Bizarro by Ramon Villalobos

Teddybears - Punkrocker (feat. Iggy Pop)

Superman

Writer-director James Gunn's latest dissection of costumed heroism opens with a broad-chested, Joe Shuster illustration of a Golden Age Superman springing to life to flex his muscles and pop the paltry chains that encircle him. As an opening note it's not quite as grandiose as Richard Donner parting velvet curtains before blasting off into space but, again, we're being asked to consider the totemic might wielded by those original Action Comics. Almost immediately following, once some cryptic expositional text is out of the way, we're thrust into a losing battle for Krypton's last son with Lex Luthor, played by Nicholas Hoult, orchestrating this airborne one-on-one from a command room that mixes overlit standing desks with the cranks and dials seen in animated, Fleischer shorts like The Mad Scientist, or Electric Earthquake. Throughout, Luthor screams at the spittle-flecked underlings controlling his slave superhuman, with the madman using the kind of fighting game input notation that you might expect to find seated beneath an ASCII art heading on GameFAQs. 

So, despite a bleached post-processing that resembles a lifestyle magazine that has been left to curl in Earth's yellow sun, Gunn's film, in casting a net wide enough to include minor (or simply old-fashioned) DC characters like Bob Haney and Ramona Fradon's Metamorpho, betrays an adoring sort of fluency for this material. One that goes beyond the expected deification of Christopher Reeve's caped adventures or violent, satirical comics that were published in the 1980s and put the zap on one Zachary Edward Snyder. David Corenswet's frequently astonished Superman, fresh from being tossed about above Metropolis, takes another pummelling a few beats later when he submits to being interviewed, in-character, by his girlfriend, Rachel Brosnahan's Lois Lane. Even with a waist-coated wardrobe that recalls the vague era of the seventies, if not the specifics of Margot Kidder's 70s-does-30s wardrobe, Brosnahan's Lois is a chimeric creation who brings to mind the small screen royalty of the wider Warner Bros kingdom: the high-pitched register of Courtney Cox's Monica Geller or really any of the leading women in Amy Sherman-Palladino's Gilmore Girls (Brosnahan's breakthrough role in Amazon's The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel courtesy of the very same writer-director-producer). 

All of which is to say that this Lois is not just written to be intelligent but also principled and atypically argumentative. She's challenging for a character like Clark who, blessed with an ability to shrug off gunfire, is far more forthright and binary in his thinking. You see, Gunn's Superman examines him from a perspective of the supreme, unyielding altruism present in the character's earliest, domestic abuse-thwarting incarnation. The Biblical strain placed on this big screen character by the patchwork screenplay of the 1978 movie lingers here only to be dismissed, conclusively, by a piece that relentlessly positions everything that is great about Superman being the result of him being raised by adoring, older parents rather than the expectations mapped onto him by alien prophecy. Gunn's film also correctly identifies that the rise in fascism, corporatism and authoritarianism that we are all experiencing is, essentially, the same as that which faced a Lithuanian immigrant back in the 1930s. So, like Jerry Siegel before him, the writer-director doesn't chicken out on the implications of a working-class man possessed of a Godly power and the difference they can then make in the lives of everyday people. 

Superman is able to travel incredible distances to help the struggling people of this planet, so he does exactly that. In this instance that means interfering in the US-backed invasion of Jarhanpur by all-encompassing belligerent, Boravia. Although there's a whistling aside about the two countries being situated somewhere in Eastern Europe, the parallels between this film's images of Arab civilians dressed in rags being shelled by white troops kitted out like futuristic storm troopers and the ongoing genocide in Palestine are not just obvious but unmistakable. Rather than unthinkingly side with the expansionist interests of his adopted nation, this Superman intervenes on behalf of the oppressed, demanding pause from the frothing Boravians. Gunn has previously used the fictional countries of the DC comics universe when making contentious points (see The Suicide Squad) but this instance goes far beyond a permissible canvas on which to stage repulsive, gross-out gags. The writer-director now offers up instead a proletariat messiah committed to protecting the weak from moneyed bullies and the soaring, magical sight of Isabela Merced's Hawkgirl - in a sequence which may well be intended to echo the moment that a Thanagarian child, in the throes of retribution, chose to stave-in Lex Luthor's skull from Frank Miller and Lynn Varley's The Dark Knight Strikes Again - lifting a bloodthirsty dictator up into the air then, rather than listen to any of his blustering apologia, letting him plunge screaming to the ground below.

