Superheroes are a genre that isn’t without its potential, but what potential it does have has been squandered on countless bland copycat characters and long-running story threads that don’t get resolved, get resolved unsatisfactorily, or were never based on a good idea in the first place. Even though I don’t particularly care for superheroes, Superman has always been one of a handful of exceptions.

I’m sure one reason is the way that he, more than any other character in the genre, is inextricably linked with and reflective of American culture. Whatever was going on in the life and times of the country was going on in the life and times of Superman. There was no hero to swoop in and save us from the villains who took advantage of our inability to defend ourselves during the Depression, so we invented one. Post-war, Americans wanted a figure of authority to reassure them, so Superman stepped up. During the 60s, a time when we were reflecting upon and questioning the values that had shepherded us through the early adolescence of our country, Superman was questioning himself—and at the height of his physical powers, at that. It is generally accepted that Superman is a walking symbol of the American ideal, whatever form it happens to take at the time.

Post-Nixon, Americans lost trust in their heroes, and that, I think, is what led to a series of progressively weird and misguided attempts to figure out who Superman was to the contemporary audience. (A hard feat for modern writers who never understood who Superman was to any audience in the first place.) It’s very easy to write and read dark, violent Batman stories that confirm the suspicions and fulfill cynical the fantasies. Perhaps a character who staunchly represents optimism and progress is too challenging to the popular sensibilities of today.

Just as a refresher, a “+” indicates a recommended title. “Favorable factor” indicates a title that, while otherwise not recommended, has at least one element of note. A “-“ indicates a title that is not recommended.

SUPERMAN FOR ALL SEASONS (COMICS, 1998)
Tim Sale’s recognizable style has limited applications, most evident here in the form of a pudgy, graceless Man of Steel. The art fares better in other areas, but it’s Jeph Loeb’s overwriting that ultimately sinks this attempt at introspective, episodic storytelling. -

SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OST (MUSIC, 1998)
It isn’t the authentic film recordings—it’s better. It’s more complete, more dynamic, far grander in every way. When the trumpets of the Royal Scottish Orchestra announce the three syllables that make up the character’s name, it really swaggers. This is how this music should sound. +

PEACE ON EARTH (COMICS, 1998)
I’ve often thought of Alex Ross as an artist in search of a format. His paintings sure do make the characters look suitably larger than life, but comic book storytelling is almost exclusively the domain of the pencil artist for a reason. Photorealistic watercolor is too dense and self-conscious to really move a narrative—unless it’s a sparse, open narrative such as the one Paul Dini contributes to this project. His perceptive and elegant world hunger parable is a fine canvas for Ross’s arresting style. +

JUSTICE LEAGUE (TELEVISION, 2001)
The format is an interesting choice: 45 minute stories divided into two parts each, featuring an ensemble cast. Timm and Co., perhaps for the first time, seem unsure of their footing at times, unwisely nerfing Superman and committing a variety of other errors. Nevertheless, there are some good stories to be had, and Michael Rosenbaum is a hoot as The Flash. +

SMALLVILLE (TELEVISION, 2001)
The premise: it’s Clark Kent and Lex Luthor, before the costumes, before the alter-egos, before the life-long conflict. The progress towards their destinies is the storytelling fuel, which inevitably runs low once there’s nothing left to do besides put on tights and fly. FAVORABLE FACTOR: The decently written second and third seasons successfully rise above season one’s repetitive freaks of the week. Season four successfully rises above the shark.

