Superman: Birthright and Superman for All Seasons: A Tale of Two Takes on an Icon

Author's Note: I am holding off on my long-promised post on the Air Nomads and Religious Vegetarianism, for the sake of obtaining more in-depth information about the subject. Until then, please enjoy this post about Superman.

I've written about Superman movies before, but I've never really written about Superman himself, let alone Superman comics. But over the last week or so, I've finally gotten around to reading Superman: Birthright and Superman for All Seasons, a pair of pretty notable Superman stories. The former was written by the esteemed Mark Waid, while the latter was written and illustrated by the equally esteemed team of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, respectively. This latter pair was also behind Batman: The Long Halloween and Batman: Dark Victory, the former being one of my favorite Batman stories. Meanwhile, Waid has written or co-written such great stories as Kingdom Come and 52, as well as acclaimed runs on The Flash, JLA, and also Daredevil over at Marvel.

Getting back to Superman, these two stories both helped to define Superman in comics in ways that were both hugely significant and hugely differing. Today, we will examine the differences between Birthright and Seasons as stories, as well as their respective takes on the world's most iconic superhero.

Right off the bat, Superman: Birthright is very different from Superman for all Seasons. Birthright was spawned in the early 2000's and ran for 12 issues. It was, at the time, meant to be the definitive superhero origin story for Superman, a concept which even then had been done literally dozens of time. Comics scholar Chris Sims notes that even before Birthright, Superman: Secret Origin, and Superman: Earth One all came about, both he and a friend agreed that the last thing they wanted to see in comics was yet another Superman origin story. Exactly why he believes this is beyond the scope of this post, but you can read all about it here. (A word of warning: I'll be citing Mr. Sims a lot in this article.)

Birthright's take on Superman's origin story seeks to capture the feel of Superman is a more "toned-down" and "realistic" way, which is generally code for our hero constantly expressing angst at his predicament. The edition I read stated that Birthright was specifically designed to mirror the approach that the odious Smallville was taking, which is never a good sign. Even the art has that weird, edgy, penciled look that was common in its day, leftover from the exaggeratedly grim and gritty feel that nearly all 90s comics had.

In the hands of a lesser talent, this might lead to what happened with Man of Steel. Not Mark Waid though, oh no. He manages to successfully present a version of Superman that is largely true to the character, yet at the same time mess it up just enough to make is significantly imperfect. Birthright's main problem in this regard is that it keeps looking for explanations and justifications for details that don't or shouldn't need to be explained or justified. The classic example, as indicated by Sims, is the rationale behind putting a giant red "S" on Superman's costume. There's a lot of ballyhoo about it being some kind of Kryptonian crest or a symbol of hope or whatever stupid crud they routinely pull out of their butts at the DC editorial offices, but Sims has a simpler explanation: He wears an "S" on his chest because "S" stands for Superman. There. Done. Mystery solved.

One thing that I actually did like that Waid elaborated on more fully was his explanation of how Superman's Clark Kent disguise manages to fool his coworkers, who are all reporters. It's brilliantly done, with Clark putting a lot of effort into it and nearly blowing it more than once. However, it leads to the one thing which I really don't like about Birthright, and it's not even in the story itself, but in the afterword: Waid goes out and states flatly that Clark Kent is the "mask" and Superman is the real man.

Bullcrap.

Aside from the obvious play for the appeal of Batman, a strategy makes minimal sense for reasons that we won't go into right now, the idea of Clark Kent being the "mask" and Superman being the "real man" is plainly flawed. It all boils down to Superman and Clark Kent being two sides of the same person who acts differently around different people, ditto for Batman and everyone else. The fact that Mark Waid of all people bought into it is beyond me.

