Women and (super)Men

Let's try to take a look at Action Comics #1 (the 1938 one, not the New 52 one) from a feminist perspective, and see what we come up with.

The first thing to note, of course, is that Superman is gendered.  That might seem like a stupid thing to point out; of course Superman is gendered. Isn't everyone?  There's no such thing as a gender-neutral person, is there?  But there are two important things to notice here.  Firstly, the division of all of humanity into one of two gender categories is not necessarily as obvious as it may seem--we'll leave that point to the side for now--but secondly, there's no reason that the "man" part of Superman has to be there.  Superman has had such an influence on superhero nomenclature (Batman, Spider-man, Aquaman, Hawkman, Plastic Man, Iron Man, Ant-Man, Giant-Man, X-Men, not to mention Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Hawkgirl, Power Girl, etc) that we can easily forget that there's no inherent reason why a superhero's name needs to be gendered.  But Superman is not just a super person, he's a super MAN, and it is implicit in his identity from the beginning that whatever else he is he is a figure of idealized hyper-masculinity.

Superman's first real appearance in the comic (real appearance as opposed to a brief expositional flashback) shows him carrying a woman who has been bound and gagged.  The gender politics of that first image should be clear, the (super)man is in motion and has full agency, while the woman is completely powerless.  We later learn that this bound woman is a "murderess," and Superman's hurry here is to convince the governor to pardon an innocent woman who is about to be executed in favour of having this blonde woman arrested.

A few pages later Superman has a second--indirect--interaction with a woman.  Clark Kent, in his role as a reporter, has been called to report on "a phoned tip" of "a wife-beating."  He arrives as Superman:

The paradigm set up here is of woman as either criminal or victim.  Although it is true that Superhero comics tend to be populated with many criminals and victims in general, by this point in the comic we have seen sixteen male figures of whom one is a criminal and four female figures of whom two were victims and one was a criminal. Women here mostly conform to the "damsels in distress" trope, and they exist fundamentally so that the figure of hypermasculinity will have someone appropriately weak to rescue.

Lois Lane is both a famous example of this tendency in Superman comics and also a subversion of it.  On one hand here and for much of her presence in Superman stories in all media Lois is Superman's built-in damsel-in-distress.

On the other hand Lois' character is, even in this first outing, a more developed character than are the other damsels/victims, and her relationship to Clark/Superman is not limited to being rescued.  Lois is one of the vertices of a love triangle between Lois, Clark, and Superman.  Clark loves Lois, but she spurns him. Lois loves Superman.  In this first comic the love triangle is barely developed--certainly Lois' affection for Superman is not yet established.  But here is what we do see:

Lois is established here as symbolic of an unattainable woman.  Clark pursues her--and the "for once" line lets us know that he makes a habit of it--but he is usually ineffective.  She's cold and aloof yet desirable, and while we might say that this is partly because she is not a human character but an object Clark wishes to possess, we might also note that she is given real agency and a real personality here.

Lois avoids Clark because he's a coward, and we see here that Lois' strength is one of the things Clark admires about her.  The preoccupation with strength is a theme in Superman comics, especially as created by Siegel and Shuster.  The emphasis on strength is part of an emphasis on masculinity, and Siegel and Shuster define manliness as strength.

And there you have it: a preliminary examination of some of the gender politics in Action Comics #1; a feminist reading of Superman.

The Myth of Superman (no, not THAT "Myth of Superman")

The title of this post is a reference to an essay by Umberto Eco entitled "The Myth of Superman".  I write about Eco's essay here.

Like a psychoanalytic reading, a mythological or archetypal reading of a text is content-based.  And like psychoanalytic readings, mythological/archetypal readings are typically preoccupied with symbolism.  Rather than being concerned with psychology--with the workings of a mind--however, mythological readings are concerned with mass-psychology--with the collective imaginings of all people.  And though mythological/archetypal readings have in the past made a claim to account for all people, many critics now argue that archetypes are culturally bound, so when archetypal critics talk about "all people" they often really mean "all people who share our culture".  On the other hand, given the effects of globalization and the ease with which cultural/mythological/archetypal ideas spread,  there's a good case to be made that all cultures have interacted with all others to at least some degree.

In any case.  Mythological/archetypal readings are also reminiscent of some kinds of structuralist criticism, because both often appeal to archetypal narrative elements like "the hero".  In these terms, Superman seems particularly easy to read.  Superman is the hero.  He is an archetypal representative of masculine strength.
Clark Kent is both an archetypal representative of the hero's weakness and also of the Jungian "persona", emphasizing that the face we show to the world is not the same as our "self".

