#TheFortressOfSoliloquy

[intergalactic-zoo]

If you've been in comic circles for some time, chances are pretty good that you're familiar with "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex," the essay Larry Niven wrote in 1969 on the subject of Superman's potentially lethal sex life. If you haven't read it, then you might have gotten the jist of it from that scene in "Mallrats." 

It makes sense to me that such an essay, crass and silly though it is, would be written in 1969. That's the tail-end of the Silver Age, where Superman's power-creep had reached such levels that his hair was indestructible, he could break the time barrier under his own power, and he could juggle planets like helium balloons. 

So it was a little surprising to learn this week that Vladimir Nabokov wrote a poem with a similar sentiment way back in 1942. Nineteen forty-two! Six years before Kirk Alyn would bring the character to life, submitted in between the release of the seventh and eighth Fleischer cartoons, back when Superman wasn't consistently flying in the comics, the guy who would go on to write Lolita was speculating about the impossibility of relations between humans and Kryptonians. 

The letter he wrote when he submitted the poem to The New Yorker has big "uwu pwease pay me if it's not too much twouble" energy. 

I am sending you a poem on the troubles of Superman of the Funnies (with, if necessary, apologies to his, or rather its, makers). I should like to repeat that I experience most horrible difficulties and distress in wielding a language new to me – after 25 years of good old Russian. If, however, the poem is acceptable – not too ungrammatical as a whole and not too risqué about the middle of its favours – might I perhaps humble [sic] request a honorarium as adequate as possible to my Russian past and my present agonies?

The story of how Nabokov's poem, "The Man of To-Morrow's Lament," came to be rediscovered after all these years, and how it ties into his son's love of the character at the time, is a pretty interesting one, which you can read about at the link (if you have a subscription). But the poem itself, well...read on.

The Man of To-morrow’s Lament

I have to wear these glasses – otherwise, when I caress her with my super-eyes, her lungs and liver are too plainly seen throbbing, like deep-sea creatures, in between dim bones. Oh, I am sick of loitering here, a banished trunk (like my namesake in “Lear”), but when I switch to tights, still less I prize my splendid torso, my tremendous thighs, the dark-blue forelock on my narrow brow, the heavy jaw; for I shall tell you now my fatal limitation … not the pact between the worlds of Fantasy and Fact which makes me shun such an attractive spot as Berchtesgaden, say; and also not that little business of my draft; but worse: a tragic misadjustment and a curse.

I’m young and bursting with prodigious sap, and I’m in love like any healthy chap – and I must throttle my dynamic heart for marriage would be murder on my part, an earthquake, wrecking on the night of nights a woman’s life, some palmtrees, all the lights, the big hotel, a smaller one next door and half a dozen army trucks – or more.

But even if that blast of love should spare her fragile frame – what children would she bear? What monstrous babe, knocking the surgeon down, would waddle out into the awestruck town? When two years old he’d break the strongest chairs, fall through the floor and terrorize the stairs; at four, he’d dive into a well; at five, explore a roaring furnace – and survive; at eight, he’d ruin the longest railway line by playing trains with real ones; and at nine, release all my old enemies from jail, and then I’d try to break his head – and fail.

So this is why, no matter where I fly, red-cloaked, blue-hosed, across the yellow sky, I feel no thrill in chasing thugs and thieves – and gloomily broad-shouldered Kent retrieves his coat and trousers from the garbage can and tucks away the cloak of Superman; and when she sighs – somewhere in Central Park where my immense bronze statue looms – “Oh, Clark … Isn’t he wonderful!?!”, I stare ahead and long to be a normal guy instead.

Vladimir Nabokov June 1942

It's kind of wild just how much Superman discourse is presaged here, how many story and character beats we'd see play out over the next eighty years. 

It's been an increasingly long time since I did any kind of regular poetry analysis, as evidenced by the fact that I needed to Google "thing where a poet ends a line in the middle of a sentence" in order to talk about how much enjambment there is here. Honestly, I do like a good rhyming couplet, and I appreciate Nabokov's commitment to using them throughout here, even if it means overusing that technique. 

The references to the war in the first stanza are interesting; Andrei Babikov's commentary in The TLS suggests that this is an attempt to compare the character with Hitler, emphasizing the comment about the forelock (and drawing comparisons to Chaplin's "Great Dictator"), but Hitler's forelock—if you can really call it that—has very little in common with Superman's trademark s-curl, which doesn't merit mention in Babikov's discussion. To me, this reads more like an acknowledgement that Superman may be selling war bonds and punching Nazi ships and even hoisting Hitler up by the scruff of the neck, but he's a character from the realm of Fantasy, not Fact, and he's powerless to do anything about the real issue. Even in the comics, they might show Superman knocking around tanks on the front lines, but Superman's only encounter with Hitler himself notably came in the pages of Look Magazine two years . Superman's service in the war was limited to four-color fictional Nazis. 

But as much as I like the imagery of the dark-blue forelock, calling to mind the coloring of classic comics, I'm more than a little disquieted by "young and bursting with prodigious sap." The earth-shaking imagery in the rest of that second stanza got a laugh from me. I appreciate that it's less graphic than the Niven essay, "blast of love" aside. 

Stanza three predicts so many Superbaby stories, particularly from the Silver Age, but even "Letitia Lerner, Superman's Babysitter" has these same elements of an indestructible toddler causing mischief and mayhem. But also it speaks to Nabokov's own anxieties as a parent. 

The closing stanza, though, is where things get a little eerie. "No matter where I fly, / red-cloaked, blue-hosed, across the yellow sky, / I feel no thrill" might as well be "I can't stand to fly / I'm not that naïve." The desire to be normal, in part to have normal relationships, is a major character trait in "Superman II" and "Smallville." Honestly, almost every instance we've seen of Clark Kent being morose and brooding over the last eight decades is predicted right here in this unpublished poem. 

Overall, it's an interesting artifact. It shows that some ideas, some sorts of discourse around this character, are older than we might realize.

And, I suppose, so is erotic fanfiction. 

[intergalactic-zoo]

Before we dig into the series proper, there was an issue of Marvel Age promoting this series, including an interview with the creative team written by Sholly Fisch, who has apparently had a much longer history in comics than I was aware of. There’s not a ton to say about the interview; it feels very effusive in that promotional enthusiasm sort of way. 

The issue starts with a note from editor Jim Salicrup about why Marvel features so many licensed characters on Marvel Age covers. In short, comics based on licensed characters bring in a new audience:

When Marvel buys the rights to license characters from a movie, TV show, or even a toy, we usually try to find characters that are incredibly popular—that have a huge following of their own. That way, when we publish the comic book based on such a character we're hoping to reach thousands of people who may not have picked up a comic book in years!

That passage starts with a potshot at their competition, which is both kind of funny since He-Man started at DC, and kind of fitting since (for whatever reason) DC didn't hang onto the license. 

Before we cover the cover feature, there's an issue I need to head off at the pass: Mike Carlin is the writer on the first eight issues of this series, and I feel like I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention his history as a (credibly alleged) sexual harasser. It sucks, and if I’d realized when I started this project that he was the main guy for a bit here, I might have had second thoughts. 

Fisch begins with a brief summary of the He-Man concept and characters, then gets into an interview with writer Mike Carlin and penciller Ron Wilson, who had previously been working on Ben Grimm's solo title, and editor Ralph Macchio. "He-Man will be a mixture of fun and adventure that won't just be for kids!" Fisch says, (the "biff! pow!" is presumably implied) before Carlin promises not to "write down" to the readers. That's a comment I'm going to come back to over Carlin's tenure on the book, because so far in my reading, it feels like it's increasingly untrue as the series progresses. 

Macchio compares Wilson's art style to Jack Kirby and John Buscema, which is high praise that I'm not sure comes through in this series. Then there's this baffling comment:

While it [Wilson & Janke's art] will be slightly different from that of the HE-MAN cartoons, it will be every bit as down to earth!" 

Nothing says "down to earth" like the show about a man in furry shorts fighting a skull-faced wizard for control of a castle shaped like a head. 

Carlin compares the simplicity of the He-Man comics to Silver Age storytelling, with "clear-cut stories without plot complications that carry on for years." He also says that the biggest shift from previous collaborations with Wilson is that now Carlin is doing full-script with panel layout thumbnails, presumably in contrast to a more Marvel Method approach to The Thing. I wonder if this change was necessary in order to get stories cleared by the people at Mattel in a timely fashion. Macchio discusses later how the stories have to be cleared by Mattel, something that's true even with modern licensed comics, but "so far, the stories have been so good that Mattel hasn't asked for any major changes!" 

Unspoken in that is how much input Mattel had on the stories before they were written, particularly in terms of which characters/vehicles get the spotlight in each issue. I suspect the answer is "a great deal."

The sample sketches Wilson did were apparently good enough that Mattel wanted to hire him on the spot. 

And then Fisch goes into a description of upcoming issues, including erroneously claiming that #2 introduces the Slime Pit. That would end up being the story for issue #3, and #4 has a slight credit change, with Wilson on breakdowns and Dennis Janke finishing, which makes me wonder what behind-the-scenes shuffling and deadline stuff was going on. 

The meat of the exuberantly effusive article (wherein nearly every sentence and quote ends with an exclamation point) ends with the claim that "Ralph was so overcome talking about HE-MAN that he leaped on his desk, pulled out a tennis racket, and cried, 'By the power of Cresskill!' (invoking the name of his hometown)." I'm trying to pinpoint exactly what makes me feel like that story absolutely did not happen as described, and I think it's the tennis racket. 

Fisch ends, as each episode of the He-Man cartoon does, by offering a moral:

Listen to your mother and father, brush your teeth after every meal, look both ways before crossing the street, never take candy from a stranger with a blue hood and a skull face, and most of all, accept no imitations!

I'll follow suit by offering this moral: sponsored content and promotional writing hasn't really changed in 30 years. Reading that gives me flashbacks to the SEO-infused content I was once paid to write for online stores. 

The next article in the issue is a promo for Doctor Who Monthly, published by "Marvel's British division," and then a new talent spotlight for the late, great Tom Lyle. 

