Superman Through the Ages! Forum

I came across the Lois Lane story "A Tree Grows in Metropolis" (1971) and it's an odd one, but I'd just like to concentrate on the opening panels for a moment. Superman, sporting a Roth-Colletta body and an Anderson head, is examining a planet on which all the plant life appears to have died except for one tree. Superman thinks: "Hmmm... Chances are this specimen will die like the rest if I LEAVE it here! And I've vowed to preserve ALL forms of life wherever possible." The only thing for it, then, is for the Man of Steel to uproot the tree, carry it back to Earth, and plant it in Metropolis.

Throughout the 70s we're reminded of Superman's code against killing, ie. he does not deliberately kill. In this adventure, and not for the only time I'd wager, this "code against killing" idea is taken a little further, yet it boils down to the same thing for my purposes.

We are also reminded throughout the 70s that Clark's favourite food is beef bourguignon. This doesn't square with Superman's code against killing, for in eating beef Superman has allowed someone else to do his killing for him. (We won't get into that particular argument.) But then this "preservation of life" idea would imply Superman should think twice before eating certain plants that have had to die in order to be available for human consumption.

Is Superman being a complete hypopcrite? It sure seems that way to me. But (and it's a big "but"), I also see here a parting of the ways of Clark's and Superman's values, and ask the question: is this another purpose being served by the Clark-Superman alter ego ? Superman by rights, by everything he thinks and says, shouldn't eat anything that has been deliberately killed. In fact, he could avoid eating anything at all and survive quite happily. Clark, on the other hand, is our hero's sly way of enjoying the taste of animal flesh, a forbidden pleasure for Superman.

Animals don't count.

Superman may have a code against killing humans, but he has killed lots of monsters and animals during the Silver Age.

Also, he loves beef bourguignon.

He is no Vegan.

I think that in this arena there was no editorial consitency or thought on the matter and that it just depended on the writer.  Most likely the conflict was just completely ignored with the assumption that no one would bother to think about it or would even notice it.  Maggin's Superman was certainly no vegetarian and even helped his mother cook meat.

Much like those old Disney comics where Donald Duck and clan sit down to a nice family dinner of roast duck, where the implication is that the walking-and-talking main character ducks are completely distinct creatures from mere "animal" ducks; the beef in beef bourguignon was somehow never really "alive" or part of an animal.

Either that, or in Superman's code there's a difference between direct killing and indirectly supporting an industry.

Waid's solution of making Clark a vegetarian was a good effort in bringing consistency to the table, but it merely moved the problem.  Is eating plant life "taking a life"?  I suppose that Superman's code now only applies to beings with a certain level of sentience because, to some degree, everything is alive.

The real question is - does Kal require material sustenance?  If so, then eating is a matter of survival.  But if not, then eating is a conscious choice to kill something.

That "wherever possible" bit might make things somewhat flexible.

:s:

In the recent Superman: Birthright series, Superman is a vegetarian because his vision powers allow him to see an "aura" around all living things and he feels great pain on seeing them die; this doesn't sit right with Clark's grandfather, who is a cattle farmer.

I rather like that take; it gives him a dimension he didn't have before. Writers (or more likely, editors) never seem to like having Superman espouse a certain cause because they don't want to alienate any readers. I suppose vegetarianism is something nobody can really object to. I don't know if it really squares with Clark's rural origins, though: he must have seen lots of animals being slaughtered over the years - surely he would have become inured to it?

1970s Clark's taste for beef bourguignon was probably a bit of a fashion thing, when you come to think about it. It was such a mainstay dish at dinner parties back then, rather like when fondues enjoyed a brief but baffling trend in the 1980s. Anyone over 40 probably owns a fondue set that hasn't been in use in twenty years somewhere in the back of their cupboard.

