In some recent threads that old canard about Clark being uninteresting, boring, or irrelevant have been trotted out and it confounds me.
I’m a fan of Kal and I say that without reservation or hesitation. There is an accepted cliche about his lack of weaknesses leading to boring storytelling, but I think that misses the point of the character in this day and age. He’s a cultural icon, a representation of good will and a desire to do what’s right. The modern Christ metaphor isn’t lost on me, and most fans I would assume, but I don’t think that undercuts his appeal, it only adds to it. (And I say that as a self confessed atheist.)
So I’m baring my fandom for examination. I think he’s a good man, struggling to do out what’s right in a complex world, and an icon of ethical and moral reasoning. I’ve chimed in to support him in the past but I want this to be the thread where we discuss his cultural significance and wide spread popularity and appeal.
Lay out your criticisms and questions and I’ll try to answer them. His characterizations have rarely been consistent but I’m willing to speak to his role as a political representation as well. (Such as in the TDKR where he was characterized a government stooge.) I’m not presenting myself as an expert in his publication history but I’m familiar with the past 30 years or and i think I grasp the character in ways other might not.
Even in the 21st century I think we still need incorruptible heroes, and Kal is that hero.
Two things right off the bat…
Anyone who isn’t inspired by John Williams score has no soul.
And given the Spider-Man thread tonight I think I know at least one question that deserves mention, but I’ll wait for someone to articulate it first.
I’m logging off for the evening but I’ll be answering any responses I receive tomorrow.
I’ve just finished whipping through the Batman/Superman comics (the 21st century World’s Finest) and I just gotta say that the whole bromance they got going kinda bugs me. Buddies, sure. Friends, sure… but cool it with the whole intertwined destiny angle.
Aw, Jihi, you’re makin’ me blush. Thanks for all your kind words. Now don’t forget to eat all your vegetables, wash behind your ears, and always brush your teeth & floss after every meal. And just remember that every man who stands for truth, justice and the American way is a great hero!
Let’s say you want to rob a bank, because you need money. But, you get a chunk of kryptonite in case Superman tries to stop you. Logically, that would mean kryptonite is far cheaper than the paltry sum you would get robbing the bank. And, if it was that cheap, why not get a chunk if you just wanted to mug a few people on the way home?
If Superman gets his powers from the Sun’s rays, why isn’t he weaker at night? Shouldn’t he be the anti-wolfman?
Actually, I really like Superman, although Batman is my favorite character. I think what interests me is that as a Superman, it’s incredible pressure on oneself to always be and do good. It’s easy to be bad. Have you ever had no vices at all? Or tried not to? It’s incredibly difficult. I think they should explore that aspect of him. I think that’s his biggest superhuman power, resisting the incredible pressure to not be bad at all. To always have the interests of good at the forefront. Think about it. What if you had to be good ALL the time? What if you were expected to do the right thing EVERY time? How would that affect you? That is what Superman goes through. In the DC universe, they call him the Big Boy Scout as a derogatory term, but I don’t think people who wield that insult realize just how difficult it would be.
A good old-fashioned virtuous hero is sometimes just what the doctor ordered to heal the miasma in the soul of a modern cynic. For that purpose, Superman is second only to Goku in my eyes (from Dragon Ball Z, and that is because Goku worked DAMN HARD to achieve what he did, whereas Superman never seemed to need to train a minute in his life. In fact, an essay comparing/contrasting the two would be quite a cool read.)
In Smallville, there’s just so much of it. But later on, I have no idea. I always assume such things are a set up by a criminal mastermind, who loans out his kryptonite for the night, and everyone knows they’ll be killed if they don’t bring it back.
The same reason a solar powered car doesn’t stop working at night. Superman is a giant solar battery. He has power reserves. Plenty to make it 12 hours without sunlight. When villains block the sun, it’s not like just suddenly runs out of power.
Also, it’s not like he’s actually using his full power most of the time. The Kevin Smith script I mentioned in the another superhero thread thread shows what you have to do to drain Superman of his powers. You block out the sun, then you use something to get Superman to use up his energy. Or you get some Kryptonite, which short circuits the aforementioned solar battery. Cutting off the initial power source is insufficient.
