I was delighted by the fact that Absolute Superman was every bit as good as Absolute Batman and Absolute Wonder Woman. I think it is probably the best of the three. The Absolute line has been incredible for the characters as they are stripped down, essentialist versions of the characters; though circumstances change, what makes them Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman shine through, no matter what. At least so far, I’ve only seen the first issue from each title.

With Absolute Superman though, in addition to establishing Kal-El as having grown up under the guidance of his parents to a degree, the main appeal to me is that the socialist element of Superman’s character, worldview, and actions has persisted and grown with this new incarnation. Living with the brutal social hierarchy of Krypton, a stratified society based on the perceived value of one’s labor, galvanized something that has largely been brushed aside in the character for a large swath of his publishing existence.

The New Man From Krypton

The socialist elements of early Superman, dating back to his first appearances following Action Comics #1 in 1938, have been well documented. Many have written on the topic, such as Hank Kennedy, and it is hard not to think of the Klan-smashing immigrant who fights industrialists as the superhuman ideal of the socialist critique of society; it lines up too well. He is the idealized, hopeful new soviet man of the future, delivered from the stars to guide the working man to a better tomorrow.

Grant Morrison can confirm as much, and he knows a thing or two about The Man of Steel. Here is a telling quote from an interview with him by Helen Lewis for The New Statesman…

At the beginning, Superman was very much a socialist superhero. He fought for the unemployed, the oppressed, he beat up wife-beaters. It’s about a man driven by a burning sense of injustice — there are no monsters or robots, he fights against corrupt council officials! He was conceived as a Depression-era superhero, who dealt with the problems of ordinary people.

Therein lies an issue; though. That Superman was of a time. Characters evolve, grow, and regress – the publishing history of a character is rife with rivers, streams, and tributaries of interpretation. Superman would begin to change as early as the 1940s, becoming more associated with broader themes of Americana amid the Second World War.

It doesn’t seem a coincidence that the character’s human identity emerged out of what was once John Brown’s Bleeding Kansas. Kansas was a hotbed of leftist ideals in the Depression. Brown sought radical justice for people, at the point of a knife and the barrel of a gun. A true freedom fighter.

As Kate Appel Eckert writes in “Let’s celebrate the hot-blooded, radical, progressive history of Kansas”…

Kansas entered the Union as a free state after a violent conflict over slavery, known as Bleeding Kansas, putting our dear friend John Brown on the map and serving as a “tragic prelude” of sorts to the imminent Civil War. It would later become host of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling, which paved the way for the end of segregation.

Kansas spearheaded the suffrage movement at the state level, became a safe haven for socialist thinkers, and was the very first state to outlaw alcohol during the prohibition. And in recent years, Kansas was the first state to protect abortion rights after the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Kansas is consistently at the heart of every single revolution in America.

How aware Seigel and Shuster were of the weight of Kansas in American liberal history I cannot say, but we are looking at a character introduced during the height of Roosevelt’s New Deal, and Kansas was a location that benefitted greatly from FDR’s policy. The Kansas of the 30s was a place where the hardscrabble working class leaned left.

But Superman’s origins tying him to Kansas as the site of his immigration is only one small part of the socialist elements present in the character’s beginnings, and continued existence. It’s laid out wonderfully in the embedded comic below from the CommunistScenarist Tumblr:

The beating heart of the Man of Steel is social justice, and not always the popular and marketable kind. Superman smashing the destructive robots and lasers of rich mad scientists is all fun and games until the mad scientists and ultra-tich begin to run the show as far as the real world is concerned.

Add to that the emerging American identity of the post-war; Americans perceived they were rich, successful, and saved the world from an ultimate hero. Why stir the pot with the unpleasantness of social ills in our comics when the GDP is up and the babies are booming? Market pressure and the rise of the patriotic angle of WWII would push Superman to something less controversial, at least intentionally controversial, and into the broader and goofier (but still fun) tone of the Code-era books.

That is not the say the Code-era is bad. It gave us incredible comics, but something about Superman seemed off, maybe a bit diluted. Like the Kryptonite cuffs were on. While largely goofy and harmless to the powers that be, the books did take their shots, displacing the social ills of society onto the villains in compelling ways.

Enemies and Ideals

As exciting as it can be to watch Superman punch a robot or fight Doomsday, Metallo, or Toyman, Superman’s greatest enemy has always been the worst impulses of his adopted community. Superman’s villains are fascinating and represent all manner of social ills, but many early Superman comics we less about identifiable rogues and more about the issues of the day in the era the comics were written. However, even as the comics drifted away from these concerns, the DNA is still there, often concentrated on iconic villains.

My favorite Superman villains have always been Lex Luthor and Brainiac. Both characters lend themselves well to social justice themes and make for great antagonists for Superman, not only as the big blue guy but as Clark Kent himself. Lex Luthor is deserving of an exploration of his own; I feel much the same about Brainiac. But what I want to emphasize is the social justice angle of both that the best Superman stories featuring these characters tend to explore.

