Time to Talk about Man of Steel

Spoilers in pretty much everything below.


Man of Steel is the first movie I've seen on opening weekend in nearly seven years. It is one of maybe half a dozen I've seen in a theater during that time frame. I went in expecting something mediocre, based on my opinion of the talents of the creative team putting this film together. What I got was not mediocre, but something else entirely.

At first, I kind of liked it. I was bothered by the camera work (I abhor the shaking camera when it's used to film mundane activity, such as somebody walking around). But other than that I left feeling like it was a decent film, better than Superman Returns at least. The only thing that really struck me was that it didn't feel like a Superman movie. It was a pretty typical superhero movie smashed together with something resembling science fiction in cinema, but that was about it. All in all, an ok movie, but not for me.

Then I had to figure out why it wasn't for me. And the answer has to do with the end of the film, when Superman kills Zod.

This act points to an evolution of Superman over the course of the film and its prospective sequels: he will eventually realize that he made the wrong choice, and when he's confronted with a similar situation, he'll finally make the right one. It makes the story about The Hero's Journey. And I just don't care about the hero's journey, except in an academic way. And I already wrote my book on Superman. I don't want to have to do more research at this point.

You see, one thing I love about Superman's early years in publication is that the origin was precisely one page long and then pretty much forgotten for a while. You had the slight expansion in the first Superman ongoing series, and in the comic strips, but that's to be expected. Sure, they added a few pages worth of material, but that was it. In the Fleischer animated shorts, in the serials, in Adventures of Superman on radio and TV, the origin takes a few minutes of screen time and then it becomes completely irrelevant to the story. The storytellers are saying, "OK, now you know how he got his powers. Let's move on."

The comics in recent years, and the Smallville tv show and now in Man of Steel, there's an obsession with Krypton and Superman's origin that does not resonate with me. It has everything to do with where I am in life, the fact that I'm not searching for some essence of my identity, that I am comfortable with myself. In other words, I'm not engaged in my own personal hero's journey, so I can't muster a lot of interest in watching somebody else's over and over again--this may also be related to the fact that I have read, watched, and listened to every single one of the retellings of Superman's origin during the past two years. Man of Steel goes out of his way to tell us that Superman is 33 when he dons the cape, and then he still doesn't really know who he is enough to know that it's bad to kill, and there's always a better way. (Don't give me that junk about Zod presenting him with a situation in which there's no other possible solution. He's Superman--there's always another solution.)

In other words, the Superman I want to read about and watch isn't somebody who's groping for his role in the world, trying to reach maturity. This is why Smallville just didn't work for me, and why Man of Steel doesn't. I'd much rather read about a character who is already confident, comfortable in his suit, and ready to face the challenges of his chosen role.

When I was digging deep into the body of stories that comprise Superman, I discovered "The Challenge of Superman." I thought of this as the set of oddities presented by the early years of Action Comics, Superman, and Adventures of Superman that any writers of a new version, starting from scratch, have to reconcile. I thought of the challenge of Superman as the union of his secret identity, his fascination with Lois Lane, his choice to be a reporter, and his unwavering moral code. We might also toss in the source of his powers (were all Kryptonians originally 'super'? or is it the yellow sun or the low gravity or something else), but that seems to be fairly well-set these days and not much of a challenge anymore

I like to think that Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster left The Challenge of Superman to all those who came after them. They were saying, "Here, deal with these apparently nonsensical parts of the story. Make them make sense and you'll achieve greatness. It's a puzzle with many possible solutions." Ok, they didn't say anything of the kind, but the Challenge of Superman has been taken up by pretty much everybody in the ensuing years. And in solving the challenge of Superman, writers are forced to make statements about career, romance, the relationship of the individual to the group, and what makes us the complex, multifaceted people we are. It's an excellent way to approach storytelling.

There are lots of different ways that writers and editors have solved The Challenge of Superman. I think that I might explore some of these solutions in future blog posts, in large part because I have all these thoughts floating around in my head and they had no place in my book. Today, what I will say is that the creative team who produced Man of Steel didn't seem to give a lot of thought to his interest in Lois Lane or to his choice to be a reporter. They really focused on his secret identity, and seem to have set up a way to explore this moral code in another movie.

You see what they did there? They took a simple comment in Superman #1, in which his adoptive father (not yet Jonathan Kent by name) tells Clark he's got to keep his powers a secret, and they made it the focus of the father-son relationship. Sure, Kevin Costner tells Clark that he's been sent here for some reason, but he doesn't follow it up with anything about how Clark should use his powers to help people.