Birthright itself is workable, enjoyable even, but still flawed. It focuses on how Superman would supposedly be found scary by the denizens of our oh-so-scared-and-paranoid post-9/11 world, and ever so trusting of a bald, corporate elitist like Luthor. I quickly debunked this idea when I asked my mom, no comic book aficionado, if she would be freaked out if Superman touched down in our backyard. The answer: Not if he looked like the Christopher Reeve version. Bingo! Guess what Birthright's Superman looks like? Sure, the folks in the military might be a bit spooked, but who's going to be scared by a guy with no mask flying around wearing a big red cape helping people?

Which brings us to Superman for All Seasons.

Seasons isn't so much an origin story as it is a summation of who Superman is and how he came to be. Everything from the narrative structure to the art is focused on producing a story which does this. The logical result of this methodology is that Seasons is nothing at all like Waid's pseudo-dour Birthright. We see Superman through the eyes of his family, friends, and that one bald guy who's his biggest enemy. Loeb and Sale specifically note that they wanted the art to be reminiscent of Norman Rockwell paintings, which gives us an incredible effect. It's homely, warm, inviting, emotional, and poignant. Heck, it's even fun!

One thing that makes Seasons such a classic is that it doesn't fall prey to the trap of obsessing over details which ultimately have little relevance to the story. Instead, its story and visuals primarily focus on developing the characters, creating memorable scenes, and communicating a rich narrative. As a result, the small details that fill up the background in these 4 issues give it a richness that Birthright could barely accomplish in 12. Every character from the Man of Steel himself to Smallville's local minister all stick in your mind and are beautifully rendered. Every panel gives us something visually worthwhile to look at. The stories this four-issue series tells us are breathtakingly engaging and a pleasure to read. There's no fretting about how Clark got his journalism degree or why he decided to be a superhero. Why he did it is decided in 2 pages -heck, I doubt it was that many- more effectively than Birthright's 2 or 3 issues devoted to the subject.

Most of all, there's a sharp contrast given between Superman and Lex Luthor. We're not given a totally solid explanation about why Superman and Luthor are at odds (we rarely are), but it's made clear that Luthor's an evil bad guy who firmly believes himself to be the good guy, and there's no tragic backstory given to justify what a jerkhole he is. He's just like that, and because of him, Metropolis is initially a fairly disagreeable place to live. That is, until Superman shows up.

To be fair to Birthright, elements of that story sort of leak into Geoff Johns' Superman: Secret Origin, which I believe is the best Superman origin story which I have yet read, though there are many out there. In truth, Secret Origin combines a lot of aspects from both Birthright and Seasons, such as Clark and Luthor knowing each other as children, or Superman's behavior as Clark Kent being at least partly natural and genuine, respectively. This results is a story which is decidedly above par, but not quite on the level of a classic like Seasons.

In the end, while Birthright does have some things going for it, I'll definitely choose Seasons any day of the week as my choice interpretation of Superman. It just has so much more life and energy that Birthright only dreams of having. They're both good, but only Superman for all Seasons is a truly great interpretation of an American icon. I'm just glad that I finally read it.

Image 1 courtesy amazon.com. Image 2 courtesy samquixote.blogspot.com

Ms. Marvel, Vol. 1: No Normal: A Muslim Superhero, or a Superhero Who's a Muslim?

I think that it's an established fact that these days, we view diversity as a virtue. Back in the day, diversity was nice to have, but not essential, like faith, hope, and love. I learned in my Communications Studies class that diversity is good for business, as it fosters a wide variety approaches to problem solving and so forth. But today, diversity is so important to the movers and shakers of our society that if you don't have it, you must be a racist or a bigot or a sexist or a radical right-wing haters-gotta-hate type. I mean, why wouldn't you want diversity in your workplace? Don't have any people of color? Yep, definitely racist. (Incidentally, my workplace currently employs four people, one of whom is a woman and another of whom is Vietnamese.

But once again, I'm getting off track. All that said, let's talk about Ms. Marvel.

The point of my above rant was that we value diversity very highly in today's society. Some opinionated but grossly misinformed persons believe that institutionalized racism is still a problem, but really, who honestly believes that? Walk into any Wal-Mart, Starbucks, school, gym, or government building, and you'll see people of all colors, creeds, and walks of life living, working, and playing together in peace. The very existence of the comic book Ms. Marvel is yet another nail in the coffin of the theory that institutionalized racism still exists to a large degree in this nation, even if the comic book itself doesn't seem to have gotten the message.

