Yeah it would be fun to give Clark an investigative journalism storyline. I remember a few years ago there was a viral Twitter thread where someone sketched a great Superman movie idea built around Clark Kent and Journalism. I remember thinking it sounded like it would be a great movie. Quickly tried to find it but couldn’t.
I want back the Superman from when I was a kid. George Reeves fighting for truth, justice and the American way.* The comics where Superman used his brain as much as his brawn. The world where he had a Fortress of Solitude where he could be himself, his true Krypton self, not the daily pretense of code-switching into an American. I haven’t seen it, but there’s meat there for an academic delve into Kal-El not just as an immigrant to America but as a man of color, a Joe Louis or Jesse Owens lauded for his prowess by the white majority but never fully accepted.**
Only one quick mention of Kal-El has been made in this thread, but the Superman story requires a tripartite hero: Superman, Clark Kent, and Kal-El. Immigrants don’t forget their homelands, and refugees are constantly reminded of what they’ve lost, maybe as much or more than what they’ve gained. (That’s my data point as the son of a refugee. Of course, he was an adult not a baby when he left.)
I gave up on the DCU long ago so I haven’t seen any recent Superman movies. Maybe they cover this. But that’s not the way you’re portraying them. Start with Kal-El and stay on Kal-El. A real story is inevitable.
* Pure nostalgia. I’d love for an American Way that was worth fighting for.
** Our society has made the collective decision to ignore Kal’s being an alien and the romance with Lois being bestiality. Amazing what the mere advantage of human form brings.
George Reeves (Superman) absorbing bullets but ducking when the gun is thrown at him. Cracks me up every time:
Superman, when he was created, was clearly Jewish. He could hide his true identity just as plenty of Jewish people had to hide theirs. I’m not just talking Deep South; my great-aunt had to pretend to be Christian to get a job in the middle of New York. I know I’ve seen someone write about this, but I don’t remember where.
There is a good old movie about that sort of Antisemitism called A Gentlemen’s Agreement. Yeah you can’t extract the Immigrant and Jewish subthemes from Superman. It’s in his DNA.
Yeah, except that ain’t George Reeves. That was his stunt man Dick Van Sickle. The “smoke” from the gun hides his face. The director only did one take and moved on, not thinking about how it would play on screen.
When they did, they restaged the event, having Reeves hit by a thrown gun in the second season. He winces.
It could be almost anywhere. As soon as later fans started digging into comics history they found that the comics - as the lowest form of the book and entertainment industries - were started and staffed mainly by Jews. Comics were a small, despised niche they could thrive in because the Goyim turned up their noses at it. A pile of books have been written about Shuster and Siegel, the Superman story, and the history of DC, co-owned by Yakov “Jack” Lebovitz. All of them - along with a six-foot pile of academic papers - talk about the boy’s Jewish background, the metaphoric story they wrote, and the reasons Jewishness was never mentioned in the comics. Hymie “Joe” Simon and Jacob Kurtzberg (Jack Kirby) twisted the tale only a bit to create Captain America for Moe “Martin” Goodman’s predecessors to Marvel.
UNsure of what to do when I quote, but only use part of the quoted post. Hope I don’t get in trouble here
This. THIS. The taking on of another name has happened in my family in at least two generations. My Dad, and my kids. All born in other countries with other names. Who among us hasn’t met someone named, say, Susan Okida or Kevin Subrimastiva? In a very fraught world, other languages and cultures have modified naming of themselves or their kids to conform to Western European names. Plain and simple.
How very applicable here in our little fantasy thread. This creature, not a man at all although apparently physically indistinguishable from one, was named Kal-El. Or a sound originally that we mere mortals interpret as Kal-El.
So, he grows up being Clark Kent. Then, and I’ll use as canon the 1978 “Superman”, he follows the path of the crystal, Fortress, blah blah- and learns that he is not at all WHO he is called. Yeah, he knows he ISN’T a normal human, but he’s been Clark. Clark on his swimsuit tag, Clark on his lunchpail, Clark on his high school diploma. Now, suddenly, he isn’t.
And of course, he doesn’t tell people he is called Superman. IIRC, others name him as such.
Still, it’s a nuanced thing, this business of taking another name. Or other names. And I’ve always wondered if it comes at a cost as the years go by.
Anyway, Exapno_Mapcase pointed out a very human issue here. Thanks !!
Pardon me continuing this digression briefly. A Gentlemen’s Agreement is one of my favorite movies, made the year I was born (1947).
