Post-Crisis DC: MAN OF STEEL by Byrne -- some rambly thoughts

Since January, every week three friends and I have been discussing Crisis on Infinite Earths and its crossovers, over Zoom. Having concluded that monumental task, we plan to move onto a discussion of the follow-up series, Legends, and its crossovers. But first, a palate cleanser with the DC trinity:  Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, and the various series that reintroduced these legendary characters to a new (and old) readership. First up, Superman: The Man of Steel by John Byrne, with Dick Giordano, Tom Ziuko, John Costanza, and edited by Andy Helfer. 

                       

At the culmination of Crisis, there was now a single Superman on a single Earth in a single universe. DC Comics had achieved the goal of once again making him unique. Now they needed to ground Superman, make him more relatable, not so much the overpowering hero with little to challenge him. I mean, when you can use super-ventriloquism to speak with other heroes in space, what can't you do? So, DC poached John Byrne, one of the most popular creators working at the time, from Marvel, with the mandate to overhaul the Man of Steel. And that's just what Byrne did. 

                        

The 6-issue series opens on Krypton, its people dying from a Green Death, radiation emanating from the interior of the planet and the destructive forces there that are threatening to destroy the planet, if Jor-El's calculations are to be believed. There is no doubt in Jor-El's mind; he's taken his and Lara's son, in order to send him to Earth, so that their boy might live. This is a sterile Krypton, a technologically advanced world eating itself, which, with the radiation known as the Green Death, also gives us a new, and logical, explanation of why Kryptonite (only green, now; no more red, gold, black, or whatever) would have such a detrimental effect on Superman. And very quickly, within the first few pages, we get the classic image of Kal-el's ship launching from the exploding Krypton, hurled toward Earth and his new life. From here, Byrne adds more familiar pieces to the Superman puzzle. 

                          

We meet Lois Lane, a strong, intelligent, driven reporter. A cautious Batman who utilizes the city of Gotham, and his knowledge of it, to his advantage while having a contingency plan for all eventualities, including the arrival of Superman. Lex Luthor, a ruthless businessman who believes everyone and everything can be bought. A Bizarro formed in an experiment utilizing Superman's stolen DNA. And a Lana Lang who needed to discover who she was in order to deal with the burden--that of his secret identity--Clark laid on her, while still in high school. These are all characters we've most likely seen before, but they are all different in subtle and not so subtle ways. It's impressive the thought that Byrne put into these characters, of how to update them and make them relevant for a 1986 world. And it's the little things that stand out, like when Lois, at Clark's apartment, comments on how little weight he has on his dumbbells (not much more than she uses to workout), which makes sense, considering Superman would have no idea what amount of weight on a dumbbell would be too heavy or too light for a regular human. Or, there's the scene in Gotham City, when Superman first approaches Batman and snags his line, only to find that Batman has disappeared. Superman mutters to himself that he didn't think Batman had the power of invisibility, to which Batman--standing atop a nearby skyscraper--proclaims that invisibility is a relative concept, achieved sometimes through a knowledge of the terrain. It's these details that really shine in this series and help it to hold up today. 

                      

One of the best things about Byrne's approach to Man of Steel, and Superman in general, was to model the character of Clark Kent/Superman after the characterization most people would have been familiar with at the time, Christopher Reeve's portrayal from the 1977 Richard Donner film, Superman. There are references laced throughout these six issues. Our introduction to Clark on Earth is in a football game where he's running for yet another touchdown, almost single-handedly defeating Smallville's opponent. This mirrors the frustration of young Clark Kent in the 1977 film where he is the waterboy/manager of the high school football team even though he knows that with his abilities he could run circles around any of the others on that field. We also get an almost direct homage with a flashback of Clark, as a toddler, lifting the family truck to get his ball from beneath it, mirroring the scene from the movie of young Clark catching and lifting the truck when the carjack shifts and tumbles away while Pa is changing the tire, just after they discovered him. 

 

But two of my very favorite scenes of Byrne channelling Christopher Reeve come when Superman saves a young woman from a would-be mugger and then turns to her and asks that she turn down her boombox, because "in a city [the] size [of Metropolis], consideration for others is the only thing that keeps life bearable," and when, in the opening of issue four, Lois arrives at Clark's apartment to pick him up for Luthor's gala and she sees the picture of Clark in his high school football uniform and is surprised by his physicality, and Clark tells her he still tries to keep in shape--the look on Clark's face is priceless and feels like it comes directly from Reeve and his characterization. For me, Christopher Reeve epitomized the character of Clark Kent/Superman and always will, so Byrne utilizing him as a template for this revitalized Man of Steel is more than welcome. 

