Infiltrating Deltas: I’d heard talk of Congress contemplating the creation of a Superman Day, recently. They were thinking of using the day you originally succumbed to your injuries fighting Doomsday, to honor heroes like yourself, those who fell in the line of duty and those who served, and those who fell. And I also hear you delivered a statement, in writing for obvious reasons, about why you thought that was a bad idea. Why?
Superman: Okay, my argument was two-pronged, actually. First, I wouldn’t want it called Superman Day, or to celebrate my death. I’m, as a symbol, too small for something like that. If anything, it could be called Justice Day, and celebrate the founding date of the League- or use some other day, because really, it isn’t and shouldn’t be about me.
Second, we already have a day. Granted, our observance isn’t far-reaching, and the implications are, well, I’ll stop padding it. We celebrate Veterans Day as ours, or ours with traditional military veterans, anyway. I think it’s appropriate to look at the people who do what we do in that same light.
ID: That’s… interesting. Because, knowing how you feel about war, I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about veterans.
S: Really? I didn’t think my position was all that gray. Veterans, at least in principal, lay their lives at the feet of the altar of freedom. Some are chosen as sacrifices, others walk away whole; most are damaged in ways that are hard to recognize or qualify, but bear wounds as deep as those who died. I have the utmost awe and respect for veterans, military or otherwise.
ID: Okay, see, it’s that, that caveat: “at least in principal.” What the hell does that mean?
S: You really don’t care about the big picture if you think someone’s stepped in dog crap, do you? It’s a niggling complaint I have with the way we use our military. We treat them like mercenaries; hell, in Iraq, we’ve had them fighting side by side with mercenaries. And our military, our servicemen and women, they deserve better than that. They ought to be above reproach, but when we tarnish the work they do, it lessens the value of their very real sacrifices. My qualms are with the administration of our military, not with our soldiers.
ID: That makes a degree of sense. But do you think it’s appropriate elevating vigilantes to the levels of sanctioned military veterans?
S: I think it would be inappropriate to ghettoize their sacrifice into a separate day simply because they gave their lives independent of a martial authority.
ID: So you don’t think there’s a difference? That the fact that vigilantes are breaking the law doesn’t make them unworthy of being honored side-by-side with servicepeople?
S: No. And I’m surprised to hear you even implying that line of reasoning, which is virtually the same as people who argue against gay marriage, as if the granting of civil rights to one group has ever detrimentally impacted the rights of others.
ID: Of course, you can make the argument that the loss of privilege for a favored group is understandably resisted, but that’s an argument that rhetorically is equivalent to asking “So what?” in the face of iniquity. So no separate but equal for superheroes?
S: Separate is never equal. It can’t be.
ID: I’ll forego my usual bit of race-baiting, even though there’s a part of me that’s a bit curious whether a Kansas farm boy maybe picked up any good ole boyness.
S: My father was very tolerant. And a veteran, I think you’re forgetting.
ID: That’s right, he was drafted. But do you think if your dad hadn’t been drafted, hadn’t been a
S: But he was. Drafted and a veteran. I don’t think he would have chosen to be a soldier, but that doesn’t change the fact that he recognized the sacrifice for what it was, or that he wouldn’t have sought to instill that wisdom in his son. There’s a reason they call it military service, because it is, they’re doing a service for each and every one of us.
Though I think there is sometimes a disconnect when we talk about soldiers, particularly in the modern, all-volunteer-force variety. I have all the respect in the world for the profession, but it is a profession. And the reasons people take the job are many and varied, having as much to do with lack of opportunity as a desire to do good work for a nation. And I don’t think that acknowledging that aspect, and particularly the dynamic skew it creates, with larger percentages of the poor and minorities serving, takes anything away from that service, or the sacrifice some of those soldiers end up making.
And that’s why I’m really very comfortable holding up people who do what I do on that same pedestal: because we are an all volunteer force, because few if any people get into this for any kind of personal gain, let alone financial. Most of us outlay large sums of money, for tailors, gadgets, whatever.
So more than anything, I hold both groups in extremely high regard. I wouldn’t put either ahead of the other. And I’m guilty as much as anyone for forgetting every day how important that work is, how safe I am, and my family is, because of what they do.
And on days like Veterans Day, I try to make that effort to let them know just how much that service means to me, how truly and deeply I respect them. I try to honor them; it’s the least I could conscionably do.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. 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.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Halloween
ID: Okay, Halloween is a big time for people in costume, so what were you up to this year?
S: Lois actually had a Batwoman costume custom-made this year.
ID: Batwoman? Now that is kinky.
S: I don’t follow.
ID: Well, on the one hand, the current Batwoman is, I believe, a lesbian, so it plays into that straight man with a curvy woman fantasy, and it also means next time you see Bruce you’ll have a weird imprint of disrobing the feminine version of his namesake in your brain. Man, a Superman/Batwoman sextape would sell like hot hot hot cakes. If you want, I could produce- I mean, I’m no Sleez but I do happen to know my way around an HD camera.
S: You think I wore my own costume for Halloween?
ID: You didn’t?
S: Nope. I went as Deadman. I figured, since you can see my ribs poking out, and my skins taken on this pale hue- I figured I could pull it off. Plus there’s the whole macabre joke about me being a dead man.
ID: That is dark. Did Lois laugh?
S: Not at first. But I kept doing my Boston Brand imitation all night long, and frankly, it sounds a bit like Warwick Davis from the Leprechaun movies, and by the end of the night I’d just started rolling with that and introducing myself by saying, “I’m the Leprechaun.”
ID: That’s, um, that’s actually not much like Warwick Davis at all. That’s a bad Mike Myers impression doing a bad Warwick Davis impression in Wayne’s World. And I’m actually not entirely sure what to think about the fact that you A) have seen that movie, and B) apparently quote it when drinking.
S: Hey, I was still moderately young and hip in the early nineties… or maybe Jimmy made me watch it- I don’t really know.
But I wanted to comment upon a phenomenon. I think it was last year that Plastic Man said to me that you could tell how highly regarded (or at least reviled) you were by the amount of people dressed as you at Halloween. Last year, Bruce “accidentally” forwarded a sales report on licensed costumes, detailing that Batman had outsold Superman costumes nearly 2 to 1. Granted, my survey this year isn't scientific, but judging from the sample that came to my door, it seemed I'd overtaken him by a slim margin- and that's despite not having a follow up movie last year (like he did). So yeah... I'm a little happy.
Granted, neither one of us were anywhere near the Harry Potter numbers- and I'm also a bit weirded out by the number of Harry Potter women in drag, with too-short skirts and shirts and expressions that were less-than-wholesome.
