raul grau
Mar 23, 2005, 12:01 am
<img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/logos/cfdlogo.jpg" hspace=10 align=left border=0 alt="Comics For Dummies logo">By Raul Grau, RJacknite@aol.com
It's Reigning Supermen
Three score and some odd years ago, impressionable readers were introduced to a new kind of hero. He was the ubermensch- faster, stronger, smarter... just flat out better than the rest of us mere humans, in very a Nietzsche sort of way. For Depression-era audiences, here was an idealized portrait of our very selves, but his gifts did come with a price. He would never be just another man, and his heroism is as much about him justifying his own existence, as it is about his farm-grown roots. In the years since, his story has been told and retold in countless media, from comic fiction to prose to celluloid, and he has inspired more costumed imitators than Elvis (and his impersonators are slightly less annoying). Yes, Hugo Danner was the ultimate human, but that Superman guy completely stole his spotlight.
Eight years before Clark Kent donned a pair of amazingly concealing spectacles, there was Gladiator, the somber tale of Hugo Danner. The story begins with his father, who was seeking better humans through chemistry. In true mad scientist fashion, he drugged his quite pregnant wife, injected her with his patented superserum, and let bastardized nature take its course. A few months pass, and out comes Hugo, the superhumanly strong baby. As he grows, so does his power, leaving him faster than a locomotive, more powerful than a boulder, and able to leap tall trees in a single bound. His parents teach him to hide his freakishness from a world that will hate and fear him, and instill within him the down-home values they believe in (of course, they leave out the righteousness of drugging and violating a pregnant woman from their morality lesson). Hugo goes to college, goes to war, and even goes to work as a mild-mannered banker, but his secret is always revealed, and he must again hide himself away from the frightened masses. His story was a realistic, but depressing one... though, apparently, if you slap a spandex costume on him, Hugo becomes rife with marketing potential... just ask Superman.
Of course, the Superman of today is not simply Hugo with his underwear on the outside, but the Superman of Action Comics #1 was Hugo, with inverted undies and a slightly different origin. Both were within the scientifiction family, but the powers of Clark were the result of an alien heritage, not genetic experimentation, though they shared the same Midwestern value set and fetish for keeping their identity secret. Their powers were identical, as this was long before Clark stopped leaping tall buildings in a single bound, and adopted true flight, along with planet juggling and time traveling (through the completely logical process of turning the Earth backwards on its axis... yeah, that made perfect sense). Superman may not have been the first superman, or even the first costumed hero, but he was the first superhuman costumed hero to make a splash with comic buyers... and success breeds imitators (just look at Cold CSI Case Files Without a Trace).
The Man of Steel was not wholly original, but he was wholly owned by DC (much to the later chagrin of those two guys who actually created him), and the publisher fought hard to protect their red and blue investment. The first fatality was Wonder Man... no, not Simon Williams (though when you think about it, his powers are quite similar), but the Will Eisner hero of the same name. This Wonder Man was Fred Carson, a mild-mannered inventor, who used a magic ring to empower himself with... well, basically, the powers of Superman. Now, you cannot blame the Spirit creator for that oversight, since Victor Fox (DC accountant turned rival publisher) requested a Superman-esque character... but he was probably unaware of the close relationship between Superman-esque and copyright infringement. Though Wonder was blonde, capeless, magic-based, and dressed in red, DC triumphed with their lawsuit, and Wonder Man's lone appearance was his last... that is, until he dyed his hair black and doused himself in ionic energy (some people will do anything for their fifteen minutes).
Fawcett Publications was the next to incur the wraith of DC with Master Man, star of the aptly named Master Comics. He had enhanced strength, speed, invulnerability, and that infamous long-jumping talent, along with blonde hair and blue eyes... Master Man indeed. A frail young boy made super through a vitamin-packed capsule, this Aryan posterchild was, if anything, less a Superman clone, and more a Captain America precursor, but DC still flexed their legal might. Fearing litigation, Master Man, The Wonder of the World, packed up his tunic and Troublescope after only six issues... yes, I said Troublescope. It was a large telescope which allowed him to monitor the entire planet from his mountain headquarters (take that, Earth's curvature).