The core of Superman's morality, since Superman #1, has come from his adoptive parents. That's part of why he has such an appeal in the United States: "Baseball, apple pie, and Superman, that's America," John Hambrick told me. He owns the SuperMuseum in Metropolis, Il. It's a good point. The Kents' agrarian midwestern worldview forms half the argument in Gary Engle's foundational essay, "What's So Darned American about Superman?" from the excellent collection Superman at 50 (the other half is that he's an immigrant, according to Engle). So the only lesson Man of Steel allows the Kents to impart is that Clark has to hide his extraordinary abilities, which leads to a number of secret identities before he settles on Clark Kent again and becomes a reporter.

The thing was, I thought they'd already gotten there. There's that moment when Superman turns himself over the the American military, letting them decide whether or not he should be given to Zod. To me, this was a plain rebuke to J. Michael Straczynski and Superman: Earth 1, which had virtually the same situation with a completely different decision on Superman's part. In Earth 1, when an alien (named Tyrell, not a Kryptonian) shows up looking for the last son of Krypton and demands he be handed over, Superman does absolutely nothing for a long time, while Tyrell wreaks havoc and kills lots of people. Eventually, after an agonizing amount of time and long after Tyrell's grace period has elapsed, he puts on his suit and flies out to fight all by himself.

In Man of Steel, Clark Kent has a moments of indecision, during which he goes to a church to ask a random priest what he should do, then doesn't wait around to get advice and chooses to turn himself over to the military. He's asking them to make the decision for him, but he's really already made a decision. He has rejected Zod by giving himself over to the US. He's really making the choice to trust, which the movie tells us, which is Superman saying that he's not wise enough to make the choice himself. It's a noble thing to do, leading to dialogue; even though Superman distrusts Zod, he's willing to work for a nonviolent solution. So while Straczynski's Superman allows countless deaths through his inaction, the Man of Steel doesn't do so--at least not until the fighting begins. Then he doesn't try to save anybody in particular for a while so he can focus on punching and whatnot.

I hope I'm making my point clear. Man of Steel shows us a moral code produced by experience. Nothing explicitly wrong with that, unless you're writing Superman, who's supposed to don the suit with a firmly embodied sense of altruism that values life in all its manifestations above all else. Because with life comes possibility, the true value of the story of Superman. Death robs us of possibility, whether it be the death of a planet or the death of a villain. With death there can be no rehabilitation. Sure, Zod wanted to die, but then again so did the girl on this page:

All-Star Superman 10, by Morrison, Quitely, and Grant.

Superman's job is to give us strength, to remind us of the strength we already have, to inspire us. He can't do that by killing people. The greatest crime Man of Steel committed was that it did not even attempt to inspire anybody. The one scene where it approached this, when Superman learns to fly (honestly, I hadn't even noticed that he couldn't fly at this point in the movie) tonally clashes with every other scene. It attempted to show his joy in flight. There's no joy in any other shot in this film, except maybe at the end, when we get the flash back showing us Jonathan and Martha watching a young Clark run around in the back yard with a towel clothespinned to his t-shirt. I was trying to think of movies that had inspired me, had included real joy. I recalled the  scene in Metropolis of Superman '78, when Superman is just flying around town, rescuing cats and foiling crooks. That was joy in being Superman.

You know what else: The Incredibles. When Dash is running as fast as he can for the first time, fleeing the bad guys, and discovers that he can run on water (which is basically the same as flying, but that's a discussion for another day). Dash lets out this gleeful laugh, the music kicks it up a notch, and we see him weaving through rock formations, dodging his enemies, and enjoying himself fully for the first time in his life. It makes me want to do that.

I didn't want to do anything that Superman does in Man of Steel. He didn't enjoy having his powers--Jonathan Kent made sure of that.

Card's Superman

Let's dig a little bit deeper into the controversy surrounding DC's choice to hire sf writer Orson Scott Card to create some Superman stories.

First, here's a USAToday article that sums up the issue:

DC Comics ignited a firestorm last week by announcing that Card, who has been criticized over the years for his vocal anti-gay political stance, would be one of a stable of writers contributing to a new digital-first anthology, Adventures of Superman. The series, launching in April (a print version will be sold in stores starting in May), features the iconic hero who has long been associated with the phrase "truth, justice and the American way.''
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender activist website AllOut.org has collected more than 11,000 signatures on an online petition asking DC to drop Card from the project....