Oh, but that made me remember something I forgot last week, and you know I’ve been forgetting things more, but I remembered part of why I wanted to talk about Harry Potter. You know, I wrote a book, once. And I don’t mean Under A Yellow Sun- that barely qualifies as a novella (or literature, for that matter). I remember thinking greedily at the time that that was it, my big break, my chance to escape my own mediocrity- as Clark Kent, anyway. I mean, in the other personae, wearing the costume and being that other person who is smarter and more confident and just better than me in every way, I could do all kinds of things. But as Clark Kent, there were, and sometimes still are, days when I really did feel like the dumb, naïve hick son of a farmer out of Kansas.
ID: You’ve won a Pulitzer.
S: I know, but that doesn’t mean I felt I deserved it, or that even if I sometimes do that I don’t have moments of insecurity. But we’re not talking about that, or at least I wasn’t meaning to, my point, and you know how hard it’s getting for me to focus, is that I wrote something fictional. Maybe even literary. I’d written a novel about a teenager who one day finds out he has abilities, and then joins up with superheroes. It was very much a Harry Potter for the tights set- in fact, there’s a pretty good chance I was writing it around the same time as Rowling was writing her first Potter. But then Ja- one of the Robins passed away. And at that point I couldn’t stomach the idea of encouraging children to think about what we did in a positive light. I mean, if even one kid had got themselves hurt… I haven’t even thought about publishing it, honestly, until just now. I put it out of my mind, because the alternative, it’s too much to even think about.
I mean, I fail, regularly. There’s people I should be nicer to, some I can’t save, even problems I can’t tackle, like Perry smoking cigars, but I recognized that I would be creating failure. That it was an inevitability that children would read that book and think, “Hey, heroes are real, I should do this-” it was only a question of when something would go wrong and not if.
ID: I’m not sure what to say to any of that.
S: You don’t have to. I’m not changing my mind about the book- I’m not saying it should be published posthumously. If anything I’m saying it shouldn’t. But a small part of me just wanted it out there in the world, that the book exists. I think there’s a small part of writing that’s about being heard- not even heard clearly or understood, those are separate from it- I just wanted its existence, and maybe by extension mine, to be known. It seems stupid to say it out loud. But a story about an awkward kid with glasses, and competence no one knows about- that idea hits pretty close to home with me. I guess putting it away all this time, without acknowledging it, it was kind of like trapping that person in his awkward stage, shuttered away and unable to grow into the impressive person he was supposed to emerge as by story’s end. I guess, in a way, that’s what Halloween’s about: we all want to be something, something funnier or scarier or more heroic or even sexier, but we all want to be someone better.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. 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.
S: Lois actually had a Batwoman costume custom-made this year.
ID: Batwoman? Now that is kinky.
S: I don’t follow.
ID: Well, on the one hand, the current Batwoman is, I believe, a lesbian, so it plays into that straight man with a curvy woman fantasy, and it also means next time you see Bruce you’ll have a weird imprint of disrobing the feminine version of his namesake in your brain. Man, a Superman/Batwoman sextape would sell like hot hot hot cakes. If you want, I could produce- I mean, I’m no Sleez but I do happen to know my way around an HD camera.
S: You think I wore my own costume for Halloween?
ID: You didn’t?
S: Nope. I went as Deadman. I figured, since you can see my ribs poking out, and my skins taken on this pale hue- I figured I could pull it off. Plus there’s the whole macabre joke about me being a dead man.
ID: That is dark. Did Lois laugh?
S: Not at first. But I kept doing my Boston Brand imitation all night long, and frankly, it sounds a bit like Warwick Davis from the Leprechaun movies, and by the end of the night I’d just started rolling with that and introducing myself by saying, “I’m the Leprechaun.”
ID: That’s, um, that’s actually not much like Warwick Davis at all. That’s a bad Mike Myers impression doing a bad Warwick Davis impression in Wayne’s World. And I’m actually not entirely sure what to think about the fact that you A) have seen that movie, and B) apparently quote it when drinking.
S: Hey, I was still moderately young and hip in the early nineties… or maybe Jimmy made me watch it- I don’t really know.
But I wanted to comment upon a phenomenon. I think it was last year that Plastic Man said to me that you could tell how highly regarded (or at least reviled) you were by the amount of people dressed as you at Halloween. Last year, Bruce “accidentally” forwarded a sales report on licensed costumes, detailing that Batman had outsold Superman costumes nearly 2 to 1. Granted, my survey this year isn't scientific, but judging from the sample that came to my door, it seemed I'd overtaken him by a slim margin- and that's despite not having a follow up movie last year (like he did). So yeah... I'm a little happy.
Granted, neither one of us were anywhere near the Harry Potter numbers- and I'm also a bit weirded out by the number of Harry Potter women in drag, with too-short skirts and shirts and expressions that were less-than-wholesome.
Oh, but that made me remember something I forgot last week, and you know I’ve been forgetting things more, but I remembered part of why I wanted to talk about Harry Potter. You know, I wrote a book, once. And I don’t mean Under A Yellow Sun- that barely qualifies as a novella (or literature, for that matter). I remember thinking greedily at the time that that was it, my big break, my chance to escape my own mediocrity- as Clark Kent, anyway. I mean, in the other personae, wearing the costume and being that other person who is smarter and more confident and just better than me in every way, I could do all kinds of things. But as Clark Kent, there were, and sometimes still are, days when I really did feel like the dumb, naïve hick son of a farmer out of Kansas.
ID: You’ve won a Pulitzer.
S: I know, but that doesn’t mean I felt I deserved it, or that even if I sometimes do that I don’t have moments of insecurity. But we’re not talking about that, or at least I wasn’t meaning to, my point, and you know how hard it’s getting for me to focus, is that I wrote something fictional. Maybe even literary. I’d written a novel about a teenager who one day finds out he has abilities, and then joins up with superheroes. It was very much a Harry Potter for the tights set- in fact, there’s a pretty good chance I was writing it around the same time as Rowling was writing her first Potter. But then Ja- one of the Robins passed away. And at that point I couldn’t stomach the idea of encouraging children to think about what we did in a positive light. I mean, if even one kid had got themselves hurt… I haven’t even thought about publishing it, honestly, until just now. I put it out of my mind, because the alternative, it’s too much to even think about.
I mean, I fail, regularly. There’s people I should be nicer to, some I can’t save, even problems I can’t tackle, like Perry smoking cigars, but I recognized that I would be creating failure. That it was an inevitability that children would read that book and think, “Hey, heroes are real, I should do this-” it was only a question of when something would go wrong and not if.
ID: I’m not sure what to say to any of that.
