In this post a few days ago I compared these two pictures:
That first, with the dragon, is from Dokebi Bride, a Korean manwha by a young creator named Marley. The second image is from All Star Superman, drawn by Frank Quitely, one of the most respected mainstream illustrators currently working.
As I said in the previous post, both of these images are meant to be awe-inspiring, or viscerally impressive. And as I also said, Marley’s drawing really impressed me, while Quitely’s didn’t as much (I don’t hate it; I just don’t love it either.)
Anyway, I was thinking a bit more about these two images, and it struck me just how almost iconically west vs. east they are. In the first place, of course, Superman’s a Western symbol, and the oriental dragon is an Eastern one. More than that, though, is the way these two symbols work, and how they’re integrated into the stories.
Superman in general, and in this image in particular, is about individual triumph and modernity — individual triumph *as* modernity in some ways. (See Tom’s essay here for his take on this. Quiteley’s image, with its retro-modernist vibe and workers-of-the-world referencing, is positioning Superman as savior and worker — as salvation through work, you could even argue. It’s the apotheosis (pretty much literally) of sacrifice figured as massive effort — man puffed up through sheer sweat and muscle to take his seat at the helm of the universe.
(There’s a socialist/constructivist tinge to the design as well too, referencing Siegel’s design sense and the character’s initial quasi-socialism (beating up mine owners and the like. It’s kind of an interesting reminder that capitalism and socialism are *both* modernist and *both* puritan; both fetishize effort and progress in very similar ways. They’re more different inflections of the same idea than they are true opposites.)
Okay, where was I?
Oh right. So the point is that Quiteley’s image is about the bittersweet triumph over adversity; man attaining Godhead through superforce and sacrifice; an effortful Christ. The awe or reverence is the glow of triumph (though laced with some melancholy, since Supes has to keep the sun going forever, more or less.)
In Dokebi Bride, on the other hand, the awe has a very different inflection. Obviously, the dragon isn’t human, and, indeed, it dwarfs the woman in the frame. The point here is not mastery over nature (Superman controlling the sun through work) but the untameability of nature. The summoner here is actually a nascent capitalist; she wants to gain individual glory through demonstrating her summoning skills, and/or just through putting on a good show. The dragon is not amused:
This isn’t to say that the dragon is evil, or necessarily inimical to human beings; on the contrary, he has a close, even loving friendship with the the main character’s grandmother, who is the village shaman. Nor is the dragon all powerful; in fact, he’s weak and tired and old. But even an old dragon is a lot bigger than you and your dreams of glory, and fucking with him is a really bad idea.
It’s also interesting, I think, how nostalgia is worked through in these images. Both are definitely nostalgic; Quiteley’s is nostalgic for a more innocent modernism — a moment when progress to a super-future seemed possible. Marley’s is nostalgic for a rural Korean past and mythology; a countryside and a spirituality that are dying out. Both reference these nostalgias thematically (it’s what they’re about) and through their art styles; in Quiteley’s case, by reference back to the art nouveau/constructivist milieu of Siegel (and Winsor McCay, I think); in Marley’s, to innumerable examples of traditional art and printmaking.
The way the nostalgia works, though, is pretty different. Quiteley’s nostalgia, is, I would argue, kind of adrift. For all the talk about Superman-as-myth, the truth is he’s not Christ; his roots in our culture go back only 70 or 80 years, and he doesn’t actually stand for anything in particular except hitting bad guys and being kind of entertaining. Nostalgia for Superman isn’t really nostalgia for any big idea so much as nostalgia for a favorite toy…and, indeed, Quiteley’s image could almost be a toy box, or a figurine. Superman seems packaged, a commodity fetish, which points to its own possession (or the loss of its possession in a nostalgic past.). The drawing is deliberately set nowhere, in a kind of suffused emptiness; it’s an eternal frozen moment of nostalgia for one’s own wonderfulness, that goes nowhere and comes from nowhere.