John Murphy and David Fleming - Last Son

Superman by Victor Santos

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

A far cry from the expensive, Richard Donner end of the superhero spectrum, Sidney J Furie's Superman IV: The Quest for Peace is content to cheerily motor along, striving to portray Silver Age situations and ideas that far outstrip the film's meagre budget. Following the mixed-to-negative reactions to Superman III and Supergirl, producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind unloaded the ailing franchise onto nonsense specialists, The Cannon Group. Lumbered with less than half the cost of Helen Slater's adventure, Quest for Peace is forced to take significant shortcuts, resulting in - amongst other signs of an impoverished production - crumbling, partially transparent special effects and a frame permanently cluttered up with cheap theatrical props.

Petitioned by a schoolboy to rid the world of nuclear weapons, Superman scours the Earth, scooping up missiles from either side of The Iron Curtain. Following Kal-El's modern labours, this ballistic haul is then jammed into an enormous steel net before being hurled into the Sun. Thanks to a spot of scheming by Gene Hackman's criminal mastermind Lex Luthor, this disposal method inadvertently creates Mark Pillow's permatanned Nuclear Man. Rather than the decaying, flummoxed Bizarro seen in umpteen comics, Nuclear Man is Superman by way of hair spray rock and pro-wrestling. He's a grimacing vein-popper, completely unable to control the unfathomable powers he's inherited from his clone parent - which, for this instalment, includes an eye blast that spontaneously reassembles shattered historical monuments.

Superman: Red Son

The trick of Superman: Red Son is that the film locates its hero in a specific time, place and ideology, allowing dramatic intrigue to arise from internalised decisions and actions rather than, say, an invading alien of the week. Comparable DC animated features exist in their own bubble realities; isolated incidents that make very little attempt to connect with anything other than whichever live action film Warner Bros is cuing up for a big screen push. Sam Liu's Red Son, adapted from Mark Millar's Elseworlds comic, is the Superman story told in broad, decade-spanning strokes, with the last son of Krypton cast as the living embodiment of the Soviet Union rather than the United States.

Red Son is, on some level, Superman stripped of the contradiction and compromise that a realistic reading otherwise imposes on the character. Portrayed here as the beloved surrogate son of Joseph Stalin, this agitprop Man of Steel explores his sense of messianic duty through direct, seismic leadership rather than street level heroics. Obviously, given this animated feature's country of origin, the technological utopia that Superman builds is flawed and, eventually, tyrannical but this Evil Empire framing allows a curious note to creep into this compromised saviour's interpersonal confrontations. Ironically, this secular Superman is often assessed by the human beings he encounters in terms best described as religious terror.

Unlike their caricatured American counterparts, cornered Easter Bloc citizens wither in Superman's presence, reacting, reflexively, as if they are being judged by an invincible, almighty power. Their presumption is always damnation, prompting either a garbled explanation of their actions or, simply, horror. The most striking of these unexpectedly human moments comes shortly after Superman learns of Stalin's purges. He journeys to a lead-lined Gulag finding malnourished, shuffling dissidents - the victims of his adopted father's all-consuming paranoia. Among the dead and dying is a two-storey pillory housing four broken, contorted bodies. To their side stands a guard, his face painted with a mix of blank obedience and bug-eyed terror. It's a fleeting moment in Liu's action-packed whole but then again what other, recent, image in superhero cinema better illustrates the chasm between these divine, inspirational personalities and humanity's pathetic attempts to emulate their overwhelming strength?

Superman: Year One #1 by Frank Miller

Superman by Walter Simonson and Brennan Wagner

Superman by Geoff Senior

Superman III

Do you know why Superman III is great? It puts the Clark Kent / Superman dichotomy front and centre, drawing dramatic premises out of the turbulent emotional state created by two separate identities sharing the same vessel. It also allows Christopher Reeve to flex his jerk muscle. The film begins with Kent feeling a little unloved at work - Perry White is busy ignoring malfunctioning bingo machines and, after their amnesia kiss in Superman II, Lois Lane is back to being an indifferent co-worker. With very little to keep him in Metropolis Kent pops back to Smallville for his High School reunion, spending some time with his teenage crush, Annette O'Toole's Lana Lang.