Huh, I did not expect to fill a whole installment of this with just the Marvel Age promo, but here we are. Next time, we dig into the wild world of Marvel's Star imprint. 

[intergalactic-zoo]

A late post because I decided to let "Justice League" live in my head for a week. Spoilers ahead!

Not gonna lie, I was more excited to hear the name "Thaddeus Killgrave" than anything in any other superhero media I might have consumed in the last ten days. 

Though given Killgrave's appearance in the comics, it would've been nice to see them give the role to a little person. I was going to say something about how wild it is that a name that Silver Age didn't get attached to a character until 1988, but Google reminded me that the Purple Man (1964) is Zebediah Killgrave, and now I want to see that crossover. 

Teens developing unexpected superpowers due to kryptonite? A Kent parent fighting back against the billionaire industrialist with sinister designs on the town? Yep, "Haywire" is the episode where the B-plots go full "Smallville." And I kind of love it. Hey, look at how much better a "Smallville" plot is when it has tights and flights!

I feel like Superman stories are at their best when they pit Superman's priorities against each other, and this episode's A-plot is all about the Man of Steel's priorities. Sam Lane is here to be the voice of duty and responsibility—and, to a large degree, fear—repeatedly saying how Superman is the most important person on the planet and that changes to his routine scare the powers that be. Meanwhile, Clark's also trying to be a good father and a good husband, and all three of those responsibilities come to a head here when he's called away from Jordan and Jon's crisis to deal with Killgrave, and then called back to deal with that crisis, ultimately missing the town council meeting where Smallville approves Morgan Edge's plan.

Lois and the kids really get a chance to shine here. Lois confronts Morgan Edge and his henchwoman, and she gets some good bonding moments with Lana. I really do want to see that friendship develop, and I'm glad that they've veered away from sowing drama between Lana and Clark, at least so far. 

Jordan's success on the football field leaves Jon kind of adrift, and we see that he's got a nice mix of his mom's investigative skills and dad's compassion. He's the one who realizes that something's wrong with Tag, the football player whose arm got injured in the explosion Jordan caused back in the Pilot. Jordan, meanwhile, has dad's overactive sense of responsibility, and is sure that it's his heat vision that caused Tag's superspeed seizures.

The other source of drama in the episode comes from Sam telling the boys that they need to remember how important their dad's time is, and to not waste it—a warning which, naturally, almost leads to disaster (and leads to a big fight where Lois puts Sam very much in his place). 

It's a good episode that plays to the strengths of the concept, showing how very mundane domestic concerns and superheroic ones intersect, with the Kent family at the center of it to varying degrees. It's also a nice rebuke of so many of the problematic approaches we've seen to married superheroes, like the New 52 idea that a marriage is the end of drama, the '90s Spider-Man idea that a marriage only has drama when it's constantly on the rocks, or the Tomasi idea that a superhero family must be some picturesque picket-fence 1950s nuclear family. Conflict and tension arises naturally out of a long-term relationship, even a happy and successful one, and Lois's feeling like she's too low on the list of priorities—and her conflict about even expressing that feeling—is extremely relatable as someone who's in a marriage of two people who are often way too busy. 

So the episode ending on a romantic candlelight dinner for Clark and Lois—one which, naturally, gets interrupted by a Super crisis—is a really nice touch, and Clark's speech to Lois (and Lana's speech to Lois, too) is a good reminder about why they work as a couple. 

So far, the places where this show excels are where it explores how having superpowers affects everyday problems—trying to fit in at school, sibling rivalries, being a good parent and partner—and how everyday problems—overprotective parenting, disapproving grandparents—are amplified when you're in a superhero universe. It's a lesson that more domestic-style superhero stories could learn. 

Browsing through the IMDB page, there's someone credited as Dabney Donovan, though I didn't catch them in the episode. That bodes well for future stories. I friggin' love Cadmus. 

[intergalactic-zoo]

I'll give one thing to DC Comics Skeletor: he's a quicker study than the animated version.

Turns out that searching for the Power Sword and trying to take Grayskull hasn't been working, so Skeletor decides to kidnap the Sorceress Goddess and make He-Man find the Power Sword instead.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Masters of the Universe #1 came out in August, 1982, the month after the Preview insert. Paul Kupperberg returns as writer, with George Tuska on pencilling duties. Mini-storybooks artist Alfredo Alcala is back to ink the first two issues, with Rodin Rodriguez taking over in #3. Adam Kubert and Ben Oda are our letterers, and Adrienne Roy and Anthony Tollin are the colorists. Getting Alcala back, even just for inks, really does make a difference; he brings a Prince Valiant quality to Tuska’s pencils in the first issues, which is lost a bit in Rodriguez’s cleaner style. Tuska definitely feels more suited to this setting than Curt Swan did; much as I love Swan, this era of Masters of the Universe really lives in a more brutal, Conan-inspired place than what would come later, and that’s just not what Swan’s classic superheroic style is best at.

Our story begins at another party, where Prince Adam is continuing with that playboy lifestyle, though we get explicit confirmation that this is at least in part an act.

I think this is a really interesting hook for the character, even if it clearly wasn’t very sustainable for a children’s property, particularly one as beset by watchdog groups as Masters of the Universe. The alter ego with a different personality from the hero is nothing new in superhero comics, and we’ve even seen characters like Batman playing the carefree Casanova, but Adam feels a little distinct here, characterized closer to Johnny Storm than Bruce Wayne. Usually the immature, impulsive character who’s always thinking about the opposite sex is played straight, as character flaws that the hero genuinely needs to overcome; it's less common to make those the hallmarks of his secret identity.

Adam gets attacked by demons in his bedroom, and finds Cringer when he hides under the bed, which is a solid gag. We never do find out what the demons were doing there. They rush off to the Goddess's magic cavern, where they are transformed—but find Skeletor instead of the Goddess (who is occasionally also called the Sorceress in the story). Skeletor has imprisoned her, and will only release her if He-Man retrieves the Power Sword for him, which the Goddess has hidden away. In order to find the sword He-Man will need to find three talismans (talismen?) representing the sea, the sky, and the cosmos. 

It's a fetch quest to start the fetch quest. Not the most auspicious start to a series. Or end to one.

He-Man returns to the palace, where we get confirmation of something that fans have always speculated about: do He-Man and Prince Adam really look that similar? In the DC Universe, the answer appears to be yes:

It also plays into a longtime fan theory that Queen Marlena knows Adam's secret. Now that he's back to the palace, He-Man seeks help from the palace wizard, Tarrak, who is being attacked by demons himself! 

He-Man, Teela—wearing for this issue only a sword-and-sorcery standard metal bikini—Battle Cat, and Man-at-Arms manage to defeat the demons, but not before they take the cosmos talisman. Meanwhile, the Bird-People of Avion are attacked by a squad of Beastmen, who are after the sky talisman, which Stratos wears. Stratos seeks help from He-Man, and with Tarrak's assistance, the heroes set off to find the other two talismans. 

This specific outfit and pose feels so familiar.

He-Man and Battle Cat head into the jungle, where they meet a clan of barbarians that He-Man has encountered before, in what feels like a nod to his classic origins. He-Man once helped them battle a sexy evil wizard named Damon.

The barbarians know where the cosmos talisman is, but before they can retrieve it, the group is attacked by demons again. He-Man takes the talisman, and is transported away. 

Out in the Sea of Blackness, Man-at-Arms, Teela, and Stratos are looking for the sea talisman, which is being held by the Mer-People. Fortunately, Tarrak gave them potions so they could breathe underwater. Mer-Man leads a fight against them, because this version also has ambitions of his own, until Skeletor pulls a Darth Vader from a distance. Teela is less than grateful, so Skeletor leaves them to the mercies of the Mer-People.

Just going to admire how great Skeletor looks in that first panel for awhile.

But Stratos claims the sea talisman just in time, and the whole crew is transported into a Steve Ditko drawing. 

They get attacked by demons again, but are saved by Zodac, who refuses to give them any information about the person sending the demons, but a page later we learn that it's the wizard Damon, who wants the Power Swords so he can control Eternia, not that dimensional-carpetbagging wizard-come-lately Skeletor. He's gotten considerably less sexy and more...problematic since that brief appearance in the previous issue. 

Seriously, he looks like the antisemitic caricature from that Carman video. He also happens to be right next to where the Goddess stored the two halves of the Power Sword, but they're in an impenetrable force field, which is not mentioned again. 

Zodac uses the talismans to open a portal to the Sword's location (sort of?) and then gives them to Zoar the poorly-drawn falcon before sending the heroes on their way. 

Feels like the reference got away from you a bit.

Meanwhile, Damon decides to tip his hand by attacking Skeletor, who lashes out with magic that is strong enough to teleport them both into Castle Grayskull, just as Damon had planned. But in a pretty great moment of both villains trying to two-steps-ahead each other, that was all part of Skeletor's plan, and he apparently kills Damon. 

These comics go pretty hard for stuff that was based on toys for babies.

Also, this happened earlier in the issue.

The heroes also end up in Castle Grayskull, which is apparently where the Power Sword is, even though we already saw Damon with the Power Sword before he was able to access Castle Grayskull.

You and me both, He-Man. The heroes split up to search the castle. Stratos gets caught in a giant spiderweb, Man-at-Arms gets blown up by a tripwire, and Teela ends up in a hedge maze until she stumbles on Skeletor, who pulls the Power Sword out of a magic warp. 

He-Man shows up shortly after, but Skeletor sends Beast-Man (singular) and a monsterized Man-E-Faces (who was briefly introduced earlier in this third issue) against the hero. Eventually He-Man, Teela, and Zoar get the sword away from Skeletor, and then the Goddess appears to say "actually I wasn't in any danger, but your friends are all caught in booby traps." The End. 

What an absolutely bizarre miniseries. It feels like it was initially intended to be four issues and cut down to three, but that change had to be made before the first issue—with its "Mini-Series 1 of 3" banner—went to the printers. The promotional push makes it seem like DC was intending to do a lot more than three comics and a handful of mini-comics. Editor Dave Manak speculated that there might have been an issue with contract negotiations, but I'd be really interested if there's a clearer answer. Every aspect of the DC Masters of the Universe license feels abnormally cut off, right down to the end of this story. 

