks me, “You headed to Buckhead’s?”

He had four inches on me but was sporting the haircut I had in college. It was most likely buzzed by a friend having his first or second go with the hair-clippers. Like me, he had visible issues with acne when I was his age and for this reason I gave him the friendly benefit of the doubt.

“No,” I said laughing. I’d never hang out in his desired destination but we all make mistakes.

“Oh, so you’re headed to McFadden’s?” He said stumbling a little.

“No I’m headed to my buddies house.”

“So where are you guys going then?”

“A concert at the First Unitarian,” I said thinking he probably went to school in the area and would have heard of the venue.

“Where is that down by the river?” He said pointing with his finger pointing south, parrallel to the direction the Delaware runs.

“No, it’s a church up by Rittenhouse.”

“Wait, you are going to church on a Friday?” he replied dumbfounded.

“No, hah, the concert is held in a church but it is not “church” and they aren’t a Christian band.”

“So are they a local band? Is that how you know them?”

“No, well, they are an indie band but I found them from a review.”

“So, who do you know in the band?”

“No One!”

“Oh, so you and your buddy are gonna get drunk there huh?

“No, probably not.”

“Well you came from a bar then?”

“No, just from my apartment.”

“So you’re not getting drunk tonight?”

I smiled and said, ” No.”

“So you’re not getting reckless tonight?”

“Uhh, no. I will probably be in bed by midnight.”

“Jeez well try and have a good time dude.”

“I will.”

I did and Beach House was great . The First Unitarian Church has an amazing venue in it’s sanctuary.

15 June Permalink

Everything is LOST

Tomorrow the TV landscape will be dramatically altered. An island will disappear and not even Hiro’s time traveling ability will be able to bring it back. When the next season of TV debuts LOST will be gone along with Heroes and FlashForward. While LOST is finishing its story, Heroes‘ death is definitely one by boredom and FlashForward doesn’t seem to have picked up a solid audience.

FlashForward seemed like ABC’s attempt to fill the void left by LOST. It’s show that started slow but picked up second half of the season. Out of the two shows born out of LOST‘s success I’d rather see this one succeed than V which has been renewed. That isn’t a knock on V. I just find FlashForward more exciting though V‘s subtleties are great. I guess I can always read the book.

I had decided not to watch Heroes next season even if was renewed. The show started strong but fell flat. In the end everyone found their power a burdon. There was no sense of adventure just doom and rehashing Sylar every half season. I’ll miss the excitement of Hiro when the season first started. And I’ll miss Claire’s mixed feelings about her abilities. In the beginning I found it humorous that the guy with the coolest power and one with least repercussions found them to be the biggest burden. By the end Nathan’s burden of being able to flying was the most annoying. I mean, really! If you don’t want to fly just don’t. Stupid.

It is interesting to note that NBC and ABC have picked up two new “super hero” shows. NBC’s The Cape which has a trailer that was so influenced by the recent The Dark Knight movie it feels like a rip off. ABC has picked up No Ordinary Family. The trailer plays as a Modern Family/Parenthood/Fantastic 4 mash up. Michael Chiklis is cast as the lead, a father and a cop with super powers. He plays this more like his role on  The Commish than The Shield. The super-speedster wife is played by Dexter‘s now dead wife, Julie Benz. I’m not sure which will make it. I would have bet on Reaper over Chuck a few years ago and I was dead wrong. But if you’d like my bet it is on No Ordinary Family. It looks like it does what The Cape can’t by being lighthearted and what is more lighthearted than a grown man trying to fly? You be the judge (I have placed trailers for the shows at the end of the entry for your viewing enjoyment). I doubt either will replace LOST.

The loss of LOST will be one more greatly felt than any of these shows. With the start of this last season the question from friends and co-workers directed both inwardly and outwardly has been, “What will  you do without LOST?” Initially my response was, “Hopefully be satisfied with the ending of a great story.”  This was not passionate response most expected from an avid fan. As the days grew closer to the end of the series I realized I was going to miss LOST but my initial answer still stood. I was, excuse me, I am going to miss the sense of community the show created. Gone will be the water cooler talks about parallel universes and time travel with co-workers who would go cross-eyed on the topic if it not had been for LOST. This is something in my life that has been relegated to comic book stores, sci-fi friends, and what I have subjected my family to. The creators of this show tricked the world into watching a  sci-fi/fantasy show. “Well played,” I thought. But as time grew even closer to the ending of the show I began to realize that it wasn’t just me, the genre-nerd, that was going to miss the show, but it will my reality-TV watching co-workers, and  my sci-fi novice friends. There have been times at work that five of us would sit down and talk about last nights episode. We would talk about Christianity, the negative weight of electrons, Egyptian gods, Hinduism, Nirvana (the band), dead scientists, Kurt Vonnegut, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Narnia, and much more that doesn’t come to mind. The breadth of that discussion and the topic taboos that could have started arguments during a work day could have been very bad. That never happened. That never happened, because LOST is about our similarities. It is about how everything we do. If we read Vonnegut or worship Egyptian gods we are all looking for the same thing. To be found.

If you want to delve into all the intricacies of LOST check out my friends blog.

And if  you can’t let go to LOST check out my other friends Facebook group for a sideways Miles and Sawyer spin-off show.

22 May Permalink