Superman loves his burgers!

http://www.milehighcomics.com/cgi-bin/backissue.cgi?action=fullsize&issue=01062288700%20454

case close!  :lol:

LOL, I'll buy that (even if it violates my "law" of not trusting a regular length comic that sold originally for more than 15 cents)! 8)

It's quite easy to see a difference between preserving a life form which is the last member of an entire bio-sphere, and eating a cow whose species isn't going to vanish anytime soon.

The majority of meat eaters that I know would not stand idly by and let a cow starve to death, which is essentially the fate that the tree was facing. Life's full of dichotomies that way. Even if things end up equally dead, all deaths are not necessarily the same thing.

I'd be more interested in those gorgeous Oksner women...

If you're wanting to do a marketing agreement with McD's or KFC for the next Superman event, you don't want Superman coming across as some vegetarian.  It's not like The Simpsons where you can attack other names to meat products because Lisa is a vegetarian.


You know that beef bourguignon was a euphemism, right?
Is vegetarian Mark Waid's secret code for virgin?  :)

The idea of a connection between a code against killing and not eating (or pretending to eat) meat, let alone the idea of Superman being a vegetarian, would have seemd ludicrous to the writers and editors of Superman.

Of course, many of these men were well educated and had at least a nodding familiarity with people like Ghandi and Bernard Shaw so who knows?  (There was also the example of Hitler.)

For myself, I became a vegetarian out of late-teen self-righteousness and have stayed one for years out of habit.  One can imagine Superboy having a similar experience (at least, I like to imagine myself as Superboy, buzzing around my room  :D )

Beppo, you keep wolfing down those sacred cows and I'm going to have to start in on the monkey-burgers...

:s:

Oh my word! I didn't know that!

Pre-Crisis, beef bourguignon was an implied reference to this classic scene:

http://superman.nu/Maggin/lois2.php

and "doing the nasty", so to speak.  I learned what beef bourguignon was because of reading references to it in Superman comics.  I assumed it was Julie Schwartz's favorite food or somesuch, was slack-jawed to find out the hidden meaning many years later.  

Post-Crisis, Loeb reintroduced it as Superman's secret code phrase for informing Lois that he was ok, and undoubtedly as a nod to Maggin.

I think that religion played a part in this oversight. Gandhi was a vegetarian because he was Hindu. I'm a vegetarian for only part of the year, and in the case of Superman's caretakers, they were mostly Jewish. So while Superman probably wouldn't be seen with a giant hambone in his mouth, or eating enough bacon to feed an army, beef would be perfectly acceptable, (though cheeseburgers wouldn't.)

It is an interesting quandary, though. Many meat-eaters support the Endangered Species Act, so the idea of Superman moving and preserving the species of tree is a bad one. However, in my thinking fighting evil also means noncooperation with an evil system...so if Superman really did believe that animal life was sacred, then he should not have cooperated by eating meat. However, that type of Gandhi-ish thinking probably did not enter into the equation in the minds of Superman's Jewish (and later Methodist) writers.

Still, now that I think of it, I prefer to imagine Superman/Clark faking everyone out, only pretending to eat meat and maybe regurgitating it later somehow (maybe the same way he uses his super-breath or swallows explosives?) or using a sligh of hand to hide it in his napkin, etc.  This allows him to enjoy the taste (we know he has a sensitive taste --he can enjoy Lois' vanilla lipstick or spices from Oric).

Superman and trees have alot in common and many of his best friends are animals (Krypto, Beppo).

It doesn't make sense for Superman to be a vegetarian.

Humans are naturally omnivores, and Superman is an Alien. Superman is smart enough to understand this and just like he wouldn't force carnivore animals like loins to become herbivores, he wouldn't see anything wrong with humans doing something natural like eating meat. It just wouldn't make sense. Plants are alive so why not eat them too? So are trees so anything made with wood (like comics) would be evil too, right? So are micro-organisms, so does that mean we should never wash as to not KILL germs? Either all life is important or not, if you want to pick favorites, that a personal choice based on personal opinions not facts.