S: You don’t have to. I’m not changing my mind about the book- I’m not saying it should be published posthumously. If anything I’m saying it shouldn’t. But a small part of me just wanted it out there in the world, that the book exists. I think there’s a small part of writing that’s about being heard- not even heard clearly or understood, those are separate from it- I just wanted its existence, and maybe by extension mine, to be known. It seems stupid to say it out loud. But a story about an awkward kid with glasses, and competence no one knows about- that idea hits pretty close to home with me. I guess putting it away all this time, without acknowledging it, it was kind of like trapping that person in his awkward stage, shuttered away and unable to grow into the impressive person he was supposed to emerge as by story’s end. I guess, in a way, that’s what Halloween’s about: we all want to be something, something funnier or scarier or more heroic or even sexier, but we all want to be someone better.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. 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.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Clark Kent and the Novelist’s Pen
ID NOTE: This update discusses quite a few storylines from current and ongoing movies and TV, including (but not necessarily limited to): Harry Potter, Madmen, Scrubs, House; this is the only spoiler warning you’re getting.
Inscrutable Diarist: Okay, so you left a message on my answering machine- something you wanted to talk about.
Superman: I realized something. Well wait- I’m getting ahead of myself. I finally went to see the new Harry Potter- I know, I’m stupidly late, but I’ve been busy. Anyway, it felt like a Halloweenish movie, with the witches and everything, and we finally had a moment to ourselves. And after the movie I asked Lois, who’s a huge fan of the books, about what comes next. Which of course opened a whole can of deaths and things that sound close to insanity when splashed out over the course of twenty seconds. And, intrigued, I asked how long until the last movie came out.
And that’s when Lois went white as a sheet. She managed to mumble that they’d split the last book into two movies, one in 2010 and the other in 2011. “Oh,” was all I could manage. See, I’d sort of forgotten myself; I’ve internalized my mortality enough that I thought I might be able to “wait” for a sequel next year- but at that moment I realized I couldn’t delude myself into believing that I’d see the end of the series.
Which is a roundabout way of saying I’ve finally started reading the books. Ollie and Lois have been on me about reading them since just after the first movie- but they both hated the films, and I liked them- and I wanted to continue liking them.
And I might not have come to it on my own, but I was talking to Ollie, because he’s been wanting to discuss Half-Blood Prince since he saw it at the midnight opening (really, I suppose he’d been waiting since he’d been at the midnight book opening). And it shouldn’t surprise me, because his exuberance has precedent, but he jumped on it, said, “If you want to know the ending now you’ll have to finally read the books.”
Of course, I could have always just read the Wikipedia synopsis, but I figured he was right. I thought since I can read pretty quick, and both he and Lois insisted that they’d cut out a lot from the movies, that I should start over from the beginning. And I’ve only just started, just a few pages into the first book, but so far I’m not blown away. I guess there’s just been so much hype, I mean, at least six years of it, now, that I think it would have taken something Shakespearean to really impress me like I’ve been told it would. And I’m not taking anything away from Rowling, not at all. I mean, Harry Potter, particularly that first book, from what I’ve heard, is meant as a children’s story, or at least something accessible to children. And there’s certainly something very British about the book, too, even more British even than the all-British/Irish/Scottish-cast movies.
Anyway, I’m tangentially off, um, what I was getting at is there’s all kinds of things I realized I’m going to miss out on. Lois and I have been addicted to Madmen- though admittedly for different reasons. I think she just likes staring at Jon Hamm.
ID: You know, there is more than a passing resemblance between the two of you- you know, before you lost all the weight.
S: Lost the weight? Clever. Anyway. I hate the show, and the fact that virtually all of the characters no the show are predatory and inhuman, and even at the best of times all of them are eagerly self-serving; it’s basically a misanthropic fairy tale, but there’s something about Don’s back story that, I guess because of its rural setting, it just hits close to home. I guess I can’t help but think that with a little less luck that could have been me, stuck in a home where I wasn’t wanted or even liked, and I guess every episode I go in hoping that he’ll rise above his lousy upbringing and
ID: Be you?
S: Be him. I mean, we get it in fits and spurts- the character’s got a strong base morality above and beyond what seems to be the norm for the show, but oftentimes he ignores his better instincts because he’d rather have sex with whoever’s guesting that episode.
ID: Okay. But what else are you anticipating, what else are you missing out on?
S: I’m glad I got to see House get out of the asylum. I’m not a huge fan of his character, and the show can be formulaic, but the mysteries… I guess I’m glad, too, I got to see the beginnings of post-asylum, moderately more human and gentle House. I’ve always gotten the sense that House is what would have happened to Bruce if there never was a Batman- that he would have followed in his father’s footsteps and become a doctor, and that he’d still be brilliant, but just as he does now, he’d use that brilliance to push people away. And I’m glad I got to see the “end” of Scrubs- at least to the point where JD stops being the main character, and really, that’s the end as far as anybody’s really concerned.
But it isn’t just movie and TV- although those kinds of things are always a little easier to predict. But Lana’s pregnant, which I don’t think is a secret- at least I hope not- and I found myself the other day counting up the time she has left, and thinking, “I’m not going to get to see her baby.” And it’s stupid, but when she first got pregnant, I know she talked about making me the baby’s godfather, and…
And in the League, there are a lot of engagements and wedding dates floating around. And I’m man enough to admit- maybe because for me mine was such a long time coming- but I like weddings. Seeing two people who really care about one another making that social commitment.
ID: Which brings up something, and I forget, hell, we may have talked about it at some point, but not having my notes on all previous forty-some odd conversations we’ve had, we’ll just roll with it, but I hear that there are a few gay superhero weddings in the mix- I think Question/Batwoman for one has been rumored. What are your thoughts?
S: That’s the easiest divisive question you’ve ever asked. If two people really care about one another enough to want to make that social commitment, then absolutely I want them to have that freedom. More than that, I want to stand with them when they make that declaration. It’s a beautiful thing to be a part of. And I can’t even begin to fathom how anyone could want to stand in its way.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. 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.
Inscrutable Diarist: Okay, so you left a message on my answering machine- something you wanted to talk about.
Superman: I realized something. Well wait- I’m getting ahead of myself. I finally went to see the new Harry Potter- I know, I’m stupidly late, but I’ve been busy. Anyway, it felt like a Halloweenish movie, with the witches and everything, and we finally had a moment to ourselves. And after the movie I asked Lois, who’s a huge fan of the books, about what comes next. Which of course opened a whole can of deaths and things that sound close to insanity when splashed out over the course of twenty seconds. And, intrigued, I asked how long until the last movie came out.
And that’s when Lois went white as a sheet. She managed to mumble that they’d split the last book into two movies, one in 2010 and the other in 2011. “Oh,” was all I could manage. See, I’d sort of forgotten myself; I’ve internalized my mortality enough that I thought I might be able to “wait” for a sequel next year- but at that moment I realized I couldn’t delude myself into believing that I’d see the end of the series.
