Inedible Delicacies: I'd like to spend today talking about your mother. First off, what did you do for Mother's Day?
Superman: I took my mom to breakfast; she insisted we go to IHOP.
ID: IHOP's not so bad. Why insisted?
S: Well, it was mother's day, so the place was packed. There was actually a line trailing outside. I told her I could fly us to the west coast, where it was earlier and we could probably get a seat, but she said, “That would be undignified,” and gave me a motherly smile. We ended up waiting an hour, and by the time we were seated I was famished.
ID: I didn't know you needed food.
S: I'm honestly not sure that I do, but the body gets used to things. Like sleep. I've never really tried to see how long I could function without sleep, but I start to feel psychosomatically tired after sixteen hours. But I was hungry, so I ordered a big country breakfast, a giant mocha, and two plates of appetizers. The appetizers came pretty quickly, and we hadn't finished them by the time the main course arrived. I forgot how much I love IHOP- they had some delicious strawberry pancakes.
ID: Ahem.
S: Sorry. Yeah. Not to advertise or anything. But food is one of the things I get really passionate about; humans enjoy their food, but I can taste every subtle flavor, every dash of pepper or oregano.
ID: Okay, but on the subject of your mother...
S: We talked. And I guess maybe part of the reason why I'm sort of steering clear of our actual conversation is we discussed some of the family's skeletons. It's weird to me the things that bring out candor in my mother- a crowded IHOP being one of the least predictable. And once we'd finished eating, we went to, first Target, and then, when she realized she needed something else, to a Walmart. It seemed like a very odd way to spend a day, but it was one of the first times I've just spent a day with my mother in what seems like forever. Oh, and that thing she needed, was chicken poop- which, I'm not dialed in enough to poop humor to have found it funny the first time, but we made an entire round of Target, with her asking every person in a red shirt she passed if they could point her at the chicken poop, and by the end I was giggling every time- and of course, once we'd made it to their gardening section we were politely told they don't carry chicken poop, which led us to the Walmart. And yet another round of watching my mother wander through a store asking people for chicken poop and getting odd stares.
ID: I can't help but feel that that story was tailor-made for me. Thanks.
S: You're welcome.
ID: I'm going to take a flying leap and guess that you love your mother. What I want you to tell me is why.
S: Okay. I think I can accomplish that with a story. Dad was always the farmer, and while mom was really good at being a wife and mother, she had a bit more ambition than that. And I remember there was a summer when I was just starting high school that they weren't sleeping in the same room. Mom wanted to start up a business, a store; she told him that nobody ever got comfortable farming anymore, that entrepreneurship was the way America was going to feed itself into the future. My dad was reluctant to start up a business- and at the time, he had a point, since statistically speaking keeping the farm going was difficult, but the odds of a new business failing were much, much greater. But one night they had a real loud argument- not that there was ever an argument they had where I couldn't hear even the whispered obscenities through the walls- but mom really laid it out. I think she'd been practicing, perfecting her sales pitch, because she was very professional, and confident, and I found myself really getting invested in her idea. But what finally I think won dad over, and I say this because his heart rhythm changed, is when she told him that if it was going to be ever, it had to be now. See, mom wanted me to go to college, and she knew that if she waited even another year, that even with an overly optimistic model, she wouldn't have rebounded the money they invested. She wanted to help pay for my education, not hurt our chances of paying for it. And, you know, once she'd put it that way, once she'd laid all of her reasoning and preparation out like that, of course he said yes.
ID: So I imagine that led to their, um, reconciliation.
S: Yeah- and I went for a run. There are some things no teenager should have to hear his parents getting up to.
ID: Sounds like you were a bright kid.
S: I was raised well. Dad was a good father, taught me how to be a man, and what working meant, what spending every hour you could providing for your family, and not just monetarily, but providing safety and comfort, respect and affection, he really prepared me to be a man. But my mom taught me so much more. Before I even started school she worked with me and my colors, numbers, my alphabet- worked with me even though my first words were in Kryptonian. She helped me with my reading, my multiplication tables, world geography. Every step of the way, mom was there. And when school asked for volunteers, whether it was for class field trips or because the teachers needed help organizing something, she was always the first to call the teacher or send a note. She always took an active role, in not just my school, not just my education, but in our community. She really prepared me to be a citizen, to be human. I think the combination is what made me the person I am today- and I love the person I am today, so I'm eternally, eternally thankful to the both of them for that.
ID: Your mother, she sounds like she was really at home in education. Why do you think she never became a teacher?
S: I think in a different world she would have been. But in this one, she was the wife of a farmer, and that's a pretty full-time gig, especially when they were both young, she really did a lot of the physical work around the farm. As they got older, and couldn't do as much themselves, they ended up hiring on more hands, and maybe then she'd have been able to go back to school, only she still had dad to take care of, and soon enough me to raise. And I think she prioritized. I think she'd have loved to have been a teacher; I think there was a part of her that felt she was a bad woman for not being more independent, not making decisions like that for herself to go back to school or to get a teaching certificate, but she chose her family over herself. I think the fact that that was what she chose makes it a very feminist decision, and because of the sacrifices involved a very admirable one.
And I want to clarify something you said earlier. I don't just love my mother, but I'm very proud to have had her as my mother. I think she still has a lot of greatness left in her, and I know she'll continue to make me proud.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Monday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Metropolis
Ignoble Denomination: I want to discuss something. You grew up in Kansas, in a small town, but you ended up in the biggest, probably most liberal city in the country, living on the East Coast. What fomented that change?
Superman: I think, if I’m honest, that I ended up in Metropolis because of its history. Not because it’s the city of tomorrow, or even because of its beautiful architecture, but because of its past. Metropolis, along with New York and Gotham, was one of the hubs of immigration around the turn of the last century.
But unlike New York, and to a lesser extent, Gotham, Metropolis didn’t fracture into ethnic neighborhoods, didn’t divide along racial lines. Metropolis was the melting pot, the place where any immigrant could go and become part of a city greater than the sum of its parts. As much as I love my parents, and even the small community in Kansas that really nurtured me in my youth, there was something that such a homogenized place simply couldn’t provide for me. In Metropolis I rent from a Greek Cypriot landlord who’s married to a Turkish pianist; my wife and I eat regularly from the little Chinese take-out place across the way, that features a Tibetan flutist. On of the best photographers I work with at The Planet is Indian, and he’s married to a Pakistani woman who owns her own florist franchise, and they’ve actually been discussing adopting one of the war orphans from Afghanistan. And the thing about Metropolis for me is not a one of these relations seems forced or self-conscious; these things all coexist naturally, and what is so abnormal about it is how normal it is.
But what makes Metropolis different I guess from other immigrant cultures is that these people all still hold dearly onto their culture, while at the same time embracing the shared heritage of the city. You know how New York was after 9/11, where every New Yorker felt like their neighbors were family for a while- Metropolis is like that every day.
ID: That’s actually an interesting point. I know Metropolis and New York have always been sister cities (with Gotham often called their ugly stepsister). There have been people who jokingly refer to New York as Metropolis’ alter ego. As a native Metropolitan, how did the city react to 9/11?
S: There was a lot of shock. I think, too, there was a lot of, “We’re next.” But I think at the same time, in Metropolis, there was a little bit less, um, terror, I guess. As much as people in other parts of the country were upset that I wasn’t there to stop what happened on 9/11, I think in Metropolis there was a feeling, and I don’t know if it was justified, but there seemed to be an undercurrent of, “It can’t happen here.” A lot of people stopped me on the streets, for about thee months after it happened, they’d stop me just to thank me; and it was hard, some of those times, for us to keep up decorum. You know, when people express that kind of a sentiment to you, it’s hard for the both of you not to tear up, it’s hard not to just fly over and hug them because the both of you could really use it. But I think that would undermine the trust, and the faith in my strength, that the whole exchange was based around.
But you know, it was different in Gotham; people in Gotham are different than here. New York has a reputation for having some of the hardest people in the country, but Gotham- especially Gotham in its worst days- is like the worst parts of New York stretched across the entire city. So there’s this sense, I guess, that you can’t terrorize Gotham. I mean, if the Joker, if the Scarecrow, if a hundred other homicidal lunatics can’t grind that city to a halt, there’s just not even a point.
ID: I’d heard a, I guess it’s not exactly a joke, because it’s in such poor taste, particularly since it made the rounds during the aftermath of the earthquake, but that you could blow up entire blocks in Gotham, and neither the citizens nor the government would bat an eye.
S: And there really is something to that. I’ll go on record as saying Batman is not the fascist that he’s often portrayed as in popular media; he’s got access to fewer cameras in Gotham than they have in London. But I don’t think he could operate in the same way in Metropolis. I think, just fundamentally, that the entire tone of his approach wouldn’t work. I think there’d be a popular outcry, however misguided, to send Maggie Sawyer and the SCU after him.
ID: That’s the, uh, Special Crimes Unit, right, their superhuman response team, sort of a SuperS.W.A.T.?”
S: You could probably call it that, yeah.
ID: I’m vaguely familiar with the SCU, but they’ve been working in partnership with, uh, S.T.A.R. Labs since their inception, and before the SCU’s creation, Metro PD had been partnered with them.