Definitely two different selves.

This, by the way, is the answer to the commenter on the Marxist post who pointed out that Superman's boss is only a cover, that Clark is not really allied with the proletariat because his "boss" has no real authority over him. That's definitely true.

On the other hand, part of the point of Superman is that the self is divided. Debates about whether Clark or Superman (or Bruce or Batman) is the "real" identity miss the mythological resonance that makes the secret identity such a compelling narrative archetype.

Superman: Marxist.

Though it is true that Superman has been portrayed as a communist in at least one story, you should not understand "Marxist" as "communist".  Marx was, in Foucault's terms, the founder of a discourse.  He was the first to write from a certain perspective, and everyone who writes from the same perspective--even if it is to discredit Marx--is writing within the discourse of Marxism.  When we're thinking about literature, any time we focus on class, or economics, we're reading from a Marxist perspective.

That said, there are implicit class positions in Superman comics.  Grant Morrison once said in an interview that "Bruce has a butler, Clark has a boss".  In his earliest incarnations, Superman continually and predictably fights against the powerful on behalf of the weak; against the rich on behalf of the poor.  In one of his first appearances, in Action Comics #3, Superman rescues some trapped miners, then threatens the owner until he provides better conditions and pay for the miners.  In Action Comics #8, he destroys the slums of Metropolis to force the government to rebuild them.  I wrote each of these stories in a previous blog post, and I bring them up again now to stress that Superman, in his original inception, was explicitly concerned with class.

The Superman of the Silver Age (see this post for more on the "ages"), as Eco points out in his essay "The Myth of Superman", fought mostly for the protection of property.  Superman, whose power in the Silver Age was such that he could (and did) easily crush coal into diamonds, and search the bottom of the sea to find sunken treasure.  In other words, he was removed from the need for capital, but protected the capital of others.  In contrast to Action Comics #8, the Superman of the Silver Age does nothing to change society, but instead works carefully to uphold it.

We can read any individual Superman comic through a Marxist lens, and find that the subtext changes dramatically depending on the writer and on the editor, on the political atmosphere of the time.  I think that if we read Superman in general, however--if we focus on the parts of Superman that remain the same and on the impetus for the character--we'll find what in theological terms we call "a preferential option for the poor".  I think Superman is fundamentally a conflicted character.  He does uphold the status quo despite the fact that he has the power to change it.  But Clark Kent doesn't have a butler, he has a boss.

Man and Superman

Formalism and structuralism both focus on the work of art as an object independent from the people or the world that created them.  But plenty of kinds of criticism does care about things outside the work of art as an artifact.  The biography of the authors, the historical moment out of which the work arose, the influences upon the work and its influences on other works, all of these focus outside the work itself.

Superman arose out of a specific historical moment.

As you may know, Superman was created by artist Joe Shuster and writer Jerry Siegel.  In 1938, when the first Superman comic was published in Action Comics #1, Siegel and Shuster were both 24 years old, and they'd been working together on Superman for at least five years.  Their first published Superman work was their short story "The Reign of the Superman", published in a 1933 fanzine.  That original story featured a bald "Superman" bent on world domination: recognizable now as an early version of the Ultra-Humanite, who was himself an early version of Lex Luthor.

The origin of the name "Superman" is up for debate, but in the 1930s there was another historical movement using the same term.  Adolph Hitler (who became chancellor of Germany in 1933) was strongly influenced by his reading of Nietzsche and by the idea of the Ubermensch, which in English translations of the day was given as "Superman".  Hitler considered himself to be the Superman, who by strength of will could, and SHOULD, overcome lesser men and exert his power.  Hitler, of course, applied Nietzsche's ideas along racial lines, and considered the Arians to be a race of Supermen, who would use their will to dominate lesser races.

Siegel and Shuster, Harry Donenfeld, Jack S. Liebowitz, Sheldon Mayer, (not to mention Bob Kane, Will Eisner, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee) were all Jewish.  Though Siegel has said that he never read Nietzsche and he wasn't thinking of Hitler, in 1938 a Jewish-American community created and published a story about a dark-haired alien* Superman who used his power not to dominate but to protect the weak, and who exerted his power on behalf of so-called "lesser men".  Superman's first acts in the comics include saving a woman wrongly accused of murder, stopping a man from beating his wife.  Whether his creators intended him to be such or not, then, Superman is a direct refutation of the Nazi idea of the Ubermensch.