Marley’s drawing, on the other hand, is a nostalgia for a particular place and a particular time. It is *this* fishing village in Korea that her grandmother is tied to (literally; she is possessed by a spirit that won’t let her leave.) The dragon is powerful, but it only rises *here*. For there to be wonder, there has to be a particular landscape, a particular time. The way the earth moves can’t surprise you if you’re able to fly off and turn it yourself.
The point here is that super-hero comics very rarely have a strong sense of wonder. With all the spectacular feats, you’d think they would — but somehow they all end up as tricks; they’re fun and goofy, or I guess more recently bloody, but they don’t actually inspire awe. And I think it’s because of something Tom said, “Superman keeps the universe our size.” Super-heroes are there to make things more manageable. Awe — a sense of vastness, of human insignificance or vulnerability — is antagonistic to everything they stand for. If Superman saw that dragon, he wouldn’t be scared or impressed — he’d just punch it in the snout. (As Wonder Woman did in a similar situation..) There’d be big explosions! There’d be excitement! There’d be action! But there wouldn’t be a moment where you said, “oh my god,” and felt rooted to one particular spot, and overwhelmed.
Actually, I think that the dragon is probably a more generic evocation of a time and place than the character who is the precursor of all superheros. Exactly, how is a dragon supposed to inspire awe anymore? Almost every mythology has one. I’m pretty sure we’ve seen dragons as evil, benevolent, crafty, old and wise ect. Particularly this drawing-it doesn’t do anything to evoke any new emotion except to ask: “What kind of dragon am I dealing with as I exist in (insert generic medieval setting)”.
The Quitely image can on the other lends itself to a several more interesting interpretations. You could say that it is him “taming nature” (although, if I read it correctly, whatever was happening to the sun wasn’t natural). Or all the socialist stuff you wrote about, or his ascension to sun-god hood; or his selfless sacrifice, or his torture of Lois by making her fall in love and alway being unavailable or whatever. My point being is that the short time period that Superman and superheroes in general have existed serves to make them a little lest dusty than another “dragontale” in my opinion.
The dragon is a Korean water spirit. Apparently in Korea dragons are traditionally associated with bodies of water. I didn’t know that before reading the series, so I did learn something new about dragons.
Moreover, dragons are part of Korean mythology. Therefore, treating them as mythology makes sense. Superman’s part of a corporate fanboy culture. Treating it as mythology, therefore, comes across (at least to me) as puerile.
So a dragon as a representative of a body of water reflecting the almost childlike ignorance at the time of how nature works isn’t puerile? Mystical creatures as representatives of natural acts might be new to some, but I am pretty sure that it occurs throughout a majority of mythology.
I wholeheartedly disagree with your assessment of Supes mythology. Regardless of the origin of the character, there is a very rich mythology associated with the character starting with his origin on through to his secret identity, allies, enemies ect. I mean there is tons of stuff. Maybe it is juvenile, but no more than a dragon as a water sprite is.
As an aside, I learned all kinds of stuff from super hero comics as a kid.
I don’t think having reverence for nature is stupid or juvenile. I don’t agree with you either that other people’s mythological traditions are juvenile, or reflect a simple lack of knowledge of nature. One of the great things about Dokebi Bride, actually, is she uses the resources of Korean folkore.
I don’t think Superman’s mythology is especially rich or profound, myself. And, yeah, it’s a lot more juvenile than an entire culture’s take on nature and religion and death, just like it’s a lot more juvenile than Christianity. I think it’s more juvenile than Marston’s Wonder Woman too, for that matter, which is actually a pretty thoughtful work of art in a lot of ways. Superman is just dumb, mostly — not that you can’t say interesting things about it, as Tom did, but not without keeping in mind that it’s pretty shallow (which, again, Tom did.)
Superman doesn’t really have a mythology, so much as a collection of stories that DC/Time Warner have told and retold in various media.
An important characteristic of mythology is that is collectively owned. Everyone has a right to tell or modify these stories as they see fit. In other words, nobody owns Hercules or Santa Claus (though I’m sure Marvel has tried to trademark both).