Which is a roundabout way of saying I’ve finally started reading the books. Ollie and Lois have been on me about reading them since just after the first movie- but they both hated the films, and I liked them- and I wanted to continue liking them.
And I might not have come to it on my own, but I was talking to Ollie, because he’s been wanting to discuss Half-Blood Prince since he saw it at the midnight opening (really, I suppose he’d been waiting since he’d been at the midnight book opening). And it shouldn’t surprise me, because his exuberance has precedent, but he jumped on it, said, “If you want to know the ending now you’ll have to finally read the books.”
Of course, I could have always just read the Wikipedia synopsis, but I figured he was right. I thought since I can read pretty quick, and both he and Lois insisted that they’d cut out a lot from the movies, that I should start over from the beginning. And I’ve only just started, just a few pages into the first book, but so far I’m not blown away. I guess there’s just been so much hype, I mean, at least six years of it, now, that I think it would have taken something Shakespearean to really impress me like I’ve been told it would. And I’m not taking anything away from Rowling, not at all. I mean, Harry Potter, particularly that first book, from what I’ve heard, is meant as a children’s story, or at least something accessible to children. And there’s certainly something very British about the book, too, even more British even than the all-British/Irish/Scottish-cast movies.
Anyway, I’m tangentially off, um, what I was getting at is there’s all kinds of things I realized I’m going to miss out on. Lois and I have been addicted to Madmen- though admittedly for different reasons. I think she just likes staring at Jon Hamm.
ID: You know, there is more than a passing resemblance between the two of you- you know, before you lost all the weight.
S: Lost the weight? Clever. Anyway. I hate the show, and the fact that virtually all of the characters no the show are predatory and inhuman, and even at the best of times all of them are eagerly self-serving; it’s basically a misanthropic fairy tale, but there’s something about Don’s back story that, I guess because of its rural setting, it just hits close to home. I guess I can’t help but think that with a little less luck that could have been me, stuck in a home where I wasn’t wanted or even liked, and I guess every episode I go in hoping that he’ll rise above his lousy upbringing and
ID: Be you?
S: Be him. I mean, we get it in fits and spurts- the character’s got a strong base morality above and beyond what seems to be the norm for the show, but oftentimes he ignores his better instincts because he’d rather have sex with whoever’s guesting that episode.
ID: Okay. But what else are you anticipating, what else are you missing out on?
S: I’m glad I got to see House get out of the asylum. I’m not a huge fan of his character, and the show can be formulaic, but the mysteries… I guess I’m glad, too, I got to see the beginnings of post-asylum, moderately more human and gentle House. I’ve always gotten the sense that House is what would have happened to Bruce if there never was a Batman- that he would have followed in his father’s footsteps and become a doctor, and that he’d still be brilliant, but just as he does now, he’d use that brilliance to push people away. And I’m glad I got to see the “end” of Scrubs- at least to the point where JD stops being the main character, and really, that’s the end as far as anybody’s really concerned.
But it isn’t just movie and TV- although those kinds of things are always a little easier to predict. But Lana’s pregnant, which I don’t think is a secret- at least I hope not- and I found myself the other day counting up the time she has left, and thinking, “I’m not going to get to see her baby.” And it’s stupid, but when she first got pregnant, I know she talked about making me the baby’s godfather, and…
And in the League, there are a lot of engagements and wedding dates floating around. And I’m man enough to admit- maybe because for me mine was such a long time coming- but I like weddings. Seeing two people who really care about one another making that social commitment.
ID: Which brings up something, and I forget, hell, we may have talked about it at some point, but not having my notes on all previous forty-some odd conversations we’ve had, we’ll just roll with it, but I hear that there are a few gay superhero weddings in the mix- I think Question/Batwoman for one has been rumored. What are your thoughts?
S: That’s the easiest divisive question you’ve ever asked. If two people really care about one another enough to want to make that social commitment, then absolutely I want them to have that freedom. More than that, I want to stand with them when they make that declaration. It’s a beautiful thing to be a part of. And I can’t even begin to fathom how anyone could want to stand in its way.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. 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.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Wonder Woman Day
Superman: My wife isn’t very happy with you.
Innocent Dilemma: And why’s that?
S: I don’t know if you remember it, but a while back, you chided me about my lack of charity work.
ID: So that’s why you cancelled our usual session?
S: No… though I suppose the two are related. I’ve been working a lot on promoting Wonder Woman Day. It was founded in part by Diana and some charitable minded folks to promote awareness of women’s issues and raise money for domestic violence centers and hotlines. My wife says I’ve been overworking myself. I cancelled our usual taping because I… I couldn’t get out of bed. I think- I’ve told Lois- it’s just fatigue flitting between Portland, Oregon and Flemington, New Jersey- which is at least close to home here in Metropolis.
ID: Okay, so you’ve told your wife it’s fatigue, but is it- do you honestly believe that’s what it is?
S: I don’t know. It’s all… experimental, really. Kryptonians on my planet were actually analogous to humans on this one- so there’s nothing on record like this. Maybe I had a bad day. Maybe I was just, depressive isn’t really the right word but there’s a, a weight to mortality- and I mean imminent, inescapable mortality. There’s an animal thing squirming inside you that does not want to go yet. And it can be exhausting. So, I think fatigue is probably right, though I think my wife had the cause, and more specifically the culprit, wrong.
But I’d sort of like to hijack the conversation. You know, I’ve only got so many words left, and I’d, I’d like them not to all be expended on navel-gazing; I’d like them to matter as much as they can.
So Wonder Woman Day. It hasn’t, uh, taken on the following yet that I might have liked, or that I think befits a person of Diana’s stature, frankly, but it does a lot of good. One of the main fundraisers is an art auction. The pieces are being shown at the Lara Sydney Framing Gallery, 1230 NW Hoyt St., Portland, Oregon until the 24th, and they’re being auctioned online at wonderwomanmuseum.com. If you want to help a good cause and get some original artwork, go there.
ID: Hmm… even though it’s for a good cause, I can’t help but feel like a shill.
S: You started this.
ID: Fair enough. But physically there isn’t a Wonder Woman museum, right?
S: Not yet.
ID: But that reminds me of something I’d wanted to talk about: the Super Museum. In Metropolis, Illinois. Located in Superman Square.
S: Yes.
ID: And I assume you’ve met the curator.
S: Yep.
ID: And how did he strike you?
S: As an ardent and particularly devoted fan.
ID: To be clear, you didn’t mean peculiarly devoted fan?
S: He’s a fan. Perhaps sometimes bordering on fanatical, but that’s where the word comes from. Honestly, to me he’s never been anything but kind, humble and genuine.
ID: So you’re saying you’ve had worse fans, then. Care to talk bad about them behind their backs?
