Look! Up in the Sky...
I’ve been prompted by a friend of mine to once again discuss why Superman means so much to me, and why Superman Returns affected me so. My first impulse was to say: bite me I’ve discussed it to death in my LiveJournal, dig through old posts if you care so much. But then I thought about it for a moment or so… there are in fact so few things I love discussing as much as the twenty plus year journey I’ve taken with the Man of Steel. So here goes, once more with feeling:
In our last installment we learned of a child’s love for Superman, but then again I was a child of the eighties and how many of us didn’t grow up watching the Christopher Reeve films? In this installment we’ll dig a little deeper, looking instead to the comic’s medium where Superman’s strange journey began almost seventy years ago.
1988. The 50th anniversary of Superman. The year my involvement really began. I remember it relatively clearly; I was scheduled for oral surgery early that morning but my flu like symptoms prompted the oral surgeon to send me home. Apparently they won’t take out your incisors if you’ve got the flu, so bonus for me.
On the way home from DePaul hospital that morning my father decided that to make me feel better we’d stop at 7-11 where he’d purchase me a slurpee. Odd how both of these first two explorations of my personal attachment to the Man of Steel involve 7-11 Slurpee’s.
So we’re in the 7-11 on Tidewater Drive, right next door to Big Tony’s Pizzeria neither of which is still on Tidewater Drive in Norfolk Virginia. My father has my slurpee in his hand and is scouring the cooler trying to find the perfect soda for him; I’m off to the side of the store digging through the Archie rack. Those only slightly younger than I may or may not even remember Archie rack’s so I’ll fill you in. Until about 1990 every 7-11 sold comic books, Marvel, DC, and Archie comics all rested on a spinner rack much like the ones you’ll find housing comic books in Waldenbooks stores today. Since these spinner racks were sponsored by Archie comics, they were called Archie racks. After 1990, the number of 7-11’s that sold comics dwindles and those few stores that still did began just mixing the comics in with the magazines.
I wasn’t much of a comic’s reader at that point, my brother was and we would often go to Trilogy comic book shop to purchase his books but I rarely ever got anything myself. But there I was coughing and wheezing and staring at the Archie rack when a Superman cover caught my eye. On the cover Superman stood facing away from the audience, looking over his shoulder with a sign taped to his back that read: “Kick Me HARD!” I know that it was Superman #16, and I’m fairly certain it was the first modern appearance of Mister Mxyzptlk (pronounced Mix-yes-pittle-ick.)
Seeing my interest, Dad bought it for me, and many more after it. What I read in those pages was so vastly different that what I knew of the character from the movies that it immediately captured my imagination. This wasn’t a Superman who acted nebbishly and foolish while dressed in Clark Kent gear, he was just as confident in the suit as out of it. This was a Superman who flew home to have dinner with his parents in Kansas, that’s right: Parents. Johnathan Kent was still alive and was this kindly man who reminded me a great deal of Superman.
At eight years old I’d figured out this great thing, Superman wasn’t Superman because Jor-El told him to be… he was Superman because he CHOSE to be. And it wasn’t because of his vast powers that he chose to be the defender of humanity, it was because of the way that Johnathan and Martha Kent had raised him. This new version of Superman had put the “man” back into the mythos. And so I read on, week after week.
I marveled at his adventures, mused over his powers and loved every single second of it. I was stunned when he asked Lois to marry him and then ripped open his shirt to show her that he was Superman. But what I loved most about it was that it wasn’t Superman who courted Lois Lane, it was Clark Kent. And that Lois fell in love with Clark, although to a reader of the modern age version of the character there is no difference. Clark is Clark whether he’s on the farm with his adoptive parents, at the Daily Planet or trading punch for punch with Metallo.
But it wasn’t just Superman who’d been re-invented in John Byrne’s 1986 re-launch; Lex Luthor had been as well. This Lex was a corporate tycoon who built himself the second largest fortune in the world, and then used that fortune to buy up most of Metropolis itself. He did not do this to be altruistic, but to ensure that everyone in the city would look up to him. And then he made that literal, in the dead center of Metropolis Luthor built the home of his empire: LexCorp Tower. In the shape of a giant L this building reached higher than any other building in the whole of the city so that everyone had to look up toward Lex Luthor.