Lang is a distinct romantic proposition in these Superman films. Unlike Lois, who is first and foremost besotted with the Man of Steel, Lana is actually interested in the human Clark Kent, recognising his innate goodness as an opportunity for long-term emotional stability. For balance, she also views his decision to move away from their small town as exciting and forward-thinking. He's the complete package. Leslie Newman and David Newman's screenplay doesn't really do much with Lana and Clark's relationship beyond proposing it as a road bump along the route to Superman's human persona and Lois finding each other but the structure is there for, at the very least, some Silver Age two-timing in the next instalment.

Superman III seizes on the fracture Lana and Lois' disparate interests propose then, thanks to a blazing crystal of synthetic Kryptonite provided by Richard Pryor's Gus Gorman, uses the idea to power action scenes grounded in Superman's shattering sense of self. Poisoned by the radioactive rock Superman starts to degrade and corrupt, his hair loses its immaculate styling, he gets a 5 o'clock shadow and his bright, primary coloured cape curdles into a rusty, carmine red. This split comes to a head in a scrap yard filled with gutted automobiles. Superman and Kent disentangle from each other, two opposing ideas battling for control of the whole. It's a dazzling sequence, skipping delicately between director Richard Lester's fine comedic detailing and the terrifying proposition of a Superman governed by his oozing, reptilian brain.

MY HAND AT YOUR THROAT

Dead sporting of Zack Snyder to go to all the trouble of shooting a disappointing Superman film just so he can put Ben Affleck's Batman over. Henry Cavill's supercilious Superman is exactly the kind of prick you can build a Rocky IV narrative around. The real hero is the human who spends months deep underground, angrily dragging around a wet tractor tire so he can bulk up enough to go punch out God.

LET US PRAY

"I don't think this stuff happens in a Mylar-snug vacuum. I think that it's when this kind of material works, it's drawn from the sources around you but it's turned into metaphor. 

I'm waiting for the pop-cultural metaphor for 9/11. I haven't seen a sign of it yet. But just like Invasion of the Body Snatchers was a response to Communism, and film noir itself was a response, essentially, to Pearl Harbor and the Second World War, there will be something that surfaces. It might be a Western. It won't, specifically, resemble what happened."

-- Frank Miller speaking to Gary Groth of The Comics Journal in January 2003.

There's a case to be made that the Marvel cycle currently tearing down the box-office is exactly what Miller is describing - a pop-culture reflex that clearly delineates good and evil. The Avengers, made up of an ex-GI, an arms dealer, and a couple of rehabilitated assassins on super-secret service retainer, are the good guys. Thanos and the army of vaguely Egyptian jackal-men he gifts Loki are the bad guys. As with Star Wars and Vietnam, the culture heals itself by dreaming up realms untainted by implication.

That's not to say the Marvel material isn't evolving. Captain America: The Winter Soldier talked about the potential for duplicity when you have an organisation that puts itself above the governments of Earth. Avengers: Age of Ultron might even demonise Tony Stark's relentless push towards total automation. Those ideas are trace elements though. In comparison, this trailer for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice reads like vandalism.

Although casting rumours point towards an overstuffed mess, this trailer is refreshingly simple. A mechanised Batman has made it his business to tear Superman out of the sky. Colour provided by talking heads that reference The Church of Superman that rose out of Metropolis' ashes in The Dark Knight Strikes Again. This underwhelming, underperforming Man of Steel is explicitly framed as a God. Ben Affleck's Bootstraps Batman means to teach him some humility. A different kind of simplicity, aggressive and nihilistic, but at least it's cinematic. Warner Bros and DC are blowing their wad, racing through Frank Miller's deathlessly antagonistic work to firmly establish an alternative to Marvel's conveyor belt of three-star entertainment.

Superman: Unbound

Released as a supplementary shelfwarmer for Zack Snyder's blockbuster, Superman: Unbound doesn't so much compliment the Man of Steel as embarrass it. In just half the running time, James Tucker's film establishes three different superbeings, each with their own idea of how their power should be used. Superman is there to catch people when they fall, a traumatised Supergirl wants to police the third world, whilst Brainiac catalogues and collects the people of the known universe, whether they like it or not.

The casual inhumanity of Brainiac's mission drives the film, leaving psychological marks on anyone unlucky enough to come into contact with him. Were Steel hesitated and contradicted, Superman: Unbound keeps it simple, letting drama flow from the characters and their relationships. Aesthetically, Unbound ditches on the muscleman classicism of Gary Frank's original art, arriving at something simpler and spikier. His Brainiac design is beefed up to Masters of the Universe dimensions, his clashes with Superman becoming looser and more angular until their final dust-up resembles something like the liquid energy you see in Mamoru Hosada's work.