SUPREME: STORY OF THE YEAR (COMICS, 2002)
There is an audience out there with a lot of background in Silver Age superhero comics, and there is an audience out there that appreciates obnoxiously clever meta-fiction. The audience for this book lies within the intersection. No, the title character isn’t Superman, but he might as well be. +

BIRTHRIGHT (COMICS, 2003)
Big summer blockbuster storytelling, with big summer blockbuster flaws. Mark Waid seems to realize that relevance isn’t about attempting to integrate current issues, but he does it anyway. But the real offense is that it’s a superfluous remix of a story that’s had more than its share of superfluous remixes. -

RED SON (COMICS, 2003)
It’s Superman, with all the compassion but none of the wisdom to keeps it in check. While the metaphors are obvious and not especially daring, this oddball Stalinist reimagining is a nice way of looking at the classic superhero themes of power and responsibility (eat your heart out, Spidey) from an unusual angle. +

SUPERMAN/BATMAN: PUBLIC ENEMIES (COMICS, 2003)
Interesting concept, abysmal execution. Loeb’s signature overwriting and a prodigious number of cameos supplant any possibility of a story, but—to his dubious credit—at least Superman and Batman don’t get into a brawl for the nth time. FAVORABLE FACTOR: The brief Tim Sale-penciled vignette at the beginning is the one salvageable element in this flashy mess of a comic.

THE GREATEST STORIES EVER TOLD (COMICS, 2004)
“Greatest Hits” collections typically place too much emphasis on inclusiveness, sampling various periods in the attempt to represent all of them. Greatness, more often than not, does not fall evenly on the timeline, which this compendium proves as well as any other. FAVORABLE FACTOR: Elliot S! Maggin’s “Must There Be a Superman?” smartly suggests that Superman shouldn’t help too much, while Jim Steranko’s “Exile on the Edge of Eternity” applies innovative visuals to a Clarke-esque storyline.

IT’S A BIRD… (COMICS, 2004)
This Superman writer’s contradictory feelings about the character mirror his contradictory feelings about a hereditary family disease, as told in this (kind of) true story. It’s peppered with short vignettes that cast a critical eye on various elements of the Superman myth, which are interesting if Watchmen wasn’t enough of a deconstructionist’s feast for you. +

JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED (TELEVISION, 2004)
Timm and Co. successfully resuscitate their Justice League project with shorter episodes and a wider variety of characters. They capture an age of superheroes, but aren’t naïve enough to either ignore the many ramifications or stoop to bland superhero cavalcade beat-em-ups. The first season is undoubtedly smarter and much more interesting, but the Flash/Luthor mind swap in the second season is too funny to miss. +

SECRET IDENTITY (COMICS, 2004)
There is a fictional character named Clark Kent, secretly a superhero. There is a real person (or a less fictional character?) named Clark Kent, also secretly a superhero, who lives his double life generally unhappy about being named after the fictional character. I promise the story is more touching and less obnoxiously clever than it sounds. +

ALL STAR SUPERMAN (COMICS, 2005)
The imagination, human optimism, and breakneck storytelling of classic Superman are wedded with modern authorial and artistic sophistication. In my experience, this is not only a definitive and marvelous take on the character, but the superhero genre’s strongest claim to real artistic merit. +

SUPERMAN II: THE RICHARD DONNER CUT (FILM, 2006)
Editor Michael Thau gamely attempts to cobble together a jigsaw puzzle with several missing pieces, and the final picture is discernible enough if you squint hard. This chop-job Superman II, thematically, is a much better companion—indeed, a much better second half—to the 1978 original. It ups the romance and reduces the sound and fury, leaving the final lesson (including that time travel sequence, which works best here where it belongs) all the more bittersweet. +

SUPERMAN RETURNS (FILM, 2006)
Oft-maligned, much-misunderstood, semi-reboot. Director Bryan Singer deserves criticism for not delivering the classical rendition that the title promises. He also deserves praise for daring to hurt the invulnerable man. +

SUPERMAN RETURNS OST (MUSIC, 2006)
John Ottman does an admirable job of devising his own musical take on Superman while integrating the classic cues at the right moments, though his own stuff curiously sounds better rehearsed. It’s much moodier and less grand than the Williams score that precedes it, but it would have been a mistake to not stake out new territory. +

DOOMSDAY (FILM, 2007)
Timm and Co.’s track record was so sterling at this point that the announcement of a spate of feature DVDs probably wasn’t greeted with enough skepticism. It isn’t as bloated or shamelessly commercialistic as its source material, but successfully adapts the rest of the weaknesses. -