Then there was another Fawcett character, but this one managed to endure for slightly longer than six stories (slightly longer than six hundred stories, actually)... perhaps you've heard of Captain Marvel. The Big Red Cheese began as Billy Batson, a young orphan boy who made the wise decision to follow a strange old man into a dark cave, but emerged molestation-free and imbued with the abilities of six Greco-Roman mythological figures. Marvel became the best-selling hero of his era, so DC simply had to play the copyright card. Not surprisingly (since Captain Marvel had only slightly more in common with Superman than I do), DC lost their lawsuit... at least, they lost the first one. That was followed by the appeal, and the appeal of the appeal, and the appeal for a new trial to decide upon the appeal of the appeal. In the end, with comic sales declining and legal costs rising, Fawcett choose to settle, and agreed to cease publication on all Captain Marvel-related titles (sadly, that even included the adventures of Hoppy, the Marvel Bunny).
Across the pond, reprints of the Marvel Family of titles were top sellers for L. Miller & Sons Limited, so a cessation of new tales would be a bit of a problem for them. In an ironic twist, a copyright infringement lawsuit led to any even larger copyright infringement, as Marvelman was born. This slightly more sciencefictiony version of Captain Marvel filled the gap left by the real Captain, and British audiences loved him, right up until he suffered death by cancellation. In 1981, Alan Moore was tasked with revamping the Marvel clone, and did so in his (soon to be) trademark revisionist style. Marvel Comics, feeling threatened by the very existence of a character with 'Marvel' in his name (regardless of whether he predates the label or not), flexed their legal muscles, and Marvelman became Miracleman... unfortunately, that was the last time logic ever prevailed with him. You would love Miracleman, if only he were ever allowed in print again. All that is certain is that he is owned by someone... or perhaps no one... maybe even everyone, who can be sure? In the words of Solomon, the character should be divided and split amongst the concerned parties... though would you really read a Miracleman series that featured only his left ear and belly button?
For a number of years, it seemed like the only publisher that could get away with imitating Superman was DC. First came Superboy, who filled the teenage sidekick void a lot better than any cub reporter ever could. Shuffle his chromosomes a bit, and you have Supergirl, with powers strong enough for a man, but PH-balanced for a woman. She was just part of the Kryptonian immigration problem that Earth suffered from in the Silver Age, as every Thom, Dirk, and Zod would find their way out of the (not particularly well sealed) Phantom Zone. Mon-El also managed to slip in through the atmospheric border, but it turned out that he was not a Kryptonian, but a Daxamite (who were exactly like Kryptonians, but their particular elemental weakness, lead, can actually be found on our periodic table... much to his dismay).
Multiple Earths then opened the door for multiple Superman's, with the Earth-2 (but poorly numbered) original occasionally partnering with the Earth-1 standard to face a dreaded foe... for example, the evil Supermen of Earth-3, Earth-A, or Earth-etc. Earth-Prime was a world with just two superheroes, but one of them just had to be Superboy, or else DC would have revoked their publishability. Earth-S even became home to the least Superman-like Superman imitator ever, when Captain Marvel and his Marvel Family took up permanent residence... that may seem like a bizarre twist to a prolonged legal battle, but at least Hoppy, the Marvel Bunny, finally stood a chance for a new era of Bunniness. In that context, DC definitely needed a Crisis, if only to curb their rampant proliferation of Heroes of Mass Superness.
Crisis was the comic book equivalent of a universal remote- it simplified life to the point of making everything more complicated. The number of the alternate Earths was trimmed down to none, and into nothingness went the Superfolk of Earth-2, Earth-Prime, and every other Earth not ending in '1'. Captain Marvel and his lightning-themed co-horts were spared elimination, only in linger in a string of failed series and aborted relaunches... perhaps we are much too cynical to appreciate his tale, or perhaps we have all seen Big one too many times. However, eliminating so many of the uber-powerful had some unforeseen consequences (sure, they could have been foreseen, but they were not, so, technically, that makes them unforeseen). Without Superboy, the Legion of Super-Heroes had no teenaged hero for inspiration (and Robin just would not do), so Mon-El, the lead head, became Valor, greatest hero of the twentieth century... at least until the next Legion reboot came along. Then there were all those Golden Age Superman stories now adrift without a protagonist, so in an uncharacteristically brilliant move, DC choose the perfect person to fill the void... Gladiator (remember him?).
