Grant Morrison talks modern Superman and his politics

[Last Son of Krypton]

From a recent interview Grant Morrison did with Forbes:

You’ve delivered some of the greatest modern comic stories for Batman, for Superman, and for so many character. When the New 52 kicked off at DC, what you did in Action Comics blew so many people’s minds, had you known before that you wanted to go back and delve into the history and mythology in that way? We saw you do that with Batman so effectively, so was Superman’s history something you were waiting to really sink your teeth into in a similar way?

Pretty much. I mean, I’d done the All Star Superman bit with Frank Quietly, which was a big kind of 12 issue statement about how we felt about the character. And it was a much more mythic and kind of widescreen, large scale symbolic story. It’s kind of allegorical drama of a man’s death and how he would deal with it, but using Superman as the man.

[So] I’d done that story, which was kind of Superman at the end of his life with this incredible advance in superpowers — you know, he was three times stronger, three times smarter, three times faster… I thought I’d love to go back to Superman’s early years and maybe look at what he was like when he first arrived in Metropolis, when he had power levels that were more like the early comics… when he could lift a car and he could survive bullets, but if you shot him with a shell, it would hurt him.

And I thought that was an interesting idea, the notion that his powers had increased over time, so let’s go back and look at him in the very early days when he was a social crusader when he was just a strong man and better than everyone, a kind of Paul Bunyan folk hero rather than a myth. That was the impetus for it. That’s what we tried to explore when we got into Action Comics, a much more grounded street-level Superman who was much more on our side — less of an icon and more of a person.

You mentioned the kind of social aspect of Superman. I’ve always thought it was important to his creation that he was rooted in the democratic and socially progressive ideas of Jewish culture and politics at the time.

Absolutely. That can never be forgotten. Superman is the creation of two young boys from Cleveland who were the sons of immigrants themselves — young Jewish boys, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. So he was very much an immigrant hero, he came from another planet to America. And you’re talking about a time in the [Great] Depression when there were a lot of people who had just recently arrived in America and they were trying to adapt to conditions, and they were having trouble financially, they were having trouble politically and socially. People were in ghettos, in huge cities bigger than anything they’d seen before. I think out of that came this myth — who’s strong enough, who’s fast enough to operate in a city like New York? Which became Metropolis obviously.

But they created this Superman character who to me was the ultimate immigrant figure who stood for their own dreams and hopes. Not only was he the kind of strong man these spindly boys aspired to be, he also stood against the injustices that I think they’d obviously seen in their lives. So the early Superman was up against corrupt union bosses, government officials, and mayors. Everyone in power seemed to be quite corrupt in Superman stories, and he was the one shining light who was up against that. I very much think he was designed as a Depression-era Superman.

Also, in the early stories he fights Robots a lot. And this was a time when mechanization was putting people out of jobs. You see the same thing in Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times movie from a little bit earlier, with the idea that mechanization and robots are going to put us all out of work and everyone’s going to end up on Skid Row. So you see Superman in those early years constantly smashing machines and smashing robots, and kind of being this figure of triumphant humanity and personality against the overwhelming approach of the machines.

What’s your opinion of the new cinematic DCU? In particular, we see the approach with the previous film — and now more so with the new film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice — addressing the social issues surrounding the arrival of Superman, including reflecting real-life xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments in the U.S. these days. And then there’s the idea of America as a beacon of hope that can use its power for good, but also this fear so many people have of the danger from potential abuse of that vast power.

I think you’re finding the Superman that’s developing now is interesting again, because he seems to be quite against society in a lot of ways.

For a long time, Superman was seen as quite boring because he was a “Boy Scout” and he stood for kind of American rightwing values rather than the leftwing values he’d been created with. And for a long time, he was seen as sort of a policeman figure, or a father figure, this patriarchal idea.

Now what we’re seeing is a Superman who slightly embodies the alien a little bit more, who stands for counter-culture or what remains of the opposition — because there’s not a lot of opposition in the world that we now live in, to the monoculture; now everyone’s under surveillance, everything’s under control, they know what we’re doing and they’re watching our emails. So strangely enough, Superman has oddly mutated again into this kind of progressive figure who’s fighting our battles on behalf of us with his incredible strength.

I’m glad you mentioned how the character has evolved from originally much more leftwing progressive ideology to much more conservative, and then back again. Because the new film is representing that incarnation of Superman who is more against corruption in society, but they’re juxtaposing him against a Frank Miller sort of Batman who represents the Batman reacting against Superman as a police-like government figure. It’s interesting the film is using that version of Batman who is on the outside fighting against the system, and yet the Superman they’re putting him up against is the one you’re talking about who is rooted in the attitudes reflected in your stories for example.

Which is fascinating, I hadn’t even thought of it in those terms before. Because Frank Miller positioned Superman very much as a Republican figure. He was working with Ronald Reagan, and he was absolutely in the pay of the American government in The Dark Knight Returns. But in this movie we’re seeing a Superman who is not on anyone’s “side,” and it’s Batman who seems to be the figure of “old money” and the idea of being the rich man with all of the weapons who stands for America itself, and suddenly Superman is the outlaw.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/markhugh...ovie-and-more/

Thoughts?

[friendly-fire-press]

I think he pretty much nails it ...

I especially liked this:

"Now what we’re seeing is a Superman who slightly embodies the alien a little bit more, who stands for counter-culture or what remains of the opposition — because there’s not a lot of opposition in the world that we now live in, to the monoculture; now everyone’s under surveillance, everything’s under control, they know what we’re doing and they’re watching our emails. So strangely enough, Superman has oddly mutated again into this kind of progressive figure who’s fighting our battles on behalf of us with his incredible strength."


