Strange Visitors

In this third blog on the Man of Steel, I want to look at Superman's Pop Culture status in an era where movies about superheroes are more popular and more successful than comic books.

 The closing years of the 90s saw a wave of nostalgia in comics for the Silver Age as the new millennium dawned. For example, Stern and Rude's Hulk vs. Superman (above) is a faithful recreation of the early 60s. For me, this is pretty much a perfect comic book: it draws upon Stan and Jack's Hulk stories and the Bill Bixby tv series and Byrne's conception of Luthor; then seamlessly melds these different character beats into a retro adventure that combines slapstick and pathos, with artwork that marries the refined, glamorous style of DC with the action and power of Marvel.

John Byrne returned to the World's Finest in Generations, a trio of miniseries that spanned adventures in the Old West to the Final Frontier. He drew upon Kirby's Fourth World, Weisinger's Superman family and the Batman of Dick Sprang and of O'Neil and Adams. As is often the case in Byrne's stories, however, most characters experience tragedy and violence, tinged with sadism.

Meanwhile, in the monthly comics in the early years of the new decade, the popularity of Manga saw a cartooning sensibility return to superhero comics, alongside the penchant for realism. Where the animated style, employed by the late Mike Parobeck (who had died tragically early) had failed to gain wide acceptance a decade before, the work of Mike Wieringo (who was also to pass away too soon), even graced covers:

Here, the sci-fi elements of Superman's heritage are gorgeously evoked in this cover (to a story which featured a monstrous version of  classic JLA villain, Kanjar Ro.)

The stories, of course, still pandered to an ageing fanbase who want to read "serious" comics with "adult" themes. The marriage of Clark Kent and Lois Lane, once a quaint and charming fantasy of super-sons (or super-brats) had been the inevitable conclusion of Lois and Clark on tv and had been incorporated as a plot element in the comics. The tension between Lois (who is attracted to Superman) and Clark (who is attracted to Lois but has to keep his secret from her) is defused by the resolution represented by marriage; but the fanmen apparently need their heroes to keep pace with their own lives. These are the comics that represent my middle age, holding down "proper" jobs and paying a mortgage but that's not something I want to read about.

 The fashion for naturalism is at the core of the Noughties' most successful iteration of Superman:

Smallville's mission statement was "No Capes", which has always seemed a bizarre notion to me; but the audience-savvy welding of  Beverly Hills 90210 teen drama with the angsty superheroics of the X-Men movie series has seen this massively successful series bring some startling DC properties to the small screen: Zatanna? the JSA? The Legion?! The Wondertwins?!! It's also made Batman-surrogate Green Arrow something of a household name; and delivered my favourite versions of Ma and Pa Kent- and of Luthor, in Michael Rosenbaum's ambiguous and conflicted performance.

Smallville, the longest-running sci-fi show in the US, is poised to end with Clark Kent's assumption of the Superman role- apparently in a season featuring Kirby's New Gods, which seems an odd choice given the aforementioned "No Capes" agenda. Gough and Miller's problems with "the cape" were also reflected in 2006's Superman Returns, where Brandon Routh's costume colour palette was deliberately dark.

I liked Routh's Superman but the campy performance by the insufferable Kevin Spacey, Bryan Singer's hero-worship of Richard Donner and worst of all, the repositioning of Superman as Deadbeat Dad all left a sour taste in my mouth. As Ebert said, a glum, lacklustre film and too bloody long.

90s superstar Jim Lee pencilled Superman in the mid-Noughties. The image above seems to encapsulate everything I dislike about modern comics storytelling: from the military fetishism imported from online gaming to the grotesquely-exaggerated musculature.
Another hugely-overrated power-broker at DC, Geoff Johns also hero-worships Donner and his Superman movies. Johns' writing is nostalgic for the Bronze Age of the late 70s but he also has a taste for horror and violence. Here, he takes the comical Bizarro character of the 50s and 60s and gives it a "contemporary flavour":

One of the complaints that fans of the vengeful, vigilante Batman level against Superman is that his villains are poor when compared to the Dark Knight's rogues gallery. This view overlooks the intention: the buffoonish Toyman and Prankster or the mischievous sprite Mxyzpylk are deliberate contrasts to the brawn of the Caped Kryptonian. But they have to be given the appetites of serial killers or the insights of an FBI profiler to satisfy the contemporary audience.

