Like Superman but Not Complex Continuty? This Week’s SuperChat is For You!

On another world, as Superman’s powers wane, he begins to wonder what more he could have done with his Earth’s metahumans to build a finer world. He’s got a plan that starts with, of all people, the anarchic villain Manchester Black, in Superman and the Authority #1 written by Grant Morrison, drawn by Mikel Janín, colored by Jordie Bellaire, and lettered by Steve Wands.

Also out this week is Superman: Red & Blue #5, featuring:

“Fetch”, written by Judd Winick, drawn by Ibrahim Moustafa and lettered by Wes Abbott.

“De-escalation”, written by G. Willow Wilson, drawn by Valentine de Landro and lettered by Abbott. 

“Your Favorite”, written by Joshua Williamson, penciled by Chris Sprouse, inked by Karl Story, colored by Hi-Fi and lettered by Josh Reed. 

“Red Sun…Blue Dot”, written and illustrated by Mark Buckingham, colored by Lee Loughridge and lettered by Pat Brousseau. 

“Generations”, written, illustrated and lettered by Daniel Warren Johnson.

Armaan Babu: What a treat for Superfans this week, and you know what? It’s a treat for non-Superfans as well – both titles releasing this week are completely unmoored from plot arcs. This is a good week to jump into reading about Krypton’s favorite son, viewed through a number of unique lenses. How have you enjoyed this week’s stories, Tony?

Tony Thornley: Look, I’ve been getting the dad feels from Superman since the beginning of the year, and these two issues really just kind of amplified that. In two issues we get Superman being a dad to the entire planet. We get Jonathan Kent struggling with fatherhood. We get Jor-El sacrificing everything out of love… It’s just missing Clark and Jon getting a father-son moment.

Armaan: A true celebration of good fatherhood this week, Tony. Let’s dive into that first one you mentioned, as Superman tries to raise an Earth.

Superman & The Authority

Armaan: So this is something I believe we both picked up on – Superman and the Authority (SatA) feels a lot like All Star Superman. A Clark who’s at the tail-end of his long life and incredible superhero career, who realizes he wants to do more than just save the world one last time: he wants to better it.

Of course, while All Star was Grant Morrison’s take on Silver Age silliness, SatA puts Superman smack in the middle of the more gritty, “realistic” Wildstorm universe which is, admittedly, fairly new territory for me. Do you have a lot of familiarity with this world, with these characters?

Tony: Let’s see… I’ve read the Ellis/Hitch run on The Authority, not the Millar/Quitely run or the Brubaker/Nguyen run… For Manchester, I’ve read Action Comics #775 and a few other appearances. This though doesn’t really feel like those.

To me, this feels like Superman’s version of the Outsiders, but through a heavily Morrisonian lens. To me that means trippy sci-fi, awe-inspiring dialogue, and fun action, and this delivers that in spades. But you look at the Outsiders compared to this version of “the Authority” (though it is only Superman and Manchester by the end of the issue) and the comparison fits much better than Jenny Sparks’ team.

They’re operating outside the law. They’re working towards the greater good. They’re “proactive” heroes. They’re largely B-list or below characters. I get using the name the Authority instead of the Outsiders, especially with Apollo and Midnighter joining up, but this isn’t the Authority in the traditional sense and I like that.

Armaan: I’m excited to see how they go about creating this “finer world”, but we’re not at the point yet – we’ve not even built the team. This issue is largely establishment, letting us get to know who this version of Superman is, as he reaches out a hand to a polar opposite in Manchester Black.

I like this version of Superman. His costume redesign really puts the action in Action Comics – there’s no cape. Amongst all the other design choices, this is the most notable difference. This is not a Superman of grandeur, inspiring the masses to look, up in the sky – in fact, this Superman can barely even fly anymore. This guy, here? He’s grounded. He’s focused on the work that can be done, and he’s rolling up his sleeves to do it – or, in this case, removing the sleeves from his costume’s forearms entirely. 