S: These were the days before the SuperMax. Batman could always drop off the Joker in Arkham, and, their nonstellar escape rate notwithstanding, they could at least presumably hold him. But with the Parasite, Brainiac- a lot of the threats we’ve dealt with in Metropolis were just too big to be contained by a normal prison. We were fortunate that S.T.A.R. Labs was in the area, because they had the facilities to effectively contain the threats, and out of it they got the opportunity to do research on unique and extraterrestrial organisms that scientists at WayneTech would have killed to study (and some of the folks at LexCorp actually have). And S.T.A.R., while technically an independent facility, are also big government contractors, and get a lot of their funding from the city, and were of course the source of the SCU’s special weaponry. Overall, it’s been a very symbiotic relationship.
ID: I was going to call it incestuous.
S: I think that potential was there, sure. But I think it helps that S.T.A.R. isn’t governmental- and any patents resulting from their extrahuman examinations are jointly owned by the government. It’s perhaps not ideal, but as opposed to waiting a decade for a funds approval, which, if you’ll recall, was what we did with SuperMax, before deciding to just build it ourselves- it worked out well, organically.
ID: Okay. You mentioned the scenario a moment ago, so I have to ask: do you think the SCU could take down the Batman?
S: No. I think they’re trained to take on an entirely different kind of threat, and Bruce, well, Bruce trains himself to take on all comers. I think the SCU might score some interesting body shots, and against almost any other person, superhuman or otherwise, I’d give them pretty good odds, but against Bruce, well, the only way to stop him is to do it before he figures out how to stop you, and the thing is, for most of us, he’s already figured it out.
ID: Heh. But I’ve pulled us on a tangent, and I want to close with why you love Metropolis, as I think you still very clearly do.
S: Metropolis is my home. Kansas will always be where I grew up, where I met my parents and where I learned how to be the person I am, but Metropolis is the place where I finally got a chance to be myself. It’s something that’s hard to articulate, but living for the first time far removed from everything you’ve known before- it changes fundamentally who you are. And Metropolis is home.
All that stuff I said about immigrants, and this place being the real melting pot at the center of the country’s diversity- I meant it. This place is accepting in a way I never thought possible. I remember the first interview I gave where I finally admitted I was an alien. I was just incredibly nervous, because I thought, God, this could be it. I could have to retire that entire persona, which by that point, I mean, how could I not love getting to be and see the best in people? I mean, when you’re Superman, you get to be smart, and kind, and heroic, and because people only see those shining parts of you for a moment, they really are just happy to be near you. And the prospect of losing that, giving it up just to be honest, about something that shouldn’t matter even if it might- and I remember the way Lois looked at me when I told her the truth, and there was this, this disbelief, and it crushed me. I thought, God, this is going to be the face people show me from now on, like I’m a person on the street trying to sell my newsletter I’ve written on cardboard. And I really, really just wanted to fly away, then and there, go back to Kansas and just live like a hermit.
But I stayed. And as the interview went on, her disbelief, her incredulousness, it gave way, and what was left was a newfound understanding, maybe even a fascination, with my home planet. And really, the write-up Lois gave me for that, and this was years before we started dating, so, there wasn’t too much bias in it, but it was really beautiful. I think she titled it “I Come in Peace.” I’ve told her, many times, it’s my favorite of everything she’s ever written, that more so than for her audience, I felt that she’d written it for me. She’ll never admit it, never; her pride wouldn’t let her tell me on my deathbed, or at least as near to it as I seem to be these days- but from her silence, and the coyness in her eyes and her smile, I’m pretty sure she did.
And I think, in part because the piece really was, for lack of a better word, so very humanizing, the city really accepted me. People really did warm up to me me, in a way they hadn't been able to before. People had always been really nice, really friendly, but there was a formality to it, and now I had this wonderful man named Bibbo calling me his pal Kal, and a hot dog vendor from the Philipines stopping to offer me a comped foot long, from one immigrant to another. This place really has become my home. And really, I credit that really warm reception entirely to the story she wrote, and way she accepted me in it.
So I guess, more than anything, I love Metropolis because it’s where I met and fell in love with my wife, Lois- easily the love of my life.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Monday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Superman: I think, if I’m honest, that I ended up in Metropolis because of its history. Not because it’s the city of tomorrow, or even because of its beautiful architecture, but because of its past. Metropolis, along with New York and Gotham, was one of the hubs of immigration around the turn of the last century.
But unlike New York, and to a lesser extent, Gotham, Metropolis didn’t fracture into ethnic neighborhoods, didn’t divide along racial lines. Metropolis was the melting pot, the place where any immigrant could go and become part of a city greater than the sum of its parts. As much as I love my parents, and even the small community in Kansas that really nurtured me in my youth, there was something that such a homogenized place simply couldn’t provide for me. In Metropolis I rent from a Greek Cypriot landlord who’s married to a Turkish pianist; my wife and I eat regularly from the little Chinese take-out place across the way, that features a Tibetan flutist. On of the best photographers I work with at The Planet is Indian, and he’s married to a Pakistani woman who owns her own florist franchise, and they’ve actually been discussing adopting one of the war orphans from Afghanistan. And the thing about Metropolis for me is not a one of these relations seems forced or self-conscious; these things all coexist naturally, and what is so abnormal about it is how normal it is.
But what makes Metropolis different I guess from other immigrant cultures is that these people all still hold dearly onto their culture, while at the same time embracing the shared heritage of the city. You know how New York was after 9/11, where every New Yorker felt like their neighbors were family for a while- Metropolis is like that every day.
ID: That’s actually an interesting point. I know Metropolis and New York have always been sister cities (with Gotham often called their ugly stepsister). There have been people who jokingly refer to New York as Metropolis’ alter ego. As a native Metropolitan, how did the city react to 9/11?
S: There was a lot of shock. I think, too, there was a lot of, “We’re next.” But I think at the same time, in Metropolis, there was a little bit less, um, terror, I guess. As much as people in other parts of the country were upset that I wasn’t there to stop what happened on 9/11, I think in Metropolis there was a feeling, and I don’t know if it was justified, but there seemed to be an undercurrent of, “It can’t happen here.” A lot of people stopped me on the streets, for about thee months after it happened, they’d stop me just to thank me; and it was hard, some of those times, for us to keep up decorum. You know, when people express that kind of a sentiment to you, it’s hard for the both of you not to tear up, it’s hard not to just fly over and hug them because the both of you could really use it. But I think that would undermine the trust, and the faith in my strength, that the whole exchange was based around.
But you know, it was different in Gotham; people in Gotham are different than here. New York has a reputation for having some of the hardest people in the country, but Gotham- especially Gotham in its worst days- is like the worst parts of New York stretched across the entire city. So there’s this sense, I guess, that you can’t terrorize Gotham. I mean, if the Joker, if the Scarecrow, if a hundred other homicidal lunatics can’t grind that city to a halt, there’s just not even a point.
ID: I’d heard a, I guess it’s not exactly a joke, because it’s in such poor taste, particularly since it made the rounds during the aftermath of the earthquake, but that you could blow up entire blocks in Gotham, and neither the citizens nor the government would bat an eye.
S: And there really is something to that. I’ll go on record as saying Batman is not the fascist that he’s often portrayed as in popular media; he’s got access to fewer cameras in Gotham than they have in London. But I don’t think he could operate in the same way in Metropolis. I think, just fundamentally, that the entire tone of his approach wouldn’t work. I think there’d be a popular outcry, however misguided, to send Maggie Sawyer and the SCU after him.
ID: That’s the, uh, Special Crimes Unit, right, their superhuman response team, sort of a SuperS.W.A.T.?”
S: You could probably call it that, yeah.
ID: I’m vaguely familiar with the SCU, but they’ve been working in partnership with, uh, S.T.A.R. Labs since their inception, and before the SCU’s creation, Metro PD had been partnered with them.
S: These were the days before the SuperMax. Batman could always drop off the Joker in Arkham, and, their nonstellar escape rate notwithstanding, they could at least presumably hold him. But with the Parasite, Brainiac- a lot of the threats we’ve dealt with in Metropolis were just too big to be contained by a normal prison. We were fortunate that S.T.A.R. Labs was in the area, because they had the facilities to effectively contain the threats, and out of it they got the opportunity to do research on unique and extraterrestrial organisms that scientists at WayneTech would have killed to study (and some of the folks at LexCorp actually have). And S.T.A.R., while technically an independent facility, are also big government contractors, and get a lot of their funding from the city, and were of course the source of the SCU’s special weaponry. Overall, it’s been a very symbiotic relationship.
ID: I was going to call it incestuous.
S: I think that potential was there, sure. But I think it helps that S.T.A.R. isn’t governmental- and any patents resulting from their extrahuman examinations are jointly owned by the government. It’s perhaps not ideal, but as opposed to waiting a decade for a funds approval, which, if you’ll recall, was what we did with SuperMax, before deciding to just build it ourselves- it worked out well, organically.
ID: Okay. You mentioned the scenario a moment ago, so I have to ask: do you think the SCU could take down the Batman?
