Superman fandome thread

[Vakanai]

No problem really.
And yes, the point about Superman Smashes is clear now, thanks.


One of the consequences of the "Superman missed the 80s train" theory I firmly believe in is that - as far as I can see - there isn't a lot of demand for hard sci-fi in Superman books because, well, hard sci-fi NEVER was in Superman book on a regular basis. And this means that there is a type of mature Superman story fans can hardly imagine or have a demand for. Basically there is no pre-existing model they can keep in mind. On the contrary, it is quite easier to think of a Batman story like David Fincher's Seven. As I have already said elsewhere, one of the reasons Reeves' Batman will be accepted by viewers and readers is that it somehow sounds already familiar thanks to a lot of pre-existing works.

There is nothing wrong with popular space operas like Star Wars or Star Trek, but the problem is that it is a type of mood and aesthetics which has become even too common and easy to see. You get Star Wars stuff everywhere. In a way, getting a Star Wars-like Superman would be more or less like getting an average, not particularly unique sci-fi story. Better than nothing, I guess, and I think that if and when we get a new Superman movie it will be strongly Star Wars-like/Star Trek-like (especially since JJ Abrams may be involved in it).

However, I think that getting more mature, riskier sci-fi in Superman books (without a 300 million budget at stake, so not as risky as a movie could be) would be incredibly beneficial for the character and the franchise. I mentioned Greg Egan because he is one of the most acclaimed of hard sci-fi (posthumanism, simulated reality...). I could mention other creators of "extreme" sci-fi, like Ballard or Liu Cixin. But another possible model could be anime works like Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell, or Satoshi Kon's Paprika or Otomo's Akira. Or movies like Blade Runner or Annihilation or Ex Machina. 14-year-old me would take this stuff over current Superman books in a heartbeat.

But here's another problem, that is how you can introduce this type of themes in a book which has never really dealt with them. And how you can reconcile it with an aesthetics (headband Kryptonians, etc) which has been more or less unchanged for 80 years. And I actually have no good answer for this.

There's another major weakness in Superman stories which the Batman franchise doesn't suffer from, that is: Batman's stories are easier to update than Superman's. The first Joker story is a product of its time - the criminal mastermind, the signature on the victims, etc.. But it is not impossible to update it as a story about a terrorist or a serial killer who idolizes chaos. As a matter of fact, that's what they did.

However, Superman is sci-fi and sci-fi gets old very quickly. The "everything counts" mantra is a problem as far as Superman is concerned, because much of his history is so strictly tied to the period it was created in that putting it in a linear continuity would sound strange or fake. And at this point you have several choices - you entirely rewrite the continuity, or you update it - and these option are generally divisive.

Sometimes I think that the best solution for Superman wouldn't be pulling a Dark Knight Returns or Year One stunt, but rather creating Superman's version of Swamp Thing's Anatomy Lesson. That is, summarizing the entirety of Superman's history into a new paradigm on which you could build an entirely new mythology.

Perhaps. Or perhaps not. I don't think that you need to infuse hard sci-fi concepts into his history or what came before, you can just do it now. There's not an awful lot that's set in stone when it comes to ever evolving ongoing stories. It could be done now. The problem isn't that it couldn't be done or no one in the general audience can imagine it, you can't very well stop a direction that far in advance. The problem is, none of the writers have thought to do it, because DC has been recycling the same writers for decades.

Ultimately it's less about him missing the experimentation of the 80s, and the push to get people to do more experiments with him now. And that means we need more voices telling his stories.

[Vordan]

When you say “hard scifi” Myskin are you talking about the concept as I understand it (everything is explained within plausible limits of what we currently believe to be possible)? I’ll admit I’m not sure how that would work exactly. Superman himself is as “soft” a scifi concept as you can get, a human alien from another planet who looks and feels as we do, is anatomically identical to humans, but can fly and has other abilities that shatter the laws of biology and physics because of the sun being the right color.