In addition to being the author of the 1985 science-fiction novel Ender's Game and many other sci-fi works, Card is on the board of directors for the National Organization for Marriage, which is outspoken in its denouncement of same-sex marriage.

Here's another summary, from The Daily Beast. And one from The Guardian.


DC's response has been to brush it off:

As content creators we steadfastly support freedom of expression, however the personal views of individuals associated with DC Comics are just that — personal views — and not those of the company itself.

Beyond the petition, several shops have decided not to carry the print version of the comic.

At issue are both Card's beliefs and his actions. He's not merely someone who believes that certain people should be denied marriage, he sits on the board of an organization devoted to stopping it, and has stated that, should gay marriage become a federal right, people should rise up against the government. Michael Hartney has written on just this point:

If this was a holocaust denier or a white supremacist, there would be no question. Hiring that writer would be an embarrassment to your company. Well, Card is an embarrassment to your company, DC. This is the same. The LGBTQ community will no longer take this lying down. Our civil rights are no longer up for debate or discussion.
Ugh. And of all the characters Card could have been hired to write, you give him Superman? The character that taught me to lead by example? To do the right thing, even when it was hard? To keep going, even when it seemed hopeless? What an insult. Kids are killing themselves. They are killing themselves in a climate of intolerance and homophobia publicly fostered by people like Orson Scott Card. You don’t have to contribute to this. You shouldn’t. You mustn’t.

Christopher Butcher takes it further:

Orson Scott Card is a dangerous bigot. If he will not even attempt to atone for his dangerous bigotry (including: hate-filled screeds, lies, and incitements to violence), then I don’t care if he never gets another job again. Let alone writing a beloved icon of children and adults.

Here's a thoughtful response from Wired, about how the writer is disappointed by Card's views, but doesn't agree that he should be pulled from the story:

Let him write the story, and let DC publish it. You can then choose to buy the comic or not. You can then choose to protest the message in the actual story if you are offended by it. But silencing a voice — even one with as intolerant a message as his — is not the answer. It’s better to hold that intolerance up to the light of day and show it for what it truly is: fear. Fear of the alien. Fear of the other and the strange. A fear that, ironically, it was Orson Scott Card who helped me confront and vanquish at an early age, whether he meant to or not.

Mark Millar has apparently tweeted that calling for the firing of Card based on his views is nothing short of fascism.

But others have been prompted to more reflective statements about their view of the character:

Superman may not live in the real world, but I’d like to think that if he were a real being he would be on the side of justice for LGBT community members.



It's important to point out that the issue is coming to a head because of the character. Nobody seems to have complained much when Card wrote Iron Man stories, as many of the above links make clear. Because Superman is involved, people suddenly have strong opinions. Following on a point from Butcher above, Tom Spurgeon wonders about this:

Butcher's line about Superman having power as an icon above and beyond his role as a corporate-owned character attached to a dubious history of exploitation and issue-alignment, and that this matters, is well-taken. That is very much a blind spot for me. For me, Superman is an empty suit. One of my first Internet fiascoes was a mid-1990s declaration that no adult person actually considered Superman a role-model and being lectured by an array of adults on CompuServe that told me that they very much considered Big Blue a role-model and how dare I suggest otherwise. Live and learn. I'm still always a little confused that the ideal outweighs the uglier aspects for folks that are routinely exposed to both. This expression of that notion here, that being assigned to Superman means something more than if Card were given, say, his own entire comics line, comes from hardcore comics fans, not from like my Mom or from my friends growing up or their kids. It's sort of like if the press corps and Secret Service that dealt with JFK on a daily basis had a more hardcore idealized version of the president than Catholic households in Boston with his picture above the television had, although maybe that doesn't explain it well, and maybe those men and women did hold Kennedy in higher regard.

It's legitimately fascinating that Superman seems to me to have been traditionally claimed by conservatives as having ideals in that direction, and here is claimed for what we tend to think of as American liberal values such as inclusiveness. In fact, the irony from the perspective of this being a headache for DC Comics is that they've sold and sold and sold this viewpoint where they are in shared custody with generations of fans of an important set of ideas and principles wearing a cape, and in this instance they have to deal with the fact that people are going to hold them to that. Good.