I for one, find the Mark Waid idea of Superman being a vegetarian rather interesting for three reasons.

The first is that it extends logically from a very intriguing concept in the Maggin novels, that because of Superman's vision, he sees everything as a type of luminous electromagnetic halo, which partially accounts for his refusal to kill, or at least means it's based on awe and respect instead of a hardassed rule.

The second is, like Great Rao says, different writers have been inconsistent about this and it's good to get somebody giving a definite answer.

The third reason is...well, maybe it's my puckishness here, but it's fun fun fun to watch some guys squirm about around this. There's a whole subgroup of "macho" men that view vegetarianism as an insult to traditional masculinity.

Now, if only we can get John Wayne to come out of the closet, we'd be somewhere.  :D

I am not squirming, I don't think being a vegetarian makes you some kind of Nancy boy or anything. But, I do find it completely absurd that some people can be so vain and full of themselves to actually think that being a vegetarian actually makes you a better person and is taking some kind of moral high ground which is just stupid, period. As if people who eat meat like they are suppose to somehow hate animals. Insanity!

Like I said...this is often a religious decision, and by making it people naturally DO believe they are taking the moral high ground. That doesn't mean that a majority of people in India are INSANE, for example, it's just the nature of the thing. And while some people do go very far overboard in trying to push vegetarianism on other people, I don't think this is the point of view of Mark Waid, or any of the people who have posted here. The question is what Superman's beliefs are, and what the limits of his code against killing actually are. That said, it is VERY unnatural for Monkeys to be eating meat, and you should get that checked out. Creatures with opposable thumbs can't eat meat without cooking it first, and monkeys can't cook!

On the insanity of people from India, however, I did once read an old Batman story where suddenly, there appeared...HINDUS! (http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:MPMAaH4EGQUJ:www.dcindexes.com/database/story-details.php%3Fstoryid%3D3928+batman+hindus&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=13&lr=lang_en&client=firefox-a)

P.S.- If humans are naturally omnivores, to an extent...Superman does not need meat, because he gets his energy from Photosynthesis Supreme. This begs the question...if Superman eats plants, is he in a way committing acts of cannibalism?

Superman isn't Swamp Thing! LOL!



Great Krypton! That's one hell of a jump to make from my statements!

Here are the FACTS:

The per capita consumption of beef/buffalo in India is 2.8 kg, about half that of fish, but more than twice the average intake of mutton, pork and poultry - indirect evidence that beef consumption must be quite common among meat-eaters of all religions.

Efforts to dispel our ignorance about Indian food habits are controlled by our increasingly powerful thought police. Some groups have gone to court and obtained a stay on the publication of a scholarly book, Holy Cow: Beef in Indian Dietary Traditions. The author, well-known historian Prof. D. N. Jha, has extensively argued elsewhere, too, that few taboos existed on beef in Vedic times. This was based on a study of Hindu religious texts and scriptures, which give ample evidence of beef-eating in Vedic India.

from : The hindu: Online edition of India's National Newspaper
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2001/09/16/stories/13160467.htm



Please read the following:

http://www.naturalhub.com/natural_food_guide_meat.htm

and also:

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/99legacy/6-14-1999a.html

I know. I exaggerated on purpose.



Please read the following:

http://www.naturalhub.com/natural_food_guide_meat.htm

and also:

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/99legacy/6-14-1999a.html[/quote]

While I took the time to read these articles, and they are very interesting, a few facts remain. Many people in India are Muslims, but let us suppose that many Hindus do partake of the occasional hamburger: that still does not change the fact that monkeys eat the banana, and are incapable of grilling, roasting, or frying meats with their mid-sized little monkey brains. Therefore, you still need help.  :P

You do know I am not really a monkey right? :oops:

Gangbuster, I'm afraid this is completely incorrect.

Was it on this Superman board or some other one that somebody said I was homophobe? I forget.

