Supreme Power II, and the definition of heroism and ethics
The second trade back of JMS' Supreme Powers, Powers and Principalities, arrived yesterday via mail, making me a very happy fangirl indeed. As I mentioned some months ago, this is the best take on the "what would superheroes in a 'realistic' world be like?" question I've read since Moore's Watchmen. It's also better than JMS' own Rising Stars with which it shares a few themes (for starters, Rising Stars has this leading character with the initials J.S….), and a brilliant twist on one of the oldest and most basic of comicverse stories, the Superman lore.
Now, I'm no Superman expert, unlike searose. I've seen the Christopher Reeve movies, I've read about three or four comics, I've watched Lois & Clark, and a very few episodes (about four of season 1, and two of season 2) of Smallville. Based on that limited knowledge, it seems to me that Lois & Clark gets the credit of swinging the emphasis from Superman to Clark Kent as the "real" identity, and making Clark more engaging and interesting than Superman to boot. (Whereas Smallville's contribution to the overall myth was the reinvention of Lex Luthor, not something quintessentially new about either Clark Kent or Superman.)
What JMS does with the Superman equivalent, Mark Milton, aka Hyperion, is something else altogether, because, as described in the first volume, that wonderful Kansas background with loving parents and a Norman Rockwell home which formed Clark Kent's character in Supreme Power is a lie, a set-up by the government, so Mark develops into the kind of person they can control. Frank Miller, in Return of the Dark Knight, used the Superman-as-the-tool-of-the-government premise already, but in a manner unsympathetic to Superman. Whereas you can't help but feel sorry for Mark Milton. While understanding why the various American governments did this to him in the first place; another great achievement of Supreme Power is that the military and secret service doesn't consist of moustache-twirling villains. A child with unlimited power is a frightening thought; an adult even more so. Anyway, there is no mild-mannered/tongue-in-cheek reporter identity for Mark, lonely, isolated and growing ever more suspicious of his surroundings as he is. In relation to the Superman myth: this, I'd say, isn't Clark Kent, it's Kal-El. And Kal-El, the alien in a human world, is the aspect JMS explores.
Volume II, Powers & Principalities, lets Mark find out what he suspected: that his entire existence is based on lies. The great tension of the story comes from the fact that not only do various generals immediately expect him to react with violence and big scale slaughter, but Mark is genuinely tempted. The sequence in the confession booth, his conversation with the priest has a terrific emotional reality to it. That he ultimately does not become a killer but decides the obligation towards humanity and the saving of lives remains as the only real thing in his life is not a foregone conclusion do to the build-up JMS creates, and the other storylines.
"What do you do with power?" is an ongoing question throughout the story. Joe Ledger/ Doc Spectre, the equivalent to DC's Green Lantern, becomes a bit more fleshed out here. Like Mark, he was created as a government tool, but as an adult. He's an example of the superhero-via-accident (the bonding with the crystal which he was just supposed to use), and I'm reminded of the current discussion of the status "born" superheroes versus created superheroes have. Ledger mostly does what he's told, but in this volume he starts to keep one secret consciously, the meta-woman he found at the bottom of the sea. I assume she has her equivalent in the DC universe as well, but I don't know it, and as she has no name in Supreme Powers yet - which is a plot point - I don't know what to call her. She's the grown up stillbirth discarded into the sea in volume one, with no language, the classic wolf child, and the most innocent of the metahumans in this saga, since no other humans have attempted to form her. If she and Ledger are two deliberate contrasts, then so are she and Zarda.
Zarda is what the brainwashing government agencies feared Mark would become, amoral power without any regard or loyalties to any nation, or indeed humanity itself. Even a relative DC ignoramus like myself recognizes she's the equivalent of Wonderwoman, with a mean twist, as the poor guardian who expects her Amazon heroine finds out. (She's also the first example of that comic book stereotype, the nude heroine with gravity-defying breasts, but as Supreme Power offered a lot of male nudity in the first volume, and in the second, one can't accuse JMS & his co-workers of one-sided exploitation.) Zarda as power for its own sake is so far the closest candidate we have for a villain in the traditional, showdown-with-hero sense, but as the one loyalty she shows is to Mark, that remains to be seen.
(As of volume II, there are also of course the nameless criminals who acquired via experiment, with the serial killer as the first example - as opposed to Zarda, who is amoral, they are definitely evil - but I'm assuming they'll be disposed off early on in a villains of the week manner.)
I mentioned in my review of Supreme Power: Contact that I appreciate JMS changing the all-white line up of traditional superheroes by making his Batman equivalent, Nighthawk, black in the racial sense as well; same with Stanley Stewart, the Blur. In both cases, their African American identity isn't just a nice touch. Nighthawk became who he is due to a race crime which replaces the Bruce Wayne parents-killed-by-muggers backstory, and in volume I Mark/Hyperion challenged him by pointing out Nighthawk chooses only to save blacks. In Volume II, Nighthawk turns the table. It's his challenge which eventually gets Mark back to the hero business, and gets Stanley, who so far has been using the superhero rep to make cash as the equivalent of being a great athlete, to join as well. At the same time, black Stanley is able to point out to black Richmond (Nighthawk) in a way Mark can't the results playing the racial card all the time had on him.
