American Alien

I heard Max Landis et al.'s Superman: American Alien was pretty good, so I finally got around to reading it. It came out late last year. Some really good stuff here. When you've got so many artists contributing, the quality will vary, and I liked some issues better than others for precisely that fact. It's a series of essentially stand-alone stories, which I also like. It has its own continuity, but doesn't seem beholden to the DC universe, which I also like.

I don't really have much to say about the stories themselves, though I did notice another example of a recent trend in Superman stories that's worth pointing out: namely, that issues dealing with a young Superman (Superboy?) have to show the tension between Clark and one or both of his parents. In American Alien, this came to the foreground at the end of issue 2 (titled "Hawk"), when Clark and Martha are on the roof talking about Clark's intervention (saving the lives of some folks, mutilating some criminals, getting injured). Clark is worried that his mother sees him as a monster; he's afraid of being rejected. This was also an emotional beat in Geoff Johns and Gary Frank's Superman: Secret Origin. That time it was Clark being worried about his father rejecting him. It's also a more drawn-out theme in early issues of Birthright by Mark Waid and Leinel Francis Yu. This was never part of Jerry and Joe's Superman, to my recollection, nor was it prominent in John Byrne's Man of Steel.

As for movie versions, it's not really present in Superman '78, but it's a big part of Clark's development in Man of Steel.

It fits. Clark's an alien, and in a series whose title foregrounds that quality the tension between an adopted son and his new parents can reflect that otherness. From the examples given above, it's no stretch to say that the relationship between Superman and his adopted parents has become an important aspect of the story. It's key to understanding the current trend in the Superman myth: that Clark Kent is the real identity, and that Superman is an affectation. With the dominance of this interpretation, it's easy to see why the bumbling, mild-mannered Kent has all but vanished (it's worth noting that George Reeves didn't play Kent this way, either; his Kent varied from Superman only in wardrobe).

What conclusions can we draw based on this trend? What does it mean that Superman is not the "real" personality? I think it's a sign that Superman's American-ness is important to people. When Landis's Superman tells Lobo, "I'm from Kansas," (not Krypton) he's embracing a certain patriotism that  a lot of people feel is important right now. Kent is American, Kent is human, by choice; Byrne's Superman stories made this an important element of the character, too. At the same time that Superman confirms his American citizenship, Landis shows us that the rest of the world embraces him as well; that fight with Lobo at the end of issue seven is broadcast world-wide.

I don't think there's an intentional response to the story a few years ago in which Superman renounced his American citizenship so that he could be a citizen of the world; this doesn't feel anything like a refutation of that controversial though short and ultimately stand-alone story by David Goyer. But as the international role of the United States, and relationships between countries, change through new administrations and shifting public opinion, it's no surprise that Superman stories would double-down on these themes.

Relationships with parents, with fellow countrymen, with other countries, with aliens...these things are important in Superman stories; they always have been.

Random Stuff

The Elephant in the Room spends a livejournal post talking about things that don't make sense when it comes to Superman. His reasons: (1) He can't die, thus no tension (2) Kryptonite makes no sense (3) The costume is silly (4) He doesn't solve real world problems (5) the disguise as Clark Kent is flimsy at bst. The comments indicate that he's not alone.

There's an essay in The Man from Krypton (ed. Glenn Yeffeth) called "Six Things that Plain Don't Make Sense about Superman," published in 2005. That essay lists (1) The Pathetic Inferiority complex of the Kandorians, (2) The Frightening Destructive Potential of Superbaby (3) The Odd Construction of buildings in Metropolsi (4) The odd favoritism demonstrated by Jimmy Olson's signal watch (5) Street level thugs who honestly believe they stand a chance, and (6) The absence of any real world limitations to superhearing.

In other links, here's the solution to the mystery of Superman and the Cyclops.

This one's pretty interesting. It's about how Superman can be boiled down to the description: A police reporter affects the outcome of the crimes he covers, then writes about them, hiding his involvement. (from the same website: who should write superman)

I've seen the story of Superman boiled down to one theme on several occasions. Josepha Sherman distills it to either the moses story (baby set adrift, found and rasied, becomes hero) or the story of a hero learning his heritage--these both in her book Once Upon a Galaxy.

Then there's the discussion between Tim Callahan and Steven Withrow in Callahan's column When Worlds Collide. They go over superheroes as "archetypes". This bit by Callahan is interesting, in response to Withrow calling Batman "the dark knight detective" as if it sums up his character.

But doesn't Batman represent something more primal? The "dark knight detective" aspect is something that comes out of Batman's pulp roots perhaps, but isn't he more like "the god of problem solving"? And he mostly ends up solving the problems by punching them in the face, no matter how much his intellect, planning, or Bat-computer might help him get to that point.

Superman, in many ways the opposite, doesn't have any problems, except those which he manufactures for himself. He could correct any injustice almost instantly, and even the social problems writers saddled him with for years were mostly the result of his attempt to pretend at humanity. To pretend to have those very problems. Had this mythic character never adopted the guise of an awkward newspaper man, he wouldn't have had to trick Lois Lane all those times. And he wouldn't have had any of those dual-identity struggles. Batman punches problems in the face to become superhuman, while Superman creates problems for himself to become human.

Does that mean that it's not just Superman that was necessary to birth the superhero genre, but the duality between Superman and Batman?

Withrow doesn't agree with that last point: But I still think the Batman archetype is a reaction against the Superman archetype. Not simply because Superman came first, but because I believe the world view that underlies Superman is more fundamental to human nature than the world view underlying Batman. We are born with a yearning for Superman as our ideal and must learn (if we ever do) to accept Batman as our reality.

I'd like to draw the parallel here with a comment I quoted not long ago, made by Josh Walgenbach: Batman is a man trying to be a god. Superman is a god trying to be a man.

In the 1970's, writer Denny O'Neil produced a new take on Superman, one that was significantly less powerful and more connected to humanity. Here's a lengthy overview, with lots of scanned pages, of that run.

That about does it for now.