Zod Is Dead

A lot of fans like to gripe about the recent depictions of Superman in the movies. I know I do, and I haven't even seen them. Which in a rational universe would preclude me from having an opinion on the subject, but this is the Internet. One of the biggest gripes is how the Cinematic Superman is now a murderer. He defeats General Zod, the Kryptonian criminal escaped from the Phantom Zone, by killing him.

In Superman's defense, he did this as a last resort to save the lives of millions. And it's not like there hasn't been any precedent. Supeman has also killed in the comics. Not often, it's true, and always with a goodly amount of controversy, but he has on occasion done it. He's even had justification sometimes.

Let me tell you about the first time Superman killed Zod.

I suppose we'd better start with the Crisis. In the mid-'80s, DC Comics published CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, a ground-breaking, and reality-breaking maxi-series, the very first Company-Wide Crossover Event. Its purpose was no less than to re-structure the entire DC Universe, condensing the myriad alternate earths into a single, more manageable one. That was the plan, anyway. As the slogan said, “Earths will live; Earths will die; And the DC Universe will never be the same!”

Since they were re-organizing everything anyway, they decided to do the same to a couple of its most iconic character, stripping away decades of accumulated backstory and getting down to the essentials. To do this for Superman, DC scored a coup comparable to Jack Kirby's defection from Marvel a decade earlier. To redefine the biggest star in the DCU, they hired one of the biggest stars at that time at Marvel, John Byrne.

Byrne was probably most famous for his artwork on the All-New, All-Different X-MEN with writer Chris Claremont. He had gone on to draw and write other titles for Marvel, including ALPHA FLIGHT, which he created, AVENGERS, CAPTAIN AMERICA, and a well-regarded run on FANTASTIC FOUR. And I think he came from Marvel with a certain amount of snobbishness. A lot of Marvel fans had the opinion that DC comics were stodgy and unrealistic, while Marvel comics were more believable. Comparatively speaking, at least.

They had a point. During the era when Mort Weisinger edited the SUPERMAN comics, the character had accumulated what could be charitably called a Rich Mythology; (and less-charitably as a Lot of Goofy Stuff): Krypto the Superdog, the Bottle City of Kandor, Red Kryptonite and the broad spectrum of other colors, Clark's Mermaid Girlfriend Lori Lemaris.

Byrne had a mandate from DC to dich all the Weisinger Era stuff and rebuild the Man of Steel from the ground up; starting with a six-issue limited series titled, naturally enough, MAN OF STEEL, which retold Superman's origin and established key pints of his early career: the Destruction of Krypton, his adoption by the Kents; his first encounters with Lois Lane, with Batman, and of course, with Lex Luthor.

He made several changes. Some were trivial: Superman's cape was no longer indestructible. Some were beneficial: Ma and Pa Kent were still alive and able to give him advice from time to time and help keep him grounded. Some were significant: the Planet Krypton was altered from a world of scientific wonders to a cold, sterile dystopia; and Lex Luthor was changed from a criminal scientist to a corrupt zillionaire industrialist. And two of the changes caused severe complication further down the line.

For one thing, it was decreed that in the Post-Crisis Univers, Superman would be the sole survivor of the destruction of Krypton. No more Phantom Zone Criminals; no more Bottle City of Kandor; no more Krypto; and no more Kara Zor-El, better known as Supergirl. This last made a little narrative sense, because Supergirl had been killed during the Crisis, so there was some justification for saying that she had been retroactively deleted from existence. It was still a disappointment for fans of heroines in mini-skirts, though.

The other change seemed more trivial but had far from trivial repercussions. Back during the Silver Age, DC had expanded the Super-Franchise with SUPERBOY, the adventures of Superman, when he was a boy. With the Byrne reboot, it was decided that Post-Crisis, Clark Kent did not don the Big Red “S” costume and begin a public career as a super-hero until he was an adult. Superboy and all his wacky teen super-exploits in Smallville, were chucked down the memory hole, along with Supergirl, Krypto and the Legion of Super-Pets.