Speaking of Stanley, I'm reminded of something brought up in reviews of Spiderman II: the "how does a superhero earn his/her living?" question. Season 6 of BTVS played around with this, down to the argument of whether or not Spiderman makes cash and whether Buffy should. Now, if you opt for a realistic setting, you have to answer this as well. So far, we got: Mark, who until his big discovery got supported by the government (and the bitchy complaints on the expenses Project Hyperion has demanded in the strategic opening sessions were a good touch), Stanley, who earns money via commercials and product placement, Richmond, who inherited his (and cooperations making more), and Joe Ledger, who again gets financed by the government. Zarda only woke up in this volume, and promptly started the Faithian want, take, have approach by destroying shop windows and people in her way. The mermaid kind of woman hasn't left the ocean yet and thus hasn't needed an income yet. As Mark destroyed his government-financed flat and called it quits with the agencies, and as he doesn't have Clark Kent's reporter job, this might become an issue next volume. Stanley probably will remain covered via product placement. (BTW, was Alan Moore with Watchmen the first one to come up with the idea that superheroes could earn their income this way, or is there a precedent?)
Earlier on, I said JMS explores the alien aspect. In an article, Superman once was called the quintessential immigrant, who becomes more American than the Americans and gets of course adopted and loved by America. This is not the case for Mark Milton. In reply to the question "Why?", General Casey tells Mark: "You're not human. You know that now. You look like us. But you're not one of us. So what difference does it make? You don't have any rights, we don't have any obligation to treat you one way or another."
(Incidentally, the very topical relevance of this is obvious.)
The counterpart to this attitude is of course Zarda who tells Mark: "They are nothing but dust beneath your feat. Why should you care what happens to them?"
And there you have, I think, the JMSian reply to what makes people, with or without powers, heroic, and what constitutes ethics in a shades of grey world - the ability to care for the other. For the not-neighbours/friends/loved ones/countrymen. "I've dedicated myself to helping people, helping the world," says Mark early on, before finding out the truth, and the old Chinese who looks like he's the candidate for Kosh in this universe replies: "Well, yes, if one considers America to be the whole of the world".
What all of this comes down to: being able to care for somebody who is not "one of us". Which is the challenge for all the characters in the story, who define "us" in very different ways. (Again, I point to Stanley and Richmond.) Mind you, the other extreme of being able to see the big picture, which is also touched upon by Mark's later resolve to "help them, whether they want to or not", is, well, Gandalf or Galadriel taking the ring. Becoming a dictator not for power's sake but precisely you do care, and you don't think they'll be able to sort it out themselves. (See also: Ozymandias in Watchmen, and we know how well that went.) We shall see whether this becomes an issue in Supreme Power.
Now, I'm no Superman expert, unlike searose. I've seen the Christopher Reeve movies, I've read about three or four comics, I've watched Lois & Clark, and a very few episodes (about four of season 1, and two of season 2) of Smallville. Based on that limited knowledge, it seems to me that Lois & Clark gets the credit of swinging the emphasis from Superman to Clark Kent as the "real" identity, and making Clark more engaging and interesting than Superman to boot. (Whereas Smallville's contribution to the overall myth was the reinvention of Lex Luthor, not something quintessentially new about either Clark Kent or Superman.)
What JMS does with the Superman equivalent, Mark Milton, aka Hyperion, is something else altogether, because, as described in the first volume, that wonderful Kansas background with loving parents and a Norman Rockwell home which formed Clark Kent's character in Supreme Power is a lie, a set-up by the government, so Mark develops into the kind of person they can control. Frank Miller, in Return of the Dark Knight, used the Superman-as-the-tool-of-the-government premise already, but in a manner unsympathetic to Superman. Whereas you can't help but feel sorry for Mark Milton. While understanding why the various American governments did this to him in the first place; another great achievement of Supreme Power is that the military and secret service doesn't consist of moustache-twirling villains. A child with unlimited power is a frightening thought; an adult even more so. Anyway, there is no mild-mannered/tongue-in-cheek reporter identity for Mark, lonely, isolated and growing ever more suspicious of his surroundings as he is. In relation to the Superman myth: this, I'd say, isn't Clark Kent, it's Kal-El. And Kal-El, the alien in a human world, is the aspect JMS explores.
Volume II, Powers & Principalities, lets Mark find out what he suspected: that his entire existence is based on lies. The great tension of the story comes from the fact that not only do various generals immediately expect him to react with violence and big scale slaughter, but Mark is genuinely tempted. The sequence in the confession booth, his conversation with the priest has a terrific emotional reality to it. That he ultimately does not become a killer but decides the obligation towards humanity and the saving of lives remains as the only real thing in his life is not a foregone conclusion do to the build-up JMS creates, and the other storylines.
