Goodbye, Hello: Part 2

Welcome back to the list of things I will and won’t miss about Superman in the New 52. After last week’s looks at the various origins for Superman, this week, I’ll be focusing on two important parts of Superman’s extended family.

The Second Thing I’m Going To Miss About Superman In The New 52:

Ma and Pa Kent

I’ve never really understood why Superman needs to have lost one or both of his parents. My first introduction to Superman’s parents was through the series Lois and Clark (or The New Adventures of Superman, as it was titled in the UK). Whilst there was a large element of comic relief to their role in the series, they were a valuable part of Superman’s support network. They provided Clark with a refuge from Metropolis and being Superman.

When I first discovered that the Kents were not traditionally a huge part of Superman’s adult life, I couldn’t understand it. Having a place to go home to seemed so important, and having the Ma and Pa still alive gave Superman a reason to go home to Smallville regularly, allowing for greater variety in Superman’s life and his adventures.

They also added another emotional string to the books. In Superman #75, the page that tugs most on the heartstrings is the one showing Ma and Pa watching Superman in the final throes of his fight with Doomsday, unable to be with their son. It was a very small and human moment amongst the bombast and destruction.

In the back of the recent Action Comics #2, a reference was made to Superman being free from his parents as a reason for his hard-edged campaigns in Metropolis early on in his career. Whilst I’m sure this will lead to some interesting stories, I can only think of how this goes against everything we’ve read in the last 25 years, about a Superman whose loving parents helped him to learn to control his powers and to respect life above all else.

The Second Thing I’m Not Going To Miss About Superman In The New 52

Supergirl

(The Kara Zor-El incarnation.)

Supergirl was a mess. Introduced in a best-selling arc in Superman/Batman, the character’s solo title launched a few months before Infinite Crisis, and boy, it was not good. With Superman fans already upset at the cancellation of the Peter David-written Supergirl series to make way for a confusing and character-less plot device that bore almost no resemblance to anything that could have taken the name ‘Supergirl’ (Yes, Cir-El, I’m looking at you), DC then spectacularly dropped the ball by being unable to provide a purpose or direction for her across well over three years of books.

Was she an assassin sent from Krypton to kill Superman? A misguided super-powered teenager trying to cope with an entirely new society? What about being a hero-within-a-hero, protecting the bottle city of Kandor? No? OK, we can try Supergirl as a legend of the 21^st century marooned in the 31^st? (Actually, Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes was pretty damn good, one of the best uses of the One Year Later device. It was so good that it was barely mentioned again in Supergirl’s core title). What exactly was Superman’s relationship with her? Protecting uncle, concerned elder, or just plain embarrassed by this inconsistent, rebellious teen that burst out from a ship contained in a lump of kryptonite? Constantly rotating creative teams, barely hanging around for an entire story arc didn’t help either.

It wasn’t until Sterling Gates arrived on the book that Supergirl actually had something approaching a status quo, a supporting cast and a character. Taking underused elements of Superman’s supporting cast and using them to create a cast for Supergirl was a great move (yes, even Cat Grant, as the explanation for her behaviour, when it came, worked well). Supergirl also had a consistent relationship with Superman and, even better, a relationship-of-sorts with Lois. Best of all, Gates laid to one side the ‘dark Supergirl’ plots and worked hard to bring Supergirl into direct continuity with the core Superman books, continuing in this vein after New Krypton had ended.

Of course, as soon as he was gone, this was all undone. We were back to the rotating creative teams, and in Justice League of America, the dark Supergirl was back.

Supergirl #1 was too much of a setup issue to see which way the new creative team will take the character. I know I never want to see Supergirl in a black costume again, and I don’t want to see a character who is as painfully naïve as she was when she decided she was going to cure cancer. I want to see a strong but flawed character who not only justifies her own existence beyond ‘hey, we need to have Supergirl around’ but also who affects Superman. If the relaunched title can deliver this, then I see no reason why Kara Zor-El can’t become as strong a character as Matrix/Linda was in her own title.

Next on World of Superman: A change to our next issue, thanks to an editorial snafu (read: I counted wrong). Instead of seeing Superman fight a giant mummy, we’ll be meeting Jerry White, Jose Garcia and Bibbo Bibbowski for the first time! Hurrah! And next week, we’ll be back for the third instalment in this series of articles. See you then!

Goodbye, Hello: Part One

Let's be clear here: This is not a fill-in post because I haven't yet written anything for the next issue. Against all expectations (including mine!) I'm three issues ahead, eager to build a backlog of material before my awful retail-career eats up my life at some point in the next three months!


