Superman Through the Ages! Forum

I must say, the warmth and purpose that Busiek and Johns have given to the Super-Marriage has made me change my mind about the whole topic. Previously, I denounced it as being the worst excess of the 1990s gimmicky, event-centered mentality, a love predicated on a failure of the imagination and a misunderstanding of who Superman is.

But I like the Super-Marriage, for no other reason than the fact Busiek and Johns aren't giving in to the traps that have plagued the Super-Marriage by bonehead writers, such as Lois suspecting infidelity (of SUPERMAN, of all people) or coming off as whiny demanding Superman spend more time with her.

1) It's a logical step in the evolution of heroic characters, once it's established they have a main squeeze, to get married. It's practically a heroic tradition, and it precedes crass gimmickry like Mulder and Scully kissing bec ause its "Sweeps Week." Tarzan got married and had a son, for instance. All of the best Scarlet Pimpernels have him married. John Carter of Mars had tons of kids hatching from eggs. Hell, even the Sons of Hercules got their own movies with Mark Forest and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE's local meathead, Peter Lupus. Heroes get married all the time, and it doesn't affect their ability to be heroes, or even their general stories, except for the fact that they don't have to do a story about meeting and falling in love anymore. Only in Supercomics is marriage associated with inertia and emasculation, and even in comics, Reed and Sue, and Aquaman and Mera have pretty much had their identity been built around being a married couple.


2) It would be a wonderful step away from "DC-inertia." I hesitate to say this on a board for a DC hero like Superman, but one of the greatest weaknesses of DC's superheroic characters, and one of the differences between DC heroes and Marvel heroes, is that...well, let me put it this way: when John Byrne announced he wanted in his AWC run, to have the Scarlet Witch rejoin the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, because that's who she was in her first appearance, the entire world denounced that characterization as regressive for the sake of regression, and wildly implausible. Wanda was, because of events since then, a confident woman, not the unsure, easily dominated girl she was when Magneto knew her.

On the other hand...when DC fans say something like, "how can we save this book and return this title to former glory," I can't help but shake the idea what they really MEAN is, "how can we get things back to the way they were?"

Thus, you have "DC-inertia." It's seen as a "problem" that has to be "fixed," if Superman gets married, or if Supergirl is allowed to age past 16. Which is a really ugly way of thinking.


3) Undoing the Marriage would, at this point, after all this time, be unbelievably lame. After all the effort and stories with the Super-Marriage, undoing it would be turning back the clock in a really inappropriate way, EVEN IF the writers could think of a way to do it that would be satisfying. Tom Brevoort refused to give Mary Jane a miscarriage because he did not want to go down in history as the guy that killed Spider-Man's baby. Imagine the poor writer that has to give Superman divorce papers! Even if they did find a way to break the marriage up that makes sense and leaves no bitter aftertaste (as Tom Peyer did in his unused SUPERMAN 2001 proposal) with all the work done with it up to this point, getting rid of it would feel like regression for the sake of regression.

To quote Martin Pasko, "It's there. Use it."

Didn't you just write think right before starting this thread?  :P



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Are you talking Superman 2000, or was there a separate Superman 2001?

I thought that there was some controversy over the Superman 2000 idea of marriage -- having it be something in the past that only Superman remembers (with Brainiac being the super-kiss of forgetfulness), but Morrison wanting to do more with it?

Julian - Reed Richards and Aquaman are hardly in the same class as Superman.

"Inertia" is not a characteristic exclusive to DC's comics.

And even The Phantom went downhill as an adventure character once he married Diana. By adding marriage, something else is lost: the hero's edge, the adventure element... The possibilities are greatly reduced. What kinds of personal conflicts are left? You get Superman bickering with his wife, or his wife nagging him that they never go out anymore. Or Superman starts casting a secret super-eye over the other women in the office. It all just makes Superman look small, and he should be the big gun in comics.