S: No. I think they’re trained to take on an entirely different kind of threat, and Bruce, well, Bruce trains himself to take on all comers. I think the SCU might score some interesting body shots, and against almost any other person, superhuman or otherwise, I’d give them pretty good odds, but against Bruce, well, the only way to stop him is to do it before he figures out how to stop you, and the thing is, for most of us, he’s already figured it out.
ID: Heh. But I’ve pulled us on a tangent, and I want to close with why you love Metropolis, as I think you still very clearly do.
S: Metropolis is my home. Kansas will always be where I grew up, where I met my parents and where I learned how to be the person I am, but Metropolis is the place where I finally got a chance to be myself. It’s something that’s hard to articulate, but living for the first time far removed from everything you’ve known before- it changes fundamentally who you are. And Metropolis is home.
All that stuff I said about immigrants, and this place being the real melting pot at the center of the country’s diversity- I meant it. This place is accepting in a way I never thought possible. I remember the first interview I gave where I finally admitted I was an alien. I was just incredibly nervous, because I thought, God, this could be it. I could have to retire that entire persona, which by that point, I mean, how could I not love getting to be and see the best in people? I mean, when you’re Superman, you get to be smart, and kind, and heroic, and because people only see those shining parts of you for a moment, they really are just happy to be near you. And the prospect of losing that, giving it up just to be honest, about something that shouldn’t matter even if it might- and I remember the way Lois looked at me when I told her the truth, and there was this, this disbelief, and it crushed me. I thought, God, this is going to be the face people show me from now on, like I’m a person on the street trying to sell my newsletter I’ve written on cardboard. And I really, really just wanted to fly away, then and there, go back to Kansas and just live like a hermit.
But I stayed. And as the interview went on, her disbelief, her incredulousness, it gave way, and what was left was a newfound understanding, maybe even a fascination, with my home planet. And really, the write-up Lois gave me for that, and this was years before we started dating, so, there wasn’t too much bias in it, but it was really beautiful. I think she titled it “I Come in Peace.” I’ve told her, many times, it’s my favorite of everything she’s ever written, that more so than for her audience, I felt that she’d written it for me. She’ll never admit it, never; her pride wouldn’t let her tell me on my deathbed, or at least as near to it as I seem to be these days- but from her silence, and the coyness in her eyes and her smile, I’m pretty sure she did.
And I think, in part because the piece really was, for lack of a better word, so very humanizing, the city really accepted me. People really did warm up to me me, in a way they hadn't been able to before. People had always been really nice, really friendly, but there was a formality to it, and now I had this wonderful man named Bibbo calling me his pal Kal, and a hot dog vendor from the Philipines stopping to offer me a comped foot long, from one immigrant to another. This place really has become my home. And really, I credit that really warm reception entirely to the story she wrote, and way she accepted me in it.
So I guess, more than anything, I love Metropolis because it’s where I met and fell in love with my wife, Lois- easily the love of my life.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Monday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Free Press
Superman: [I know this isn’t our] usual process, but I want to say something: it’s good to be free.
Invader Dim: Care to, uh, qualify that?
S: Sure. I’ve been working for the last several months, really, going back to fall of last year, on a series on homelessness in Metropolis, and the implications it has for the rest of the country and maybe even the rest of the world.
Homelessness is an important issue, but because of my failing health, I’d grown… concerned that it was a story I wasn’t going to have a chance to finish. I found myself really neuroticizing over it, to the point where I’d wake up in a cold sweat, and my wife would, well, she can be very tender, and she would sit up, watching my sleep. And I’d made arrangements; she was more than happy to take on the story if I couldn’t finish, but it would have taken her months to catch up, to reestablish a rapport with interviewees, to try to get the feel for the story I was trying to tell without taking it over. But all of that worrying, about deadlines, no pun intended, it’s behind me now.
It’s done. I mean, there are a few pages left, I guess, and some T’s to cross, but it’s finished. If there were a Kryptonite meteor heading towards the planet I could finish what’s left in a fraction of a second at my typewriter- but I’m kind of letting it lie for the moment, letting it all sink in.
ID: Well congratulations. But how’s that feel? It’s sort of one less thing tethering you to your life.
S: That’s very true. And if I were at all concerned that it’s my unfinished business that’s kept me here this long, that might be a concern for me. But as important as the issue of homelessness is to me, as personally important as getting this story done was, it pales in comparison to how much I don’t want to disappoint my loved ones, or say goodbye to them too soon.
ID: So does this mean you’re retired as a journalist? Is that your last hurrah?
S: The Planet isn’t hiring, if that’s what you’re getting at- but no. I’ll still take on some smaller pieces, you know, things with a quick turn-around. I’m just done with bigger pieces for the time being; I’d hate to leave unfinished business behind. But journalism, it’s such a part of who I am- and I’m not dead yet.
ID: You seem very passionate about your profession; what do you think is behind that?
S: I think it comes from being a stranger on this planet. The first several years I was here were just completely fascinating. Everything was new and exciting and different, and even though I didn’t know Krypton, I felt how it was- I’m sure that doesn’t make sense. But I was just a baby when I left there, so I don’t have really any concrete memories, but there was a texture and a flavor and a smell that the place had, and Earth was very different- like if your whole life you only knew about vanilla ice cream, and suddenly you discovered chocolate.
But I think because I’ve always been a bit of an outsider, because of where I come from, and because I’ve had to hide so much of who I am, that I spent a lot of time looking in. Observing people, not just to be able to blend in better, but because they fascinated me. They were so different and yet so much like me, the other, as psychologists term it. Reporting, for me, has always been as much about exploring my own humanity as examining specific stories or events.
ID: Okay. You won a Pulitzer for, um, it was the Intergang piece, I think, but what would you say is your proudest journalistic achievement?
S: Journalistic? I’m not sure. The Intergang expose was really important, I thought, but I don’t know. I think the biggest stories are the ones I haven’t been able to break, stories of courage I’ve witnessed from within the League, a lot of which I’ve actually written up, and, now that the cat’s out of the bag, so to speak, about my identity, I’m toying with the idea of letting them publish those memoirs, you know, use the proceeds for public works. But if I had to say my most important literary work, I think it had to do with one of those things I normally couldn’t say. You know, when you’re a reporter, you’re often relegated not to the things you think, or even the things you know, but to the things you can prove. So I felt stymied for a long time, because Lex was always very good about covering his tracks, and keeping himself at arms’ length from suspicion. But when I wrote my novel, I actually got to be more truthful than in most of my reporting, because I didn’t have to pare back to the proveable facts in evidence.
ID: I’ve heard Luthor actually liked "Under A Yellow Sun"- particularly the thinly veiled reference to himself as a villain.
S: That was one of the most surreal moments for me, really. I knew, sort of from the beginning, that there was a danger, satirizing someone as rich and powerful as Luthor. I mean, opposing him as Superman took considerably less courage, because what was he going to do? The world knew I was an alien and had accepted me despite it; there was really nothing he could say or do to get people to stop trusting me as Superman, get them to refuse to accept my help (though not for lack of trying).
But as Clark it was different. He could have hounded me, and my friends, my family, financially. He could have declared fiscal war, made it impossible for my parents to keep up with property taxes on their farm, bought and closed the Planet, sued me, and it wouldn’t matter if I won, he could keep appealing, keep filing. Luthor’s proven himself incredibly adept at destroying people with his money.
And he did none of those things. We were at, God, some kind of a social function, and he came up and made a point to vigorously shake my hand and tell me how much he liked the book.
Now, it’s been suggested by some of the people who’ve heard the story that Lex didn’t get it, that he couldn’t see himself in the flawed and failing Machiavellian businessman. My wife thinks that it was really just an ego thing, that he so adored the idea that that many people would be reading about him, thinking about him, knowing him, that the fact that the last few chapters weren’t about his triumph but his downfall could be easily papered over, because the really important thing was that the story was about him.
And I don’t know, he might be fuming, now that he knows that the man who wrote the book is the same that he’s seen as his arch nemesis, that he’s obsessed over for for years. But I suspect that he isn’t. I suspect that he’s reread the book since my identity came out, that for him it will have a similar introspective quality, that in the writing I learned a lot about Lex just by trying to project myself into his head, and that Lex is, right now, wringing his hands across the cover of that book, trying to climb inside mine.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Monday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Invader Dim: Care to, uh, qualify that?
S: Sure. I’ve been working for the last several months, really, going back to fall of last year, on a series on homelessness in Metropolis, and the implications it has for the rest of the country and maybe even the rest of the world.
Homelessness is an important issue, but because of my failing health, I’d grown… concerned that it was a story I wasn’t going to have a chance to finish. I found myself really neuroticizing over it, to the point where I’d wake up in a cold sweat, and my wife would, well, she can be very tender, and she would sit up, watching my sleep. And I’d made arrangements; she was more than happy to take on the story if I couldn’t finish, but it would have taken her months to catch up, to reestablish a rapport with interviewees, to try to get the feel for the story I was trying to tell without taking it over. But all of that worrying, about deadlines, no pun intended, it’s behind me now.