Recently, a new Superman for the big screen was announced in the person of Tudors star Henry Cavill.

I despair at the prospect of the snarky voice of  Robert Downey Junior's warmongering Tony Stark or the asinine fratboy " humour" of Chris Evans' Johnny Storm in the script. Worse still the urban paranoia of Christopher Nolan's Bondian Batman... I'm not a cinema-goer and it won't be aimed at me anyway but I doubt that the old red-and-blue circus performer costume will "fly", so-to-speak, with the Halo Reach crowd. I imagine Warner Bros are probably working on something like this:

I don't mind it so much, although the ribbing doesn't work. I certainly prefer it to Emo Superman:

I haven't read it yet-waiting for a library copy- but I don't think it will appeal any more than the painterly Wednesday Comics version, where Krypton looked like Vulcan and Batman advised Clark to get some Super-Prozac. Earth One might encourage young people to read comics but the graphic novel format is too expensive -maybe a downloadable web comic is the way forward?  Anyway, I hope people, if given the choice, prefer their superheroes to look the part. I wouldn't mind seeing a more dramatic departure. Jemma Salume should be hired to redesign all of DC's marquee names:

Aside from Tom Welling's CK-in-a-duster-coat, the Superman I've most enjoyed in the past decade was crafted by Glasgow's own Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely. Although Morrison needs a strong editor to help him tell stories with greater clarity (and filter some of his excesses), this epic managed to repackage some of the wackier elements of Superman to suit contemporary tastes:

At the end of last year, I was cheered to see a version of the World's Finest team that I could share with my nephew: a Batman:Brave and Bold comic with a mystery set in the Bottle City of Kandor.

There is, of course, a typically dark and bloody version for the Noughties and, as pencilled by Michael Turner, yet another young artist who died too soon, Superman/ Batman reintroduced Supergirl.

Another version of the Girl of Steel was also launched in a miniseries aimed at very young readers:

Those of us who read comics as kids would have snorted with derision and dismissed this as patronising fare. As an adult, I can see the style has a lot of charm but I think Amanda Connor's Supergirl had just the right mix of expression and humour in Wednesday Comics:

Old-timers like me probably always picture Supergirl in hot pants. Here's Kara with Joe Simon's quirky teen president:

One other Connor who might lead movie-goers to comics (in any format) is Connor Kent, the modern Superboy. Again, this is what I picture when I hear the name- and again, dig the Bronze Age logo!

I haven't got anything to say about the 80s series that starred Superboy since I've never seen it; I don't even know if it was screened in Scotland. There were several periods during the late 80s when I didn't have a tv. I do know the Metropolis Kid of the 90s was too bratty for my tastes (and on Doomsday and Beyond sounds like a cross between Keanu Reeves and the Fonz):

Check out the obligatory 90s accessories: a jacket, numerous belts and red mittens.

Reworked for the Noughties, this buff Boy of Steel was a clone, a product of genetic material from Lex Luthor and Superman. I'm not convinced clones are good audience identification figures. This should have been a Smallville spinoff comic but I'm not in Marketing; what do I know?

What a long, strange journey it's been! Superman: the Man of Steel (if that's what it's called when it reaches the cinema) will have to match audience expectations in the wake of Marvel's wave of Avengers movies - so, I expect lots of military hardware, an alien invasion, global devastation, the obligatory dark tone and a dreary faux-Metal soundtrack. It was only in the last decade, however, that I saw the famous Fleischer Bros cartoons from the 40s and a Superman who defends the poor and the weak from crime and corruption is perhaps the kind of Superman we need- but is it the one we'll get? Could one of the most recognisable logos in the world be synonymous with truth and justice again to an audience of young people with an antipathy toward America but who still play Gears of War?


Next: Long Live the Legion

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