Ah, the Legion. There was the rub.

The Legion of Super-Heroes, a team of super-powered teens from the 30^th Century, first appeared in a Superboy story in ADVENTURE COMICS. They had been inspired by the example of the Boy of Steel's legend, and so traveled back to the 20^th Century to invite young Clark to join their super-club. Superboy became an integral part of Legion history; but with Superboy gone, where did that leave the Legion?

The explanation the writers came up with involved an old Legion villain called the Time Trapper who lived at the End of the Universe. Not the geographic end; the chronological end. It turns out the the Trapper had created a Pocket Universe, similar to our universe in many respects, except that it only contains two inhabited planets: Earth and Krypton. Oh, and the pocket universe has a Superboy. And it turns out that every time the Legion traveled back in time to visit the 20^th Century, the Time Trapper was shunting them off into this pocket dimension. Why? He lives at the End of Time, a place almost as boring as Des Moines. He has to do something for amusement.

Superman finds out about the Pocket Universe when that world's Superboy crosses over to his world (along with Krypto!) and appears in Smallville. After some initial confusion, (including a panel which rivals anything in the Weisinger Era for goofiness, in which Krypto tries to stop Superman by pulling on his cape. Superman comments on how odd it is that the flying dog seems surprised that his cape ripped), the Time Trapper's role in this is revealed, and Superboy is returned to the Pocket Universe.

This explanation for the continued existence of Superboy was ingenious, but inelegant. The whole point of the Crisis was to do away with all those extraneous universes. Superboy's Earth was a loose end; and calling it a “Pocket Universe” did not make it any neater.

I don't know if John Byrne received an editorial mandate to eliminate the Pocket Universe, or if he decided to do it on his own initiative; but within a year of the Superboy cross-over, he began a multi-part storyline to ensure that Superman was once again the Last Son of Krypton – any Krypton.

It begins with the appearance of a mysterious new Supergirl. She is not from Krypton, nor from the other Krypton either. Her name is Matrix and she is an artificial life-form created by the Lex Luthor of the Pocket Universe. In her natural state, Matrix looks like an anthropomorphic wad of bubble gum, but she is a shape-shifter and at first appears in the form of Lana Lang, Clark Kent's high school crush, because John Byrne has a thing for redheads.

Matrix has been sent to this world because the Pocket Universe needs Superman's help. Her Earth has been attacked by the three Phantom Zone Criminals led by General Zod and all but conquered.

A quick digression about the Phantom Zone. As old-timers who remember the Christopher Reeves SUPERMAN will recall, the Phantom Zone is an other-dimensional limbo where the Kryptonians used to exile their worst criminals. Superman's father, Jor-El, devised a means of sending criminals to the Phantom Zone as a humane alternative to execution. The idea was that the Kryptonian parole board would periodically check in on the Zone to release those who had served their sentence. Then Krypton blew up. Oops. No parole for you, Zod.

In the Pocket Universe, Zod and some of his followers have escaped from the Phantom Zone and have laid waste to the Earth. By the time Superman gets there, they have wiped out all life on the planet, except for a small enclave built by Luthor, who is a good guy in the Pocket Universe. Superman is just in time to participate in their desperate last stand.

And it is their last stand. In that final battle, pretty much everybody dies: Luthor, Superboy, the works. Zod and his cohorts are defeated, but apart from Matrix, who is badly wounded, only Superman survives on the good guy's side.

And here is where it comes. Zod is captured, at Superman's mercy. Zod has just killed the entire population of the Pocket Universe's Earth; (which, since Krypton has already blown up, is the entire population of the Pocket Universe). It falls to Superman to decide what to do with these criminals.

He goes into Luthor's lab and gets out the kryptonite.