It’s done. I mean, there are a few pages left, I guess, and some T’s to cross, but it’s finished. If there were a Kryptonite meteor heading towards the planet I could finish what’s left in a fraction of a second at my typewriter- but I’m kind of letting it lie for the moment, letting it all sink in.
ID: Well congratulations. But how’s that feel? It’s sort of one less thing tethering you to your life.
S: That’s very true. And if I were at all concerned that it’s my unfinished business that’s kept me here this long, that might be a concern for me. But as important as the issue of homelessness is to me, as personally important as getting this story done was, it pales in comparison to how much I don’t want to disappoint my loved ones, or say goodbye to them too soon.
ID: So does this mean you’re retired as a journalist? Is that your last hurrah?
S: The Planet isn’t hiring, if that’s what you’re getting at- but no. I’ll still take on some smaller pieces, you know, things with a quick turn-around. I’m just done with bigger pieces for the time being; I’d hate to leave unfinished business behind. But journalism, it’s such a part of who I am- and I’m not dead yet.
ID: You seem very passionate about your profession; what do you think is behind that?
S: I think it comes from being a stranger on this planet. The first several years I was here were just completely fascinating. Everything was new and exciting and different, and even though I didn’t know Krypton, I felt how it was- I’m sure that doesn’t make sense. But I was just a baby when I left there, so I don’t have really any concrete memories, but there was a texture and a flavor and a smell that the place had, and Earth was very different- like if your whole life you only knew about vanilla ice cream, and suddenly you discovered chocolate.
But I think because I’ve always been a bit of an outsider, because of where I come from, and because I’ve had to hide so much of who I am, that I spent a lot of time looking in. Observing people, not just to be able to blend in better, but because they fascinated me. They were so different and yet so much like me, the other, as psychologists term it. Reporting, for me, has always been as much about exploring my own humanity as examining specific stories or events.
ID: Okay. You won a Pulitzer for, um, it was the Intergang piece, I think, but what would you say is your proudest journalistic achievement?
S: Journalistic? I’m not sure. The Intergang expose was really important, I thought, but I don’t know. I think the biggest stories are the ones I haven’t been able to break, stories of courage I’ve witnessed from within the League, a lot of which I’ve actually written up, and, now that the cat’s out of the bag, so to speak, about my identity, I’m toying with the idea of letting them publish those memoirs, you know, use the proceeds for public works. But if I had to say my most important literary work, I think it had to do with one of those things I normally couldn’t say. You know, when you’re a reporter, you’re often relegated not to the things you think, or even the things you know, but to the things you can prove. So I felt stymied for a long time, because Lex was always very good about covering his tracks, and keeping himself at arms’ length from suspicion. But when I wrote my novel, I actually got to be more truthful than in most of my reporting, because I didn’t have to pare back to the proveable facts in evidence.
ID: I’ve heard Luthor actually liked "Under A Yellow Sun"- particularly the thinly veiled reference to himself as a villain.
S: That was one of the most surreal moments for me, really. I knew, sort of from the beginning, that there was a danger, satirizing someone as rich and powerful as Luthor. I mean, opposing him as Superman took considerably less courage, because what was he going to do? The world knew I was an alien and had accepted me despite it; there was really nothing he could say or do to get people to stop trusting me as Superman, get them to refuse to accept my help (though not for lack of trying).
But as Clark it was different. He could have hounded me, and my friends, my family, financially. He could have declared fiscal war, made it impossible for my parents to keep up with property taxes on their farm, bought and closed the Planet, sued me, and it wouldn’t matter if I won, he could keep appealing, keep filing. Luthor’s proven himself incredibly adept at destroying people with his money.
And he did none of those things. We were at, God, some kind of a social function, and he came up and made a point to vigorously shake my hand and tell me how much he liked the book.
Now, it’s been suggested by some of the people who’ve heard the story that Lex didn’t get it, that he couldn’t see himself in the flawed and failing Machiavellian businessman. My wife thinks that it was really just an ego thing, that he so adored the idea that that many people would be reading about him, thinking about him, knowing him, that the fact that the last few chapters weren’t about his triumph but his downfall could be easily papered over, because the really important thing was that the story was about him.
And I don’t know, he might be fuming, now that he knows that the man who wrote the book is the same that he’s seen as his arch nemesis, that he’s obsessed over for for years. But I suspect that he isn’t. I suspect that he’s reread the book since my identity came out, that for him it will have a similar introspective quality, that in the writing I learned a lot about Lex just by trying to project myself into his head, and that Lex is, right now, wringing his hands across the cover of that book, trying to climb inside mine.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Monday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Justice
Illusionary Declaration: You brought up Darfur last week. So we need to talk about that. You ostensibly head the Justice League, the most powerful non-profit, non-governmental-organization in existence. You could, for all intents and purposes, tear Bashir from his bed right this second and hand-deliver him to The Hague. I want to ignore the peace-before-justice argument for a moment, since Darfur is just an example- there’s currently problems in Myanmar, Tibet, Somalia- a lot of places, really, with recurring, not just crisis-of-the-week type problems that have gone unaddressed by yourself and your bespandexed colleagues. Why hasn’t the League intervened?
Superman: That’s probably the best question you’ve ever asked, and it takes us back to the very start of the League. I’ll start by saying when we started, we were all naïve. I’d been in costume less than a year, so had most of us up to that point. We averted a White Martian invasion with the help of J’onn J’onnz
ID: The Martian Manhunter
S: and we sort of realized that there were some things we couldn’t do on our own. Some of us had worked together previously before, but this was something on a scale none of us had seen before, and it really taught us all that there was just a different type of threat out there than we’d previously been exposed to.
It started, for me, at least, with a conversation with J’onn. As an alien living amongst humans, I sort of took it upon myself to help him find a place, get settled, develop his own life, and we were having lunch in a very 50s diner. J’onn was talking sort of matter-of-factly about an early warning system; he kind of took it for granted that we already were connected to one another in a way that would allow us to function like a group. And we started to develop the idea as we waited for milkshakes.
He and I were planning on starting a push with the others who had helped avert the invasion, and we were going to have lunch again on Sunday to hash out details of that, and I remember Diana called on Saturday. Her background was in politics, diplomacy- after all, she was primarily an ambassador- and she’d already been networking with Flash, Green Lantern. She said she’d probably have called sooner, but she’d had to go to Atlantis three times to convince Aquaman- though I’ve always sort of assumed, and Diana’s always refused to deny, that he only kept her coming back to get in her pants- though I suppose technically her battlesuit doesn’t include pants.
She’d covered some of the details, at least in theory, that J’onn and I had missed, and of course, there was only one person left to talk to, Bruce. We spent twenty minutes trying to figure out if he’d even be interested, and then which of us had the most chance of convincing him. I thought she could flirt him into it; she seemed to be under the impression that he and I shared some kind of bond. In the end, well, Diana was very persuasive- she was a hell of an ambassador, even in those days, so I made the call. He was cold. “I expected you to call an hour ago. It’s a stupid idea. I’m sure you’ve already come up with a ridiculous name for it.” He paused. “I’ll work with you as a consultant, to limit the damage the rest of you can do.”
A couple of weeks later we set up a summit, and we set out to make ground rules. We actually wanted to format it off of the United Nations, with members voting on rules and resolutions- taking the time to weight the consequences of intervening in situations versus just rushing in and possibly making situations worse.
And it was Bruce who brought up politics, asking one of those questions that sort of had an answer hidden inside it- but he asked us about Northern Ireland. This was before the Belfast Agreement. At first, there was mostly support for the British point of view, until it was pointed out that elements of the revolutionary groups, while resorting to terrorist methods, were spiritually replaying the American revolutionary struggle. Bruce added a little fuel to the fire by comparing that conflict with Israel and the Palestinians, which further polarized the discussion.
It became so heated that at one point it looked like we were going to come to blows, and J’onn demanded we take a time out for lunch. We split up into basically pro British and Irish groups for lunch, and over the course of eating, we came to the realization that I think Bruce was prodding us towards- that when there wasn’t a clear-cut answer, we needed to steer clear. It wasn’t, and hasn’t, been a perfect solution, but what it taught us was that there are simply some questions that needed to be answered by the people involved.
After lunch, a little more seasoned, I think, we turned to the subject of imposing peace. It was true that we could impose peace on Israel, but at the cost of becoming dictators- and under a superhuman dictatorship –even more so than under a normal human dictatorship- it would be impossible for the democratic reforms necessary for a lasting peace to form. We felt really productive during the second half of the day, and we thought we were closing in on something concrete until Bruce stood up and lectured all of us on playing a self-congratulatory game of model UN. And aggravating as he was, he was right. We’d drawn up bylaws in a day; we were prepared to change the world on a whim.
He didn’t show up for the second day of our summit, but he’d cast a shadow over our talks, and basically all of our headier plans fell apart, so that when he showed up again in the last few hours of the third day, we were working with a much smaller, much less reaching League than the one we’d sort of been dreaming of on that first day. To this day I don’t know how much of that was calculation on his part, and how much of it was a genuine frustration at what he saw as a superhuman superpower forming with too little forethought, but I think it kept the League on an even keel. I shudder to think of the world we might have created otherwise.