Whatever the reasons were, this would be the last full-sized Masters of the Universe comic from DC for almost 30 years. Next time we'll pick up with the Marvel/Star Comics. 

[intergalactic-zoo]

I was almost ready to comment on how this series is using single-word episode titles, just like "Smallville" did, but now we've got this mouthful playing on a book that was roughly contemporary with that show. It's pretty clunky, but whatever. 

It's nice that this episode gave us a break from the Luthor story, choosing instead to focus on Lois's investigation and some good character moments for the Kents and Lana's family. The mantra that "life is simpler in Smallville" gets an explicit repudiation, some fences are mended, and some new mysterious antagonists are introduced.

Spoilers ahoy! 

If not for the enormous amount of COVID-imposed lead time this series had, and the amount of time it takes to write and record and add special effects to a live-action TV show, this episode would feel like a course correction for a lot of the problems I've had with the last couple of installments. 

I'm writing this a little longer after watching the episode than I typically have, so I'm going to go plot-by-plot rather than chronologically through the episode. 

Painting the House: a cute scene, and a good way to remind us that, even with all the drama and the teen angst, the Kents are a loving family. 

Jonathan & Jordan: Jordan joining the football team is a neat plot point that goes in unexpected directions, given how that kind of thing has typically played out in Superman stories. I like the way that it sets up conflict with Jonathan in the beginning, but eventually he realizes that Jordan's not trying to take away the thing that makes him feel special. Jonathan being the one to convince Clark to let Jordan play—and making the case that Jordan's abilities just even the playing field with respect to his size—is a good moment of solidarity and understanding for him. 

And Jordan, for his part, really does seem like he's found what he needed. Being able to take out some aggression on the football field—and having Clark's support—ends up being the key to getting a handle on his anger and being able to solve some problems with kindness rather than sulking and violence. I also appreciate that at least one of our initial antagonists—Sean—has moved out of that role, at least for now.

Coach Clark: There have been lots of attempts over the years to saddle Superman with various character flaws, but I think the one that fits best is being overprotective. On the macro scale, you get "Must There Be a Superman" and "King of the World," and on a micro scale you get stuff like this, being a bit of a helicopter parent and nearly losing Lois early in their relationship by eavesdropping. It rings true in a way that other attempted flaws—being dull-witted or indecisive—haven't. So it's nice here to see him realize it and acknowledge his mistakes, and to realize that he doesn't have to make the same choices his father did in order to keep his kids safe. After all, Jonathan Kent I didn't have superpowers. It'll also be nice for Clark to have a place to be earnest, mild-mannered Clark Kent, since he's outside the Daily Planet environment.

Lana and Sarah: Somewhere in my drafts I have a post about poor Lana Lang, a character made to fill a niche—the Lois Lane analogue for Superboy—and has never had much of a life outside of that niche. Every time Lana is introduced into adult Clark's life, she has a different deal. She's a TV reporter with a British accent, she's married to Pete Ross, she's a successful engineer, but she's almost always the girl whose life fell to pieces in one way or another after Clark Kent left. It's not fair to either character—Clark's presence in a person's life should elevate them, not devastate them—and while I understand the reason for giving her a failing marriage and conflicts with her children, I do want to see Lana have a happy ending in some adaptation or incarnation. 

Anyway, I like Sarah as a character, and it's interesting to see how her story parallel's Jordan's, with her mother's overbearing overprotectiveness leading to conflict. It creates a contrast between how Clark and Lana are handling their respective teenage offspring, and gives them a nice bonding moment. It's easy to see how these bonding moments could turn into Lana trying to rekindle the old flame with Clark, and I really hope that doesn't happen, but platonic male-female friendships are rare enough on TV that I can imagine it's hard to set one up without everyone seeing a ship setting sail. 

Speaking of ships, I know that Jordan and Sarah are an obvious pairing, but I hope Jordan is smart enough not to try to be her rebound relationship (and ruin his reconciliation with Sean). But honestly, I kind of hope Jordan is gay or bi, giving a way to tie his feelings of being different and search for identity to the struggles queer kids commonly face in an explicit way rather than an allegorical one. 

Seriously though, let Clark and Lois have a strong marriage that doesn't need to be threatened by the Other Woman for unnecessary drama. Let the drama build out of normal family conflicts, not tropes that were sexist and outdated when they were common in the Silver Age. 

Lois's Story: "The news comes to Lois Lane" seems to be an ongoing theme, as the next lead in her story just walks through the door of the Smallville Gazette. Unsurprisingly for a story involving Lois Lane, this leads to a conspiracy involving disappearing workers and super-powered enforcers. Lois explicitly makes the point I said earlier, that the stories in small towns do matter, and too often get overlooked because there aren't enough reporters covering them. 

The action scene where Lois is attacked by someone with Kryptonian-level abilities is pretty good. I always like when Superman enters a confrontation by trying to de-escalate before fighting, and I always like when Lois enters a confrontation by trying to fight before calling in the big guns. The fight between Superman and the assailant (who I think is credited as Subjekt 11, but I assumed that character was going to carry forward and, uh, doesn't look like he is) showcases both a nice escalation as Superman learns what the guy's strength is, and some nice uses of powers. The CW effects teams have gotten pretty creative over the years. The one issue I have is that Superman slams the guy through a cinderblock wall right at the start of the fight, before he's tested those abilities, and I feel like that would have done some real damage if he'd guessed wrong and the guy was a baseline human. The No-Prize Answer would be that either he scanned the guy before hitting him and knew, at baseline, that he was a meta, or that he knew Lois wouldn't call him unless she was dealing with a metahuman threat. Still, it bugs me. 

I do hope we learn more about what Subjekt-11 was. Metahuman? Kryptonian? Some kind of experiment? I'm frankly more interested in the Morgan Edge stuff than alt-universe Luthor. 

The woman who takes out Subjekt-11—who I guess was also with Edge at the meeting last episode—seems to be named Leslie Larr, no doubt a reference to Lesla-Lar, the Silver Age Kandorian villain who happened to be an exact double for Supergirl, because every major character had a double living in Kandor. Whether that means she's Kryptonian or some other swerve is something, I guess, we'll learn later.

Other: I noticed an Easter Egg that I haven't seen reported anywhere else: The Whitty Banter Show! For those who don't remember, Whitty Banter was the host of a Metropolis talk show in the 80s and 90s; there's ads for it all over the Death of Superman Newstime issue. In trying to remind myself what Easter Egg I remembered catching, I also learned that Kryptonsite still exists! What a blast from the past. There was a time, many moons ago, where that was a daily visit for me, along with the Superman Homepage. 

And Blogger.com, for that matter. But those days are clearly far behind us.

[intergalactic-zoo]

Spoilers Ahead! 

Looks like this is just going to be a rambling series of thoughts I had while watching the pilot. Enjoy?

There's not a lot of Jeph Loeb comics I really like, but I really like Superman: For All Seasons. So, you know, kicking off your new series with a reference to what is probably the best moment from that comic, wrapped up in references to the Fleischer cartoons and an Action Comics #1 homage is a pretty sure-fire way to get me on-board. 

That the next bit is an extended reference to the best Superman movie, Superman III, really kind of seals the deal. It's a fitting reference, since both this and that movie are about Clark returning to Smallville as an adult and reconnecting with Lana Lang. 

It's refreshing, after so many years of gruff General Sam Lane growing increasingly hateful and distrustful toward Superman, to have a version of that character who accepts all the facets of his son-in-law. We see later on that the friction in the relationship has shifted to Lois, which is another interesting dynamic.

The casting of Emmanuelle Chriqui as Lana, eschewing the characters usual ginger look, feels like an intentional attempt to echo the Kristen Kreuk version of the character. I wonder how long it'll be before we have some Smallville guest stars. I can imagine at least one of the principal cast who won't show up.

Lana's husband, Erik Valdez's Kyle Cushing, similarly evokes Smallville's Whitney Fordman and Superman III's Brad. Lana Lang has been a lot of different things in her 71 years of existence, but one constant seems to be her terrible luck in romance. 

Speaking of Smallville, it sure is nice to see teenagers played by actual teenagers.

I dig the super-vision effect, like Superman is sweeping through the spectrum. I hope they kind of stick with that instead of going to a more classic x-ray image. 

The Kryptonian ship design feels a lot more Snyderverse than Arrowverse. The color scheme evokes the monochromatic Smallville ship (though looking at pictures, I guess Kara's pod wasn't exactly colorful), and has the weird nanotech vibe that the tech in Man of Steel had.

The ominous bass note when Clark takes his glasses off is good, but it's better that the kids clearly aren't buying it until he does a Superman thing. It would be nice to see Hoechlin make Superman and Clark more distinct, but he also hasn't had a lot of chance to do so yet. 

The speed-slow effect of Superman flying through the wall toward the villain seems calculated—along with the muted color palette of the Superman scenes, seems designed to appeal to fans of the DCEU. I wonder how well that worked.

I like that the heat vision is red in this. Like, I thought it was really neat that they did the blue effect for Supergirl, but I always hoped when they brought Superman into the show, they'd make his heat vision red to make the two more distinct. It would also subtly indicate that Supergirl's heat vision is hotter. 

The Morgan Edge plot is a good hook to keep Lois in the forefront, and to explore some political issues the way Supergirl does, but obviously the politics of rural America are a little different from the politics in National City. 

The bit about Ma Kent being the Superwoman of Smallville is nice. If we're to buy Superman as an inspirational character, it helps to have people inspired by him in the story. 

I hope the inclusion of an alternate-universe Luthor doesn't mean we've seen the last of Jon Cryer's version of the character. I get the impression that Superman & Lois is going for a Black Lightning/Batwoman vibe, spending the first season more or less on its own to find its footing before it builds ties back to the larger Arrowverse. At least, I hope that's the case; it would be a shame for this series to reach its finale without ever bringing Melissa Benoist in for a guest spot. 