"I still try to keep in shape..."

Ultimately, perhaps the most important aspect of Byrne's approach to Superman may be the fact that he focuses on Clark Kent as the main character, with Superman as the disguise. It's a subtle, but monumental, shift in what I feel was, and often times still is, the approach to the character of Superman. He's an alien, he has superpowers, the title of the comic is Superman, ergo Superman is the primary identity. But, for his formative years, until he turned eighteen, Clark Kent was raised by human parents, lived in a human world, was, for all intents and purposes, human, and his understanding of the world and his approach to life all stem from this, from the values instilled into Clark by Ma and Pa Kent. It is his humanity, his kindness, his desire to do good without expectation of reward that makes Superman the hero he is. There are plenty of other heroes with super strength, invulnerability, the power to fly, like Captain Marvel and J'onn J'onnz, the Martian Manhunter, but none of them are Superman. It's this goodness (and greatness) absent the ego that makes Superman stand out. So, focusing on Clark Kent as the prime identity, with Superman as the disguise, only makes sense, and it gets to the core of this character in a way that makes him far more interesting, in my opinion. 

                          

After reading and discussing Byrne's Man of Steel mini-series, my friends and I agreed that this is a foundational text, as far as the character of Superman is concerned. It introduces this legendary character, known the world over, in a way that allows readers old and new to have a solid understanding of who Superman is and who Clark Kent is, while also revealing the world within which he lives, along with the major cast of characters surrounding him. Lois Lane is here. Perry White. The Daily Planet. Lex Luthor. Metropolis. All the trappings that inform Superman's life. There's also Smallville. Ma & Pa Kent. Lana Lang. His roots in the American midwest that form so much of the ethos of Superman. And there's Krypton. Jor-El. Lara. And Kryptonite. The origins that created a superhuman icon and also spurred a need for him to belong and to be part of a community, while also containing the seeds for his destruction (whether one sees that as the Kryptonite or the stark, soulless reality of his people). And, of course, there's Batman, Superman's counterpart in so many ways, the yin to his yang and the one hero who might be able to contain Superman, if he went rogue. It's all here and all laid out by Byrne in a clear and entertaining way that grounds Superman and lays the foundation for all the adventures to come. It's pretty great.

--chris

THIS is my Superman --- [art edition]

Years back, Peter Rios (if my memory’s to be believed) started a thread, at the old CGS forums, asking people to share the comic artist who best epitomized any given character, for them.  Neal Adams might be your Batman artist (or possibly Berni Wrightson), Kirby (or John Byrne) your FF artist, Jerry Ordway (or Curt Swan) your Superman artist, Marie Severin (or Herb Trimpe) your Hulk artist.  It was a great thread that really got to the heart of why we, as comic fans, love and collect these stories—sometimes to an obsessive fault.  The conjunction of personal taste in art and affection for a particular character engenders a very specific attachment for us readers, which can lead to interesting and illuminating conversations.  (So, please feel free to share your own in the comments and kickstart this dialogue)

  

I have long held that Superman need not be overly muscled, in his depictions in comics and film, and would argue that it is more “realistic” for him to be lean and agile rather than a Mr. Universe type.  Superman’s power comes not from a hypertrophied physique but from the energy imbued within his cells by Earth’s yellow sun.  Not that he wouldn’t be muscular, but it isn’t necessary for the character as conceived, and it is more interesting, visually, if Superman circumvents the typical body type of male superheroes in comics. 

Certainly, there have been a number of artists to draw this icon of the four-color world, and they all brought their own personal style and sensibilities to the character, resulting in varied body types for the Man of Steel.  But the most iconic visualizations of Superman—by Curt Swan & Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez in the comics and Christopher Reeve in film—have tended toward this leaner body type.  Which may be why I prefer the leaner Superman as a template. 

That being said [written], “my” Superman would definitely have to be Jon Bogdanove’s version.  Feeling like an updating of Wayne Boring’s Superman, Bogdanove’s was BIG, with huge muscles.  And yet, it never felt as if he overwhelmed the panel or the scene, at least not in a bad way.  Bogdanove’s Superman was powerful, epitomized by Bog’s particular delineation of Kal-El, and it made for some dynamic imagery. 

  

During Bogdanove’s lengthy run on Superman: The Man of Steel, which coincided with Bog doing some of the product art for ancillary Superman merchandising—notable for the fact that Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez was pretty much the only artist providing DC Comics merchandising art for decades—he made his home in Maine, on Monhegan Island.  This afforded me a number of opportunities to meet Bogdanove, and his enthusiasm for the character was obvious.  (Bog named his son Kal-El)  And that enthusiasm was infused into the character and the comic, while Bogdanove drew it. 

