Political response to SUPERMAN RETURNS

[Uncle Mxy]

Disturbingly, she even went on a date with Robin.

I thought that was simply to yank Superman and Batman's chains on that cruise ship.  That wasn't more than one panel at the very end of a story, or did they have a more detailed encounter than that?

[Johnny Nevada]

This reminds me of all those sixties Leo Dorfman/Schaffenberger Lois Lane stories where she's always getting married to someone else or another, whether it be Batman, or Lex Luthor, or a space ameoba.

I can just imagine the cover now: Superman is creeping outside the window of the Lois Lane/Cyclops residence, with a shocked expression and thought bubble over his head

"GREAT KRYPTON! I've returned from SPACE after FIVE YEARS to find Lois Lane is married to CYCLOPS!!!"

Story box: A GREAT IMAGINARY STORY: "LOIS LANE, MS. MUTANT MARVEL!"

Inside, you'd have Cyclops with his visor blasting a cooking board with onions that Lois Lane is chopping, apron and all.

"Here, HONEY! My ruby quartz beam should make dicing a SNAP!"

And beside them, there's a little kid with the distinctive one-eyed visor...

LOL! :-)


Re: Other boyfriends of Lois: Yeah, I know she's dated other guys, but still just assume any kid she'd ever raise would be alongside Kal-El (vs., say, Bruce Wayne/X-Plam/whoever... ;-)).

[Super Monkey]

Ok, folks here you go!

http://superman.nu/wiki/index.php/Lois_Lane#The_Men_of_the_Chronicles

[MatterEaterLad]

As far as Lois wandering off with Robin in WF, I have a strong memory of her in a pill box hat saying something like "I found this wonderful little chap"...wonder where I read that, a reprint in an 80 Page Giant?

[Webley]

2) The absence of the "American Way" line. It is true that a kind of old school Americanism was a big part of Superman, however, Superman has gradually been creeping away from signs of red-blooded nationalism into a "citizen of the world" status as a character for DECADES now, that it just isn't fair to focus exclusively on SUPERMAN RETURNS for doing so. Arguably, the move away from the "American Way" started in the Weisenger Years, when Dorfman, Binder and other writers wrote Superman more and more as a lonely alien being who, because he was not from Earth, thus did not see the distinctions that we human beings make amongst ourselves as being truly meaningful.

Decades is pushing it. A decade, maybe, but not more than one. There was that whole Superman Red/Superman Blue thing, but he still was predominantly the Big Blue Boy Scout. I point to The Nail miniseries and other (mostly JLA) books that still portray Clark as being the ultimate US hero. It's only been very recent that writers have been portraying a person raised since birth as a human as a "lonely alien".

Society recently has embraced the anti-hero and the writers are trying to move Supes in that direction - which is not consistent with his character over the past 60 years. Batman always was an anti-hero; he was that way from creation although watered down during the Golden and Silver ages. Superman was never an anti-hero; he was never meant to be. Someone with as much power as Kal-el has could easily rule the world and there have been numerous Elseworlds books written about that very thing. Ultimately, it is the Kents; those mid-west farmers, salt of the earth types, who have made Superman into the hero he is. People in that part of the country (a.k.a. Red States) are patriotic, and it's natural that Clark would be the same way. If recent writers are trying to change that, then they aren't being true to the character's origins.



Just last night I got home and read Superman/Batman #6 and in it Superman said...







"Throught it all, Luthor's influence...his money...would allow him to trample the law and escape unscathed.

Even Bruce, whose wealth exceeds Luthor's couldn't work the system with such reckless disregard.

But...the most painful victory he would ever take from me...

...was his election to the office of the President.

The land I love.

If I am guilty of one mistake, it was putting my faith in the American public not to vote for him.

The world will never know how I struggled with the decision to stay out of the electoral process.

Should I have gone on television and told the voters not to elect this man?

If I use my influence...my character and my reputation... to tell people how to vote, what does that make me?