Lex Luthor

Lex Luthor is a character who is easy to write, but not so easy to write well. It’s too easy to dip into “evil businessman” and be done with it. Luthor is so much more powerful than that. If Superman is the socialist man of steel, then Lex Luthor is the capitalist equivalent. He is the pinnacle of Laissez-faire economics; a man so powerful he runs for President of the United States, wins, and the role is still less powerful than he actually has as Lex Luthor, genius, billionaire philanthropist.

Luthor is a chameleon – time and again he comes back the the bald look, which is incredibly iconic, but his appearance shifts many times, inspired by the perceptions of the rich and powerful of each age. In John Byrne’s era, Luthor appears as the platonic ideal of the corporate fat cat, slicked-back hair and cigar in hand.

Today, in the brilliant animated series My Adventures With Superman, he appears as a tech twink – a young upstart of Silicon Valley, because Luthor represents the worst impulses of capitalism at all times. One of those impulses is innovation for profit.

Of course, this all began with Luthor, the Mad Scientist of the Golden Age of comics. The relationship between science and capitalism is the story of America, and Luthor is just another figure in the long lineage of exploiters of innovation for profit. For-profit discovery – where science is viewed in potential market share and less about discovery for discovery’s sake.

The best stories that revolve around Lex Luthor pit him against Superman and Clark Kent, where Superman must use his powers to take on Luthor’s capitalistic science, but the clues are gathered and laid out by everyman reporter Clark Kent and the ever-iconic Lois Lane. In these stories, the depths of greed and depravity of economic-driven science are smashed by Superman and laid bare by the alter ego – the farm boy from Kansas bringing socialist ideals to the big city.

Brainiac

Much like Lex Luthor, Brainiac is an ideal foe for Superman. Brainiac and Luthor tend to have similar approaches to how they deal with their Kryptonian nemesis, and they are often paired to brilliant effect. Brainiac has a very complicated continuity and is sometimes an android from Colu, and other times a tool of the Kryptonians who betrays them in pursuit of data. I tend to prefer the latter, as it adds some extra heft to his encounters with Superman and the presence of the Bottled City of Kandor. it also seems fitting that Krypton’s imperial pursuits ultimately create the enemy within that destroys them.

Luthor and Brainiac are both avatars of avarice and greed. It is more tangible with Luthor – power and money – than it is with Brainiac. He is a kind of intellectual capitalist, akin to the most horrific museum curator one can imagine. He plunders cultures dispassionately with no interest in them beyond categorization into his worldview and his systems. Once he has what he needs, he leaves worlds as drained husks or outright destroyed and moves on to the next resource – uncollected knowledge.

Braniac’s modus operandi is not unlike the mechanisms of resource extraction, such as minerals and oil. It is just on a cosmic scale, and attached to a fairly sinister cultural imperialist angle where Brainiac is the arbiter of what is important, real, and valuable. The universe exists solely as data to be mined and categorized and perfectly preserved, regardless of who is occupying it, as they can always be included or removed at the whim of Braniac – the end-point of algorithmic thinking.

It’s hard for me to think about Braniac and not draw parallels to today’s information-based economy, corporatization of the internet, and the rise of Silicon Valley “altruists” to the levers of power. There is more to explore here, but I have digressed enough already.

Let’s get back to Superman.

Absolute Superman is Absolutely Awesome

All of the above was a preamble to establish the things that I view as my ideal Superman. Absolute Superman is the distillation of the ideal Superman. From what I have read, the first issue, Absolute Superman evokes these elements quite well, and there is a lot of potential. I am on the hook, and I hope that writer Jason Aaron can reel me in.

The following contains spoilers for the first issue.

The premise is simple: it’s Superman. The core of the character remains, but with some alterations that create a more contemporary, essentialist version of the beloved character and story. Take for example Kal-El, the man who will come to be known as Superman, who lived on Krypton with his parents for a time. This isn’t an entirely new conceit, but the political situation of Krypton here seems essential to the motivation and worldview of Kal-El.

Krypton is very much an empire of conquest through science, and is very hierarchical, with Kal-El being born into the planet’s working class. His parents, Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van are people who had the class system not been so draconian and exploitative, contributed great things to Krypton.

As with modern storytelling, the series employs the mystery box approach of leaving elements of Kal-El’s past a story to be unraveled over flashbacks. We get scenes on Krypton to establish an incoming ecological crisis, but Kal-El’s narrative places him on Earth. Specifically, Brazil, fighting for the rights and against the exploitation of the workers of a mining company.

I can’t begin to tell you how much that moment clicked for me when I reached that section of the issue. The trajectory of a socially-awoken Superman, exposed to the horror of exploitation of labor witnessed on Krypton, bringing liberation to the workers of Brazil. It’s inspiring.

Workers of the world, unite. Superman has your back.

