Look, Up In The Sky… Superman and Lois Turn 75

I’m looking at the cover of Action Comics #1 and finding it almost impossible to imagine how people saw it back in 1938. A powerfully-built ox of a man holding a car above his head while the other figures in the scene cower or flee in terror? Who is this guy? Is he the hero or the villain? Gaudy circus performer or alien invader? Man or…

Superman has also been a part of my pop culture landscape, from the Christopher Reeve movies to Lois and Clark, from running around with my coat doubling as a cape to reading the comics as I embraced my inner geek. True story: while on holiday in Toronto, I was wearing a Superman t-shirt on a visit to the CN Tower. When the time came for my tour party to stand on the glass floor and stare down at the sidewalk hundreds of feet below, I was asked to hold a middle-aged woman’s arm as she’d be too scared to walk on the glass otherwise. That was nothing to do with me being courageous or strong, but everything to do with the symbol on my shirt.

Those early readers weren’t the only ones figuring Superman out. In that first issue, Superman works for the Daily Star, not the Planet; he can leap one-eighth of a mile but can’t fly; his powers are due to Kryptonians being more evolved, not a reaction to sunlight. Perhaps more importantly he’s more rough and ready than the character’s normally portrayed, less sci-fi and more earthy. Back in 1938, Superman had yet to become the mythic hero of pop culture epics.

April 15th 2013, and social media reels in shock as explosions tear through the Boston Marathon. Among the digital chaos of the first few hours after the bombing, a friend retweets a quote from Fred Rogers: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” And I read that and I thought about the horror of that day and the heroism of those who ran to help the injured, and I also thought of Superman.

At least Lois was there. For all this is Superman’s anniversary, it’s also the birthday of Lois Lane. I’ll admit it; I’m a shipper. She’s the voice of humanity in the mythos, a tenacious journalist who fights for justice in her own right; the recent trailer for Man of Steel, amid all the questions about Superman’s role and identity, it’s Lois who sits there confidently getting to the heart of the matter. Heck, she’s one who gives Clark’s alter-ego a name. She’s not just one of the most famous female comic book characters, she’s one of the most iconic characters full stop. Read Action #1 again, it’s Lois who’s being kidnapped in that car. It may be Superman’s 75th, but let’s also sing happy birthday to Lois Lane.

Talking of that trailer, there was another moment of humanity that just floored me. The young Clark has just discovered he’s adopted – that he’s not even from Earth. He turns to the man who raised him and asks “Can’t I just pretend I’m still your son?” “You are my son!” Comes the reply, and that still gets me, even as I’m typing this. Maybe it’s because I’m a new stepdad, maybe it’s because I’m getting old and relating to fathers rather than son, but… There’s just so much there, love and compassion and identity and fear, and so much of the Superman story is tied up with the things parents want for their children, whether you’re from Kansas or Krypton.

In a world of grimdark superheroes, it’s easy to overlook how important Superman was and is. He’s been used as a pop culture defence against Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan, and when Grant Morrison’s run rebooted Action Comics in 2011, Clark returned to his roots as a social crusader in a time of recession and austerity and the 1%. It’s easy to forget Superman’s relevance – after all, he’s a part of the mass media wallpaper – but while it’s easy to see him as ‘establishment’, there’s also subversion going on – he’s an immigrant, he’s working class, he’s hiding a secret and he’s an outsider.

He’s relevant, in other words. 75 years after he first picked up that car, since he first leapt into action to save Lois Lane, he’s still important, still recognised, still a symbol of heroism and justice; ask him what he wants and he’ll tell you he’s here to help.

I want to help too.

Where I Am With Comics

I had a dream last night, one of those strange, realistic dreams where everything seems normal except the condensed time frame and people being where they shouldn’t. And because this is how interesting my dreams are, it was about how I spent five hours in a comic shop.

It was the details that gave it away – books and graphic novels were all published in  elegant. minimalist covers which made it easy to navigate your way through the continuity and publishing history of things like Star Wars and DC Comics – and it’s been a long time since I’ve spent any time in a comic store, never mind five hours. As far as I can tell there isn’t one in Derby, and while I’ve made the transition to reading comics entirely on my iPhone, the industry has been slipping away from me.

I know when this started. Last year, DC Comics carried out a relaunch of its entire line, jettisoning the existing continuity and renumbering everything from scratch. It was a bold move, and seemed to pay off, at least initially. Frankly, the industry needed one of the big companies to do something radical to bring in new readers. I can’t blame DC for going what they did; they don’t make comics for my personal amusement.