What’s funny, is, in retrospect, what we ended up with was less like the UN and more like the League of Nations, and I’ll explain that. The UN is, by and large, “led” by the Security Council. Major, and especially priority, decisions are made through the council and not the secretariat. Our League is based on simple majorities; it’s true that I hold a position of relative leadership in the community, and there is a tendency for people to camp around the original founding members, but when it comes time to decide what we’re going to do, my voice is only as strong as the next man or woman’s. I think that’s eliminated a lot of potential strife, and helped us live up to the democratic ideals we’ve set for ourselves. I don’t aspire to inspiration, but I hope that, sometimes at least, we serve as an example people can and will follow.
ID: But in Darfur there are concrete things that could be done
S: And how far do we go? Do we tow the AU line, and try to wall off Darfur from the rest of Sudan? Do we go a step further, and smash the militias at the risk of destabilizing the entire country? Do we attack the military, the government, and potentially throw the whole region into conflict?
Everything we do has consequences. We've offered our, uh, services, I guess, to the Security Council, and, understandably, they're as reluctant as we are to intervene. The larger the response, the greater the chance for it to go catastrophically wrong, not to mention that using the Justice League could be seen as an escalation of an international superhuman arms race.
If the UN ever asks for our help, in Darfur or anywhere, we'll be there, but for now, they're trying to deal with the situation through traditional diplomacy. For better or worse, justice moves slowly.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Monday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Superman: That’s probably the best question you’ve ever asked, and it takes us back to the very start of the League. I’ll start by saying when we started, we were all naïve. I’d been in costume less than a year, so had most of us up to that point. We averted a White Martian invasion with the help of J’onn J’onnz
ID: The Martian Manhunter
S: and we sort of realized that there were some things we couldn’t do on our own. Some of us had worked together previously before, but this was something on a scale none of us had seen before, and it really taught us all that there was just a different type of threat out there than we’d previously been exposed to.
It started, for me, at least, with a conversation with J’onn. As an alien living amongst humans, I sort of took it upon myself to help him find a place, get settled, develop his own life, and we were having lunch in a very 50s diner. J’onn was talking sort of matter-of-factly about an early warning system; he kind of took it for granted that we already were connected to one another in a way that would allow us to function like a group. And we started to develop the idea as we waited for milkshakes.
He and I were planning on starting a push with the others who had helped avert the invasion, and we were going to have lunch again on Sunday to hash out details of that, and I remember Diana called on Saturday. Her background was in politics, diplomacy- after all, she was primarily an ambassador- and she’d already been networking with Flash, Green Lantern. She said she’d probably have called sooner, but she’d had to go to Atlantis three times to convince Aquaman- though I’ve always sort of assumed, and Diana’s always refused to deny, that he only kept her coming back to get in her pants- though I suppose technically her battlesuit doesn’t include pants.
She’d covered some of the details, at least in theory, that J’onn and I had missed, and of course, there was only one person left to talk to, Bruce. We spent twenty minutes trying to figure out if he’d even be interested, and then which of us had the most chance of convincing him. I thought she could flirt him into it; she seemed to be under the impression that he and I shared some kind of bond. In the end, well, Diana was very persuasive- she was a hell of an ambassador, even in those days, so I made the call. He was cold. “I expected you to call an hour ago. It’s a stupid idea. I’m sure you’ve already come up with a ridiculous name for it.” He paused. “I’ll work with you as a consultant, to limit the damage the rest of you can do.”
A couple of weeks later we set up a summit, and we set out to make ground rules. We actually wanted to format it off of the United Nations, with members voting on rules and resolutions- taking the time to weight the consequences of intervening in situations versus just rushing in and possibly making situations worse.
And it was Bruce who brought up politics, asking one of those questions that sort of had an answer hidden inside it- but he asked us about Northern Ireland. This was before the Belfast Agreement. At first, there was mostly support for the British point of view, until it was pointed out that elements of the revolutionary groups, while resorting to terrorist methods, were spiritually replaying the American revolutionary struggle. Bruce added a little fuel to the fire by comparing that conflict with Israel and the Palestinians, which further polarized the discussion.
It became so heated that at one point it looked like we were going to come to blows, and J’onn demanded we take a time out for lunch. We split up into basically pro British and Irish groups for lunch, and over the course of eating, we came to the realization that I think Bruce was prodding us towards- that when there wasn’t a clear-cut answer, we needed to steer clear. It wasn’t, and hasn’t, been a perfect solution, but what it taught us was that there are simply some questions that needed to be answered by the people involved.
After lunch, a little more seasoned, I think, we turned to the subject of imposing peace. It was true that we could impose peace on Israel, but at the cost of becoming dictators- and under a superhuman dictatorship –even more so than under a normal human dictatorship- it would be impossible for the democratic reforms necessary for a lasting peace to form. We felt really productive during the second half of the day, and we thought we were closing in on something concrete until Bruce stood up and lectured all of us on playing a self-congratulatory game of model UN. And aggravating as he was, he was right. We’d drawn up bylaws in a day; we were prepared to change the world on a whim.
He didn’t show up for the second day of our summit, but he’d cast a shadow over our talks, and basically all of our headier plans fell apart, so that when he showed up again in the last few hours of the third day, we were working with a much smaller, much less reaching League than the one we’d sort of been dreaming of on that first day. To this day I don’t know how much of that was calculation on his part, and how much of it was a genuine frustration at what he saw as a superhuman superpower forming with too little forethought, but I think it kept the League on an even keel. I shudder to think of the world we might have created otherwise.
What’s funny, is, in retrospect, what we ended up with was less like the UN and more like the League of Nations, and I’ll explain that. The UN is, by and large, “led” by the Security Council. Major, and especially priority, decisions are made through the council and not the secretariat. Our League is based on simple majorities; it’s true that I hold a position of relative leadership in the community, and there is a tendency for people to camp around the original founding members, but when it comes time to decide what we’re going to do, my voice is only as strong as the next man or woman’s. I think that’s eliminated a lot of potential strife, and helped us live up to the democratic ideals we’ve set for ourselves. I don’t aspire to inspiration, but I hope that, sometimes at least, we serve as an example people can and will follow.
ID: But in Darfur there are concrete things that could be done
S: And how far do we go? Do we tow the AU line, and try to wall off Darfur from the rest of Sudan? Do we go a step further, and smash the militias at the risk of destabilizing the entire country? Do we attack the military, the government, and potentially throw the whole region into conflict?
Everything we do has consequences. We've offered our, uh, services, I guess, to the Security Council, and, understandably, they're as reluctant as we are to intervene. The larger the response, the greater the chance for it to go catastrophically wrong, not to mention that using the Justice League could be seen as an escalation of an international superhuman arms race.
If the UN ever asks for our help, in Darfur or anywhere, we'll be there, but for now, they're trying to deal with the situation through traditional diplomacy. For better or worse, justice moves slowly.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Monday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Economy
Illustrious Damnation: I think I might have let us get off to more navel gazing than I intended last week, so now I’d like to talk about something a bit more concrete. I’d like to talk about the economy.
Superman: Ugh. You sure you don’t want to talk to Bruce?
ID: I know it’s not your usual forte, but it’s in crisis, and crises are your business. So from your unique perspective, what do you see? You don’t necessarily have to have a magic bullet, but what can you add to that conversation?
S: Mostly I don’t understand the economy. It’s like magic. Some people know how to make money from it, but personally- and I feel kind of silly about this, but Lois looks after my 401(k)- I couldn’t even tell you what’s in it, let alone how well- or likely poorly- it’s doing. The economy’s something I usually leave in the hands of people who know better than me. But rather than force you to ask prying follow-ups, let’s see if I can’t compare it to something I have put a bit more thought into.
I think you’re right. The economy is in crisis. I think there’s something to the people who say it’s mostly a crisis of faith, because the economy today is largely as healthy (or arguably as weak) as when stocks were high. But that’s a symptom, and one diagnosed through arm-chair psychology at that, so let’s see if we can’t get a little closer… hmm. Honestly, I see a parallel with Darfur.
ID: That’s got to be a first.
S: Not really, I don’t think. And maybe it’s just that I spend an inordinate amount of my time reading the paper, reading lots of papers, actually, at superspeeds, but I think the comparison is completely reasonable. I’m sure you’re aware that the ICC has charged Omar al Bashir with crimes against humanity. He’s basically an international fugitive at this point.
Well, there’s been a debate raging since the head prosecutor, Moreno-Ocampo, looked like he would file charges, about whether or not it was better for the conflict in Darfur for charges to be filed or not. The debate focused on whether or not the fledgling ceasefire would be destroyed by an attempt to arrest the sitting president. People who thought it would said the country needed “Peace before justice.”
While I’m not sure I’m convinced as it applies to the situation in Sudan, I think that refrain sort of works with the economy. Lots and lots of shady dealings have occurred. We should definitely look into how these things happened, and who’s responsible, but at the same time, our focus needs to be on fixing the problems that are crippling our economy, not pointing fingers.
