Superman and the Authority

[The Frog Bros]

This is totally on brand Manchester Black. He’s always been this scumbag “punk” who hides behind a thin veneer of rebel attitude in order to justify lashing out in the most petty of ways. In the comics even moreso than the movie, which made him more of a sympathetic character. What’s changed is how Clark responds to him. This is a much more grizzled and world-weary Clark who is willing to engage with Black on an honest level of “maybe you had a point about my methods not being adequate to handle the world’s problems”. Prior to this he would’ve just beat Black to a pulp lol.

I guess Morrison was on point when they said that this version of Black was basically Johnny Rotten

That's one of the reasons why it doesn't sound real. Do you know anyone who is so blunt and rude like that in real life? Most of us, even if we hate the person we're talking to, at least try to sound somewhat cordial because that is basic human behavior. And honestly, this is an issue that I find prevalent in a lot of Morrison's writing. Most of the dialogue is overly stilted or just unnecessarily blunt to the point where it doesn't feel like human beings are actually saying it. Therefore, a lot of the time with Morrison, it feels like I'm reading about two robots trying to mimic a conversation as opposed to two human beings actually having one.

But that's not the real issue I'm talking about. What I find egregious is the way in which Morrison boils down Superman to a trope that fits the story as opposed to portraying him as a real person. And Morrison does the same with Black as a matter of fact.

What context do we have for this sudden shift in Superman's personality? I think all of us who read Superman comics know Superman as a benevolent and humble person who truly doesn't believe that it's "his place" to steer humanity in the "right direction." As such, at least the MAIN universe's Superman isn't the type of person to go down this authoritarian and ruthless bent, where [SPOILER ALERT] he's seemingly okay with poisoning someone who he tricked into trusting him.

Also, the conversation between Black and Superman just plays out as this very basic clash of ideals, with Black representing the anti-establishment, borderline anarchist side and Superman being the stand-in for "order and obedience" and seems to be willing to do "whatever it takes" to preserve that. However, again, I think most of us know that you can't boil Superman down to that basic trope because everything we've seen from his character would make us think that he isn't that.

In fact, the very first time he met Manchester Black, it was Black who was espousing the ideals of doing everything possible to maintain order, including killing supervillains, something that Superman was decidedly against. And even then, Superman is a multi-faceted person with complex motivations. He's not a caricature, which is what Morrison makes him into here. Here, Morrison boils Superman down to a base trope to fit the type of story they want to tell and explore a theme they think needs to be explored, even if it's a decidedly stark departure from everything we've seen of Superman's character development.

In other words, it seems that Morrison looks at Superman as a collection of ideals, rather than as an actual human person.

I actually like how off-brand Clark is here, particularly picturing the Clark from Morrison’s AC run in this context. He’s old, grizzled, he failed (and admits as such), and he’s now a different person. I can also see how some would want to view this story as out of continuity, Elseworld, etc.

So the bigger question is, if Black is Johnny Rotten, then who’s Sid Vicious