[Myskin]

When you say “hard scifi” Myskin are you talking about the concept as I understand it (everything is explained within plausible limits of what we currently believe to be possible)? I’ll admit I’m not sure how that would work exactly. Superman himself is as “soft” a scifi concept as you can get, a human alien from another planet who looks and feels as we do, is anatomically identical to humans, but can fly and has other abilities that shatter the laws of biology and physics because of the sun being the right color.

I actually used the term "hard sci-fi" in a very generic way. To be fair, people like Ballard are closer to Surrealism and Weird Fiction than hard sci-fi, director Oshii Mamoru is cyberpunk, etc. Anyway, what I had in mind was an "extreme" vision of sci-fi, focused on speculating on the limits of possible from many different points of view, sometimes with a strong attention to existentialism. Just to give you a couple of examples: Greg Egan's Orthogonal trilogy is about a group of alien characters trying to escape a doomed world via a rocket ship. Basically the classic Krypton situation, but with one additional detail - in this universe there are 4 spatial dimensions and Egan describes in detail how their different laws of physics work. So the main focus of the story is discovering how completely alien creatures think, perceive their world and plan to create machines which do not work according our terrestrial logic. It's an interesting work, but it's better if you have some knowledge of physics and maths before starting it. Another example: China Miéville's Embassytown is about a human colony on a distant planet where aliens have no concept of abstract thought. So a great deal of the novel focuses on how communication is possible between humans and aliens. The best example of "extreme sci-fi/fantasy" which comes to my mind in a superhero books is Moore's Swamp Thing - the revelation of ST's real nature and the exploration of concepts like The Green, etc.

I was probably strongly influenced by a very inspired Superman pitch I read years ago (unfortunately it's offline now) which revolved around of the importance of reviving concepts like "future shock" and free will in Superman stories. My point is that when Superman was created in the 1930s, and for years after then, the type of sci-fi which was presented in Superman books was - at the time - a vision of the future. However, as decades went by, they kept most of those concepts without updating them. And now most sci-fi elements in Superman stories are in a strange limbo - they are not enough modern to be considered hard sci-fi, but at the same time they are not dated enough (there were some slight updates from time to time) to be considered vintage. This is not just a stylistic problem, because Superman's world must have a precise identity in order to understand how the characters act, what kind of menaces he has to fight, etc.

In such situation, IMHO there are only two possible solutions: you can go 100% Dieselpunk and create a vintage Superman world in which he fights giant humanoid robots, villains escape on airships, etc. Basically, something very similar to Alan Moore's Tom Strong or Batman TAS - Bruce Timm's Batman universe is actually an interesting hybrid of modernity and vintage elements, even if the vintage prevails (young Bruce watches black and white serials like Beware The Grey Ghost, Gotham cops have their own airships, etc). Or - the second solution - you go hard sci-fi and restructure Superman's world with a strong emphasis on themes like posthumanism, genetics, digital minds, etc.

Just to make my example even clear - IMHO current Brainiac is a perfect example of the "limbo" situation Superman finds himself in right now. When Brainiac was created in 1953, he incarnated the generic idea of "alienness" - he was green, he had a flying saucer, an alien monkey etc. However, when Gary Frank and Geoff Johns relaunched him, they updated some elements - they used the techno-organic backgrounds from Ridley Scott's ALIEN - but they also kept some of the most dated ones, basically making Brainiac a body builder in a t-shirt. So there is something incongruous in the character now, including his MO (on the one hand, he is some kind of super-genius; on the other hand, he's a wrestler who loves punching Superman). Actually, I may be the only one who has a problem with Brainiac, because this version of the character keeps being proposed in a lot of stories and the readers seem to accept him.