The kids won me over by the end, though I hope there ends up being more to the premise than "one has powers, the other doesn't." Although that is a helluva Silver Age Imaginary Story plot to build a modern series on. The only way this could be more Silver Age is if it were Superman & ???? and Bitsie Tulloch was just constantly in silhouette. 

Overall, I'm optimistic. The featurette that followed the pilot (which featured some people who...maybe weren't the best idea to put in promo materials right now) mentioned Smallville shortly before calling this a show about Superman when he grows up, and I think that's really the appeal. We've had a show about Superman in his prime, we've had a show about Superman starting out in life, and we've had two shows about Superman before he was Superman, but we've never seen something like this in an adaptation before (though I suppose Superman Returns came close). I can imagine some ways that this could break very badly—a Brightburn-style plot with Jordan, romantic tension between Clark and Lana, sidelining Lois, and of course all the behind-the-scenes issues I mentioned last time—but I think the building blocks are here for a really interesting series that does a good job exploring the Superman mythos in a way we haven't seen before. And I think, like pretty much all the CW shows, it's got the cast to pull it off. I'm very excited to see where this goes from here.

[intergalactic-zoo]

Whoopsie, went a whole year without posting.

I very much enjoy the Arrowverse shows, even though the only episodes of Arrow I've seen are the crossover tie-ins. Legends of Tomorrow is a constant delight, Black Lightning is incredible, The Flash is good superhero melodrama, and Supergirl is fine. It's fine. It's generally mostly fine. 

Look, Supergirl started out strong on CBS, but since it moved to CW, it's been plagued by recurring problems. The cast is stellar. I love every actor and character on that show. Dreamer is a revelation, and I want to see her ongoing comic series (where maybe her powers will be slightly more clearly developed). 

But the politics? The recent episode dealing with violence against trans women (and trans women of color in particular) was a welcome and refreshing shift in the show's usual tone of Peak Liberal White Feminism. For a show that has its heart so clearly in the right place, tackling real-world issues like internment camps for immigrants and the radicalization of cishet white men into fascist paramilitary organizations, it has also featured a hero who, up until last season, was consistently working with a government organization and adopting center-left approaches that openly demonized actual leftists and ignored intersectionality in favor of a lily-white worldview. 

Buckle in, comrades. This is an anarchist blog now. 

There are other problems as well. The way they derailed the Kara-Jimmy relationship to pair her with Mon-El for a season, then fumbled around to find something to do with his character until he left the show, feels more than a little casually racist. I think there are legitimate queerbaiting complaints to be had about how they've handled the Kara/Lena relationship. Alex's shifting desires and priorities have felt less like character development and more like trying to figure out where she fits in the show now.

There's a lot of good, too, especially with some of this most recent season's course corrections. Killing Dean Cain's character offscreen was a hilarious solution to that unfortunate problem. I appreciated Brainiac-5's evolution that gave him a more comics-accurate Coluan appearance and removed some of the played-out "smart guy doesn't understand emotions" character type. I like that every time Lena says "Non Nocere" it makes me think of standing in a Buffalo Stance.

And I've liked Tyler Hoechlin and Bitsie Tulloch as Superman and Lois Lane, on the occasions where they've appeared. Tulloch isn't my favorite Lois, and I wish Hoechlin's costume had the trunks, but they've been quite good when they've shown up. And, you know, this is the first live-action Superman show with tights and flights and the word "Superman" in the title since 1997. I am, unexepctedly, excited for that. 

Besides that, it's a different take on the characters. Lois gets second billing, but rather than being a will-they/won't-they romantic dramedy, it's centered on Clark and Lois as an established couple and experienced parents of teenagers. Personally, I'd prefer the kids to be younger—Crisis changed their single infant into two teenage boys—but I suppose there are some story and tone reasons to prefer teenage kids. Overall, I think a lot of the choices are really savvy: setting the story in Smallville immediately sets this show apart from urban Supergirl, and the teens who cut their sci-fi melodrama teeth on Clark and Lois and Lex in Smallville are now in their thirties, settling down and having kids of their own. This show has the potential of tapping into that 20-year nostalgia cycle for the mid-2000s.

But...well, my excitement has been dampened somewhat in the lead-up to the premiere. Naturally, there's the stories Nadria Tucker has told about experiences in the writers' room, how they dismissed concerns about racism and sexism, about "#metoo jokes" and the like. There's also the optics; Supergirl is coming to an end next season, and it's hard not to feel weird about the diverse, female-dominated show about found family being more-or-less replaced with the nuclear family show whose principal cast is four white people, three of them dudes. I never really watched the trailer, but the response to it on my social media feed was largely negative (though for whatever reason, my social media feed is heavy on people who apparently aren't happy if Superman's not snapping necks in a rubber suit). On the other hand, I've seen really positive responses from two of the Superman fans I respect the most, Charlotte Finn and David Mann. And that clip of Hoechlin in the Fleischer suit and the Action #1 pose? Yeah, that's pretty cool. 

So I'm not sure what to expect as I finally hit up the ol' TiVo and watch the two-hour Pilot. But I'm about to find out. 

[intergalactic-zoo]

I think I've figured it out. If "Lois & Clark" was "Moonlighting" with super-powers, "Smallville" was "Dawson's Creek" with superpowers, and "Supergirl" started as "The Devil Wears Prada" with superpowers, then "Superman & Lois" is "This Is Us" with superpowers. 

Spoilers ahead!

That may not be entirely accurate—I've watched maybe 15 minutes of "This Is Us"—but I feel like that's the kind of tone this show is going for, the family-centered melodrama. The kind of show that would be designed to manipulate emotions and win Emmies if it didn't occasionally feature CGI battles between Superman and an alternate-universe Lex Luthor. I thought after the pilot that the muted color palette was an attempt to visually echo the Snyder movies—and that may be a piece of it—but it also reminds me of every clip I've seen of that show where the guy from "Heroes" gets killed by a pressure cooker. 

The result is a show that isn't quite like any of the other superhero shows on The CW. The closest (of the ones I've watched) is "Black Lightning," which similarly was about an older hero trying to raise a family, but even that felt more like "The Flash" in terms of cinematography and structure. You still had the Hero being directed by the Guy In The Chair to face a particular threat. Superman doesn't have the same support network, or the same relationship with his kids and the problem of adolescent superpowers. 

I continue to be cautiously optimistic about this series after episode two. I can see where some of the plots could easily go sideways, and the decision to cast two black male actors as two of our antagonists when the rest of our principal cast is pretty lily-white is Not Great, but right now I'm interested in seeing how things go, and I don't really understand where some of the vitriolic fan response is coming from. At worst this show is fine. 

There's a lot I like here. Every character's core conflicts internally and externally are already built at this point, and there are good points of conflict and connection between most of our main cast members. 

It would be easy to fall into the trap where Clark can't do anything right as a parent—which seemed to be the direction they were going in the pilot—but it's clear here that he's doing his best, and that leads to good moments with the kids. 

It's nice to see that the relationship between Clark and Sam Lane isn't all sunshine and roses; they have reason to distrust one another, and while they both clearly think they're doing the right things to keep their family safe, they have very different ideas about how to do that. It's also interesting that they're bringing in Project 7734, which I think first appeared in the World of New Krypton story. 

It's interesting that the trend has been to show Jor-El with a beard since...at least Superman: Secret Origin, but maybe as far back as the Richard Donner run on Action or "Up, Up, and Away." 

After years of seeing evil/corrupted/morally-ambiguous versions of Superman in the comics and prominent adaptations and pastiches—including the Injustice games, which we saw Jordan playing in the pilot—it's kind of a stroke of brilliance to make the main supervillain of this piece a version of Luthor from a world where Luthor was right and Superman was bad or went that way. It may be petty of me to appreciate that the evil Superman is wearing a black costume as in some prominent scenes by that one director with a New 52-style high collar (even if it looks to be the same costume that the evil Superman wore in the "Elseworlds" crossover a couple years back), but I'm embracing it. It's a good, simple visual shorthand. 

Speaking of costumes, I think it's interesting how much Hoechlin's main Superman costume for this series looks like the costume from the Smallville Season 11 comic and Superman: Earth One, down to the two-toned blue areas. 

It even has the same belt as that Smallville costume. Of the three main suits Hoechlin has worn—the one on "Supergirl," the Fleischer-inspired one in the pilot opening, and this main one—this is easily my least favorite; the muscles feel padded or painted-on (which is understandable; that visible eight-pack abs physique may be sustainable for a few weeks of film shooting, but not for the months needed to film a season of television), and it just feels more muted than even the darker blue of the "Supergirl" costume. But it's not bad, and making the belt red and yellow helps make up for the lack of trunks, and the two blue shades are one solution to the endless field of blue that most trunk-less versions of the costumes have. 

It's nice that every character has a clear arc ahead of them, and I do hope that (especially since her name's in the title) Lois's story gets increasing focus over the season, despite what we've heard from the writers' room. It's one of the plots that I can see going sideways—the Big City Reporter coming in to keep the Backwards Hicks from acting against their own interests, or learning that maybe her Big City Liberal Ways just don't work in the simple lives of Rural Americans—but I feel like the way things are set up now shows a degree of awareness that might avoid those pitfalls. We see complications to the "life in Smallville is simpler" mantra here—Sam Lane rejects it outright—and Morgan Edge is a prime indication of the fact that the same problems are at play in both the big cities and rural towns. 

I've lived in rural farm towns for most of my adult life. I've seen towns try to out-bid each other with municipality-killing tax breaks over businesses as small as local car dealerships, let alone big billionaires with promises of better jobs. I've had conversations with people who think the unions just have too much power these days and the owner takes all the risk so he should be able to take all the profits too. A show that's going to champion the need for independent local press when conglomerates are buying up papers and stations around the countries, that's going to argue that accepting scraps from billionaires because you're desperate is tantamount to extortion, that's a show that speaks to me, at least, and hopefully speaks to some people who might otherwise be hostile to those kinds of political messages. 

It is weird that Edge is interested in Smallville's mines rather than, you know, its farms, but I can see some logic behind that story decision. I do wonder if it's going to tie into some of Edge's more comic book-style motivations. Is there Apokoliptian tech in these mines? Kryptonite? Who knows?

