I had
never read Superman before this class, but I always liked him (from the movies).
From what I’ve seen, Hollywood portrays Clark Kent as a humble reporter who
seeks affection. Meanwhile, Superman is the world’s greatest hero who successfully
fights against the world’s worst villains, the mysterious creatures living in dark, creepy-looking places.
However, in The Superman Chronicles, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Superman
only solves menial, petty crimes that hardly threaten the whole world. He is
never in any real high-risk danger, especially since he is seemingly
invincible. We know what will happen in every situation because Superman is bulletproof
and knifeproof. There is no element of risk, making these comics superficial
and somewhat boring. Additionally, the villains in the comics are regular people in life who happen to have bad qualities or desires. There are no bionic limbs, although that makes sense since this was written in the 1930s.
I was
disappointed that my impression of Superman was so different from what
we read for class. I’m sure that future Superman comics are great, but these ones
did not impress me. I wonder if it's Hollywood's fault for making the movies so different from what the comics originally were. Because I was so used to the typical Superman image, I felt bored reading these comics. I desperately wanted to be able to say that I like the original comics better than the movies, but I think I’ll just have to keep reading.
The mismatch between Superman and those he seeks to stop or bring to righteousness is probably what irked me most about these comics. I appreciated that Superman and Clark Kent were more than willing to crack open mundane cases for the good of individual communities, but Superman's deity-like powers just seem so at odds with this brand of everyday justice. Of course, I have the influence of more recent Superman material guiding my thoughts, but these comics simply feel flat without a viable menace or nemesis haunting their pages.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you both. This is not what I was expecting. I found these comics strangely unprofessional, both in terms of style and story. I definitely have a bit of a different perspective because I haven’t read or seen any other Superman stories, but these just seemed slow and repetitive. The mundane cases actually made me laugh at points. Comic number 3 was an especially strange concept. Did the author really not have any other ideas to go to this early on? He had to resort to sending a group of upper class partygoers into a mine, just to prove a point about working conditions? As the film we watched last week pointed out, there were exterior, often political influences, so this bizarre scenario made a little more sense. I guess Superman is in charge of social reform now. It’s socialist Superman.
DeleteI agree that a lot of the problems that Superman fought against were mundane rather than the world threatening problems we have become accustomed to see him fighting, but in some ways the mundane problems grounded it more in reality for me. Yes it was absurd to watch Superman fight against traffic violators, but that is an actual problem whereas monsters with super strength are more of a metaphorical issue. And even though Superman's methods were definitely questionable I noticed that most (kinda) of the people he targeted were corrupt and greedy, which is definitely an issue that still feels very relevant in our capitalist society that we live in.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both Jasper and Callie - his first adventures seem mundane and occasionally boring to read about, but that also grounds Superman himself in a very tangible way. If he's solving crimes that any human detective could solve, doesn't that help bridge the gap just a little bit to his Herculean, alien status? Personally, I'm also very interested in seeing the template of Superman contrasted with how each movie or TV producer decided to portray him. I find that it is very indicative of the times the movie was being made; each new iteration of Superman solves another generation's problems.
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