So there's all that stuff wrapped up in this issue. The general sentiment above is that Card is wrong in his opinions, and that he is in the minority. Some people think that Superman shouldn't be written by a person who feels the way Card feels, who advocates the things he advocates. As I see it, it all comes down to the idea that some people think that Superman should represent inclusivity--he saves everyone. They extend this idea beyond the character and the stories told about him to the complex of events surrounding the creation of those stories, including the people involved in the creation.

Darth Vader vs. the Wolf Man

My favorite movie ever.

Who’s stronger, Superman or the Hulk?  Comic fans once thrived on such questions, and to some extent, they remain popular.  I’m asking one that’s never been asked before…Who’s worse, Darth Vader, or the Wolf Man? 

First, let's be clear. I’m talking about The Wolf Man, not Werewolf by Night or Man-Wolf or the Werewolf of London or Teen Wolf or anybody else.  I’m talking about Lon Chaney, Jr., playing Lawrence Talbot in George Waggner’s 1941 movie (and, to a lesser extent, Benecio del Toro in Joe Dante’s 2010 movie The Wolfman), who despite being pure of heart and saying his prayers by night turns into a pig-nosed hairy fella when the full moon shines bright.  Second, I’m talking about Darth Vader.  Third, I’m not talking about a physical fight here.

That one would be interesting, sure.  What would happen to a monster who can only be killed by silver if Vader slashed his arm off with his light saber?  And would the Wolf Man’s speed and claws be enough to get by Vader’s reflexes and precognition?  Vader could stop laser blasts with his hands, after all. I never get tired of that scene in Empire where Han shoots at him in that Cloud City dining room.

Man, there's a lot of weird Star Wars stuff out there.

I’m more interested in how they lived and died.  They were both good people in many ways, separated from their families until reunited by tragedy and pain.  They both undergo a dark transformation and kill lots of people.  Then they’re defeated in battle by a family member: Larry by his father; Darth by his son. Their stories are about father-son relationships. (The 2010 Wolfman film has the son kill the father.)

Evidently we're uncomfortable with Oedipus reversed.

In Star Wars, the father-son tension and rivalry dominates the whole story. It’s already present in Episode IV in the scenes where Luke talks with his uncle and with Obi-Wan.  At the end of Jedi, Vader sees his son being killed by the Emperor, so he throws the Emperor down the shaft in the middle of the throne room.  The Emperor’s lightning bolts short circuit Vader’s life support and he dies soon after.  Then we see the ghost of Vader as Anakin, standing with Yoda and Obi-Wan, free of the death mask.  He is redeemed. The three prequel films go about showing us just what he was like when he was still a good guy; in other words, what makes him redeemable in the first place—how he was able to summon the will to save Luke.

In The Wolf Man, the father-son tension is all subtext.  Larry comes home to Wales after the death of his brother, presumably to assume the brother’s role in the family.  He and his father Sir John don’t argue much: it’s more like they don’t know how to relate to each other.  Then, Larry wolfs out, kills some people, feels bad about it but can’t stop it, and Sir John beats him to death with a silver cane.  The last shot of the film shows Sir John’s reaction to the revelation that Larry was really a werewolf, a murderer, whom he’s just beaten his son to death.  Claude Raines really nails that mixture of grief, confusion, disbelief, and horror.

Best picture ever? I think so.

The Wolf Man’s story is not done, of course.  Over the course of several other movies, he is resurrected and must go on a quest for assisted suicide, which brings him into conflict with a variety of other monsters, and, incongruously, comedians.  Never once does he consider himself redeemed, nor does the audience.  Here’s a guy who thinks he should die for what he’s done, and we can’t help but root for him.  Talbot’s motivation throughout these movies is rare in American cinema.

Now here’s the conflict.  Two murderers.  One is redeemed in death, one condemned to life.  One makes the choice to kill; the other is driven by urges he can’t control?  It’s not so much about fan arguments as it is about a view of human nature.  Is Vader a good guy, as the three prequels seemed to be trying to convince us?  Should Larry try to kill himself? 

These characters represent opposing ideas about redemption.  The Wolf Man tells us that no matter how good a person you try to be, if you do bad things--even if you don’t mean to do them--you’re damned.  Star Wars tells us that no matter how many kids you murder or no matter how many planets you blow up, if you save your son’s life, you’re salvation is assured. One of these is characteristically Christian in flavor.  As long as you repent, you can get into heaven.  The other is bleak.  There is no redemption. 

Why do these movies have such similar color schemes?