However, Hugo Danner was much too depressed to play the hero himself, so his son was created in the pages of Young All-Stars. Arn 'Iron' Munro had (repeat after me) enhanced strength, speed, near invulnerability, super leaping, and complex daddy issues. He first believed that his progenitor had been the Nazi superhuman, (appropriately named) Ubermensch, but later learned that he was the product of a one-night stand on Hugo's part, before the somber one faked his own death (I'm not sure who made the better father figure... the fascist or the flake). Iron Munro continued his adventures straight on through the Golden Age, or, at least, we can assume he did, since Young All-Stars did not receive the healthiest of runs. In recent years, Arn reemerged as mentor to Damage, the ever explosive teen hero, and occasionally engages in adventuring, using the callsign Gladiator One (which he was not, of course).
With DC relaxing their litigious ways, the number of Supermen skyrocketed, as every publisher wanted a version to call their own. There was Supreme, the Image equivalent, who began as a thinly-veiled Superman with Extreme anger management issues, but then matured into a full Super-clone, though he was an Alan Moore Super-clone, so that makes it better. Prime, the Ultraverse representative, was actually a protoplasm-filled version of Captain Marvel, though Billy Batson never took to dressing like a biker thug. And the list goes on, from Don Simpson's overlymuscled Megaton Man to Mister Majestic of Wildstorm fame (an imprint currently owned by DC, therefore, tragically unsueable). Marvel even got into the action with Hyperion, a supposedly one-shot character, who later lead his Squadron Supreme on to true social relevance, before succumbing to his own Supreme Power. And then, most recently, we met Sentry, the Golden Guardian of Good (you had to have known that I was eventually going to connect to something current).
Bob Reynolds actually has more in common with the oft-imitated Gladiator than with any Men of Steel. Sure, he possesses far grander powers, and cloaks himself in spandex, but he has the one element lost in translation from Hugo Danner to Clark Kent... crippling depression. As Sentry, Bob was the most respected hero of any generation (even Captain America would look up to this guy), but he was forgotten, besmirched, and left with a drinking problem and a beer belly... Clark wishes he had that kind of angst. He regained his awe-inspiring former life for the span of one miniseries (plus a few one-shots), but then returned to the sort of existence where nobody knows your name... which makes his presence on the New Avengers a bit perplexing, but I trust Bendis to rationalize the seemingly unrationalizable. In fact, I trust him to do it with several pages of talking heads, and at least one off-panel conversation with a mysterious shadowy figure. Hugo would be proud... he has finally found a successor worse off than he was.
Speaking of Hugo, the original Superman is back in the sequential fiction spotlight, with his Legend currently being retold by Wildstorm. Chaykin is taking the novel, and reimagining it in a more modern setting... well, the setting is not any more modern, but the swearing sure this. The characters are still the same (so far), and Chaykin deserves acclaim for finding a way to respect the past, while simultaneously insulting it, in almost every panel. The basic premise for this oversized four-issue miniseries is actually very similar to Superman: Secret Identity, the recent oversized four-issue miniseries by Kurt Busiek, with the chief difference being that Secret Identity was really quite enjoyable.
In the end, if you desire to read a tale of the true Superman, then put down the pretty pictures for a moment, and pick up a copy of Gladiator. The basis of a heroic dynasty (and several lawsuits) is contained within those prose pages... and I assure you, there are no clones, cyborgs, armored inventors, or living Kryptonian birthing chambers mentioned in the original version.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
Raul Grau believes that regularly playing near legal quicksand only serves to hurt the comic industry as a whole. He insists that the Miracleman issue could have been resolved expeditiously and definitively, had the concerned parties simply agreed to a battle to the death over the publishing rights.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and are not reflective of ComiX-Fan or its other staff in general.
