Concluding Tuesday's piece;


VI.

But Metropolis isn't the only unfriendly environment in Mr Straczynski's "Superman: Earth-One". We're shown nothing good of Smallville, beyond some folksy conversations with the Kents, that might indicate that Clark's life there was anything other than utterly miserable. At least the folks in Metropolis mostly just walk unheedingly past poor desolate Clark, or sit having fun in bars while he gazes longingly in at their happiness. In Smallville, things were apparently far worse, and we're shown Clark being beaten by fat bullies and mocked for being a "chicken" and a "coward" (30:5/3). And this intensely unfavourable impression of his hometown is strongly reinforced by the fact that the only place in Smallville we're actually shown any detail of is the church and graveyard where Jonathan Kent is buried (31.1). Smallville, it seems, is little but football fields controlled by obese bullies and the dead. Certainly, when Clark is lonesome in Metropolis, and when the reader is supposed to empathise with his isolation, there seems to be no-one from his hometown to call up and chat to. Perhaps there was no Pete Ross or Lana Lang in the world of "Earth-One", and perhaps poor Clark actually made no friends at all for the first 18 years or so of his life.


It's a cold, excluding world that Mr Straczynski's Clark is forced at first to wander through, from his violently oppressed childhood in his hometown to his isolation from the unwelcoming masses of Metropolis. And it's made absolutely plain to us that this wistfully isolated Clark is an unhappy, rootless boy who deserves our concern and support, so that we want him to do well. Yet, at the same time, Clark's counter-intuitively shown succeeding in everything he does, because, it must be presumed, Mr Straczynski doesn't want us to think he's anything of a loser. And so, "Superman: Earth One" does seem to be a comic designed to make the reader feel tremendously sorry for a character who, after just five pages of alienation and self-pity, becomes without the slightest breaking of sweat a football star, a commercial scientist and a master of the building trades (15). And by constantly showing the reader shots of poor sad Clark brooding and hunched in his jacket, and by never showing a single panel displaying the benefits young Kent undoubtedly earns from his various careers, Mr Straczynski provides us with a hero who has the powers of a god, the achievements of a contemporary Alexander, and the right to our perpetual sympathy as the underdog of this tale.


Certainly, whatever it is that drives world-class athlete and brilliant commercial scientist Clark Kent to apply for a job at the down-at-the-dumps Daily Planet is simply never coherently explained. Suddenly, Clark is a tremendous success story in a variety of fields, and then he's talking to Perry White; the reader can assume what they want about why Clark should be there, but there's not the slightest shred of evidence that's he's driven by anything of any particular moral or intellectual depth to investigate the world of journalism. Perhaps wealth disappointed Clark, but we can't know that. He mentions his money once, to Martha, and with some pride too, so it doesn't seem as if he's morally troubled by the substantial economic benefits that his Kryptonian powers have secured him (12.2) . And if he were seeking a sense of mission or the warmth of belonging at The Daily Planet, you'd've expected him to tell Perry White just that, just as you'd expect, surely, that somebody at the Planet would have recognised this amazing young man who's so new and so massively successful in town. But, no, there's only the insubstantial clue to Clark's motivation in visiting the Planet provided by a silent page of five panels, in which Clark looks at a cover of the Planet with a headline of "City Hall Scandal" and buys the paper. (16). My guess is that we're supposed to see this as the rise of a social conscience on Clark's part, but there's nothing in the text or sub-text to suggest it. He just sees a newspaper, reads a newspaper, and then goes for a job, and that's all we know.

In essence, that first visit to the Daily Planet is just one more of a whole host of scenes which can be read in a sense favourable to Kent if the reader assumes, despite the mass of evidence elsewhere in "Superman: Earth One", that this Clark is pretty much the clever and decent young man they've met in other comics and films and so on. But the comic itself tells us nothing, or rather, it tells us something other than that which Mr Sraczynski wants it to convey. All the silent shots of Clark looking thin and handsome and thoughtful can't obscure the fact that there's nothing of depth going on in this story at all.


And so, it must be said, it's a most undeniably brave move to make the Clark of "Earth-One" as shallow and socially uncaring as the rest of his fellow citizens apparently are. A less adventurous writer might have shown Clark having different values from the big city and its people, and then presented the young Superman coming to terms with an anomic, atomised environment while holding onto his principles and good-heartedness. But Mr Straczynski's Clark is a most radical departure, being neither community-minded nor morally-motivated. Indeed, we follow him through the pages of "Earth-One" not because of what he does or because of what he represents, and certainly not because of what he learns, but simply because he's the point-of-view character in the story. And rather than there being any ironic distance in the text that might show us JMS is presenting us with a world so perverse that even Superman is corrupt and ethically ignorant, it's clear that we're supposed to empathise with his sense of rootlessness rather than shudder at his lack of purpose and direction. Ultimately, we're expected to cheer for Clark getting what Clark wants because he's called "Superman", and therefore he must be "Superman".


VI.

Mr Straczynski has his take on "Clark Kent" express some fascinating if ill-considered beliefs about the responsibilities of being a superhero at the end of "Superman: Earth One". These are expressed in some considerable detail in the "interview" that young Mr Kent fabricates with "Superman" in order to get a job as a reporter with The Daily Planet (125);

"Clark": Why did you wait so long before revealing yourself?

"Superman": Wasn't any reason to do so earlier. What I can do wasn't needed then.

It's a fascinating insight into Kent's mind, and into Mr Straczynski's as well. For even if we credit that there was no reason for Clark to become a public figure before Tyrell's invasion, we surely have to concede that there was no shortage of people that greatly needed his help either. The world is full to bursting with people who need the assistance of a Superman, even if that super man is a hero who acts in secret and seeks neither fame nor reward. Yet Clark had clearly never thought to help others before he helped save himself in the fight with Tyrell. If he had, he'd've declared that he'd been working secretly before to help his fellow women and men. But he didn't, because he hadn't been. And in truth, this Clark Kent seems incapable of grasping that he might have used his secret super powers without trying to occupy the limelight. This will explain why we're never shown a single example of Clark helping a single person in the slightest way before he belatedly joins the punch-up against Tyrell. For there's not a panel of evidence in the whole of "Earth One" that this Clark had ever so much as saved a kitten from behind a cupboard before the alien invasion inspired such compassionate ideals as "actually helping folks" to become reality. Although it seems beyond imagining that anybody could be so dense, or stupid, or callous, the simple idea of helping others never occurred to Clark, or showing him doing so never occurred to Mr Straczynski. In truth, the only times we ever see Clark using his super-powers prior to the second when he pulls his costume on are those moments when he's fooling folks into giving him money.


And so, where the Clark Kent of "All-Star Superman" learns from his step-father's death to look after others, the Clark Kent of "Earth-One" learns instead to apply his unearned gifts to winning big in the marketplace. It's a choice that Mr Straczynski has his Clark justify at Jonathan Kent's graveside, where the tearful Kent jr explains his selfishness by saying that he just wants to "fit in ... be one of the guys". If he should expose his alien origin to others, Clark argues, he'll "always be on the outside". (32.4/5)

Well, this reader wanted to shout, help people in secret, you idiot, and get on with your private life as everyone else does. But such is a possibility that Mr Straczynski's script never raises, and the reader is dissuaded from thinking Clark ever should have been assisting his fellows by the depiction of Smallville and Metropolis as such unendearing places full of distant if not actively unpleasant people. Everything that's cruel and selfish in that world is, the text shouts, everybody else's fault, but not Clark's.