And I don’t say that with any relish. Lex Luthor, and the deregulation he started and George Bush continued, are at the heart of a lot of these problems, and the overall atmosphere he fostered- all of it was toxic for the long-term economic health of this country. But for the moment we need to set that anger and frustration aside. Because right now there are millions of Americans left unemployed; we need answers and solutions now.
ID: You mentioned Bruce, and I know he’s emerged, from the crisis, as someone to watch. He used to make all of his deals in private, try to keep his secrets to himself, but since people started using the “R” word in public, he’s started doing his trading in public, too. I’ve heard that people have been crunching numbers recently, and they think he’s overtaken Warren Buffet.
S: Bruce actually doesn’t like to talk about his finances; I think I understand, because I don’t like to talk about my abilities, at least not when it comes to a conversation with others. I’m an alien, and I’ve made my peace about that, but I don’t like underscoring the things that make me different- I prefer to talk to people about the things we have in common. But if I had to guess, Bruce is richer than Buffet- I know he’s better at investing.
ID: Well here’s a question, since you’re friends or at least friendly with one of the wealthiest men in the country, why’s he been doing what he’s doing during a downturn?
S: I know Bruce has “lost” billions right now. And I also know Bruce is investing- the more money he loses on paper, the more money he invests. Now is the time, when stocks are on the floor, to buy. Nearly everything worth any money is undervalued, as far as stocks are concerned. Which isn’t to say that anyone should suddenly go on a stock shopping spree- for every diamond in the rough there’s at least one financially unstable company with a bleak, at least for the moment, future. Now is certainly the time to invest, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be doing your homework and really being exceptionally cautious about where you put your money, like always, really.
But I think part of it is strategy, with Bruce, calculated. He knows that people watch him, have always watched him, ever since he managed to double his family’s fortune when he was in his twenties- and that’s just from investing, not counting the profits Wayne Enterprises made. But he knows the only way, really, to fix the current problems, is to inject capital into the system. By investing fearlessly into the market, he’s trying to lead by example, show people that he has faith in the market. He’s even been talking to Secretary Geithner about buying up some of those toxic assets- though like most folks he’s worried about banks trying to overvalue the assets, and the tailspin that could cause.
ID: Judging by this, it seems you talk a lot of shop with the Batman.
S: People assume the Justice League is all about punching the next “bad guy” in the face. Justice means a lot of things; at the end of the day, it’s about trying to keep the parts of the world that work from crumbling into chaos, and helping the parts of the world that don’t become better. That means we pay attention to everything; we discuss politics, economics- even the weather, when we think it’s going to have some impact.
Where possible, we try and make ourselves available, for everything from building shelters with programs like Habitat for Humanity, to clean water programs with the UNDP and disaster relief. I guess we’re victims of our own success in that regard, because we so often try and make those contributions quietly, and not trumpet the League’s humanitarian work, that the big shows of force get all the press.
Horribly Ill, hence the posting delay, so forgive any atrocious errors in the transcript. And we’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Monday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Superman: Ugh. You sure you don’t want to talk to Bruce?
ID: I know it’s not your usual forte, but it’s in crisis, and crises are your business. So from your unique perspective, what do you see? You don’t necessarily have to have a magic bullet, but what can you add to that conversation?
S: Mostly I don’t understand the economy. It’s like magic. Some people know how to make money from it, but personally- and I feel kind of silly about this, but Lois looks after my 401(k)- I couldn’t even tell you what’s in it, let alone how well- or likely poorly- it’s doing. The economy’s something I usually leave in the hands of people who know better than me. But rather than force you to ask prying follow-ups, let’s see if I can’t compare it to something I have put a bit more thought into.
I think you’re right. The economy is in crisis. I think there’s something to the people who say it’s mostly a crisis of faith, because the economy today is largely as healthy (or arguably as weak) as when stocks were high. But that’s a symptom, and one diagnosed through arm-chair psychology at that, so let’s see if we can’t get a little closer… hmm. Honestly, I see a parallel with Darfur.
ID: That’s got to be a first.
S: Not really, I don’t think. And maybe it’s just that I spend an inordinate amount of my time reading the paper, reading lots of papers, actually, at superspeeds, but I think the comparison is completely reasonable. I’m sure you’re aware that the ICC has charged Omar al Bashir with crimes against humanity. He’s basically an international fugitive at this point.
Well, there’s been a debate raging since the head prosecutor, Moreno-Ocampo, looked like he would file charges, about whether or not it was better for the conflict in Darfur for charges to be filed or not. The debate focused on whether or not the fledgling ceasefire would be destroyed by an attempt to arrest the sitting president. People who thought it would said the country needed “Peace before justice.”
While I’m not sure I’m convinced as it applies to the situation in Sudan, I think that refrain sort of works with the economy. Lots and lots of shady dealings have occurred. We should definitely look into how these things happened, and who’s responsible, but at the same time, our focus needs to be on fixing the problems that are crippling our economy, not pointing fingers.
And I don’t say that with any relish. Lex Luthor, and the deregulation he started and George Bush continued, are at the heart of a lot of these problems, and the overall atmosphere he fostered- all of it was toxic for the long-term economic health of this country. But for the moment we need to set that anger and frustration aside. Because right now there are millions of Americans left unemployed; we need answers and solutions now.
ID: You mentioned Bruce, and I know he’s emerged, from the crisis, as someone to watch. He used to make all of his deals in private, try to keep his secrets to himself, but since people started using the “R” word in public, he’s started doing his trading in public, too. I’ve heard that people have been crunching numbers recently, and they think he’s overtaken Warren Buffet.
S: Bruce actually doesn’t like to talk about his finances; I think I understand, because I don’t like to talk about my abilities, at least not when it comes to a conversation with others. I’m an alien, and I’ve made my peace about that, but I don’t like underscoring the things that make me different- I prefer to talk to people about the things we have in common. But if I had to guess, Bruce is richer than Buffet- I know he’s better at investing.
ID: Well here’s a question, since you’re friends or at least friendly with one of the wealthiest men in the country, why’s he been doing what he’s doing during a downturn?
S: I know Bruce has “lost” billions right now. And I also know Bruce is investing- the more money he loses on paper, the more money he invests. Now is the time, when stocks are on the floor, to buy. Nearly everything worth any money is undervalued, as far as stocks are concerned. Which isn’t to say that anyone should suddenly go on a stock shopping spree- for every diamond in the rough there’s at least one financially unstable company with a bleak, at least for the moment, future. Now is certainly the time to invest, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be doing your homework and really being exceptionally cautious about where you put your money, like always, really.
But I think part of it is strategy, with Bruce, calculated. He knows that people watch him, have always watched him, ever since he managed to double his family’s fortune when he was in his twenties- and that’s just from investing, not counting the profits Wayne Enterprises made. But he knows the only way, really, to fix the current problems, is to inject capital into the system. By investing fearlessly into the market, he’s trying to lead by example, show people that he has faith in the market. He’s even been talking to Secretary Geithner about buying up some of those toxic assets- though like most folks he’s worried about banks trying to overvalue the assets, and the tailspin that could cause.
ID: Judging by this, it seems you talk a lot of shop with the Batman.
S: People assume the Justice League is all about punching the next “bad guy” in the face. Justice means a lot of things; at the end of the day, it’s about trying to keep the parts of the world that work from crumbling into chaos, and helping the parts of the world that don’t become better. That means we pay attention to everything; we discuss politics, economics- even the weather, when we think it’s going to have some impact.
Where possible, we try and make ourselves available, for everything from building shelters with programs like Habitat for Humanity, to clean water programs with the UNDP and disaster relief. I guess we’re victims of our own success in that regard, because we so often try and make those contributions quietly, and not trumpet the League’s humanitarian work, that the big shows of force get all the press.
Horribly Ill, hence the posting delay, so forgive any atrocious errors in the transcript. And we’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Monday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Monday, April 6, 2009
The End of the World
Incestuous Democracy: I’d like to ask you a bit of a hypothetical this time. Normally I don’t like to play these kinds of games, but I think you’re uniquely qualified, for a lot of reasons, to answer. How do you think the world’s going to end?
Superman: Let me say, first, that I don’t believe the world will end in 2012. Ted Kord
ID: The inventor and industrialist who goes by the name Blue Beetle
S: once he came up with this complicated mathematic algorithm. Basically, he’d taken the idea, as developed by, Terrence McKenna, of Novelty theory, and found a basic proof using rudimentary quantum mechanics. It didn’t prove, as some people think, that the world would end in 2012, but, as Ted explained, after that point, “things got weird.” Ted, and he’s I think in line with McKenna on this, but he thinks that at that point technology becomes so rapid in its evolution, that the slight derivations in method amount to exponential fragmentation of divergent realities- basically, that the normal, parallel-world model of the multiverse grows with such a speed that the equation starts to have difficulty distinguishing between differences in realities. One of Ted’s “theories,” there, is that at some point interdimensional travel becomes possible across these realities, so what you see is a technological cross-breeding, which is part of the reason for the odd shifts in the equation. Of course, Ted’s been known to get a little silly when he holes up in his lab for too many hours without food or sleep.
ID: Okay, so not in 2012…
S: I’m thinking. It’s something the League, like every other security-minded organization should probably spend more time doing.
ID: In a post-9/11 world?
