It’s unfortunate that the tension between 1990s superhero-film cheesiness and 2022 superhero-film coolness makes this effort implode. A post-COP27 viewing allowed more sensitivity to how Egyptians oppress themselves with the West’s help. Too bad the film quickly traded in that theme for a third-act battle with a Hellboy knockoff and some fake AMC Walkers. God bless his soul, Pierce Brosnan, 30 years distant from the start of his ’90s James Bond, elevated Black Adam when he could (with fine assists from Aldis Hodge) but couldn’t save it. It’s not hard to see why few wanted a piece of this Rock.
Reginald Hudlin’s writing style remains blatant and strident by half. But as a former full-set Icon/Static/HardwareMilestone Comics collector (sadly, lost them in a move š¦ ), I must admit I much prefer his style to the comparatively accommodationist Milestone founder Dwayne McDuffie!
Six issues in and you win, Mr. Hudlin: the 19th-century enslaved Arnus as a Nat Turner (!) character and present-day free Augustus with a fine-ass sista amazon at his side and an assassin to hunt is much more appealing. And he had the assassin, an alien hired by the U.S. government to kill other aliens, kill a certain white infant recently adopted in 1939 by a white Kansas farm couple!
Lana(finding out that Clark is Superman and talking about how he took his sweet time coming back to Smallville after he abandoned her to find his way to the cape): Did you ever love me?
Clark: Oh, Lana, of course I did.
Lana: (PAUSE) Just not enough.
I was determined to hate this show when it premiered and initially I was successful. A Superman TV narrative without Metropolis, The Daily Planet, etc.? A re-tread of Smallville? Superman with a brother? No. This ain’t the Thor movies.
But almost two full seasons in and after me pretty much memorizing Season 1, it’s clear this is the best Superman TV show ever. And that’s not easy, since there’s 70 years’ worth of truth-justice-American-way-TV to evaluate (including the very-good, just canceled homage show Naomi). The message of this well-written, well-photographed show–if you don’t take care of your family, every part of it, and do the hard work of sustaining that care every day, your family and you will fall apart–is clearly articulated by its expert use of nearly 100 years of Superman lore.
Lana will heal because she’s not jealous of Lois; she has her own beautiful and loving family to fix. And that’s the point of this show. Everyone’s busy keeping their family foundation solid. It be hard.
The best compliment I can give this show is that the only Marvel TV shows I ever put on loop are Disney+’s WandaVision followed by Daredevil. So for the CW’s Superman and Lois, a proud and strong DC product, to join that ranking is fantastic.
The epitome of work-life balance family drama, but with flights and tights
The show’s first season begins with the death of a mother and ends with the burial of a father, with the middle filled in with what family members create. A very radical combo of Man of Steel, Smallville and Lois and Clark merges with the last 30 years of Superman comics into a meditation on the sustaining of the family unit from primarily two sources–the Kents and the Cushings (Lana Lang’s brood). The finale teaser for Season 2 shows the reconstitution of a third as a result of, appropriately, a rocket landing at the Kent farm. The CW-ish, almost-emerging-adult inside shows that the family dynamics have just begun to shift, with Lois being given one hell of a personal retcon of sorts and the boys gaining a sister (pun intended). Having Superman go to a mental-emotional space where he has to prioritize the world most important to him at the moment will continue to make him not only relevant, but even a more permanent part of American folklore.
Put The Guardians of the Galaxy in your head. Now, make a film star-ring them in your mind but make it as violent, as gory, as possible. But also make it as funny, if not funnier. There ya go.
A very smart script–particularly if you are familiar with the decades of source material–that was clear on its intent: to force into being the sweetest, most Harry-Potterish, most inclusive superhero movie ever. Succeeded.
Growing up as a superhero-obsessed tyke in the 1970s, I saw the 1967 Spider-Man animated series (the one often called Spiderman, mistakenly without the hyphen between āSpiderā and āManā) and the Batman and Superman live-action series every weekday in second-run syndication and watched every version of The Superfriends every Saturday morning on ABC. I even devoured those gawd-awfulSpider-Man live-action specials on CBS, as well as the two almost-as-bad Captain America and Dr. Strange movies that aired on that network. The fact that CBS aired quality live-action superhero shows like The Incredible Hulk and, in its second and third seasons, Wonder Woman (a refugee from ABC) almost made up for those terrible also-rans. And of course, I loved Superman: The Movie.
During that decade, I slowly discovered comicbooks. Marvel became my favorite. I think that was due to my all-time favorite characters, The Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer, with Captain America as a runner-up. (I count the FF as one character.) My fifth-grade teacher had a copy of Bring On The Bad Guys, the third volume of the Simon and Schuster trade paperbacks that reprinted early Marvel stories with writer Stan Leeās introductions. Thatās where I discovered the FF, The Surfer and Cap in separate epic tales.
I still remember my shock when I found out that my favorites had been animated! Hanna-Barbera decided to syndicate, as a weekday āwheel,ā all its 1960s Saturday morning superhero-action fare. Hanna-Barberaās World of Super-Adventure, as the syndication wheel called itself, became my all-time favorite animated series, right next to Marvel Men, the second-run syndication of the 1966 Marvel Superheroes animated show (happily, Cap was a feature), and Superheroes!, the syndicated daily run of the Filmation 1960s DC animated cartoons of the same time. The H-B series, I quickly found out, had a Fantastic Four cartoon! I sat in front of the television every weekday, waiting to see if The Fantastic Four would come on. I was often disappointed, but I learned about great Hanna-Barbara superheroes like Space Ghost, Birdman and other characters. When I saw the FF and my other all-time favorite character, The Silver Surfer, fight some giant named Galactus, in front of another giant named The Watcher, I lost my mind and became a one-person [San Diego Comic-Con] Hall H, a certified Marvel Zombie. I never looked back.
*****
But there was more. A few years after that, into the ’80s, I enjoyed Stan’s narration of “Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends,” Marvel and NBC’s answer to DC and ABC’s “Superfriends.”
And then there was that time in 1990, when, now the ripe old age of 22, I wrote a Star-Ledger feature on the first Todd McFarlane Spider-Man issue.Ā I interviewed The Man himself on the phone. Being new to the pressures of daily journalism, I actually asked him to slow down while he was talking! He said directly that if I couldn’t keep up he wouldn’t continue the interview. That was GREAT training for me, for at the end of that conversation, I learned how to take notes over the phone. He sent me a form letter after the article appeared that of course I cherished.
I really, really, really wish he had stopped being in denial about standing idly by, playing innocent, while his cousin-in-law, Martin Goodman, cheated and reneged on Jack Kirby. I really wished he would have asked Jack to use the Silver Surfer, instead of taking it from him. Although I think many people forget that Stan was Jack (and Steve Ditko’s) boss, I think these questions are more than fair, and should not be shunted out of politeness.
Stan, along with Jack and Steve, were responsible for three out of every five of my childhood smiles. That is how I will always remember all three of them.
Drums in the Global Village 