Superman is special. His powers give him some immunity to feminine wiles. In the great "Who Took The Super Out Of Superman" -- as I recall -- he found himself attracted to one of the Marigold twins only after he had become a normal man. (Or, if not his powers, his enormous sense of responsibility is what stops him relaxing his resolve enough to marry.) He has bigger fish to fry than keeping a wife.

Does this include perpetuating an elaborate hoax of a secret identity, and doing lots of things to try and maintain a job at the Daily Planet because somehow that grants him access to lots of information he couldn't readily  obtain otherwise?  That is where the "bigger fish" thing falls apart. 

One idea here that I've rarely seen is of Clark taking a wife as a means of better hiding his secret identity.  Rather than every lame excuse centering around him, his wife could be why he has to suddenly run off.  She could be a robot, or someone like Lori Lemaris who knows his identity but doesn't have the legs to make the relationship work, when she needs to be shown at all (e.g. Niles Crane's first wife Maris from Frazier).  Clark can have a reasonably full life, but avoid pesky romantic entanglement by wearing a wedding ring, wheeling a woman in a wheelchair around, etc.

If not a wife, what about a cousin...  perhaps one who likes to fly.  "We have to stick together because we're both orphans, the last of our line.  Sorry if I'm a little obsessed about trying to give my only remaining kin a good life, Perry."  Oh wait...  obviously she belongs in an orphanage, all the better for Clark to do what, exactly?

I have very vague memories of this proposal, but what I'm talking about is the Superman semi-reboot idea that was shot down and not used, put together jointly by Tom Peyer, Mark Waid, Morrison, and some other guy. The unused proposal had an instant way out of the Super-Marriage: Lois Lane dies. Superman asks Mxyzptlk to bring Lois Lane back to life, and Mxyzptlk does so...on the condition that everybody in the world, including Lois, would forget Clark Kent and Lois Lane were ever married. But Superman would still remember.

It was an interesting, intelligent way to get out of the Super-Marriage, while at the same time "using" the fact the marriage happened to give Superman a new characterization.

At the same time, my point was that even if the marriage could be undone in an interesting manner, it would not be desirable at this point.


There have been stories that show Superman is certainly vulnerable to women. Superman was willing to give up being Superman for Lori Lemaris and for Lyla Lerrol, for instance. And all through the seventies there were hints dropped by Len Wein and others that Superman and his relationship with Lois and Lana had a sexual/physical dimension.


I interpreted this as some of the elements that make Superman or Clark Kent start to slip into the other identity, so you get a ballsier Clark and a far less "workaholic" Superman.


Having huge responsibilities is made bearable by a significant other. The Chinese Premier once said in a TIME magazine interview, that if not for his wife he wouldn't be able to sleep nights.

This is the Doc Savage justification: "I have too many enemies and too many responsibilities to possibly have a wife."

Other characters have used it, too, including Superman, but the only character it ever really worked for is Doc Savage himself, and that's because Doc is remote and emotionless (and a bit inhuman) enough that it's possible to see Doc give up women entirely.

I would agree with you, that Superman's responsibilities would keep him from being interested in women, if we went by the Steve Englehart characterization in his JLA and issue of DC COMICS PRESENTS, where Superman is very explicitly an alien and an extraterrestrial - in other words, when he is most like Doc Savage.

As written by Maggin and others, though, this justification isn't terribly strong, because Superman has a level of humanity about him. For instance, witness the way Maggin had Superman get jealous when the slick, good looking Green Arrow was "making time" with Lois Lane in "The Junkman Cometh."

Alan Moore never thought much of this justification. There was one hilarious interaction in his SUPREME:

SUPREME: Well, I thought because of, ah, who I am, we could never be together.

GIRLFRIEND: What, are you anatomically abnormal in some way?


Of course. What I meant to point out was that being a superhero and being married, are two things that are not incompatible. More importantly, though, a superhero being married in the long term can have longevity. It can WORK.