S: I hate that term. The world post-9/11 isn’t any different. The only thing we learned was that bad people are willing to do bad things in America just as readily as in other parts of the world. The fact that we Americans, and I’m as guilty of this as anyone, were sheltered from the problems of the rest of the planet doesn’t change the fact that it wasn’t the world that changed- it was our ability to perceive the many facets of reality that did.
But it isn’t just that we weren’t able to stop it- though God knows I take that failure very personally- though I take some small comfort from what Ollie told me later, that “while we were stopping a hurricane, humanity got hit by a little rain.” The real issue, I think, is we failed to even imagine it. Even Bruce, who I think could outmaneuver the devil himself, was out-thought that day. And that still scares us all.
But imagination. Hmm. I’m an optimist, but I think I’m an optimistic realist, so you can let that color what I say, or you can join me in my estimation, but I don’t think the world is going to end in a puff of smoke, or a ball of fire. I think that, if we’ve seen anything, it’s that the people on this planet want desperately to survive. And humanity is nothing if not resilient. Even if you take superhumanity out of the equation-which, statistically wouldn’t make sense, as their portion of the population is trending upwards, not down- the species refuses to go quietly into that good night.
So no matter what the threat, whether it’s a planet-killing asteroid or a planet-eating megapredator- I’ve seen the Earth defend itself against the worst threats in the universe; I honestly can’t imagine an outside threat that could pose a genuine danger to the planet as a whole.
And, you know, I’m not one of those people worried about technological hubris, either. Maybe I’m jaded, coming from Krypton, but technology, by and large, can yield a hundred civilian applications for any technology for every military one- the difference is merely that most of our focus and funding tends towards the militaristic because of global instability. I think, as you see things stabilize worldwide, you’ll see the perceived necessity for violence diminish, and the focus on useful rather than vengeful technologies thrive.
I think the end of the world will be quiet. I think humanity’s number will dwindle, because the sun’s power will fade, so the amount of life the planet can sustain will shrink, and humanity will move off-world. So I think the end of the Earth will be witnessed by only a handful of residents. The sun will die, fizzling slowly into darkness, and they’ll sit on their porches watching it go. They’ll go inside, then pick up a book and wait for the end to come, because they figure they’re too old to start over fresh someplace else.
I think my dad was that kind of guy. Most small farmers got out years ago, but he kept his farm going even though he knew he wasn’t earning sweat equity anymore, just barely keeping the place going with his own blood. He was just too old to learn how to live some other way, so he worked himself to death in a field, because that was the way his dad died, and that was the way he wanted to die, too. He saw a nobility in that, working ‘til his heart burst, but working with his hands, “like a man ought to.”
I think that’s how the world ends, with a few stubborn folks who refuse to be moved from their homes. Humanity, though- humanity’s going to keep going for as long as it can find new places to hang its collective (and dispersed) hats. And that makes me smile, the way I know it’d have made pa smile; there’s something gratifying about knowing the world will go on without you, maybe better for your time and maybe not, but that it’ll go on regardless. It’s why I’m glad the world has Kara, now- I hated the thought that I would be the last of my kind; it’s nice to know that something will survive you.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Monday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Superman: Let me say, first, that I don’t believe the world will end in 2012. Ted Kord
ID: The inventor and industrialist who goes by the name Blue Beetle
S: once he came up with this complicated mathematic algorithm. Basically, he’d taken the idea, as developed by, Terrence McKenna, of Novelty theory, and found a basic proof using rudimentary quantum mechanics. It didn’t prove, as some people think, that the world would end in 2012, but, as Ted explained, after that point, “things got weird.” Ted, and he’s I think in line with McKenna on this, but he thinks that at that point technology becomes so rapid in its evolution, that the slight derivations in method amount to exponential fragmentation of divergent realities- basically, that the normal, parallel-world model of the multiverse grows with such a speed that the equation starts to have difficulty distinguishing between differences in realities. One of Ted’s “theories,” there, is that at some point interdimensional travel becomes possible across these realities, so what you see is a technological cross-breeding, which is part of the reason for the odd shifts in the equation. Of course, Ted’s been known to get a little silly when he holes up in his lab for too many hours without food or sleep.
ID: Okay, so not in 2012…
S: I’m thinking. It’s something the League, like every other security-minded organization should probably spend more time doing.
ID: In a post-9/11 world?
S: I hate that term. The world post-9/11 isn’t any different. The only thing we learned was that bad people are willing to do bad things in America just as readily as in other parts of the world. The fact that we Americans, and I’m as guilty of this as anyone, were sheltered from the problems of the rest of the planet doesn’t change the fact that it wasn’t the world that changed- it was our ability to perceive the many facets of reality that did.
But it isn’t just that we weren’t able to stop it- though God knows I take that failure very personally- though I take some small comfort from what Ollie told me later, that “while we were stopping a hurricane, humanity got hit by a little rain.” The real issue, I think, is we failed to even imagine it. Even Bruce, who I think could outmaneuver the devil himself, was out-thought that day. And that still scares us all.
But imagination. Hmm. I’m an optimist, but I think I’m an optimistic realist, so you can let that color what I say, or you can join me in my estimation, but I don’t think the world is going to end in a puff of smoke, or a ball of fire. I think that, if we’ve seen anything, it’s that the people on this planet want desperately to survive. And humanity is nothing if not resilient. Even if you take superhumanity out of the equation-which, statistically wouldn’t make sense, as their portion of the population is trending upwards, not down- the species refuses to go quietly into that good night.
So no matter what the threat, whether it’s a planet-killing asteroid or a planet-eating megapredator- I’ve seen the Earth defend itself against the worst threats in the universe; I honestly can’t imagine an outside threat that could pose a genuine danger to the planet as a whole.
And, you know, I’m not one of those people worried about technological hubris, either. Maybe I’m jaded, coming from Krypton, but technology, by and large, can yield a hundred civilian applications for any technology for every military one- the difference is merely that most of our focus and funding tends towards the militaristic because of global instability. I think, as you see things stabilize worldwide, you’ll see the perceived necessity for violence diminish, and the focus on useful rather than vengeful technologies thrive.
I think the end of the world will be quiet. I think humanity’s number will dwindle, because the sun’s power will fade, so the amount of life the planet can sustain will shrink, and humanity will move off-world. So I think the end of the Earth will be witnessed by only a handful of residents. The sun will die, fizzling slowly into darkness, and they’ll sit on their porches watching it go. They’ll go inside, then pick up a book and wait for the end to come, because they figure they’re too old to start over fresh someplace else.
I think my dad was that kind of guy. Most small farmers got out years ago, but he kept his farm going even though he knew he wasn’t earning sweat equity anymore, just barely keeping the place going with his own blood. He was just too old to learn how to live some other way, so he worked himself to death in a field, because that was the way his dad died, and that was the way he wanted to die, too. He saw a nobility in that, working ‘til his heart burst, but working with his hands, “like a man ought to.”
I think that’s how the world ends, with a few stubborn folks who refuse to be moved from their homes. Humanity, though- humanity’s going to keep going for as long as it can find new places to hang its collective (and dispersed) hats. And that makes me smile, the way I know it’d have made pa smile; there’s something gratifying about knowing the world will go on without you, maybe better for your time and maybe not, but that it’ll go on regardless. It’s why I’m glad the world has Kara, now- I hated the thought that I would be the last of my kind; it’s nice to know that something will survive you.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Monday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Heroes for Hire?
Innocent Donut: I want to continue by picking up a thread I think we left hanging last week. Why do you think costumed vigilantes tend towards insularity, looking within the community for lawyers and prison guards, people with experience rather than looking outside?
Superman: I think experience may be the operative word, but some of it has to do with trust issues- which, as you can imagine, are more prickly among people who use a separate identity- and some of it just has to do with general skepticism. We’ve seen “normal” police and “normal” corrections officers try to handle superhumans, and, frankly, they’re woefully ill-equipped, sometimes fatally so.
ID: Okay; well what's stopping you from using your expertise to train the regular prison staff?
S: Most of us who do this, and I think it’s become clear I’m reluctant to use the word “hero” because it’s a term I’ve never been comfortable self-applying, but we don’t do this for a living. With a few exceptions, most of us don’t receive a paycheck, or a government stipend- anything. This is a calling, to be sure, but when people are already donating their time on things of life and death importance, it’s hard to further impose upon their lives for what amounts to, at the end of the day, administrative work- for nothing.
Constructing the Super Max cost Bruce nearly a billion dollars, that’s with a b. I love that Bruce has willingly put up vast amounts of cash, not just for Super Max but for everything, and we even talked about it, when we started the League back up, about paying a salary. In the end we decided against it. The problem is, that creates a change in the mentality of what we do- it stops being about helping people, and being an example, and starts being about money. It would cheapen what we do, cheapen the very real sacrifices people have made and will make, and tarnish what the League needs to represent if we’re going to remain a beacon to the world.
I remember we got so far as to bring it up for a vote. I think, from the discussion we were having, that we were pretty divided, but it was Plastic Man who stood up and gave the speech that I think cemented the issue for us. It was odd, because he often affects a materialistic, even greedy demeanor, but he said he was voting against it, that he wouldn’t want to see the greatest people he’d ever known reduced to mercenaries, he wouldn’t want to live in a world where our slogan became the same as the legal profession: “the best justice money can buy.”