Overall, I think this is a pretty strong start. It's not perfect, and I honestly wish the tone were a little closer to some of the other CW superhero shows, but I understand why they'd try to distinguish themselves from the pack. I'm invested in the characters, and I'm interested to see where the story goes. I realize that I'm a cheap date when it comes to Superman adaptations, but so far I'm enjoying this one more than most. 

[intergalactic-zoo]

Today's entry is an interesting one. It was originally published in black-and-white in The Amazing World of Superman (Metropolis Edition), an oversized magazine published to coincide with the opening of a World of Superman Theme Park in Metropolis, IL, which sadly never opened. The book features a bunch of interesting content, including a Superman drawing guide by Curt Swan, a review of the Broadway musical, a step-by-step description of how comics were made in the early 1970s, and this brand new retelling of Superman's origin, which would eventually be colored and reprinted a bunch of times, most recently in the Superman Through the Ages one-shot, which we'll be revisiting at least once in this series. I'll be pulling some of the color images for the post from Secret Origins of the Super DC Heroes. Creative Team: E. Nelson Bridwell, Carmine Infantino, Curt Swan, Murphy Anderson, and Gaspar Saladino. All-Star Summary: Doomed planet. Desperate parents. Last hope. Kindly couple.

Key Elements: The distant planet Krypton is home to a highly-advanced civilization of super-intelligent humanoids. The scientist Jor-El believes that the planet is going to explode, but the Science Council dismisses his concerns. He returns to his wife Lara and their infant son Kal-El, and builds a functioning model space-ship. As the planet begins its final destruction, the distraught parents place their child in the rocket and send it into space.

I've always loved this particular shot, which Byrne recreates in Man of Steel

The rocket lands on Earth and is discovered by Jonathan and Martha Kent, an older couple who are driving by when they see it crash. They rescue the child and bring it to an orphanage in Smallville. The child displays superhuman abilities, and the Kents return to adopt him. They name him Clark after Martha's maiden name. Clark's powers develop as he grows older, including invulnerability, super-speed, amazing leaping abilities, and X-Ray vision. Eventually he becomes a costumed hero named Superboy, and his parents die of an illness. On his deathbed, Jonathan tells Clark to use his powers for good. Clark is distraught that for all his power, he wasn't able to save his adopted parents. Clark leaves Smallville, attends Metropolis University, and gets a job at the Daily Planet, so that he can easily keep tabs on crimes and disasters as they happen. And when they happen, he's off to save the world as Superman. 

Jor-El has a flair for the dramatic

Interesting Deviations: Kryptonians have studied Earth and the abilities that a Kryptonian would develop on that world, which they attribute to both its weaker gravitational pull and yellow sun. Jor-El proposes "return[ing] to our abandoned space program and build[ing] giant space-arks to carry our people to another world!--Earth!" The Kryptonian Science Council suggests that this plan is an attempted political coup on Jor-El's part. Jor-El builds his model rocket after meeting with the Council, probably to account for the existence of Krypto and Beppo in this continuity (though we know that this incident isn't the only time he's brought his concerns up to the Council, so it's possible that other versions where the meeting happens closer to the planet's destruction isn't a contradiction). He explicitly states that it's big enough to fit Kal-El and Lara, but Lara chooses to stay behind and die with her husband.

The Kents find Kal-El's rocket directly, and unlike in a lot of the early origins, the rocket remains undamaged and they bring it back home with them. They express desire to adopt the child right away, as opposed to coming back later. Clark accidentally uses X-Ray vision to find Martha's missing ring behind an opaque object in a scene reminiscent of one in Lowther's Adventures of Superman novel. Martha and Jonathan die of an illness, and Martha is first to pass in this version. 

Additional Commentary: The Kents have this plan to hide the rocket after they drop baby Kal off at the orphanage, but they drive into and through town with the ship uncovered in the back of their pickup. It's ambiguous enough in the black-and-white story, but when it's been recolored, the Kents are elderly again when they pass away. Which makes sense, that's how they looked in Superman (vol. 1) #161 when their death (due to the dreaded fever plague, which they contracted from pirate treasure), except that in Superboy (vol. 1) #145 (which came out five years after the Superman issue and five years before this story), the Kents unknowingly drink a youth serum and are "permanently" made twenty years younger. None of this is a problem with this story necessarily, but I'm curious to know if any effort was ever made to reconcile the different flashbacks. Similarly, the scene where Jonathan tells Clark to use his powers to better mankind is straight out of the Lowther novel, but makes less sense in a continuity where he's been operating as Superboy for years. This story does a good job of weaving in some of the other popular media hallmarks, starting with the "Faster than a speeding bullet!" opening from the radio show and other programs, and ending with the familiar "Look! Up in the sky!" cry. It's exactly the kind of thing you'd want to have in a book designed to be consumed by the general public who may not be avid comics readers. I've mused about the difficulties caused here and there by the complex continuity that had accumulated up to this point, with different variations on Superman's origin and flashbacks to his adventures as Superboy, but Bridwell, Infantino, & Co. are wise to gloss over it as much as they do. Though they decided to include a kind of strange anecdote about Superboy's farewell to Smallville...

...rather than, say, a single line of dialogue from Lois Lane. But overall, this is a pretty solid retelling of the origin, and one that I think most people would recognize as pretty definitive.

The Rocket: And this is probably the most definitive thing here. When I think about Superman's pre-Crisis rocket, this is the one I'm thinking of. It's got that Superman color scheme (in the reprints, anyway), it's got a shape that's retrofuturistic but distinctive, it's The Rocket.

 Five out of five exploding Kryptons, would ride again.

[intergalactic-zoo]

Once upon a time, just a little over nine years ago, I started a little series examining the different versions of Superman's origin story, in publication order, on this blog. That series petered out after nine entries, halfway through George Lowther's 1942 novel, The Adventures of Superman. There's half of an entry finishing off that novel's origin story in my drafts from...*cough* 2011. 

Since then, we've had a bunch more Superman origin stories, including flashback sequences in "Man of Steel (vol. 2)" and the current "Superman: Year One." And I'd like to dive back into the Superman origin waters. 

But I'm older and wiser now, and I realize that I made some avoidable mistakes. Chief among them being that I tried to stick to the origins in chronological order. I think there's value to that, in seeing how the myth evolved over time, but it also means spending a lot of time tracking down hard-to-find Golden Age and Silver Age sources. I really dig Golden and Silver Age comics, but I also know there were versions of Superman's origin told in the gap between 1961 and 1978 in that old master list, and I haven't found any clear indication of where they were. 

So I'm going to play hopscotch through the decades, covering Superman origins as I encounter them, and focusing on the key elements that carry over from version to version, as well as the interesting deviations. I can't promise a regular schedule or fascinating writing, but I'm going to try. Blogging may be a dying art, but I'm not ready to close the Fortress door just yet, and this is an easy way to have some consistent content that I can't just dump in the whirlpool of social media. 

Besides, I made a logo:

I hope you enjoy coming on this journey with me! The first installment will post later today!

[intergalactic-zoo]

"Come with us now on a far journey, a journey that takes us millions of miles from the Earth, where many years ago the planet Krypton burned like a green star in the endless heavens." Today this series makes its first foray off of the comic page and into the vast multimedia landscape of Superman adaptations. "The Adventures of Superman" followed shows like "The Lone Ranger" and "Dragnet" in making the leap from the radio to the television, and I'd venture to say that nowhere is that more apparent than in this first episode. Creative Team: Tommy Carr, Robert Maxwell, Whitney Ellsworth, George Reeves, Phyllis Coates, Jack Larson, John Hamilton, Herbert Rawlinson, Stuart Randall, Aline Towne, Frances Morris, Danni Sue Nolan, Tom Fadden, Robert Rockwell, and Jeffrey Silver. All-Star Summary: Doomed planet. Desperate scientist. Last hope. Courageous couple. 

Key Elements: The distant planet Krypton was home to an advanced civilization of supermen, at the peak of human perfection. The scientist Jor-El has been brought before a council to explain destructive events that have been happening around the planet. He reveals that the planet is doomed to explode in the near future. The Council dismisses his conclusions and warnings as the ravings of a madman, and scoff at his plan to use rockets to evacuate the population to the planet Earth.

Jor-El returns to his lab, where he adds fuel to his model rocket. He plans to test it, and if it arrives on Earth safely, he'll build one large enough to take himself, his wife Lara, and his infant son Kal-El to safety. But when the tremors grow stronger, Jor-El realizes that the planet is in its last moments. The model ship is large enough for one passenger; Jor-El tells Lara to go, but she refuses, saying if any of them are to survive, it should be their child. They put the baby in the rocket and launch it toward Earth, just before Krypton finally explodes. On Earth, Eben and Sarah Kent see a rocket crash as they are driving down a country road. Eben hears a baby crying inside the flaming ship and rescues it. Neither the child nor his blanket were burned by the fire. The rocket is destroyed, leaving no trace behind. The Kents decide to keep the baby and raise him as their own son, Clark. As Clark grows, he discovers that he has amazing powers that set him apart from other people, like super-strength, super-speed, and X-ray vision. Ma Kent tells him the story of how they found and rescued him. When Clark is 25 years old, his father dies of a sudden heart attack. Ma encourages him to leave town for Metropolis, and to use his amazing powers to help people. She even made him an indestructible costume out of the blankets he was wrapped in as a baby. He resolves to keep his identity secret by acting timid and wearing glasses. He takes a job at the Daily Planet, a great metropolitan newspaper, so that he'll be able to learn about emergencies quickly. He meets Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, and Lois Lane, who is immediately suspicious of Clark.

And when emergencies occur, he's there to save the day—as Superman!

