The Relativity of Relevance
Superman Returns bores me. It’s pretty. It’s well-cast. It’s thoughtful. And it bores me to tears.
My household loves to watch our comic books. I mean that we are collectively big fans of alternate media versions of comic book stories. There is a practical side to this — the cartoons, movies and television series are both more easily accessible, at least here in comic-book-store-less Connecticut, and easier to follow, at least generally speaking. And there is the social side; we can all sit down together to watch a movie or an episode or two of a series.
A few weeks back we caught an episode of Superman: The Animated Series that featured one of the first team-ups between Batman and Superman. I’m not sure where in the continuity of the DC Animated Universe this story falls but I bring it up for two reasons. The first is the reaction my nearly four-year-old daughter had. She was watching for about twenty minutes (this was a multi-episode arc being presented as a “movie” on one of the cartoon networks), when she asked, “Why isn’t Spider-Man in this Batman show?” We all giggled and answered that Spider-Man was busy and went back to watching. It wasn’t until later that I realized it wasn’t just funny that she has no concept of company lines but also that she wanted Superman replaced by Spider-Man in his own show. It is a reasonable thought on her part — this was the first episode of Superman we’d seen while we own all of Batman: The Animated Series. But it is also still funny, and maybe, a little sad.
The second reason I start with this story is the subplot. Clark Kent breaks-up with Lois Lane because he is worried for her safety. So Lois does what any woman in the DC Universe would do — she moves to Gotham and gets engaged to Bruce Wayne. I suppose Clark and I should be relieved — at least it isn’t Peter Parker. Now I find this all a bit out of character for pretty much everyone involved in the plot but ignoring that it is simply another example of Superman being set aside for someone more interesting. As far as dating goes, I love both Batman and Bruce Wayne but I’d be the first to say that no self-respecting woman should date either. But the main question is, what is Superman missing? On paper, he should be as interesting as Batman, Spider-Man or any other mainstay super-hero, if not more so.
Superman’s burden as the first comic book super hero is heavy. He is arguably the most iconic hero of them all. Whether you love him, hate him or are indifferent toward him, you are likely to know who he is, where he came from and what he stands for. Superman is the last survivor of an enlightened race, he was sent to Earth as a baby and raised in the country to have strong values. He believes in truth and justice and he fights not to kill or win but to save — to save whoever needs saving. And most people have at least a passing knowledge of his “civilian” life. Clark Kent is a small town guy in the big city, a bit of a nerd but a decent fellow, he’s a newspaperman and Lois Lane is his soul mate. These few ideas carry over from comic to cartoon to television series to movie and back. But it is a double edged sword to be so well known. What does not evolve cannot survive and the more details of Superman’s story are considered “sacred” or untouchable the less he is able to evolve.
Back to Superman Returns. As I’ve said my household loves to watch our comic books but while we own X-Men: The Last Stand and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer — two films I will certify as far worse than Superman Returns — we do not own that movie. I don’t dislike it. Mostly, I just don’t care. And I think the problem is Writer/Director Bryan Singer tried to put one foot on each shore — and he ended up wet. Superman Returns is not quite sequel or remake and yet both. It starts with Superman II in mind but in the “five years” in between the two films, Metropolis is flung forward into our contemporary world. Lois is a single working mother living with a man no one expects she will ever actually marry. The whole film’s underlying theme seems to be the question: Is Superman necessary? And the answer, told in overly cerebral cinematic vistas, appears to be: No. They want him, they welcome him and celebrate him and attempt to destroy him. But only in so much as they would follow someone as interesting as Barack Obama or the Octomom — they are uplifted or they despise but they don’t need him.
We don’t need him.
But then need and relevance are not quite the same thing. It is probably accurate to say we don’t need any superheroes. But we like to believe they remain relevant. The problem is Superman loses relevance with each passing year. I liked Watchmen but when I was done watching I had the sense I would have liked it so much more if it were 1989 instead of 2009. Despite the attempt to create its own period outside of our reality the movie, to me, was dated. And Superman tends to have that same feeling. His glasses, his job, his values — they are not extinct by a lot, but they are waning. They are aging and maybe not as gracefully as we pretend. So if Superman and/or Clark Kent is irrelevant, what do we do? How do we make a movie on par with Batman Begins or Iron Man, both of which update their stories without losing their meaning (though I will say both Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark are easier to update than Kal-El/Clark Kent)? How do we stay true to who Superman is but make him fit better with who we, our society, is now?