JUSTICE LEAGUE: NEW FRONTIER (FILM, 2008)
I’ve not read the book that this is based on, but its poppy artwork is well-matched by the animators. This is a very good-looking film. Too bad the story whips along so fast that there isn’t enough time for the high concept to get off the ground. So much happens, none of it interesting. FAVORABLE FACTOR: It has a clever way of dealing with the evolution of superhero archetypes in the 20th century, particularly Batman’s transition from cold-blooded vigilante to deputized public servant.

As announced last week, today’s entry is the first of a two-part review retrospective, in celebration of the 71st anniversary of Superman’s first appearance in Action Comics. The first review will be of that first appearance and will proceed onward to about the mid ‘90s. Comics, movies, and television shows will all be included.

As with any criticism you might find on this blog, the following reviews don’t claim to be an objective evaluation of their respective subjects. It’s all my opinion. Don’t expect to agree with them 100% of the time unless your tastes mirror mine exactly.

SUPERMAN IN ACTION COMICS #1 (COMICS, 1938)
Sure, the stories were simpler—the morals less complex, the characters rougher around the edges. But the comics of this era were far more bountiful than those of today. Here, for your consideration, are a recounting of Superman’s origin, a brief sidebar offering a plausible explanation for his (then relatively modest) abilities, and a breezy story introducing many long-term staples—all in a dozen pages or so. Can the ponderous, incremental superhero stories of today really be considered an improvement? +
[Action Comics #1 is available for online reading here.]

SUPERMAN: THE SUNDAY STRIPS (COMICS, 1939)
Reading these stories collected, back to back, is (probably) infinitely preferable to reading them in their original presentation as weekly fragments. The artwork is excellent, and we get to see plenty of Superman in his early days of righteous, if somewhat shapeless, social anger. +

SUPERMAN: THE FLEISCHER CARTOONS (FILM, 1941)
They lack scope, but there are more than enough heroics to make up for it. All the basic elements of the myth are here, drawn vividly in the definitive style of Joe Shuster. These first appearances in fluid motion are as sensational as a flying superhero ought to be. +

SUPERMAN: THE FAMOUS STUDIOS CARTOONS (FILM, 1943)
Obtaining a Max Fleischer property, unfortunately, doesn’t mean obtaining Max Fleischer quality. The difference? Fleischer’s lighthearted sci-fi adventures can be appreciated sincerely. This blatant ham-fisted war propaganda can only be appreciated ironically. –

THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN (TELEVISION, 1951)
It’s Clark Kent as a reporter first, donning the tights only when the stakes are at their highest. Perhaps this choice was a necessity of effects-spare ‘50s television, but it worked better here than it ever has in the comics. +

SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE (FILM, 1978)
The makers of this picture view the titular character as mythic and human in all the ways that count. In spite of the misplaced time travel sequence, Superman: the Movie makes an excellent case for their position. Everyone in this production delivers, especially Superman himself. +

SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE OST (MUSIC, 1978)
The music is larger than life. It’s bold, it’s optimistic, it soars; it is the essence of Superman distilled into sine waves. It is therefore a slur on the composer’s reputation that an otherwise powerful score should be preserved in a sonically anemic, truncated document such as this one. -

SUPERMAN II (FILM, 1981)
There is a profound discomfort when differing directorial visions clash. In this installment, mayhem and hokey tricks overwrite myth and humanity, leaving Superman II a superficial imitation of 30% of itself. FAVORABLE FACTOR: The chemistry between Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder is the strongest holdover from the vastly superior previous installment.