Interesting Deviations: Here, it's not the Science Council that hears Jor-El's predictions, but the governing council, meeting in the Temple of Wisdom. The Council specifically commissioned Jor-El's research in this version, which may not be an explicit departure from other origins, but certainly feels like one in spirit. Krypton's fate is due to its sun drawing the planet closer, which honestly feels more realistic than the usual exploding core. It makes sense for the described disasters like volcanoes and earthquakes to result from changes in tidal forces as Krypton's orbit decays and the sun's gravitational pull exerts a greater influence. How much of that was known in 1952, and how much was just good sci-fi guesswork, I can't say. I also can't say that an explosion is likely to result from this process either, but certainly being torn apart might. Talking with Lara, Jor-El notes that despite the clouds, there's been a strange glow in the west, and Lara complains about the oppressive heat, asking if it's due to the planet getting closer to the sun. Maybe it's just because it's black-and-white television, but I was immediately reminded of the "Twilight Zone" episode "Midnight Sun," except that aired nine years after this. One really interesting, minor variation between the different retellings is who Jor-El intends to send in the rocket. Occasionally it's Kal-El from the start, sometimes both Lara and Kal-El. Here, Jor-El initially suggests that Lara go alone, then that the rocket might be large enough for both her and Kal-El, but she refuses both times. "I'd be lost on a new world without you, Jor-El." The Kents here, as in the radio show's (lost, to my knowledge) second version of the origin and the Kirk Alyn serials, are Eben and Sarah. To my knowledge, these names never made the jump to the comics.

There's a lovely exchange here, where Sarah says "Eben! You can't do nothin', you'll get burned!" and Eben replies "Gotta do somethin'," before throwing dirt at the hatch to put out the fire. If I may read too far into things, Superman's parents in this segment illustrate the two most important aspects of his character: hope even in the bleakest situations, and using whatever power you have to do whatever good you can. The Kents discuss bringing the child to an orphanage, but decide that nobody would believe their story. Interestingly, this bears a lot of resemblance to how the story would go in the post-Crisis age. The classic image of Clark demonstrating his powers is lifting a heavy object—often a tractor or a couch—to retrieve a ball. It's interesting, then, that these early versions often go for the X-ray vision instead. The radio program's second version of the origin story has a part titled "Eben Kent Dies in a Fire," so his heart attack is likely a departure from that story. We see the name Smallville for the first time in this story at the bus depot. The name's been in the comics since at least 1949, but I'd be interested to know if it had shown up in the serials or radio show before this. Notably, despite "Smallville" being the setting of Superboy's adventures for at least a few years in the comics, there's no indication that Superboy existed in this continuity.

Clark is unable to get an interview with Perry the traditional way, so he tries slipping into Perry's office through the window, using a ledge outside the building. It's a bold move, but maybe not one that suits that whole "mild-mannered" demeanor. An emergency interrupts his impromptu interview—a blimp was unable to land, and now a man is hanging from its cable—and Perry sends Lois and Jimmy to cover it. Notably, he tells them to have a couple of photographers dispatched, which suggests that Jimmy hasn't taken that job yet. Superman's first rescue is the man who'd been dangling from the rope. In his interview, he says it was a "super-guy," but Clark had already beaten him to the punch with the headline.

Additional Commentary: The opening narration is taken verbatim from the first episode of the radio show, "The Baby from Krypton," and much of what happens on Krypton follows pretty close to the original radio script, including the presence of Ro-Zan and Jor-El's "solar calculations." 

Jor-El, played by Robert Rockwell, looks eerily like Norm Macdonald.

And Lara, Aline Towne, looks pretty sultry.

I think this shot is extremely interesting, given how clear it is that Lara is holding a sack rather than a baby. The blanket fell away to expose the sack as she moved, and she tries to cover it back up in a way that looks natural, but it's interesting to see that this didn't merit another take.

Take a look at that superdrool. When they cut away from this close-up shot, it becomes clear that the baby was probably never even on the Krypton set.

Rockwell and Towne really sell the desperation of the moment. The baby is not on-hand for the rocket crash scene, as a stunt-sack clearly fills in again. I suppose this was the era before high-definition TVs and pause buttons; if I were watching this on a 12-inch screen via antenna, I probably wouldn't notice the difference. Eventually they do transition to having the baby in the scene. When twelve-year-old Clark asks why he's different from the other boys, Sarah expresses that she was concerned that he was coming down with the measles. I guess it's nice that that's a relevant concern again. George Reeves looks very Elvis Presley here.

Angry, shouty Perry White here is pretty clearly a major inspiration for J. Jonah Jameson, and a nice illustration of how, once JJJ exists as the apotheosis of that archetype, Perry is left a little rudderless as a character.

The Rocket: A classic sci-fi rocket, but not much distinctive about it. And it ultimately falls apart like it's made of cardboard. Two exploding Kryptons.

[intergalactic-zoo]

We're firmly in the Silver Age with this week's entry, "The Complete Story of Superman's Life," which begins much like last week's entry with the claim that "millions want to know" where Superman came from and how he got his amazing abilities. And the title page boasts that some of the facts have been revealed before, but this is the first time that the story has been told in full. So, here's 1961's Superman (vol. 1) #146! Creative Team: Otto Binder and Al Plastino All-Star Summary: Doomed planet. Desperate scientist. Last chance. Kindly couple. 

Key Elements: Superman is Earth's mightiest hero, with many amazing abilities. His story starts on the distant world Krypton, which orbits a red sun. Krypton was home to an advanced civilization with futuristic technology, as well as many fantastic creatures. Krypton is beset by damaging quakes, and Jor-El warns the Council of Scientists that these are signs that the planet will soon explode. Jor-El suggests that they build space arks to evacuate the planet, but the Council laughs at him and throws him out. Jor-El conducts experiments with small rockets, ultimately building one large enough for him and his wife Lara to send their baby son Kal-El to Earth. The rocket escapes just as the planet explodes, and the debris turns into radioactive Kryptonite.  The rocket lands on Earth, and Kal-El is discovered by farmers Jonathan and Martha Kent, a childless couple living near Smallville. They leave the child with an orphanage, but plan to come back to adopt him. At the orphanage, the child displays superhuman strength. The Kents legally adopt him, and name him Clark, after Martha's maiden name. The child demonstrates amazing abilities, and by using the indestructible blankets he was found in, they're able to make clothes that can withstand his powers. The Kents sell the farm and move to Smallville, where Clark starts school and eventually becomes the teenage superhero Superboy. He keeps his true identity secret, and begins wearing glasses (fashioned from the indestructible remains of his rocket) as a disguise. When neighbor Lana Lang begins to suspect that Clark is Superboy, he takes elaborate steps to protect his dual identity. Eventually he discovers that he came from the planet Krypton, which explains his amazing powers. Clark grows up and goes to college, but realizes that maintaining a secret identity will require him to pretend to be meek and mild-mannered his whole life.

The Kents die shortly after Clark's graduation from college, but not before Pa instructs him to use his powers for the benefit of humanity. He decides to move to Metropolis, but when Superboy leaves, Smallville comes out to celebrate him. In thanks, Superboy bakes a cake so large that everyone in town can have a slice. Clark Kent becomes a reporter for the Daily Planet, so he can learn about crimes as they happen. And when they do, he's off to save the world as Superman! Interesting Deviations: While the story in The Amazing World of Superman mentioned Earth's yellow sun, this is the first origin we've examined that specifically noted the color of Krypton's sun. I'd be interested to know when that bit of lore entered the mythos. Clearly sometime between 1948 and 1961, and I would venture a guess that either Siegel or Binder was behind it.

It's fascinating how the demonstrations of Krypton's advanced civilization have changed over time. Originally it was that they had super powers, in 1948 it was that they could build amazingly fast flying machines, and here it's that they have robotic laborers and that they can remove the pollution from their atmosphere.

Given how Krypton's destruction has become an allegory for ignoring environmental catastrophe, this is an especially interesting element. 

This is the first mention we've had of Krypton's other fauna, in this case a metal-eater kept in a Kryptonian zoo behind glass bars. Ethics of such rudimentary zoos aside, I kind of wish it were a thought-beast instead. The physics behind Krypton's destruction receive more elaboration here, with Jor-El identifying that the planet's core is made of uranium and that a chain reaction has begun, making Krypton into a "gigantic atomic bomb." Krypton's destruction being used as an allegory for the existential threats facing the contemporary world is, clearly, not a new phenomenon. The reason for the Council's rejection of Jor-El's predictions has changed considerably from origin to origin, but this one is unique in my experience: the Council possesses a "Cosmic Clock" that predicts disasters, and it says Krypton will be safe.

There's a tendency in these origins to make it seem like Jor-El is a bit of a crank and a doomsayer, but I like that this story pushes in the opposite direction, making the Council look like fanatics, blindly trusting in this mechanical Nostradamus. You can see shades of how Brainiac gets involved in Krypton's destruction in The Animated Series. It's 1961, and we've met another survivor of Krypton at this point, so we get a panel of Jor-El discussing his theories with his brother Zor-El, and a surprisingly lengthy editor's note linking the exchange to Supergirl's origin.

Also, assuming the Kryptonian calendar is like the American one, Krypton blew up on a Tuesday. Speaking of 1961, the existence of the Space Race means that Jor-El's methods have come to mirror that of Earth space agencies. We see Krypto here for the first time in an origin story, and a mention that Krypto's rocket isn't the first test flight Jor-El has conducted. Beppo the Super-Monkey was introduced three years earlier. We've seen in a couple of origins that Kryptonians were familiar with Earth, but here Jor-El discovers it himself. There's no mention here of trying to build it large enough to hold Lara as well. I think this is also the first origin we've looked at where Kal-El was verbal before he was launched into space. Not only do we see Kryptonite mentioned here, but also the origins of Red Kryptonite.

Unlike most versions of the origin, here Kal-El is thrown from the rocket when it lands, but is unharmed because anything from Krypton is indestructible on Earth. Anyrhing except the rocket, which explodes due to its super-fuel, all of which seems like a pretty tremendous oversight on Jor-El's part. The rocket being destroyed was a frequent element in Golden Age origins, but I'm surprised to see it happening here in the era of "indestructible blankets became the Superboy costume." Though there's enough of it left for the Kents to recognize it as a space ship. Kal is left on the doorstep of the orphanage under the cover of night. We see some of the classic feats of strength at the orphanage that we've seen before, but here they go unnoticed by the staff. The Kents, on the other hand, start cataloging his powers immediately. Though the sheer number of otherwise life-threatening situations the Kents allow Clark to get into makes them look pretty negligent.

