The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1502: Superman: The Man of Steel #111, April 2001

One of my favourite moments in All-Star Superman is Lois's reaction to the super-formula that Clark gives her for her birthday. "Bring it on," she says. Each time we're presented with Lois as a powered individual, something becomes glaringly clear about her: she's a superhero. I think the powered aspect of the superhero is really only a part, and not always a part, of how we identify such characters. But then, of course, someone like Batman comes along, and it's hard to say he's not a superhero despite his lack of powers. One of the other ways we define the superhero is by their mission. Batman wants to make sure that no one else has to go through what he did. Superman, in his own words, is here to help. Wonder Woman, originally, intended to bring peace to "Man's World." The mission is important, and bound up in mission is drive to complete the mission. This is where we see Lois' "super-ness," I think. She is perhaps one of the most driven characters in the DCU, almost on par with Batman's mania. She'll follow a story, no matter where it goes and who she has to alienate. Her mission is truth, which explains her identity as a reporter. She's actually a super-reporter.

Superheroes are metaphors. I've written about this before, the idea that there are single founding notions for each character, and we're to take those founding notions and try to understand how to deploy them in our own lives, based on the actions and decisions of the characters that emblematize them. Though she may have begun existence as a supporting character to Superman, Lois has had enough time (80 years) to develop, and be developed, into something of her own. She is, in the DCU, the emblem of the rigorous search for truth.

The reason I bring this up is that Lois has cool science fiction powers in this issue, and she takes to them like an old pro. Granted, she's been empowered before, but she never retains the powers. To me, this speaks to the idea that her real power, the seeking of truth, also forces her to realize that what she does, and how she does it, are the real ways she can impact her world, rather than as a brightly-costumed saviour.

Today's quote reminded me far too much of contemporary politics.

"This dark side of Krypton - this lunatic obsession with cultural purity, this ignorant fear of the other, the outsider -"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1323: Man of Steel (2018) #6, September 2018

And so the new paradigm is established. SPOILERS ahead - you've been warned.


Jon and Lois lost somewhere in space with Jor-El. (Who, BTW, is alive somehow? Damn, you go away from a universe for a few years, and suddenly Superman is a family drama? I got some catching up to do!). Kara is off into space to find answers about Rogol Zaar, who she's just handily banished to the Phantom Zone. She's done with him, but Clark wants to know more.

Oh, and a young man tells new fire chief Melody Moore that Superman is the one starting the fires all over Metropolis.

Mr. Bendis is going to tell us all of these stories, I'm sure, through the pages of Superman and Action Comics. Wisely, he's going to give us the big, cosmic, over-the-top-ridiculous superhero action in Superman, and the more grounded, Clark as reporter/superhero angle in Action. I'm delighted to find out that he's on both for the foreseeable future. I may even start picking up Kara's outer space adventures. We'll see.

It's definitely a different DC universe than the one I last read. Though I've been keeping up on the Young Animal titles, they exist, as they must, in a world all their own, only ever letting the less-unhinged heroes in occasionally. The last time I read proper DCU was probably the end of Jeff Lemire's excellent Animal Man.

We'll bounce back and forth between the titles for now, acknowledging of course that they must somehow not be taking place at the same time. I'm getting the suspicion that Action's events precede Superman's, but I'm not 100% certain yet. Let's just enjoy the stories for now.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1322: Man of Steel (2018) #5, August 2018

If you're a fan, or have even a remote knowledge of Superman's history, his tattered cape and the claw in the bottom right corner should give away exactly what this cover is commemorating:

The content of today's issue is a huge dust-up in Metropolis, much like the legendary Doomsday battle. Unlike that battle, Clark manages to get Rogol Zaar out of the city, hopefully avoiding the kind of disaster porn that engulfs Metropolis at the end of the film Man of Steel.

The end of today's issue offers a nice parallel to the end of All-Star Superman. Where Kal ends up as an engine of life for the Sun at the end of ASS, Rogol Zaar, an engine of death, is discovered at the center of the Earth, a similarly fiery locale, but with a decidedly different purpose. I guess we'll find out tomorrow if the Earth survives. And as a fan of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I know that the survival of the planet is not always a guarantee, and is sometimes a necessary narrative device.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1321: Man of Steel (2018) #4, August 2018

Though the removal of, and search for, his missing family appears to be part of Mr. Bendis's ongoing storyline, Jon and Lois still play a major role in the series, if only by their absence. The two have maybe 2-3 pages in each issue, and these are showing a single moment that we're slowly coming to understand is the moment that establishes the new paradigm.