And so, "Superman: Earth One" seems designed to make it easy for the reader to sympathise with Clark, regardless of what Clark does or doesn't do. In such a way are we expected to applaud the manner in which Clark solves the problem of respecting the divergent wishes of Jonathan and Martha Kent as regards how he'll use his powers in his adult life. For Clark's step-mother, as we've seen, essentially advises him to follow his own bliss, while his step-father swamps him with vague encouragements to serve a greater cause "when the time comes" (90.1). Clark's solution is as elegant as is it unique where the role of "Superman" is concerned; he'll serve as a man of steel when he wants to under his own conditions while living his personal life and using his super-powers to satisfy his private desires. He'll be, in essence, a Superman who sacrifices little of what he wants while making sure he enjoys himself at no great cost to himself in all other circumstances.

A hero for the 21st century!


VII.

At times it's hard to know whether Mr Straczynski is playing an exceptionally clever political joke in "Superman: Earth One". Is it possible, perhaps, that Mr Straczynski has created a text which only seems to present an utterly callow and rather dense Clark Kent as a heroic figure, while in truth leaving clue after clue scattered around as ideological snares to show how he's mocking modern ideas of heroism and self-interest?

This suspicion becomes even more pronounced when the "interview" which Superman supposedly grants to Clark Kent, after the battle with Tyrell, is read. (It's presented at the back of "Earth-One" in the form of a unconvincing sham mock-up of The Daily Planet.) In this "interview", which Clark Kent claims occurred straight after the showdown with Tyrell, "Superman" explains how he sees his role as a superhero, declaring that he'll only deal with events which "average men and women" can't "rise to the occasion" to stop. He also makes his evident that he'll do nothing which involves "politics or policy" either, while stating that his aim is to "help create the peace by doing what's right for people without trying to change them". It's a typically confused statement where the pages of "Earth One" are concerned, and unless Mr Straczynski meant it to show how shallow and daft Kent's thinking is, it merely reveals how confused both author and character are. For if Clark wants to preserve the peace in people's lives without changing them, then he's abandoned the moral purpose of all the previous takes on Superman. The Kal-El of "All-Star", as we've discussed, has as his central purpose the mission of inspiring individuals to be more community-minded, to be kinder and braver and less selfish. But Mr Straczynski has his Superman declaring himself to be nothing more than a passing presence of a crime-fighter, an invisible helper, a jolly nice superhero who doesn't want to rock the boat even through the process of setting a noble and self-sacrificing example. He wants everything to stay as it is, not even wanting to inspire change through others observing his actions.


Of course, the correct response to this intention would be to, again, advise the JMS Superman to take the costume off and work in secret. In such a way, he could act covertly without influencing anyone, because they'd never need see him.

But then, the lack of intellectual and emotional intelligence on the part of Mr Straczynski's Clark Kent is so total that his job-earning interview contains the following toe-curlingly stupid section, where Clark describes and then quotes "Superman" (126);

"He looks out the window. It's getting dark. "I should head out, there's still a lot of work to be done clearing the streets and digging people out from under the mess."

How well that must have been received by even the jaded and selfish masses of Metropolis, to read of how Superman supposedly stopped for a detailed interview with a young man, an unqualified teenager without a position on even a local paper, to discuss his philosophy and intentions while he knew that "people" needed "digging ... out from under the mess".


It's important that we're clear about what we're being told at this point. Mr Straczynski is having his Clark Kent write that Superman placed his media profile, an interview with a young and unaccredited amateur journalist, above saving lives which were put at such great risk and harm by Kal-El's very presence on Earth in the first place! And part of that "mess" that Superman so belatedly says he'll help with will be the debris from the skyscraper-tall alien mothership that Clark destroyed directly above Metropolis, no doubt! Let's ignore the shock-wave caused by the reactor-breech and the impact of the ship as it hit Metropolis, as we will the environmental disaster that would inevitably follow such a catastrophe, and let's just instead consider the simple fact of the victims buried alive. Any other take on Clark Kent that's designed to be seen as heroic that I can think of would be frantically rescuing victims and then rebuilding the city. But not the Superman of Mr Straczynski. He's either putting together fake interviews or, at best, so thick that he doesn't realise he's just written a front-page article which states Superman would rather give good media chat than save lives.

Now, I think it's conceivable that the JMS Superman could write something so stupid without noticing how offensive and reputation-shattering it is. Indeed, I've come to believe that Mr Straczynski's Clark would be unlikely to write anything other than such a daft article. But how are we to imagine that the supposed and self-declared Lord of all Journalists Perry White failed to spot this confession of unconcern for the many buried victims of Metropolis? Perhaps White's professional incompetence in not fastening onto the material before him and immediately posting a headline declaring what a selfish monster this "Superman" is might help explain something at least of The Daily Planet's decline on Earth-Straczynski?

And how did Mr Straczynski ever write this and not notice it for what it was, unless, of course, he really is cunningly presenting us with an ironic sub-text under the smug, selfish-minded and stupid surface of "Superman: Earth One".


9.

I.

We readers are informed in "Earth One" that Clark Kent is an impossibly intelligent young man. He's shown solving equations he's never seen before, whose values are unexplained to him, the symbols of which aren't defined, and the workings for which aren't apparently displayed in any detail. (It's an understanding of the cognitive processes involved in solving equations which rivals the grasp of human intelligence and the process of being a genius shown in "Good Will Hunting".) "The gaps are noted on the big screen in the other room." (12.3) conveniently declares the suit at "Neodyne Industries", who's inexplicably agreed to see the qualification-less Clark for a job interview even though his business only hires "the top five PHD graduates every year from Harvard, Yale and Princeton" (11.2). (By this statement, the reader is surely being invited to think of the many, many ways in which this executive at Neodyne Industries knows nothing of what he's talking about, of course.) Clark, as we might wearily expect, solves the problems immediately, causing the various "top five PHD graduates" to jump for joy while Clark claims their bonuses and probably their jobs too. (12.5)


How we reconcile this hyper-genius intellect with the idiocy of the Clark Kent who supposedly wrote the poppycock that is the Daily Planet article is impossible to work out. I suppose we're supposed to think that Clark has super-genius powers when it comes to equations but little or no grasp of basic political science and sociology, let alone any common sense. Perhaps that's so. If we can believe a man can fly, we can also surely believe that he's almost a hyper-autistic savant too. But another sad truth of "Superman: Earth One" is that intelligence plays very little part in how the JMS Superman operates. He's incredibly slow on the uptake, as we've discussed, during Tyrell's invasion, or at least that's the kind presumption of his behaviour then; perhaps he was just too indecisive or even cowardly to try to fight the alien forces that he was watching strafe the city. And Mr Straczynski's Superman wins his climatic battle with Tyrell through nothing else but violence and blind luck. There's not a stroke of wisdom or knowledge in how Mr Straczynski has Clark defeat his alien nemesis. Instead, his young Superman simply punches Tyrell alot before the Kryptonian spaceship that brought him to Earth arrives by chance rather than design and proves rather fortunately to be capable of flying right through the supervillain's previously-thought invulnerable defences (101/2). (It's certainly fortunate for Clark that Tyrell himself has already explained that his defences are "nearly as impervious as Kryptonian metal": well, who knew there was such material on the Earth and that it'd just turn up at the right time? (101/7)) In truth, Clark doesn't win out because he's moral, or wise, or self-sacrificing. He doesn't even win through his own physical exertions. Instead, he wins because he's Superman. When he needs a previously unknown piece of alien technology of his own to arrive at exactly the right moment to save him, it arrives. When that alien technology takes him right into his enemies spaceship, Superman's super-vision powers immediately find and destroy the machinery that empowers Tyrell, who is then left to die without the slightest effort on Clark's part being made to save him. Why any time at all was ever invested in establishing the scientific genius of this Superman quite escapes me.