Bogdanove’s Superman is a statue, cut from marble, come to [printed] life.  Bog’s Superman is solid, an irresistible force and an immovable object, all at once.  Ultimately, it’s his use of shadow and the thick lines for hatching—which help to define his Superman as a three-dimensional hero on a two-dimensional plane—that has always stood out for me (shout out to Dennis Janke, Bog’s longtime inker on Superman) and which still remains burned on my memory as the epitome of the Man of Steel.  

-chris

Always Late to the Party – Man of Steel…some thoughts

Man, oh man, oh man of Steel…people hated on this film something fierce when it came out.  But, we do reserve our strongest online opinions for those things that matter most ß sarcasm. 

Ahhhhh, the interwebs. 

The expectation, from myself and those who know me, was that I would hate on this movie too.  I was born in ’72, am an 80s child, and Christopher Reeve’s Superman is my Superman, full stop.  What Reeve did with the duality of Superman and Clark Kent is phenomenal.  You not only believed a man could fly, but you believed he could trick everyone with a pair of glasses, boring hair, and a slouch.  I love that first Superman film in the way one can only love those things we are introduced to at a certain age.  Superman: the Movie will always be the top of the heap for me, even with the ridiculousness of Gene Hackman’s Luthor and his sidekick, Ned Beatty.  So, Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel had a rough hill to climb if it wanted to make a serious impact on me. 

Let’s bullet-point this:

·         Lois Lane: 
I loved the fact that she used her investigative skills to discover who Superman was, before he was even Superman.  We’ve been told for years that Lois Lane is an award-winning journalist, but we’ve never seen that in the films and rarely, if ever, in the comics.  Having Lois track him down demonstrated her ability and made her more than just a cipher. 
Added bonus: this changes the dynamic of the relationship between Clark/Superman & Lois in a way that is novel and interesting.  Big props for this storytelling point. 

·         Pa Kent: 
Man, this portrayal by Kevin Costner sure did have a lot of detractors.  And I get that.  This Pa Kent does not teach his son to be the hero the world needs.  He does not instill in Clark the selflessness embodied by Superman.  This Pa Kent was selfish and scared of what would happen to his son, if his secret was discovered.  That’s not Pa Kent. 
Despite the fact that this interpretation missed the core of this character, I was impressed with how consistent the characterization was throughout the film, including the tornado scene.  His motivation came from wanting to protect his son, at all costs.  And though I disagree strongly with this characterization, I, as a parent, fully understood and empathized with this Pa Kent. 

·         Krypton: 
I did enjoy the visualization of this alien landscape.  It was a bunch of flash with stunts we’ve seen before (did anyone believe Jor-El wasn’t going to be caught by something when he stepped off into that freefall? No.), but it was cool.  And I’m always down to watch Russell Crowe onscreen.  So, put this one in the plus column.

·         The Kiss (amid the ruins): 
Where did this come from?  It’s possible I wasn’t paying close enough attention, but this felt completely forced, especially amid all that destruction.  I didn’t feel they built up the romance well enough (which, to be fair, can be said of 95% of the romances in Hollywood films), and the fact that they were surrounded by all that destruction…Superman is selfless.  One could argue this is Superman before he’s truly become Superman, except that one’s moral core is formed through one’s childhood.  So, even if he’s new to using his powers, he should not be new to feeling empathy for others.  Bad narrative choice here.

o   Aside: we rarely see Superman putting others first during the destruction of Metropolis – the sidestep of that oil tanker (which he could have stopped, avoiding the destructive explosion) is the prime example of this – which is odd, since that seemed to be at the forefront of his mind before he discovered and put on the spandex.

·         The Battle with Zod et al: 
Yes, Superman needs action.  And we got that with Man of Steel.  But it was so over the top, from my point of view, that it just pulled me out of the narrative.  It was ridiculous, the figures looked obviously animated, and the speed with which they moved made things muddled.  Somehow, the Flash television show does a better job with super-speed battles than this feature film did. 