But I want to spend the brief time I'm going to spend today on the cover. As I noted a few days ago, each cover is giving us a significant moment from Supeman's life. I think here it's that moment of revelation, the moment that the love between these two characters is finally able to achieve what it had been moving toward for about 50 years when this revelation happened. However, it's actually Lois's outfit I want to think about. To me, this is 100% reminiscent of the outfit she most often is seen in in the Superman Adventures television series. Not only are we getting narrative history, but publication/dissemination history as well.

I can only hope that this new start lasts for a while. I was actually a big fan of the much-maligned "Grounded" storyline from Straczynski and Cassaday, so I'm never hopeful when a Superman story resonates with me. Though perhaps today I'll err on the side of optimism.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1320: Man of Steel (2018) #3, August 2018

As I noted yesterday, each cove is showing a different important moment from Superman's tale. There's a couple of really interesting things happening on the cover. For a long while, and definitely since the first Christopher Reeve, there's been questions about what Kal's pod looked like. This one is an interesting mix of the motion picture version and the original Action Comics version, and that's actually a nice way of thinking about the way that stories, especially mythic ones, evolve. Aspects are folded into the "canonical" understanding.

Of course, there's also that sneering face above Krypton, which incorporates the new paradigm that the series is establishing into the canonical tale. Rogol Zaar's role in Krypton's destruction adds a new layer to the origin story, and uses that new addition to propel the story, continuously, forward.

This issue also uses the narrative to reset things - Kandor, the last remnant of Kryptonian culture, is found destroyed. I've always thought that there really were too many Kryptonians in the DCU. I get that some may have escaped, but the whole point of Superman was always that he was alone - the addition of Supegirl assuages that slightly, but not enough to reduce it's impact. But when we've got whole dimensions full of criminals, and at least 2 cities that escaped (Kandor and Argo), and ol' Supes starts feeling much less special. And with Supergirl, in the current continuity, leaving Earth to find answers about Rogol Zaar, Clark's uniqueness is re-established in the new paradigm.

One last thing. At one point, Superman brings Batman to Metropolis to investigate a series of fires. At one point, Superman races away, and Batman explains that if the most polite person in the universe has to leave without saying goodbye, there's probably a good reason. It's a nice moment of understanding about the relationship that the two heroes have.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1319: Man of Steel (2018) #2, July 2018

I'll fill you in on this one tomorrow. I'm having some thoughts about the difference between this Man of Steel series and the John Byrne one from the 80s. What exactly is being reset in both of them?

(Apologies. Thanksgiving is busy.)

When John Byrne wrote and drew the first Man of Steel series, he was re-introducing Superman into the DCU. That's not quite what Bendis is doing, though the series is doing so tangentially. Each cover depicts a significant moment in Clark's life, so in an iconic, somewhat reminiscent of the first page of All-Star Superman, manner, we're getting a recap of his life.

But the series itself isn't introducing a character. It's introducing a paradigm. Here's the status quo for Superman for the foreseeable future. And it's a pretty significant shift. The family life of the Kent-Lanes is ejected (not rejected), offering us a Superman who is missing the most human part of himself. How will this begin to play out in the series, and the subsequent ones?

We're getting a nice look at Supergirl, who is far more Krytonian than Clark, and I'm curious to see if we'll see a bit more of Kal, rather than Clark, as things progress.

Okay, now to update the next few days. More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1318: Man of Steel (2018) #1, July 2018

As far as I can tell, this first issue of the new Man of Steel is asking some questions of its audience. It wants us to consider whether we are more Rogol Zaar, the Circle, or, potentially, the Kryptonians. There are two "groups" represented in the story that we are definitely not: the ordinary humans, and Superman. One is pretty much a background feature of the story, and it's really the mythic figures we're more interested in identifying ourselves with in superhero narratives. And we're definitely not Superman, because he's what we want to be, but perhaps can't.

I did get some of the expected great dialogue in today's issue. Mr. Bendis really is very good at that. And the story's nicely structured to offer just enough to intrigue, but not enough that we aren't still guessing the whole way through. Where are Jon and Lois? What did Rogol Zaar have to do with Krypton's destruction? And what does that have to do with Kal's father?

All good questions, and I will admit that it was hard to only read the one issue today, when I've got the whole series sitting up on the coffee table.

But I think, as I read through this time, I'm going to keep that first question in mind - who are we in this story? There's good rationales for all three.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 664: Superman - The Man of Steel #109, February 2001

Kind of a chilling comic, actually, and not because of the temperature. Superman is given a vision of a future overrun by Lex Luthor after the billionaire criminal wins the US Presidential election.

Oh dear.

That said, he is told that this grim future, one of a world dominated by Luthor, will come to pass if he loses hope, if he gives up, and lets evil win. So I suppose it's a call to arms, of a kind. We must not give up hope as our world appears to be overrun by evil. We can make change.

I wish it was as easy to believe that as it is to type it.

Onward.