Certainly, Clark never seems to grasp that there's a cities-worth of spacecraft about to crash on Metropolis, and that he might try to avoid that happening. It never seems to cross his mind, and Metropolis fortunately never seems too damaged either. (104.6)

But then the very first incarnation of Superman was perfectly happy to let bad guys go down with their own ships too. And yet, the very first Superman did also very much want to change the world, did want the powerless to be protected against the powerful in more than just a passing fashion. He was violent, yes, but he had a social agenda. This Superman just wants everything to stay as it is, or, he does if the journalism of one Clark Kent is to be trusted, and his victories are achieved through powers he's been born with and luck he never wins the right to deserve.


10.

I began these pieces wondering why I was so deeply moved by "All-Star Superman", and, of course, why I found it impossible not to be so profoundly annoyed by "Superman: Earth One". And in all honesty, I really had found it so hard to make sense of either text because of my intense emotional responses to them. To my surprise, for this has been something of a step into the unknown for me, the old teacher's trick of"compare and contrast" has proven remarkably useful. I hope, if anybody has found a reason to persevere with these pieces up until this point, that the process has been of some small worth, some passing entertainment, to you too.

But for the first time, I think I have a glimmer of the detail of why I feel so strongly about both graphic novels, and, given that I've explained myself in some detail above, I shan't exhaust whatever patience is left to you, dear reader, by summarising the points already made. That really would be teacherly, and you deserve better.


But I would highly recommend this process if you're ever extremely angry or deliriously happy about a comic book and those dictatorial emotions just get in the way of understanding why you're feeling them in the first place. Because I'm not angry at "Superman: Earth One" in the slightest any more. I'm not even irritated. The poison's well and truly drawn, for I've managed to gain a glimpse or two of why the book was affecting me so. It's been named, if you liked, and so there's no power there any more.

Which is all to the good, because "Superman: Earth One" was, after all, no less and no more than a graphic novel produced by two talented and able professionals who simply wanted to express their gifts and earn a fair return on them. And having helped them in the second purpose, by spending a fair percentage of this month's disposable income on "Superman: Earth One", I'm glad to say that I can now put away how they've expressed themselves and never give it a second thought again.


But "All-Star Superman" seems so much more remarkable a text than it did just a week ago, when I began these posts, and my liking and respect for it then was already substantial. I had no idea that my respect would increase so considerably when I started to take notes on the two graphic novels, but it's surely a mark of how wonderful a book "All-Star Superman" is that I admire it all the more after having interrogated it so. In fact, as you've no doubt long since noticed, I lack the language to express how much I respect the achievement of Mr Morrison and Mr Quitely where "All-Star Superman" is concerned. I wish I had the words, but I don't. But I do hope that I've been able to express something of why I feel the way I do, some small measure of why "All-Star Superman" seems to me to be such an outstanding piece of work. And yet, in the end, just as it was when I began writing this, attempting to explain why "All-Star Superman" is so fine is to try to catch the sense of something of an awed expression, of a tearful little sniffy sound caught in the throat, and of a straight-forward, sincere, and rather traditionally-restrained declaration of "It's good, isn't it?"

Because it is, isn't it? Inspiringly good.



If anyone has been kind enough to reach this far after all these pieces on "All-Star Superman" and "Superman: Earth One", then I can only express my sincerest thanks to you. It's been a pleasure to have you drop in here, and I wish you the most splendid of days!


.

7.

I.

"All of you, back into the library!" shouts Kal-El to the people of Metropolis as the Bizarros attack in the seventh chapter of "All-Star Superman", before adding the key admonition; "Stick together!" (7:11.2)

For me, it's the single most representative panel of the meaning of "All-Star Superman" in all of the twelve chapters of Morrison and Quitely's tale. In one frame, we have Kal-El coming to the aid of women and men who he doesn't personally know while facing down antagonists capable of killing even himself. And "Stick together!" is this Superman's doctrine, the principle that he believes always offers the best hope for every one of his fellow citizens, and for himself as much as everyone else. He fights for the community and never for himself, and to inspire those around him through his selfless example. And it's that respect for individuals, reverence for the wider society, and deference to the concept of service that so tellingly marks Clark's eulogy at his step-father's funeral;

"... Jonathan Kent taught me that the strong have to stand up for the weak and that bullies don't like being bullied back. He taught me that a good heart is worth more than all the money in the bank. He taught me about life and death. He taught me that the measure of a man lies in what he says but he does. And he showed me by example how to be tough, and how to be kind and how to dream of a better world. Thanks pa. Those are lessons I'll never forget." (6:19-20)


Of course, these are values encoded in many of humankind's oldest and most moving legends and myths. To learn that the individual must eventually accept their mortality and seek meaning in their duty as a protector of the community is what Campbell of course referred to as the "heroes journey", and it's a concept of social meaning and individual sacrifice that Grant Morrison explores quite deliberately and explicitly throughout "All-Star Superman". Indeed, as we can see from the funeral oration above, Morrison's Clark Kent comes to terms poignantly early with a great deal of what he needs to learn about his duty. "But what's the point of all my powers? What's the point of anything? (6:20:2)" he weeps in despair beside his step-mother, but Martha Kent already knows where Clark will find his purpose, and she's told him so; "You belong to the world now." (6:20.1)


II.

When reflecting upon his soon-to-be-ended life to a Superman robot in chapter 11 of "All-Star Superman", Kal-El skims over his glorious feats and his intergalactic fame. Instead, it's the personal friendships that he identifies as having had the greatest value to him;

"I've travelled across time and space. I've seen and done things beyond imagination. Blessed with friends like Pete and Lana and Jimmy ... What amazing people I've known." (11:5:3-4)

And yet it's telling that he doesn't spent his final hours in the company of his friends and loved ones. Instead, it's his duties to the wider community that he continues to pursue. As he visibly declines, Superman marks the last breaths of his existence by trying to help those less fortunate than he perceives himself to. When thanked by a nurse for visiting sick children, for example, the perceivably denuded Superman merely answers that "It's the least I can do." (10:1:3) And having found a new home for the city of Kandor, he berates himself for not doing so earlier rather than fuelling his ego with self-congratulations. (10.19.1) Mr Morrison's Superman marks his life less by his own astonishing achievements and more by all that never managed to do.


It's telling that the only truly angry-sounding statement Kal-El makes in "All-Star" is at the tales end;

Luthor: "I could have saved the world if it wasn't for you!" (12:16:3)

Superman: "You could have saved the world years ago if it mattered to you, Luthor." (12:16:5)

For Kal-El isn't upset that Luthor has effectively murdered him. Death is a fact he's accepted. Rather, he's incredibly frustrated by the fact that Luthor hasn't used his gifts to help his fellow citizens, and such is Lex's hatred and egoism that he'll never realise the incredible regard that Superman holds him in. For Clark is all-too keenly aware that he hasn't managed to "save the world", and that he's indeed only just been able to complete a list of twelve labours before passing on. Yet, Superman clearly believes that his arch-protagonist could have achieved all that Clark feels he failed to. To him, Luthor could indeed have "saved the world", which means that Clark believes Lex is in truth a more able person than he is, despite all of Kal-El's super-powers.


But Luthor couldn't ever recognise that he's been given the most fundamental and absolute compliment that a man could ever receive, even if he'd not just been punched into unconsciousness before it were given to him. Because Luthor would've had to be capable of recognising Clark's modesty and his respect for him, and he would've needed to be able to grasp Superman's fidelity to his duty to the human race too. But empathy and unselfishness have always been alien to this Lex Luthor, though perhaps the experience of perceiving how "it's all just us, in here, together" imposed on him by Kal-El in their final fight, might eventually inspire a fundamental change of heart, and even the existence of Mr Quintum. (12:15:3)

The community is everything in "All-Star Superman".


III.