It had been previously established that the kryptonite of the Pocket Universe did not affect Superman any, but it would affect Kryptonians of that universe. Superman takes the kryptonite out of its lead container and exposes Zod and his companions to it until the radiation from the kryptonite kills them. The last survivors of the Pocket Universe are dead.

And Superman broke his most sacred oath; to protect life and to never kill.

But surely, could he be blamed? These criminals had just killed an entire planet full of people; billions of them. Surely they deserved death. You could even make the argument that the relatively quick, if excruciating, death by kryptonite poisoning Superman gave them was more merciful than they deserved. But did Superman have to do it that way?

He could have just banished them to the Phantom Zone again, like Jor-El did years ago. It's not like there was anybody in the Pocket Universe who could bring them back anymore. They would spend the rest of eternity in a dimensional limbo as bodiless phantoms.

Perhaps crueler still, Superman could have just walked away. He could have just gone back to his home universe and left Zod to be emperor of a ruined, lifeless planet. Of course, Superman would want to make sure that Zod couldn't use Luthor's technology to follow him back to Earth, but that wouldn't be all that hard. Or so you would think.

No, comic book narrative logic insists that Zod would find a way out of the Pocket Universe eventually, just as soon as some other writer wanted to use him. Which is why he had to die. The whole point of the story was to get rid of the Pocket Universe, and eliminate all those pesky loose ends.

Byrne could have had Zod killed by a twist of fate; by an act of hubris that proved fatal. He could have had Superman kill him in the heat of battle, as Superman later did with Doomsday. Instead, he chose to have Superman execute Zod, with cold-blooded deliberation. I think that's what stuck in the craw of many fans. I know it bugged me.

And then Byrne left and went back to Marvel. The issue in which Superman kills Zod was the last one John Byrne wrote on his run of SUPERMAN; his farewell to the Last Son of Krypton. Later on he did other stories for DC, such as a decent WONDER WOMAN run during the '90s, and the Green Lantern graphic novel GANTHET'S TALE, written by Larry Niven; but his re-defining of the Post-Crisis Superman, and the bitter ending to his reign, marks a significant era in Superman history.

Afterwards, the Legion of Super-Heroes dealt with the Time Trapper, which wound up retroactively messing up their history further.

One character from the Pocket Universe survived: Matrix, who now formally adopted the identity of Supergirl, because DC has to keep the trademark active so that they can continue to license Supergirl Underoos; and who adopted the Supergirl look and hair color the fans knew and loved, because parents aren't going to buy their daughters Lana Lang Underoos. Supergirl dated Lex Luthor Jr. for a while, until she learned that he was actually Lex Luthor Sr. in a cloned body. Gross. Then she merged with an angel, (which was not as doofy as that sounds) and after a while faded away to be replaced by a more traditional version of Supergirl in a later DC re-boot.

And what about Super-Judge, Jury and Executioner? The writing team that replaced Byrne had Clark grapple with an enormous amount of guilt after killing Zod. He killed one dangerous enemy. What would he do the next time he was in such a situation? Would it become the easy way out? Troubled by his conscience, Clark began unconsciously fighting crime in his sleep, taking on the identity of a non-powered street-level hero because he was afraid of misusing his powers. Finally, worrying that he might become a danger to the public, he left Earth for a time, wandering space in a self-imposed penance. It was a while before he regained his equilibrium.

I guess at heart I'm a bit like Jim Kirk. I've never liked the Kobiyashi Maru, the “No-Win” situation, ever since the time in a college writing class we were given such a situation to write about. (I came up with a third option which the instructor hadn't given us; I had the option fail because under the premise we were given it couldn't work, but by Crumb I insisted on making a third option).

I can understand a writer wanting to challenge his hero by putting him in a situation where he has to make hard choices that test his ethical principles. And you can argue that allowing the hero to come up with an escape that lets him out of those choices is contrived and unrealistic. But it seems to me that the situations some writers come up with to force heroes like Superman into these choices is just as contrived.

And that's how I felt about the First Death of Zod.

