#superman space age
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Oh hey, it’s my variant cover to the (fantastic) third installment of Superman: Space Age by Mike Allred and Mark Russell, due out 11/22!
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Jon is Superman space age because he’s so cute!
#dc comics#comic books#dc#comics#jon kent#jonathan samuel kent#superboy#Superman#clark kent#lois lane#Superman space age
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(Superman Space Age #1)
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It's the people you love who give you the courage to face the world.
And the world gives you so many people to love.
#comicedit#dcedit#superman#clark kent#kal-el#superman space age#tuesday spoilers#clark#original#GOD i love clark
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The height difference is canon
And it's KILLING ME
Also some of my other favourite panels:
I just think hal looks hot as hell in this
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Oh, I'm having my Kid Jon dose today, too. Is it my b-day? When are you going to give me Kid Jon in continuity again, DC Comics?
#dc comics#dc#jonathan samuel kent#Damijon#Superboy#Dc universe#superman#superman rebirth#jon kent#clark kent#lois lane#space age#superman space age
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Superman: Space Age #1
#mark russell#mike allred#laura allred#superman#lois lane#clark kent#clois#jon kent#superman space age#dave sharpe
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Now that it's finished what do you think of Superman: Space Age? Will it persist as an evergreen standalone a la All Star? Or will it be forgotten?
No clue what it's long term reception will be, but folks, this is one of my favorite Superman stories. I'm not good at critiquing art so I just want to start this off by saying Mike Allred's work here is worth the price tag alone. I've dreamt of seeing him draw a Superman book for ages, and he did not disappoint me here, particularly loved how he always gave Lois different outfits.
"Dark" Superman stories face a tough balancing act. They must take Superman into territory he doesn't often go to, and they must do so without breaking the character. Superman at heart is an optimistic story. To the question of "can a powerful man be good?", he is supposed to be an affirmative response. How then can that spirit of optimism and idealism be present in a story where the pitch is "Earth is fucked and going to die, and there's nothing Superman can do to prevent that"? Defying expectations, Russell treats that kind of pitch as an opportunity to reconstruct Superman where others would use it to deconstruct him.
A question the book returns to again and again over the course of the three issues is what should Superman be doing with his powers? Clark himself is eager to get off the farm and see the world. Jor-El supports his eagerness and expects him to be Earth's champion. Pa Kent tries to tamper down his enthusiasm. Lois grills him on whether his heroics are misaimed and his gifts could be better applied in other ways. Brainiac chides him for wasting his time on humanity when the Anti-Monitor is coming to annihilate the universe. It's a question many Superman writers have taken a stab at answering, but Russell gives an answer that I love: Sure there are bigger problems that Clark needs to address, but the smaller problems he solves have a meaning too.
Helping and interacting people on an individual basis let's Superman show people that someone cares. That someone viewed them as individually having worth, rather than only being concerned with the larger picture. And he also helps people simply because he enjoys doing that. Russell points out that the simpler pleasures in life, whether that's eating a good meal or rescuing a cat out of a tree, are sources of strength that support us in our quests to overcome life's big hurdles. Someone taking the time out to enjoy those simpler pleasures is nothing to be chided for, especially since it doesn't stop Superman from saving the Earth multiple times over the course of the story. He prevented nuclear war! He fended off Brainiac! He stopped an asteroid! Superman was able to save people on the large scale and the small scale just fine for years, up until the end.
Speaking of saving people, the central question of the story is how do you solve the trolley problem? If the only way to save five people is to kill one, do you do it? Batman says yes, but you kill the one to save the five out of defiance. Someone tied five people to the track and they want those five people to die. By diverting the trolley you give that person the finger and deny them what they want. This outlook plays into Batman's ending, where he gets the Joker killed in order to save the kids, killing one to save five. However Batman overlooked something critical in his solution to the trolley problem: what if someone didn't want to kill the five? What if instead they only wanted to kill the one, but didn't want to do it themselves, and merely used five people in order to force another to kill the one for them? This is what Lex does, he doesn't want the kids dead, he wants Bruce Wayne dead, and Bruce sacrificing himself just ends up giving Lex what he wants. Batman's solution is a failure because he ended up playing right into Lex's hands.
In contrast, Superman believes that you should try and save all six, even if you fail. When the cynics and the corrupt are firmly in charge, that's when you need people who aspire to do more than the world says they can. Superman's solution is a critical factor in his ending as well. His idealistic attempt to save everyone, Project Humanity, diverted his attention away from the world for a little while. Some people died because Superman was trying to save everyone instead of simply saving what he already could. In the end though, Superman is vindicated because his efforts save more than he ever could have otherwise. With the DNA of everyone on the planet, he was able to send said DNA to another Earth when the Anti-Monitor finally destroyed his home universe. Kal becomes Jor-El, a desperate scientist on a doomed planet who sends the last remnant of his species to another world in hopes that they can survive. And just like Kal once beat the odds and made it, humanity makes the trip and is resurrected by another Earth's Superman. Unlike his father Superman managed to save his people, even if he couldn't save his planet. Reminds me of Reed Richards in Hickman's Secret Wars epic, Clark and Reed both couldn't win, but they did find a way to not lose.