S: I swear sometimes you’re a five year old scientifically aged by Lex Luthor to make me hate humanity.
ID: That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me. Ooh, they’ve got a George Reeves dummy dressed as you- but it looks like Richard Nixon out trick-or-treating.
S: Just had to get in the holiday reference?
ID: Hey, if you can shill for a good cause, I can shill for hits- which consequently gets your good cause more word-of-mouth.
S: Fair enough.
ID: So, for the record, do you think you’re going to be able to keep up with our regular taping schedules?
S: I don’t know. I- I hope so. I know I’m going to try.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. 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.
Innocent Dilemma: And why’s that?
S: I don’t know if you remember it, but a while back, you chided me about my lack of charity work.
ID: So that’s why you cancelled our usual session?
S: No… though I suppose the two are related. I’ve been working a lot on promoting Wonder Woman Day. It was founded in part by Diana and some charitable minded folks to promote awareness of women’s issues and raise money for domestic violence centers and hotlines. My wife says I’ve been overworking myself. I cancelled our usual taping because I… I couldn’t get out of bed. I think- I’ve told Lois- it’s just fatigue flitting between Portland, Oregon and Flemington, New Jersey- which is at least close to home here in Metropolis.
ID: Okay, so you’ve told your wife it’s fatigue, but is it- do you honestly believe that’s what it is?
S: I don’t know. It’s all… experimental, really. Kryptonians on my planet were actually analogous to humans on this one- so there’s nothing on record like this. Maybe I had a bad day. Maybe I was just, depressive isn’t really the right word but there’s a, a weight to mortality- and I mean imminent, inescapable mortality. There’s an animal thing squirming inside you that does not want to go yet. And it can be exhausting. So, I think fatigue is probably right, though I think my wife had the cause, and more specifically the culprit, wrong.
But I’d sort of like to hijack the conversation. You know, I’ve only got so many words left, and I’d, I’d like them not to all be expended on navel-gazing; I’d like them to matter as much as they can.
So Wonder Woman Day. It hasn’t, uh, taken on the following yet that I might have liked, or that I think befits a person of Diana’s stature, frankly, but it does a lot of good. One of the main fundraisers is an art auction. The pieces are being shown at the Lara Sydney Framing Gallery, 1230 NW Hoyt St., Portland, Oregon until the 24th, and they’re being auctioned online at wonderwomanmuseum.com. If you want to help a good cause and get some original artwork, go there.
ID: Hmm… even though it’s for a good cause, I can’t help but feel like a shill.
S: You started this.
ID: Fair enough. But physically there isn’t a Wonder Woman museum, right?
S: Not yet.
ID: But that reminds me of something I’d wanted to talk about: the Super Museum. In Metropolis, Illinois. Located in Superman Square.
S: Yes.
ID: And I assume you’ve met the curator.
S: Yep.
ID: And how did he strike you?
S: As an ardent and particularly devoted fan.
ID: To be clear, you didn’t mean peculiarly devoted fan?
S: He’s a fan. Perhaps sometimes bordering on fanatical, but that’s where the word comes from. Honestly, to me he’s never been anything but kind, humble and genuine.
ID: So you’re saying you’ve had worse fans, then. Care to talk bad about them behind their backs?
S: I swear sometimes you’re a five year old scientifically aged by Lex Luthor to make me hate humanity.
ID: That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me. Ooh, they’ve got a George Reeves dummy dressed as you- but it looks like Richard Nixon out trick-or-treating.
S: Just had to get in the holiday reference?
ID: Hey, if you can shill for a good cause, I can shill for hits- which consequently gets your good cause more word-of-mouth.
S: Fair enough.
ID: So, for the record, do you think you’re going to be able to keep up with our regular taping schedules?
S: I don’t know. I- I hope so. I know I’m going to try.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. 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.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Hawk and Dove
Innate Docility: President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Superman: I heard.
ID: Why do you think you, and the rest of the Justice League, have never won a peace prize?
S: Honestly? A few reasons spring to mind. The first, though probably the least, is most of us have had at least some contact with outsiders- people society at large would consider “other,” be they aliens or reclusive island nations. I think no matter how much people may look up to us, respect us, there’s a certain amount of unease with that.
Second, look at the history: Anwar Sadat, Yasser Arafat, Kissinger- even giving it to Carter during Bush’s presidency. The Nobel Committee often uses the prize as a carrot, in the hopes of shaping international policy. In essence, the message was, “Keep up the diplomacy- and try not to bomb Cambodia.”
Third, we’re vigilantes. We are, under most national and international laws, operating unsanctioned. The Nobel Committee, under the auspices of the Norwegian government, could never be seen to official accept what we do. And there's a perception that we try to punch all our problems away.
Fourth- I’m actually surprised Diana doesn’t have one- as is Greg Rucka, apparently. She’s done extensive work for and with UNICEF and the International Committee of the Red Cross & Crescent- both of which have won at least one prize. She doesn’t often get the credit she’s due, but Bruce once paid for a study, and for every punch she throws she gives three speeches about peace, and for every speech she throws or attends some kind of charity benefit. Around her there’s sprung up this mythology of an Amazonian warrior woman, and frankly, it’s a very small part of who she is.
ID: Hmm. So do you think Obama deserved one?
S: I honestly don’t think it was aimed at Obama specifically; his election, on the platform he articulated, was made possible by the American people. I think it was a high profile way of saying to America, “Welcome back.”
ID: So you think internationally we’ve been
S: Absent. Yes. Absolutely. Off the reservation, at a minimum.
ID: Okay, but even allowing for a moment that the award was for the people generally, do you think we’ve earned it?
S: I think the hope is that we will. The hope is that America is back to the country who first proposed the League of Nations to the world, who were instrumental in the creation of the United Nations, who only reluctantly entered the world wars- not the bickering, antagonistic state who refused to join the original League, who did everything politically possible to hobble the UN, whose leader- ostensibly the leader of the free world- thumbed his nose at unilateralism and who seemed to those abroad to be, if not war hungry, at least peace-aversive.
ID: I’m reminded of a pair of your fellow do-gooders who seem awfully apt to the conversation, Dawn and Hank Hall- Hawk and Dove, to the action-figure buying kiddies in the audience.
S: Don’t believe everything you read about them. For one, Dawn’s always been a woman- she was never "Don" and they were never siblings. In the fictions it was felt at the time, and maybe rightly so, that liberals, already caricatured as weak, would be ill-served having a woman, equally caricatured as weak, as their figurehead. It added all kinds of sexual politics, as did their at-the-time budding romance, that weren’t exactly appropriate for the funny pages of the day, or paramount to the issues they were discussing.