Götterbatterung

The mid 1980s was a wonderful time to be reading comics, especially for a DC fan. Maybe it just seemed that way to me, because I had just started seriously buying comics and found a local comic book club about that time; but there were some really incredible things going on about then. DC had just upended the universe with its CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS. John Byrne was retooling Superman in his own image, and George Perez was breathing fresh life into Wonder Woman. Alan Moore was leading the British Invasion of Comics with his startling re-interpretation of Swamp Thing, planting the seeds for DC's VERTIGO line of Mature Readers comic, and was about to stagger everybody with WATCHMEN.

And then there was THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS.

Published in 1986, THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS was a four-part series telling of the Twilight of the Batman; his final days and his last and greatest fight against his ultimate enemy. It was the creation of Frank Miller, who had just come off of his highly-regarded RONIN limited series and a lengthy and successful run on DAREDEVIL. Along with WATCHMEN, DKR marked the start of the “Grim 'n' Gritty” era of comic books which remains with us today.

There's a lot of interesting stuff in DKR: Miller's use of TV talking heads as a kind of Greek chorus commenting on the action; his introduction of Carrie Kelly, the first female Robin; his drily sarcastic interpretation of Alfred and his very human Commissioner Gordon. And a lot of controversial stuff, like the Batman's frothing Dirty Harry rants; the effeminate depiction of the Joker, Selina Kyle's reinterpretation as a prostitute, (Frank dearly loves his prostitutes, as SIN CITY has shown us); and the Joker's hippie-dippy psychiatrist who blames the Batman for all his patient's neuroses.

But given the recent release of BATMAN V SUPERMAN, I'd like to look at the climactic battle of DKR, which the BvS movie tried to invoke: the clash between the World's Finest Heroes.

It has been ten years since Something Bad happened to Jason Todd, the second boy to take on the role of Robin. We are never told what this Something Bad is, but it caused Batman to hang up his cape and cowl and retire. Bruce Wayne is in his fifties now, brooding over the past and watching his city slowly dying of violence, crime and corruption. Finally he had take it no longer.

Over the course of the first three chapters, we see Bruce struggling against his compulsion to resume his one-man war on crime and finally embracing it; we see him go up against his one-time friend Harvey Dent, alias Two-Face, who at first also seems to have conquered his inner demons, but who like Bruce seems destined to succumb to them. We see him take on a savage street gang that holds the city in terror and recruit a new Robin to take Jason's place. We see the Joker, who had been in a state of catatonia for ten years until he heard that Batman has come back, murder a studio full of people on the David Letterman show; and we see Batman pursue him into an amusement park to a final confrontation even more visceral and final than Alan Moore's similar fight in THE KILLING JOKE.

It's all leading up to Superman.

I remember when DKR first came out, members of our local comic book club arguing over the splash panel of Batman, in a bulky suit of powered armor belting Superman. Could that really happen? I mean, Superman? Faster than a speeding bullet? More powerful than a locomotive? Against a guy in a bat suit? Even a powered bat suit; really?

But Miller set up the fight to make it halfway plausible. Supes was recovering from having a block-buster nuke blow up in his face, and so was not at his best; Bats was wearing specially-designed armor to boost his strength; and he'd managed to synthesize some kryptonite to weaken Superman further. This, I think, was the origin of the oft-stated mantra of Batman fans that the Batman can defeat any opponent up to and including God, given enough time to prepare. Most importantly, though, Clark doesn't really want to hurt Bruce. But we'll get back to that in a moment.

Why would Superman and Batman fight in the first place?

Earlier, Clark pays Bruce a visit at Wayne Manor. He tries to persuade Bruce to back off on the bat-stuff. “You're not a young man anymore Bruce... time have changed...” Finally he spits it out. “It's like this, Bruce – Sooner or later, somebody's going to order me to bring you in. Somebody with authority. When that happens...”

