Superman, Pt. I

This post may not make a whole lot of sense, because I have a lot of thoughts around this and I'm finding it hard to crystallize them. I'll give it a shot, and if you have questions because this is incoherent, please comment and I will absolutely respond, because this is important for me to get out. Part 2 will follow tomorrow, with additional thoughts.

I finally realized what's been bugging me about Infinite Crisis.

(Insert joke here.)

Regular readers will have noticed that I tend not to review any Superman comics. I have not bought a Superman comic in 10 years. I've read others' copies, but never been moved to buy one.

For better or for worse, Superman will always be the archetype for "superhero". And the thing about archetypes is that once you're familiar with them, you start looking for variations on them. So in the superhero archetype's case, most of us are fans of one hero or another because of what we perceive makes them different from a generic "hero".

But poor Superman has been saddled with the cross to bear of being the original 4-color demigod, the template from which most, if not all, others derive. The bright colors, the flying, the cape, the chest emblem --- they're all his, like it or not.

Which means that I don't have to read about Superman, because I know what he is and what he does and how he acts and what he'll do.

Which means that the only Superman comics I would ever be likely to pick up are Elseworlds tales. That's all fine and good --- I think Elseworlds tales are great fun --- but it also effectively means that whatever in-continuity Superman is doing, I don't have to care.

And it's DC's job to make me care about Superman again.

And Infinite Crisis, the showpiece event of the decade for DC, has done precisely the opposite.

There is nothing in IC to make me think that Superman will be any more interesting after this is all over. And I was really kind of hoping there would be, because dammit, I want to like Superman again.

So far, IC --- and the titles leading up to IC --- has focused on Power Girl, Batman, Flash, Donna Troy's Combat Whackers, Superboy, and Wonder Woman. Hell, even Nightwing has gotten better character moments in this thing than Kal-El!

And IC #5 --- Golden Age Lois dies, GA Superman fights "our" Superman in a ridiculously one-sided fight, then spends two pages realizing he's been an idiot --- is also guilty of short-sheeting the Man of Tomorrow.

So even with all the lip service given to Supes by other characters -- and villains -- the physical evidence, the stories that make me excited about Superman -- just aren't there, where I expected them to be.

And that makes me kind of sad for him. And me.

DC, you don't need to reinvent him. You need to show why he is the single most resonant character in the history of comics, and why everyone (Batman included) should be dropping a load in their pants if they even suspect that they might have done something to piss him off.

You've talked the talk with IC; now we need to see you walk the walk.

And that's what's been bugging me.

Tomorrow: More reasons why the archetype is crippling, some thoughts from Jake, and ideas on how to improve.