We see the further influence of the popularity of Superboy stories here, as the Kents sell the farm and buy a general store in Smallville before Clark begins school. Clark adopts his Superboy identity after mastering all of his powers except flying, which he eventually conquers with the help of Pa Kent, some weather balloons, and a rope.

The story introduces the super-robots, Clark's secret tunnel out of town and the secret rooms he built in the Kent house, and his reunion with Krypto. Clark's discovery of his abilities is notable first in that it repeats the justification given all the way back in Action Comics #1, using an ant and a grasshopper as Earth examples of creatures with strength like Superman's, and second in that it distinguishes between the powers he has due to Earth's weaker gravity, and the powers he has due to the yellow sun.

At the end, we get a neat little space-age addition to the old "It's a bird!" exclamation, inserting "a rocket" in there.

Additional Commentary: The issue starts with a brief run-down of Superman's powers and character, which culminates in this neat little panel. I'm always down for Superman, champion of the underdog.

The scenes of Clark leaving Smallville are almost verbatim what we'd see in The Amazing World of Superman, down to people saving their slice of cake and Superman becoming a citizen of the world.

It wouldn’t be entirely surprising that the 1973 origin would hew so closely to this one, except that the last section is really the only place where it does. The biggest deviation is Superman pledging his loyalty to the United States in this version, likely speaking to the greater Cold War tensions in 1961 than 1973.

The Rocket: We'll see variations on this version of this red-and-blue rocket in several origins, and to be honest we see at least a couple of variations (differing mostly in how pointed the nosecone is) in these panels. It's not particularly distinctive, but at least it has those retro fins and the color scheme. Three out of five exploding Kryptons.

[intergalactic-zoo]

Today we're tackling the most recent version of Superman's origin, as told in Superman Year One. Creative Team: Frank Miller, John Romita, Jr., Danny Miki, and Alex Sinclair. All-Star Summary: Doomed planet. Terrified parents. Last hope. Mesmerized farmer.

Key Elements: As the planet Krypton explodes, a scientist and his wife place their young son in a rocket and launch him into space. He lands on Earth and is found by Jonathan Kent, who brings him home to his wife Martha, and they adopt him. From the start, he has a dense body and superhuman abilities, and these grow as he gets older. He begins using his powers to punish bullies, but learns quickly that his actions sometimes have unintended consequences. When he saves Lana Lang from an attack, he reveals his powers to her and takes her for a flight. He uses his abilities to excel in sports, to Pa's dismay. He decides he needs to leave and see the world. Ma uses the super-durable blankets from his ship to make him a garment.

Interesting Deviations: Baby Kal is old enough to be standing and walking when he arrives on Earth. Jonathan Kent is alone when he finds Kal. It's heavily implied that Kal has some kind of psychic ability, and that he uses it to influence Jonathan to take him home. The Smallville High team is the Wolves here, which is an interesting choice. I don't think that one's been done before. They were the Crows on the "Smallville" TV series and the Spartans in "Man of Steel" as a nod to the director. 

Additional Commentary: I know it's probably cliché to criticize Miller's overwrought narration, but it's laid on pretty thick here, switching from baby Kal's perspective to third-person narration of various degrees of omniscience on a page-by-page basis. Ma and Pa Kent talk like a very stereotypical, old-timey kind of farmer.

It's pretty clear that Frank Miller doesn't know what age high school freshmen are, since both the class and the kids are written as though they're in elementary school (when they're not being written as bizarrely anachronistic old men).

Later we see that Clark and Lana are conversant in Plato and Aristotle and Freud and Jung, none of whom are commonly read in high school courses. We know that Clark uses his abilities to speed-read, but it's Lana who brings up the topic. Also, I would have killed for a forty-five minute lunch period.

It's nice to see Clark being friends with a bunch of outcasts and misfits, though it would be nicer if Lana were part of the friend circle, since she's introduced as being somehow connected with Clark, but we don't actually see them interacting until considerably later, as a prelude to...well, to the unpleasantness that really didn't need to happen. I appreciate having thought balloons here, but it's a really strange lettering choice not to make them into the typical scalloped thought balloon shape. And this is John Workman on letters!

And all the sound effects in this comic look like this, which is...a choice, for sure.

Speaking of strange choices: green oatmeal?

It's also a strange choice for Clark Kent to be reading Doc Savage. I suppose there hasn't been a clear indication of when this story is taking place, but there's no time I'm aware of when both goths and 1930s pulp fiction were commonplace. It's one of many places where this book feels adrift in time, not contemporary enough to feel like a modern retelling, not classic enough to feel like a period piece. I could have done without Clark Kent peeing, but I guess this is a Black Label book, so. The bit of this that got the most pre-release controversy is the idea that Clark would join the military (here, the Navy). Jonathan is surprised that he's decided not to go to college, but Martha expresses quite reasonably a fear of his prodigious power being turned toward war. That's still contrasted with Clark's glee at seeing an F-35 flying overhead—complete with a "Look! Up in the sky!" caption—when he arrives on base.

The F-35 is an interesting choice to compare so directly with Superman, one originally intended to be the super-powerful champion of the oppressed, the other a bloated, ineffectual example of government waste and the military industrial complex run amok. As with the Superman in the military angle, it'll be interesting to see how much of this is intentional commentary and how much...isn't. As a bit of a final thought here, people were (justifiably) skeptical of this book before it was released. Frank Miller hasn't exactly had a great track record for the last (checks watch) eighteen years or so, and "the origin of Superman" is such well-worn territory that some chuckleheads have dedicated whole blog series to examining it. Heck, we just had a problematic dude writing a new, modernized exploration of Superman's origins four years ago. When the previews showed Clark joining the military, it's no surprise that there was some backlash. Awareness of the problems with the military—in how it's used, how its members are treated, and how it uses pop culture and superhero media as a recruitment tool—is at a high point in the last couple of decades, and people were uncertain how the guy who wrote Holy Terror was going to handle that relatively sensitive topic. And one issue in, we still don't really have an idea. There's a definite "recruitment commercial" feel to the last few pages of the book, but Martha's vocalization of a lot of fans' fears gives me some hope that it won't all be rah-rah jingoism. As to the rest of the book? I'm interested to see where it goes as a fan of the character, but there's just...not a lot here. From the writing to the art to the letters and coloring, everything about this book feels phoned in. Miller and Romita in particular feel like they're parodies of themselves, and if you'd told me that this was lettered by someone brand new to the industry and not the legend who put words to Simonson's Thor run, I'd believe you. For the "definitive origin of Superman," this just kind of...exists. What's interesting isn't new, and what's new isn't interesting.

The Rocket: We don't get a really clear glimpse of it, but what we see is nonsense.

Not only does it look like a knockoff of some landspeeder from The Phantom Menace, but it looks an awful lot like it should be large enough to hold more than a baby. It's implied that there's some kind of on-board AI teaching Clark along the way, as in "Superman: The Motion Picture," but the overwrought narration and constant perspective-shifts obscure whether that's intended to be the case. Not a fan. One exploding Krypton for this rocket.

[intergalactic-zoo]

I don't know what's weirder, that "All-Star Superman" is fourteen years old or that this blog is old enough that I commented on the first issue when it came out. But I figured if I'm going to use the origin here as a way to comment on the rest of them, it seems like a good choice to cover second. 

Creative Team: Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, Jamie Grant, Phil Balsman, and Travis Lanham. All-Star Summary: Doomed planet. Desperate scientists. Last hope. Kindly couple.

Key Elements: At first blush, there's not much to say here, right? This is the eight-word origin that's become so iconic that I'm using it as a shorthand for this whole project.  A planet is doomed. A pair of scientists watch their world crumble around them. A spaceship flies away from the rubble. A kindly couple in rural attire finds a red blanket in tall grass. And if we consider the two-page spread that follows, we see Superman, framed against the brightness of a yellow sun. 

Interesting Deviations: Like Action Comics (vol. 1) #1, not much gets named specifically. No mention of Krypton or the names of those desperate scientists and kindly couple. Perhaps the most striking omission is that there's also no mention or even depiction of a baby. We know it's meant to be there because the story is so familiar that eight words can give us the basic jist, but leaving little baby Kal-El out of his own origin—not even depicting his little baby hands or anything in that first-person point-of-view fourth panel—is a bold and surprising move. I wonder how many people working just from memory would recall that the baby is never shown, and would instead conflate it with the similar first-person panels from Superman/Batman #1, which came out less than three years prior.

The passing motorist is cut out here, and the Kents are seen pretty explicitly discovering the baby, which has been the status quo since the Bronze Age or so. The plural "scientists" in reference to Jor-El and Lara is nice, subtly referencing that Lara was characterized as an astronaut back in the Silver Age, giving her science credentials separate from Jor-El's.

Additional Commentary: The explicit choice to include "last hope" in that short description hearkens back to Superman: Birthright, which established (for the first time, I think) that the S-shield is not just the crest of the House of El, but a Kryptonian glyph that stands for "hope." While Superman being the Last Son of Krypton and the last hope to save a dying people has been baked into the concept from the beginning, it's interesting to see an element from around two years before making it into this origin, however obliquely.

The Rocket: It's definitely different, but not particularly distinctive. It's got some of the starburst-shape that we'd see in the original Donner film and in Superman: Birthright, but otherwise it's just kind of gray. When we see Kryptonian architecture later in the series, it's all fluid crystal spires, and it would have been nice to see something more similar to that here.

One out of five exploding Kryptons for this one.

[intergalactic-zoo]

Well, we had to start somewhere. Action Comics (vol. 1) #1 contains the first (canonical, comic book) appearance of Superman and starts with a one-page opening sequence that remains a marvel of condensed storytelling. I covered it in some detail way back when.

All-Star Summary: Doomed planet. Desperate scientist. Passing motorist. Remarkable orphan.