True. I want to strangle every peabrain that says Spider-Man "has to stay a teenager," for instance. And DC has made some great steps, especially with less than flagship characters, for organic character growth beyond the original concept: Dick Grayson becoming an adult with his own identity comes to mind.

In DC though, the more of a "flagship" character you are, the more calcified everything gets.

Thor for instance, had a relationship with Jane Foster all through the sixties. However, it ultimately just didn't work out and people can accept a Thor book without Jane Foster...all this despite the fact that Thor tried to move Heaven and Earth for Jane and make her immortal.

On the other hand, one of the first things the recent GL writer, Geoff Johns did, was bring in Hal's sixties girlfriend, Carol Ferris, and rekindle their relationship, despite the fact that since then

This example is not perfect, because there are many differences between Carol and Jane, naturally...but one way the example works is that both are girlfriends the hero had back in the sixties, because it's required by Natural Law that the hero have a girl. Carol Ferris was your Lois Lane/Iris West type, and if it was at all possible, Jane was even MORE boring, so it isn't because of either Jane or Carol's originality or sex appeal that they were brought back or not brought back. And it is true that both Thor and Jane Foster in the interim have had other girlfriends, indeed, they've had more compatible ones that are more their physical and mental equals (Arisia and Lady Sif).

Yet, Hal Jordan got his sixties gal back recently, and yet Jane hasn't been seen since the sixties when their relationship didn't work out.


Well, who's to say marriage can't work as an extension of "superhero family-building?" Thus bringing in even more of an adventure element. The single greatest disappointment of SUPERMAN RETURNS was, to quote Roger Ebert, "Superman's son should be brassy and fun, like the Spy Kids."

If Maggin is right and Lois is a Catholic, we're pretty much guaranteed to have Janet-El and Steve-El and Juan-El just WALK out after a little while. :D

You mention the Phantom, and maybe marriage was one of many things that gets him down. But on the other hand, Tarzan's best book after his first one was TARZAN AND THE ANT-MEN, which had Tarzan happily married and with a son. True, his son and Jane were offscreen while Tarzan was fighting the Amazons and Ant-Men, but adventure is compatible with a married hero. It gave Tarzan motivation to escape out of that anthill.


Previously, I agreed with you, mostly because the Super-Marriage HAD been written very much in the manner you describe: used to make Superman look small.

Kurt Busiek has made it a very human kind of love story, which is at the same time strangely domestic, and is one of the most interesting elements of his current run on the book. He, and Geoff Johns, have changed my mind on the subject because they haven't fallen into the emasculating traps that you describe.


I think what Aldous meant was that Superman is a grandiose hero and he should worry about "big" problems instead of picayune Spider-Man stuff like getting Baby Zack-El his formula that evening. I agree with him, and the marriage is written wrong if its an unending, banal series of domestic problems.

But I think you do have a point: if Superman has time for Clark Kent, he can have time for a marriage too.

Mxy, Superman's secret identity is not a hoax. I can't emphasise that strongly enough.

Superman is Clark Kent and Clark Kent is Superman.

KENT IS NOT A HOAX!

Is that clear now?

no! ;D

Actually, Clark Kent is as real as Superman, since that's how he was raise, however the Daily Planet version of Clark Kent is a bit of a put on to be sure. The Clark Kent/Superboy version was a lot closer to his real self, as he didn't ham it up as much as he started to as soon as he moved to the city. Even while in college he was still pretty close to how he acts alone at the Fortress of Solitude. But, if you notice that once he moved to the city, he started to act different, more mild, wimpy and goofy. There is a lot of acting involve. That version is not really him.

But it's ok to hang out with normal people in his secret identity because his very presence won't endanger them.  Obviously, none of his powerful foes could possibly track him down, stomping all over the humans he hangs out with that might get in the way...  Phantom Zoners, Darkseid, the Superman Revenge Squad, etc. 