So, I don't know if you've heard, but DC have been having some changes lately. And by some changes, I mean throwing everything out of the window (unless you're Batman or a Green Lantern) and starting again from scratch. Being fans of Superman, we're pretty accustomed to this, having had, on average, a new origin or retelling every two years for the past decade. However, unlike those, this one is total and absolute, wiping out everything that has come before (including record breaking numbering) and starting fresh and anew.

So, as the second month of the relaunch kicks into gear (I've just finished reading Action Comics #2, and don't get me started on the story finishing just over halfway through the issue), I think that it's an appropriate moment to mourn the passing of five things that have made the last 25 years worth of Superman such a great read. Oh, and because it was never all great, we'll also wave goodbye to five turds that are finally being flushed into the sewers of hypertime.

So, without further ado, let's start at the very beginning,

Literally.

The First Thing I’m Going To Miss About Superman In The New 52

The Man Of Steel

I think, considering the raison d’etre for this blog, you could probably have guessed this one. For nearly 20 years, these six issues were the seed from which Superman and his comics grew. So much of what is now accepted as the standard Superman status quo was established here, from the Last Son of Krypton (no exceptions) to Superman’s shaky relationships with other heroes. But most of all, coming from an idea by Marv Wolfman, John Byrne gave us the ruthless businessman Lex Luthor, as seen in Smallville, Lois and Clark, and Superman: The Animated Series.

The structure of the series took us from before Kal-El’s birth to six years into his career when he discovered his origins. The statement at the very end of the series, where Superman reconciles his Kryptonian birth with his human upbringings is the most succinct and accurate summation of who Superman is. For years afterwards, writers would intertwine their stories involving Superman’s youth with these six issues. And whilst the name may have come from a Batman story, some of the most successful 1995 Year One annuals were carefully structured to occur in an around the events of this series.

As we’ll see below, the strength of the writing and the iconic nature of what was presented within was such that it took three attempts over nearly 10 years to establish a new origin for Superman, and not long after that series was completed, DC hit the big red button and started everything all over again. Officially, the Superman in Action Comics #904 and Superman #714 came from Secret Origin, but for most of us, he was the same person who landed the space-plane, who fought Bizarro and unexpectedly restored Lucy Lane’s sight, and who brought public embarrassment upon Lex Luthor when he frogmarched him to a police cell. He was our Superman, and we’ll miss him.

The First Thing I’m Not Going To Miss About Superman In The New 52

Birthright's Canonicity

Let’s be clear on one thing before we get going, as it’ll be many years before this appears in the blog. Birthright was not a bad series at all. In fact, faked-Kryptonian attack aside, it was pretty good. Mark Waid eschewed much of what is considered to be normal for a Superman origin story – Krypton’s destruction, growing up in Smallville, etc. – opting instead to start with Clark trying to make his way in the world, and bringing these elements in as the story progressed. Leinil Yu’s artwork was also noteworthy, strengthening as the series progressed and his style asserted itself.

No, what I have an issue with is DC’s reluctance to take a stand on wether or not we were reading the official new origin for Superman, even for years after the series had wrapped up.

If you were reading Superman comics at the time, then you’ll remember that it wasn’t until after the series had begun that DC first began talking about Birthright as a replacement origin for The Man of Steel. But they decided to be uncertain about this, stopping short of definitively stating this fact, despite elements of Birthright starting to appear in the comics. As Superman vol. 2 rolled towards #200, noise was made about the anniversary issue making a firm statement as to Birthright’s canonicity. At the end of that issue, following a fight with Braniac, Superman found himself journeying back to reality, but got distracted along the way when he saw Krypton. This was the moment that things changed, but the issue stopped short of saying that he was now attached to a new origin. Only the meagre back-matter, highlighting some of Leinil Yu’s Birthright designs, mentioned the series by name.

As a result, readers were left to wonder as to which origin would stand. The next two story arcs, Strange New Visitor and Godfall, wouldn’t involve the origin at all, and the next set of creative teams on the titles would again craft stories that took Superman forward, not looking back. Even when the multiverse returned and New Earth was formed, hints were given as to a new origin, but it took nearly four years for that origin to be presented to the readers.

There are plenty of things to argue about with Superman, but arguing which origin applies to him from 2003 onwards is an argument we shouldn’t have had to have. I’m very happy to finally not have this be an issue, and whatever changes come to Superman’s origin in the new 52, my only wish is that there is consistency.

Next on World of Superman: Come back Sunday for the continuing coverage of the post-Crisis Superman's life, and at some point in the middle of next week, we'll be taking a look at number two on both lists.

And don't forget to check out the latest episode of the 20 Minute Longbox, taking a look at Superman/Shazam: First Thunder #2!