DENNIS O’NEIL: A Superman For Our Time
When we’re in a somber mood, which is an easy kind of mood to be in these days, we hope that Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were not prophets. Joe and Jerry were, of course, the creators of Superman, and way back in 1938 they told what’s become known as Superman’s origin story.
Surely you’re familiar with it; it’s been retold and edited and redacted and emended and amended and recast in comics, in movies and books and on television, and probably video games, for these past 68 years, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some earnest young writer is, at this moment, reworking it yet again. But in the event your long-term memory is gebollixed for some reason, I’ll give you the trading card version.
Jor-El, a scientist, tells the poobahs of his civilization on the planet Krypton that their entire world is soon to disintegrate. The poobahs refuse to believe him and – oops – the darn world does blow itself to bits. Jor-El does manage to get his son away in a spacecraft before the final blooey. The kid lands on Earth and becomes a mighty champion of justice, etc. etc.
If I were to rewrite this familiar story, I might consider making Jor-El an environmentalist who’s worried about, let’s say, global warming. And maybe, in this version, the poobahs are politicians who take Jor-El’s carefully reasoned and scientifically unimpeachable work, which Mr. El has presented in the form of a document, and had someone with negligible scientific credentials edit Mr. El’s writing so heavily that it’s meaning is altered.
I mean, my suggested revamp isn’t really too far from the original, is it? What’s scary is that it isn’t far at all from some recent real-life history. And that’s why, despite my great respect for Messrs. Siegel and Shuster, I hope they’re lousy prophets. Remember how their story ended? The poobahs insisted they were right and Jor-El was wrong, despite plenty of contrary evidence, and – Blooey!
If we were to redo, once again, what Joe and Jerry began with, we might consider expanding it to allow a look at the poobahs. The trick in doing this kind of thing is to ask, if these fictional characters were real, what kind of people would they be? Not conventionally “evil;” at least, they wouldn’t think of themselves as “evil;” no one does.
But arrogant, certainly: so sure of their own unchallenged superiority that they feel they don’t have to listen to, much less heed, anyone else. And prisoners of their own egos, which would not allow them to admit ever, being wrong. And not only greedy, but able to rationalize their greed, if there were a profit to be made from their acts.
All that would congeal into deep, impenetrable ignorance. Not lack of education, nor stupidity, but ignorance, which, in this context, we might define as a refusal to acknowledge the truth that’s available to them.
I’d like to read that story. In a comic book, not in a newspaper.
RECOMMENDED READING: The Selfish Gene
Dennis O’Neil is an award-winning editor and writer of comic books like Batman, The Question, Iron Man, Green Lantern and/or Green Arrow, and The Shadow, as well as all kinds of novels, stories and articles.
Artwork TM and © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.
Beginning July 9th, ToykoPop’s top-selling manga Princess Ai will be headed to many American Sunday newspapers, courtesy of Universal Newspaper Syndicate.
ShatnerVision reveals the "other side" of his interview on last week’s Henry Rollins Show, as William Shatner turns the camera around and interviews the musician/commentator after the show’s taping. In this 
The Post Chronicle has an earth-shattering news story today, reporting that Christian Bale is "dreading" the filming of Batman: The Dark Knight because it’s hot in Chicago in the summer and he has to wear the rubber suit.
These are the most important words ever written:
Poor Cynthia Rothrock. She’s the first gweilo (white devil) woman to become a major star in the golden age of the Hong Kong kung-fu film, then gets relegated to such sad junk as the China O’Brien and Lady Dragon series in America. But for anybody who wants to know what the fuss was about, and those, like me, who want to see Cynthia regain her rightful place in the top echelon of action stars, the two newest Dragon Dynasty DVDs are the ones for you.
Take, for example, Above the Law, Rothrocks’ second HK film (following the classic Yes Madam, which also introduced Michelle Yeoh to an awed Chinese audience) and Dragon Dynasty’s ninth DVD release. What, say you, I don’t remember Cynthia Rothrock in that fine, first, 1988, Steven Seagal movie!? Thats because Cynthia was in the 1986 like-named Hong Kong film, which was more generally known as Righting Wrongs, which would have made a much less confusing, more easily ordered, title for this new DVD.
The fights Corey crams this movie with are boldly conceived, incredibly played, and well worth watching, even studying, repeatedly, which is a good thing since clips of them are shown repeatedly during the interesting Special Feature interviews with Rothrock, Baio, and Canadian kickboxing champ Peter Sugarfoot Cunningham (who co-stars as one of the many killers). The packaging copy isnt through with you at just the confusing title, however. The good news is that the disc also features alternate scenes (although not one Rothrock mentions in her interview) and endings, which aren’t listed on the box. The bad news is that, while the copy maintains that the film is letterboxed widescreen, it ain’t.
In a bygone age of self-defeating fair-play isolationism, comparatively few outposts of the U.S. entertainment industry saw fit to take issue with the congealing Axis powers. Timely Comics’ Captain America books tackled a larger agenda of wish-fulfillment Nazi-busting in 1941 at a time when popular sentiment and much of the mass communications media, stateside, were still holding out for an anti-inflammatory approach. Just two years earlier, the lower-berth Hollywood producers Ben Judell and Sigmund Neufeld had run afoul of their industry’s attempts to repress a film called Hitler – Beast of Berlin, starting with a Production Code Administration complaint that the very title might pose an affront. It is always an awkward choice, even in the realm of heroic fiction, between pre-emptive action and a wait-and-watch attitude.
