A few more questions:
You've written both Captain America and Superman in your career. Both of them are have personalities that are incorruptible, decent, and full of strong convictions, which is why they overreacted to each other in JLA/AVENGERS. What would you say is the difference between Cap and Superman?
Politics and setting, to start with. I think Roger Stern made a compelling argument when he chose to play Cap as an FDR-era New Dealer from the Lower East Side, translated via freezi-pop to the present. The more time passes, the longer Cap's freezi-sleep becomes; he's not removed from his context.
Superman, however, is an outsider raised as a farmboy in the heartland (whether that heartland is rural NY or Kansas), whose origin floats and thus gets any too-specific bits, whether they be Great Depression of Sputnik or whatever, sanded off by revision as time goes on. Superman's ideals aren't as tied to America -- they're the underlying ur-ideals of decency and kindness and courage that you're left with when you sand the specifics off the American Dream, Christianity and other human strivings he grew up among.
In ARROWSMITH, you did a story that was in the style of pulpish, early 20th Century science fiction adventure. Superman is a character with strong "futurism" aspects to him, a product of that very "1939 World's Fair" mentality; note that while things about Superman may come and go, the art deco Metropolis stays.
Actually, the art-deco Metropolis comes and goes, too. And ARROWSMITH has nothing to do with a 1939 World's Fair mentality -- his setting, mythology, influences and themes are a generation previous.
In a TIME magazine piece on Superman someone once said that "Superman was a product of a time when we liked our heroes the way we liked our steak: beefy and All-American." Do you agree with this view?
It fits some eras of Superman, at least.
What about Superman do you see as "period," of Superman being a product of that time you have shown great understanding for writing?
I don't think I've written much Thirties-derived stuff, actually. And I can't say I've ever really thought about which bits of Superman remain period -- I tend to think more about the universal. I suppose the idea of the farmboy hero is one that faded from the Foorties on, but it was certainly present before the Thirties.
For that matter, does Superman "work" ONLY as period, and if not, what about him can be updated for later times?
Almost everything about him can be updated, I tend to think, and frequently has been. There are still people growing up in rural America, still questions of morals, of ethics versus pragmatism, and more. The Moses legend worked before the Thirties, and works still.
And finally, why is it Superman is still around when so many other characters created roughly the same time have fallen off the pop culture radar?
Two main reasons, I think:
1. He's a really good character, basic and bold, who is rooted in enough universal ideas that he could both become popular in the era he arose and could survive the many changes of surface detail and context he's been through since.
2. He's the flagship character of a publishing company who has had a strong interest in seeing that he survives, unlike, say, the Shadow or Doc Savage, whose owners do not view them as quite so crucial to their continued success.
And finally...as you live in the Pacific Northwest, have you ever met or seen the Sasquatch? :lol: I dig his style!
He pops in at the local conventions, but he's largely a Warren Ellis fan -- he likes stories about the corrupting effect of civilization.
kdb