Superman however took all of that away from him. Not literally, he was still the second wealthiest man in the world (Bruce Wayne is the first.) But when Superman burst onto the scene, he was adored and worshipped and everyone forgot about how great Lex Luthor was. This person had come from out of nowhere and usurped Lex’s place as the most beloved citizen of Metropolis. Lex was more than a little hurt, but what made his black heart all the blacker was that this Man of Tomorrow was an alien… and so Lex’s hatred grew.
And then in the 1992 Superman died. He fought this great behemoth known as Doomsday and wasted every last ounce of life he had in ensuring that this creature didn’t destroy Metropolis. The last we saw of him was a broken and bloodied Superman with his suit in tatters cradled in the arms of his fiancé… his head hanging back limply, lifelessly. It felt real, and it felt final.
It made real newspapers and news broadcasts. On WVEC Channel 13 here in Hampton Roads the newscaster said: “Today Superman is dead. He died defending Metropolis from a creature known as Doomsday. In unrelated news, Clark Kent is missing.”
Of course he didn’t really die, he’s a giant solar battery and he’d just drained all of his charge except for just enough to keep himself comatose. And eventually he became pure energy, was returned to normal once more, and after almost sixty years Clark Kent finally married Lois Lane.
This more humanistic approach to The Man of Tomorrow was enough to keep me enthralled through good times and bad, and I found that while kids my age were traveling through Moria with Frodo… I was walking the streets of Metropolis with Clark Kent. This was a Superman for my generation, a Superman I could get behind. I even had a letter to the editor printed in a horrible issue featuring vampires, which was until being on the set of Jersey Girl with Kevin Smith was one of the highlights of my geek-life.
I don’t collect anymore, I most times just leaf through the comics at Waldens or Barnes and Noble… but this is primarily a monetary issue not a quality issue. Once I moved into my own place in 2001, it became increasingly more difficult to justify the continued expenditure. Finally I just gave in and ceased buying comics.
I’m tempted more often than not to ride on up to Trilogy and start up again, but I’ve been away too long. But someday, like Superman after his joust with Doomsday, I’ll return to the books that have brought me so many hours of joy.
And that’s why Superman continued to be important to me long after Christopher Reeve was no longer whooshing around on the screen before me. In our next installment, I’ll discuss how a mild mannered actor turned into a real Super Man and how Superman’s place on television fueled my vast love for the character.
A Baldy goes to the best reply to this post. (Extra points if you’ve ever actually SEEN a baldy.)
In our last installment we learned of a child’s love for Superman, but then again I was a child of the eighties and how many of us didn’t grow up watching the Christopher Reeve films? In this installment we’ll dig a little deeper, looking instead to the comic’s medium where Superman’s strange journey began almost seventy years ago.
1988. The 50th anniversary of Superman. The year my involvement really began. I remember it relatively clearly; I was scheduled for oral surgery early that morning but my flu like symptoms prompted the oral surgeon to send me home. Apparently they won’t take out your incisors if you’ve got the flu, so bonus for me.
On the way home from DePaul hospital that morning my father decided that to make me feel better we’d stop at 7-11 where he’d purchase me a slurpee. Odd how both of these first two explorations of my personal attachment to the Man of Steel involve 7-11 Slurpee’s.
So we’re in the 7-11 on Tidewater Drive, right next door to Big Tony’s Pizzeria neither of which is still on Tidewater Drive in Norfolk Virginia. My father has my slurpee in his hand and is scouring the cooler trying to find the perfect soda for him; I’m off to the side of the store digging through the Archie rack. Those only slightly younger than I may or may not even remember Archie rack’s so I’ll fill you in. Until about 1990 every 7-11 sold comic books, Marvel, DC, and Archie comics all rested on a spinner rack much like the ones you’ll find housing comic books in Waldenbooks stores today. Since these spinner racks were sponsored by Archie comics, they were called Archie racks. After 1990, the number of 7-11’s that sold comics dwindles and those few stores that still did began just mixing the comics in with the magazines.
I wasn’t much of a comic’s reader at that point, my brother was and we would often go to Trilogy comic book shop to purchase his books but I rarely ever got anything myself. But there I was coughing and wheezing and staring at the Archie rack when a Superman cover caught my eye. On the cover Superman stood facing away from the audience, looking over his shoulder with a sign taped to his back that read: “Kick Me HARD!” I know that it was Superman #16, and I’m fairly certain it was the first modern appearance of Mister Mxyzptlk (pronounced Mix-yes-pittle-ick.)