Bruce doesn't smile as much as he bares his teeth. “When that happens, Clark – May the best man win.”

In the years that have passed, public sentiment has turned against super-heroes. Although not explicitly stated, this might well have been one of the reasons behind Bruce's retirement ten years ago. Later on, we get an internal monologue from Superman recalling the time:

The rest of us learned to cope. 

The rest of us recognized the danger – of the endless envy of those not blessed.

Diana went back to her people.

Hal went to the stars.

And I have walked the razor's edge for so long...

Long ago Clark made a deal with the devil. He agreed to work for the Government, and to operate discretely and covertly. In return, the Government grants him secrecy. And refrains from trying to take him down. Could even the combined forces of the United States military bring down Superman? Clark doesn't want to find out. And even if he could beat the Army, Clark fears the kind of hell such a war would mean for everybody involved.

Bruce despises Clark for selling out this way. And Clark doesn't like it much himself. In another monologue he says:

“I gave them my obedience and my invisibility.

           They gave me a license and let us live.

No, I don't like it. But I get to save lives – and the Media stays quiet.

But now the storm is growing again ---

They'll hunt us down again –

Because of you.

The order to take Batman down comes straight from the President. Clark doesn't want to kill him, but he knows that Bruce won't let him take him alive. So the stage is set for the final battle, in Crime Alley, where Bruce's parents died and where, in a real sense, the Batman was born.

Armed to the teeth with every attack he can think of, on a battlefield he's rigged with traps and ambushes, Batman gives Superman the fight of his life. And through it all, we get Bruce's bitter, angry monologue:

“Still talking – keep talking, Clark...

...You've always known just what to say.

“Yes” – You always say yes to anyone with a badge – or a flag …

… it's way past time you learned – what it means – to be a MAN!”

There are some Batman fans who cheer him in this fight, who revel in watching Batman take that Big Blue Boy Scout down a peg; watching him humiliate Superman.

But Miller also gives us bits of Clark's monologue too: “Bruce – this is idiotic … Bruce – I just broke three of your ribs...” Even after getting a face full of kryptonite gas; even after getting a spiked boot smashed into his face. Clark doesn't stop trying to talk him down. He is not dismayed by the violence Batman is inflicting on him; he can take it. He is dismayed by the sound of Bruce's heartbeat growing more erratic, and then stopping.

This, to me, is what makes THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS moving. It's not the epic of a Man fighting a God; it's the tragedy of two heroes fighting who once were friends. Bruce is probably the only peer Clark has left on earth. Clark desperately wishes the fight could be avoided, that they could once again be friends. But he winds up cradling Bruce's lifeless body in his arms.

The story doesn't end there of course; Bruce had one last trick up his bat-gauntlet. He had time to prepare, remember? And the moment at Bruce's funeral where Clark realizes what the trick was, and gives Robin a smile is a warm and satisfying one in an otherwise grim and cynical story.

BATMAN V SUPERMAN lifted a lot of imagery from THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, and director Zack Snyder has said that he was faithful to the source material. Maybe. But by taking a fight written at the end of the relationship between Bruce and Clark and putting it at the beginning, he has made it a completely different fight. And, I would argue, he's taken a lot of the heart out of it as well. Perhaps he managed to find a new heart to this new fight; one which could lead the two heroes to actually become friends the way they were in a different universe.

I hope that's the case.

Superman's Pal, JFK

One of the Legendary Comic Books of the Silver Age featured a cameo by President John F. Kennedy.  Part of its legend comes from the fact that it hit the newsstands just a week after JFK was assassinated. 

ACTION COMICS #309  was already at the printers when the assassination occurred and it was too late for the company to cancel the issue.  They were afraid the public would consider the comic to be in bad taste under the circumstances.  I don't know if the public did, but in retrospect, the issue is a quirky piece of comics history, as well as a sad commentary on how times have changed.