We were talking about the Martin Pasko Superman years, specifically the Mr. Mxyzptlk-created gender-switched world, and I said some smarmy comment to the effect of "Well, at last we know what Wonder Woman would look like as a man: a gay Olympic gymnast."

Somebody didn't like that, but the comment was delivered less out of homophobia than out of the fact that it is TOTALLY AND OBJECTIVELY TRUE.

C'mon people...LOOK!

(http://www.superdickery.com/images/stupor/Superman_349_Cover.jpg)

Remember how sick Clark got when the school bus hit the dog while Clark was studying an anthill? I think it was Miracle Monday but I'm not sure.  Maybe Last Son of Krypton.  Combine that with the self-righeousness I mentioned earlier (the early Superboy was often confused and pprone to overreaction --which is not to say that vegetarianism is an overreaction to the moral quandry of meat-eating).


(http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/570/meateaterfn7.jpg)

Whaaaaaaaaaa?  :?:  :!:  :x

It must have been on here because I seem to remember it; was it that semi-literate guy who got booted? I don't entirely agree that Wonder Man looks like a gay gymnast, because he's a little too musclebound, but why does he have to have full-length tights, that's what I want to know.

TELLE... the cannibal thing has me convulsed.

To get back to the subject, though, I remember Bronze Age Superman mentioning that he doesn't even need to eat, presumably because he just processes solar radiation for nutrition; that way, it makes sense for him to be a vegetarian, because, well, you know, why kill an animal when you don't even have to eat it? To quote the latest issue of Action Comics, "Superman don't roll like that!"

To quote Kurt from the DC Comics Message Boards:



So there!

Oh. Errr... Well. I've been extolling the virtues of Busiek's writing on Superman so much that I'm going to look like a complete pillock now by saying that yeah, well, that's only his opinion. And it's wrong.

I wonder if this is going to spur a debate of such proportions that DC will ban any depiction of Superman or Clark eating? So far, in his new incarnation, we've only seen him eating a pretzel, which is inconclusive. Oh, and he was fixing dinner for Lois recently too. What were they having? Wasn't it fish? Is that okay?

Well, the only properly interesting part of my original post was the bit about Kent enjoying the pleasures forbidden for Superman, which may (or may not) include eating meat. I really was wondering if Kal-El experiences Kent and Superman as being such separate people that one (Kent) can enjoy what is taboo for the other (Superman).

One thing I do know: the Man of Steel in either identity would feel distress (and probably anger) at witnessing any kind of deliberate cruelty to an animal, no matter how small or "primitive" or "insignificant". But the question of whether or not to eat animals that have been butchered is something of a grey area, as it must be for a great many intelligent people -- or we wouldn't be having this debate at all.

The next very difficult decision for Superman, as he sits down to his roast beef, is whether or not he will interfere in animal experimentation (ie. vivisection) which takes place on a grand scale in universities and drug company laboratories the world over. This, I feel, would not be such a grey area, but which still ignites furious debate, and probably will for generations to come.

Permanus writes:



Because without them, he'd look REALLY gay!  :lol:

Actually, I'm a lot more suspicious of that guy in the Supergirl blouse and hot pants.  :shock:

Would Ma and Pa Kent be organic farmers?  Were there any "plight of the farmer" stories involving them, or is it hard for them to really have the problems typical farmers do when Superman can plough fields at warp speed, divert frosts with heat vision, augur rain together, etc.

I agree. Basically, the extent of Superman's virtuosity is based in popular values, and though vegetarianism isn't entirely alien (haha) to our culture, it's not exactly mainstream either.

I think, though some may be uncomfortable to admit it (I guess 'cause most eat meat), Superman's super-goodness, boy-scout type behavior wouldn't likely end at what he eats. The guy's *really* bent on preserving life, and if he doesn't even need to eat, why not be vegetarian, if not vegan? Even if he does need to eat, most vegetarians are pretty healthy. Maybe being an alien and not human requires that he eat animals?