I also like how the colors play with sometimes putting the costume in full black, with only the red ‘S’ symbol standing out. You mix that in with his body language – his stance wide, his arms always tense – this is a man ready to leap into action at a moment’s notice, solid, sharp, strong-jawed confidence with style in a way that is so uniquely Michael Janín. 

Tony: Oh yeah, I loved this Janin design for Kal. It creates a tone that this is a mixture of Kingdom Come and Tom Strong. Which fits this vision of Superman anyways.

And that idea of Superman losing his powers… Johnson has hinted that’s where his story is going and it’s not there yet, but Morrison just dives into it. I love how they depict it- hovering a few inches off the ground to keep training that muscle… It’s the “sitting at a yoga ball at my desk” of super-powers.

Beyond all this set-up though, there’s not a lot of meat to this issue outside of one scene- it looks like there’s a new Superman Revenge Squad plotting against the Man of Steel. Were you able to figure out who’s who in this scene?

Armaan: Well, there’s Eclipso, which already means things are pretty bad, but the rest are unfamiliar to me. There’s a man who could be Blockbuster? Of course, our main shadowed speaker is someone who’s implied to be Lex Luthor – but this seems like a misdirect, which leads me to wonder who else it could be. Who, in this world, would be Superman’s oldest enemy?

I’m going to take a wild swing here and say it’s Bizarro. Do I have any basis for this guess? No, but I want it to be true.

Another thing that’s interesting in Morrison’s cherry picking of continuity is the fact that this Superman, just like the one on the Prime-Earth, revealed his secret identity to the world. It’s not something that’s just been thrown in there, either – this seems like it’s going to matter to the story in an important way. Do you have any thoughts on why that could be?

Tony: See that’s a detail I think I missed. Now that you point it out… I wonder if it will be, or if it’s one of those rich world-building details Morrison likes slipping in. Hm….

Raising Clark

Armaan: Over in Red & Blue, we get some quality Jonathan Kent stories this issue that I’m very fond of. In Fetch, Jonathan worries about his son’s moodiness until another rocket crash sees Krypto enter the picture. Generations sees Jonathan confide his parenting fears to his local Smallville priest.

We’ve seen a lot of Jonathan Kent stories that show him as this rock, an eternal fount of small town wisdom whose unshakeable morals defined Superman’s own moral compass. In both these stories, however, we get to see a more vulnerable side to him. He’s a father plagued with doubts, confessing to absolute ignorance as to how to raise his son. We see a humble man, willing to learn, guided by the love in his heart and the shining hope he has for his son’s future. How did these stories land for you, Tony?

Tony: Wow, this issue… Just in general, I think this series has just fired on all cylinders, but this issue was something special. And starting with Fetch and ending with Generations… It was all the feels. 

Now, I feel like Jonathan Kent having worries and reservations while Martha is the more enthusiastic parent has been one of the more interesting retcons of the last twenty years. There are definitely a few cases of it being done poorly (looking at you Zack Snyder), and a good handful of times it’s been done well. However I can’t think of many examples of Jon Kent’s worries being done as well in these two stories. You get in Fetch Jon being concerned about how alone Clark must be. Then in Generations, he’s despondent about how he could possibly raise a child as special as Clark. Powerful stuff by some great writers (with great art to boot).

Armaan: I really like the soft, nostalgic feel of Fetch, but the grubby, worn, personal art in Generations really got to me. Daniel Warren Johnson’s art captures so much heart and soul. Unabashed tenderness from Jon Kent, which transfers to some wonderful Superman moments, all just filled with love. It was a fantastic note to end the issue on.

Tony: I turned that final page and actually wished it was the end of the series, because it would have been the perfect wrap up to the series as a whole. I think we need a Johnson Superman mini series after he finishes up with Beta Ray Bill at Marvel.

Armaan: No objections here!

