OK, Netflix just delivered the first disc of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman season 1. And I may very well review the whole set when I’m finished. But between this, Superman Returns, DC’s Infinite Crisis and One Year Later extravaganzas, and maybe the occasional Smallville episode, I figure I’m going to do a fair bit of Superman conversation over the next year. And lest I repeat myself, I figure I’ll get the following rant out of my system now.
Before the late 80s, most of the most popular depictions of Superman in comics and other media depict Superman as the “real” character and Clark Kent as a mere persona or disguise, usually one who’s comically inept and clumsy. While I recognize that this depiction goes right back to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s original comics, I have always thought that the more interesting and more logical depiction would be much the reverse. John Byrne’s Man of Steel revamp in 1986 and Lois and Clark are two examples of the approach I’m talking about. A man who thinks of himself as Clark Kent realizes that in order to do what he wants to do with his abilities and still be able to live his life, he needs a public identity, and therefore assumes the role of Superman.
OK, so why do I think this makes sense? Well, just about every version of the Superman story has the character being raised as Clark Kent and then, at some point, adopting the role of Superboy/Superman. So from the chronological point of view, it makes sense. I think of myself as Dave Thomer. When I talk to myself, I call myself Dave. I consider who I am now to be part of a continuity with my past experiences, which I also associate with being Dave Thomer. I think that the Clark/Superman dichotomy works the same way. There’s a scene in the premiere of Paul Dini and Bruce Timm’s Superman: The Animated Series where, the first time Superman shows up in costume, he makes a small mistake and then berates himself saying something like, “Oh, nice, Clark.” That’s the approach I like.
Now, just about everybody who does any work with Batman these days wil ltell you that “Batman is the real guy, Bruce Wayne is just an identity that he puts on.” And I’d agree, although some creators take that too far. But that interpretation of Batman works to show you how traumatized the character is, and to give you a certain sense of tragedy as to how Bruce’s life really ended when his parents got shot and he became obsessed. Superman doesn’t have the same kind of emotional trauma, and I haven’t really seen many creators try to play up “He can never have a normal life!” as a tragic dimension to the character. Kurt Busiek’s Samaritan in Astro City is a good example of what this kind of interpretation might look like.
To get around the notion that Clark would see himself as, well, Clark, some comics have had Clark becoming Superboy at a pretty young age, to help break the association with his human identity. (I don’t think it’s an accident that a lot of modern interpretations have Clark discovering his powers and alien ancestry more gradually.) And I give Richard Donner credit for having Kal-El spend well over a decade traveling the universe with Jor-El. After an experience like that, his life as Clark must seem very distant – and Donner makes a point of not referring back to Clark’s childhood except for a very brief mention of Clark sending money home to his mother. (We’ll ignore Superman III here.)
Beyond that logic, though, why do I think it’s more interesting for Clark to be a real identity and not just a disguise? There are a lot of people who see Superman as a godlike character, an example of perfection. Mark Waid has commented that he had a hard time in Kingdom Come writing a Superman who was fallible, who kept making significant mistakes of judgement. With the god-among-men approach, Clark Kent is just a disguise Superman throws on to slum around with us mere mortals, perhaps playing a prank on Lois Lane along the way. The approach stresses the alien, the otherworldly nature of the character. It also enforces a certain distance. He isn’t really dealing with anyone who’s on the same level as he is. And if he’s so darned perfect, there’s not a lot of internal struggle for the reader to relate to. Even Alan Moore’s Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, in which Superman gives up the Clark Kent identity, has to then humanize the Superman persona and make him vulnerable – which is possible because the character no longer has to lie to everyone about who he really is.
On the other hand, what’s always interested me is the idea that Superman is a guy who was raised and educated by normal everyday human beings. That he accepted and adopted our values, that he became one of us. That he’s a human being, with all the wants and hopes and dreams and foibles that come with being human, and a huge responsibility to others on top of all of it. Clark Kent needs to be more than a foppish disguise for that aspect of the character to work. He needs to be a real person – we need to see how the person that Ma and Pa Kent raised became this hero, and how being the hero affects him. We also need his life to matter - we have to believe that when the world sees Clark Kent, it sees someone with the skill and personality to be a reporter for a major newspaper, someone who’s a worthwhile friend or adversary in his own right. All this does invite a somewhat more soap-opera-esque version of the character. It invites a focus on his personal relationship, on his career, on his problems, and so on. Some people may just want to see the action and the hero elements. I can certainly respect that. For me, I think the added humanity of my favored approach is worth it.
OK, end of rant.