It's not a perfect story, and some of the flaws do grate me. While the focus on Batman does play an important role in setting up the ending, at times it feels like Russell's focus is spread too thin. Really I think he had enough material for a companion Batman: Space Age mini, and just tried to fold it into this book. Contrast between Superman and Batman's answer to the trolley thought experiment is needed for how it sets up the ending, but I don't think we needed as many pages focusing on Bruce as we got. Plus this is just a personal issue, but I found it disappointing that Clark and Lex never interact at all in this story, with Batman being more of a personal foe for Lex than Superman. Batman is the one who exposes Lex's plot in the first issue, and ultimately it's Bruce Wayne whom Lex targets when he gets out of prison. Russell writes such a great Lex that I was disappointed we didn't get to see him write any Clark/Lex interactions.
Outside of that big complaint? Love this. Adore the Mike Allred art which is gorgeous and which I desperately want to see an Absolute edition of. Appreciate Russell giving us a darker Superman story that talks about big serious philosophical issues, and doesn't give easy answers. It's a story that even now still sticks with me, especially the tragedy of the ending. Clark and all of the originals are dead, just like how the other Superman isn't the same guy as the "main" Superman, the people he recreated aren't the originals. Not since I've read For The Man Who Has Everything have I gotten such a bittersweet ending to a Superman story. Fantastic book and definitely one I will come back to in the future.
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DC Multiverse Collected Editions
ABSOLUTE ALL-STAR SUPERMAN
By Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely
The Underverse ruled by Bizarros. The time-eating Chronovore. Jimmy Olsen, superhero? Nothing is impossible in ALL-STAR SUPERMAN. Except for the fact that Superman… is dying. Now with time running against him, the Man of Steel must tie up loose ends and make sure that he leaves the Earth better than he found it. The unstoppable…
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#Absolute All Star Superman#Dave Molyneaux#DC#DC Comics#lav_and_leia#Man and Superman Deluxe Edition#Omniverse Comics Guide#Superman#Superman Kryptonite#Superman Multiverse#Superman Peace on Earth#Superman Space Age
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Today's Chores, Homework, and Fortnite comic book recommendation is Superman Space Age by Mark Russell and Mike and Laura Allred
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Superman,Space Age by Mark Russell, MIchael Allred, Laura Allred and Dave Sharpe
DC
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man, space age is a REALLY good book but an unexpected detail that i really loved was the line ups in the league shots. who gives a fuck about aquaman, who gives a shit about cyboorg. give me deadman and metamorpho and the fucking doom patrol mixing it with diana hell fucking yeah
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Superman Ideas That “Stuck” (and Should They Be Unstuck?), Part 1: Powerless on Krypton
This post is also on my independent blog, Small Screen Superman - go there for an even better experience!
A lot of things about Superman and his world change over the years and across media, but some things rarely if ever change, even if they weren’t that way from the beginning. That’s to be expected, especially with things from very early on, such as Superman’s powers.
While it’s nice to have a certain amount of consistency, I actually consider it a positive of the Superman franchise that it has such a wide variety of different interpretations. So sometimes it feels like a bit of a shame if certain ideas end up being used everywhere, especially if I think there’s potential to the way things were before that idea was created.
In this series, I’m going to discuss aspects of Superman canon that have been implemented widely since their introduction and potential advantages of not sticking to them all the time. First up:
Kryptonians have no powers in their native environment
This is a very old idea, likely the oldest idea I will discuss in this series – you have to go back to the Golden Age to escape it. It has a clear purpose: make it easy to make sure almost all Kryptonians died when Krypton exploded. Superman wasn’t nearly as strong or invincible when he was first created, so it used to be easy to believe that all his people would’ve been wiped out by their whole planet exploding, but as his powers grew more and more through the years, this idea became “necessary”.
Of course, I put “necessary” in quotes because it’s not like this idea is absolutely necessary. I certainly don’t blame them for going with this all those decades ago – it’s a simple and easy solution. It also has the advantage of making Krypton simpler and easier to write and conceptualize for in general. A world full of extremely superpowered people sounds pretty crazy. Could random citizens destroy the planet or conquer other planets if they wanted to?
So it makes sense this idea has survived so long and been implemented into almost every Superman continuity. In and of itself, though, I’d say there’s nothing really logical or interesting about it. It’s pretty unbelievable that a species would evolve to be able to do such amazing, incredible things that they’d never be able to do in their native environment. OK, a lot of things in Superman are unbelievable, but usually in a way that makes stories more interesting. This idea, if anything, does the opposite. A world of supermen sounds like it could be very interesting to me.