It's Reigning Supermen
Three score and some odd years ago, impressionable readers were introduced to a new kind of hero. He was the ubermensch- faster, stronger, smarter... just flat out better than the rest of us mere humans, in very a Nietzsche sort of way. For Depression-era audiences, here was an idealized portrait of our very selves, but his gifts did come with a price. He would never be just another man, and his heroism is as much about him justifying his own existence, as it is about his farm-grown roots. In the years since, his story has been told and retold in countless media, from comic fiction to prose to celluloid, and he has inspired more costumed imitators than Elvis (and his impersonators are slightly less annoying). Yes, Hugo Danner was the ultimate human, but that Superman guy completely stole his spotlight.
Eight years before Clark Kent donned a pair of amazingly concealing spectacles, there was Gladiator, the somber tale of Hugo Danner. The story begins with his father, who was seeking better humans through chemistry. In true mad scientist fashion, he drugged his quite pregnant wife, injected her with his patented superserum, and let bastardized nature take its course. A few months pass, and out comes Hugo, the superhumanly strong baby. As he grows, so does his power, leaving him faster than a locomotive, more powerful than a boulder, and able to leap tall trees in a single bound. His parents teach him to hide his freakishness from a world that will hate and fear him, and instill within him the down-home values they believe in (of course, they leave out the righteousness of drugging and violating a pregnant woman from their morality lesson). Hugo goes to college, goes to war, and even goes to work as a mild-mannered banker, but his secret is always revealed, and he must again hide himself away from the frightened masses. His story was a realistic, but depressing one... though, apparently, if you slap a spandex costume on him, Hugo becomes rife with marketing potential... just ask Superman.
Of course, the Superman of today is not simply Hugo with his underwear on the outside, but the Superman of Action Comics #1 was Hugo, with inverted undies and a slightly different origin. Both were within the scientifiction family, but the powers of Clark were the result of an alien heritage, not genetic experimentation, though they shared the same Midwestern value set and fetish for keeping their identity secret. Their powers were identical, as this was long before Clark stopped leaping tall buildings in a single bound, and adopted true flight, along with planet juggling and time traveling (through the completely logical process of turning the Earth backwards on its axis... yeah, that made perfect sense). Superman may not have been the first superman, or even the first costumed hero, but he was the first superhuman costumed hero to make a splash with comic buyers... and success breeds imitators (just look at Cold CSI Case Files Without a Trace).
The Man of Steel was not wholly original, but he was wholly owned by DC (much to the later chagrin of those two guys who actually created him), and the publisher fought hard to protect their red and blue investment. The first fatality was Wonder Man... no, not Simon Williams (though when you think about it, his powers are quite similar), but the Will Eisner hero of the same name. This Wonder Man was Fred Carson, a mild-mannered inventor, who used a magic ring to empower himself with... well, basically, the powers of Superman. Now, you cannot blame the Spirit creator for that oversight, since Victor Fox (DC accountant turned rival publisher) requested a Superman-esque character... but he was probably unaware of the close relationship between Superman-esque and copyright infringement. Though Wonder was blonde, capeless, magic-based, and dressed in red, DC triumphed with their lawsuit, and Wonder Man's lone appearance was his last... that is, until he dyed his hair black and doused himself in ionic energy (some people will do anything for their fifteen minutes).
Fawcett Publications was the next to incur the wraith of DC with Master Man, star of the aptly named Master Comics. He had enhanced strength, speed, invulnerability, and that infamous long-jumping talent, along with blonde hair and blue eyes... Master Man indeed. A frail young boy made super through a vitamin-packed capsule, this Aryan posterchild was, if anything, less a Superman clone, and more a Captain America precursor, but DC still flexed their legal might. Fearing litigation, Master Man, The Wonder of the World, packed up his tunic and Troublescope after only six issues... yes, I said Troublescope. It was a large telescope which allowed him to monitor the entire planet from his mountain headquarters (take that, Earth's curvature).