When the Superman of "All-Star" finally disappears so appropriately into the sun, there's no mention of his heroic deeds accomplished in the public eye. It's telling, for example, that we only ever see the statue raised in his memory from behind. Like all great heroes, it's not the facts of his achievement so much as the meaning of them that creates a lasting legacy. And Superman has nothing but a legacy to leave behind. There's no Superman dynasty to protect the Earth in his absence. As he's told Lois;

"Our biology is completely incompatible. We could never have children." (10:11:3)

But he has, as Mr Quintum says, ennobled "the lives around" him (10.18.2), and even in his passing, he's given what little was left of his life to build that "artificial heart to keep the sun alive" (12:19:3), creating a specific moral meaning from what was before a gloriously general, unspecific symbol of life and hope. And his example has been so profound that Lois, for example, can't believe anything other than "He'll be back when he's done." (12.19.4), the world-changing inspiration that follows the death in fact or fiction of so many legendary and mythical heroes.


And it's no accident that the final page of "All-Star Superman" shows Mr Quintum standing before the P.R.O.J.E.C.T. vaults containing Kal-El's DNA. It's a "library", if you like, in which the human race will have to learn to "stick together", containing the knowledge upon which a new generation of superhumans might be created. As Quintum says;

"A world without Superman. We all have to make sure it gets taken care of while he's gone." (12:22)

Or, as Jor-El's shade has already explained to his dying son;

"You have shown them the face of the man of tomorrow. You have given them an ideal to inspire them, to ennoble them, embodied their highest aspirations. They will race, and stumble, and crawl ... and curse ... and finally ... " (12:6:3-5)


IV.

The concept of community that's presented in "All-Star Superman" is one which educational thinkers might refer to as "inclusive". Everybody belongs to the society that Superman represents and protects, even if they've chosen to reject it and attempted to destroy it. The inmates of the Stryker's Island prison, for example, haven't ceased to be members of civil society despite having willfully chosen to exile themselves from it. (5:3) The prison is "my world" (5:14:2), boasts Luthor to Clark Kent, and so it is, of a sorts. It's a vile, bleak and dangerous kingdom in which a war of all against all is constantly being played out, and yet for all of that, its citizens choose to be there. Regardless, Superman never once abandons his faith that Luthor, and by extension his prison-mates, might reform. "I know there's good in you." (10.15.3), he declares to Luthor, having already said that "It's not too late" for Lex to "put that brilliant mind to work" helping people. (11.15.1)


Even the brutal and arrogant Kryptonian imperialists Bar-El and Lilo are offered Superman's unconditional trust and assistance when they fall ill after having beaten Kal-El and effectively conquered the planet Earth. "If I can, if I still have time, I promise I'll find a way to restore you both." (9.21.1)

No-one is the enemy in "All-Star", no-one gets left behind, no-one is an island, and that's certainly a fact where Superman is concerned. He's constantly in need of the assistance of friends and allies, and never begrudges the fact. He's glad to rely upon Zibarro to escape Bizarro-World, for example (7:18:2), and it's Jimmy Olsen who rescues Superman from the effects of Black Kryptonite (4:21:1). Without their assistance, he'd have been dead long before his twelve labours were fulfilled.


8.

I.

The Clark Kent of "Superman: Earth One" can't, of course, be expected to be as comfortable with the role of hero as the Kal-El of "All-Star Superman" is at the end of his career. Mr Straczynski's Clark is, for example, a very young man indeed, having just "graduated from Smallville Junior College" (3:3). He can't be expected to be anything other than a heroic figure just starting out on his journey, replete with innocence, ignorance, arrogance and a need to learn some very hard lessons. And the world that Mr Straczynski places his new take on Clark Kent into might conceivably be a fascinating stage for such lesson-learning to occur. For the Metropolis of "Earth One" is a grim place, where pretty much everyone appears to be either entirely out for themselves or, at best, rather too fond of their own presumed wisdom and rather too quick to pass on their deathless insight in homilies and with blowhardisms. It's a city that appears to be socially constructed by an exclusive series of never-overlapping communities, the membership of which seems based solely on the commercial advantage that each individual can bring to those around them. The football team welcomes Clark because he can knock everyone else around without breathing hard. Big business welcomes Clark because of the incredible profits his strange scientific genius can help create. The Daily Planet welcomes him on board because his falsified interview with Superman will sell thousands upon thousands of extra copies. But at no time does Clark encounter a single person who might welcome him or even respect him without a commercial motive at stake. Upon his arrival, for example, the unknown boy with no market value finds all doors shut to the man with the hoodie and the glowing eyes who walks alone, who stares in longingly at beautiful young women in bars, and who never seems to think of joining a society, or visiting a club, or even, daringly, trying to simply talk to someone. It's tough to do, I know from my own adolescence, but it would've been inspiring to see him trying and succeeding to make some human connections based on something more than the power his abilities grant him in economic environments.


And we're never shown Clark abandoning one group for another because he's seeking a more kind and ethical life. There's no moral learning going on during Clark's time on-stage in "Earth-One" that might indicate that, for example, he's grasped that it's wrong to be abusing the game of football and putting its players at risk all in the name of his own personal glory and financial gain. Clark doesn't give up football because he's hurt somebody, or because he himself has been in some way wounded and forced to step towards maturity. He's not been shown through experience or reflection that it's meaningless to win acclaim at a game where every other player lacks super-powers. Instead, he simply moves on from one success to another earned solely through his own innate abilities. He's driven by nothing more profound than a desire to have more fun, and he shifts around in search of a place that fulfils his desires rather than one which helps diminish anyone else's suffering. In truth, he gets whatever he wants without having to frame his own existence in any moral terms because, well, he's Superman, isn't he?

There is no pain involved in the achievements of Mr Straczynski's Clark, but there is a great deal of effortless gain, and where Grant Morrison's Kal-El belonged "to the world" from the death of his father, the JMS Superman simply owns "the world" without having to really try. The world is there for him, although he may not grasp the fact in his ethical ignorance and self-pity, and he's certainly not in the world for the good of anybody else.

This is not in any way a heroic journey. It's not even a tale of a young man starting out on a heroic journey, regardless of how the text makes it plain that we should feel that that's so. This is a story of a Superman who's sacrificed nothing and won everything, who's suffered little but a few nights of teenage angst before wealth, sporting success and finally career satisfaction came his way.

He's learned nothing by the end of "Earth One" except that he can get anything he wants, which isn't a heroic journey, but, rather daringly, the exact opposite.


II.

The death of Jonathan Kent in "Earth-One" has a profoundly different effect upon the JMS Superman than was seen in "All-Star". Mr Straczynski's Jonathan Kent is always shown encouraging, in that vague and cliche-saturated manner which marks benign authority figures in the comic book scripts of JMS, to serve "something bigger than ourselves". (63.3) What that "something" is remains remarkably vague, though Clark is told that he'll know what to fight against when he's been picked on and finds a voice in himself saying "I won't take this anymore". (90.6) It's exactly the kind of wonderfully vague nonsense that an impressionable young man might well be inspired by, for it's a principle to right action that argues that if someone else really annoys you, it virtuous to have a go back. How Clark might tell the difference between an irritating policeman telling him to drive slower and a charming patrolman cleverly breaking the law in his own advantage is never explained; the emotion, the passion, is what counts in Jonathan's account of moral awakening, and if someone doesn't annoy you, then they're obviously not offending your principles. And because there's no moral context given in old man Kent's advice, beyond the fact that Clark's step-father had reached his "I'm-not-going-to-take-it-anymore" moment when head-butted by a fellow soldier, we end up with the following apparently laudable guide to ethical action that quite short-circuits any understanding beyond pity for the idiot saying it;

"When we say I won't take this anymore, that's when we know who are and what we'll tolerate."


