Geekery: 5 and 1/2 Mini-rants about the Modern-Age Superman.
(Defining 'Modern-Age' as Byrne's Man of Steel onward, of course.)
1. Krypton ought to be a place of wonders; something the loss of which makes the universe inutterably poorer; not some sterile-glass dystopia that the galaxy is best rid of.
2. Byrne didn't do away with Superboy; he did away with Superman. If John and Martha Kent are still alive, you're telling stories about Superboy, no matter how old or married he may happen to get.
3. Lex Luthor is supposed to be a tragic figure in Superman's life, one of the few humans he could relate to as an equal and someone who could, but for a combination of pride and happenstance, have been his greatest friend and ally. If you turn Luthor into the Kingpin on Atkins, you miss the entire point of the character.
4. Superman doesn't kill. Period. Because his parents taught him better. And he has to live up to their memory. Parents that are still around to forgive him undermine this. See #2.
5. 'Last Son of Krypton' is no more important a descriptor for the character than 'Strange Visitor From Another Planet.' Keeping a fundamental alienness to the character, making him Kal-El playing the roles, alternatingly, of Clark Kent and Superman, (rather than having him be Clark Kent inside playing the role of Superman), is more important that systematically eliminating Supergirl, the Phantom Zone, Kandor, etc. Especially if people are just going to wind up putting them back anyway.
(This is not to say that the Silver/Bronze-age version Superman wasn't deeply flawed. There were some mighty problems with the character that needed fixing in 1985. The problem is that Byrne went about fixing them in something that is close to the most wrong manner possible, ripping from the concept not only everything that was needlessly baroque and unworkable but also everything that was remotely unique and charming. What was left behind was less Superman than GenericSuperHero, fit only to thrash around for a few years before being bludgeoned to death by GenericSuperVillian in 22 pages of splash panels.)
1. Krypton ought to be a place of wonders; something the loss of which makes the universe inutterably poorer; not some sterile-glass dystopia that the galaxy is best rid of.
2. Byrne didn't do away with Superboy; he did away with Superman. If John and Martha Kent are still alive, you're telling stories about Superboy, no matter how old or married he may happen to get.
3. Lex Luthor is supposed to be a tragic figure in Superman's life, one of the few humans he could relate to as an equal and someone who could, but for a combination of pride and happenstance, have been his greatest friend and ally. If you turn Luthor into the Kingpin on Atkins, you miss the entire point of the character.
4. Superman doesn't kill. Period. Because his parents taught him better. And he has to live up to their memory. Parents that are still around to forgive him undermine this. See #2.
5. 'Last Son of Krypton' is no more important a descriptor for the character than 'Strange Visitor From Another Planet.' Keeping a fundamental alienness to the character, making him Kal-El playing the roles, alternatingly, of Clark Kent and Superman, (rather than having him be Clark Kent inside playing the role of Superman), is more important that systematically eliminating Supergirl, the Phantom Zone, Kandor, etc. Especially if people are just going to wind up putting them back anyway.
(This is not to say that the Silver/Bronze-age version Superman wasn't deeply flawed. There were some mighty problems with the character that needed fixing in 1985. The problem is that Byrne went about fixing them in something that is close to the most wrong manner possible, ripping from the concept not only everything that was needlessly baroque and unworkable but also everything that was remotely unique and charming. What was left behind was less Superman than GenericSuperHero, fit only to thrash around for a few years before being bludgeoned to death by GenericSuperVillian in 22 pages of splash panels.)
posted by Jeff R. at
2:29 PM
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