It starts off as a typical Silver Age Superman story.  Superman is expected to attend a public ceremony in his honor.  All in the line of duty for a hero as beloved as Superman.  The problem is that Clark Kent has been selected as one of the people to share the stage with him.

Now normally this would be no biggie; Superman would just use one of his robot duplicates to impersonate him or maybe ask his buddy Bruce Wayne to pose as Clark Kent.  Except that Batman is also supposed to be at the event honoring him; and Lois Lane has set up metal detectors at all the entrances to the hall as one of her wacky schemes to prove that Clark is really Superman.  Dang that woman!

So what's a Man of Steel to do?

The story leaves the reader in suspense until the very last page.  Superman appears at the event, and shakes the hands of both Batman and Clark Kent.  Lois fails to detect any robot impostors.  How did Superman pull it off?

At the very end we see Superman going to thank his secret accomplice who helped by posing as Clark:  John F. Kennedy.

(Part of me has to wonder if that would really work, if Kennedy really could convincingly impersonate a 6-foot plus Midwestern farm-boy.  I have this mental image of Lois saying, “You can cut the phoney ‘Bahston accent’ any time now, Clark; no one is laughing!”)

In the last panel, Superman tells his super-confidant:  "I knew I wasn't risking my secret identity with you !  After all, if I can't trust the President of the United States, who can I trust?"

Comics guru Tony Isabella has cited this issue as his standard for a good president.  A good president, he says, is one to whom Superman can confidently divulge his Secret Identity.  Sadly, we have had very few in my lifetime whom I think Superman could trust.

But for the heck of it, let’s play that game.  Granted, this is going to be highly subjective and open to argument, but what the hey:  Which presidents could Superman trust.?

We’ll leave off Kennedy; I was barely a toddler when he died; besides, we’ve already established that Superman trusted him.  Next.

I don’t think he’d trust Johnson.  Although I think that Superman would approve of many of LBJ’s social programs, Johnson was also a shrewd horse-dealer.  Any president in whom Supes confided would face the temptation to take advantage of that confidence and use Superman to his own ends.  And I could see Johnson doing that.

I don’t see Supes trusting Tricky Dick at all.  Apart from Nixon’s antipathy towards reporters, trust is a two-way street and I don’t see Nixon bringing himself to trust Superman.  He’d be more likely to have the FBI investigate him to discover his Secret Identity.  Heck, Nixon might even put Lex Luthor on his payroll, and keep in mind that this was the era where Luthor was an Evil Scientist and not a Respected Zillionaire Industrialist.

I can’t really say about Ford.  He seemed to me like a decent enough guy, but he really wasn’t president long enough to give a good sense of what kind of person he was  He’s doomed to be a footnote of history, I’m afraid.

Jimmy Carter is one I think Superman could trust.  Carter always struck me as a man with a great deal of moral integrity, both as president and his career afterwards.  You can argue about how good a president he was, but I think he was and is a good man.

Reagan… not so much.  Don’t get me wrong; I liked Reagan.  I drew political cartoons for my college newspaper during his administration and he was fun to draw.  But whenever he talked about Values and Morality, I always had a sense that he was playing to the audience, giving them what they wanted to hear.  There’s an old saying in the Theater that the most important part of acting is Sincerity… and if you can fake that you’ve got it made.  Ronald Reagan was a very good actor.  I like to think that he did have a strong sense of decency, but I think he more often used it to justify his ideology rather than to inform it.

Unlike some of the previous presidents, Reagan appeared numerous times in the comic books himself.  (Even not counting REAGAN’S RAIDERS, an earnest fan comic of the ‘80s in which Ronald and his closest advisers gain super-powers and punch out the Foes of America).  I can think of two instances in which he is shown directly interacting with Superman.

In Frank Miller’s THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, Superman is portrayed as the President’s lap dog, running errands for him and clandestinely fighting America’s enemies.  In Miller’s dystopian future, all super-heroes have been forced into retirement or hiding.  Superman’s arrangement with the President allows him to continue doing some good in the world, but he clearly resents it..