Seeing my interest, Dad bought it for me, and many more after it. What I read in those pages was so vastly different that what I knew of the character from the movies that it immediately captured my imagination. This wasn’t a Superman who acted nebbishly and foolish while dressed in Clark Kent gear, he was just as confident in the suit as out of it. This was a Superman who flew home to have dinner with his parents in Kansas, that’s right: Parents. Johnathan Kent was still alive and was this kindly man who reminded me a great deal of Superman.
At eight years old I’d figured out this great thing, Superman wasn’t Superman because Jor-El told him to be… he was Superman because he CHOSE to be. And it wasn’t because of his vast powers that he chose to be the defender of humanity, it was because of the way that Johnathan and Martha Kent had raised him. This new version of Superman had put the “man” back into the mythos. And so I read on, week after week.
I marveled at his adventures, mused over his powers and loved every single second of it. I was stunned when he asked Lois to marry him and then ripped open his shirt to show her that he was Superman. But what I loved most about it was that it wasn’t Superman who courted Lois Lane, it was Clark Kent. And that Lois fell in love with Clark, although to a reader of the modern age version of the character there is no difference. Clark is Clark whether he’s on the farm with his adoptive parents, at the Daily Planet or trading punch for punch with Metallo.
But it wasn’t just Superman who’d been re-invented in John Byrne’s 1986 re-launch; Lex Luthor had been as well. This Lex was a corporate tycoon who built himself the second largest fortune in the world, and then used that fortune to buy up most of Metropolis itself. He did not do this to be altruistic, but to ensure that everyone in the city would look up to him. And then he made that literal, in the dead center of Metropolis Luthor built the home of his empire: LexCorp Tower. In the shape of a giant L this building reached higher than any other building in the whole of the city so that everyone had to look up toward Lex Luthor.
Superman however took all of that away from him. Not literally, he was still the second wealthiest man in the world (Bruce Wayne is the first.) But when Superman burst onto the scene, he was adored and worshipped and everyone forgot about how great Lex Luthor was. This person had come from out of nowhere and usurped Lex’s place as the most beloved citizen of Metropolis. Lex was more than a little hurt, but what made his black heart all the blacker was that this Man of Tomorrow was an alien… and so Lex’s hatred grew.
And then in the 1992 Superman died. He fought this great behemoth known as Doomsday and wasted every last ounce of life he had in ensuring that this creature didn’t destroy Metropolis. The last we saw of him was a broken and bloodied Superman with his suit in tatters cradled in the arms of his fiancé… his head hanging back limply, lifelessly. It felt real, and it felt final.
It made real newspapers and news broadcasts. On WVEC Channel 13 here in Hampton Roads the newscaster said: “Today Superman is dead. He died defending Metropolis from a creature known as Doomsday. In unrelated news, Clark Kent is missing.”
Of course he didn’t really die, he’s a giant solar battery and he’d just drained all of his charge except for just enough to keep himself comatose. And eventually he became pure energy, was returned to normal once more, and after almost sixty years Clark Kent finally married Lois Lane.
This more humanistic approach to The Man of Tomorrow was enough to keep me enthralled through good times and bad, and I found that while kids my age were traveling through Moria with Frodo… I was walking the streets of Metropolis with Clark Kent. This was a Superman for my generation, a Superman I could get behind. I even had a letter to the editor printed in a horrible issue featuring vampires, which was until being on the set of Jersey Girl with Kevin Smith was one of the highlights of my geek-life.
I don’t collect anymore, I most times just leaf through the comics at Waldens or Barnes and Noble… but this is primarily a monetary issue not a quality issue. Once I moved into my own place in 2001, it became increasingly more difficult to justify the continued expenditure. Finally I just gave in and ceased buying comics.
I’m tempted more often than not to ride on up to Trilogy and start up again, but I’ve been away too long. But someday, like Superman after his joust with Doomsday, I’ll return to the books that have brought me so many hours of joy.
And that’s why Superman continued to be important to me long after Christopher Reeve was no longer whooshing around on the screen before me. In our next installment, I’ll discuss how a mild mannered actor turned into a real Super Man and how Superman’s place on television fueled my vast love for the character.
A Baldy goes to the best reply to this post. (Extra points if you’ve ever actually SEEN a baldy.)