Some random thoughts about Superman
June 29th, 2008
I believe it may have been Quentin Tarantino (probably in Kill Bill if I’m remembering it right) who commented about the interesting thing about Clark Kent and Superman is that Kent is the alias, at his core Superman is exactly that, Superman and it is Clark Kent who is the mask.
It is something that always interests me about the character and despite my commitment to all things comic bookish there is actually very little that does interest me around the character. Batman has always been the more interesting of the DC comics titans (no I’m not talking Teen Titans I mean titan in its classical term).
I also think people often forget that he is actually an alien despite looking like the ‘perfect’ human.
I wonder if this is not similar to the way the Greek gods were portrayed. Although on second thoughts the gods were always portrayed with the human traits of envy, jealousy, anger and greed. These are not the traits that are often associated with the Man of Steel.
Except of course in Superman III which we don’t tend to give very much credit to.
A testament to the acting ability that Christopher Reeve had inside him are the extraordinarily impressive display of duality found amongst the mess of the Superman III plot.
The thing from a writing point of view is that Superman is very hard to write for. He can’t lose control because if he does he can wipe out an entire city.
Everything in his life is about control, from the smallest thing such as holding a coffee mug without crushing it to dust to not leaping too far over the tallest building and launching himself into space.
The problem then becomes that the character is flawed in his flawlessness, something that is often brought out by writers like Frank Miller and characters such as Batman.
He’s an icon though, can’t deny that.
Popularity: 5% [?]
More posts like this:
Categories: Comics | Tags: christopher reeve, clark kent, dc comics, frank miller, greek gods, man of steel, quentin tarantino, superman iii
Very true Lee. It’s all about control. I once read somewhere that the reason why Superman is STRONG is because the gravity of Planet Krypton is probably multiple times more than Earth’s. And so well, Superman can take more and more weight, fly if he wants to etc etc. No explanation of X Ray vision though.
X Ray vision, that’s another control required.
Sujoys last blog post..Wagon Rags-The Making of Devil’s Ride
[Reply to this comment]