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Post by rberman on Feb 27, 2018 6:30:39 GMT -5
Issue #1: Smallville (January 2004)
Plot: David and Laurel Kent live in Picketsville, Kansas and thought it would be cute to name their only son Clark in homage to the superhero character from the funny books. His relatives inundate him with Superman-themed gifts every year which form a big, unopened pile in his closet, and mild-mannered Clark tries to go along with the gag gamely, even though he kind of resents being a running joke. And sure enough, his hobbies include typing and solitude, and one night he awakens to find he’s floating high in the air, carefree, just like Astro City’s Samaritan character in his dreams. Clark ponders the irony that in the comics, no one knows Clark is Superman, but in his own life, everyone from the cute girl Cassie down the street to the bullies at school know about the Clark-Superman connection, coloring their perceptions of him. You’d think a guidance counselor or sympathetic pastor would have pointed this out to his family at some point, but then there wouldn’t be a story. He hangs out with the geeks by default but isn’t really one of them either; they keep forgetting that he doesn’t share their encyclopedic knowledge of comic book lore just because of his name. Clark knows from the comic books that he’d better keep his powers secret, though he does at least dodge some of the bullies’ punches. He wonders whether his parents are really his parents. Then one day the nearby town of Hopefield floods, and he saves some people, a blur of red and blue that gets tongues wagging and cameras clicking. Clark decides to confide in reporter Wendy Case, granting her an interview while keeping his face hidden. As Superboy’s fame grows, Clark enjoys knowing that it’s really him that all the kids at school are gushing about. But Case betrays his trust, attempting to record one of their meetings with a low-light video camera, so he cuts off the relationship with the only person with whom he had felt comfortable talking about his situation. Clark is one of many kids who dress as Superboy for the county fair at Halloween. When the Ferris Wheel collapses courtesy of Wendy Case, Clark whizzes around in the dark saving people, but he’s caught in a moment of light while lifting a beam off of Cassie. He covers by pretending to collapse under its weight, which appears to convince everyone that it was just a publicity stunt orchestrated by Case, who has a hotel room full of bomb-making supplies. Clark ponders his next move, how to help people without bringing the press and the government down upon him in the future. My Two Cents: Each issue of this series catches one stage of life for the protagonist; this one is about adolescence. Although the series is only four issues, each one is 48 pages, and Busiek packs plenty of character development into it. As in Astro City, most of the text is internal monologue summarizing the focus character’s thoughts about his life, and the art is a series of brief vignettes illustrating whatever generalization the text box discusses. Clark is surprisingly well-adjusted considering his loony family’s questionable choice to burden him with the baggage of the Superman mythos, but that lore stands him in good stead when he mysteriously manifests essentially the same power set himself. Beyond the obvious central conceit, Busiek slips in some jokes along the way, like his mom being Laurel (Lara-El). In Astro City, Busiek had a Lois Lane-type character named Irene Meriwether who was attracted to the Superman-like character Atomicus, yet kept trying to unmask his secret identity, to the point of ruining their relationship. Here, we get an even more malignant spin on that basic idea in the person of Wendy Case, who crosses the line from “intrepid reporter” to “unscrupulous sneak” to “murderous careerist” with distressing ease. Let me also take a moment to praise Stuart Immomen’s art. A series so heavy on characterization benefits from his excellent grasp of facial anatomy and body posture. It’s not as fully rendered as Alex Ross’ “see every pore” approach but still looks a lot more like painting than scribbling. 
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Post by Cei-U! on Feb 27, 2018 9:37:12 GMT -5
I like both Busiek and Immonen but this series sounds painfully contrived. Of course, I'll never know for sure unless I read it. Someday.
Cei-U!
I summon the snap judgement!
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Post by rberman on Feb 27, 2018 10:07:23 GMT -5
I like both Busiek and Immonen but this series sounds painfully contrived. Of course, I'll never know for sure unless I read it. Someday. Cei-U! I summon the snap judgement! The contrivance is just a pretext to tell the Superman story from scratch, with a focus on four phases of life, with Busiek’s typical attention to characterization and Immomen’s expressive art. |
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Post by mikelmidnight on Feb 27, 2018 12:45:11 GMT -5
I thought the series was charming, and a look at what ought to have happened to the Earth-Prime Superboy.
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Post by Randle-El on Feb 27, 2018 13:14:58 GMT -5
I don't really think of this as a Superman story. The Superman stuff is mostly window dressing. I could easily see this being an Image or Boom Studios series, where the Superman aspects are replaced with some other in-story fictional superhero references. It's a great series.