Superman doesn’t really belong to society. He belongs to Time Warner. The reason I know that is because if I wrote a Superman story and tried to sell it I’d get sued. Of course, there’s free fan-fiction (which is actually of dubious legality itself), but nobody takes it seriously because it isn’t “canon.”
For me Superman is like Star Trek. It’s interesting that they exist and that they matter to so many people, but the stories themselves are usually pretty silly. Superman’s origin story is good, though.
there wouldn’t be a moment where you said, “oh my god,” and felt rooted to one particular spot, and overwhelmed.
Kirby! It’s odd that the man recognized as the greatest artist of his kind did something that other artists of his kind don’t even try — except when they’re consciously imitating him. Well, Starlin has his moments and there must be some other guys. But all the wonder, etc., has to do with the cosmic/space side of the business. As you say, not much wonder shows up when we see a superhero just doing what a superhero does. Curt Swan was very good at showing Superman picking up an ocean liner, but there was nothing awe inspiring about the scene. Swan’s work was trim and well drafted, and that was enough for the scene’s purposes.
He does have a mythology. Just because his image is owned by a corporation doesn’t mean the chararacter hasn’t become a part of the cultural consciencness. I really doubt Time/Warner will bother with all the people who have a Superman “S” tatoo.
Heck, I was just over at the AV club where they were discussing a movie called the “Iron Giant” and there were about a million posts referencing a part in the flick that had the robot emulating the man of still. To a man, they all said they misted up. If a dragon can be a symbol of a body of water and have signficance to a particular culture, Superman can certainly symbolize virtuous aspects of human nature.
You hold up one cultures myths and stories as being somehow more significant than the other based on what? How old it is? It’s foreigness? How widely they were held? How about this: Superman the character and a symbol is still enduring in spite of “silly stories” (are you saying some mythological stories aren’t silly? I hope not)
And incidentally, I don’t find curt swans art particulary awe inspiring-but Frank Quitely is pretty awesome.
I don’t have a lot of opinions about mythology and whether given myths are silly. But Richard’s point about myth being created collectively matches what I remember being taught in school. After all, people have tattoos of the Playboy bunny and they mist up when they hear pop songs they liked as a kid. That doesn’t add up to mythology.
I’ve only seen a few things by Quitely. He’s good, though I prefer Swan, maybe because of childhood associations.
It’s not that it’s from another culture. I have a lot of respect for Christianity. I have respect for Wonder Woman, even. I don’t have a lot of respect for Superman’s mythology because there isn’t anything to it except, hey, wouldn’t it be great if you had super powers and were just awesome?
Age matters, though, when you’re talking about traditions. So does cultural resonance. So does depth of thought. A symbol of “virtuous parts of human nature,” and a hero who always wins, and having your hero sitting in the sun and saving us all — it’s all just wretchedly, ridiculously stupid. It’s rah-rah, go humanity; it’s everything puerile about humanism and modernity. It’s crap, and it should be sneered at.
Does that mean it’s impossible to tell a good Superman story? Of course not. But telling a Superman story where the point is that the myth is cool and beautiful is idiotic, because the myth isn’t cool and beautiful. It’s a mediocre story dreamt up by two guys who didn’t have a ton to say, and then repackaged by a big corporation that had less.
I don’t even hate Superman. Superman’s fine. Whatever. But comparing Superman to an actual religious tradition is just depressing. I don’t think little enough of our culture to believe that Superman actually matters to it all that much, I guess.
I’m not quite ready to hold creation of most religions as compeletely more significant than two kids creating Superman. A lot of times it seems like they were used to control and maintain power or an outright con job. The banality and cynicism of how they were created and often operated might seem grown and “edgy” to some, but to me it’s just another aspect of humanity that gets overblown in importance because it seems more relevant. Although your “rah rah” humanity comment does sound a lot like whatever religious propoponent of any religion does when they are preaching about their particular prophet or saviour.
And Superman was a creation of the society he sprang from. To me, Supes is a jewish superhero and a direct response to anti-semitism in the U.S. and the world at that time. Your casual dismissal of the character and what it embodies is similar to me saying that a dragon that is the embodiment of a lake is “silly”. It means something to someone. And at the height in the ’40s it probably meant a lot to a lot of someones. It seems you are dismissing that power in order to elevate yet another picture of a dragon in an ancient Asian setting.