It's a profoundly unChristian principle for a character who was born out of the Judeo-Christian tradition. It seems to presume that deep in every individual's heart lies a moral code based on absolute truth that doesn't need to be studied and considered so much as just left there for the time when someone else will cause it to be forcibly revealed through behaving in an unpleasant fashion. It's moral truth revealed through irritation and expressed through force, which is, I will say, a new spin on the lodestone of Superman's ethics. In truth, it's a justification for the maintanance of deeply held and never-confronted prejudice. And that in itself is fine in that an anti-intellectual Superman with reactionary principles would be an interesting character, and I've no problem with any radical change to Clark Kent's ethics if they're carefully thought through by the creators involved and presented coherently for what they are. But this statement of Pa Kent's, which is presented as a deeply moving moral lesson, in fact justifies any resistance on Clark's part to anybody and anything that irritates him enough. It's a daft piece of snakeoil hokum drawled out by a Jonathan Kent who's obviously a profoundly stupid man who loves his own voice and thinks the world of his own opinions while lacking the intellectual firepower to know he's talking rubbish.

And Clark Kent, as we'll soon discuss, is very much his step-father's son.


III.

Constantly bouncing from one indulgence to another, and presumably always seeking that moment when he'll be so annoyed that he realises what he stands for, the Clark Kent of "Earth One" finally settles on a job with "The Daily Planet" not because it allows him to stay informed of who needs help, or because he'll be able to pursue a moral agenda through the practise of crusading journalism, but because he's excited and inspired by the supposed bravery shown by Lois and Jimmy on the city's streets during Tyrell's assault. We've already discussed how that bravery was no bravery at all, but it's worth also noting that Clark is no more able to see through that piffle about "truth" than Olsen and Lane were. This Superman may possess the capacity to be able to solve impossible equations without any kind of forethought, or indeed any knowledge of the workings behind them, but simple words like "bravery" and, yes, once again, "truth", quite baffle him. He explains, for example, that he wanted to work at The Daily Planet because Lois and Jimmy had shown themselves determined to "stay and fight for the truth", though, as we mentioned, they did no such thing at all. (112.6) They were staying and fighting for themselves and their odd expectations of how the world should treat them.


In addition to that business of "truth", Clark also seems to be in awe of the steps Jimmy and Lois took to help the trapped Superman on the field of combat, declaring that their actions ensured that a "lot of people are alive right now who might not be otherwise". (111:6) This sounds a worthy example for Clark to aspire to, but then, Clark hasn't noticed that helping people survive on a battlefield has nothing to do with being a journalist. If saving folks from being killed in a direct and immediate sense is what Clark wants to emulate, then he ought to be seeking a job in the emergency services, or the armed forces. He's a hyper-genius, so passing his medical exams and helping in Somalia or Afghanistan ought to be well within his grasp. Indeed, and this reflects a rather more traditional take on the character, he could even just fly out to dangerous situations and quietly help people.

But, of course, Clark's decision to become a newpaperman has nothing to do with morality, any more than his decision to no longer play ball reflects a developing conscience on his part. Instead, he's just stumbled by chance upon a gaggle of young professionals that he'd like to hang around with and get excited by. He wasn't deeply interested in the business of journalism when he first strolled in the Planet offices to apply for a job, and perhaps he's not so fascinated by the news and the reporting of it now. He's certainly not a very good writer, as we'll discuss in a moment.

And he has no more concept of "community" at the end of "Earth-One", beyond the awareness that Lois and Jimmy seem like a fun little gang that he'd like to belong to, than he did on its very first page.


IV.

But it's not surprising that Clark has no concept of a wider society that he can relate his actions and intentions to. For not only did his step-father fill him up with speeches that in effect justified any self-centred behaviour he'd like to indulge in at all, but his Mother has, in the wake of her husband's death, quite pulled up the drawbridge of her social existence and makes no bones of the fact that she now defines her life solely in terms of those things immediately surrounding her;

"I've got this place, this retirement, my memories of Jonathan ... and I've got you. That's a whole galaxy there, Clark. What more do I need?" (13.3)

Readers used to a less-inwardly obsessed take on Clark's step-mother might be disappointed by this philsophy, and wish that Martha was using her experience and wisdom to help others in some fashion. But the point of this piece isn't to suggest that the choice to make Martha so socially uncaring and willfully isolated is of itself wrong-headed, but rather to empathise that Mr Straczynski doesn't seem to have thought through these changes he's made to the principles his versions of these characters now espouse. For Martha's wishes for her own life and for Clark's are all based on entirely selfish principles, and yet they're presented to the reader as undeniably ethical choices, as in the following dialogue, where Martha advises Clark on how he ought to be guided in his life-choices;

Martha: "But what I really want to hear is "This is what I want. For me to live the live the life and dream the dreams I've always longed for."

Clark: "But isn't that being selfish?"

Martha: "Oh, Clark, that's not selfish. That's how futures get built."


And, though we'll return to the point later, that's essentially the "selfish" principle that Clark's behaviour is grounded upon in "Earth One". It's an adventure story in which its protagonist never approaches even stumbling upon a sense of duty and a faith in the human race. Rather, he finds a gang of similarly confused and self-seeking late teens to hang out with, and that is how the success of the character is measured. He doesn't discover through sacrifice and miscalculation how important society is. Instead he stumbles effortlessly from one success to another without the slightest mishap beyond a tiny frission of adolescent alienation before arriving at his place in the cosmos because, quite frankly, it seems like an exciting place to be.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with Martha and her son being concerned fundamentally with their own affairs and welfare rather than everyone else's. An essentially Libertarian Superman is as valid an interpretation of the character as any other. No, what's fascinating in "Superman: Earth One" is that individual desire and satisfaction lie at the heart of everything that Clark does, but the text just takes it for granted that serving oneself is the same as being heroic. Even Superman's battle with Tyrell isn't one that he seeks out in order to do good; he has no choice but to fight, though he delays as long as possible even while the citizens of Metropolis are being bombarded through no fault of their own because of his presence. But from the sense of Mr Straczynski's script, you'd think that this Superman was as nobly civic-minded a superhero as his counterpart from "All-Star Superman" undeniably is.

And so the matter of being a hero, let alone a superhero, in "Earth One" is a very different business from any other take on the character of Superman that's ever been seen. And since Mr Straczynski's text makes it plain that the reader is supposed to regard his Clark Kent as a brave and admirable character, this can only be regarded as a graphic novel with an immensely unconventional and daring political message.


V.

Given that "Earth One" contains such a profoundly different take on who Superman is and what his role might be, both in and out of costume, it will come as no surprise to the reader that the people of Metropolis in it aren't a very heart-warming bunch at all. If Clark doesn't engage with any accepted notions of service to society, well, the society he exists in hardly seems to deserve his endeavour and loyalty anyway. We've already discussed the fact that the emergency services and indeed everyone in the city ran away from Tyrell's onslaught without helping each other; this is a city where even the fire-fighters can't be trusted. But it's not just the folks who are actually paid to help their fellow citizens who are so cowardly and self-concerned. In general, everyone in Metropolis walks past each other consumed entirely by their affairs, and conversations seem to focus, as we've said, on financial advantage or the virtues of making decisions that emphasise the individual's personal interest. "Well, you gotta decide what you want to do with your life. Other people can't do it for you" advises Clark's new landlady quite out of the blue within two panels of knowing him, and from then onwards, Superman's future is solely a question of whatever Clark wants. (3:3) In the absence of any role models encouraging him to think of others before himself, perhaps it's understandable that he should end up such a thoroughly self-regarding individual. Why, even Perry White never mentions the public interest in the whole of the four page discussion he has with Clark about a possible career in journalism. There's simply not an atom of moral engagement in anything that White waffles on about. Journalism is a job, White should be respected, and the Daily Planet has fallen on hard times and should be more respected; those are the issues that White is concerned with. (18-20) He doesn't even have a non-sensical and self-aggrandising allegiance to some mystical notion of "truth" to guide him, or to motivate Clark.