Then there was another Fawcett character, but this one managed to endure for slightly longer than six stories (slightly longer than six hundred stories, actually)... perhaps you've heard of Captain Marvel. The Big Red Cheese began as Billy Batson, a young orphan boy who made the wise decision to follow a strange old man into a dark cave, but emerged molestation-free and imbued with the abilities of six Greco-Roman mythological figures. Marvel became the best-selling hero of his era, so DC simply had to play the copyright card. Not surprisingly (since Captain Marvel had only slightly more in common with Superman than I do), DC lost their lawsuit... at least, they lost the first one. That was followed by the appeal, and the appeal of the appeal, and the appeal for a new trial to decide upon the appeal of the appeal. In the end, with comic sales declining and legal costs rising, Fawcett choose to settle, and agreed to cease publication on all Captain Marvel-related titles (sadly, that even included the adventures of Hoppy, the Marvel Bunny).
Across the pond, reprints of the Marvel Family of titles were top sellers for L. Miller & Sons Limited, so a cessation of new tales would be a bit of a problem for them. In an ironic twist, a copyright infringement lawsuit led to any even larger copyright infringement, as Marvelman was born. This slightly more sciencefictiony version of Captain Marvel filled the gap left by the real Captain, and British audiences loved him, right up until he suffered death by cancellation. In 1981, Alan Moore was tasked with revamping the Marvel clone, and did so in his (soon to be) trademark revisionist style. Marvel Comics, feeling threatened by the very existence of a character with 'Marvel' in his name (regardless of whether he predates the label or not), flexed their legal muscles, and Marvelman became Miracleman... unfortunately, that was the last time logic ever prevailed with him. You would love Miracleman, if only he were ever allowed in print again. All that is certain is that he is owned by someone... or perhaps no one... maybe even everyone, who can be sure? In the words of Solomon, the character should be divided and split amongst the concerned parties... though would you really read a Miracleman series that featured only his left ear and belly button?
For a number of years, it seemed like the only publisher that could get away with imitating Superman was DC. First came Superboy, who filled the teenage sidekick void a lot better than any cub reporter ever could. Shuffle his chromosomes a bit, and you have Supergirl, with powers strong enough for a man, but PH-balanced for a woman. She was just part of the Kryptonian immigration problem that Earth suffered from in the Silver Age, as every Thom, Dirk, and Zod would find their way out of the (not particularly well sealed) Phantom Zone. Mon-El also managed to slip in through the atmospheric border, but it turned out that he was not a Kryptonian, but a Daxamite (who were exactly like Kryptonians, but their particular elemental weakness, lead, can actually be found on our periodic table... much to his dismay).
Multiple Earths then opened the door for multiple Superman's, with the Earth-2 (but poorly numbered) original occasionally partnering with the Earth-1 standard to face a dreaded foe... for example, the evil Supermen of Earth-3, Earth-A, or Earth-etc. Earth-Prime was a world with just two superheroes, but one of them just had to be Superboy, or else DC would have revoked their publishability. Earth-S even became home to the least Superman-like Superman imitator ever, when Captain Marvel and his Marvel Family took up permanent residence... that may seem like a bizarre twist to a prolonged legal battle, but at least Hoppy, the Marvel Bunny, finally stood a chance for a new era of Bunniness. In that context, DC definitely needed a Crisis, if only to curb their rampant proliferation of Heroes of Mass Superness.
Crisis was the comic book equivalent of a universal remote- it simplified life to the point of making everything more complicated. The number of the alternate Earths was trimmed down to none, and into nothingness went the Superfolk of Earth-2, Earth-Prime, and every other Earth not ending in '1'. Captain Marvel and his lightning-themed co-horts were spared elimination, only in linger in a string of failed series and aborted relaunches... perhaps we are much too cynical to appreciate his tale, or perhaps we have all seen Big one too many times. However, eliminating so many of the uber-powerful had some unforeseen consequences (sure, they could have been foreseen, but they were not, so, technically, that makes them unforeseen). Without Superboy, the Legion of Super-Heroes had no teenaged hero for inspiration (and Robin just would not do), so Mon-El, the lead head, became Valor, greatest hero of the twentieth century... at least until the next Legion reboot came along. Then there were all those Golden Age Superman stories now adrift without a protagonist, so in an uncharacteristically brilliant move, DC choose the perfect person to fill the void... Gladiator (remember him?).