It’s not clear to me how exactly traditional spiritual beliefs can be seen as cynical just because L. Ron Hubbard may be a hypocrite.
I’m not sure what you mean when you talk about religion being “edgy.” Lots of people are believers; lots of people aren’t. I’m an atheist myself, but I’ve read a lot of things by believers (Christian or otherwise) that I’ve found compelling and thought-provoking.
Lots of stuff means “something to someone”. Joseph Campbell does. L. Ron Hubbard does. Nazism does. Fucking Barney does. Just because people get excited about a set of beliefs or tropes doesn’t mean that set of beliefs or tropes is not ridiculous, repellent, or both. I guess if you’re into modernism, maybe relativism follows naturally, but that’s not where I’m at, myself.
Artistic creation has its own merits. Two kids creating stuff can be great. Superman just isn’t now and has never been all that interesting aesthetically (though it’s popularity makes it interesting culturally in various ways.)
As an example — Siegel and Shuster never deal at all consciously or effectively with the Jewish/assimilationist material they raise in their narrative. To the extent they grapple with it at all, it just comes across as assimilationist wish-fulfillment, helplessly perpetuating Jewish stereotypes (like Clark Kent) and Aryan ones (like Superman.) If you look at it closely, it’s really pretty much a preposterous pile of stereotypes and self-deluding nonsense. Can it be fun to read? Sure. Does it have thoughtful things to say about being American, or about man and nature, or about..well, anything? No, it doesn’t.
In Marley’s book, on the other hand, the water dragon is tied up with the collapse of rural ways of life, with the relationship between people and nature, with man’s hubris, and with man’s connection to the past and to the dead. It does all that by tying into traditional beliefs in a thoughtful way. I don’t know…have you read the Dokebi Bride? You might give it a shot, rather than just dismissing it out of hand.
Isn’t the whole “sense of wonder” thing a product of the story in which the wonderfulness appears…how it is set up by writer and artist and whether or not the writer and artist have the chops to pull it off….not how old the mythitude of the myth happens to be.
When Batman digs his way out of a grave in Batman R. I. P., it’s supposed to be a “sense of wonder” moment…but isn’t…
When he “splashes” on the final page of Morrison’s part of “Last Rites,” the sense of wonder is there. Why? Better art and a more compact and coherent story. It has little to do with Batman’s mythic place in the culture.
Superheroes can manage the “sense of wonder” fine with the right people at the helm (I cite Miracleman #2 and FF #48-51)…but years on end of trying to achieve the effect with the same characters by mediocre creators may weaken our collective chances.
Well, obviously the level of talent of the creators matters. But I think the material you’re working with is important too. I don’t know, for example, that Miracleman does awe, exactly; it seems as much about undermining super-hero mythology as about promoting it. I mean, Kid Miracleman is basically a thug. The exceptions (like Miraclewoman, or whatever her name is) don’t really work all that well.
There are moments of awe and its analogue horror in Swamp Thing, I think. Getting away from super-heroes helps.
Noah, there’s some questionable logic in your post and comments. You wrote three paragraphs (three pretty good paragraphs) unpacking the Quitely image as a statement about modernity and adversity and human triumph, and then you turn around and say Quitely’s image is adrift because Superman doesn’t stand for anything in particular; well, what happened to all those ideas you just unpacked in the image? Isn’t its portrait of triumph over modernity the very “big idea” you claim it’s lacking?
I think you’re taking a feature of the Superman character–the fact that he isn’t limited to a single meaning–and loudly declaring it’s a bug. Let’s grant that Superman isn’t a univalent character and hasn’t been completely thematically consistent over 70 years of stories by hundreds of creators. Isn’t that a positive trait? Doesn’t that mean the character always carries the possibility for something new?
There’s also something dishonest about passing judgment superhero comics’ sense of wonder by contrasting a landscape shot to a figure shot–of course the landscape’s larger scale will make it look more impressive. You could have easily found a Kirby, for example, that supplies the awe you say superhero comics as a whole are lacking.