Moments Big and Small 

Armaan: The other three stories we have are De-escalation, a small-scale Clark story, Red Sun…Blue Dot, a grand retelling of the opening moments of the classic Superman origin, and Your Favorite, a charming little story about Jimmy Olsen capturing some of the biggest and smallest moments of Superman’s career.

Of the three, De-escalation was my favorite by far. For one, I’m very fond of its interpretation of blue – sort of a sepia tone by way of blueness that really digs into the mundane feel, perfect for a story that’s all Clark, no cape. Secondly, it’s very clearly leaning on one of my favorite Clark interpretations ever, Christopher Reeves’ version. A well-mannered Clark Kent who goes that extra mile towards performative clumsiness, talking down a would-be thief with kindness, compassion, and juuuuust enough disappointment for this wannabe thief to feel shame. This is a Clark who understands people, in part because of the pains he takes to walk amongst them, in part because he is constantly reaching out to people, and making that connect.

Tony: I love that De Landro drew Reeves’ Clark Kent. I don’t know if that was a note from Wilson or his call. However, I think of how Reeves would shift from Clark to Superman, and that art choice evokes those moments in Superman the movie. Clark here is gentle and kind. You know if he has to, he’ll leap into action, but in eight pages Wilson and De Landro shows that he doesn’t have to. Clark Kent’s greatest super-power isn’t his strength or his ability to fly. It’s his compassion, his ability to find the good in those around him. By doing that, he’s able to de-escalate the robbery and maybe make this young man turn his life around.

That’s my Superman right there. This is exactly the sort of story I’d use to say “You think Superman’s lame- read this.”

Armaan: It’s a wonderful look at just how powerful the simple, human side of Clark is. On the other end of the Superman storytelling spectrum, however, we have the glorious Mark Buckingham tale that shows the odyssey Clark’s ship went through after leaving Krypton, with Jor-El and Lara-El’s last discussion about their son’s future. I love these pages. I want them on a wall somewhere, like tapestries, down a corridor like history you walk through. 

Tony: This was just Buckingham flexing for eight pages, and I loved it. There was an opening page, a closing page, and in between it was a six page spread. Even if you took the lovely dialogue between Jor-El and Lara out of it, it would have been a triumph. Pairing it with the two Jonathan Kent stories also made it doubly effective, especially leading into Johnson’s Generations.

Armaan: That’s a connection I completely missed, Tony, but it made a second read so much more enriching. Between the simple humanity of De-escalation and the grandeur of Red Sun…Blue Dot, we get a simple but entertaining tale of Jimmy Olsen trying to figure out his favorite Superman moment he’s capture on camera. With all of the other great stories in this issue, it’s not a tale that stands out, but is quite enjoyable nonetheless. Superman’s an inspiration, but as we see time and time again, he’s one that’ll take the time after a battle to hang out with his pal. 

Tony: This reminded me of the moment in Fraction and Lieber’s (just announced) Eisner Award winning Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen when Clark and Jimmy were screwing around taking weird photos. It’s a sweet, but more importantly, very human moment. It just landed so well, especially in such a dad-heavy issue. It made Clark and Jimmy feel like brothers. Williamson has a great talent for the human moments. I’d love to see him do more like this.

Armaan: It’s been a wealth of solid, humanizing moments this week – and I couldn’t be happier.

Super-Thoughts!

• These two issues were so meaty that we don’t have much else to say, except damn do the colorists in Red & Blue ever deserve a raise or a bonus or something. WOW.
• What happened to Lois Lane and the rest of the Justice League in the world of Superman & The Authority? Important question that hopefully future issues answer.
• Editor Matt’s Note: The fact that Manchester Black, who led a team created to be a pastiche/parody of the Authority, is now a member of the Authority is one of those ouroboroses of storytelling you can only get in mainstream superhero comics.
• See you next week with two HUGE issues- Action Comics and Son of Kal-El!

Armaan Babu

Tony Thornley

Tony Thornley is a geek dad, blogger, Spider-Man and Superman aficionado, X-Men guru, autism daddy, amateur novelist, and all around awesome guy. He’s also very humble.