Under the pen of G. Willow Wilson, this new incarnation of Ms. Marvel has a 16 year old girl named Kamala Khan living a normal life in Jersey City. She's a huge Avengers fan-girl who weirdly reminds me of my sister, writing fan-fiction in her spare time, chafing at her parents' authority, and dying to eat bacon. Oh, and I forgot to mention this, but she's a Muslim, ethnically Pakistani. Anyway, on her way home one night, she gets caught up in a mysterious cloud of mist, which, after a brief hallucination, gives her superpowers. Inspired by selected quotes from what I believe is the Koran, she decides to fight crime as Ms. Marvel!

Let me tell you, I really like this book. Kamala is a likable character with a fun supporting cast. You've got her parents, her brother, her friends Bruno and Nakia, and the beginnings of her very own archvillian. The book mainly goes for the humorous side of being a superhero, such as when Kamala fails spectacularly at foiling a convenience store hold up, avoiding serious harm due to sheer luck and an incompetent robber. It's very Spider-Man-esque, sort of like Brian Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man. It also reminds me somewhat of Chuck Dixon's run on Robin when Tim Drake was in the suit back in the '90s. And considering that Tim Drake's Robin and Spider-Man are some of my favorite comic book characters of all time, that's a huge compliment coming from me. This book is more quirky than either Ultimate Spider-Man or Robin, kind of reminding me of Brian Q. Miller's Batgirl in that regard, but with a stronger emphasis on social media technology, with Kamala's unique background giving the story extra flavor.

Speaking of which, that brings us to the central point espoused in the title of this post: Is Kamala a Muslim superhero, or a superhero who's a Muslim? A similar question was addressed by Ben Stone to Paul Robinette on Law and Order. What I mean to ask is if Kamala is a superhero who is defined by her identity as a Muslim, or a superhero who just so happens to be a Muslim? Happily for the story, it so far seems to be the latter. However, it makes me wonder if the writers would be gutsy enough to address the philosophical consequences of a Muslim superhero in post-9/11 world. It would be an awfully profound story to tell if done well, but so far the closest we've seen to such questions being addressed are not-Liz-Allen's mildly offensive and ludicrously vacuous asides. And seriously, this girl, I think her name is Zoe Zimmer, is totally Liz Allen, and her boyfriend is obviously a stand-in for Flash Thompson, right down to the letterman jacket. 

It doesn't help that Kamala herself seems to buy into the presumption that a large percentage of white people are racist bigots, when this is simply not true. I mean, it's just silly to believe that in a world where people are constantly tripping over themselves to avoid being seen as racist, the currently fashionable cause of today's elite is a crusade against racism. Does racism still exist in the hearts of some people? Absolutely. I'm sure there are plenty of people, whether they're white, black, Arab, Asian, Hispanic, or polka-dot, who are racists. Is institutionalized racism a problem in this country anymore? No. You're not going to be denied entry into a hotel if you're black and the proprietor is white, nor will you be denied a BLT at Wendy's if you're Hispanic. In fact, if this did happen, you could probably sue and win.

I don't know if Kamala or her writers will come to understand this, but I do know that I will continue to follow this new Marvel comic because its a good, fun story which makes me laugh and smile. And mind you, the last Marvel comic I read was Marvel's Road to the Avengers, a terrible collection if there ever was one, which nearly drove me away from reading Marvel's stuff forever. But now, I'm willing to expand my horizons. Maybe Marvel is getting better. Maybe. I'm willing to give it chance now.