Marriage doesn't necessarily imply children, and certainly not "right away".   Think Nick and Nora, or Hart to Hart.  Heck, it may not be possible for those two to have children and they may have to <gasp> adopt. 

More to the point, Superman -makes- time for Clark Kent as surely as he makes time to patrol Metropolis.  What's the logical motivation behind that?  The traditional motivation, so he could easily get wind of the latest news flashes, doesn't make as much sense for someone who can hear cells divide and who can wield an Internet connection.  What's the reason us readers want to see Clark?  Is it just to get a supporting cast and a chance to see Clark dodge the "are you Superman" bullet in clever ways, or is there more?  Does marriage follow from that? 

And by "hoax" I mean deception and closely-guarded secret.   I didn't mean to imply Clark wasn't Superman and Superman wasn't Clark, but he sure goes out of his way to meekly and mildly conceal how some of the sides of himself work.  To defend the marriage, you have to figure out what makes Superman/Clark tick.  That's not so easy, as stuff has changed over time.   

Well, I like the 1970s Mr and Mrs Superman stories alot --Nick and Nora meets Siegel and Shuster (or Schaffenberger and Bridwell).

Don't know how that affects my inability to like the Iron Age marriage --maybe 'cause it's Iron Age?  I'm willing to believe that it's possible to write good modern married Superman stories but I will probably never love them as much as the classic office hijinks stories, etc.

Re: Tarzan.  Enjoyed PJ Farmer's Doc Savage/Tarzan books as a kid wherein both had active sex lives.  Doc was basically "married" to his cousin and Lord Greystoke kept things lively with a variety of affairs including with his pet panther.  Did he ever do similar with a John Carter pastiche?

Popeye evaded Olive Oyl for a long time as well.  Popeye had a wandering eye and it worked better that way.

One of the things not mentioned is that comics originally intended for kids mostly shied away from adult themes of marriage and intimacy --the macho/pseudo-misogynistic antics of  Superman contra Lois were superheroic versions of schoolyard gender relations (cooties!)-- because the kids were just not interested (well, maybe the girls were and that's why we got so many fantasy stories and a Lois series).  Now the logic jerks, "realism" lovers, and adult fans rule superhero comics and things are going to tend towards a more adolescent view of maturity and sexuality.  I'm sure the talented Busiek can write above the moronic level of most of his readership, but really they deserve whatever they get for agreeing to age Superman in this way.

Apart from tradition, I don't see why modern Lois and Clark don't take the plunge into being a private detective agency.  Lois wants to make things happen, not just write about them -- as much about "justice" as "truth".  I suspect Clark can still save the world on a regular basis just following Lois around, just like he always has.  :)  I'd love it if someone could entice Tom Manciewicz (who did Hart to Hart and knows this genre cold) out of "I'm rich I don't have to work anymore" retirement to write more Superman stories.   
 
It's clear that the powers that be of that time (as a whole) didn't know how to play romantic tension and wrote themselves into corners. 

We've gone from writing for kids who don't want dates to writing for adults who can't get dates.

Well, didn't DC agree to it as a promotional gimmick tie in with Lois and Clark, you know the crappy show with that Dean fellow ;)

<sigh>

That's almost exactly the opposite of what happened.  The initial Lois and Clark producer didn't want another Moonlighting, wanted marriage to be the series finale if anything.  Because of that, the marriage in the comics was delayed, and we get Doomsday and the death of Superman instead.  Once that faded, the Powers That Be wanted another sales-making "event", and a new producer and a faster path to marriage got pushed onto L&C.  (To be fair, a new producer probably would've happened for other reasons.  The Powers That Be didn't get 'romance' at all, and the new producer didn't 'get' much of anything once they rushed past the original producer's timeline.)

Either way, the wedding was a gimmick to push sales, right?

More or less.  The impression I had was that they didn't know of anything else to do with him and he'd already been engaged "awhile", so get them married.   Then, after they were forced to come up with something else to do that turned out to be hugely successful with Dumbsday, and the comics market got more competitive with Image, etc., bloodlust for a smashing followup happened. 