Finally, “I learned something new about dragons” is pretty weak tea next to your own analysis of that Quitely image. It’s awfully telling that you have more to say about the Quitely, even as you dismiss its supposed emptiness, than you do about the Marley that’s supposedly so rich with meaning.
There’s a kernel of an interesting comparison between two particular comics’ attitudes towards nature here, but you throw it away when you try to turn these two dissimilar images into some kind of commentary of superhero comics.
Well, I talked a fair bit about Marley in the post. I’m still processing Dokebi Bride (I’m only through volume 4). I hope to write about it more at length, either here or elsewhere. I think there’s a lot to say about how it connects the loss of landscape with personal loss. But I’m still thinking it through. For what the testimony of waterworks are worth, it made me burst into tears at one point.
I like Kirby. I think super-hero comics can do a lot of interesting things. I’ve written something like 50,000 words and counting about how much I like Marston’s Wonder Woman, for goodness sake.
I specifically think the Quitely/Morrison All-Star Superman tries to imbue super-heroes with a kind of religious reverence which isn’t sustainable. I haven’t actually seen Kirby ever try to do that (I haven’t seen everything he’s done, but it’s weird to think about him doing it — nostalgia wasn’t really his thing, as far as I can tell.)
I don’t think I ever said Superman’s problem is that he’s univalent. I said the problem with the character is that it’s dumb. I’ll stand by that.
Fair enough, but I think that’s letting your judgment of the character overwhelm (even contradict) your assessment of Quitely’s page. I still don’t see how you can claim that “he doesn’t stand for anything in particular” right after you do such a good job of pointing out what Superman stands for in this particular image. The character may not have consistently stood for the same things since 1938 (although you even fudge on this a little bit… “Superman in general, and in this image in particular, is about individual triumph and modernity”), but that’s probably to his benefit. And it doesn’t mean he can never carry any meaning–just that it’s been awfully uncommon.
As for Kirby: he may not do nostalgia, or reverence for characters (I think he probably created too many of them to be that reverent or nostalgic), but his splashes, vistas, and montages are filled with the senses of wonder and awe you claim are missing from superhero comics in your apples-and-oranges comparison of a landscape to a figure shot.
your apples-and-oranges comparison of a landscape to a figure shot.
Marc — I don’t think the comparison is a cheat. The Quietely drawing is obviously supposed to be an extravaganza, an in-all-his-glory presentation of Superman.
eric b — Noah wasn’t saying Superman is humdrum just because he’s new instead of ancient. As I recall it, he was bringing up an argument I’ve made, which is that Superman sticks in people’s minds because he helps us feel like the universe is our size (which is different from explaining the universe, a purpose of the old mythologies). The reference is up in the post, though, not down here in the thread.
L Ron Hubbard sure, but if you have to give your hard earned crops and livestock to appease a river god or something or sacrifice a 6 year old virgin to make the corn extra tasty, that sounds like a long con to me. And stupid.
A dragon embodying a lake, river, guarding treasure is just as “dumb” in my opinion. Like you said just because a bunch of people have beliefs and tropes doesn’t mean it’s not juvenile, repellant or stupid. I believe that can apply just as aptly to swords and dragons as to superheroes. Ultimately, maybe it comes down to the type of stories you prefer. I like superheroes, and western comics you like manga and…dragons. That’s cool. It just seems that you are giving all these mythologies of ancient peoples some kind of heightened significance for representing a lost way of life or whatever and then you turn around and rail at superman sitting in the sun and uplifting humanity/being a symbol of the benevolence of humanity ect., which to me is against the current trend in a lot of comics these days. Kind of representing a traditional depicting as opposed to “edgy”. Sounds like a similar notion to me.