The very idea of a public interest appears verboten in "Earth One", but that's made less obvious by, as mentioned above, the people of Metropolis being painted as such an unappealing bunch. For what reason would anyone ask why Superman is so unconcerned with helping others when those who share the city with him are so dull, stupid or immoral? Of 12 talking heads that we're shown on TV screens responding to Superman's first public appearance, for example, only two express a reasoned, welcoming response to Superman's appearance. (118) The other ten of Clark's fellows are either facile or hostile. The sense is given of a distrustful, unpleasant, rather shallow culture that Clark would do well to stay away from. Better, the text seems to say, to worry about yourself than those folks, and, of course, that's exactly what Clark does.


After all, even the TV news stations in Metropolis are rather unpleasant in the way they conduct their business. Whatever channel the reader is being exposed to while those dozen heads are having their say seems to be one with little concept of either gender or racial equality. Only one of the dozen faces on show represents without any possible confusion a person of Colour, and only a third of the screens are focused on female faces, including two rather fetching and giggling teenagers. If this is a Metropolis station, then it seems that the city's broadcast companies are as unwelcoming to minorities as its streets are to lonesome, superpowered strangers from the deep country fresh from the railway station and looking for friends.


To be concluded;




To come, the one concluding section on All-Star Superman and Superman;Earth-One. And then this week's look at 2000ad, and then a piece on Gail Simone's always-well-worth-reading Secret Six. I hope to see you there for perhaps one or so of those, and, yes, I really do wish you a splendid day, and of course, stick together!


.

continued from last Friday;

5.

I.

Elsewhere in "Superman: Earth One", Mr Straczynski is forced to rely on exposition to establish key plot-points which he and Mr Davis have forgotten to actually show the reader on the page. When the decidedly unfearsome Tyrell questions Jimmy as to why he hasn't "run away" when "everyone else" has (65:1). (*1) Olsen declares in a quite inconceivably pretentious fashion that "I'm a news photographer. We don't turn away, and we don't run from the picture." (65:4) It's a statement which might have sounded less cringeworthy if the reader had previously been provided with a single panel in which Olsen's fellow citizens were indeed pictured racing away in fear while he was shown to the bravest man alive. But, since we've not had a chance to directly compare Olsen's behaviour with that of "everyone else", it's hard to generate such an awed respect for Jimmy that we can swallow the haughty slogan that Mr Straczynski has him deliver.


Of course, the irony is that this exchange just makes Olsen sound like a pompous jerk, and a fool too, since it's not simply brave to stand before alien cannon taking photographs and proclaiming your moral daring; it's actually incredibly stupid, and futile too. But Jimmy Olsen has to be shown as an incredibly daring and principled man at that point in the story, because Clark Kent, who can't make a single decision for himself without following another character's lead in "Earth-One", has to be inspired by what is in truth ignorant and egotistical behaviour. Regardless of whether Olsen is or isn't actually behaving in a laudable and valiant fashion, the structure of the narrative of "Superman: Earth One" relies on him being perceived by Clark and the readers to be doing so. And so we're given the following deathless exchange between tyrant and shutterbug;

Tyrell: "You and your kind would stay and die for a photograph?"

Olsen: "No -- we stay and die for the truth. Because it's the only thing worth dying for." (65:3-5)


And at these words, the watching Clark Kent, who has seen Metropolis assailed by alien ships for a good while now and done very little at all in response, finally clenches a fist and allows himself to be moved at last into some aggressively super-heroic action.

II.

It's a moment that makes some purely functional sense in the terms of the beats of the story. The character of Clark needs an inciting incident that will transform him through a good example into Superman, and that's what Jimmy is, a dramatically and supposedly inspiring one-dimensional plot device. But just a moment's thought can reveal how shameful the scene and those words are. Firstly, because journalistic "truth" surely isn't the "only thing worth dying for". I can think of so many other causes worth laying down a life for that it's futile to begin to list them, but, nevertheless and to make a point, perhaps we might agree there might be just cause for self-sacrifice if a beloved neighbour needs saving from a burning building, or when the principle of a vital civil liberty is under threat? But to suggest that a newspaperboy's truth is the only thing worth dying for is actually a rather disagreeable statement, callous in its egotism and absurd in its meaning. But, regardless of logic, JMS constructs his script around that principle. It's Olsen's willingness to be ray-gunned in the name of this ill-defined "truth" that turns Clark into the Man Of Steel.


It's such an odd thing for Olsen to be made to say in the first place. There he is in the story, placed by JMS in direct opposition to the big evil antagonist of "Superman: Earth One", and the major turning point of the whole tale relies on Mr Straczynski's decision to have one character pronounce to the big baddie that they're willing to die for the "truth". But in what way is Tyrell standing for "lies"? In what way is this turning point connected to the conflict that forms the spine of the book, namely Tyrell's hunting down of Clark? Perhaps it'll be revealed in a later volume that the alien world-killer has not been entirely truthful with the history of Krypton that he later relates to Clark, but there's no sign of that in "Earth:One" itself. And so, while I could accept that the fight against Tyrell was all about "survival" or "freedom", I've no idea what this "truth" has to do with things. I can't even say why Jimmy Olsen feels he's serving the truth by dodging around a battlefield taking pictures of robots. It's impossible to believe that there won't be a host of photos from the various cameras that the state and its citizens possess in 21st century America, so why is Olsen out there? Is he engaged in some moral mission armed only with a camera, or is he perhaps fighting for this "truth" by taking a better quality of picture? Whatever he's doing, it's Jimmy that's the hero of "Superman: Earth One" in terms of the structure of the book. "Everyone else" is running away, but Jimmy's actively taking photos, and that's what makes the alien in the jodhpurs Superman. Even if Superman's value is later to be revealed as a figure who inspires all these cowardly Terrans to do something, it's Jimmy that establishes that key point first.


It's ridiculous, of course. It's the single most important event in the whole book and it's so silly, so puffed up with authorial imprecision and misdirection and so wounded by the stupidity of the silly concept being thrown around that it quite literally defies understanding; how could JMS and his editors have ever let this get to the published page? But, regardless, Mr Straczynski wants to tell us that Olsen is brave because his plot demands it to be so, and so a brave example there will be. Most worrying, however, isn't the total lack of sense, but the assumption on Mr Straczynski's part that the big gesture needn't be anchored in a recognisably moral context. Bravery in isolation from a decent cause is no virtue. There are endless examples of quite despicable individuals in history who were "brave" and yet quite appalling at the same time. "Bravery" in isolation from principle is no more admirable than, for example, "determination" untempered by decency, and being brave in the name of some ill-defined and photo-centred "truth" is actually rather contemptible; is this Jimmy Olsen really this pretentious and stupid? What is this "truth" that Tyrell is so threatening and how is Olsen standing up for the truth with his brave picture-taking?

For, yes, we're all aware that Superman has traditionally been defined as a superhero standing up for "truth", as well as "justice" and, in most versions, the "American way". But a stance of "my truth unto death regardless of whether it means anything at all" is hardly a statement of principle worth sacrificing one's life for, or rather, it's not for all but the most self-obsessed of individuals.


III.