Image courtesy of goodreads.com

Batman Eternal, Vol. 1: In with the Old, Out with the New

In the comics business, at the big two anyway, there are several types of event comics. You've got the crisis crossover, in which the whole shared universe is involved, one way or another, in some cosmic battle for the fate of reality as we know it (see Crisis on Infinite Earths, Civil War, and Forever Evil); the Bat-family crossover, in which all of the books set around a specific location or set of characters participate in a single series of events (see Knightfall, The Death of Superman and Trinity War; Marvel isn't really into this sort of crossover as most of their heroes are centered around the same location anyway, making any mass event crossovers essentially crisis crossovers). And then you've got the maxi-series.

A maxi-series, quite plainly, is the larger cousin of the mini-series, that is, a limited series which goes on for a bit longer than your typical 4 to 8 issue mini-series. In truth, the only maxi-series I've read are Brightest Day, Justice League: Generation Lost, and Batman Eternal, all of which were at DC Comics and the last of which we will be reviewing today. I want to read 52, which I have heard good things about, but I'm not too interested in looking into Marvel's Secret Wars.

Batman Eternal is a weekly series, the first I'm aware that DC has done since 52 back in 2006. Taking place in the aftermath of Forever Evil, which saw the "death" of Nightwing, Eternal's basic premise is that Commissioner Gordon accidentally kills a train full of people (or did he?) and goes to jail, Carmine "the Roman" Falcone shows up to wreak serious havoc, and Batman has to control a violent gang war while investigating who was really responsible for the train accident that Gordon allegedly caused. Batman's gonna need every ally he has for this one...

If all of that sounds a bit confusing, rest assured, I am telling it like it is. Batman Eternal has a bloated cast, an entangled spiderweb of subplots, and a story-line which has pacing issues that you wouldn't believe. Believe me, I wanted to like Eternal, but as with so many other stories I've read, you kind of have to see it to get the full gist of it.

If you're reading this article and thinking that Batman Eternal is a awful series, I'll be the first to say that it's not that bad... in some respects. I mean, the core idea of the book, that is, stories about the various Bat-family members working together to save the day, is an awesome idea that I wish we'd see more often. Unfortunately, Eternal's biggest problem, aside from the fundamental weaknesses which I described earlier, is that, if anything, it's just too ambitious for its own good. The book itself reads like Batman: War Games, which is not a good thing, but is nonetheless pretty surprising. I mentioned in my review of that ill-fated Bat-family crossover that the thing was basically a huge mess, mainly because it lacked the solid plotting and a centralized storyline that made previous 90's-2000's era Bat-family crossovers work. The thing about Eternal, however, is that is does the exact same thing, for almost the exact same reasons, but is distilled and condensed into a maxiseries which normally wouldn't have this problem.

Why do I say, "normally?" I say "normally" because, normally, there's only one, maybe two, writers working on a single book. Even the great mega-series Knightfall had Chuck Dixon and Denny O'Neil working to keep the story solid and on course, and it worked out pretty well. In this case, we have around half-a-dozen writers working on this thing at once. Now, I'm no expert in the dynamics of comic book creative teams, but I'd be willing to wager that what we have here is a case of too many cooks in the kitchen. And it really is a shame, because most of these guys, to my knowledge, are top-notch Bat-scribes who could give us some great stuff. We've got names like Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, and John Layman all working on this thing, and any one or even any two of them could probably have made a darn good maxi-series.

Unfortunately, with all of these writers, the end result is that we've got Batwing (Luke Fox) and Jim Corrigan mucking about in the basement of Arkham Asylum, Batman running hog-wild every which way, Batgirl and Red Hood fighting various bad guys in Brazil, and Red Robin and Harper Row trying to track down the source of a nanovirus (don't ask) in Tokyo, and that's without mentioning the Stephanie Brown plot, the Julia Pennyworth plot, the Falcone-Penguin gang war plot, the Jim Gordon in jail plot, the Jason Bard being a super-awesome cop plot, and the whatever the flipping else I forgot to mention plot! (GCPD, Mayor Hady, Deacon Blackfire, Vicki Vale, etc.)