"What do you do with power?" is an ongoing question throughout the story. Joe Ledger/ Doc Spectre, the equivalent to DC's Green Lantern, becomes a bit more fleshed out here. Like Mark, he was created as a government tool, but as an adult. He's an example of the superhero-via-accident (the bonding with the crystal which he was just supposed to use), and I'm reminded of the current discussion of the status "born" superheroes versus created superheroes have. Ledger mostly does what he's told, but in this volume he starts to keep one secret consciously, the meta-woman he found at the bottom of the sea. I assume she has her equivalent in the DC universe as well, but I don't know it, and as she has no name in Supreme Powers yet - which is a plot point - I don't know what to call her. She's the grown up stillbirth discarded into the sea in volume one, with no language, the classic wolf child, and the most innocent of the metahumans in this saga, since no other humans have attempted to form her. If she and Ledger are two deliberate contrasts, then so are she and Zarda.
Zarda is what the brainwashing government agencies feared Mark would become, amoral power without any regard or loyalties to any nation, or indeed humanity itself. Even a relative DC ignoramus like myself recognizes she's the equivalent of Wonderwoman, with a mean twist, as the poor guardian who expects her Amazon heroine finds out. (She's also the first example of that comic book stereotype, the nude heroine with gravity-defying breasts, but as Supreme Power offered a lot of male nudity in the first volume, and in the second, one can't accuse JMS & his co-workers of one-sided exploitation.) Zarda as power for its own sake is so far the closest candidate we have for a villain in the traditional, showdown-with-hero sense, but as the one loyalty she shows is to Mark, that remains to be seen.
(As of volume II, there are also of course the nameless criminals who acquired via experiment, with the serial killer as the first example - as opposed to Zarda, who is amoral, they are definitely evil - but I'm assuming they'll be disposed off early on in a villains of the week manner.)
I mentioned in my review of Supreme Power: Contact that I appreciate JMS changing the all-white line up of traditional superheroes by making his Batman equivalent, Nighthawk, black in the racial sense as well; same with Stanley Stewart, the Blur. In both cases, their African American identity isn't just a nice touch. Nighthawk became who he is due to a race crime which replaces the Bruce Wayne parents-killed-by-muggers backstory, and in volume I Mark/Hyperion challenged him by pointing out Nighthawk chooses only to save blacks. In Volume II, Nighthawk turns the table. It's his challenge which eventually gets Mark back to the hero business, and gets Stanley, who so far has been using the superhero rep to make cash as the equivalent of being a great athlete, to join as well. At the same time, black Stanley is able to point out to black Richmond (Nighthawk) in a way Mark can't the results playing the racial card all the time had on him.
Speaking of Stanley, I'm reminded of something brought up in reviews of Spiderman II: the "how does a superhero earn his/her living?" question. Season 6 of BTVS played around with this, down to the argument of whether or not Spiderman makes cash and whether Buffy should. Now, if you opt for a realistic setting, you have to answer this as well. So far, we got: Mark, who until his big discovery got supported by the government (and the bitchy complaints on the expenses Project Hyperion has demanded in the strategic opening sessions were a good touch), Stanley, who earns money via commercials and product placement, Richmond, who inherited his (and cooperations making more), and Joe Ledger, who again gets financed by the government. Zarda only woke up in this volume, and promptly started the Faithian want, take, have approach by destroying shop windows and people in her way. The mermaid kind of woman hasn't left the ocean yet and thus hasn't needed an income yet. As Mark destroyed his government-financed flat and called it quits with the agencies, and as he doesn't have Clark Kent's reporter job, this might become an issue next volume. Stanley probably will remain covered via product placement. (BTW, was Alan Moore with Watchmen the first one to come up with the idea that superheroes could earn their income this way, or is there a precedent?)
Earlier on, I said JMS explores the alien aspect. In an article, Superman once was called the quintessential immigrant, who becomes more American than the Americans and gets of course adopted and loved by America. This is not the case for Mark Milton. In reply to the question "Why?", General Casey tells Mark: "You're not human. You know that now. You look like us. But you're not one of us. So what difference does it make? You don't have any rights, we don't have any obligation to treat you one way or another."
(Incidentally, the very topical relevance of this is obvious.)
The counterpart to this attitude is of course Zarda who tells Mark: "They are nothing but dust beneath your feat. Why should you care what happens to them?"
And there you have, I think, the JMSian reply to what makes people, with or without powers, heroic, and what constitutes ethics in a shades of grey world - the ability to care for the other. For the not-neighbours/friends/loved ones/countrymen. "I've dedicated myself to helping people, helping the world," says Mark early on, before finding out the truth, and the old Chinese who looks like he's the candidate for Kosh in this universe replies: "Well, yes, if one considers America to be the whole of the world".
What all of this comes down to: being able to care for somebody who is not "one of us". Which is the challenge for all the characters in the story, who define "us" in very different ways. (Again, I point to Stanley and Richmond.) Mind you, the other extreme of being able to see the big picture, which is also touched upon by Mark's later resolve to "help them, whether they want to or not", is, well, Gandalf or Galadriel taking the ring. Becoming a dictator not for power's sake but precisely you do care, and you don't think they'll be able to sort it out themselves. (See also: Ozymandias in Watchmen, and we know how well that went.) We shall see whether this becomes an issue in Supreme Power.