And so, though Olsen is eventually shown attempting to help Superman escape from the effects of a super-weapon, the damage to the plot and the meaning of "Superman: Earth One" has already been done. The reader's sense of what the book's about has been quite derailed by this key but ill-advised principle of "truth", and Olsen himself, the boy who in by example inspired Superman's first big fight, is revealed to a foolhardy and pompous windbag who thinks taking photographs is in itself a profoundly moral act worth dying for, regardless of what the pictures he's actually taking are. (After all, I think it's pretty clear to everyone that Tyrell is one alien terrorist who's not trying to cover up the facts of his attack on Earth's cities are concerned. He's pretty up-front about it, actually. Whatever the truth is that Jimmy's illuminating, it's nothing to do with the content of the photos he's taking)

Perhaps if JMS had chosen instead to show Olsen concentrating on helping the victims of the alien assault, he, if not his beloved "truth", might have seemed more inspiring. We are later told that there are many folks buried alive even after the battle with Tyrell has ended. (120, column 3) If only Jimmy had thought to help his fellow citizens rather than only being moved to lend a hand when the glorious superhero in his longjohns appeared, then he might have seemed to be a little closer to the inspirational figure that Mr Straczynski so evidently demands we believe he is. As it is, the Earth of "Superman: Earth One" seems to be one in which nobody, nobody, but Jimmy Olsen and a few fighter pilots are brave, and nobody, nobody, thought to help anyone else until Superman was inspired to start punching Tyrell. As a consequence, it's hard to care about Jimmy's world, let alone the daft little boy himself.


But since Olsen has been so unconvincingly placed by JMS in the role of spirit-raising, moral hero, what does this say about the Superman of "Earth One"? What can we say about a Clark Kent who watches on as his adopted city is bombarded and the Earth devastated and who does nothing but save a few threatened soldiers, who has to be motivated by talk of self-aggrandising journo-principles and, it might be said, the fact that the aliens have declared that they will destroy the planet if he doesn't appear? It's not very heroic of Clark to have to be inspired by Olsen's mendacious tosh into fighting back, but it's also undeniable that he's got no choice but to start punching aliens anyway; Tyrell will destroy the planet and Clark along with it if Superman doesn't force the aliens back to wherever they've come from.

Does Mr Straczynski, who finds it necessary to spell out to his readers so literally how he wants his work to be understood, not grasp that by the evidence of his own script, Jimmy Olsen is a fool and Superman a self-obsessed, dense and rather cowardly young man? For it's one thing to be young and to be unsure of what to do with one's life, and quite another to be a Superman and not be able to grasp that sacrificing yourself for the community while it's being laser-blasted to hell because of your presence is what needs to be done.


After all, if Clark hadn't wanted to fight, he could have taken Tyrell up on his offer to leave Earth alone in return for his surrender. Perhaps he didn't believe that his adopted planet would be safe from Tyrell even if he did give up, but to not fight and yet not surrender either while the Earth is being destroyed isn't the mark of a young man coming to terms with his destiny. It's the mark of a moral imbecile. For cities were being flattened and large numbers of people being killed and Clark was doing nothing while waiting to be inspired by Jimmy Olsen and the ethics of zen photography. And since Mr Straczynski offers us no explanation at all for Clark's various hesitations, it's obvious that he presumes the reader will be thrilled by Superman's heroic fight-back rather than appalled by his protracted hesitation to do anything of substance that put himself at risk at all.

It would have been fascinating to read of a scared Superman, a fully-realised late-adolescent who had to learn to face his fear and the shame of having caused so many to suffer while he was frightened to act. But that's not what we're being given here. The "truth", it seems, is not quite so absolute a guiding principle as JMS might wish us to believe it is, because "Superman: Earth One" tells its readers lies. Jimmy's not a hero, the truth isn't an issue, and Superman seems to have made it to the age where he can fill his longjohns without an ounce of inititiave or moral decency to guide him.

*1:- That's a pretty unconditional statement. Metropolis was monitored and "everyone" ran away? Apparently the emergency services, for example, all ran for their lives! That's a strange statement from a man who was so supportive of the people who did their very best to help out at 9/11, and we'll be discussing that issue of community in the concluding piece on these two graphic novels.


III.

The Jimmy Olsen of "All-Star Superman" is no less unfamiliar to the reader than that of "Earth-One", in that he's as different from previous versions of the character as Mr Straczynski's take is, but he's a far more engaging figure. He's introduced in chapter 3 of ASS, and Mr Morrison and Mr Quitely work together there to deliver a great deal of information about Olsen visually. (3:3) Not for them great set-pieces and broad statements about virtue and purpose. While Steve Lombard is raging about the property damage caused by Krull's rampage through Metropolis, for example, Jimmy is presented to us calmly contacting Superman with his signal watch, immediately establishing himself as a focused and practical young man with barely a world being said. And by Chapter 4, Mr Morrison and Mr Quitely have assembled for us a Jimmy Olsen who's been shown to be brave, resourceful, ambitious, able and even capable of breaking into the top-secret P.R.O.J.E.C.T. databases (4:21:5). That's he's also somewhat ridiculous and self-important, such as when dressed in his bra and mini-skirt (4:1:5), is part and parcel of the fact that he's a character rather than a plot-point. Mr Straczynski's Jimmy has to be perfect, because he has to be the perfectly brave example that inspires Clark Kent; there's no-one else in the book to do that because everyone else ran away and obviously the Kents never convinced Clark about the value of civic duty. And that heroically one-dimensional Jimmy Olsen has no other function or existence in "Superman: Earth One" beyond that. He's brave and principled so that Superman can learn to be brave and principled too. But the Olsen of "All-Star Superman" has his weaknesses as well as his strengths, and they often overlap, as when the competent Olsen helping to run P.R.O.J.E.C.T. displays some alienating streaks of arrogance too. And it's because the Jimmy of "All-Star Superman" is almost as flawed as he is admirable that we feel so fond of him as a person rather than responding to him as an example of blowhard rhetoric.


Parachute the Jimmy Olsen of "All-Star: Superman" into "Earth One" and though he'd be both paradoxically a more real and yet more cartoony character than those around him, he'd still be a fascinating figure. Transfer Mr Straczynski's Jimmy into "All-Star: Superman" and, even adjusting for the difference in tone, he'd stick out like an irredemable idiot, fit only as comic relief, a deluded sidekick of Steve Lombard. Whatever would the Clark and Lois in that world think of this boy running around the ruins of Metropolis for no good reason at all?

And so, rather than having their Jimmy Olsen prove his bravery by taking photos of robots and pontificating to alien super-villains, Morrison and Quitely's Jimmy shows how much he loves Superman by bravely exposing himself to the Doomsday virus in order to save his friend (4:17:2), and by then cradling the fallen and badly beaten man of steel while shouting at the folks who approach the two of them;

"Don't let anybody see him like this! You hear me!" (4:20:2)


It's such a touching scene, displaying how much Jimmy cares for his friend's privacy and dignity without ever explicitly saying as much. And if Jimmy's somewhat over-wrought, well, he's just been transformed into a Doomsday monster and, let us never forget, he's still a young man, with a young man's emotions. But for all of that, he's presented as a brave character rather than one we're told is brave, and he's one among many in the pages of "All-Star Superman" who show themselves willing to help others at a great potential cost to themselves. That's in such contrast to the Earth One Jimmy, who turns out to have sacrificed nothing at all, and to have helped no-one either until Superman appears on the scene and makes assisting the war-wounded more sexy.

For just declaring that the word "truth" is of such importance, as Mr Straczynski does in "Earth One", doesn't mean that that's so. And the reader of "All-Star Superman" knows without having to be told that the principle of "sacrifice for the greater good" is what Morrison and Quietly's graphic novel is all about, because they've been shown example after example of characters facing up to their social responsibilities and being portrayed as admirable, or failing to do so and being depicted as shameful.


6.

I.