But it meant that the stories and characters I was attached to disappeared. Sure, most of them are part of the ‘New 52′, but changed – Superman isn’t married to Lois any more, the Flash I followed is AWOL, they flat out cancelled titles I was following. And they were perfectly within their rights to do that, but when that connection was severed, it failed to return, and with it some of my passion for comic books.

I’m still following some, of course: Aquaman is a great take on a maligned character, and I like how the disdain he’s treated with in some corners of fandom plays in to the storylines. Action Comics I’m reading because I’m a Superman fan and Grant Morrison’s love for the character is palpable. And Paul Cornell’s Saucer Country is (partly) the alien-abduction plotl arc of The X-Files done properly, with meditations on the liminal, mythic aspects of flying saucer mythology. And I love IDW’s Transformers titles, because that particular franchise was one of my earliest geeky passions.

It’s strange how this has happened – I love comics, and I hope the industry finds a way to thrive, and I’ll go to see any and all superhero movies – but I guess that’s just the way it goes. I owe a lot to comic fandom: I’ve made good friends as a result of it, one of which is producing his own comics. I desperately want to see him succeed at this because he’s talented and passionate and the industry needs young voices like that. As for me… Well, am I leaving comics? I don’t know. If I found one title that caught my excitement I’d happily buy it, and I’m sure that title is out there. But I don’t have the time to plough through Comixology to find it, and I don’t have the disposable income to take a punt on multiple titles that I might not enjoy.

Heck, I guess I’m half asking for recommendations. I like writers like Cornell, Simone and Johns, and James Robinson’s Starman is my favourite comic book series of all time. I don’t like dark-and-edgy for the sake of dark-and-edgy – it’s boring – but hard-won optimism is fine. And it doesn’t have to be superhero stuff, because I suspect superhero mythology – the mythology that arose when comics were popular, mass-culture entertainment – is pretty much on its way to migrating fully to the big screen.

So am I alone? Has anyone else found themselves drifting away from comics? Or is this just one of those moments in life when things change and it’s not good and it’s not bad, it’s just change? I don’t know where this is going to end up.

But I know in my dream, that five hours in the comic book store, I was enjoying myself.

A Tribute to Christopher Reeve and Superman

It’s been eight years since Christopher Reeve passed away; in many ways it feels longer. The news of his passing was one of those moments that elicited a visceral emotional response, not just from me but from across the world, not only because he was loved as Superman, but also because of his response to the showjumping accident that left him paralysed.

I don’t like using the word ‘definitive’ in relation to acting – it shuts down the possibility of an equally great interpretation of a role – but Superman was a part Reeve was born to play. Part of that is sheer physical presence – he looked like Superman – but for me, the real magic in his performance is in his sincerity. Let’s face it, the seventies Superman movies can be a little campy in places, but while Gene Hackman is dancing over the top, Reeve is playing it completely straight.

See, Superman can be a difficult character to portray. I love the guy, but there’s a fine line between leadership and patriarchy, between nobility and humourlessness. Reeve achieves this – yes, his Superman is strong and decent and heroic, but there’s also a touch of innocence there, and naivety. The great thing about Reeve’s Superman is that those things become strengths; when Lois asks why he’s here, Superman just responds “I’m here to help”. And he means it. God bless him, he means it. That willingness to take something that’s potentially corny and instead turn it into the moral heart of the movie is the key to Reeve’s greatness in the role.

Or is it? Because he also pulls a fantastic trick in making Clark and Superman genuinely seem to be two different people. The glasses thing is a much-mocked element of the mythos (although for my money, they work as a symbolic thing rather than anything physical), but Reeve made it work. If you want a successful Superman adaptation, you need to get the ‘Clark’ aspects of the character right, rather than focus on the powerful alien stuff, and this is where Reeve really makes the character his own. It’s not really about the cape and the trunks, it’s about the character. Forget that and you’re doomed. Remember it and you get scenes that people talk about for decades to come. Heck, I’m not actually a huge fan of the Reeve movies as movies, but Reeve himself is amazing in them and I’ll always make time to watch him catch the helicopter. It’s an amazing Superman moment.

Thank you, Mr. Reeve.

Some Thoughts On The Dark Knight Rises (contains spoilers)

(This post contains spoilers for The Dark Knight Rises. They’re fairly vague, but enough to ruin the movie if you haven’t seen it.