And the last bit (when they mention DKR, etc) is making me more excited than ever to see Dawn of Justice ...

[Xon-Ur]

Turns out The Borg are real.

Morrison rightly and correctly denounced Hobo of Steel a few years ago, now he's towing the company line and praising depth in this the Goyer/Snyder take that simply isn't there.

It's a shame. I guess resistance truly is futile.

[Johnny Thunders!]

Really interesting take on Batman V. Superman. If anything Bats is an establishment guy, it's not like there are buildings with Kents name on them.

[Ascended]

Turns out The Borg are real.

Morrison rightly and correctly denounced Hobo of Steel a few years ago, now he's towing the company line and praising depth in this the Goyer/Snyder take that simply isn't there.

It's a shame. I guess resistance truly is futile.

Or perhaps he just changed his mind?

He's not the first person to notice that Batman looks like the establishment man in this film while Superman looks like the renegade.

And wasnt most of Morrison's problem with Man of Steel the death of Zod? Been a while, I forget....

[Thor-Ul]

Or perhaps he just changed his mind?

He's not the first person to notice that Batman looks like the establishment man in this film while Superman looks like the renegade.

The zeitgeist has changed apparentely.

[Robotman]

I could listen to Grant discuss the Superman mythos all day.

And yes I do absolutely love the fact that Batman is the authority figure to Superman's outlaw in BvS. A somewhat reverse Dark Knight Returns.

[HsssH]

From what I remember Morrison was okay with Man of Steel, he just would have done the ending differently.

[HsssH]

Found it: http://www.slashfilm.com/grant-morri...n-pacific-rim/

So basically didn't like the killing and that it didn't show anything new for Morrison. In the same article he says that he is looking forward to the next movie thats influenced by Dark Knight.

[Doctor Know]

Turns out The Borg are real.

Morrison rightly and correctly denounced Hobo of Steel a few years ago, now he's towing the company line and praising depth in this the Goyer/Snyder take that simply isn't there.

It's a shame. I guess resistance truly is futile.

I don't think anyone denounced MOS. Waid was the loudest complainer though. The worst Morrison had to say about MOS, was that it felt like a Superboy movie, and not a Superman movie.

Not everyone who has previously wrote Superman hated MOS, ya know.

Or perhaps he just changed his mind?

He's not the first person to notice that Batman looks like the establishment man in this film while Superman looks like the renegade.


And wasnt most of Morrison's problem with Man of Steel the death of Zod? Been a while, I forget....

Morrison's problem was Superman killing Zod. But he's totally cool with Superman and Zod punching each other to the Moon, and then to Mars and then to Pluto and Zod seemingly dying of asphyxiation. That's totally cool with GM.

You can read what he said, here.
http://www.craveonline.com/art/73298...in-annihilator

Here is a link to the thread I made about it.
http://community.comicbookresources....hould-ve-ended

You saw the same this with JMS' Superman Earth 1 Vol 3. Which had Zod being killed by Alexandra Luthor (using bullets), rather than by Superman's own hand.

If the result is the same, does it matter so much the means? A lot of writers like to sidestep and tap dance around the lethal force issue with Supes.

[borntohula]

Great interview, thanks!

Grant is such a good sport.

Would'v loved it if his Action comics run (his issues) got collected in a deluxe hc. Thing reads like golden age superman jinxed up with Interstellar and 5d-imps. Love it.

[adkal]

From the extract, I don't see him saying much about MoS but that the current position (post MoS), and what's being put forward for the new movie, is something he's interested in. Not sure how that is him changing his mind, though

[adkal]

Morrison's problem was Superman killing Zod. But he's totally cool with Superman and Zod punching each other to the Moon, and then to Mars and then to Pluto and Zod seemingly dying of asphyxiation. That's totally cool with GM.

You can read what he said, here.
http://www.craveonline.com/art/73298...in-annihilator

Nothing about asphyxiation, though. First man down, sure, but then, considering he goes on to say:

To me, Superman's the one character who solves problems by NOT killing people. Honestly, I think that should be a rule, because there's no others. It makes you think differently if you're doing it. You can't just solve this problem Elliott Ness would solve it or the way Arnold Schwarzenegger would solve it. You should solve it like Superman would solve it.

I, personally, take that to lead to a scenario such as an unconscious Zod being contained and locked up away from the sun.

[Doctor Know]

Nothing about asphyxiation, though. First man down, sure, but then, considering he goes on to say:



I, personally, take that to lead to a scenario such as an unconscious Zod being contained and locked up away from the sun.

You don't lose consciousness in a vacuum. If Zod and Superman were really losing their powers, then that means they were becoming closer to Earth normal humans. In a frozen vacuum of space, Zod would die (in Morrison's scenario) of lack of oxygen to the brain and or freezing to death, since they are so far away from the sun.

Remember what happened in War of the Supermen?

[adkal]

You don't lose consciousness in a vacuum. If Zod and Superman were really losing their powers, then that means they were becoming closer to Earth normal humans. In a frozen vacuum of space, Zod would die (in Morrison's scenario) of lack of oxygen to the brain and or freezing to death, since they are so far away from the sun.

Nah, I'm sure you've seen Guardians of the Galaxy. Plenty of time to get depowered/unconscious Zod to somewhere he can survive, and be powerless.