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.