Man of Steel

As a character conceived during the Great Depression you would think it notable, perhaps even timely, to reconsider Superman during a double-dip recession. The Golden Age mint of the character was a social equaliser, his early strips focused on kitchen sink scenarios in which the hero featured as an avatar for justice and basic human decency. In contrast Man of Steel presents Superman as a couch surfing millennial, an unactualised ditherer who uses his abilities in passive aggressive explosions.

David S Goyer attempts to recontextualise Superman as a lonely drifter scared to use his powers openly. This kind of indecision works for a character like Wolverine, a tainted hero with powers based on damage and people shredding violence. You can understand why Wolverine shuns situations that get his blood up. Transpose Superman into these scenarios though and he just plays as weak. The most powerful thing on the planet should not have a confidence issue, he doesn't need to refuse the call. It's disingenuous.

Human sympathy aligns with Superman when his problems are more broadly existential - his alien otherness, or his ability to match the ideals his fathers gift him. Keep him under a bridge while the man he loves most in the world is swept away and you make him seem cowardly. Include that event in a story where he never carries that pain forward into regret and you undermine your character and thesis. Man of Steel is not a carefully considered alternative take on the mythology of Superman, it's pop contrariness with zero follow through. Superman tweaked in ways antithetical to his appeal to track with a studio's idea of their target demographic. 

After the thoroughly shitty Green Lantern, it's disappointing to see Warner Bros once again overlook the key thematic appeal of their most popular movie superhero. Being Batman is Bruce Wayne's drive. His indecision is wrapped up in the execution and his longevity rather than the initial leap. His agenda is unshakably to fight crime. In Batman Begins, Wayne travelled the globe to hone and temper his resolve. Man of Steel makes Clark's journey a surface level identity crisis, resolved through expositions dumps and lifeless talking heads written like essay bullet points.

The uselessness of this Clark Kent is especially apparent when compared to a character like Faora, General Zod's right-hand woman. Unlike Kal-El, and even a Zod prone to face creasing tantrums, Faora is centred and comfortable. She has instantly adapted to her new environment, able to channel her Kryptonian martial arts into a super fighting style heavily indebted to Dragon Ball Z. She's exactly the kind of ideological opposite this film needs. She can control her powers, but doesn't want to. Her movements are precise and directed where Kal and Zod are flailing. She's the strong, silent answer to Kal's repression. Why then did the filmmakers return to Zod when they could have built the film around the fascistic allure of a beautiful Kryptonian equal who behaves like an Israeli commando? As a hook it beats the barely explored eugenics tension set up during this film's (admittedly fantastic) Heavy Metal Krypton prologue.

The real tragedy of Man of Steel is that, like Prometheus, the film is stuffed full of interesting design work made rootless by an indifferent script. The Krypton sequence is Moebius' Arzach escaping from Alejandro Jodorowsky and Juan Gimenez's Metabarons. Zod and his men are outfitted with Giger muscle suits that look like they've been carved out of prehistoric bones. Each action sequence has a distinct identity and genre through-line. The first act, featuring a slugger Jor-El, is basically the action heavy first episode of Bruce Timm's Superman: The Animated Series by way of Dune. A small town throw-down is blocked like an Akira Toriyama fight comic, and the Metropolis toppling finale has visual flourishes mined from Akira, Miracleman, and the animated adaptation of The Dark Knight Returns. Man of Steel's action moments are steeped in these kind of clashing, discordant influences - a comic artist's reference shelf nabbed at random then hammered together around the hollow, infuriating, tale of two losers putting lumps on each other.

Superman by Agustin Padilla

Superman by Simon Bisley

Superman: The Movie (and Screenwriting Theory)

Although Superman: The Movie includes elements of science fiction and mythic space opera, the main narrative drive is that of a man coming to terms with, and understanding, his place in the world. Despite Superman’s eventual role being that of a Godlike protector figure, the character still deals with basic human problems like identity and love. Superman: The Movie is a 1978 superhero film, based on the DC Comics character created by Jerry Siegel and Joel Shuster. The film, directed by Richard Donner from a screenplay by Mario Puzo, David Newman, Leslie Newman, Robert Benton and Tom Mankiewicz, charts the life of Superman, beginning with his exodus from the dying planet of Krypton, and concluding with him saving the woman he loves in defiance of his father.