Popular culture is often accused of being vacuous, vapid, virulent, and other, less flattering v-words.  But here we see it as a realm of ideas, where the most vital issues of the day are explored and given consideration.  Do we do the bad things we want to do now and make up for them later?  Or do we act as if the evil we do lives after us, so we’d better do the right thing now?  It’s no coincidence that both stories feature a radical physical transformation: From man to machine and from man to animal (there’s a dichotomy worth exploring: giving in to the machine is redeemable; giving in to the animal isn’t--is one a step forward and one a step backward?).   

DavidBrin, science fiction writer and scientist, has infamously written that the morality at the core of Star Wars, which he sees as hinging on that moment of Vader’s redemption, should not provide a model for us to use in living our lives. He compares Vader’s redemption to the idea that Hitler could be acquitted of any crimes against humanity if only his lawyer made the argument, “But your honor, he saved his son!” The real question is what happens to Vader after his death.  The film asks us to see him as redeemed because in his Jedi afterlife he ends up with Yoda and Obi-Wan.  Star Wars, and The Wolf Man for that matter, is more complex than that.  Brin is really taking issue with a single image:  the redeemed Anakin at the end.   

Too awesome not to include. By obviouswinner.

 In the three Star Wars prequels, George Lucas explained why Vader made the choices that he made.  Good and evil are certainly more complicated than actions; we look to context and motivations for final judgment.  This is why the United States has different penalties for murder if it’s premeditated, a crime of passion, the result of mental insanity, etc.  So Lucas asks us to sympathize with Vader because of what happens to him when he is still called Anakin.  And what happens?  Torn from his mother to study with the Jedi, he learns to suppress his emotions and maintain complete control to avoid becoming evil.  He later has dreams that his mother is going to die. Despite knowing that Jedi can have prophetic visions, the Council nonetheless both forbid him from helping her and fail to send anyone else to help. 

Anakin breaks their rules but arrives too late to save her.  Later, he falls in love and gets married.  After his wife becomes pregnant, he dreams that she will die.  In searching for a way to ensure that his wife will live, he is told by Palpatine, who is both his friend and powerful political leader, that a way can be found using the same spiritual philosophy that the Jedi condemn as evil.  He learns that Palpatine is evil and turns him over to the Jedi. However, decides to save Palpatine so that he can help his wife survive. To save him, Anakin kills one of the Jedi. Seeing no alternative, he swears allegiance to Palpatine, at which point he is now called Darth Vader.  His first act as Vader is to murder the residents of his temple, which include children. For the next twenty years or so, he remains a servant of Palpatine—now the Emperor—and takes part in the murder of countless others. Some parts of Star Wars are really hard to summarize.

Offered without comment.

Like Vader the Wolf Man kills people. His motivations, however, are strikingly different. He derives no pleasure from murder; quite the opposite. Whatever feral joy he gets out of slaughter during a full moon is abated by the subsequent twenty-five days of failed atonement. He didn’t become a werewolf by choice. His one big transgression is attempting to seduce a woman who’s engaged to another man.

 

Both the Wolf Man and Darth Vader are monsters. Despite Lucas’ attempts otherwise, Vader still isn’t  sympathetic. (My only evidence is anecdotal, but I think the audience still views Vader as a villain.) If he feels bad about things, he doesn’t show it much. The Wolf Man, on the other hand, hates himself for what’s happened. He’s conflicted, and that makes him sympathetic. He may be a monster, but he’s not a villain.

Yet he is condemned to misery while Vader gets to enjoy Jedi Heaven. This can only be the result of the fact that Vader does get to commit one act of valor when he saves his son from death. The Wolf Man, on the other hand, has no moment of valor. 

No redemption, but a very porcine nose.

One great thing about popular culture is that it’s everywhere, and there is a great pressure to keep producing it. In the process, all sorts of ideas get bandied about. And people have the opportunity to examine them, to take them to heart, to explore their meanings. These ideas are often contradictory, but this is a good thing. They present alternative answers to troubling questions, often in playful form so we don’t have to take them too seriously. Regardless, the ideas are there, for us to explore if we want.

