Just some idle shower thoughts that I had this morning that I thought were fascinating:
1. Despite Waid’s well know reputation for being old school about the Superman/Clark identity split, his portrayal of Superman in Kingdom Come arguably helped solidify the Byrne take that Clark is the real identity. In KC, a Superman who doesn’t have Clark repeatedly fails to make the “correct” choice. Only at the end once he embraces Clark again does he become more like the Superman we know.
2. Furthermore it’s Kingdom Come that really emphasized Superman as a farmer, to the point that Clark retires back to the farm after his ragequit. Now I’m not sure what Waid’s perspective on Superman becoming a farmer again is, Chris Reeve was the one to establish Superman’s farmer roots and Waid’s hard-on for that take is also well-known, but KC is also meant to be a story where everything goes horribly wrong. Yet in the end we are clearly meant to be happy about Superman once more becoming a farmer again when he starts trying to rebuild Kansas after Parasite & Atom nuked it. Is that simply the best ending Waid could give this Superman after all his screw ups, or is the idea of Superman becoming a farmer again one that Waid loves dearly? I would say Waid, as an old school Pre-Crisis fanboy who loves emphasizing Superman’s intelligence and scientific knowledge in WF, is unlikely to view Superman slinking back to farming with his tail between his legs as a “good” ending… which only makes it funnier that
3. Another big paradox is Waid hates the Kents being alive to see Clark becoming Superman, but his Birthright origin only further cemented the importance of the Kents being alive to guide Clark through his first steps! Now he’s been upfront that Birthright was a compromise between what he wanted to do and what he thought the mainstream would accept, but regardless his modern update of the origin still ended up conceding the argument there to Byrne.
4. Final big paradox: Waid hates the Clois marriage, he wanted to get rid of it with Superman 2000, yet KC once again arguably solidified the importance of the marriage. Lois dying is part of what alienates Supes from humanity, and it’s not hard to draw a line from what Waid did in KC, to what the DCAU did with Lois dying and Superman turning evil, ultimately culminating in Injustice and the DCEU.
Just fascinates me that Waid himself is arguably second in responsibility only to Byrne in rendering the status quo he wants untenable to the mainstream audience. Morrison is the one who actually went and created the status quo Waid wanted to see: single Clark, where Superman is closer to being the real identity, and the Kents die in his youth. Morrison wrote the Elseworld ending story for Superman in All-Star Superman that lets him go out as a hero, who uses his brains to defeat Luthor, and celebrates his Pre-Crisis lore. Instead Waid has been Byrne’s most loyal accomplice in terms of putting over the Post-Crisis foundation to a new generation. That’s amusing as hell to me and I’m sure would have him fuming if anyone pointed it out to him.