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Ed Love
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 October 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2712
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| Posted: 19 September 2007 at 5:24am | IP Logged | 1
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Even by the time WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE MAN OF TOMORROW came out, it was cliche to have a last issue/episode of a series that felt like a last issue in that all sorts of big, status quo changing stuff happens that never happened or would be allowed to happen in the regular series. And it does so by throwing in everything and the kitchen sink. In a tv series, we'd see flashbacks to past episodes and references to characters no longer on the show and hardly ever mentioned again. Here we get Insect Queen, Elastic Lad, Krypto, and the Prankster. That's what I meant by it being cliched. In many ways it was exactly like the "imaginary stories" of the 60's only with the typical Alan Moore twists by making various characters dark, especially the "sillier" characters and concepts. It reads exactly like you'd expect Alan Moore trying to write a Silver-Age Superman character would come out. It doesn't read like a Superman book from the 80's, apart from the robotic looking Brainiac but exactly like someone picking up characters and concepts from the 60s and 70s and trying to write a post-modern Silver-age styled story. To me, it reads like fan-fiction, showing off all the bits and pieces of continuity and how "good" the silly stuff could be if treated seriously. It's not a story with the continuity and elements of the SA as much as it's ABOUT the continuity and elements. So, "parody" may not be exactly the right term but it's as close as I can get.
"For the Man who has Everything" doesn't concern itself with all of the meta-fictional stuff and just concentrates on telling a story in a style within the parameters of mainstream superhero fiction genre in which it takes place. As such, it fits in with the time it was written and feels more "real" for the characters and continuity, ironically by not trying to cram every bit of continuity into the story and then twisting it. It tells a very human story drawn from the characters.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133334
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| Posted: 19 September 2007 at 6:06am | IP Logged | 2
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If you were making a movie about the 50's you would like to get it as authentic as possible for the story to work.•• Depends on the filmmakers. A few years back Ian McGregor and Renee Zellwegger starred in a "Rock Hudson/Doris Day" comedy that completely missed the point (including David Hyde Pierce in a very fey turn in the "Tony Randall" part, missing that Randall's characters in those movies were always bitchy, yes, but never fey). Around the same time, Julianna Moore starred in "Far from Heaven", with Dennis Quaid, which exactly captured the look and feel of a 1950s movie, right down to the titles. Only the subject matter kept it from being someday mistaken for a real movie of the period. This is what happens when comicbook writers approach "Silver Age" style stories. Some "get it", but for too many, aging fanboys targeting other aging fanboys, they cannot help but wink at the audience, lest, omigod!, somebody think they were taking it seriously
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Chad Carter
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 June 2005
Posts: 9584
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| Posted: 19 September 2007 at 3:44pm | IP Logged | 3
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"Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" was hardly cliche at the time, and was a very nice, almost humble, attempt by Alan Moore to thank Siegal and Shuster for every grand moment they'd given him as a boy reading comics. If only there were more heartfelt and eloquent new reminders on the shelves of why we continue as adults to read superhero comics. Criticize Moore for WATCHMEN or whatever, but his work on the "What..." Superman stories is seminal and unimpeachable in my view.
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Jason Schulman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 08 July 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2473
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| Posted: 19 September 2007 at 3:52pm | IP Logged | 4
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Or, more precisely, it was Moore's love letter to the Weisinger years of Superman, albeit with the anger and sadness that was typical of everything Moore wrote in the 1980s.
It's not a perfect story -- the "nobody has the right to kill" line never sat right with me, even though I suppose it is something the Silver Age Superman might say -- but I remember it fondly, particularly the first chapter with the gorgeous Swan/Perez artwork. (There's a pairing that I would've loved to see on a regular basis.)
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Chad Carter
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 June 2005
Posts: 9584
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| Posted: 19 September 2007 at 4:10pm | IP Logged | 5
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Weisinger years...
True true. In a bizarre sense, Alan Moore is writing a pean of love to those crazy Weisinger comics, while being the kind of writer Julie Schwartz probably would have been dying to have working on DC Comics in the late-60s/70s as he sought to bring new insight and direction to his flagship titles.
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Stan Lomisceau
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 October 2006
Posts: 530
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| Posted: 19 September 2007 at 4:14pm | IP Logged | 6
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mr. moore has pissed on these chartacters to make them his own. you
have to admit you must serve the characers and not tell the stories for
the characters like you want. this is why i am not a great fan for mr.
moore.
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Michael Roberts
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 14857
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| Posted: 19 September 2007 at 4:25pm | IP Logged | 7
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"For the Man who has Everything" doesn't concern itself with all of the
meta-fictional stuff and just concentrates on telling a story in a
style within the parameters of mainstream superhero fiction genre in
which it takes place. As such, it fits in with the time it was written
and feels more "real" for the characters and continuity, ironically by
not trying to cram every bit of continuity into the story and then
twisting it. It tells a very human story drawn from the characters.
