Morrison has never cared about “realism”, and you’re ignoring a lot of the context of why Clark is like this. He’s old and tired, weaker than he’s ever been, scared that his legacy will be one of failure. He’s blunt and direct because he doesn’t care about social niceties anymore, he’s also speaking to
Manchester Black who doesn’t respect those either. He’s trying to get through to Manchester here and being direct as possible to try to crack Black’s cynical exterior.
He didn’t poison him it’s just water lol:
He’s just a freaking drama queen throwing up because he’s mad Supes didn’t give him alcohol haha.
Indeed Black is a shallow person. That was exactly how he was characterized under Kelly and under Tomasi. For all his “punk” attitude, all he can think to do is murder people rather than tackle issues on a deeper more systemic level. In that regard Morrison is writing him in-character. And Supes
was the “order and obedience” guy in the “What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice, And American Way?” story, but I don’t see him as that here. He’s the “status quo” guy, the Action Comics social crusader who mellowed out and focused on supervillains, confident that humanity could solve their problems on their own, which is how Morrison wrote him in JLA. His shift in characterization is caused by him looking around and going “damn humanity really hasn’t gotten their **** together the way I hoped”. So now he’s asking himself how can he make a difference in a different way. A similar story I think would be looking at what Hickman did with the X-Men. After getting genocided so many times, they’ve finally decided to shake things up and stand up for themselves.
Black as a faux punk feels very much still present here. And Supes says that he’s not going to let Black run wild, which I’m taking to mean he’s still not going to let Black kill people. We’ll see though. I don’t see Clark as a caricature though, he’s feel caricature-esque if he recited the Pledge of Allegiance and told Black he needed to let Hope into his heart, which caused Black to fall to his feet in tears and say he’s always really wanted to be Superman’s son. And then everyone clapped as they went out to go beat down protestors in front of the WH or something
that would be caricature to me. But here Clark is grizzled, old, and world-weary, but he’s not giving up just yet. He hasn’t decided to go full Justice Lord or Injustice which would be the REAL cliche at this point. Personally I feel like the dichotomy DC has usually given us, that Clark can either be a passive observer or a full blown fascist, is in itself dishonest and caricature-ish. This seems to be going for a third route.
This is a fun discussion, just so you know GG, I’m not pressed you didn’t like this story, I just loved the first issue and am eager to talk about it. This is much more entertaining than the usual arguments we get around here. Sorry Moz isn’t doing it for ya, but I think this set up a very engaging and entertaining story to come.