As a fan of DC Comics, and of Batman, The Dark Knight Rises (TDKR) has perhaps been my most anticipated film of 2012 – while I was looking forward to seeing whether or not Joss Whedon would pull off The Avengers (he did), TDKR was the big one, the one to which I had an emotional, fanboy connection.

Then came the massacre in Aurora, Colorado.

Christopher Nolan’s Batverse has often been bruised by real world tragedy – the death of Heath Ledger, Aurora – and that can’t help but read backwards into the films themselves. There’s a grim irony in Ledger’s Joker telling Batman that “You and I will be doing this forever”, and when characters in TDKR start firing assault rifles I inwardly winced, even though there’s no resemblance between that and Aurora. Maybe these things shouldn’t have an impact on the film, but they do.

But if that’s the case then maybe there’s a positive in it. One of the themes of TDKR is that of protectors – those who’d protect Gotham City and those who’d protect Bruce Wayne himself. The most heart-breaking scene in TDKR is when Alfred destroys his relationship with Bruce in an attempt to save the man he raised from self-destruction. Even Bane, the film’s main villain, is ultimately revealed to be the protector of another character. It’s moments like this that form the film’s emotional heart and a lot of TDKR‘s humanity comes from when characters act as protectors – heck, it’s a superhero film, that’s how it should be.

So when we’re thinking about the tragedies that have befallen the Nolan films, it’s within the context of wider stories. We can remember how Jarell Brooks, who saved a woman and her two children during the Aurora shooting, or Eric Hunter, who prevented the shooter from getting into an adjacent screen. Any debate about how art influences life needs to take into account these stories, not just the screwed-up story of a man who doesn’t know what colour the Joker’s hair is.

(No, I’m not going to mention the shooter’s name. He’ll get enough publicity, and if you want a tenuous link to the movie, the revelation of the true names of two characters changes the narrative. Maybe celebrating the names of those who tried to help will do something to shift the way in which we watch the news.)

Life’s messy though, with no easy answers, no simplistic solution to debates that have been raging for decades, even centuries. In art we can at least craft a narrative that gives us closure. TDKR is largely about escape – escaping destiny, shackles, prisons of the mind as much as physical spaces like Bane’s former jail or the sociological nightmare of Gotham. Giving Bruce Wayne a happy ending could be seen as wishful thinking – a character like that is almost doomed to not find real peace – but it works, because we want the guy to be happy for once, and because, thanks to their serial, ongoing nature, it’s never going to happen in the comics, and so we get some closure in the movies instead.

It also works because it’s in a trilogy that’s loved to fracture communities, Bruce’s happy ending extends to those around him, particularly Alfred and Catwoman. It’s a moment of healing when we didn’t think healing was possible. That’s important and significant and true.

I loved The Dark Knight Rises. After all, liberation and hard-won hope are powerful things. There’ll be a new cinematic Batman eventually, that’s almost inevitable, but that movie will have a tough act to follow. Maybe the filmmakers would do well to look at the true story of the Nolan/Bale movies – they’re not about ticking off a list of elements that was found in a DC Comics office somewhere, and they’re not about the real world tragedies that accompanied them. They’re about Batman and his world and, despite all the fantasy, showing how they’re still relevant.

Thank you, Mr. Nolan.

Watchmen Toasters. Seriously.

A few months ago, DC Comics announced Before Watchmen, a series of prequels to the classic graphic novel created by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. This sparked a number of debates, mainly around whether or not Watchmen actually needs this sort of follow-up, but also about creator rights (I blogged about it here, but long story short – I think Watchmen is a complete work in itself and so prequels are unnecessary, but if Moore can remix Dracula and The War of the Worlds into The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, then DC can play with Watchmen).

But if that wasn’t enough debate about the commercialisation of art, today has seen the announcement of the only kitchen appliance on earth powerful enough to make Alan Moore spontaneously combust. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, they’re making a Watchmen toaster.

Seriously.

Here’s an article on it.

Obviously it’s the very definition of selling out your artistic integrity, but it’s just so ridiculous that it actually becomes hilarious. In some ways it’s a scathing commentary on culture. I’d half be tempted to belief that it was done to deliberately wind up the sort of comic book fans who take things a little too seriously…

So, who’s up for clubbing together and buying Alan Moore a Watchmen toaster for his birthday?