Anyway, let's say that if Brainiac was recreated along the lines of "hard sci-fi" there would be way less attention to his physical strength, and they would focus a lot on how Brainiac's "hive-mind" works, what his alienness is like, where the limits of his organicity are, etc. I actually don't think that an hard sci-fi update would get rid of Superman's most recognizable elements. Maybe, if they found some way to justify them (even redesigning Krypton and its laws of physics from scratch), they could actually expand the narrative possibilities instead of just accepting the classical rule "it's because of Earth's yellow sun".

EDIT - I just remembered that I had saved the Superman pitch I had seen online. I'll post an excerpt in a separate post.

[Myskin]

Here it is:

So instead of thinking of Superman strictly as formulaic cape-and-tights adventure, I instead wanted to look at it through the lens of near-future science fiction, foreswearing the retro-futurism of regular superhero fiction in favor of something closer to tech-noir or cyberpunk. This isn't necessarily to make the series 'dark and gritty' and subvert the usual bright atmosphere of the Superman mythos, but to give it a little more of an air of plausability; a world of giant killer robots and alien invaders is easier to take in when it's given that sleek 21st-Century makeover. As Christopher Nolan demonstrated with the new Batman movies, which featured ancient ninja cults and made up WMDs and criminal masterminds who bordered on outright psychic and city-wide radar systems made of cell phones, the difference between ridiculous and plausible in this kind of fiction is just a matter of presentation.

Along those lines, I wanted to incorporate elements from various sci-fi series such as Neuromancer, Deus Ex, and Ghost in the Shell into the city of Metropolis and its inhabitants. Much like how the Superman comics of the Silver Age dealt with the 'future-shock' of the 1950s and 60s by drawing parallels to the Space Race and the rise of nuclear power, the series could now deal with issues of genetic engineering, the possibility of cybernetic or digital post-humans, and the general theme of ambition versus ethics in the world of scientific progress, with a cyberpunk "high-tech, low-life" motif also allowing the series to recall many of the issues of urban plight, government and corporate corruption, and the increasing gulf between the powerful and the powerless like the original Superman comics of the late 1930s.

For the more far-flung villains and stories, I looked at series like Doctor Who and the Mass Effect video games, which invoke themes of destiny versus free will, principled pacifism versus fanatical militarism, and fiery humanism versus cold and malevolent cosmicism, shouting "I am here!" to a universe that either doesn't care or is out to get you.

That isn't to say I've abandoned its roots in the traditional superhero genre entirely, however. I still pulled inspiration from existing Superman comics like Birthright, Kingdom Come, and the current run of Action Comics, as well as Superman the Animated Series, for most of the core elements of the character. I also took cues in characterization from other heroes like Spider-Man and Invincible, and even the harsh deconstruction comics like Watchmen and Irredeemable, to think of how having so much power would affect someone, how much stress and pressure would be put on a man like that, how he could deal with his own personal issues when he virtually never has a moment to himself.

Ultimately, the most important central theme to Superman, whether taken from superhero lore or tech-noir dystopia or epic space opera, is a theme that runs through every genre of heroic fantasy and fiction in existence: a man simply trying to do what he believes is right, in an increasingly complicated and dangerous world.

[scary harpy]

...

It's not that I think that you people want to disneyfy Superman, but I am under the impression that you are overestimating the importance of Superman Smashes the Klan, maybe because it's the only decent Superman-related thing DC has released in the latest years. I don't think that it could work as some kind of cornerstone to use as a foundation to revamp the character or to get more readers, including young ones, into Superman - that's what I got, maybe wrongly, from a lot of comments. Again: not necessarily in this thread, it's more of a general trend I have seen on sites and fan forums.
...

I do want to disneyfy Superman.

I think it's what we need; I think TPTB will think this too.

It's a shame more hasn't been done with this character over the last 30 years. But what's done is done.

And DC has produced mature reading of various quality over the last 30 years. So it's there for those who want that.

What we don't have is a Mickey Mouse Club. We need our version of a Mickey Mouse Club. We need a character to attract small children.