Another take on the idea was given in a FIRESTORM storyline by John Ostrander during the ‘80s in which Firestorm decides to use his powers to disarm both the US and the USSR.  There is a scene in one issue where President Reagan summons Superman to the Oval Office in order to ask him to take Firestorm down.  Superman respectfully declines, saying that he’s not entirely sure the boy is wrong, and that it’s an idea he’s though about himself; (a cute allusion to the well-intentioned but badly-executed SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE).

I do think, however, that Superman could trust George Bush père.  The elder Bush was a former director of the CIA, not to mention a Skull-and-Bonesman back in his Yale days.  I think he understands the importance of keeping a secret and would respect Superman’s.  Although I didn’t vote for him, I always felt Bush Sr. was a man of integrity.

Bill Clinton, less so.  It’s been said that Clinton regarded JFK as a role model; if so, he imitated Kennedy’s less admirable qualities.  I think he did all right as president… but not nearly as good as he might have had he not let his id get the better of him.  I don’t think he’s quite dependable enough for Superman to trust with his Secret Identity.  (Although in a curious coincidence, it has long been established – long before Bill Clinton was elected -- that Clark Kent’s home address in Metropolis is an apartment on Clinton Avenue).

I don’t think Bush fils is terribly reliable either.  Like Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush likes to speak of his religious faith, but unlike Carter, I’ve never felt the sense that this faith translated either into his policies, or (which is more relevant to this little game) his personal life.

Which brings us down to Barack Obama.  I suppose here my own political biases, as if they weren’t already obvious, are evident.  I like Obama, and I think he’s a decent man.  But even more than that, he is himself a comic book fan.  He is our first Presidential Geek-In-Chief.  Whether you like or hate his policies, you have to give him that.  Some of our previous presidents have seemed like comic book characters, but none of them have been fans.  Obama is.

If Superman ever met the President in person, as he occasionally has in the comics, he would doubtless say, “It is an honor to meet you, sir.”  That is because Ma and Pa Kent raised him right, and taught him to show respect.  Superman would show respect to the office regardless of his opinion of the office-holder and regardless of who Clark Kent voted for.  I think Obama alone, of the presidents I’ve listed, would reply, “No, Superman, the honor is all mine.”  He would certainly keep Superman’s secret, and would take pleasure in that responsibility.

Superman's Underpants

Several years ago, Nicholas Cage was signed to star in a Superman movie.  The movie never came through, (which is probably for the best, all things considered), but during the brief period when it looked possible, I saw Cage on a talk show discussing the project.  He said that he had initially been leery about wearing the traditional Superman costume, because he thought that red briefs over the blue tights looked, well, embarrassing.  The designers for the project made up some sketches of alternative Superman costumes, and he took the sketches home to show his son.  Cage’s son was unimpressed by them, and persuaded his father to stick with the traditional look, because the sleeker, trendier designs didn’t Look Like Superman.

Since then, the Superman movies which have come out, and the New 52’s Superman from the comic books, have chosen to disregard the wisdom of the young Mr. Cage.  Whether this is a good or a bad thing is a matter of taste; but it does bring up one of the enduring mysteries of comics:

Why DOES Superman wear his underwear on the outside?

Superman, of course, was the first.  The super-heroes who followed him also followed his precedent of briefs over tights, simply because Superman had set the model for what a super-hero ought to look like.  But even then, the convention received its share of good-natured ribbing.

Sheldon Meyer was arguably Superman’s very first fan.  According to his own story, when he was a young man working as editor for comics publishing pioneer M.C. Gaines, he persuaded his boss that Siegel and Schuster’s outlandish hero, who had been rejected by every newspaper syndicate in the country, could be a success.  But even he recognized the silliness of superhero costumes.  He created a super-hero parody of his own, The RED TORNADO, who wore a tablecloth cape and a helmet fashioned out of an old spaghetti pot along with – and this is the most important part -- red woolen long johns with a pair of boxer shorts over them.  Because that’s what those funnybook heroes wore.

