Canon For the Deluded: Charisma III
Kingdom Come! Is there any book that so perfectly melds the flawed, huffy Superman with the staggeringly awe-inspiring Superman?
For those of you who haven't read KC (by Mark Waid again!), it's a future AU where Superman has retreated into the Fortress of Solitude and abandoned humanity, in the wake of a new generation of chaotic, morally ambiguous metahumans. Events finally force him out, and in this scene he confronts a bar full of angry, carousing, mocking young metas who despise him:
He walks in, addresses a jeering crowd with a speech that's basically platitudes, walks out, and he's converted the whole bar. Awesome.
Mind you, someone is about to show up there and offer an opposing opinion--either Green Arrow or Batman himself, I assume--and when they're done about half of the kids go over to that side (not exactly opposed, but taking the more indirect and ambiguous Batman approach). So Superman is not alone in the charisma department!
By the way, the two young women talking on the second page are Nightstar, the daughter of Nightwing and Starfire, and Avia, the daughter of Mr. Miracle and Big Barda, by the way. Kingdom Come is a geekgasm of speculation about the later generations of superheroes, some of whom (at least Zatara, Kid Flash, and Offspring that I know of, and kinda-sorta Ibn, and maybe Wildcat III?) have made it into continuity since then. It was the second DC TPB I ever read, after Dark Knight Returns, and I read it with Wikipedia open in front of me--it was like a seminar on Who's Who in DC. It's also a fantastic story, and the Trinity love is quite overwhelming all around.
For those of you who haven't read KC (by Mark Waid again!), it's a future AU where Superman has retreated into the Fortress of Solitude and abandoned humanity, in the wake of a new generation of chaotic, morally ambiguous metahumans. Events finally force him out, and in this scene he confronts a bar full of angry, carousing, mocking young metas who despise him:
He walks in, addresses a jeering crowd with a speech that's basically platitudes, walks out, and he's converted the whole bar. Awesome.
Mind you, someone is about to show up there and offer an opposing opinion--either Green Arrow or Batman himself, I assume--and when they're done about half of the kids go over to that side (not exactly opposed, but taking the more indirect and ambiguous Batman approach). So Superman is not alone in the charisma department!
By the way, the two young women talking on the second page are Nightstar, the daughter of Nightwing and Starfire, and Avia, the daughter of Mr. Miracle and Big Barda, by the way. Kingdom Come is a geekgasm of speculation about the later generations of superheroes, some of whom (at least Zatara, Kid Flash, and Offspring that I know of, and kinda-sorta Ibn, and maybe Wildcat III?) have made it into continuity since then. It was the second DC TPB I ever read, after Dark Knight Returns, and I read it with Wikipedia open in front of me--it was like a seminar on Who's Who in DC. It's also a fantastic story, and the Trinity love is quite overwhelming all around.