I also take issue with the books seesawing depiction of certain characters, such as Jason Bard and Vicki Vale. For most of the story, Bard is depicted as a competent, smart, and good cop. Then at the end, this portrayal gets flipped on its head with almost no foreshadowing, other than Batman saying, "I don't trust you." That kind of threw me for a loop. Contrary to popular belief, just because Batman says something doesn't make it true. And if it is true, it does not count as foreshadowing, because Bard didn't actually do anything until the very end to make you go, "Whoa... that totally just happened." It's more like, "Huh? What the... that makes no sense!" Vicki Vale is a different case, mainly because she's acting like a smart, super-awesome reporter gal one moment, and an airhead with no sense the next.

This series also engages a lot in what my colleague Rob Siebert over at Primary Ignition calls "needless naming." This phenomenon occurs when characters go out of their way to say each other's names out loud so that the audience knows who they are. Problem is, when you do it more than once, it gets really annoying really fast. Seriously, it happens once an issue, and you'd think that the writers would realize that people who are following a weekly series wouldn't need to be reminded of the identities of the cast every issue. Honestly people, believe in the intelligence of your audience!

What does Batman Eternal get right, you ask? Like I said, I genuinely love the main idea of this book: the Bat-family working together, kicking butt and taking names. The interactions and character dynamics between them are pretty good (for a New 52 production), if not always outstanding. I like how they brought back Carmine Falcone, who was a pretty good villain back during Batman: The Long Halloween. In fact, all of the older, classic, characters get a really good deal in this trade. Tim Drake/Red Robin gets some spotlight in a genuine Bat-book for once; Stephanie Brown is finally reintroduced into the New 52; ditto for Bard, Cluemaster, and the surprise villain near the end of the book. This book is all about brushing up on older Bat-comics history, and I love it. Even the newer characters like Harper, Julia, and Leo (Gordon's cell mate) don't exactly get the short end of the stick. They all get a chance to shine, and I know that they'll all have bigger roles in Vol. 2.

If anyone gets a raw deal in this collection, it's Catwoman. She shows up early to chat with Batman, and gives us a nice reaction shot when she hears that Falcone is back in town, but the next time we see here, she gets captured by Falcone and gets saved by the timely intervention of... Professor Pyg? Oh, yeah, and Batman helped. (Speaking of Professor Pyg, we never really see what happened to that guy after he was sent to Arkham and he let out a big "No!" Also, we never see the fate of Corrigan and Batwing, who go down fighting zombies in the basement of Arkham Asylum.)

The final notable element of this book was the art. It's rare that we get to see such an ambitious Bat-family story with so many characters brought to life by more-or-less the same artist. Having the same artist throughout the series (with occasional substitutes, such as by Dustin Nguyen) brings a unity of function and form to the series that is lacking in most Bat-family crossovers. Indeed, in most Bat-family crossovers, the art and writing styles are so eclectic that you'd think that Jean-Paul Valley wrote the book if you didn't know better.

Unfortunately, despite these fleeting strengths, Batman Eternal, Vol. 1 largely falls flat due to an assortment of fundamental flaws which form the foundation of sand upon which this series is built. I sincerely wanted to like Eternal, and I followed its progress quite closely on the internet prior to the release of this volume. It's reintroduction of Stephanie Brown to the New 52 is laudable, and I salute Snyder and his cohorts for their use of this fan-pleasing strategy. It was nice to see the Bat-family together on the comics page in capable hands, but I know that with a different combination of writers (or just one), it could have been done even better. And if I'm right that the writers' idea is to make this story into a recreation of Batman: War Games, I can only ask one, single, overriding question: "Could you have honestly picked a worse Batman story to try to emulate?"

RATING: 6.5/10

Fun fact: In the graphic novel, Carmine Falcone is running a criminal empire of some kind in Hong Kong prior to returning to Gotham City. As something of a crime buff, I have to wonder, why would a former Italian Mafioso be running a criminal empire in Hong Kong? I mean, I'm sure its possible, but likely? Nah.

Image courtesy of dc.wikia.com