The pages of "Superman: Earth One" are full of characters who are clearly intended to seem endearing and commendable, but who are revealed to be anything but when the meaning of the text rather than its intent is considered. Mr Straczynski spends, for example, four pages of static and tedious images establishing the rather obvious point that Perry White is an editor of a newspaper, and we're clearly intended to admire this opinionated old professional around whom the Daily Planet's staff revolve (18-21). But given that we're never told anything about White and his role that's in any way necessary for the plot of "Superman: Earth One", the question comes to mind concerning why the readers are ever asked to get to know this Mr White in such detail? The assumption can only be made that JMS either thinks his audience will be fascinated by hearing an editor lecturing his staff on the finer points of grammar and the data-processing capacity of the Daily Planet's computers, or that they need the mass of information that's being given to them in order to believe that such an exotic figure as a newspaper editor can actually exist.


And yet, for all of Mr Straczynski's obvious intention to present the Daily Planet's editor as a noble patriarch, his take on Perry actually comes across as little more than a self-satisfied windbag. To read him lecturing Clark on "active sentence structure versus passive structure" is to want to walk away in the completely opposite direction from the man, especially when it's realised that White is actually analysing the title of Clark's old hometown newspaper; how much does this vain old man long to be seen as the font of all wisdom? Perhaps if the character were called upon to do anything but lecture and, at the tale's end, give Clark a job, the reader might feel that all that talk had been invested in to some purpose, but it's hard to see what the purpose might have been. It can't have been part of a plan to establish the Planet as a friendly, exciting place to work. Even Clark responds to his interview by throwing away his application forms (21.4), and it's the one time in the book that it's possible to see Kent's listlessness as an appropriate option. For White is nothing but a grumpy old Lou Grant stereotype grumbling at what seems to be nothing more than a little gaggle of low-achieving journalism students. He lectures Lois Lane on the flaws in her writing in front of Clark Kent, a stranger to both of them with no professional standing at all, and then White leaves her for dead in mid-sentence(23:3/4 - 21:1). It's humiliatingly unprofessional on White's part, but then, he's obviously incompetent anyway, despite what Mr Straczynski seems to think he's established. White has, after all, hired Lois as a reporter without making sure she knows the difference between a news story and editorial content, and he's only now grasping out that she can't do the simplest part of the job. It's a scene that's supposed to, in plot terms, show Lois as a feisty young thing trying to express herself in her work while establishing Perry as a no-nonsense sage of what was once newsprint. But that's not what the scene actually says. Once again, Mr Straczynski's intentions and his achievement radically diverge. The collision of a stereotype of an opinionated young reporter and a gnarly old-school editor just makes her look incompetent and whiny and him a self-important old fool.


But then, Mr Straczynski's Lois Lane is a profoundly ineffective and incompetent character whenever she appears in "Earth One". Oh, we know how she's supposed to appear to us, because she's called Lois Lane, but the facts of what she does and says stand in contradiction to the author's intention. She's stubborn rather than independent-minded, as is shown by the fact that she does nothing of any professional or humane worth on the battlefields that are the streets of Metropolis, with a single exception we'll discuss in a moment. She's not taking notes, or speaking into a recorder, or communicating with the Daily Planet through a mobile phone. Nor is she helping anyone except for her colleague Jimmy Olsen, and we've already talked about what he is and isn't doing himself. In truth, Lois is almost an entirely worthless character, and indeed so unimpressive and weak is she that Jimmy Olsen himself is moved to paternally ask her if she's "sure" she wants "to be out in the open for this?" (77.1) (The sexism of the comment quite passes JMS by, as it shockingly does Lois, who dream-facedly declares that "I wouldn't miss this for the world." Well of course she wouldn't; she's not having to work on her journalism or lend anyone any assistance and she gets to stare at Superman too.)


In the absence of any goals throughout the pages of "Earth One" beyond her desire to be able to add some personal opinion to her journalism, Lois is as unimpressive and insubstantial a figure as can be imagined, all dewy-eyed at the appearance of the blue-tighted Kal-El and very little else. It's a point that's emphasised when Olsen rushes to Superman's aid, pausing only to hand his camera to Lois for safekeeping because he "doesn't want it to get damaged" (93:2). Good old Lois! Good old Jimmy!

Still, Lois does eventually display a measure of initiative by generating the bright idea to drag Superman out from under a gravity beam by throwing him a chain that's attached to a truck. Perhaps she even drove the truck itself, but Mr Davis doesn't show us that vital piece of information. Based on everything we've seen of Lois, I rather suspect that Jimmy steered and she looked after his camera.


II.

The Lois Lane of "All-Star Superman" is a far more complex and admirable character than her counterpoint in "Earth One". For one thing, Mr Morrison and Mr Quietly's Lois is constantly shown doing something of purpose if not always value; she's never the beautiful girl whinging about not being able to express herself and wandering without purpose on a battlefield in search of superhero eye-candy. Even when she's presented in "All-Star Superman" sitting passively in a car being flown northwards by Superman, she's tellingly portrayed as a self-confident women quite free of awe, challenging her partner and ignoring the spectacular scenery for the pages of a newspaper, as an obsessively ambitious career reporter well might. (2:1) Elsewhere, she's established time and time again as an utterly trustworthy and capable woman, such as when Superman is shown leaving the Bizarro Repellent in her hands (7:17:3). She's wonderfully brave, as she displays when she rolls her eyes and refuses to panic with a weary "Don't ask" despite having been captured by a mad old man in charge of a war robot (10.8.4), and she's compassionate too, as displayed in the way in which she tries to encourage Luthor to resist the temptations of super-powers at the beginning of "Superman In Excelcis" (12.5.4).


Of course, at no point does she declare that she's brave, empathetic or resourceful. She's shown to be those things. The reader is trusted to be able to read the evidence before them, and, crucially, Mr Morrison and Mr Quitely ensure that the evidence is actually present in the text. She's certainly not presented as a character worthy of our attention and respect in the absence of any evidence to support such thoughts and feelings. And our willingness to empathise with Mr Morrison and Mr Quitely's Lois is only increased by the fact that she's not a paragon in any way at all, just as their Jimmy too has his flaws as well as his strengths in "All-Star Superman". She's capable of a measure of paranoia, as shown during her visit to the Fortress Of Solitude in (2:16:1-3). She can be brusque with, and indeed cruel to, Clark, though she's also quick to defend him against the insults of a passer-by (1:19:2-3), and for all that she wonders why Superman loves her, she's very well aware of her own virtues. She's certainly too vain to believe that Superman's Clark Kent identity could ever have fooled her. (2:1:233) But like all the characters who prove themselves in the pages of "All-Star Superman", she's always ultimately capable of putting her own interests behind those of others in need. And so, when Lois almost stoically declares at the end of Morrison and Quitely's tale that "Superman's not dead" and that "when he's done ... he knows where to find me" (12:19:2-4), the reader can understand exactly why Superman loves her so, and why he's absolutely right to do so. Mr Quitely's art shows us that her heart has been gravely hurt, but also that she's never given in to despair where her faith in Clark is concerned, and the brevity and precision of Mr Morrison's script inspires our sympathy for Lois without ever making her seem pitiful.


But we're shown nothing in "Superman: Earth One" to suggest why the Clark Kent of that Metropolis should ever be at risk of falling in love with Mr Straczynski's Lois Lane, beyond the fact that he's a profoundly shallow young man himself. But then, as we'll discuss in the final part of this piece, there's little reason for us to believe that a Lois who's the equal of her "All-Star Superman" counterpart would ever fall in love with the JMS Superman either.


To be concluded, with a look at the ethics of All-Star Superman and Superman: Earth One.


What's next? Well, as promised last time, the conclusion of this piece, a look at the new Gail Simone Secret Six collection, The Walking Dead, a chat about Mark Waid's work, and of course the weekly dip into the world of 2000 ad, which may be delyaed because my subscription copy hasn't turned up! I hope you might pop over at one time or another, and, as always, I really do wish you a splendid day. Thank you for dropping in, it's much appreciated.


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