---
My issue with "For the Man Who Has Everything" is that it cheats at its own premise. Superman is trapped by his "heart's desire", which is apparently to be a middle manager nobody on a Krypton in the middle of political upheaval and with his family in disgrace. Really? Superman had to give up his dream son, yes, but it seems the rest of the fantasy would be rather easy to give up. The JLU adaptation was a lot better, making Krypton more idyllic and incorporating elements of his Earth life (farming, the Lois/Lana fusion wife, elements of Jonathan Kent in Jor-El).
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Jason Fliegel
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 December 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 639
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| Posted: 19 September 2007 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | 8
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Michael, the way I read the story -- and I must admit it's been some time since I've done so -- is that Superman's heart's desire was to be on Krypton with his family, and that's what the Black Mercy gives him. For most, that would be the end. But Superman's will is so powerful that it fights back. His mind turns the fantasy on itself, perverting Krypton until it becomes a place so unattractive that it no longer has the power to hold Superman captive.
And that's the tragedy of the story. Superman defeated the Black Mercy, but he had to sacrifice his pure vision of Krypton to do so.
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Michael Roberts
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 14857
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| Posted: 19 September 2007 at 4:46pm | IP Logged | 9
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Michael, the way I read the story -- and I must admit it's been some
time since I've done so -- is that Superman's heart's desire was to be
on Krypton with his family, and that's what the Black Mercy gives him.
For most, that would be the end.
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That would have worked for me if we saw Krypton shift from a perfect fantasy to what we saw in the story. And there was an element of things going downhill, which could have been indicative of Superman fighting the fantasy. But what the readers were shown at the beginning was kind of crappy for one's heart's desire.
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Chad Carter
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 June 2005
Posts: 9584
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| Posted: 19 September 2007 at 5:30pm | IP Logged | 10
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The only reason the "heart's desire" gets ugly and decadent is because Superman is resisting the placating effects of the plant. His "dream" reflects the tension building in him.
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Ed Love
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 October 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2712
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| Posted: 19 September 2007 at 7:50pm | IP Logged | 11
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At the time it came out and when I first read it, my first response to it was that it was a cliche'd story, and not from someone that had been reading comics for some time but from being exposed to enough final "episodes" in other forms and genres. It's not like I am reading it today and finding it cliche but has been my opionion since I read it when it came out. And to this day, I still cannot fathom the love people have for it, even the die-hard fans of Moore. Part of the flaw to it is its everything and the kitchen sink nature of the Silver-age, other than some small details, it pretty much exists as if the preceding 10 years of comics and storytelling in regards to Superman never happened yet it's supposed to be the last Superman story of that continuity. And then there was his calling attention to all the sillier aspects while deconstructing them by turning silly foes deadly, killing a few other characters and ultimately the big reveal of Mxyptlk's true nature (if I recall, each time there was a comment drawing attention to NOW they can be taken seriously) and then the little wink and nod towards the whole nature of comic stories, even further removing the story from a sense of buying into its reality. So, I have a hard time accepting it as a love-letter to Superman's SA as it goes out of the way to darken many of the elements of those mythos while not capturing really the sense of fun they and the Silver Age stories really were.
If I read the story for the first time today, I'd suspect it more of being someone trying to either ape or parody Alan Moore than actually being written by him. It's the most obvious and stereotypical Moore takes while not showing any of the depth that most of his work actually demonstrates
"Superman and the Earth-Stealers" reads a lot more like a true SA Superman story without actually being a post-modern or parodying take and SUPERMAN 400 reads more like a love letter to the history and character of Superman.
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Chad Carter
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 June 2005
Posts: 9584
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| Posted: 19 September 2007 at 8:51pm | IP Logged | 12
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See, again...Alan Moore needed an EDITOR back in those halcyon days. If his excesses piss people off, he did mainly what he was allowed to do. Julie Schwartz would have reined him in and focused him; any time a guy gets carte blanche, he's gonna take advantage of it. There aren't many creators in any medium who are better off devoid of a strong, moderating voice to shape their work.
Somebody needed to step forward and say, No you cannot do that to...
But no one did. No one wanted to do that.
As far as it goes, Moore's Superman stories suffer from "Stranger in a Strange Land" syndrome, which you want to talk about cliche...and yet, Moore convinced me that the stories had impact, had meaning, had worth.
That's his job. And that's what he did.
The two primary Superman stories provided Superman with moments that support the almost mythological quality of the character. I'm not saying that's the way Superman should be written ALWAYS...they're interpretations, very much one-time-only events, not meant to be the basis of ongoing replication, but a grouping of superior talents (Swan, Perez, Schaffenberger, Gibbons) bringing about some legendary material. They're highlights, demonstrations, variations on the theme of Superman.
The stories just remind me of some of those Jonah Hex "tales" where Hex comes off like some cold robotic butcher or something, but he's not. In THAT story he is, because that's how he's "seen".
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Topic Closed)
