Superman Is A Comic Book Character



We're already being inundated with a lot of Superman-related hype for the forthcoming new movie starring the actors Henry Cavill and Amy Adams. I like Superman movies. I have fond memories of seeing that first big-budget effort back when I was a young man, and I still enjoy the barrel-chested, gun-dodging performance of George Reeves on the television show whenever I see that one on cable. I'm sure there are a lot of others that are pretty good, too.

I like Superman comics a lot more.

I think Superman's primary value isn't as a global icon or some sort of universal licensing mechanism but as a comic book character in really good comic books. They're not my favorite comic books in the world, but I think a lot of the comic books with Superman in them are good, fun and affecting: the early Siegel-Shuster material; the increasingly obtuse and arch material of the 1950s; the wonderful Bizarro, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen stories; Jack Kirby's affecting use of the characters as a sideways element in his Fourth World stories; the well-meaning retrenching of the character and concept in the 1970s; some of what writers like Alan Moore and then later guys like Joe Casey have done in short bursts since.

I hope that my peers and friends out there in the writing-about-comics field will use the attention focused on Superman in the next several days to not just carve themselves out some hits via a comic-book perspective on the movie. I'm sure the movie could be swell, and that some of the articles on that movie will be fun to read. Still, I like the Big Blue Boy Scout best where I first encountered him: in the comic books. In addition to the new series from Scott Snyder and Jim Lee there is a big body of work already in print or available to a devoted searcher. I hope that we'll learn about some writers' favorites. Scroll down the page for some choices from CR readers on favorites of theirs.
 
posted 10:40 pm PST | Permalink
 

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