I don’t think you’d have to worry too much about random Kryptonian citizens causing destruction as long as you established that the technology of Kryptonian society could prevent this. For example, you could have important objects and structures be invincible themselves, and make there be a forcefield around the planet that can only be passed under special circumstances.
Of course, you do need to solve the central problem of why almost all Kryptonians were killed by their planet exploding, but there are other possible solutions. For example, you could make Kryptonians have powers in a red sun, but be less powerful than they are in a yellow sun. The powers of Kryptonians under a red sun could be at the level of early Golden Age Superman, or even early Post-Crisis Superman. This solution would also be rather logical: the idea that Kryptonians would evolve to be able to absorb yellow sunlight (which they would never normally be exposed to) and get powers from it is strange, but the idea that they evolved to be able to absorb red sunlight and get powers from it, and they could get even more powers from a young and vibrant yellow sun, makes more sense.
Another thing you could do with this idea is make it so Kryptonians have superpowers in a red sun, but Superman doesn’t. Superman’s body could be so adjusted to the overabundance of energy from Earth’s yellow sun that red sun just can’t empower him the same way. Something a bit like this was actually established in an alternate universe miniseries called Superman: Space Age. It didn’t have Kryptonians be powered on Krypton, but it does establish that Superman has a weakness to the red sun that other Kryptonians don’t have due to being away from it for so long.
Another idea I’ve had is that maybe instead of pieces of Krypton becoming radioactive after its destruction to become Kryptonite, this could happen before and be a part of the destruction process, poisoning all the inhabitants of Krypton.
Should it unstick?
Overall, it’s not surprising this idea has stuck around, but it’s an idea that I think mostly exists for convenience or simplicity as opposed to because it adds interesting storytelling possibilities. And I personally see a great appeal to Kryptonians being inherently super, and the simplicity and logic of this idea. But ironically, reintroducing this idea might be confusing to people since it hasn’t been seen for a very long time. And I admit that it simply can’t be as simple as it could be back in the early Golden Age since you still need some explanation for why there are so few survivors of Krypton’s destruction.
However, for me personally, it would be so cool to see a version of Kryptonian society where everyone has Superman’s powers. Very little time and attention was spent on Krypton in the early Golden Age, so we never got the chance to explore a planet of supermen in detail.
Other than potentially being confusing due to it not being the case for such a long time, the only other major disadvantage I can think of is Superman losing his weakness to red sunlight, and I already explained how this could be kept. Admittedly, this adds another thing that needs to be explained and thus more potential for confusion. Personally, I wouldn’t consider it a deal breaker if they eliminated Clark’s weakness to red sunlight altogether, but it would be at least a little limiting to storytelling.
All this being said, I admit that I’m pretty unique for even caring about this at all, and even I will concede it’s not exactly a big deal. But I feel like a Krypton with powered inhabitants at least deserves a try in some form of media.
Will it unstick?
All things considered, Kryptonians will probably always be unpowered on Krypton in mainstream comic canon, and the same can probably be said for live action films and other high profile media. But spinoff media is more flexible, so I can see the idea of powered Kryptonians on Krypton being explored there. In the My Adventures with Superman show (which has already made some big changes from Superman tradition), there is a scene where Clark is shown a hologram of Krypton and it features a yellow sun turning red (seemingly because of something artificial). If this means what I think it means, Krypton used to have a yellow sun until it was artificially and recently turned red, and therefore Kryptonians had powers on their native world until recently. But we probably won’t know any details until Season 2 comes out.
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Another possibility is that it might be used by non-DC entities when Superman enters the public domain, particularly because when this happens, people will be drawing on the earliest Superman media. I’m unsure if simple concepts such as Kryptonians not having powers on Krypton are able to be copyrighted, but if they are, non-DC entities won’t legally be able to use it, and thus will have no choice but to bring back how things originally were.
Conclusion
I’ll admit that Kryptonians having or not having powers on their home planet is pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things, even by Superman lore standards. After all, the planet gets destroyed when our hero is a baby. But I’m the kind of person who enjoys when aliens are significantly different from humans biologically, and with Kryptonians being so human-like in most ways, it seems a shame they don’t even get their superpowers (their only major difference from us) while on their home planet. We’ll just have to see if My Adventures of Superman, or any other Superman spinoff, decides to play with this idea.
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The living are but the burn ward of history. And none of us ever fully recover. We simply pick what we can from the ashes and move on. And yet, somehow, we know that there must be more. That we are destined for something greater. Those in whom we invest this belief called heroes.
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Superman: Space Age #1
Mark Russell, Mike Aldred, Laura Aldred, Dave Sharpe
#I honestly hated most of this book but this page I loved#this is clearly THE POINT Russel is trying to make#superman space age#hal jordan#green lantern
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