The meta reason is that when Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster created the character, they wanted to evoke the look of circus strongmen and aerialists, and so based his costume design on the tights worn by circus performers.  Another reason which occurs to me might have been that curved edge of the “briefs” show the contour of the figure’s torso and legs, giving it a sense of form and making it look less flat.

But those reasons don’t really serve as “in-world” explanations for why Clark Kent, upon embarking as a career as a costumed hero, would dress that way.

For much of Superman’s history, his writers have just ignored the subject.  Superman looks the way he looks because that’s the way he looks.  Some of the earlier comics depicting Krypton suggest that the briefs look was a Kryptonian fashion, but I don’t think it was intended that way.  I know of one fan who insists that the costume is peer-pressure; that the briefs are a 30th Century style that Superman picked up during his youthful adventures with the Legion of Super-Heroes.   More recently, it’s been established that Ma Kent made his costume, so perhaps Clark just never wanted to tell his mom that he thought it looked doofy.

A friend of mine who with his wife make costumes as a hobby gave me another perspective on this matter.  He was telling me about a really bad costume he once saw at a comic book convention.  It was of Cloak, from the Marvel comic book CLOAK & DAGGER, and it was essentially a dark hooded cape worn over a black body stocking.  Cloak did not wear Superman-style briefs, as the character was created in the ‘80s after super-hero fashions had shifted a bit.  Neither was the guy in the costume wearing a jock.  “You could tell,” my friend intoned somberly.  “Spandex is unforgiving.  It shows EVERYTHING.”

That seems like a practical explanation right there.  Superman has to wear something in addition to his tights for the sake of modesty; and he wears them on the outside, because if he wore them underneath, people could see his panty-lines which would look silly too.  At least on the outside, the briefs become a design element in the look of the costume.

But something else occurred to me too.  And here I’m afraid I’m going to have to allude to Unpleasant Bodily Functions.  I recently read a satirical piece pondering those questions which the movies never answer, such as: how do movie super-heroes go to the bathroom?  Their costumes certainly don’t appear to be designed for that contingency; which is even stranger when you consider that unlike the costumes worn by comic book characters, these have to be worn by actual flesh-and-blood humans.

I can only think of a couple instances I’ve seen where this issue has come up in the comics.  One of them was a bit from Alan Moore’s WATCHMEN in which Nite-Owl recalls a case where he had to heed a Call of Nature while out on a stakeout.  By the time he was able to get back, the criminal he wanted to tail had already left.  After that, he says, he re-designed his costume so he wouldn’t have that problem again.  Silk Spectre does not seem particularly anxious for him to elaborate; and frankly, neither does the reader.

But while musing on this, it all came together:  Super-Hero Bodily Functions, The Man of Steel’s Underpants, the Unforgiving Nature of Spandex; even Red Tornado’s Union Suit.  It was all connected.

The traditional red woolen long johns, such as those worn by Ma Hunkel in RED TORNADO and immortalized in the classic novelty song “Walking In My Winter Underwear” sported a flap in the back, secured by buttons, which could be unfastened to provide convenient access when the wearer had to Do His Business.  By necessity, Superman’s tights would need something similar.  Ma Kent is a practical woman; she would have thought of these things when she made the suit.

And when the woolen long johns were depicted in low-brow cartoons, the flap inevitably came undone, offering a glimpse of the wearer’s hinterlands.  I’m pretty sure that Supes would want to keep his privates… er, private; so in order to do that and still keep convenient access for moments of necessity, the obvious solution would be to cover up with something that can be easily removed.  Like his super-panties.

That is my theory, anyway.  If an explanation is really needed.  Perhaps it’s just better, though, to simply say that Superman dresses the way he does because he’s Superman and that’s what Superman looks like.

It works for me.