I have a few ideas. Let’s get the easiest, but most depressing, out of the way first: when Clark doesn’t work any longer, he dies. Superman may live on without Clark Kent since, though he is billed as the last Kryptonian, there are, in various ways, others. As with Captain America, or Batman, Superman is more of an idea than a man. But if we don’t want to give up on Kal-El, we do have options. In the film Kill Bill, Vol. 2 Bill expounds on why Superman stands out, how part of a superhero story is the alter ego but “Superman didn’t become Superman. Superman was born Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent.” And as Bill points out Clark Kent is not super. He’s weak, he lacks confidence, he’s ignored. This may be practical: who would ever suspect who he really is? But Bill calls Clark Kent “Superman’s critique on the whole human race.” If we agree, he may be updated however we like. In this scenario there is nothing about Clark that is sacred because Clark is only and ever a product of what is going on around him. Clark only exists as a response to the rest of it.
Similarly, what if we focus more on Kal-el than Clark Kent. Without any preconceived notions of Superman’s Boy Scout goodness, the character is extraordinarily interesting. He is the last of his kind. The only one left. Imagine, for a moment, that Kal-el was placed in his escape pod when he was a pre-schooler instead of an infant. Imagine if he had those few real memories of his planet and his parents. What might be different, what might be the same? But even without that change — who is this person all alone in the universe, and yet so beloved, crowded, even, with friends?
But, while intriguing, a complete reboot is extreme and an update may be all that is needed. Newspapermen are going the way of the dodo but cable news only gets hotter. Imagine Lois Lane as a news personality on MSNBC, Perry White as the (long suffering) producer and Clark Kent as the main researcher behind the scenes. I would read and watch that. The point here, is I want a movie that lets go of the past and examines the question what is it that makes Superman Superman and no one else? It is not his trappings. It’s something else. And that will be relevant as long as we are willing to look for it.
So, I’d love your thoughts: how is Superman interesting and/or relevant to you?
Posted by Anika
email: anika@fantasticfangirls.org
twitter: magnetgirl
Personally, I’m kind of ambivalent about Big Blue. He’s not my favorite, but I understand his importance to both comics and to the DC Universe.
I like Superman best when he’s interacting with other characters, especially Batman. These guys are walking examples of the nature vs. nurture argument. They respect each other, even if they don’t always “get” the other person.
I love how the younger heroes idolize him, but Bruce just looks at him and snarls. If I had a dollar for every time Superman showed up in Gotham to help Batman and Bats tells him to “Get out of my city”, I’d never have to work again. (I love how I turned this into a comment about Batman…*sigh*)
The first time I ever liked Superman by himself was in the animated series. He was super, but not Super. He got hurt. He got smacked around. He bled.
I also think Superman needs Clark Kent. Batman is the alpha identity. Bruce Wayne is the mask. Bats could operate just as well without the Wayne persona. Apologies to Tarantino, but I think he got it wrong. Clark Kent is who he *is*, Superman is just what Clark can *do*.
Superman is another one where I like the supporting cast better than the main character. I like Lois, I love Jimmy, I love the Kents, I absolutely adore Linda Danvers and Kon-El, and the current Supergirl is finally living up to her potential!
I still don’t care about Superman. (Exception: Animated series. Which, like the entire DCAU, is made of awesome. And I love that three part Worlds Finest mini, which was the first time they met in toonverse. But I also love all of their toonverse interactions. Like the time Clark had to pretend to be Batman because Bruce was under Brainiac’s control. Good times.)
And I have to agree – Clark is the real person. (At least post-crisis Clark is. Pre-Crisis Clark is of no interest to me except to a) mock his superdickery and b) watch him help Jimmy Olsen cheat at marbles because the fate of The Planet depends on it.)
Excellent article.
My favourite Superman incarnation remains the tv series “Lois & Clark”, which is why I reacted to Bill’s speech in “Kill Bill II” with “cut the crap, Tarantino”.*g* Because that show actually had Clark say “Clark is who I am, Superman is just what I can do”.