But honestly, Dawn and Hank were a little before my time. I’ve worked with them, sure, but by the time I donned my first pair of tights, they had already been married for years, and were looking to retire. I think what worked for them, and why I think I’m glad you brought them up, is they learned the beauty of combining their ideologies, their strengths, and their efforts. I remember talking to the both of them during the presidential campaign last year, and Hank was very big into “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran,” but Dawn, very coolly, said that the Iranian people would suffer disproportionately from that, that diplomacy and sanctions should be tried first, but that if the Iranians couldn’t be convinced from the brink- which they both believe the Iranians are when it comes to the inseparable issues of Iranian nuclear policy and Israeli security- then she’d help strap Hank into the bomber of his choice. I think, and I think I’ve lived, that you really need to work for peace, with almost everything you have in you- but that some problems can’t be sanctioned, talked, or legislated away- sometimes you have to use force.
ID: Hmm. I want to return to the idea that the prize was for Obama personally, and I want to read you, from Nobel’s will as according to wiki
S: Journalistic excellence at its zenith
ID: I’ll use a kryptonite gag on you; it should be awarded to the person who “during the preceding year [...] shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” That actually… sounds about right. Or maybe it was just a crappy year for peace.
S: I can’t believe you’d threaten the infirm during a conversation about “peace.”
ID: And I don’t believe you’re that naïve- or that infirm, either.
S: Bantering aside, I coughed blood yesterday; actually, I’ve been coughing blood. There were pieces of lung tissue in it this time- I guess, honestly, there’s been lung tissue in it all along, but for the first time Lois noticed, that it wasn’t just blood coming out.
ID: I’m sorry.
S: That wasn’t why I mentioned it. In fact, I don’t really know why I mentioned it- just came to mind, and tumbled out. I guess I’m, losing my filter.
ID: How does that make you feel?
S: Worried. I come from Kansas. It’s not that Kansas is oppressive, there’s just a, a certain way you’re allowed to express yourself. And I’ve spent a lot of time adhering to that, because it was polite, and human, and I stress over the fact that maybe I’m going to be too sick to remember to be human. I’m terrified that the last feeling my wife, my friends, will have with me, is that I’m alien. I mean, I am an alien, but it would break my heart for the last moment I get to be one where my loved ones feel they don’t know me.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. 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 heard.
ID: Why do you think you, and the rest of the Justice League, have never won a peace prize?
S: Honestly? A few reasons spring to mind. The first, though probably the least, is most of us have had at least some contact with outsiders- people society at large would consider “other,” be they aliens or reclusive island nations. I think no matter how much people may look up to us, respect us, there’s a certain amount of unease with that.
Second, look at the history: Anwar Sadat, Yasser Arafat, Kissinger- even giving it to Carter during Bush’s presidency. The Nobel Committee often uses the prize as a carrot, in the hopes of shaping international policy. In essence, the message was, “Keep up the diplomacy- and try not to bomb Cambodia.”
Third, we’re vigilantes. We are, under most national and international laws, operating unsanctioned. The Nobel Committee, under the auspices of the Norwegian government, could never be seen to official accept what we do. And there's a perception that we try to punch all our problems away.
Fourth- I’m actually surprised Diana doesn’t have one- as is Greg Rucka, apparently. She’s done extensive work for and with UNICEF and the International Committee of the Red Cross & Crescent- both of which have won at least one prize. She doesn’t often get the credit she’s due, but Bruce once paid for a study, and for every punch she throws she gives three speeches about peace, and for every speech she throws or attends some kind of charity benefit. Around her there’s sprung up this mythology of an Amazonian warrior woman, and frankly, it’s a very small part of who she is.
ID: Hmm. So do you think Obama deserved one?
S: I honestly don’t think it was aimed at Obama specifically; his election, on the platform he articulated, was made possible by the American people. I think it was a high profile way of saying to America, “Welcome back.”
ID: So you think internationally we’ve been
S: Absent. Yes. Absolutely. Off the reservation, at a minimum.
ID: Okay, but even allowing for a moment that the award was for the people generally, do you think we’ve earned it?
S: I think the hope is that we will. The hope is that America is back to the country who first proposed the League of Nations to the world, who were instrumental in the creation of the United Nations, who only reluctantly entered the world wars- not the bickering, antagonistic state who refused to join the original League, who did everything politically possible to hobble the UN, whose leader- ostensibly the leader of the free world- thumbed his nose at unilateralism and who seemed to those abroad to be, if not war hungry, at least peace-aversive.
ID: I’m reminded of a pair of your fellow do-gooders who seem awfully apt to the conversation, Dawn and Hank Hall- Hawk and Dove, to the action-figure buying kiddies in the audience.
S: Don’t believe everything you read about them. For one, Dawn’s always been a woman- she was never "Don" and they were never siblings. In the fictions it was felt at the time, and maybe rightly so, that liberals, already caricatured as weak, would be ill-served having a woman, equally caricatured as weak, as their figurehead. It added all kinds of sexual politics, as did their at-the-time budding romance, that weren’t exactly appropriate for the funny pages of the day, or paramount to the issues they were discussing.
But honestly, Dawn and Hank were a little before my time. I’ve worked with them, sure, but by the time I donned my first pair of tights, they had already been married for years, and were looking to retire. I think what worked for them, and why I think I’m glad you brought them up, is they learned the beauty of combining their ideologies, their strengths, and their efforts. I remember talking to the both of them during the presidential campaign last year, and Hank was very big into “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran,” but Dawn, very coolly, said that the Iranian people would suffer disproportionately from that, that diplomacy and sanctions should be tried first, but that if the Iranians couldn’t be convinced from the brink- which they both believe the Iranians are when it comes to the inseparable issues of Iranian nuclear policy and Israeli security- then she’d help strap Hank into the bomber of his choice. I think, and I think I’ve lived, that you really need to work for peace, with almost everything you have in you- but that some problems can’t be sanctioned, talked, or legislated away- sometimes you have to use force.
ID: Hmm. I want to return to the idea that the prize was for Obama personally, and I want to read you, from Nobel’s will as according to wiki
S: Journalistic excellence at its zenith
ID: I’ll use a kryptonite gag on you; it should be awarded to the person who “during the preceding year [...] shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” That actually… sounds about right. Or maybe it was just a crappy year for peace.
S: I can’t believe you’d threaten the infirm during a conversation about “peace.”
ID: And I don’t believe you’re that naïve- or that infirm, either.
S: Bantering aside, I coughed blood yesterday; actually, I’ve been coughing blood. There were pieces of lung tissue in it this time- I guess, honestly, there’s been lung tissue in it all along, but for the first time Lois noticed, that it wasn’t just blood coming out.
ID: I’m sorry.
S: That wasn’t why I mentioned it. In fact, I don’t really know why I mentioned it- just came to mind, and tumbled out. I guess I’m, losing my filter.
ID: How does that make you feel?