Also a superhuman who is invulnerable to bullets, who fights against slum lords, wife beaters and munitions profiteers and tin pot dictators as Shuster and Siegel frequently portrayed Superman as doing doesn’t sound like he embodied Aryan anything. Maybe the assimilation sure but aryan? I also think that this depiction is probably reflective of where their heads were at. Perhaps there wasn’t a multi-themed, complex reason for that depiction but I maintain that a lot of the stuff in mythology is a simple response and attempt to understand nature. “Hm, maybe if I jack off in the crops, MangaPuff the dragon will bless them and they will be plentiful.” A lot of that stuff doesn’t have much to say beyond that. They are often fables. Powerful yet not to complicated.
Hey, if you don’t like Superman you don’t like Superman. And frankly you don’t have to have much reason beyond “because he’s a stupid-head”. That’s obviously your perogative. But I can’t pretend that mythological dragons are somehow a more significant cultural artifact than Superman. Maybe if I grew up in those societies where dragons have more signficance I would have a different view-but I didn’t so I don’t.
The other poster made a good point about the level of talent involved. That certainly helps in my opinion. As a matter of fact the depiction of the dragon here is too reminiscent of the pictures I used to see on the back of sateen jackets that kids whose parents were stationed in Korea or Okinawa wore in highschool. I remember there was a Top Ten story about the ogre character visiting his family and there was a much more interesting depiction of a dragon there than here. Not to say the artist here is a bad draftsman but it ain’t exactly innovative or “awe inspiring”. It certainly is big though. Kind of like a movie with specatular explosions that you can’t remember the 5 minutes after you see it. I had just the opposite reaction to the Superman pic. I thought it was a fresh depiction that still had some sort of old timey feel to it. I don’t know if “old timey” is the right term but it reminded me of being a kid somehow. I thought it was powerful.
But Tom, as you pointed out, that glory is his ability to make us feel at home in a universe that’s scaled to us. (Or, as Noah pointed out and conveniently forgot, his ability to project a more innocent modernism where humanistic progress still seems possible.) That’s going to call for a very different kind of framing than the awe in the sheer spectacle of untamed, untameable universe. Which is also present in some superhero comics–Noah just didn’t pick a good example of it. These pages don’t support most of the lessons he wants to extrapolate from them.
Hey Marc. We can agree to disagree. If you have a link to the kind of Kirby landscape you’re thinking of, though, I’d love to see that.
AWB — sacrificing virgins? What are you talking about?
Acknowledging one’s reliance on and relationship to nature is not stupid, in my opinion. And I think dismissing entire cultural traditions is on a different level of hubris from sneering at one corporate property. But that’s just me.
Are you talking about that Top Ten fantasy mini-series? That had some of the worst art I’ve ever seen in mainstream comics. If you like that…well, no wonder we’re not on the same page.
And I’ll say again…I don’t dislike Superman. I dislike the effort to make him into some sort of mythological figure so that fanboys will feel like they’re nostalgia for him is significant.
I think the confusion, Marc, is that you’re seeing the evocation of a happier modernism, and/or the act of making the universe our size, as Superman’s “glory.” I don’t see those ideas as glorious. I think the kind of progress Superman points to, and the kind of humanism he promulgates, are both stupid and pernicious.
I don’t think I ever claimed Superman was meaningless. I think he has meaning; I just think the meaning is wrong-headed.
Basically the post is arguing that worshipping human beings is wrong. Super-heroes, and especially super-man, are basically about worshipping human beings. The image is trying to put a patina of religious awe around something that shouldn’t be sacred.
Kirby does a lot of drawings the point of which is pretty much, holy shit, that’s cool. That’s great; I’ve got no problem with that. It’s the effort to go from “holy shit” to “that’s holy” that I think super-hero comics shouldn’t do, and when they try, they tend to do it badly.
I appreciate your commenting, though. I’ve enjoyed trying to think this out more clearly.
But Tom, as you pointed out, that glory is his ability to make us feel at home in a universe that’s scaled to us.
Yeah, I don’t see that ability as glorious, just homey. Hey, check out my essay, it’s great!
http://hoodedutilitarian.blogspot.com/2009/03/noah-was-looking-over-all-star-superman.html
I kind of see where you are coming from Noah. It’s not just about the drawings or the style, but the content, in the sense that there is something like a subtext to the Korean, and other Asian art, that can only be tacked-on to some Western art, particulary comic book art, with fake mythos.