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Post by rberman on Feb 27, 2018 13:20:37 GMT -5
I don't really think of this as a Superman story. The Superman stuff is mostly window dressing. I could easily see this being an Image or Boom Studios series, where the Superman aspects are replaced with some other in-story fictional superhero references. It's a great series. And indeed, the "Superpowers derived from a meteor strike" part is very different from Superman's extraterrestrial (i.e. immigrant) origin story, while being the same as J. Michael Straczinski's "Rising Stars" setup from 1999. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Feb 27, 2018 14:27:41 GMT -5
I like both Busiek and Immonen but this series sounds painfully contrived. Of course, I'll never know for sure unless I read it. Someday. Cei-U! I summon the snap judgement! I was thinking exactly the same thing. With the added detriment of really not liking Superman in the first place. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 27, 2018 15:14:03 GMT -5
One of the best Superman stories I have ever read.
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Post by Duragizer on Feb 27, 2018 19:08:42 GMT -5
I bought the trade on a whim last year, read it for the first time back in the fall. It's an excellent story.
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Post by coke & comics on Feb 27, 2018 20:54:21 GMT -5
I like both Busiek and Immonen but this series sounds painfully contrived. Of course, I'll never know for sure unless I read it. Someday. Cei-U! I summon the snap judgement! I was thinking exactly the same thing. With the added detriment of really not liking Superman in the first place. I think this is a different type of Superman story. |
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Post by rberman on Feb 28, 2018 6:34:26 GMT -5
Issue #2: Metropolis (February 2004)
Plot: Clark Kent has just started work at The New Yorker in Manhattan and is doing some super-saving on the side. His boss suggests that Clark write books instead, and she gives him a contact at Pantheon Books. That night he meets Lois Chaudari, and after a brief “not another joke date!” misunderstanding, they hit it off, ending their first date with a chaste kiss, and subsequent dates with rather more. When Clark flies out one night to rescue a swamped schooner, it turns out to be a military set-up designed to capture him with energy weapons. He awakens in a bacta tank (well, it looks like one, straight out of Empire Strikes Back, minus the diaper) in a lab and overhears scientists discussing twelve meteor strikes, one of which is presumably somehow the source of his powers. He regains enough consciousness and strength to break free, burning the lab to the ground. Now he’s really worried. He adopts a pair of spectacles, and the signing of his book deal is not the celebration it once might have been. His lies to Lois are threatening their romance, and he can’t write. Finally he comes clean to her, giving her the Margot Kidder treatment above the city. They pledge their mutual support in overcoming whatever obstacles life throws at them next.
My Two Cents: This issue serves two functions. One is to overview the Clark/Lois love story, allowing it to actually progress to the logical conclusion of marriage which the regular Superman series was allowed to tease but not to fulfill, at least not as a permanent state of affairs. The second function of this issue is to bring the conflict between Superman and the government into the open. Clark is profoundly spooked by his experience in captivity. He already had known in abstract that the government would like to dissect or control him, but actually experiencing helplessness in their custody was quite another matter entirely. J. Michael Straczinski’s “Rising Stars” (1999-2005) and “Supreme Power” (2003-2005) series looked in-depth at the question of “What would the U.S. Government really do if they got their hands on baby Kal-El, or adult supers?” around this same time. Comparing and contrasting Straczinski’s work with Busiek’s would be an interesting task, but it would take us too far afield for the moment. Maybe in the future… Clark’s relationship with the New Yorker magazine seems unclear; he’s written a societal analysis pieces which the magazine purchases freelance, yet he also seems to have a desk of his own in their large newsroom, which I doubt is how The New Yorker operates. “I thought I was going to be fired,” he says at one point. But freelancers don’t get fired. Either Busiek or I (or possibly both of us) are under-informed about how print magazines get their content, especially in the digital age. But by the end of the issue, Clark has moved out of periodicals anyway, into the realm of hardback publishing, which offers a much more reasonable daily schedule for would-be superheroes. But “author” is also an isolating profession, as Busiek well knows, consisting mainly of sitting in your room, banging your head against the desk and occasionally deleting the last two hours of your labors. Clark’s New Yorker editor has already admonished him to get out and experience some life, not letting himself get isolated. As we’ll see, this goal is hard to fit in with the realities of Clark’s secret life. 
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Post by EdoBosnar on Feb 28, 2018 9:13:36 GMT -5
Just wanted to add that I also loved this series, too. It's one of the better Elseworlds-type Superman stories.