However, Hugo Danner was much too depressed to play the hero himself, so his son was created in the pages of Young All-Stars. Arn 'Iron' Munro had (repeat after me) enhanced strength, speed, near invulnerability, super leaping, and complex daddy issues. He first believed that his progenitor had been the Nazi superhuman, (appropriately named) Ubermensch, but later learned that he was the product of a one-night stand on Hugo's part, before the somber one faked his own death (I'm not sure who made the better father figure... the fascist or the flake). Iron Munro continued his adventures straight on through the Golden Age, or, at least, we can assume he did, since Young All-Stars did not receive the healthiest of runs. In recent years, Arn reemerged as mentor to Damage, the ever explosive teen hero, and occasionally engages in adventuring, using the callsign Gladiator One (which he was not, of course).
With DC relaxing their litigious ways, the number of Supermen skyrocketed, as every publisher wanted a version to call their own. There was Supreme, the Image equivalent, who began as a thinly-veiled Superman with Extreme anger management issues, but then matured into a full Super-clone, though he was an Alan Moore Super-clone, so that makes it better. Prime, the Ultraverse representative, was actually a protoplasm-filled version of Captain Marvel, though Billy Batson never took to dressing like a biker thug. And the list goes on, from Don Simpson's overlymuscled Megaton Man to Mister Majestic of Wildstorm fame (an imprint currently owned by DC, therefore, tragically unsueable). Marvel even got into the action with Hyperion, a supposedly one-shot character, who later lead his Squadron Supreme on to true social relevance, before succumbing to his own Supreme Power. And then, most recently, we met Sentry, the Golden Guardian of Good (you had to have known that I was eventually going to connect to something current).
Bob Reynolds actually has more in common with the oft-imitated Gladiator than with any Men of Steel. Sure, he possesses far grander powers, and cloaks himself in spandex, but he has the one element lost in translation from Hugo Danner to Clark Kent... crippling depression. As Sentry, Bob was the most respected hero of any generation (even Captain America would look up to this guy), but he was forgotten, besmirched, and left with a drinking problem and a beer belly... Clark wishes he had that kind of angst. He regained his awe-inspiring former life for the span of one miniseries (plus a few one-shots), but then returned to the sort of existence where nobody knows your name... which makes his presence on the New Avengers a bit perplexing, but I trust Bendis to rationalize the seemingly unrationalizable. In fact, I trust him to do it with several pages of talking heads, and at least one off-panel conversation with a mysterious shadowy figure. Hugo would be proud... he has finally found a successor worse off than he was.
Speaking of Hugo, the original Superman is back in the sequential fiction spotlight, with his Legend currently being retold by Wildstorm. Chaykin is taking the novel, and reimagining it in a more modern setting... well, the setting is not any more modern, but the swearing sure this. The characters are still the same (so far), and Chaykin deserves acclaim for finding a way to respect the past, while simultaneously insulting it, in almost every panel. The basic premise for this oversized four-issue miniseries is actually very similar to Superman: Secret Identity, the recent oversized four-issue miniseries by Kurt Busiek, with the chief difference being that Secret Identity was really quite enjoyable.
In the end, if you desire to read a tale of the true Superman, then put down the pretty pictures for a moment, and pick up a copy of Gladiator. The basis of a heroic dynasty (and several lawsuits) is contained within those prose pages... and I assure you, there are no clones, cyborgs, armored inventors, or living Kryptonian birthing chambers mentioned in the original version.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
Raul Grau believes that regularly playing near legal quicksand only serves to hurt the comic industry as a whole. He insists that the Miracleman issue could have been resolved expeditiously and definitively, had the concerned parties simply agreed to a battle to the death over the publishing rights.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and are not reflective of ComiX-Fan or its other staff in general.