I choose to fight for Truth, Justice and The American Way.

And for all its flaws, American democracy does work. That's not just something I learned growing up on a farm in Kansas.

Thats been my life."





This comic was put out no more than a year ago.

[Criadoman]

Well - this is a great thread...

a couple of points...

1. Lois and Superman's choice/non choice of birth control.

This one is steeped a little in the Superman 2 scene where Lois is putting on something comfortable.  What gets missed a bit is that Superman and Lois are 2 different species.  This might be a bit of a stretch of logic - but at that time, I have to give Supes the idea that there was little change of their genetics co-mingling into conception.  Lara was a recording and IIRC she just said he'd lose his powers.  Also - let us not forget that Superman at this point was probably likely quite a bit less experienced than Lois - so there's a lot of potential of just not really realizing what's going on.  Also, considering how vunerable he was at that point - practically anything could have gone wrong here.  I'll leave it to your imagination how this works out.

2. The American Way.  Boy, what a hot topic this was on the other boards.  I've always understood the concept to be Liberty, Happiness, Peace and Prosperity.  I was disappointed that Perry's line was edited.  It was, unforntuately a valid point.  The American Way is a rather perverted term outside our borders, let alone for many Americans.  But that poison started in 1963 and has been smoldering since.  (It probably started earlier, but I note a heavy decline in patriotism since JFK's assassination.)

Anyway, just some points.

[JulianPerez]

1. Lois and Superman's choice/non choice of birth control.

Oh boy, do I ever NOT want to have this conversation, but...

Dr. Ruth Westheimer once wrote in one of her books that if she had Three Wishes, one of them would be for a "perfect" means of birth control, because so far, there isn't one. If you're uncomfortable with the idea of Superman and Lois being so thoughtless as not being on the pill or using a prophylactic, take heart in the observation that they might have been but none of these are ever 100%.

This reminds me of a snippet of dialogue from Alan Moore's SUPREME:

SUPREME: "I just thought that because of...y'know...who I am, we could never really be together."
DIANA DANE: "Uh, does that mean you're anatomically abnormal in some way?"

Incidentally, I remember reading in the STAR TREK writers guide that one aspect of the show, that obviously wasn't going to be touched upon, but the writers were to keep in the back of their minds, was the very controversial idea that birth control in the Starfleet on long term missions was mandatory for single women. After all, Man + Woman + Time = Babies.

Some Ayn Rand types have been dismissive of TREK as "liberal pap" because its "utopia" has no money and no religion. The cynic in me wonders if that isn't what makes STAR TREK a utopia in the first place!

2. The American Way. Boy, what a hot topic this was on the other boards. I've always understood the concept to be Liberty, Happiness, Peace and Prosperity. I was disappointed that Perry's line was edited.

I can sort of understand why the writers left that line out. Superman, after all, is a character that is so interesting, because through the ages, he's kept up with the times.

Superman iis always set in "modern day." Compare that to someone like Doc Savage or the Shadow, for whom being in non-period pieces is absolutely unthinkable. The line "...and the American Way" is very much a throwback to the 1950s, an age when we liked our heroes like we liked our steaks: beefy, and All-American. Hey, isn't this site called "Superman Through the Ages," after all?

The only reason that line worked in the 1970s was because it characterized Chris Reeves's character as being a bright-eyed type. That worked BECAUSE it was such a pleasantly idealistic sentiment that was a little out of place. As great a moment as it was, it only worked because Lois snickered at him.

I have to agree with MatterEaterLad too, because it is true: the line is so iconic that you really feel the absence of it.

One of the more amusing expressions of the "keeping things period" phenom for some characters was the old Rankin-Bass DEFENDERS OF THE EARTH cartoon, which was set in "modern day" (meaning the 1980s) and which featured the grown-up SONS of both the Phantom and Mandrake the Magician...but at the same time, had the "original" Flash Gordon! The logic was, hey, Flash Gordon's adventures were set in the future, after all.