The character of Superman is typically defined as a catalyst hero; he is good and unchanging. His virtue inspires others to better themselves. In preparing the character for the screen, a sustained effort was made by the filmmakers to firmly contextualise the problems and anxieties of this superbeing through the experience of a normal man. Already all-powerful, the character’s resolve is instead tested through his relationships with those around him. The film and character are rarely allowed to stray too far into the realms of the fantastical, allowing the audience a firm understanding of this character and the dilemmas he faces. Indeed, it is only when the film attempts the truly spectacular that the audience feels a sense of disconnection. Superman: The Movie is about transition, challenges and transformation, and as such easily aligns with The Hero’s Journey as described by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and Christopher Vogler in The Writer’s Journey.

Superman: The Movie begins on the distant planet of Krypton with Superman still an infant, known as Kal-El. We are introduced to Jor-El, Kal-El’s father, during the trial of three Kryptonian criminals, for which Jor-El serves as prosecution. As Jor-El will eventually serve as a mentor for the superhuman aspect of Superman, it is important that he quickly displays certain heroic qualities of character. This is accomplished not only through Jor-El’s explicit involvement with law and lawmaking, but also in his refusal to be swayed by threats. Although the criminal Zod and his cohorts threaten the lives of Jor-El’s family, he is not cowed, delivering instead a sentence of exile. Jor-El is established as an incorruptible force for good; perfect material for a mentor.

‘Mentors represent the Self, the god within us, the aspect of personality that is connected with all things. This higher Self is the wiser, nobler, more godlike part of us.’ (Vogler, 1996: p51)

Psychological function established; Jor-El is now used to communicate the themes and ideas central to the film. The action on Krypton forms a prologue, providing a context for the events that will follow.

‘A prologue can serve several useful functions. It may give an essential piece of backstory, cue the audience to what kind of movie or story this is going to be, or start the story with a bang and let the audience settle into their seats.’ (Vogler, 1996: p100)

Jor-El’s story explains the rules that will dictate the emotional journey Superman will go on, as well as arresting audience attention by showing them the spectacular destruction of an entire civilisation. This sequence also obeys the similar function of a first act.

‘At the beginning of any narrative you have to establish the parameters of the narrative in the audience’s mind. This is achieved by answering a number of simple questions ranging from ‘where are we?’ to ‘what is this about?’’ (Parker, 2006: p27-28).

In preparing to spirit his son away to Earth and safety, we learn that the child’s dense molecular structure, native to all Kryptonians, will allow him superhuman strength on Earth.  Kal-El’s mother Lara also frets that he will be alone, never able to fully integrate with his adoptive species. This prefigures the mask identities Superman must take on to shield attention away from his loved ones. It also plants an obstacle for Superman; can he overcome his inherently alien nature and find peace amongst a notionally lower form of life? Just as Jor-El outlines the practical concerns of being alien, Kara, or the female aspect of Superman, defines the emotional instability of being other. Superman’s trials will be emotional, as well as physical.

In preparing his son’s escape, Jor-El meets with the Kryptonian council to discuss the state of the planet. Jor-El pleads that his fellow councilmen see reason and accept their world is dying. Jor-El is ignored and the planet is destroyed, but not before Jor-El is able to ensure his son’s safety. This sequence can be read, like many prologues, as a summation of the path Superman will eventually take. Jor-El defies authority to ensure the survival of his young son. We are shown that rules and bureaucracy are meaningless when tested against basic human instincts such as love.

‘[A]ll fine films… entertain when they give the audience a fresh model of life empowered with an effective meaning. To retreat behind the notion that the audience simply wants to dump its troubles at the door and escape reality is a cowardly abandonment of the artist’s responsibility.’ (McKee, 1999: p12)

This absurd sequence on an alien world is rendered relatable by prioritising emotional content over the fantastical.

The next segment of the film takes place in rural Kansas, the most ordinary of worlds, and details the human upbringing of Superman as Clark Kent. In contrast to the sharp, icy geography of Krypton, Kansas is depicted as flat, endless plains of wheat, an environment alien to what we understand as Superman’s heritage. The farm on which he has been raised is remote and isolated, allowing the boy to toy with his emerging powers, but not fully take advantage of them. A short sequence set around a football training session is used to illustrate the level of self-denial Superman is forced to deal with. Attracted to sports, but unable to participate, Superman has instead taken the role of a general dogsbody, saddled with humdrum tasks such as clearing away equipment. He is taunted by the players, and made to look small in front of girls. Any attempt made by Superman to equalise the situation is greeted with scorn and derision. In this community he isn’t allowed to use his powers, or strive to be treated as special. This is an important stage in developing Superman as a figure of audience identification. Although a being of supreme power, Superman has to cope with mundane problems such as bullies, and strive for a means of valid self-expression.