He’s still boring. Most of the Kryptonians were boring too. I think Bruce Wayne always regards him with suspicion. After all, he is an alien. Who knows what side he’d take if Earth went to war with Krypton. And Lois has always been a beard, he just doesn’t want people to realize he’s an alien. Why would he be attracted to a female from a different species? Face it, he’s a super-nerd, and who knows what would happen if he decides to rebel.
I have to say I think this is an aspect that’s been somewhat overplayed recently. It stems from the concept of Superman and Batman being flip sides of the same coin. Immediately after the original Crisis they were portrayed as grudging allies, at odds over their differing approaches to the same goal, and I think that works better than ‘BFF’s’. Over the last ten years or so a lot silver age concepts have leaked back into the DC universe and I think this an artifact of that.
Simple answer: Because writers have a tendency to lean on crutches. It’s a flaw in the writing. They have somewhat attempted to deal with this at times by introducing other forms of kryptonite and famously there was a storyline from the… late 70’s I think? (Someone will probably correct me on that if I’m wrong.) Where all green kryptonite was erased from continuity.
Kal has other physical weaknesses but they don’t tend to be trotted out as much. (Magic and telepathy mostly). There have always been villains that present a physical threat but they’re big hitters. (Darkseid, Mongol, Doomsday, Despair, Parasite etc…)
Superman’s more interesting when you give him moral quandaries, but not all writers are capable of writing themselves out those kinds of corners. If you want to make a low level super or a normal human a threat you give him a chunk of kryptonite.
BigT nails this one on the head. Superman is a solar battery and he stores energy over time. If you isolate him from the radiation of a yellow star for long enough he’ll eventually power down. How long does it take? That depends on the writer.
In the story where they re-introduced Kara they stated that she was constantly bathed in artificial sunlight in her ship while she traveled to Earth. When she popped out of her ship she was even stronger than Kal at the time.
See, I don’t get this. Is it inherently boring or is it how the writers approach him?
Lots of characters exist primarily as a personification of an idea or a concept, and I don’t think Kal is any different on this front. There are ways of exploring this concept while adding characterization and complications without losing sight of it. Some writers do it well, some do it badly. But that isn’t a condemnation of the basic character.
I agree with everything here.
Batman is actually my favorite superhero but people don’t dump on him they way do Superman which is why I started the thread.
Frankly I think Superman is a harder and more complex character to write for because it takes more effort to wring drama and tension out of the concept. But when it works it works very well. I think people tend to look at the power construct, the ‘Man of Steel’, and ignore the fact that psychologically Clark is a normal human being . He has doubts and fears and knowing the right thing to do in every situation isn’t an easy thing.
Over the decades his characterization has taken many different forms, but usually it boils down to two possibilities. Kal is either a god hiding among men to understand them, or he’s a man with the powers of a god who’s trying to understand his responsibilities. I tend toward the latter.
I know nothing about Dragonball so I can’t comment on that angle.
But Superman is a representation of an ideal to aspire to. If Superman didn’t exist we would have to create him.
I think this a fundamental misunderstanding of the character’s psychology.
Psychologically Superman is not an alien, he’s a human. He was raised on Earth by human parents in a human culture. He has no inherent recollection of Krypton, (having been shuttled off as an infant or even as a fetus in some tellings), and only knows what he knows about it through study and interacting with other Kryptonians. (I’ve been perusing back issues of the recent ‘World of New Krypton’ series and his unfamiliarity with and grudging acceptance of that culture would seem to bear that out.)
If Earth and Krypton were to go to war his first response would be to try to broker peace. Because that’s who he is. If that proves impossible than his next response would be to end the bloodshed as quickly as possible. one way or another, while protecting the innocent. I don’t know what the ultimate outcome would be, because that would depend on the writer and how deeply they would want to explore this ethical quandary.
All right, I don’t have any reason to suspect that the big guy will rebel someday, but the invariance in purpose you describe definitely makes him dull. Sorry, I think he’s a great character, and real happy he’s on our side, but it takes all the other characters in the DC universe to make him interesting.
I really liked Grant Morrison’s recent All-Star Superman run. Anyone who doubts there are interesting stories to be told because the hero is too powerful need only read these 13 issues.
But Bruce is every bit as stubborn and ‘invariable’ in his purpose as Clark is. For both characters they view morality in black and white while trying to cope with a world filled with gray.
What makes Bruce’s exploits interesting while Clark’s are ‘dull’? Is it the relative power levels? Those are just trappings and they don’t speak to the characters thematic purpose.