*We should understand "alien" not only as a science-fiction designation, but as a racial one. Superman is defined as an outsider.  He's not an Arian, but he's not Jewish either, exactly. He's a stranger in a strange land--though that is itself a designation that has often historically been adopted by or thrust upon Jewish people.

Structuralist Superman Strikes Again!

One of the tendencies of structuralism that I didn't represent last time is the tendency to diagram and analyse. Structuralism aims toward a more "scientific" approach to literary analysis, and so it sometimes expresses the structure of a story in terms of an algebra of story elements. For example, we could say B means "male protagonist" and G means "female protagonist", + is for a meeting, # is for a conflict * is for a resolution, and (M) is for a marriage. Then if we write

B+G(B#GB*GB(M)G

We are describing an awful lot of stories, and we can clearly see how the structure is the same.

We can do that with Action Comics 1.

First we make an key of algebraic substitutions.

0=Origin Story
R=Superman rescues someone
T=Superman threatens someone
t=someone threatens Superman
c=Superman as Clark Kent
w=Clark feigns weakness
l=Lois snubs Clark

Then Action Comics 1 is:

OTtTRcTtRcwlTRclT

Presented like this we can see patterns (for example, the Rc pattern that means Superman appears as Clark Kent right after rescuing somone, or the prominence of T showing that Superman threatens more than he either is threatened or rescues). I we were so inclined we could also compare this story with others, and by changing the characters' names into generic terms (like hero) we could compare this structure with any other story.

Superstructure*

Unlike the formalist reading, a structuralist reading really can be of Superman in general, not just of one specific comic.  Structuralism, as the name suggests, looks at the structure of ... whatever.  You can do structuralist readings of single texts or of entire genres, of language or of culture.  Anything that is organized or patterned is fair game for structuralism.

Let's start by looking at the central characters.  Superman is a hero, Lois Lane is a princess (the object of the hero's desire), Lex Luthor/Brainiac/Metallo/Etc is a villain, Jor-El is a mentor.  All of these characters fit their structural roles in a usually uncomplicated way.  A structuralist reading would suggest that these are roles or functions filled in every narrative.

Superman stories have not followed the same structure throughout the existence of the character, but there are in general three kinds of Superman stories:

1) Superman intervenes to prevent some threat upon another character.  Superman is rarely under any direct threat in this kind of story.  The tension comes from the possibility that Superman will fail in his purpose, rather than the possibility that he will suffer any physical harm.  This is partly a threat of identity, because if he fails then he is not the hero.  This kind of story is typical of the Golden Age.
2) Superman's secret identity is in jeopardy.  Again, Superman is rarely in physical danger, but the tension here is more personally connected to the character, since his identity is in danger.  This kind of story is also a threat to the continued narrative.  Part of the tension comes from the threat that Superman's identity will be exposed and that therefore there will be no more stories.  This kind of story is typical of the Silver Age.
3) Superman is under some direct threat.  Again the tension comes partly from the threat of conclusion--the threat that this will be the last Superman story.  This kind of story is typical of the Bronze Age, where the drastic reduction of Superman's powers meant that he could be seriously threatened.

There's a lot more to do with structuralism--a lot of what gets said about superheroes is structuralist in its slant--but I'm going to let it rest here because I've been heard some feedback saying that my posts tend to be to long.  I'll do another structuralist post next, and then move on to ... I'm not sure yet.  Poststructuralism?  Deconstruction?

*Superstructure is a term from Marxist theory, but this post is actually about structuralism.  In Superman.  It's a pun, get it?

A Formalist Reading of Superman

For the next few posts I'm going to be talking about Superman using some of the major schools of literary theory from the past century or so.  I'm not going to be doing anything in depth, just a little taste.  Hopefully this will be both interesting as a few different ways of looking at Superman, and also as primer on literary theory for those of you who care about such things.  First up: formalism.

Formalist analysis, as the name implies, is centrally concerned with form.  The form of the art is the important part.  This means disregarding the historical context, the stated intention of the author, the emotional response of the reader.  The meaning of a text is equivalent to its form; as we describe and analyse its form we are also describing its meaning.