‘Heroes have qualities that we can all identify with and recognize in ourselves. They are propelled by universal drives that we can all understand.’ (Vogler, 1996: p40). 

These scenes establish Superman as an almost rootless being, striving to belong on his own terms. His only real connection with this world is the love he feels for Martha and Jonathan Kent, his adoptive parents. These characters function as the emotional mentors for Superman, teaching him humility and restraint. Whereas on Krypton Superman’s powers were described as tools necessary for his survival among an alien society, here in Kansas his surrogate parents have taught him that they could be used to make the world a better place. Just before he dies, Superman’s human father Jonathan tells his son he is meant for great things, a role and responsibility beyond Kansas. Jonathan’s message and subsequent death are the key factors in Superman’s call to adventure.

            ‘An uncomfortable situation builds up until that one last straw sends [the hero] on the adventure.’ (Vogler, 1996: p118)

The message cements Superman’s desire to discover who he really is, whereas the death severs one of the character’s more specific ties to the human world.

Although this sequence of events provides an agreeable transition to the next stage of Superman’s life, the audience is left feeling that Martha Kent has been short-changed. An elderly lady, with perhaps not many years left herself; she loses her husband and her son in a very short space of time. Cursory references are made to Martha during the rest of the film, most notably when Superman arranges for half of his Daily Planet salary to be sent to her, but we are left with the feeling that this poor woman has been abandoned at a very difficult time in her life. It could also be argued that this situation is reflective of the plight of being Superman - the hero must always work for the happiness of the collective, rather than the individual. Hence, the journey towards becoming a superhero is more important than comforting his bereaved mother.

Superman journeys north to the Arctic circle. This can be understood as The Crossing of the First Threshold step on the Hero’s Journey. Superman takes with him a fragment of the spaceship that brought him to Earth. The audience may recognises the landscape of the arctic as being a fair domestic approximation of Krypton, the ship fragment going one further by actually constructing a crystalline building, architecturally identical to the buildings we saw in the prologue. It is here that Superman meets with his Kryptonian father Jor-El. Although dead, Jor-El was able to simulate his personality via alien technology, ensuring he is able to guide his son from beyond the grave.

‘[H]eroes almost always make contact with some source of wisdom before committing to the adventure. They may seek out the experience of those who have gone before, or they may look inside themselves for wisdom won at great cost in former adventures.’ (Vogler, 1996: p138)

Superman: The Movie presents the mentor as the prototype version of the hero; this tallies with Vogler’s idea of the mentor as evolved hero.

‘Mentors can be regarded as heroes who have become experienced enough to teach others. They have been down the Road of Heroes one or more times, and they have acquired knowledge and skill which can be passed on.’ (Vogler, 1996: p143)

Aside from the fact that Jor-El is Superman’s father, the character has also been tested by the limits of the status quo, forcing him to take matters into his own hands. This lesson, although not directly told to Superman, is apparent to the audience, and prefigures the drama of a third act were Superman must make a choice between what he is told to do, and what he believes is the right thing to do.

We are told that father and son spend twelve years together, creating the Superman identity we recognise. Snatches of dialogue are used as bullet points to communicate these teachings; these include the declaration by Jor-El that Superman must not interfere with the path of human history. This is Superman as designed by the Father, an altruistic better for mankind to aspire to. An interesting result of making Jor-El an all-knowing God the Father figure is that he also ends up also filling the role of a threshold guardian. By outlining such specific rules about how Superman is allowed to use his powers Jor-El creates an emotional obstacle for his son.

‘[O]n a deeper psychological level [threshold guardians] stand for our internal demons: the neuroses, emotional scars, vices, dependencies and self-limitations that hold back our growth and progress.’ (Vogler, 1996 P64)

How Superman deals with these rules – ironically by inheriting his father’s defiant streak – forms the emotional crux of the supreme ordeal, where Superman uses his impossible physical strength to rescue Lois Lane from a landslide.