S: Worried. I come from Kansas. It’s not that Kansas is oppressive, there’s just a, a certain way you’re allowed to express yourself. And I’ve spent a lot of time adhering to that, because it was polite, and human, and I stress over the fact that maybe I’m going to be too sick to remember to be human. I’m terrified that the last feeling my wife, my friends, will have with me, is that I’m alien. I mean, I am an alien, but it would break my heart for the last moment I get to be one where my loved ones feel they don’t know me.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. 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.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Death Penalty
Innocent Decapitation: I'd like to talk about the time you murdered three people.
Superman: You're an ass.
ID: I'm just going off of John Byrne's cue on this one.
S: Yeah, well he's a bit of an ass, too. You remember the incident with Barda- yeah, he hung that entirely around her neck- said something about her lacking the moral fortitude to resist, but for some reason gave me a pass.
ID: I’ll more than grant you that. But let's talk about the executions. Give me the background, because this is one of the subjects you and Lois haven't really written about to the extent you've discussed other, uh, events, for lack of a better term.
S: The story’s different than the one in the comic books. Zod, Ursula, and Non were originally leaders of a Kryptonian rebellion, and for their treason they were locked away. Ironically, because they were imprisoned, they were spared the fate of the rest of our race. But when they broke loose, they engaged in a campaign of genocide that spanned solar systems.
ID: I assume you’re not using the term “genocide” lightly.
S: I mean they destroyed entire planets teeming with life, including seven separate sentient species that had evolved to the point of written language. At least seven cultures- millions if not billions of intelligent lives- lost. And that was a single, small corner of the galaxy- and there are at least hundreds of similar nearby worlds that were in danger. I never invoke the term genocide lightly.
But to make a very long story shorter, I was eventually contacted by a group of Kryptonian colonists, and intervened. When I arrived, the colony had been massacred, women, children, the elderly- I didn’t see evidence that any of the colonists had even put up token resistance, let alone anything that would qualify them as combatants, but they were tortured, brutalized and worse.
And what happened then happened very fast. When I saw the damage, I immediately sped around the colony, looking for a survivor, someone I could still save- but there was no one. And Zod had seen me, and pointed me out to the others, and they rushed at me at a speed approaching light. The shockwave created by the collision nearly tore that planet in half- and that was just the beginning.
I fought them across worlds- across galaxies. The conflict destroyed dozens of uninhabited planets. And it became evident not only that as they gathered yellow solar radiation they would eventually eclipse my strength and win- but that their violence and fury would not end with me or the lives they’d already taken.
So I escaped and came up with a plan, a last, desperate gambit to use kryptonite. Specifically, I rigged powdered kryptonite to an explosive device, meant to scatter the element into the air. I set it off when they were all close enough for me to grab onto, and force them to stay, breathing it in. I think Zod realized it first, and screamed as the green dust enveloped him, tried to push off of me, tried to hold his breath; I jabbed him, hard, in the stomach, ground it in- and his reflex gasp brought in enough of the poison to kill him- albeit not immediately.
Ursula turned to me, and she understood from Zod what was happening, but understood, too, that fighting wouldn’t work. I was still stronger than them- though likely only for a few hours more. She touched my hand gently, and with tears in her eyes said, “Please, it doesn’t have to be this way.” Her mouth began to twitch, and she started to sob until her lungs were empty, but she held out, opened her eyes, pleading without being able to speak. But still I held her firm, and she collapsed to the ground; by that point I was too weak to hold her up, and I fell to my knee, and she started gasping in and sobbing.
And my hands were full, holding Zod in my right hand with Ursula in the left; I was certain if I let them go they’d try to run- and if they did I couldn’t be sure they’d die. I’d tried to wrap my legs around Non, but Non was larger, stronger- at least as strong as I was at that point. He’d pulled away- though I didn’t think he’d gotten out of the cloud.
Back on Krypton, Non had worked with my father, but unlike him, he had went against the council, and tried to warn people about the planet’s imminent destruction. For that “crime,” the council took away from him what had mattered most: his mind. My father told me that after his lobotomy he was barely functional, and the only part of his old friend he recognized in Non was his rage.
But I think there was more, maybe buried under his anger, and disappointment. Because Non came towards me in the cloud of green dust. I couldn’t have stopped him, couldn’t have even defended myself, but he nodded, and gave me a little smile, like he finally understood: why Zod’s rebellion had gone so wrong, how far from himself he must have been to go along, and crucially, how that lapsed judgment meant he could be compromised again- and the consequences of that. Then he took a deep breath in, and as he let it out he sat down on the ground, cross-legged, to wait to die.
And I honestly expected to die with them; I thought that was a fitting end. Except that I didn’t die. I laid there, on a desert planet’s surface, waiting for the dust to kill me, too. Even when the wind took the dust cloud away, I expected the kryptonite already in my lungs to kill me. And it hurt. In fact- I’ve felt that kind of pain, like breathing in glass, twice since- when Doomsday “killed” me, and now, with the cancer. But it didn’t kill me.
I passed into a, well, I think it was basically a coma. By the time I came to, the other three were dead. I decided to cremate them in one of that planet’s volcanoes, but they’re bodies had absorbed so much of the kryptonite that while carrying them I was virtually powerless. So I carried their bodies, one at a time, to the summit of the nearest volcano, which thankfully ended up being only a dozen kilometers away, and dropped them in. The kryptonite guaranteed that the chemical bonds in their cells were weak enough to break in the volcanic heat, and their bodies burned to ash.
ID: Were you at all concerned about the Kryptonians’ remains being used for something sinister?
S: The thought occurred to me. That’s why I kept the planet’s location a secret, up until I learned about the Green Lantern Corps. I took them to the planet, and they helped locate every last charred DNA molecule, so that it could be kept out of the wrong hands.
ID: And did all of this effect your stance on capital punishment?
S: I made the most difficult decision of my entire life that day, and it still haunts me. I took three lives, and it’s very little consolation that I did not take them lightly. Still, it was necessary, and it was right- and I hate that we live in a circumstance where that can be the case. But the reason it was necessary, and the reason it was right, was that there were no other viable options. There is no prison that would hold me-and once they’d absorbed yellow solar radiation, there was no prison that could hold them. There was no hope for peace, and no safety, not for anyone, while they still lived. Taking a life, it changes everything… and nothing.
