DakotaSmith
Supermen of America
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Posts: 26
The Jackelope of Truth
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« on: March 02, 2012, 06:07:53 AM » |
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Ok, so it's six issues in. I've been reading Superman and Action Comics. I have attempted to pick up some of my old favorites (Green Lantern, Legion of Super-Heroes, Justice League).
My thoughts so far?
It's crap. In fact, it may be worse crap than before the reboot, if that's even possible.
I'm 47, and a life-long Superman fan. I am in a somewhat unique position, inasmuch as I'm a man who spent his first fifteen summers on his grandparents' South Dakota cattle ranch. Out there, the nearest paved road is 45 miles away. The nearest town (Wall) is less than 2000 people (though during tourist season, it's much larger -- it's a tourist trap on the way to the Black Hills) and is 50 miles away. The nearest city (Rapid City) is around 30,000 people and 90 miles away. The largest city in South Dakota (Sioux Falls) is around 150,000 and 400 miles away.
So I've lived on a ranch near Wall, South Dakota. I've worked the ranch. I've herded cattle and fixed fences. My family still owns some land, and it's my intent to ultimately retire there and perhaps keep bees.
Also on the ranch when I was growing up: a rather shocking supply of DC Comics from the 1950s-1970s.
(Did I mention that I have four uncles?)
I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, a city of about 150,000 at the time. I lived the entirety of the 1990s in Chicagoland, where I earned a living in IT.
So let me tell you: I seriously identify with Superman. Smallville is Wall, SD. Metropolis is Chicago. Ma and Pa Kent are my grandparents. Their ranch is the Kent farm. I left the country to make my fortune in the Big City, same as Clark. I had one or two interesting adventures there (nothing super-heroic, but I was almost shot in a drive-by -- I was a bystander, not the target).
For my money, there is no better Superman writer than Elliot S! Maggin. Maggin got it. He understands. Maggin's Superman is someone I totally understand. I sympathize, I empathize, and I am engaged by Maggin's Superman.
Maggin's Superman is the man I hope I'd be if I had powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. I understand how he thinks and what he thinks about.
I was engaged by Byrne's Superman initially. Byrne also seemed to get it. He didn't get it the way Maggin did, but he came pretty close. I could still empathize.
Then the inmates started running the asylum and it all went to hell.
I could no longer identify with Superman. To me, the shark was jumped when Smallville changed from Wall, SD to Lincoln, NE. Let me tell you something: there's a difference. Let me give a concrete example:
The area around my grandparents' ranch has a high rattlesnake population. This is bad for both humans and livestock. If you see a rattler, you get the pistol out of the glovebox, load it with a shot shell, and kill the rattler. Always.
You do not mess with rattlers. You do not pick them up or do anything that might provoke them. If for some reason you absolutely must pick up a live rattler, you are drilled from an early age on the procedure:
Find a stick about three feet long with a Y-branch at the end. Break the Y so that it will fit around the snake's body just behind the head. Use it to pin the snake to the ground from outside its striking distance. Then you pick it up behind the head and immediately get rid of it -- preferably by killing it.
You do not do this for kicks, you do it only if absolutely necessary. In my case, I had accidentally run over a rattler with a vehicle. It was wounded, not dead, but lodged in a tire in such a way that if I'd driven any farther, it would have mangled the rattler. It also might not kill it, and in any case, it would be a nasty thing to do to any critter. It's not their fault that they're a dangerous pest. You kill them quick and painlessly, not prolonged and painfully.
Anyway, the best thing I could think to do with this thing was use a stick to dislodge it. That's the only time I can think of when you'd want to do it.
[As an aside: I must confess that when Steve Irwin turned up dead, my only reaction was to wonder how he'd lasted so long. Every time I saw him handle snakes, I would cringe -- literally. He did everything wrong. Everything. You never -- I repeat, you never -- pick up snakes by the tail. They're all spine and muscle, they have no problem striking at someone holding them by the tail. You hold them just behind the jaws. All they can do is open and close their mouths and whip their tails around. I knew Steve Irwin's luck would run out some day. He was an incompetent schmuck.]
Beyond that, you watch where you walk. Rattlers like to live under logs and the like, so you always kick a log before you go standing on it. If a barn or out-building isn't on a raised foundation, you open the door and stamp your feet and make some noise before you enter.
You always wear cowboy boots. South Dakota cowboys wear their jeans outside the boots, not tucked-in: it's one more layer for a rattler to have to bite through.
There were always snake-bite kits in the house, in the barns, in the graineries, and in every vehicle. We were taught practically from infancy how to treat a snake bite.
Failure to do otherwise is usually deadly.
Why? Because the nearest hospital is so far away that if you're bit by a rattler you simply won't make it there. If you're bit, you either treat yourself or you lie down and die where you happen to be.
Really. That's how it is.
This produces an entirely different kind of personality than city-folk -- even a small city like Lincoln, Nebraska. You are highly self-reliant, you learn to take precautions, you don't ask for help as a rule.
This is an environment that produced Superman. It's the environment that Maggin and to a lesser extent Byrne got.
Nobody since has gotten it. They keep trying to fix things that aren't broken, and in the most predictable, unartistic fashion imaginable.
So here we are, six issues in to the latest pointless reboot. My thoughts:
Grant Morrison doesn't get it. Sorry, but he doesn't. I don't understand this Superman at all. He is not a man raised on a farm near Smallville, Kansas (pop. 2000). I don't know this guy at all.
Worse, he kind of strikes me as a jerk. I don't know why, exactly, because he's written fairly sympathetically. But he just strikes me the wrong way.
Maybe it's that he looks so damned young. I'm sorry, but Superman is 29 and looks about as mature as when Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson drew him. This Superman looks like he's 15.
And he always looks pissed off. Whatever he's doing, he looks indifferent or angry in some way.
I'm afraid I must mention the costume. I'm sorry, but it's crap. It wasn't broken, so why did they make some lame attempt to "fix" it?
I put down comics back when Doctor Mid-Nite did an in-panel autopsy on the horribly burned body of Sue Dibney. JSA had been my last bastion of decent, family-oriented, well-written, well-drawn, fun, engaging adventures. Then they frakked even that up. I've barely picked up an issue since.
Bottom line: ain't no way I'm spending a penny on these hack-rags. Call me back when you've replaced the editor with Elliot S! Maggin.
Dakota Smith
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