Strict literary formalism would object immediately to an attempt to do a formalist reading of a comic book, because its form is not the same as literature, and from a formalist perspective that is crucial.  Formalism is a type of criticism that might be concerned with distinguishing literary writing from other writing, and also with literary genres.  But I'm not going to be strict.

On one hand, it doesn't really make sense to talk about a formalist reading of Superman.  Formalism stresses close reading, and emphasizes the text as a complete, internally coherent, hermetically sealed package.  So a formalist reading of Superman would require that we read every Superman comic ever written, and consider it as a single work of art.  Strangely, then, though a formalist reading doesn't really make sense on one hand, it is what many fans and also many editors of comics try to do.  It's a formalist impulse that makes retcons necessary, because it is a formalist impulse that tries to read Superman comics as a single coherent, continuous narrative.

For all these literary theory posts, my go-to text will be Siegel and Schuster's Action Comics #1--mostly because the different ways of reading will be more interesting if I keep going back to the same story.

So let's a few sections of Action Comics #1:

Aside from a full-page backstory establishing who Superman is and what exactly his powers are, this is the beginning of Superman as a character.  In plot terms, then, this is the beginning, and beginnings are important both in that they set the tone for what follows, and in that they are memorable.  The first line of this story: "A tireless figure races thru the night.  Seconds count ... delay means forfeiture of an innocent life."  This establishes the stakes of the action of the tireless figure, as well as establishing mystery about that figure.  The text also immediately makes certain establishing notes about the character of the tireless figure.  He is motivated by the need to save an innocent life.  He holds a bound woman, and we might infer, even from this first panel, that he intends her some kind of harm.  Since the introductory page tells us beforehand that the figure is Superman and that he is beneficent, we might deduce that he is bringing the woman to be punished for a crime (and in fact we later learn that she is a murderer), but the caption tells us that his motivation is not the punishing of the guilty but the defense of the innocent.

The fact that the opening happens at night, as well as the fact that Superman is not named in this panel (or at all on the first two pages) and finally the fact that he is carrying a bound and gagged woman establishes him as both mysterious and threatening, even as the caption establishes his motivation as benevolent.  So there is some tension suggested here between the direct and the indirect characterization.

In terms of plot, there is virtually no exposition given here.  The page that precedes this one is expository in that it gives a background of Superman's powers and origin, but it does not tie in at all to the blond woman.  The storyline begins in media res, and we're never given the full backstory.  This is in keeping with the breathless, frenetic pace of the story, and the pacing of the plot is parallel to the emotional state of the central character.

A few panels later, on the same page, we have this interaction:

There are three separate conflicts being developed in this first page: the race against time is a conflict between Superman and himself, in that he must be fast enough to succeed.  The conflict presented here explicitly is a conflict between Superman and the governor's butler.  Finally, the Butler's remark that this is illegal entry sets up a conflict between Superman and society.  He is working within the law in that he is bringing information to the governor in hopes of securing a pardon rather than simply breaking the innocent woman free by force--but he is also established as working outside the law, not just in the sense that he is not officially mandated, but in that he shows an active disregard for certain laws.

I think that's enough for now.  I could go on, but I think what I've already done gives an idea of how a formalist reading helps to understand the characterization of Superman and the themes initially suggested.  Next: Structuralism

Best Superman Movie of the Decade ...

... and it's less than a minute long.

 

It's not a comic, but I wanted to share anyway.

Must-Read Superman: Golden Age Edition

In an earlier post I gave a list of 10 must-read Superman stories. A commenter complained that my list was too heavily weighted toward the '80s and later, and I promised to make ammends. With that in mind, I have decided to make a list of must-read Golden Age Superman. For a more in-depth explanation of the "ages", see my post here, but for now let's suffice to say that "Golden Age Superman" means pre-1956.  In fact, the comics I'm talking about here are from an even more limited time frame -- all of them are from Superman's first year, in from June 1938 to June 1939, as Siegel and Shuster were still finding their feet and defining their character.  If you want to know Superman, it's good to know where he's come from.

1. Action Comics #1: "Superman, Champion of the Oppressed!"

The first appearance of Superman, written by Jerry Siegel and illustrated by Joe Shuster.  This story would be mostly re-printed in the summer of 1939 in Superman #1, with slightly less abridgement of Siegel's original script (and therefore a slightly more comprehensible beginning).  The first appearance of Superman is almost frenetic in its energy, as Superman runs from one situation to another, rescuing a woman wrongly accused of murder, threatening a wife-beater ("you're not fighting a woman NOW!") rescuing Lois from a spurned suiter-turned-kidnapper, and exposing a corrupt senator, all within 10 pages of story.  This story sets the tone for Superman, and for superhero comics in general.  The Superman of Action Comics 1 is never in any personal danger, but instead races about protecting the weak.