I think I looked at another area of this with a blog on Hokusai, and Canadian photographer, Jeff Wall.
http://rodmckie.blogspot.com/search?q=mount+fuji
Hey Rod. Thanks for the link; that’s a great analysis of Hokusai. I think you may be overly harsh on Jeff Wall. I actually really like his stuff, and I’d lay money that he left Fuji out deliberately, substituting the city horizon line. It does come across as almost a parody of the Hokusai print; a kind of sneer at the spirituality even as he celebrates the craft. It made me laugh, honestly. (I definitely have a place in my heart for theatrical sneering.)
I don’t think it’s necessarily an Asian spirituality vs. Western barrenness, at least not for me. If anything, I (as an atheist) tend to prefer Christian spirituality to eastern forms. But I think that certainly eastern spiritual traditions have a depth and a coherence that super-heroes just don’t — and frankly were never intended to. So, yeah, it’s about narrative goals as well as simply art; presenting Superman as an object of worship — which is what that Quitely picture is doing, I believe, is just silly.
I guess my point about the Jeff Wall piece is that he’s not trying for reverence or even spirituality. He’s doing satire or irony. If it’s hollow, that’s certainly intentional. It is kind of frat-boyish…but it’s also extremely technically competent and not at all half-assed, which is very un-fratboyish. I don’t know…he’s an interesting artist. Thanks for showing me that piece of his.
I've been holding off on commenting from this one for fear of cementing my rep as a staunch defender of Morrison & Quitely, but… well, I guess I just don’t feel compelled to view Superman as an object of worship when I look at that image.
Within the context of the narrative it’s a big heroic sacrifice, and is played as such, for sure. What doesn’t quite follow from me is that this moment relies on a near-religious reverence for the character in the reader. Regardless of what Morrison the interview subject says, Morrison the writer seems to view superheroes with a mix of tenderness and contempt. His work is fully aware of the fact that these characters can be stupid, empty corporate vessels (see Seaguy, Seven Soldiers and The Filth for details), but he can also see the potential for them to be fleetingly brilliant and mortal and homey (see all of the above plus All Star Superman, Doom Patrol, Animal Man, etc). I know Superman literally plays god in ASS, but for me that’s part of the goofy fantasy as well as another riff on the issues of fatherhood and mortality that run through the series; at no point when I was reading it did religious conversion seem imminent. Well… I’d have to have a religion to convert from, I guess, but I’m just having a cheap laugh here so whatever.
Quitely’s characters look like action figures come to life in this series – amypoodle riffed on this over on Mindless Ones, and I think it’s part of what gives the story’s themes their impact. Reading All Star Superman is like watching a childish universe become aware of mortality for the first time, and there’s something oddly moving about how much life Quitely gives these crazy figures. It’s in this reduced context that that golden Superman becomes moving for me, and in which all of the possibilities present in the image become interesting (see amypoodle’s essay, both of Noah’s posts plus my comments on Noah’s first post for details). Never mind bringing the universe down to our size — sometimes I think ASS makes it even smaller, and it works brilliantly.
(I’ve got several half-formed thoughts about how Quitely’s depictions of Superman moving through the stillness of space complicate this reading, but I can’t quite make these ideas come together at the moment, sorry.)
Still, Dokebi Bride does look interesting. I think I’ll check it out sometime, so… yeah, thanks for that.
Sorry, I flubbed that Mindless Ones link. Here it is:
http://mindlessones.com/2008/09/26/always-and-forever-a-quick-gushing-rant-over-an-ass-and-theres-nothing-wrong-with-that/
Hey David. I’d argue that while Morrison has in the past had a sense of irony when it comes to superheroes, he seems to have somewhat lost it as he’s moved to marquee titles (JLA, Superman, and Batman.)
I think the action figure point is right…the question is, does making them action figures make them smaller than life? Or does it make them fetish objects, imbued with nostalgia and a deeply sentimental reverence for one’s own childhood?