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Post by rberman on Mar 1, 2018 6:27:00 GMT -5
Issue#3: Fortress (March 2004)
Plot: Clark’s books have been published and well received, earning two spots as National Book Award Finalist; apparently common folk are more erudite on this version of our world. Lois is an environmental designer for skyscrapers, which probably makes more money. Their house in Maine (not quite the Arctic Circle) is under construction, and a tunnel near there leads to Boston harbor (Busiek is from Boston). Clark has accepted a cat and mouse with the government as the status quo, until he learns that Lois is pregnant. Clark responds to a fake distress call, knowing the government is setting him up yet again. He defeats their ambush and takes the opportunity to chat with Agent Malloy. Wouldn’t the government rather have Superman as an occasional asset for natural (not political or military) disasters? But the army just uses the palaver as an opportunity to maneuver for a second attack on Clark. Frustrated, he flees the scene. How to break the impasse? First, he pulls a series of super-pranks to make it clear to the government that he could wreck society if he really felt like it, so they better quit messing with him. Later, he sets up another meeting with Malloy, without the army around. His message: “Threaten me, and you push me into becoming what you fear… All I want to do is save lives. Do you really want to change that?” The government does call on him occasionally, but one of the rescue situations seems to have been timed to coincide with upcoming US elections, making him suspect a political dimension to the work he’s been asked to do. Worse, the mission causes him to miss the birth of his twin daughters.
My Two Cents: The government threat comes to a head, and an uneasy alliance ensues. Busiek portrays the US government as relentless and immoral, having no interest in using Superman simply to help society improve, but only to target trouble spots that happen to somehow advantage US foreign and domestic agendas. This seems like a strong commentary on the role of the US military, where even “humanitarian” missions have some unspoken secondary gain involved for US interests. Busiek is boiling the Superman story down to its most basic elements. Things that are not needed: Krypton. Kryptonite. Luthor. Super-villains. Bank robbers. 
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Post by rberman on Mar 2, 2018 6:33:20 GMT -5
It appears that our collective opinions on this series fall into two categories: "Haven't read it but sounds cheesy" and "That was great!" Issue #4: Tomorrow (April 2004)
Plot: Twenty-five years later, the girls ( Carol in Bangor, and Jane in Boston) are grown, bringing boyfriends home for Christmas. Lois’ business is flourishing. Clark is fifty-seven, and his books are used in college courses. But he feels his abilities dwindling significantly. Even a trip to the sun just gives him a heavy tan, no recharge. Agent Malloy doesn’t call nearly as much as he used to. Does the government have other, more pliable super-assets now? He thinks of his daughters, who never showed signs of special abilities while they were growing up. Then one day he’s on the way to stop a tornado in Australia, but his daughters are already there, stopping it. Well, he didn’t tell his parents either. But should he expose the government’s legacy of secret experiments? What good and bad would come of it? Then while he’s rescuing a derailing train on a mountainside, his daughters show up to assist, and the family finally talks about it all openly. Malloy, on the verge of retirement, admits that he’s known Superman’s secret identity for years but never revealed it to his superiors, knowing how they would abuse the information. Another ten years pass. Government and private industry have a whole group of supers operating openly. Clark’s powers have mostly faded, and his last book is about all the other supers, but not his own family. Jane brings her kids Perry, Clark, and Jimmy to see the grandparents in Maine. Clark watches the sun set, and another sun rise. My two cents: Confession time: I cried reading the last pages of Watership Down. Something about a life well lived, and now ended, and a sense of “Well done, good and faithful servant.” There’s a similar sense at the end of Lord of the Rings. It’s in this issue too. 44 pages without any super-fights, just a story about a guy on the back end of life, concerned about the future of his family as parents are, but able to take pride in his own accomplishments and those of his progeny. He has plenty of time for philosophizing, to be the mouthpiece of Busiek’s central theme: “I had a secret identity, but… don’t we all? ... Mine was just a little louder than most.” This is of course the wish-fulfillment nugget at the heart of so many superhero tales. We are, each of us, more special than the world knows. The economics of corporate ownership and brand name protection keep Superman and Spiderman frozen in the same temporal amber as Charlie Brown and the Family Circus, always the age they first were. Arrested Development. Silver Age chafed against these restrictions, frequently offering “imaginary stories” (as if there was another kind of superhero tale) about Wonder Woman as a toddler, or Superman in his dotage. These novelties have yielded some of the most memorable, well-loved tales. Something actually happens in “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow” and “The Dark Knight Returns” and “X-Men: The End” and “Kingdom Come” and “All-Star Superman” and “Ultimates 1&2.” Some creator-owned properties have the gumption to bake the passage of meaningful time into their stories, as Elfquest, Love & Rockets, and Busiek’s own Astro City do. Superman: Secret Identity doesn’t just allow the passage of time; it’s about the passage of time, and Busiek deserves bonus points for credibly and movingly depicting a part of life’s road that he hasn’t yet walked himself.  |
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Post by String on Mar 2, 2018 11:42:19 GMT -5
I don't really think of this as a Superman story. The Superman stuff is mostly window dressing. I could easily see this being an Image or Boom Studios series, where the Superman aspects are replaced with some other in-story fictional superhero references. It's a great series. And indeed, the "Superpowers derived from a meteor strike" part is very different from Superman's extraterrestrial (i.e. immigrant) origin story, while being the same as J. Michael Straczinski's "Rising Stars" setup from 1999. So which of these would you possibly recommend more then, this mini-series or JMS' Superman: Earth One GNs? |
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