What’s that they always say about the wisdom of a fool? Sometimes the least among us, and he often strives to live up to that title, but sometimes the least among us really understand us the best. But I may be too close to it; you’ve been pretty good about affecting the layman- what do you think?
ID: I don’t know. I think I’ve been on both sides of that fence, as a salaried writer and a freelancer- and the money does change, fundamentally, the paradigm. But at the same time, I think a lack of money also changes it, too. I guess what I’d say is if professional politicians can take home a paycheck, I don’t see why the Justice League shouldn’t.
S: But politicians, for a variety of reasons, end up beholden to special interests; even when a politician is able to separate his campaign from his work and legislates without bias, that perception of impropriety still weighs on them. It’s imperative that when members of the League intervene that there never be a question as to what interests they’re serving. We’re here to help. I worry bringing money into the equation would dilute that.
ID: But you’ve already admitted that Bruce Wayne donates billions of dollars to the League for operations. Doesn’t that represent a potential conflict?
S: It could. I think, if Bruce were any other billionaire, it might. But you have to remember that up until a few months ago, Bruce was donating that money anonymously- and there has never been a moment where I felt Bruce’s mind was on business rather than on saving lives.
ID: Okay, I'm curious, given everything you've said, how you feel about heroes who do offer their services for pay. And I'll preface your answer by saying this is nothing new; off-duty policemen work as bodyguards, special forces often leave the military to work for security companies.
S: I'm not going to badmouth anyone who has ever done this work. Frankly, anyone who donates any time whatsoever should be commended- and we all have expenses, a mortgage, car loans, some of us have kids with tuition. Personally, selling my abilities, it just wouldn't feel right- but by and large I'd trust the people I've worked with to make the right decisions about how they conduct themselves. We all have to live- I just hope they're making choices they can live with.
ID: Um, I have heard that the League does, and always has, offered an exceptional benefits package- medical, dental, even a scholarship program.
S: That’s true, as well as an, and I always cringe bringing it up- it seems like bad luck, but a life insurance policy. And for those who aren’t in the League, there’s a pretty cost-effective buy-in program, like what SAG and the Writer’s Guild have.
ID: Speaking of that, I seem to remember a rumbling a few years back of a superhero strike.
S: There were some people agitating for that, actually. Most of us in the community have day jobs. We work a nine to five, although I think Oracle actually did a kind of a census, a few years back, and there were far more blue-collar workers with strange schedules than there were people working strictly nine to five. But we quashed that. Basically, it came down to a few of the, I’ve heard them called “street-level” heroes, wanting a strike. We said, “No,” that it was going to hurt innocent people, and there was really no guarantee state and local authorities wanted us enough to pay us anyway. I really would strongly encourage the government, state, local, whomever, to consider it- some of these people are making the choices between eating dinner and fighting crime- and they already give so much it’s not right to ask them to make that choice.
ID: How did turning down the pay resolution affect the League members who'd been pushing for a strike?
S: It was actually fascinating to see how it divided people. I think the strike, fundamentally, was an attempt to find a socially acceptable place for them- not quite within the classic police force, but in a complementary system to it. And really, if I thought there was a stronger likelihood of pushing it through, I'd have at least been willing to advocate for it politically, because it's an idea I can get behind. But the pay measure was different. Deep as Bruce's pockets are, none of us want him to have to foot the bill; there are some of us, like Ollie, who are reluctant to give him any more influence than he already has, which I personally think is a little paranoid. There are some, like myself, who simply think he does enough already. We may operate in an imperfect system, but it wouldn't be right to ask Bruce to buy us a better one- and it'd be harder to live up to the name on the door if we did.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Monday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
Superman: I think experience may be the operative word, but some of it has to do with trust issues- which, as you can imagine, are more prickly among people who use a separate identity- and some of it just has to do with general skepticism. We’ve seen “normal” police and “normal” corrections officers try to handle superhumans, and, frankly, they’re woefully ill-equipped, sometimes fatally so.
ID: Okay; well what's stopping you from using your expertise to train the regular prison staff?
S: Most of us who do this, and I think it’s become clear I’m reluctant to use the word “hero” because it’s a term I’ve never been comfortable self-applying, but we don’t do this for a living. With a few exceptions, most of us don’t receive a paycheck, or a government stipend- anything. This is a calling, to be sure, but when people are already donating their time on things of life and death importance, it’s hard to further impose upon their lives for what amounts to, at the end of the day, administrative work- for nothing.
Constructing the Super Max cost Bruce nearly a billion dollars, that’s with a b. I love that Bruce has willingly put up vast amounts of cash, not just for Super Max but for everything, and we even talked about it, when we started the League back up, about paying a salary. In the end we decided against it. The problem is, that creates a change in the mentality of what we do- it stops being about helping people, and being an example, and starts being about money. It would cheapen what we do, cheapen the very real sacrifices people have made and will make, and tarnish what the League needs to represent if we’re going to remain a beacon to the world.
I remember we got so far as to bring it up for a vote. I think, from the discussion we were having, that we were pretty divided, but it was Plastic Man who stood up and gave the speech that I think cemented the issue for us. It was odd, because he often affects a materialistic, even greedy demeanor, but he said he was voting against it, that he wouldn’t want to see the greatest people he’d ever known reduced to mercenaries, he wouldn’t want to live in a world where our slogan became the same as the legal profession: “the best justice money can buy.”
What’s that they always say about the wisdom of a fool? Sometimes the least among us, and he often strives to live up to that title, but sometimes the least among us really understand us the best. But I may be too close to it; you’ve been pretty good about affecting the layman- what do you think?
ID: I don’t know. I think I’ve been on both sides of that fence, as a salaried writer and a freelancer- and the money does change, fundamentally, the paradigm. But at the same time, I think a lack of money also changes it, too. I guess what I’d say is if professional politicians can take home a paycheck, I don’t see why the Justice League shouldn’t.
S: But politicians, for a variety of reasons, end up beholden to special interests; even when a politician is able to separate his campaign from his work and legislates without bias, that perception of impropriety still weighs on them. It’s imperative that when members of the League intervene that there never be a question as to what interests they’re serving. We’re here to help. I worry bringing money into the equation would dilute that.
ID: But you’ve already admitted that Bruce Wayne donates billions of dollars to the League for operations. Doesn’t that represent a potential conflict?
S: It could. I think, if Bruce were any other billionaire, it might. But you have to remember that up until a few months ago, Bruce was donating that money anonymously- and there has never been a moment where I felt Bruce’s mind was on business rather than on saving lives.
ID: Okay, I'm curious, given everything you've said, how you feel about heroes who do offer their services for pay. And I'll preface your answer by saying this is nothing new; off-duty policemen work as bodyguards, special forces often leave the military to work for security companies.
S: I'm not going to badmouth anyone who has ever done this work. Frankly, anyone who donates any time whatsoever should be commended- and we all have expenses, a mortgage, car loans, some of us have kids with tuition. Personally, selling my abilities, it just wouldn't feel right- but by and large I'd trust the people I've worked with to make the right decisions about how they conduct themselves. We all have to live- I just hope they're making choices they can live with.
ID: Um, I have heard that the League does, and always has, offered an exceptional benefits package- medical, dental, even a scholarship program.
S: That’s true, as well as an, and I always cringe bringing it up- it seems like bad luck, but a life insurance policy. And for those who aren’t in the League, there’s a pretty cost-effective buy-in program, like what SAG and the Writer’s Guild have.
ID: Speaking of that, I seem to remember a rumbling a few years back of a superhero strike.
S: There were some people agitating for that, actually. Most of us in the community have day jobs. We work a nine to five, although I think Oracle actually did a kind of a census, a few years back, and there were far more blue-collar workers with strange schedules than there were people working strictly nine to five. But we quashed that. Basically, it came down to a few of the, I’ve heard them called “street-level” heroes, wanting a strike. We said, “No,” that it was going to hurt innocent people, and there was really no guarantee state and local authorities wanted us enough to pay us anyway. I really would strongly encourage the government, state, local, whomever, to consider it- some of these people are making the choices between eating dinner and fighting crime- and they already give so much it’s not right to ask them to make that choice.
ID: How did turning down the pay resolution affect the League members who'd been pushing for a strike?
S: It was actually fascinating to see how it divided people. I think the strike, fundamentally, was an attempt to find a socially acceptable place for them- not quite within the classic police force, but in a complementary system to it. And really, if I thought there was a stronger likelihood of pushing it through, I'd have at least been willing to advocate for it politically, because it's an idea I can get behind. But the pay measure was different. Deep as Bruce's pockets are, none of us want him to have to foot the bill; there are some of us, like Ollie, who are reluctant to give him any more influence than he already has, which I personally think is a little paranoid. There are some, like myself, who simply think he does enough already. We may operate in an imperfect system, but it wouldn't be right to ask Bruce to buy us a better one- and it'd be harder to live up to the name on the door if we did.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Monday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.
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