Knowing Superman's invulnerability, though, I bet he could avoid the whole dilemma and eat roadkill for his meat.

I bet that won't make it into the comics though =D

I think that by the time Clark was old enough to have helped them in that way, the family had already moved off the farm and Pa Kent had his general store in town.

I don't have a cast-iron viewpoint on this, but it's my feeling the old-school Pa Kent would not have encouraged Clark to use his superpower to increase profits or give the Kent farm too great an advantage over their neighbours. Remember the Kents were highly moral people, and very honest, and knowing the sort of man Pa Kent was (and the sort of woman Ma was) I don't think Pa would feel right if he didn't make that farm work through his own sweat and sinew.... That doesn't mean from time to time Clark couldn't go outside his brief and plough a field in two minutes or save some livestock from a flood.

Just as an aside, one of the things I liked about the "Smallville" TV show was the Pa Kent character and the actor who played him. Pa in the show really did look like a man who was hardened from physical labour. He was believable as a man who earns his crust on the land.

You make a good point, though I'd like to add that not all vegetarians avoid meat because they don't want to be cruel to animals; quite a few do it because for health reasons. I followed a vegetarian diet for two years, much aided by a good cookbook, and I felt great! I gave it up in the end because I found it far too complicated to be so selective in my diet, especially since I have all kinds of allergies that already restrict it. Nevertheless, I imagine that if Superman were a vegetarian, it would be out of concern for animal welfare. He doesn't strike me as the sort of fellow who needs to worry about his cholesterol levels.

I'd like to think that Superman shares my view that vivisection is a necessary evil, but probably objects to animal experimentation in fields such as cosmetics and so on. Obviously, no editor would want to touch this one with a bargepole, any more than he'd show him stopping loggers from cutting down a rain forest or destroying SUVs.

As far as lab animals goes... that is a tough one, it really depends on the research, and what kind of animals we are talking about.

I suppose mice and rats for medical research are ok, but that is about it. The great thing about mice and rats is that if it works for them, 90% (more or less) of the time it will work for humans.

For cosmetics, that is just stupid, there are plenty of high-end cosmetics companies that do not do it, so there is no need to go there.

I do not believe on hunting animals that you do not plan to eat, if you kill an animal you better eat it, that the rule that good moral hunter follow. Amoral hunters hunt for sport, and that is disgusting.

As someone said earlier, not all deaths are equal. For example, you do not have much of a problem with lab rats, but lab rat terriers would probably be a different matter. A dead snake in the road near a school might ellicit a "Hooray!", but on the way back from work the other day I saw that a fox had been hit, and was saddened.

Superman, along with maybe the Atom, is the only superhero cabable of saving the millions of one-celled organisms that I kill every morning with my toothbrush. Whether Superman is or isn't a vegetarian is of no consequence to me, but it would be impossible to preserve all life...even all human life. Every person at the Daily Planet is destined to die one day.

Which begs the question, did Pa Kent sell organic produce in his store?  And what about hemp?

Well, this brings up an interesting point. To what extent is Superman to duplicate "popular" morality?

Some have argued that Superman represents an uncompromising, idealistic kind of heroism that everybody can identify with, and for that reason a lot of the specifics of his beliefs should be kept vague. He should personify traits that we all respect, like for instance, the unwillingness to harm a child to save a country.

I think there is a nice middle between the two; Superman is a character - a person - and so should be allowed to have certain beliefs that are not entirely popular or mainstream; he should have beliefs that are unique to him just we all do, instead of being a stand-in for whatever everybody agrees is okay, because that makes him a symbol instead of a real person. Personal vegetarianism, for instance, is so eccentric and harmless, and not entirely inconsistent with his characterization, that I really don't see the problem. On the other hand, I would not want Superman to have a political position, though, because such a thing would make his heroism something that not everybody can agree on.