Following his father’s tutelage, Superman journeys to Metropolis, this world’s New York analogue, and the physical space where the character will undergo his trials. Superman reassumes his human identity of Clark Kent, using it as camouflage. This Clark Kent is not the boy we met in Kansas; rather this Clark is a deliberate attempt to conceal the heroic identity. The Metropolitan Clark is clumsy and befuddled; he acts in the caricatured shorthand of a fish-out-of-water. This Clark is passive, allowing the Superman to act as a ground level observer. It is as Clark that Superman meets Lois Lane, who variously plays the role of ally, Goddess, Mentor and love interest. Lois represents an immediate emotional connection between Superman and mankind as a whole. She also serves the archetypal function of the trickster.

‘[Tricksters] cut big egos down to size, and bring heroes and audiences down to earth… Above all, they bring about healthy change and transformation, often by drawing attention to the imbalance or absurdity of a stagnant psychological situation.’ (Vogler, 1996: p89)

In many ways, Lois is the opposite of Superman. She is fragile, acts in haste, and is prone to getting herself into dangerous situations. Her impetuous nature is attractive to Superman, and he falls in love with her. Lois can also be defined by the herald archetype.

‘Like the heralds of medieval chivalry, Herald characters issue challenges and announce the coming of significant change.’ (Vogler, 1996: p69)

Lois signals the beginning of a more intimate relationship between mankind and Superman.

Superman’s powers have isolated him from everyone but those closest to him. This coupled with the messianic quest outlined by the spectral manifestation of his father risks making the character an unfathomable alien. The inclusion of Lois at this point reintroduces a relatable aspect to Superman, as well as reasserting the lessons of his loving human parents. In being raised as a human, this Kryptonian has been made human.

The second important character we meet in Metropolis is Lex Luthor, the villain, and shadow of Superman: The Movie. Lex is an evil genius, always scheming to improve his financial lot. He thinks of himself as the ‘greatest criminal mind of the twentieth century’, and conforms to Vogler’s idea of the delusional aspect of villainy.

‘[M]ost Shadow figures do not think of themselves as villains or enemies. From his point of view, a villain is the hero of his own myth, and the audience’s hero is his villain. A dangerous type of villain is “the right man”, the person so convinced his cause is just that he will stop at nothing to achieve it. Beware the man who believes the end justifies the means.’ (Vogler, 1996: p86)

Although Lex knows he is doing evil by plotting to destroy California, it is of supreme irrelevance to him. In this instance, by playing recklessly with the laws of nature, Lex situates himself as a God figure. This marks a particular departure point with ethics and morality of Superman, Superman can act like a God, yet chooses not to, instead he uses his powers to bring boons to the people of Earth. He views them all as being of equal importance, and is unwilling to allow any of them to come to harm. Lex, lacking the power of God, but wishing for it, is instead willing to grind them all up to line his pockets. Lex is a negative reflection of Superman. If Lex possessed the power of Superman, he would bend the world and its populace to his whim. That Superman does not is a strong and vivid indication of his heroism. Superman could rule, but he chooses not to.

           

         ‘The Shadow may also be unexplored potential… that goes unexpressed. “the road not taken”, the possibilities of life that we eliminate by making choices at various stages, may collect in the Shadow, biding their time until brought into the light of consciousness.’ (Vogler, 1996: p87)

Lex is also the catalyst for the film’s Supreme Ordeal. Luring Superman to his lair, Lex reveals his plan to launch two nuclear missiles at opposite sides of the country. He also tricks Superman into exposing himself to Kryptonite; a radioactive fragment of Krypton that Lex has predicted will sap Superman’s life force. The usually invincible hero is rendered weak and docile when exposed to the meteorite splinter, he appears to die.

‘[Audiences] love to see heroes cheat death. In fact they love to cheat death themselves. Identifying with a hero who bounces back from death is bungee-jumping in dramatic form.’ (Vogler, 1996: p189)

Superman is only saved when Lex’s subordinate, Miss Teschmacher, briefly switches allegiances and removes the Kryptonite from Superman’s person. Teschmacher is inspired by Superman to do good, but there is also a selfish reason for her shape-shifting – her mother lives near one of the areas doomed to be destroyed by Lex’s missiles. In order for Superman to be rescued he must agree to divert that rocket first and foremost. Superman agrees to this bargain, and inadvertently dooms Lois.

When Lois is killed by the earthquakes that follow the detonation of the California bound rocket, Superman is heartbroken. The physical and emotional representation of his relationship with mankind is gone, and, more alarmingly, perhaps any real chance for Superman to be healthily assimilated into human culture. Superman flies into the heavens where he remembers the teachings of his two fathers. Jor-El taught Superman to be a paradigm, a separate unyielding example. Interfering is forbidden.