o   Beyond how it looked, a lot of people were upset with the wholesale destruction of Metropolis.  It felt too real for them, reminded a lot of people of the September 11 terrorist attacks.  And I get that.  But, viewing this film through the lens of my personal experiences, I didn’t agree with this criticism.  Anyone who’s read Superman comics or watched Superman/Justice League cartoons has witnessed a similar level of destruction.  When Kal-El can let loose with his full force, and has an equally strong foe, there’s bound to be a lot of explosions and crumbled buildings.  It is part of the appeal of superhero stories.  And have Michael Bay films or the Marvel films shied away from cartoonish examples of destruction?  (if they have, apologies, I haven’t seen many of them, though I remember some dynamic explosions in the ones I have) 

o   (another aside: why, as a general rule, is violence something we don’t usually discuss in our entertainment, but sex and sexuality are always being put upon by righteous people? ßrhetorical)

o   Why didn’t Superman lead Zod away from Metropolis or Smallville? 
Good question.  That is what Superman should do.  It’s his M.O.  And I don’t know that I have a good answer.  Superman/Clark seems to have a bifurcated characterization in Man of Steel.  Before he attains “the suit” he is the mystery man with great power who assists people, anonymously, apparently out of the goodness of his heart.  He puts others first and often sacrifices his latest identity in order to save people, then moving on to become someone else.  And yet, once he has the big red S on his chest, he seems to regress in his characterization, unthinking of all those millions of people suffering and dying as a result of his battle with Zod.  It’s strange.  One one level, it makes sense with what we see of his upbringing by Pa Kent, and yet it goes against everything the audience learns of him while Lois is trailing his mysterious deeds.  I don’t know. 
That said, as I watched the battle beginning with Zod threatening Clark’s mother, which throws him into a wild rage, it never felt like Superman/Clark had time enough to breathe or even consider taking the battle away from the city.  Sure, the writers and Snyder, as director, set it up that way, but there really was no respite for him to consider the consequences.  He was just reacting.

Ultimately, I was less bothered by the actual battle and destruction and more annoyed with the actual execution of it onscreen.  So, let’s call this one a wash.

·         Superman as Jesus: 
Did you catch it?  DID YOU CATCH IT?  Subtle, Zack Snyder ain’t. 
Obviously, they are going to utilize this metaphor in the upcoming Batman v. Superman film.  Of course, I shouldn’t be coming to Hollywood blockbusters for nuance. 

·         His powers, and did the filmmakers do anything “new” with them?: 
Even as horrible as Superman III is, the scene where Superman crushes a piece of coal into a diamond, along with that opening scene where he freezes the top of a lake and carries the sheet of ice to the refinery to put out the fire, are scenes that stick in the memory, because it was a new way, onscreen, of seeing Superman use his powers.  Though much of what we see in Man of Steel isn’t new, we did get a new way of experiencing his heat vision, and I thought it was pretty great.  I liked the visualization of it, along with the way it was used (even if the final scene with Zod doesn’t work).  So, chalk another one up for Man of Steel.
 

·         Zod’s Death: 
Doesn’t work. 
I understand what they were going for with this, but the filmmakers missed the mark.  Snyder seemed to want to draw out the tension of this scene by lingering on the heat vision as it just burned into that one spot beside the family who are unable to move away from that wall.  What?  Superman is holding Zod’s head still, why doesn’t he do something other than that hackneyed move where you pull your hands apart and the person’s neck you were holding breaks?  (Is this even real?  It’s at least a cliché we recognize.) 
For this scene to work you don’t need to up the tension; you need to have it be a split-second decision.  Then it would have felt true to the narrative.  Zod starts his heat vision, Superman plows through him and finally kills him, or Superman uses his heat vision on Zod and kills him, or Superman drives an I-beam (there must be some just hanging around in the rubble) through Zod and kills him.  Bang-bang.  It has to be quick like that, or it doesn’t work.  And it wasn’t quick.  And it doesn’t work. 
The core of the idea is an intriguing one, and an idea that John Byrne left for others to play with when he was writing and drawing Superman in the mid-eighties, but they dropped the ball on this one.  

All this being said (written), this wasn’t a bad movie.  There’s a lot to like in it.  Ultimately, I was bored with Man of Steel and likely won’t be checking out the follow-up.  I’ve got too many other things I want to read/watch/do.  Plus, I view Superman as an aspirational character, a hero to look up to.  He needs to be differentiated from the grimness of Batman because they are different characters with different backgrounds, who work well within their distinct milieus.

But, I suppose forcing Supes into the grim ‘n gritty box that’s worked so well was the safe bet.  Too bad, because we already had that grim ‘n gritty hero, the Dark Knight, and it’s difficult to have the darkness of Batman without it being offset by the lightness of others, like Superman.  Ah, well, what do I know?  I guess it’s official, I’ve become the curmudgeonly old man who wants you off his lawn. 

So, get off my lawn!

chris