           

Redemption seems to be a very important issue for American. The problem is, it seems we’re not quite sure how to go about achieving it. That’s where stories such as these come in. We can, if we so choose, see in them different ideas about how it’s done. Vader and Wolf Man are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Our cinema is obsessed with characters who do something wrong and expend a lot of effort trying to make up for it. Very rarely do we deny them forgiveness, but how much are we willing to forgive? Killing people pushes us to think about that question. How far is too far? Are there unforgivable and irredeemable crimes? Does motive matter? Regardless of law in the matter, people must deal with each other. Convicted criminals can gain parole. They can evade capture. They can define away their crimes or rationalize them. The law can only get us so far. It doesn’t tell us how we should relate to our loved ones. Luckily, we have movies for that.

controversy

Well, there's a back-up story (The Incident) in this week's Action Comics #900 that's caused a stir. In it, Superman states his intention to renounce his U.S. citizenship so that his international actions may not be construed as American policy. He does so after the Iranian government gets angry because he showed up to nonviolently support some protesters in Tehran. Here are some relevant links.

First, from comic book resources' robot 6. This one's a pretty good summation of the internet reaction.

There's comics alliance, which has a huge discussion in the comments.

Here's an example of the outside (outside of comics fandom, that is), reactionary response.

Thus far, I've been unable to find any genuine praise for the element of controversy, aside from the stray comment to news stories or blogs. As a story, regardless of what Superman intends to do, it's really not very good. It's only 9 pages, and lacks a real ending. It's told mostly in flashbacks, and of those 9 pages the entirety of the first is devoted to a guy standing around, checking his watch, and waiting for Superman to arrive. Narrative economy is not on the menu today. It also ends with a pretty lame attempt at demonstrating Superman's inspirational effect on the conflict in Tehran that draws him to Iran in the first place.

As for my feeling on the controversy, Douglas Wolk says it pretty well: 'Plenty of stories, from Paul Dini and Alex Ross's Superman: Peace on Earth to the beginning of "Grounded,"have addressed why Superman doesn't simply solve the world's geniune problems. The real answer is that that's not what Superman stories are about. The point of Superman stories is to wildly distort the world as we know it: to provide a huge, fun perspective on alienation, on leading a double life, on the struggle to understand what truth and justice are before one starts fighting for them. And anyone who purports to be offended at "The Incident" should remember that this happens in the same universe where, in 2000, Lex Luthor was elected President of the United States.'

At heart, this is a controversy inherent to the genre. It's one of the things that made a mess of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Any time you try to insert real world problems into superhero stories, you run the risk of exposing the genre for what it is: fiction. No genre can stand up to the real world.

The most interesting aspect of the whole thing is the frequent equation of Superman and Obama, which arises from the bafflingly persistent "birther" movement that demands further proof of Obama's US citizenship. People are making lots of jokes about needing to see Superman's birth certificate or something of the kind.

Some new links

At Too Busy Thinking About My Comics, Colin Smith wrote a four part exploration of All Star Superman and Superman: Earth One. It's really, really good. Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4. In-depth, clear, and insightful.

Here's an article about superman's ethics.

This one's from the Superman Homepage: (Not) Believing Again: Superman Returns--From Postmodernism to Faith (and Failure) by Ben Murane. It's an academic approach.

Speaking of an academic approach, here's Brent Allred's thesis from Melbourne College of Divinity, it's about the use of movies and literature in Christian Education of kids, it's got some stuff about Superman.

And another thesis, this time about Superman and America, by Michael Mautner.

That's enough of that for now.

Super heroes and America

Here's an interview with Alan Moore, from a while ago. He's always got something interesting to say, but what's relevant here is this thought:

I'm interested in the superhero in real life, but not the comic book version. I've had some distancing thoughts about them recently. I've come to the conclusion that what superheroes might be--in their current incarnation, at least--is a symbol of American reluctance to involve themselves in any kind of conflict without massive tactical superiority. I think this is the same whether you have the advantage of carpet bombing from altitude or if you come from the planet Krypton as a baby and have increased powers from earth's lower gravity. That's not what superheroes meant to me as a kid. To me, they represented the wellspring of imagination. Superman had a dog in a cape! He had a city in a bottle! That's wonderful stuff for a seven-year-old boy to think about. But I suspect that a lot of superheroes now are basically about the unfair fight. You know: people wouldn't bully me if I could turn into the Hulk.

It's not Moore at his most articulate, since he's really contradicting himself at the end there. And he's falling victim to the same affliction that plagues many a person when looking at the popular culture of their youth: "These kids today don't have any taste, with their long hair and powerful superheroes." And he's confusing the individual with the collective, and wish-fulfillment with apprehension.

Not that Superman's for kids anymore.