Key Elements: A distant world is dying. A scientist places his infant son in a "hastily-devised space-ship" and launches it toward Earth. The baby is discovered by a passing motorist and taken to an orphanage. The child has superhuman strength, and his powers of strength, speed, and invulnerability grow as he reaches maturity. He uses his powers to "benefit mankind" and becomes Superman, the champion of the oppressed.

Interesting Deviations: This is the first origin, so it can't really deviate from anything, but eighty-two years of hindsight allow us to see how much is missing, and what's included instead. There's no mention of Superman's birth mother, no mention of Ma & Pa Kent, no names for any of the sci-fi elements at all. Instead of the Kents, there's a passing motorist and an orphanage. Superman's powers are credited to an advanced physical structure and likened to the abilities of ants and grasshoppers. His powers are said to grow when he gets older, which sticks around a little in the Golden Age but then disappears until the Byrne reboot. 

Additional Commentary: Can we trade out "Man of Tomorrow" for "Champion of the Oppressed" as a moniker for Superman? That's one that really needs to make a comeback.

The Rocket: Not much to look at, really. Just your average bright-red Amazing Stories sci-fi rocket.

I give this rocket two out of five exploding Kryptons. 

[intergalactic-zoo]

So, lo: A Star Wars Story.

Spoilers Ahead!

For a long time, my preferred explanation for the "how could Han make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs when parsecs are a unit of distance?" question was that Han is a liar. He lies. He talks fast to get out of bad situations and get into good ones, and that fast talking often plays fast and loose with the truth. He's not always very good at it...

...but it's what he does. And I maintain that the look (seasoned starfighter pilot) Obi-Wan gives him when he makes that boast is one of quiet disbelief. Han is BSing them and Obi-Wan knows it, because Obi-Wan is the Jedi Master of BS. 

The people in charge of the Expanded Universe and the new Star Wars films apparently disagree. There have been a lot of tortured explanations for how the boast is actually possible over the years, and Solo canonizes one of them. But Solo goes a step further by telling us that, no, Han's an honest guy. When he lies, he's consistently bad at it. When he tells you that Wookiees are known to pull people's arms off when they lose, that's not just an intimidation tactic, Wookiees actually love to dismember people. By all appearances, the script for Solo: A Star Wars Story began with a list of things we know about Han Solo, and the mandate that every single one of them needed to be explained in the runtime, from his acquisition of the Falcon to his relationships with Chewie and Lando to his gold hanging dice to his thing for self-reliant brunettes to his tendency to choose altruism over self-reliance to his frigging last name, making explicit a thing that was otherwise just symbolic. As though in The Phantom Menace, Palpatine had said "I'll call myself Darth Sidious, because of the insidious way I've manipulated the Senate and the Trade Federation all right under the noses of the Jedi Order." Watching Solo feels like reading through a checklist, like you read the "Background" paragraph on the Han Solo article on Wikipedia. It's the first ten minutes of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade drawn out to feature length. Everything you know about Han Solo happened over the course of about a week. It's not great, is what I'm saying. 

There are certain structural risks any time you decide to do new stories in a shared universe. One of the biggest is the tension between giving fans what they think they want, and giving fans a good story that captures what made the original stories compelling. I think Star Wars is a great example of this tension, because the Prequel Trilogy and original Expanded Universe lean really far in the former direction, and I think the sequel films have generally stuck to the latter. What the fans think they want is to see all their favorite characters, have all the mysteries explained, and get clean happy endings for everyone they care about. But that doesn't always make for good storytelling, and it certainly doesn't capture the magic of what made the original stories compelling. The fact that things weren't always explained was tantalizing, the fact that events didn't always go the way you expected made the stories exciting. Nobody needed the secret origin of how Anakin Skywalker built C-3PO or how Boba Fett was secretly the most important man in the galaxy. And while a lot of die-hards might not be happy with Han and Leia breaking up, with the New Republic and the new Jedi Academy failing, there's a lot more compelling drama there than in the immediately-successful New Republic and ascendant Jedi Knighthood crushing the last remaining pockets of Imperial resistance and discovering a new lost Imperial superweapon every time Kevin J. Anderson needs a paycheck. With prequels, there's the additional structural risk of character development. You've got a character or characters in the original story, and over the course of that story, the characters grow and change. In the prequel, then, we're seeing characters in a more raw state, before they've gone through that growth and change. We have to see how they get to the place they started in the original story, before they did their growth there. In that regard, the Prequel Trilogy actually did fairly well by characters like Obi-Wan and Anakin (Yoda less so), who go from friends and colleagues and Jedi Knights to a hermit and a Sith Lord, respectively. The journey wasn't always good or coherent, but it ended with the characters as we recognized them from A New Hope. 

Someone probably should have sat the Solo filmmakers down and explained this concept to them.

Hey, remember in Star Wars: Special Edition, that change that everyone hated? The one that you can reference with three words and literally any Star Wars fan knows what you mean and has a visceral reaction? 

The Solo filmmakers remember this scene too. There's a bit toward the end of the movie where Han shoots his mentor, Tobias Beckett (which is just a real world name not a Star Wars name come on guys get it together), before Tobias can get off a shot. Look everyone, Han shot first! So, what's the actual problem with the Special Edition scene? Why does it inspire such anger and vitriol, even now, twenty-one years later? It's not just the ludicrously unnatural way that Han's head moves to the left, it's what it says about Han Solo as a character.

When we meet Han, he's hanging out in a wretched hive of scum and villainy. His partner is a giant alien bear monster, not all that dissimilar from the walrus man who just accosted Luke and lost an arm for it. Han is greedy, egotistical, and arrogant; he puts the "smug" in "smuggler." He's in debt to a gangster, and he's got a price on his head. He kills Greedo out of self-preservation more than self-defense, and casually tosses a coin to the bartender to make up for "the mess." 

In short, Han's a scoundrel. He's not obviously a good guy or a bad guy (as evidenced in part by the way he wears black and white; color is important in A New Hope), and we don't know where he stands. Of course, that changes over the course of the movie; he grows to care about Luke and Leia, and he gets pulled into the battle against the Empire when that's really the last thing he needs. The sign that he's grown as a character is when he eschews payment and throws self-preservation out the airlock to come back and rescue Luke during the Death Star assault. 

Greedo shooting first undercuts that. It makes the moment one of self-defense rather than self-preservation, and it makes Han's action less morally ambiguous. He doesn't look as cold or ruthless when Greedo gets off the first shot. It's a more defensible action. 

If I had to guess at the reason for the change, I'd suspect that Lucas was a different guy in 1997 than he was in 1977. He's said about The Phantom Menace, two short years later, that he was making Star Wars movies for his kids, and I suspect he was less comfortable with one of his hero characters acting in a morally questionable way as a result. 

The Han of Solo: A Star Wars Story comes from that same place of discomfort. According to Solo: A Star Wars Story, Han was never actually a scoundrel at all. If you were to watch Solo before A New Hope, you'd never have any question as to whether Han was going to reject the reward and come back to save Luke, because that's literally all he ever does. He's not a space pirate with a heart of gold, he's a knight in shining armor riding a slightly dirty horse. 

Which means that every bit of Han Solo's character growth from A New Hope up through The Force Awakens is totally moot. It doesn't happen. He was born a fast-talking goody-two-shoes and he went out a fast-talking goody-two-shoes, and the only thing he ever really lied about was that he was a bad person. Qi'ra literally in dialogue tells him that he's "the good guy," and that's right up there with "From my perspective, the Jedi are evil" and "I hate sand" in the annals of bad Star Wars dialogue. The story of Han Solo in the Original Trilogy is that of a loner who becomes part of something bigger, to the point where he's willing to sacrifice himself to help the cause and save his friends. The story of Han Solo in The Force Awakens is that of a guy who feels like he failed at being a hero and a father and a husband, so he lost his faith in himself and slid back into old habits, failing at those too until he found someone who believed in him again. When you add Solo in there, the story of Han Solo is that of a hero with a solid moral compass who only thinks of others, but who desperately wants to pretend to be a selfish criminal and just can't stick with it for very long. He doesn't grow in A New Hope, there's no question of his sacrifice in The Empire Strikes Back, and his return to smuggling in The Force Awakens isn't the backsliding of a failed hero but a hero retreating back into his childhood fantasy. It inverts Han's entire character arc. Which is better than I can say for Chewie, whose reasoning for staying with Han when his stated goal is to free his people, is never actually explained. This movie feels the need to reference Teräs Käsi, but never bothers to mention the Wookiee Life Debt. We see a rare instance of Chewie interacting with another Wookiee, we even get a mention of his family, but it never goes anywhere. I could have taken less of Han painfully speaking Wookiee (with subtitles, no less) and more of Chewie showing some agency. Or, you know, if we're going to reference bits of deprecated canon that are probably better left forgotten...

Oh, and Darth Maul shows up. I don't know what it is about the moment that feels less like a Star Wars-style twist and more like a MCU-style sequel hook, but it certainly didn't feel necessary or earned. Like the bit where Lando disparages mining colonies, it just feels like the filmmakers elbowing you in the ribs and saying "eh? eh? Recognize that?" But Darth Maul is a fan-favorite character and Emilia Clarke is kind of a big deal right now, so I suspect we'll be seeing more of those characters. Hopefully in an Obi-Wan solo movie where Ewan McGregor can act his damn heart out. There are moments I really liked in Solo, and I think the actors generally did really well. Not surprisingly, Donald Glover kind of steals the show. I definitely enjoyed a lot of the more subtle nods to older Star Wars stories, and I know I missed most of the ones from the Han and Lando novels that I never read. I really liked Beckett's crew as characters, even though the writing was on the wall for them from the moment they talked about retiring. But overall, Solo: A Star Wars Story was just less than the sum of its parts. It's a movie that I've disliked more the more I've thought about it, which is kind of the opposite of my reaction to The Last Jedi. And, frankly, I think that's because Solo is a repudiation of what The Last Jedi stood for. The message of The Last Jedi was that our heroes are more complicated than we think; the message of Solo is that people behave in predictable ways. There's not much excitement or drama in that latter message, and it ultimately cheapens its protagonist by making his growth into stasis. It's a tremendous step backwards.