‘Of the many fears faced by heroes, the greatest dramatic power seems to come from the fear of standing up to a parent or authority figure. The family scene is the core of most serious drama, and a confrontation with a parent figure can provide a strong Supreme Ordeal.’ (Vogler, 1996: p197)

Jonathan Kent echoes these thoughts, but presents them in a more intimate, humanistic fashion. Jonathan simply believed Superman was sent here, to Earth, for a reason. Superman recalls the death of Jonathan, and how despite his powers he was unable to prevent it. Superman flies into space and begins speeding against the rotation of the Earth, turning it, and thus the course of time, backwards. Although emotionally satisfying in that Superman has defied his isolationist-minded biological father and saved his great love Lois, the ability to rewind time creates a profound illogic in Superman as a narrative entity. 

‘[The hero] now finds himself at the end of the line. His next action is his last. No tomorrow. No second chance. This moment of dangerous opportunity is the point of greatest tension in the story as both protagonist and audience sense that the question “How will this turn out?” will be answered out of the next action.’ (McKee, 1999: p303)

Drama is created by decision. If Superman is able to repeal his decisions, he is no longer dramatic. There is the feeling that if Superman can do this at whim, then no threat can ever trouble him, any inconvenience can be negated by a trip to space. The thematic means by which this is accomplished do satisfy however. The decision to alter the course of time is a complete synthesis of Superman the God, and Superman the man.

Superman: The Movie can be read as a film about a lonely soul striving to find where he fits into the wider world. He finds stability and love through his relationship with Lois, and will stop at nothing to maintain that position. Having lost the person he holds dearest he is only able to rescue her by utilising his enormous strength. Rather than act as the separate, higher being dictated by Jor-El, Superman engages with his human emotions whilst testing his God abilities to the limit.

‘For the son who has grown really to know the father, the agonies of the ordeal are readily borne; the world is no longer a vale of tears but a bliss-yielding, perpetual manifestation of the Presence.’ (Campbell, 1993: p148)

In a film with a hero that uses multiple mask identities to conceal his true nature, there is the feeling that this act represents the truest action of character. Superman is acting in his interests alone, and the result is emotionally satisfying: he has become a complete being. This is not a film about a being of conceptual goodness; this is an adventure that deals with human themes and emotions on a grand and expansive canvas, with a central hero that is tested, changes, and prevails.

All-Star Superman

An abbreviated zip through Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's modern masterpiece. Incident and idea detailing in this All-Star Superman may be trimmed and lightly clodded in service to an action plot, but Morrison's super-engaged Man of Steel is otherwise beautifully accounted for. In applying, and emphasising, Superman's intellectual and emotional spectrum, Morrison arrived at a fresh, credible take on a character usually hamstrung by a goody-goody otherness. This Kal-El is curious and motivated, using his powers less as a reactive counter-balance, more as a means to explore and document. Despite a few bum notes on key beats - the Superman 2 tease in particular plays creepy - Sam Liu and the late Dwayne McDuffie's adaptation moves on the same keen toil as Morrison and Quitely's wonderful comic.

Superman / Shazam: The Return of Black Adam

Bulletin brief at just under twenty five minutes, Superman / Shazam: The Return of Black Adam reads like a whizz-bang proof of concept for a gestating series. The short ropes in Superman for visibility, noodling about with Clark's less documented weakness for magic as a springboard for our ostensibly similar hero. This emphasis on the fantastical gives the speculative Captain Marvel show a sense of identity explicitly separate from Superman's sci-fi slanted animated adventures.

Marvel's foe is fun too. Black Adam is a vandal reflection driven insane by access to limitless power and longevity. There's even a whiff of Alan Moore's Kid Marvelman in how Adam's allowed his super identity to completely phase out his mortal state. Despite paying lip-service to Moore's human cataclysm, Superman / Shazam ends up lighter and brighter than recent DC animation.

Captain Marvel's world is whimsical. His powers revolve around ill explained rules presented by a doddering ancient. Supporting players casually transform into animals and enemies fade to dust at the prospect of punishment. This could be the perfect post-Avatar: The Last Airbender vehicle for director Joaquim Dos Santos's 80s anime instincts. Captain Marvel would allow for high impact alley-oop fights whilst underscoring the bruising with a pervasive irreverence and childlike illogic. This could be Dos Santos' Dragon Ball.