I think what I found most appealing about the presentation in “Lois & Clark” was that they managed to present their leads as real partners; for all her snark about Kansas this Lois came to love Clark as her best friend long before figuring out the Superman part, and in reverse, she was as responsible as he for the Superman persona because through her he found out what being a hero means to people beyond the abilities impact. Also, I have a weakness for stories where investigative reporters are the heroes, not the villains or annoyances, and they really used Clark-the-reporter-and-Lois-the-reporter to the hilt.
One Superman incarnation I’m fascinated by isn’t officially Superman at all: JMS “Supreme Power” run and the Hyperion miniseries. Because that’s the darkside of the Superman myth; how our world would really react to an alien baby with superpowers landing there, and this child doesn’t really have a Clark Kent identity because his “parents” teaching him Norman Rockwell values are paid agents of the goverment who are scared to death of him, his suggestion of having a civilian identity is laughed at, and as a result Hyperion is really, genuinenly other, and once he figures out just how much he has been played…
@Selena *That’s* where I got that from. Okay. I was pretty sure it wasn’t from a DC book…but, I’d always assumed it was from one of the Chris Reeve movies.
I’m amused no one agrees with Tarantino. I mainly think that both Clark and Superman are “masks”? Or at least I find that idea the most interesting. I think.
But @Dan, don’t worry about it becoming about Batman. I am a bit shocked that I managed to not mention him much at all
(Someday I will have to write about how ‘Bruce Wayne’ does matter though.)
Anika, Neil Gaiman doesn’t agree with Tarantino, either. As in “The Wake”, the last Sandman chapter, when we see everybody and their archnemesis at Morpheus’ funeral, as they see themselves since we’re in the Dreaming… two of attendants are Batman (i.e. he’s in the Batman costume) and Clark Kent (no superman costume, glasses and full civilian outfit).
That was a very interesting read. I’ve often thought of the “problem” with Superman. I’ve liked the idea of Superman ever since being thrilled as a kid by Superman I and II, but I never really stuck long with the comics until his death. I thought that was a really interesting turn of events, particularly when DC heroes filled his void. After that, everything became really stale, but with the return of the Kryptonians now, Superman has actually become more interesting than he has been for years. Which is ironic, because it means that Clark Kent rarely (if ever) appears in the comics and he is no longer the last remaining of his kind, which are precisely the two main points of your article. Maybe that really is the way to modernize Superman, to remove the Clark persona altogether?
Interesting. . .FWIW, I do own ‘Superman Returns’ but I kind of only bought it for the DVD extras where James Marsden is flirting with everybody. I also tend to think of it as ‘The Richard White Story’. So.
I may be in the minority in that I’m not really convinced there’s a problem with Superman. I think SR could have been a better movie if it didn’t bother pondering on why Superman is significant and just, well, told a good Superman story. I know this is kind of circular, but, well, I think part of the problem is that we’re so convinced there’s a problem that the stories become ponderous instead of fun.
I really enjoyed Superman Returns. I think the thing I liked most about it was the Superman/Jesus parallel being made so clear, and the conclusion that Superman not only creates as many problems as he solves, but that his interventions are random and usually minor – great for the people he helps, irrelevant to the millions of people living far worse lives.
The real heroes of the movie were Richard, Lois and Jason (and possibly Kitty, in the end) and I was fascinated by the possibility that Superman is too alien to live with us, but Jason might not be.
@lilacsigil That’s an intriguing way to look at it; I guess the failure to me is that the filmmakers seem to have gone into the project assuming Superman is irrelevant. So what’s the power of subverting something you’ve already decided your audience doesn’t care about?
I’ve always preferred Superman to Batman or any other comic book hero. I own “Superman Returns” and for me, while there were flaws (such as the miscasting of Lois Lane), it was pure nostalgia. The opening titles and John Williams’ music made me cry in the theater.
As to why I like Superman? He *is* the ultimate hero, moreso than Batman or anyone else. He is iconic. He is the one that, growing up, I wanted to be like. Truth, justice, and the American way? Sign me up.
He’s not the “boy scout” or the naive person many comic writers choose to portray him as these days (simply because they don’t know what else to do with him). He is optimistic.
Obama is optimistic, too. I really don’t see how you can get more relevant than that.