2 and 3. Action Comics #3 and Action Comics #4: "The Blakely Mine Disaster" and "Superman Plays Football"

In addition to reprinting (and concluding) the story from Action Comics #1, Superman #1 includes two other stories, originally printed as Action Comics #3 and Action Comics #4.  Though they are separate issues, I'm going to talk about them together because both are unusual for future Superman stories in that they feature Superman adopting a disguise other than Clark Kent -- and using his super powers while in disguise.  In the first story, Superman disguises himself as a miner to rescue some miner trapped by a cave-in, then strong-arms the mine owner into having a better safety and worker's compensation policy.  The second story features Superman in disguise as a football player, to even-up a rigged game.  These stories are wonderful firstly for their oddness, but secondly for establishing the character of the Golden Age Superman.  This Superman stands for the kind of justice that means mine owners pay to take care of their injured employees, and the kind of truth that means embarrassing a cheating football coach.

4. Action Comics #8: "Superman in the Slums"

Action Comics #8 represents an (impermanent) change in Superman's M.O.  Superman becomes convinced that a group of juvenile delinquents in Metropolis are the product of their environment, and proceeds to destroy the slum neighbourhoods so that the government will rebuild them.   Superman always was and always will be at least partly an exercise in wish-fulfilment, but in this issue those wishes are suddenly redirected from a wish for an invulnerability to a wish for a better society.  It is (as almost all of Jerry Siegel's early work is) fast-paced to the point of thoughtlessness, but filled with both pathos and energy.  The story would be followed immediately by several more stories in which Superman acts not as a grand upholder of the status-quo nor as a single vigilante but as a violent champion for social change.  In future stories he destroys cars to help the city's traffic problems and works for prison reform.  Whether you agree with Siegel and Shuster's politics or not, this comic is well worth reading as the beginning of a political Superman.

5. Action Comics #13: "Superman Vs. The Cab Protective League"

Action Comics 13, written by Jerry Siegel and illustrated by Joe Shuster, features the first appearance of a supervillain for Superman -- the Ultra-Humanite, who is conceived as Superman's diametric opposite.  The Ultra-Humanite is a physically crippled genius bent on world-domination, and in retrospect is clearly a prototype for Lex Luthor, by whom he was soon replaced as Superman's arch-nemesis.  The appearance of the Ultra-Humanite in Action Comics 13 represents another impermanent shift in Superman comics, and Superman stories have continued to shift to and from a focus on supervillains.

If you're looking to read these comics, or other Golden Age Superman, the Superman Archives series or the Superman Chronicles series are good places to start.

No love for old Superman?

In my post about 10 must read Superman comics I included only three comics from prior to 1986.  Since Superman was first published in 1938, that means that I focussed on one third of the publication history to the near-exclusion of the other two-thirds.  Why is that?  Do I think the most recent comics are simply better?  Even if I do, I said that what I was providing was a list of must-read Superman comics, not a list of the best.  How can I make that claim while skewing so heavily to the most recent comics?

There are a few good answers to these questions -- one of which is simply that there are, as Chuck pointed out in the comments of that post, thousands of back issues of Action Comics, Superman, Adventures of Superman, Man of Steel, Man of Tomorrow, JLA, Superman/Batman, World's Finest, etc.  I haven't read them all.  I'm working on it, but I'm not done yet.  So I speak only from my own experience, about books or stories I've read myself.

More importantly, for a long time the trend in Superman comics (and in DC comics in general) was for each issue to be essentially a stand-alone story.  There were continuing themes, recurring characters, and occasionally ongoing plots, but in general each issue stood alone.  This has two ramifications to a reader in 2010.  Firstly, the earlier comics didn't have the space or the time to develop an easily consumable story the way they do in the most memorable stories now -- the stories that get republished as trade paperbacks.  That doesn't necessarily mean that the stories then didn't have the pathos or narrative weight that more recent stories have, but it means that they are easier to think of as either smaller or larger units.  Many earlier comics are more like episodes than stories.  So I can say "read the original  Siegel and Shuster Superman" but even choosing Action Comics 1 seems like it is selling the story short.  Action Comics 1 ends on a cliffhanger.

