This week has been full of its fair share of comic controversies
the first starting with Superman renouncing his US citizenship. The story
started on Bleeding Cool with the article, “Action Comics #900 is a Fox News
Story Waiting to Happen.” Guess what happened then? It became a national news
story and of course Bleeding Cool was at the forefront. They then followed up
with another story, “So I’ve been talking to the Washington Times for a Half an
Hour about Action Comics #900.” From there every comic news site began posting
their thoughts getting reactions and really building the mountain.
The sad part is I don’t think the mainstream media is to
blame for this one, at least not for finding the story so quickly. Usually they’re
days if not weeks behind; making this one the comic media’s fault for them
finding out so quickly. Granted Bleeding Cool is not alone; sites like
Newsarama, Robot 6 from CBR, Comic Alliance and even Fresh Ink from G4 all had
something to say about it. But the focus was wrong.
They all danced around what the issue was really about the
conclusion of Paul Cornell’s amazing run with Lex Luthor on the book and
instead focused on the last story of the issue. The gist is that Superman gets involved
in a protest in the city of Tehran in Iran. He doesn’t do anything other than
stand with the protestors for 24 hrs. Due to his US ties he’s incites an
international incident with the possibility of war. So he renounces his
citizenship saying that the world is too big to be tied to one nation. In a way
that’s good for the US since they can then say, “Hey he did that on his own.”
The real point of this story is the ending in which a protestor hands a soldier
a flower and the soldier takes it. You may have seen that before from movies
and oh I don’t know HISTORY! They way I read the issue, Superman belongs to the world not just the US. He's an icon to the world over and DC's going to share him with the world.
What I don’t get is how anyone thinks this will have any
real effect on the comic. Superman is about to go into battle with multiple
Doomsday’s not stop the fighting in Lybia or any other middle eastern country.
This was a one off story with a political message that is not going to shape
what’s to come in Superman. Why? Because real world issues don’t work in comics
that have been around for seventy years! It’s foolish to think that DC is going
to pursue this avenue for their biggest property especially after the flop that
“Grounded” turned out to be.
If you’re interested in this huge milestone issue from DC
Comics then be interested for the right reason and that’s Paul Cornell’s story
which is great. Superman reveals his secret identity to Lex Luthor to show that
he’s more than capable of human emotions and from there Cornell solidifies Lex
Luthor as an ultimate baddie. The other back
up stories is very good too, but their just back up stories nothing that will
have or leave any real effect on the franchise. Hopefully this mountain will
crumble back down to the mole hill it really is by next week’s releases.