All part of the same garbage heap along with death of, mullet superman, wedding, and of course electric superman.

Then the comic market imploded.

And that's the trouble with a gimmick.

Oh f***!! What do we do NEXT month?

While Super-Marriage may be born in the marketing department, it's not necessarily the worst scenario. Just look over at Marvel. Almost every couple married in 616 is on the rocks or over and out. Even the Fantastic-Marriage, between Reed and Sue, is finished, again (thank you Civil War). Then, there's DC. The Dibnys were DC poster couple and we all know how that turned out.  :-[  :'( So, at least one gimmick doesn't end in tears of sorrow but joy.

Their getting married wasn't as bad as, say, Bluperman.  (Some defense, eh?) The foundation for their get married was part of the reboot.  There was a more "mature" (by '80s superhero comic standards) Supes-Lois relationship intended, in the wake of the movie. 

But, big event stuff just to have a big event doesn't appeal to me.  Superman's path to marriage was jerky.  Telling his identity -and- proposing marriage didn't have to happen at the same time, for example.  Just think about how many stories were enabled by Pete knowing Superboy=Clark but Superboy not being aware of that, to cite a development that would've been natural for Lois.  Maybe she has All-Star Superman Lois's reaction, or maybe she just wonders why the deception, and if she tells him she knows his secret, will he fly away?  Yadda yadda yadda... 

I've gone back and forth on this one a few times myself. I think that if I were to have the editorial power to do I would simply do this. Have one title where adventures take pace in what is the traditional scenario with the love triangle and then have another book that's meant to be farther in the future where Supermans life has changed a bit and Lois and Superman are married. This is comics. Not even the sky is the limit so why not have both?

I don't understand why it has to be sort of an either/or thing unless you're coming from the standpoint that Superman must be like a monk or something. Which while I understand that he must forever walk a line between human and Kryptonian, something about the idea of him never being able to have a meaningful relationship with a woman just doesn't sit right with me. I feel his mission of truth and justice shouldn't be played as a curse with Kal-El as a lonely puppet of destiny. Even though I do like some of the aspects grand destiny in the movies.


Kinda reminds me of the stuff I've been finding out in regards to Doctor Who fandom where apparently there was some sort of mandate about the Doctor ever being potrayed as having romantic feeling or sexual attraction to one of his companions and based on this some fans are really upset that in the latest series that kind of connection is very obvious between he and current companion Rose Tyler.

I've never liked that angle re Superman, that he is destined for a life of miserable self-sacrifice. Pah!

There's a lot more life in him than that. He's much better as portrayed in the Bronze Age or on George Reeves' TV show... very smart and with a cheeky grin on occasion. Superman is enjoying his life and he loves helping people. It's not a depressing mission carried out by a morose outcast or whatever the current rubbish is.

I would fully expect Superman to get married one day and have a happy life with his wife. I don't have a problem with your alternate timeline idea to present the marriage, but that option has always been there and has been used very successfully -- Imaginary stories. "Imagine if Superman married Lois." That can be an Imaginary series, no sweat, set in "the not too distant future".

I guess you haven't seen the rest of Season Two yet...

I have now. So scratch that "current" part I guess.  :(

So does this mean The DaVinci Code was just a reboot of the new testament?

no just a reboot of Holy Blood, Holy Grail 

Is that the sequel to Holy Terror, Batman!?

The one where the Joker steals the Axe of the Apostles and threatens to smite Robin?

OK, fine. Then Superman is a reboot of "Gladiator" with a little pulp SF and The Phantom thrown in.

I'm a bit of two worlds on Superman's marriage.

To begin, I've always considered there is something intrinsically wrong with his pursuing a relationship with Lois.  The reason is simply that she is a mortal.  Superman, done right for me, is very Maggin-istic.  I am with the god-like Superman.  So, from that perspective, when I consider their relationship, it looks more like the Zeus' lust thing, than an honest relationship.