The fact that the crest that adorns his chest, the iconic “S” emblem, is the marker of Krypton’s Labor Guild, is going about as left as you can with the character. At least until he starts beating down on jackbooted fascist corporate guards known as Peacemakers (what a joke) who are mad at the workers for not suffering enough to draw diamonds from the mine.

Add to that a not-so-subtle introduction to this version of Brainiac and his bottled cities, and a Lois Lane who takes after her soldier father, and we have a fun blend of iconic Superman features, but with some twists further enhance the leftist nature that has always been inherent to the character.

Revolutions are not easy – as Superman seeks to help the workers, he inadvertently harms them and must rectify it. That is if the system seeking to crush him under the heels of paramilitary action doesn’t kill him first.

I’m worried, but I think he’ll win in the end. He is the Man of Steel and his labors will be rewarded.

Absolute Superman #1 is available from DC Comics at your favorite comic book retailer. It was written by Jason Aaron, and illustrated by Rafa Sandoval. Ulises Arreola colors the pages, while Becca Carey is the letterer.

Thank you for reading Panel By Panel. I hope you enjoyed this first edition – I may take on some reviews with the next one. I just know that I am grateful for any opportunity I can to explore my love of comics.

I plan on writing something a little more in-depth about Luthor and Brainiac in the future, but that is going to require a little more research on my end. I’ve been reading these characters for years, but I am due to reread them to make sure I am writing the best explorations I possibly can. If you are particularly interested in seeing me explore these two iconic villains, please drop a line in the comics with key issues you think I should cover.

Also, if you have a comic you would like to review, please contact me. I would be happy to consider it for the column. You can always help fund my writing online through a donation.

The post Panel By Panel: My Socialist Superman appeared first on hpkomics.com.

I have a deep passion for comics as I read, create, and study them. I also write about them somewhat regularly. I’ve written papers about different comics and many reviews of comics on the printed page and on the web.

Most recently, I had a regular feature I was writing bi-weekly for The Duck Webcomics since 2022 called “Panel By Panel.” The premise was that I would write an analysis of a single panel from a webcomic found in the community. The feature proved to be quite fun for me and enjoyable for readers. I also tried different variations of what the panel was; some being more successful than others, but it was nice to have a reliable space to write about comics. You may have seen an earlier update regarding that on the blog. The larger archive of posts can be found here.

This was, of course, prior to me launching the blog and revising my website. With the new blog came an opportunity to write more, and I am a writer who loves to have regular projects to fall back on. So, with that in mind, the plan became to phase out the column over at The Duck Webcomics and create a new version, a bit more expansive in scope, on my website.

And that is where we are now. So, what is ahead?

My Approach to “Panel By Panel”

With the new version of “Panel By Panel,” I wanted to expand how I approached comics. I have written many reviews of comics before. I’ve written a lot of articles about single panels in various webcomics, including college essays about comics. Hell, last week my class tackled the work of Harvey Pekar in a discussion about authorship in writing. It’s one of my favorite weeks in the course. So it made sense to use this site as a way to do these things.

It’s not unlike the current “Revenge of Graphic Content” column I have been doing here on the site. The focus of that column is on horror, but I have so far managed to write reviews and essays. I am not locked into a particular form or approach to writing. I want “Panel By Panel” to feel the same.

So, that’s just what it will be; it will be any number of things I want it to be, but the focus will be on comics. Whether I am reviewing new releases, analyzing the craft, or writing essays about books and characters, “Panel By Panel” is the banner they will be under.

Oh, and as for horror comics, they are still very strictly in the purview of “Revenge of Graphic Content.”

What You Can Do

I still want to take advantage of my connection with readers, so with this project, there is a significant way that you, the reader, can lend me a hand.

Suggest something to write about.

There is no shortage of material to write about, but I love to tackle things suggested by someone who reads the column or is curious about my perspective on a comic. I would love to field your questions and tackle your suggestions for posts. I can think of two tracks in that regard.

• One, I am happy to review a comic. It can be the latest published release of a title I can find at a comic book shop. It could be a recommended webcomic. You can even send me your comics for a review. I am happy to honestly assess your work, and I promise it will be constructive. I am more about uplifting these days than tearing down.
• Or, two, I am happy to analyze or discuss any conceivable comic topic; I am just as at home discussing power scaling as I am metaphor used in comic writing. I am happy to comment on the artistry of classic comics as I am sharing thoughts on publishing trends. If you want to pick my brain, please do so.

To set me down a path you are interested in, all you need to do is drop a comment on these posts. Additionally, you can always contact me about previews or review copies of work. I am open to reading just about anything. And that also means those of you from The Duck are still able to ask me to check out your comics. You always have my ear and my blog.

Anyway, that’s just about it for this installment: next time, Absolute Superman and the return of the Soviet Man of the Future.

The post Panel By Panel: The (Not So) Secret Origins appeared first on hpkomics.com.