As these children grow, they can read books like 'Lois Lane and the Friendship Challenge' and watch Teen Titans Go (or whatever cartoon is on then).

Then these children can grow into DC's books for pre-teens and adolescents. Some may become interested in comics.

And all along these children will be buying merchandise. That's what TPTB care about.

If that keeps comic books available, then I care about that too.

Superman seems like the perfect character to do this. (Better than Batman with all the death and mutilation.)

If TPTB think so, then don't be surprised if there is Super Duper Club in the near future.

[Ascended]

https://davidmann95.tumblr.com/post/...ere-john-byrne

I've read it too. it's pretty on point, IMO.

Man, I am such an idiot sometimes. I was reading that article thinking "David Mann....where do I know that name? Did he do that Miles Morales run after Bendis left? I really agree with him on, like, everything!"

F*cking moron that I am, it took me half the article to realize that I used to email with the guy all the time, working on a Superman bible.

So yeah, goes without saying I agree with him here.

As far as the "sci-fi definition" talk goes, I tend to think of Clark as "science fantasy." It's still a wildly broad term but I think it requires less actual theory to be accepted. Hard science fiction, I think of things like Star Trek, where even the most ridiculous ideas were rooted, at least somewhat, in actual scientific theory. Science fantasy, in my mind, doesn't require that much effort; it's "space magic" and it works simply because it works, and often has an almost mythical aspect to it. Stuff like Star Wars and Doctor Who I consider science fantasy, you don't really worry about the hard theory of how the Force works or how the Doctor regenerates, you just accept it as part of the premise. And I think Superman works a lot better when we don't try to nail down every detail with a corresponding scientific journal.

[Vordan]

Here it is:

All of that sounds great. Especially liked the comparison to the Mass Effect games, a “Paragon” Shepard is basically Superman. Especially if you rolled a Vanguard and just charged and supernova’d your way through every fight like I did .

[Vakanai]

I do want to disneyfy Superman.

I think it's what we need; I think TPTB will think this too.

It's a shame more hasn't been done with this character over the last 30 years. But what's done is done.

And DC has produced mature reading of various quality over the last 30 years. So it's there for those who want that.

What we don't have is a Mickey Mouse Club. We need our version of a Mickey Mouse Club. We need a character to attract small children.

As these children grow, they can read books like 'Lois Lane and the Friendship Challenge' and watch Teen Titans Go (or whatever cartoon is on then).

Then these children can grow into DC's books for pre-teens and adolescents. Some may become interested in comics.

And all along these children will be buying merchandise. That's what TPTB care about.

If that keeps comic books available, then I care about that too.

Superman seems like the perfect character to do this. (Better than Batman with all the death and mutilation.)

If TPTB think so, then don't be surprised if there is Super Duper Club in the near future.

I wouldn't want that, as in that's all we get. I love everything you suggested and I want that stuff too, but Mickey is never in anything substantial. I'd love for them to do everything you suggest, but I hope that TPTB realize Superman is for everyone and also continues to make stories for his adult fans. It shouldn't be either/or, we can have both.

[manwhohaseverything]

Man, I am such an idiot sometimes. I was reading that article thinking "David Mann....where do I know that name? Did he do that Miles Morales run after Bendis left? I really agree with him on, like, everything!"

F*cking moron that I am, it took me half the article to realize that I used to email with the guy all the time, working on a Superman bible.

So yeah, goes without saying I agree with him here.

As far as the "sci-fi definition" talk goes, I tend to think of Clark as "science fantasy." It's still a wildly broad term but I think it requires less actual theory to be accepted. Hard science fiction, I think of things like Star Trek, where even the most ridiculous ideas were rooted, at least somewhat, in actual scientific theory. Science fantasy, in my mind, doesn't require that much effort; it's "space magic" and it works simply because it works, and often has an almost mythical aspect to it. Stuff like Star Wars and Doctor Who I consider science fantasy, you don't really worry about the hard theory of how the Force works or how the Doctor regenerates, you just accept it as part of the premise. And I think Superman works a lot better when we don't try to nail down every detail with a corresponding scientific journal.