Maybe, this is the little mythical aspect of the relationship that causes it to work on many levels.

For me, Wonder Woman, etc. are all much more appropriate mates to one who could be really a father to a new pantheon on Earth.

But, if we go the route of the humanized Kryptonian - then sure, Lois has got many of the cherished qualities that Clark would look for in a mate, the relationship makes sense.

Ultimately it is really just how good the writer is with the subject matter - if he thinks it's in his way, then it will probably be so in his writing.  If he likes it, it will be useful in the story.  If the writer shows good insight into the relationship then I'll enjoy it.  If he's interested in making Lois jelous - then just end the relationship and let him go after someone else.  I just think life would be more fulfilling for the character if he could go about his duties with his mate than without.

I like Alan Moore's bit where Superman and WW don't get together because it'd be "too predictable".  If I were gonna go for a non-obvious heroic choice for Superman to marry, it'd be Mary Marvel.  He'd be able to graduate from LL to MM.

You know, Uncle Mxy, you have a real talent for this sort of thing. I can't wait to see the Elseworlds version, in which their offspring has all of Superman's powers, but only when it says the magic word "Krypton!"

Ok, I'll bite, what would Krypton stand for?

The child will have the superheroic name of Krypton Kid (KK) and be unable to refer to himself by his own name without transforming into a spit-curled demigod.  Legal troubles will prohibit him using his natural name of Superboy. 

I'd rather have Jimmy Olsen marry Mary Marvel, this way the kid can get powers when he says Jeepers

I wouldn't want WW to replace Lois ever, but in a world or future without her I see your point and the epilogue to Kingdom Come suggests that in a interesting way. Also I don't think in any version Superman's really been given a ..oh how to put it. A interesting bachlorhood. He's sort of fallen for Lois from day one with any other relationships being before he came to Metropolis or as incidental to his triangle with Lois. This isn't to say I think Superman should be like James Bond. But I think it would be interesting to see some  other personalities fall for our Man of Steel or he with them before he chooses Lois as his one and only. In any case Superman would be about having real relationships rather than one night stands.

Just some thoughts...

For the writing I think if they are gonna go with the marriage angle, then Lois actually *could* go on missions with Superman a lot more than she does. I think writers are scared to do that. Maybe because they think it ruins the fantasy for younger or teen-age boys. Perhaps, it's the implication that Superman now has a "sidekick" or thinking that it would be somehow lowering Lois herself because she would be in a sidekick role.

It's obvious she couldn't go on every single mission so it's not like there would be a total loss of solo action with the character. (..and again there's always another title you could use for that). Also, throughout fiction characters have been able to have partners, assistants, etc. who are directly involved in things without taking anything away from the main hero or ending up as the hostage. ..and even if they do that doesn't have to mean Lois has to prove useless and unresourceful. If anything it would be a chance to show that she IS. Make her a real partner.

Maybe to it's that people feel since she doesn't have powers therefore she would be in too much danger so Superman would be stupid to bring her along. ..and sometimes this would be correct and Superman would need to sort of establish boundries in that regard. However she IS a top reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper and her husband, the man she loves more than anything else is risking his neck to save the world and sometimes even the universe. I think for her to want to go along with him is not an indication of her being a harpy or a nag, but of a woman with genuine emotion and feelings. Because I think any human being in that position would want to be at their loved ones side and especially so in a case where being in the thick of things, trying to help or to chronicle is just as much a part of who THEY are as a person as it is part of their loved one.

Much like the way Superman: Last God Of Krypton was handled?   Yes, I agree.

I'd never even heard of this one-shot until you mentioned it - then I looked it up in google.  Apparently it was done by Walt Simonson with Greg and Tim Hildebrandt!  What a combination!

Anyone else here read it?  Was it any good?

Kent
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