The second ramification for a reader in 2010 is the result of the first.  The way early Superman comics were written and were originally published affects the way they are republished today.  If I want to read the first Superman comics -- the first stories, as written by Jerry Siegel and drawn by Joe Shuster -- I have a few options.  I can read it online, by hunting for the comics one by one and hoping to find them all; or I can buy Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told, Superman Archives, Volume 1, Superman Chronicles, Vol. 1, Superman in the Forties, and probably some others I don't know about.  Though any and all of these are worth buying, they're all anthologies rather than stories the way something like Superman for All Seasons is.  They're more like collections of short stories than they are like novels or short stories themselves.  And that is fine, but it means that for a 21st century reader comics from the late 80s and after are more likely to be packaged as a single easily digestible story.

All of that said, I think I did shortchange earlier comics in my previous list and I'll do my best to rectify that shortly.  Also coming up soon, and explanation of the "ages" (Golden, Silver, etc.) of comics, and a reflection on continuity in comics and its relation to Orality and Literacy.  Stay tuned.

10 Must-Read Superman Stories

I suggested in an earlier post that Superman is where we should start to talk about superheroes.  But where should we start with Superman?  I will be writing about Superman for the next few posts, but what primary sources should we go to?  Here I present my pick of 10 must-read Superman stories, some of which are chosen for their representative or historic nature rather than their high quality.  So these aren't the best Superman stories necessarily.  They're the stories that I think define the character.  So here we go, in chronological order.

10. Action Comics #1 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster

The first appearance of Superman, written by Jerry Siegel and illustrated by Joe Shuster.  This isn't necessarily Shuster and Siegel's best work (the story starts abruptly and confusingly), but it is a fast-paced and funny introduction to the iconic hero. The Golden Age Superman is missing a lot of what we think of as iconic now -- he can't fly, and he's a reckless vigilante -- but he's still a Superman who fights for the little guy and hates bullies.  Most importantly, this is where it all started.

9. "The Lady and the Lion" (Action Comics Aug.No.243) by Otto Binder and Wayne Boring

The Silver Age saw Superman with vastly expanded powers, and virtually no threats. Most of this era features Superman trying to protect his secret identity and evade Lois' feminine wiles. This era also features complete off-the-wall wackiness, as in this story where Circe (yes, the one from the Odyssey) turns Superman into a half-lion. Will Lois love him even when he has the head of a lion? Yes. Yes she will.

8. "Kryptonite No More" (Superman #233) by Denny O'Neil, Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson

This story is the first part of an eventual attempt by Denny O'Neil to scale back Superman's powers -- an attempt that would be soon undone by the next writers. In this story Clark Kent becomes a tv anchorman, and develops an immunity to kryptonite. The Bronze Age Superman may not have been quite as wacky as the Silver Age, but Superman taunting a would-be robber by eating a chunk of kryptonite is a strange and wonderful event.

7. Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

In 1986 the powers-that-be decided to revamp Superman. They ended Superman comics, to begin again as if from the beginning. Writer Alan Moore famously (and possibly apocrophally) grabbed editor Julie Shwartz by the throat, threw him up against a wall and told him he would kill him if he gave the writing job to anyone else. The resulting comic is a beautiful send-off for the Silver/Bronze Age Superman, one in which all of Superman's villains finally do the horrible things they've always threatened to do, and kill Superman. Or do they? *wink*

6. Superman: The Man of Steel By John Byrne

Following Moore's ending, John Byrne had the job of beginning again. His run on Superman features a much less powerful Superman and a much more powerful Clark Kent. After the excess and clutter of the Silver Age, Byrne's Superman feels like a breath of fresh air. There's no Superboy, no Krypto the Wonder Dog, and no red kryptonite or gold kryptonite. This simplicity, however, comes at the expense of a lot of the humour, fun, and fantasy of the earlier eras.

5. The Death And Return of Superman by Dan Jurgens and others

The Death of Superman is a mess. The art is almost unreadably cluttered, and the lack of fun that began with Byrne has by this time become overwrought melodrama. It is, however, a momentous event in comics history, culminating in the ill-advised but fascinating Superman Blue/Superman Red. I consider this to be one of the most interesting eras of Superman, because it demonstrates the disconnect between the official control of the character and the existence of the character in oral tradition. But I digress.