Yet, as a fantastic character superman's backgrounds, his cast, his world... Etc all feel rather mundane. Moreover, i don't even feel like there is a need for a superman for real. If you are going to say its magic set up a set of rules for that magic, create a world based on that set of particular rules,be imaginative about it.. Etc. For example, snails used as communication,nations with bending as based occupations...etc. Even his powers feel mundane many a times. Ghost in the shell or akira are great scifi takes. I do believe a hard scifi approach can work. You just need someone with some level of scientific understanding and competence. I do believe, if we take the guy from the primary take and his limitations(leap 1\8th a mile, faster than locomotive,.. Etc) . He could rather work even in the most grounded situations. If we are going surreal and futuristic maybe we can keep the suspension of disbelief alive even with superman doing the things he does. But, the thing about that is superman has a level of absurd elements to him used primarily as jokes at a time like say the clark kent disguise with glasses, acknowledging the audience, the "fifth" dimensional imps, reality ray.. Etc. What are you gonna do about that?

[Ra-El]

People, I remember that when Hickman got the X-line, he said that the X-Men was the last thing he really wanted to do on Marvel, everything else was on DC. He probably will be on the X-books for more 2 or 3 years, then he will be done.

If/When he come to DC, with a little luck he will want Superman, and we can get something new and imaginative like all of us want. Say whatever you wnat about Hickman, but the man have big ideas, the kind that can change a character. Now we just have to hope that when his time on Marvel is done, he will want Superman instead of Batman, WW or Green Lantern, DC will want to push Batman on him for sure.

[Vordan]

People, I remember that when Hickman got the X-line, he said that the X-Men was the last thing he really wanted to do on Marvel, everything else was on DC. He probably will be on the X-books for more 2 or 3 years, then he will be done.

If/When he come to DC, with a little luck he will want Superman, and we can get something new and imaginative like all of us want. Say whatever you wnat about Hickman, but the man have big ideas, the kind that can change a character. Now we just have to hope that when his time on Marvel is done, he will want Superman instead of Batman, WW or Green Lantern, DC will want to push Batman on him for sure.

Don’t know if it’s true but I’ve heard All-Star Superman is one of his top three favorite books, and he’s a big Legion fan which I assume means he’s a big Superman fan as well.

[Robanker]

Hickman's probably the one person I'd be willing to upend the current Legion for. Is the current Legion my favorite ever? No, not yet, but I hate when they get rebooted so quickly.

But for Hickman? Well...

Hickman and Derrington Legion of Super-Heroes 2024? Make. It. Happen.

[Vordan]

Hickman's probably the one person I'd be willing to upend the current Legion for. Is the current Legion my favorite ever? No, not yet, but I hate when they get rebooted so quickly.

But for Hickman? Well...

Hickman and Derrington Legion of Super-Heroes 2024? Make. It. Happen.

He wouldn’t reboot it. Hickman was brought into Marvel by Bendis, and Hickman has a habit of picking up Bendis’ toys and using them. See Goldballs over in HiX-Men for what I’m talking about.

[Robanker]

He wouldn’t reboot it. Hickman was brought into Marvel by Bendis, and Hickman has a habit of picking up Bendis’ toys and using them. See Goldballs over in HiX-Men for what I’m talking about.

That's awesome, I'd rather we didn't reboot them for a while. DC is all too ready to hit that button. Just saying, though, if anything could make that pill easy to swallow it's Hickman and Derrington.

[Lokimaru]

All of that sounds great. Especially liked the comparison to the Mass Effect games, a “Paragon” Shepard is basically Superman. Especially if you rolled a Vanguard and just charged and supernova’d your way through every fight like I did .

And you killed a **** ton of people too. Still a Hero.