For rope and clothes, right? :D

Guess whether or not they were organic depends on the local Smallville farmers (and their choice in pesticide use), but imagine that in Silver Age Smallville, much like in real life until very recently, the concept of organic produce didn't exist... especially in the "better living through chemistry" (and DDT-using) 50's and early 60's..

As for hemp, since the Kent General Store sold hardware, imagine he did sell rope of some sort (and assume late 60's Smallville and Pa Kent would've frowned upon, erm, any other "usage" of hemp-related products ;-) ).

Riiiiight...  :)

Actually, I would be interested to know if Superman or Superboy ever dealt with drug smuggling or dealing before the 1960s in any Gold or Silver Age comic.

I loved the discussion of alcohol in Last Son of Krypton in the "Steve and Clarkie Show"  --Clark is a teetotaler, if I recall.

I am sure they did, here is a example: http://superman.nu/wiki/index.php/John_Parrone

That comic, which I wouldn't mind reading, would seem to be ahead of its time, and most certainly before the advent of the comics code.

Does anyone own this story, or has anyone read it?

I loved that bit too, especially Steve flippantly asking Clark if Ma Kent had a still round back.

I can't think of any examples offhand, but surely there must have been stories dealing with drug smuggling before the 60s. I can imagine that the prudish 50s would have wanted to avoid it, but in the 30s and 40s, the Shadow was always busting Chinese opium smugglers. (Here in Europe, Tintin was doing the same thing, most notably in Cigars of the Pharaoh, possibly the trippiest comic ever written.)

I doubt very much that the Kents were big on organic farming; indeed, Clark comes up with a gizmo that sends bolts of lighting into the earth with the notion that this will stimulate plant growth, and the only purpose of the Smallville science fair seems to be to showcase new kinds of fertilizer.

The bolts of lightning are probably in keeping with organic farming, as lightning does strike the earth of its own accord, and it's merely being encouraged, much like encouraging a new insect to establish itself on an orchard so it will eat an existing insect pest, or adding compost you have made to a potato patch.

And to demonstrate brave new forms of horse thievery!

Explain.

Aldous, that story was reprinted in Superman Archives Volume 2, which I have not re-read for quite a few years.

It appeared 13 years before the CCA was introduced.

Okay, but you know what I mean; the inhabitants of Smallville, like most of their real-life counterparts in the 50s, constantly seem to be on the lookout for artificial ways to boost yields, which is hardly the organic ethos.

(It occurs to me that Swamp Thing, who under Alan Moore's tenure became a figurehead for environmentalism - and by extension, I suppose, organic farming - is actually not organically sound himself, being a creation of Alec Holland's "bio-restorative formula", which sounds a bit like genetic manipulation.)

Lee Semmens:


Thanks, Lee. Not sure if I'll ever own that Archive, but I would like to read the story one day.

Permanus:


Yes, I do know what you mean. Now that I think about it, the line between organic and artificial is quite blurred, and sometimes it's a grey area, open to interpretation. There are farmers and orchardists here who don't help; every so often a case is successfully prosecuted through the courts in which a farmer using "artificial" methods has advertised his produce as "organic" to increase prices and/or sales, and there are even cases of, for example, "battery-hen" egg producers or "barn-hen" egg producers using the Free Range label to justify increased prices, before being caught out.

Lex Luthor "borrowed" a farmer's horse for his holographic exhibition at a Science Fair in Elliot S! Maggin's Last Son of Krypton:
http://superman.nu/thebook/lsok/?chapter=15


I just realized that the pulley system may have been the one the Kents used to train Clark to "fly straight"

Telle, thanks for the post.  I noticed a typo in the excerpt that you posted; so I went back and corrected it both in the online version of the book and in your article.

Thanks, Telle. Your reference may have been a bit too obscure for someone (ie. me) who hasn't read Last Son for a number of years. It must be time I re-read that great little novel.