I noticed a subtext that I’ve never seen written about. He loves the blonde woman, a terrible person who still wouldn’t marry after she finds out he isn’t Jewish. But he ignores the wonderful Jewish woman who WOULD marry him even after she finds out he is really gentile. That’s the icing on the cake.
Bill in Kill Bill had the opposite take:
Superman didn’t become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he’s Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red “S”, that’s the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears - the glasses, the business suit - that’s the costume. That’s the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He’s weak… he’s unsure of himself… he’s a coward. Clark Kent is Superman’s critique on the whole human race.
Okay. Bill was the villain, so we can comfortably ignore his take.
I dunno that’s kinda the crux of Superman and why it’s a hard story to make compelling
His invincibility IS his whole deal, that’s what defines him. Yet you’re quite right, you do need to make him relatable and “human” in some way (and have some sense of jeopardy). That’s a hard trick to pull off.
Sure you can pull the kryptonite card, but you can’t pull that too early or it detracts from the whole invincibility thing (your first Superman movie seems too early to me)
Still James Gunn knows how to direct a good superhero movie so we’ll see. Not that the trailer really stood out as something that’s gonna be amazing IMO
I’d like to see a Superman movie that actually addresses what the world would look like if there was a beneficent person who could pretty much do anything. A world where all the world’s homeless could be sheltered by hollowing out some mountains. Wars ended on the same day they were started. Icebergs dropped into drought starved reservoirs. Messages exchanged with beings across the galaxy. What makes Superman interesting is the “super” part not the “man” part.
SMBC did that:
…but then…
Meh. Silver Age Superman was so powerful he could power the world using a big clockwork spring, which he’d only have to wind up once a fortnight.
That sounds like utopia.
Utopias are boring. They don’t make for good stories.
When a Superman thread pops up I’ll always recommend It’s Superman! by Tom de Haven. Clark Kent grows up in the 30’s and generally learns about himself, the world, and eventually meets an ambitious young NYC councilman named Luthor. It’s pretty good. Doesn’t stick strictly to the canon, but so what?
Agree completely. Few villains would be stupid enough to fight Superman directly. They would be better if they do it without challenging him to interminable fight scenes* and require Superman to figure out what they’re doing. This requires smart writing to come up with something that isn’t obvious.
I agree that Superman is best when they’re showing Clark. That was clear in the 50s TV show, where Clark got far more screen time (and George Reeves was superb as Clark). Also part of the charm is that no one was trying to destroy the world.
But the comic book movie formula requires brute force villains out to destroy. One reason I’ve lost interest in superheroes.
*Fight scenes bore me and in comics they’re just filler to pump up the page count.
I liked de Haven’s novel, too. You might think that translating superheroes into a non-visual medium wouldn’t work, but there are several good novels that manage it.
For nonfiction, the early days of the comics industry is best told in Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book by Gerard Jones. The book goes deep into the lives and times of all the people I mentioned in my earlier post, plus important others like Max Gaines, whose son, William, reluctantly took over his empire when he died and spawned MAD, and the great Will Eisner, who had an empire of his own besides creating the greatest stories of the time featuring The Spirit.
If I wanted to do a Superman story about Superman, and not about Clark, as well as the consequences for a world where the Super part becomes dominant over the human part, I think I’d go with the graphic novel Kingdom Come (no, there is NO sequel. Nope.).
Keeping the spoilers to a minimum, it’s a world where the first generation of DC heroes retired after the second and third generation became ever more populous, contentious, and willing to destroy/kill to the accolades of the public.
Until that trend begins to destroy the world.
I love it for the art, the story, and the POV character, a “normal” human being possessed by a spirit to bear witness to what may be the last days of Earth.
I seriously recommend it. No, it’s not exclusively a Superman story, but he’s the predominant character and his motivations and choices are key.
And it’s a picture of a Superman who withdraws from being Clark (for various reasons) and the costs of that.
The way I’ve heard it said is, it’s impossible to make a good story about Superman. You have to make a good story about Clark Kent.
Any challenge to Superman, like a mad scientist building a doomsday device or something, Superman can overcome easily. But the challenges to Clark Kent are things like trying to trust the woman he loves, or dealing with his grief over his parents’ deaths, or the like, and those are things that superpowers can’t help with.
The point of the character, in other words, is that even with all of his powers, the real challenges he faces are the same as all of ordinary schmucks.