SUPERMAN III (FILM, 1983)
From opposite ends of the cosmos, a bad Superman movie and a bad Richard Pryor movie travel on a collision course. Shrapnel flies. Gravity violently fluctuates. Gene Hackman (Lex Luthor) becomes Robert Vaughn (generic technocrat). Chaos ensues. -

SUPERMAN ANNUAL #15: FOR THE MAN WHO HAS EVERYTHING (COMICS, 1985)
The Watchmen writer/artist duo manages to wed crowd-pleasing action, fan-pleasing Easter eggs, and intelligentsia-pleasing meditations on greener grass. Never mistake it for the inferior television counterpart, which lacks the necessary context. +

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE MAN OF TOMORROW? (COMICS, 1986)
Dark portent appropriately gives way to sunny optimism in the last Superman story of the Silver Age. It’s heartfelt in its desire to hit all the bases, and while that means a slightly silly everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach, it’s infinitely preferable to the reboot that followed. +
[Superman Annual #15 and both parts of Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? are both available in the trade paperback volume The DC Comics Stories of Alan Moore.]

SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE (FILM, 1987)
You will believe a man can pose on wires in front of a scrolling backdrop. FAVORABLE FACTOR: The film (Reeve himself, actually) has the audacity to suggest that even Superman’s best intentions can’t solve every problem. It’s a great idea that can be, should be, and has been done better.

THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN (COMICS, 1992)
In this tale of masturbatory violence and crass commercialism, our hero is tragically felled by (wait for it) a walking plot device that, quite literally, pops up out of the ground one day. It has no relevance to anything, other than perhaps itself. If Superman is the American ideal, then what does this bode for America? -

SUPERMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (TELEVISION, 1996)
This amalgam of many editions of the character is too heavy on the post-1986 “earthling” Superman for my taste, but it’s smoother than any blend has a right to be. For the creators, Batman: the Animated Series is still the standard to beat. The third season of this show, smart and thematically rich, rises to the challenge, and the rest of it is pretty good too. +

All two or three people who have been following this blog for a while will remember that I once declared an indefinite embargo on certain topics: namely, the movie industry’s recent interest in the comics medium, and particularly in the superhero genre. My reasoning was that if such an association is a harmful one, then an activist-minded nerd such as me could only be doing further harm by openly bitching about it. There is no such thing as bad publicity, as they say.

I’ve gone around the embargo a few times, testing the waters, further putting off my final decision. As of today, I think I’ve reached it. I still have strong misgivings about both the quality of films in the superhero genre (they’re almost universally crap) and the negative way in which they reinforce the public’s misguided opinions about comics (look at the immense favor Hollywood is doing for this miserable bastard medium!). However, I’m not sure I see the point any longer in ignoring the elephant in the room, fat and smelly as it is.

Moreover, I’ve been contemplating my hostile attitude towards mainstream comics in general. I’m no big fan of superheroes, aside from the big guy, and I’m not sure the majority of the stories in the genre are relevant to anything but themselves. But I think I’ve often tried to shut superheroes out in my various appraisals of the medium, which is probably also a mistake. If I’m going to accept Vladek Spiegelman and other Very Dramatic characters drawn in black and white, then I suppose I also have to accept Spider-Man in his flashy primary colors. It is a fact that the superhero genre still comprises the majority of the comics medium, and it seems a little silly to ignore that fact. It’s a holier-than-thou position, and I have a few too many of those to comfortably manage. Until I hire an assistant, that is.

If there is a main motivating force for my decision, I suppose it’s the confidence that these problems will eventually sort themselves out in a more elegant fashion than mere bitching and shunning could hope to achieve. As long as there are artists working on the fringes of comics to bring in a higher standard of artistic quality, things will be alright.

Nevertheless, I’ll maintain my opinions of the qualities of these various things, and I’ll be sure to say them louder and more often than ever before. Why, did anybody else see the Wolverine movie? Watch out, Plan 9: a new contender has emerged.

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It comes to my attention that I haven’t discussed this yet, but Freak Safari has a new feature called Freak of the Day: a daily humor feature that collects news stories about bizarre, funny, and interesting people from all around the world. The entries are written by the Freak Safari forum leaders, including yours truly, so check it out.