Some of Morrison’s stories are definitely more ironic in their treatment of superheroes than others, but he’s not lost that sensibility. In fact, it’s probably coming through stronger than ever in books like Seaguy and Bulleteer.
Still, I think you’re right that Morrison tends to play it straighter on the big characters, with the exception of his X-Men run which bascially uses an argument against the superhero genre as a metaphor for arrested development.
With regards to the question of how Quitely’s action figures are presented, I’d say that it’s actually kinda complicated. For all the fetishised glory of the image we’ve been discussing, there’s also that last page with its implicit ambiguities, for example.
Also, I know a lot of people didn’t like the Bizarro story, but it was one of my favourites. Quitely let his line get real scratchy in that piece, and the overall effect was genuinely disturbing — like finding that your favourite toy had melted in the sun, and realising that nothing can ever last…
Also, it was funny. Bizarro Batman! Bizarro Flash! Zibarro’s Morrisey impersonation!
Well, I liked it anyway.
I didn’t dislike All Star Superman, is the truth. I had some problems with it and thought it was overhyped. But there were certainly many enjoyable moments.
Oh, yeah, I get that! And again, I’d like to say that I’m not actually here to defend the honour of the book or its creators.
Your posts on the subject have been interesting, and I’ve found myself disagreeeing with them in a fairly wordy way, is all.
And hey, who knows — maybe I’ll manage to write a non-Morrison related comment on your blog one day! If I do, I hope I manage to keep the word count down a litte — this shit is getting out of hand!
“Basically the post is arguing that worshipping human beings is wrong. Super-heroes, and especially super-man, are basically about worshipping human beings. The image is trying to put a patina of religious awe around something that shouldn’t be sacred.”
I interpreted this as Superman becoming godly more than him (or Morrison for that matter) asking for us to worship him. In fact in issue # 10, there is a Renaissance thinker (whose name escapes me) that preaches how humanity should, rather than worshiping gods, become gods ourselves. I think the image shows Superman’s elevation to godhood and how our looking up to him can elevate ourselves. I think Morrison has more or less said this sort of thing in his interviews.
That said very interesting discussion. Thanks!
Hey Anonymous. Thanks for the kind words. Yes; Reanaissance humanist thinking about men becoming gods is precisely what I thought Morrison was getting at. And yeah, I believe that line of thought is a philosophical and moral disaster, and it should be mocked.
I liked a lot of ideas brought up in your post, specifically unpacking some of the socio-political ideas behind Quitely’s image– but have also been confused by your comments/conclusions regarding the intent behind All-Star Superman. Morrison may be glorifying what’s ordinary about Superman (and man), but it’s a far stretch to say that he’s inciting worship at the altar of El.
The Superman we see in All-Star, is a science-fiction adventure hero styled quite deliberately in the Apollonian tradition. There are many reasons for Morrison presenting him this way, but the clearest are that Superman’s powers derive from the sun and that as an individual he tries to instill order in a chaotic world.
Whether you think it’s dumb or not– Superman is reflective of a mythological archetype, and has also become one unto himself. Original intent of Siegel and Schuster aside, the character has transformed and reflected (not always for the best) the concerns and culture of his writers and artists.
While you can dislike Superman as much as you want to, I don’t really think your interpretation/argument is grounded in the text your referencing, so much as your own prejudices against the character and against some of the philosophical underpinnings behind Morrison’s interpretation.
I personally don’t see anything philosophically disastrous with promoting the idea of human aspiration (with the equal recognition that the dying Superman in All-Star is as much Icarus as Apollo), but I also have no problem with your disagreeing with and mocking the sort of Humanist impulses which inform the All-Star story. At this point though, I wonder what philosophical stance you would prefer your comic book heroes embody? And would it be possible to tell such a story with Superman as the main character?
Hey crstopher. I very much liked Alan Moore’s “Whatever Happened to the Man of Steel,” which is in some ways the blueprint for Morrison’s tale, but which arrives at pretty much the opposite conclusions. I’m mulling an essay about that, so perhaps I’ll be able to make myself clearer at that point.
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