You all know of my love for Zod. But let me speak of Superman.

I love Superman. I hate Superman.

When I was a kid, I desperately wanted to be the Man of Steel. A collection of his adventures was one of the first books I ever owned. After seeing Superman II, I bugged my Dad to get me an Eiffel Tower model to recreate the opening action sequence with my Kenner Superman figure (he did rather cleverly, picking up an abandoned French cheese display from the local grocery store … my Dad kicked ass). And of course I also had the standard Superman pajamas.

In the 90s though, I began putting the big guy down, with the usual reasons. Stupid costume, inane adventures, dull boy scout. Batman was cooler; Bruce Wayne was a millionaire ninja!!!

But over the last year, my love for all things Super has returned, and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the promise the new movie next year holds. Maybe its appreciation of the story telling archetype he represents, or maybe it is simple nostalgia.

But there is a big problem with Superman that I always sensed but could never put into words until my friend Adam said it aloud.

“Superman stories are never any good.”

There are exceptions that break this rule; I think the great Kingdom Come is a Superman story. Adam himself liked Secret Identity. Red Son was a hoot. But the majority of these cases play out in “parallel” worlds where the legend is changed in some significant way; Superman has retired for 25 years, or what if a real person in our world discovers he has Super powers, or what if the rocket that brought baby Kal-El to earth had crashed in the Soviet Union instead of the good ole USA?

(Again, there are exceptions to this rule, like Jeph Loeb’s and Tim Sale’s wonderful Superman for All Seasons. Rare they are, though ).

But are there any good stories that just work with the core elements of the character of Superman? That do not pull in myths from other parts of the DC universe?

DC Comics just released their Showcase collections, bundling a whack of old stories (500 pages they exclaim on the cover) into a black and white digest for only $10 a pop. I picked up the Superman one, as the stories therein cover the oft-mentioned Silver Age of comics. This period is considered the most inventive time in comicbooks, where weird ideas flew furiously and key elements of characters’ histories were solidified.

I went for the Superman collection.

And I love it.

But not because the stories are any good. Quite the opposite. These stories are completely retarded. They are so bad … they are good.
They do have one thing going for them. In talking about his upcoming All-Star Superman with Frank Quitely, writer Grant Morrison points to the Silver Age as a source of inspiration. He highlights in these stories not the mad things that take place, but Superman’s reactions to them. The example he gave was how Superman bemoans the fact that the miniture Superman he can shoot out from his fingers (no lie) is far stronger and more popular.

Superman is very insecure.

The collection is filled with more examples of this. He is constantly worrying about what people think of him. He hates pretending he is weak. He looks forward to spending time in his Fortress of Solitude on his hobbies, instead of using his fantastic powers to save the world.

He is simply a Man with super-powers, not this paradigm of virtue that the current incarnation is. Weird.

Still, we haven’t had that great Superman story yet. Adam thinks that there is something inherently wrong with the character himself, but I don’t know … Grant Morrison’s observation gives me hope. I am looking forward to All-Star Superman (a sweet preview is available here).

On a side note to all of this, I am giving serious note to being Superman this year for Halloween. More details will be forthcoming as we finish out planning the party. Keep that last weekend of October free!