4. Superman: For All Seasons by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale

Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale are a very talented comics team, and this is some of their best work. Examining Superman's early days through a metephor of the four seasons, this is a beautifully drawn, wonderfully written book that captures what I take to be core of Superman.

3. Superman: Birthright by Mark Waid, Leinil Francis Yu and Gerry Analguilan

Written by Mark Waid, with pencils by Leinil Fracis Yu and inks by Gerry Analguilan, Superman: Birthright is one of dozens of retellings of Superman's origin story, and it stands out.  Beautifully drafted and illustrated, it is an unironic and idealistic portrayal of the flying strongman.

2. "Angels" (Superman #659) by Kurt Busiek, Fabien Niceza, Peter Vale and Jesus Merino

Collected in the trade paperback Superman Redemption, which has low- as well as high-points, "Angels" is a great modern example of a single-issue. Kurt Busiek's run on Superman was a favourite of mine, and "Angels" is his attempt to address the problem of pain in the DC universe.  If Superman is so powerful, why does anyone in the DC universe suffer?  If Superman can see us and hear us and protect us from evil, how is he not God, or at least an angel?  This issue, written by Kurt Busiek and Fabian Nicieza, pencilled by Peter Vale and inked by Jesus Merino is a great example of how good a single issue of a Superman comic can be.

1. All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely

This two-volume story written by Grant Morrison is frequently lauded as the best Superman story ever told.   Like Moore's Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? Morrison's All-Star Superman is essentially a story about the death of the Silver Age Superman, but it is now told with the perspective that allows Morrison to celebrate the best parts of the Silver Age while quietly ignoring the worst. Morrison's Superman is supremely powerful, unerringly good, and a lot of fun.  

Wherefore art thou Superman?

I'm back, and I'm going to talk about Superman now.  Okay go.

In an earlier post I made the contestable claim that comics "did not begin to come into their own until the advent of Superman".  There's a historical argument to be made in support of this claim--particularly if we are talking about comics as an industry, but even if we are talking about a socio-cultural artifact.

Maybe in some future post I'll give a more robust history of Superman and his place in the early comic book industry, but suffice for now to say that Superman is the prototype of superhero comics.

I'll suggest that what we call "comics" can be generally divided into four categories: mainstream comic books; indie, or underground, "comix"; comic strips; and web comics.  What all of these have in common is their employment of juxtaposed art, but from a cultural and especially a commercial/industry perspective, the four categories are quite different from one another.  Mainstream comic books, of which DC and Marvel are the two main publishers, have been and continue to be dominated by the genre of superheroes, of which Superman was the first.  Superman is the reason why comics and superheroes are associated with one another.

Though fans of superheroes may (and do) argue with each other about who is the "best", and Superman is often dismissed as boring, Superman is the standard against which all other superheroes deviate.  This is true partly because Superman was literally the first superhero, and many of the first superheroes are or were blatant imitations, but also because Superman's popularity and longevity mean that he is deeply iconic.  Although his character is almost as old and his legacy as established as Superman's Batman is a non-standard superhero to the degree that he deviates from the type as established by Superman.  A dark hero without superpowers is perceived as unusual despite the number of Batman imitations that exits only because is it different from Superman, who is the rule.  This is why Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns imagines Superman upholding the status-quo.  Not because Superman as a character necessarily upholds the political status-quo but because Superman is the embodiment of the standard of superheroes against which Miller wants to define his Batman.

So when Alan Moore writes a deconstruction of superheroes, in Watchmen or in The Saga of the Swamp Thing or in the less well-known-but-worth-reading Supreme, he is deconstructing Superman -- writing Dr. Manhattan or Supereme or Miracleman (for which I have no link since it is out of print) as a counterpoint to and a commentary upon Superman.    The same is true of Grant Morrison's classic run on Animal Man, or of Mark Waid's Irredeemable and Incorruptible, or of Robert Kirkman's Invincible.  All of these are meditations on superherodom, and therefore they are meditations on Superman.  The same is true of Spider-Man, of Batman, of the X-Men, of Wonder Woman, of every superhero dark or idealistic, male or female, earnest or ironic.

So whether Superman is an particular reader's cup of superhero flavoured tea, (and incidently I do like Superman) he is the standard against which all other superheroes -- implicitly or explicitly -- are judged; both by readers and by writers.  If that is true, then for any kind of systematic or rigourous examination of superheroes as a genre we must begin with Superman.