Batman is never more likely to lose in his conflicts than Superman is.
However dark or sophisticated he gets in presentation, Bruce is no more a cynic than Clark is. He still believes in the basic goodness of humanity, otherwise what’s the point of fighting the good fight?
From a certain perspective I actually agree with you here.
I think the introduction of the ethical standards the two characters represent, (Clark and Bruce), into a moral quandary is more engrossing than the characters on their own. Batman without the Joker is incomplete, but so is Superman without Lex.
Anyone who thinks Superman isn’t capable of making hard decisions need to look no further than What’s So Funny about Truth, Justice, and the American Way?. It was a stand alone comic dealing with Clark confronting a group of modern 90’s ‘anti-heroes’, (published in 2001), who continuously cross the line. It offered an uncommon level of meditation of Superman’s motivations and I would recommend it to people looking for a nuanced take on what Superman can mean in a modern context.
I don’t have much to add to this thread, except to recommend the awesome fanmade series After Hours, which tackles the whole issue of whether he’s relevent to today’s audiences. There are two sequels, Happy Hour and the newer Zero Hour. The original setup is that the Marvel and DC characters compare their movies (in the “Hi, I’m a Marvel…and I’m a DC” spots), but also hang out at Stan’s Place (aka, “the heroes bar”), which is where After Hours begins.
It’s not something that was inherent in Siegel and Shuster’s original treatment, but it gained popularity after the Christopher Reeve movies, and Superman Returns, (with all of it’s flaws), was steeped in it.
A son, sent by the father to Earth to ‘save humanity’ from itself.
“They are a good people Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack a light to show the way. That is why I have sent them you. My only son.”
Superman Returns…
He’s stabbed in the side by a bladed weapon in act of torment and persecution. (Not intentional in the Bible I know, but the act itself is the important thing.)
Later on after he disposes of the ‘kryptonite island’ he falls back to Earth with his arms held out in a crucifixion pose. Tenuous, but I don’t think it was accidental.
He spends a number of days in the hospital, (the tomb/cave), with a single believer/apostle standing in watch. (Lois/the Magdalene). When Lois returns to the hospital one day she discovers him gone/resurrected, due to his having recovered due to his very nature.
Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were Jewish as well, (ethnically and culturally if not practicing, I’m not really sure…) And Clark’s simililarities to Moses have not been lost on analysts.
Bruce Wayne saw his parents murdered as a child. There is something dark underneath. He takes pleasure in unleashing terror on the people he considers criminals. Batman could be interesting just by himself. His attraction to Catwoman in itself makes him far more human than Supes. The Kryptonian wouldn’t really fall for a human woman, much less an evil one. I still think the world is better off with Superman. He fulfills peoples desires for a powerful being who it inherently good, and will set right the wrongs. Doesn’t make him really interesting though.
I disagree with the idea that Kal wouldn’t really fall for a human woman, I think his love for Lois is real and not an act, but you make some good points. I can’t see a Catwoman analogue appearing in Clark’s life, and the murder of Bruce’s parents do fundamentally set him apart. Clark’s entire world disappeared but there’s no memories of it beyond the level of abstraction.
Sounds like the Christ metaphor is mostly the movie Superman. I’ve always considred Superman primarily as the comic book character,
I’ll concede that the half-human/half-divine nature of Jesus matches the Clark Kent/Superman and that doesn’t figure into the United States metaphor. But I’m not seeing much else.
The traditional Superman was not sent to Earth to save humanity. He was fleeing Krypton as a refugee. His father (the old generation) sent his son (the new generation) off to a new life. This is the immigrant story which is central to American culture.
There was no central theme in the comic books about Superman being wounded or crucified or lying near death for three days before rising. There was no sin that needed to be lifted by his sacrifice. And Superman didn’t tell people to change their ways or follow him - he chose to embrace the established values of his new home.
The main theme of the comic books was how incredibly powerful Superman was. So he had to make sure he used his power wisely. Not only by avoiding harming others but also by using it as a positive good. This matches with what is generally seen as “the American way” - the traditional view that the United States is the most powerful country on Earth so it has an obligation to use that power to make the world a better place. (In the thirties, when Superman was created, this was probably a nudge that the United States should quit being isolationist and start opposing the Nazis.)