When I got back to Earth, I wanted to quit. Retire. I told everyone who knew who I was that I was done. And I thought I was. Just thinking about what I’d done- what I’d had to do- it made me sick inside. And I was getting ready for work, I think I’d just gotten out of the shower, and I heard someone on the street whisper, “His bike won’t stop,” and a second later someone else say, “That bus is going to hit him.” And I could tell by the acoustics that it was coming from Southside, that long hill down towards the docks, and before I realized it I was flying there at full speed, my cape billowing behind me. There hadn’t even been a momentary thought, it just happened, I was doing it. And I scooped up the poor kid just before his bike went under one of those big city buses. Our trajectory took us a few hundred feet in the air, and he was terrified, scrambling like a cat to get out of my arms as his heart raced, so I asked, “What’s your name, son?” And that was when it hit him, that he hadn’t died and wouldn’t now, and he calmed immediately and told me: Jeremy Beckman. As I sat him back down on the sidewalk I said to him, “Jeremy Beckman, I think you saved my life today.”
ID: Are you okay? We can stop here if you’d like.
S: No, I… I really have been blessed with this life, I know that. Most people don’t get to, to see people express that kind of gratitude, and kindness. And every day is like that for me- has been like that for me- and I think that’s a special moment for me, because for that one brief moment, I realized that all this time, I hadn’t been saving other people- by giving me a purpose, they’d been saving me. I’ve had really dark times in my life, but every time I think I want to give up, something small and seemingly innocuous like that happens to make me realize life is worth it. And I’m going to miss it.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. 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: You're an ass.
ID: I'm just going off of John Byrne's cue on this one.
S: Yeah, well he's a bit of an ass, too. You remember the incident with Barda- yeah, he hung that entirely around her neck- said something about her lacking the moral fortitude to resist, but for some reason gave me a pass.
ID: I’ll more than grant you that. But let's talk about the executions. Give me the background, because this is one of the subjects you and Lois haven't really written about to the extent you've discussed other, uh, events, for lack of a better term.
S: The story’s different than the one in the comic books. Zod, Ursula, and Non were originally leaders of a Kryptonian rebellion, and for their treason they were locked away. Ironically, because they were imprisoned, they were spared the fate of the rest of our race. But when they broke loose, they engaged in a campaign of genocide that spanned solar systems.
ID: I assume you’re not using the term “genocide” lightly.
S: I mean they destroyed entire planets teeming with life, including seven separate sentient species that had evolved to the point of written language. At least seven cultures- millions if not billions of intelligent lives- lost. And that was a single, small corner of the galaxy- and there are at least hundreds of similar nearby worlds that were in danger. I never invoke the term genocide lightly.
But to make a very long story shorter, I was eventually contacted by a group of Kryptonian colonists, and intervened. When I arrived, the colony had been massacred, women, children, the elderly- I didn’t see evidence that any of the colonists had even put up token resistance, let alone anything that would qualify them as combatants, but they were tortured, brutalized and worse.
And what happened then happened very fast. When I saw the damage, I immediately sped around the colony, looking for a survivor, someone I could still save- but there was no one. And Zod had seen me, and pointed me out to the others, and they rushed at me at a speed approaching light. The shockwave created by the collision nearly tore that planet in half- and that was just the beginning.
I fought them across worlds- across galaxies. The conflict destroyed dozens of uninhabited planets. And it became evident not only that as they gathered yellow solar radiation they would eventually eclipse my strength and win- but that their violence and fury would not end with me or the lives they’d already taken.
So I escaped and came up with a plan, a last, desperate gambit to use kryptonite. Specifically, I rigged powdered kryptonite to an explosive device, meant to scatter the element into the air. I set it off when they were all close enough for me to grab onto, and force them to stay, breathing it in. I think Zod realized it first, and screamed as the green dust enveloped him, tried to push off of me, tried to hold his breath; I jabbed him, hard, in the stomach, ground it in- and his reflex gasp brought in enough of the poison to kill him- albeit not immediately.
Ursula turned to me, and she understood from Zod what was happening, but understood, too, that fighting wouldn’t work. I was still stronger than them- though likely only for a few hours more. She touched my hand gently, and with tears in her eyes said, “Please, it doesn’t have to be this way.” Her mouth began to twitch, and she started to sob until her lungs were empty, but she held out, opened her eyes, pleading without being able to speak. But still I held her firm, and she collapsed to the ground; by that point I was too weak to hold her up, and I fell to my knee, and she started gasping in and sobbing.
And my hands were full, holding Zod in my right hand with Ursula in the left; I was certain if I let them go they’d try to run- and if they did I couldn’t be sure they’d die. I’d tried to wrap my legs around Non, but Non was larger, stronger- at least as strong as I was at that point. He’d pulled away- though I didn’t think he’d gotten out of the cloud.
Back on Krypton, Non had worked with my father, but unlike him, he had went against the council, and tried to warn people about the planet’s imminent destruction. For that “crime,” the council took away from him what had mattered most: his mind. My father told me that after his lobotomy he was barely functional, and the only part of his old friend he recognized in Non was his rage.
But I think there was more, maybe buried under his anger, and disappointment. Because Non came towards me in the cloud of green dust. I couldn’t have stopped him, couldn’t have even defended myself, but he nodded, and gave me a little smile, like he finally understood: why Zod’s rebellion had gone so wrong, how far from himself he must have been to go along, and crucially, how that lapsed judgment meant he could be compromised again- and the consequences of that. Then he took a deep breath in, and as he let it out he sat down on the ground, cross-legged, to wait to die.
And I honestly expected to die with them; I thought that was a fitting end. Except that I didn’t die. I laid there, on a desert planet’s surface, waiting for the dust to kill me, too. Even when the wind took the dust cloud away, I expected the kryptonite already in my lungs to kill me. And it hurt. In fact- I’ve felt that kind of pain, like breathing in glass, twice since- when Doomsday “killed” me, and now, with the cancer. But it didn’t kill me.
I passed into a, well, I think it was basically a coma. By the time I came to, the other three were dead. I decided to cremate them in one of that planet’s volcanoes, but they’re bodies had absorbed so much of the kryptonite that while carrying them I was virtually powerless. So I carried their bodies, one at a time, to the summit of the nearest volcano, which thankfully ended up being only a dozen kilometers away, and dropped them in. The kryptonite guaranteed that the chemical bonds in their cells were weak enough to break in the volcanic heat, and their bodies burned to ash.
ID: Were you at all concerned about the Kryptonians’ remains being used for something sinister?
S: The thought occurred to me. That’s why I kept the planet’s location a secret, up until I learned about the Green Lantern Corps. I took them to the planet, and they helped locate every last charred DNA molecule, so that it could be kept out of the wrong hands.
ID: And did all of this effect your stance on capital punishment?
S: I made the most difficult decision of my entire life that day, and it still haunts me. I took three lives, and it’s very little consolation that I did not take them lightly. Still, it was necessary, and it was right- and I hate that we live in a circumstance where that can be the case. But the reason it was necessary, and the reason it was right, was that there were no other viable options. There is no prison that would hold me-and once they’d absorbed yellow solar radiation, there was no prison that could hold them. There was no hope for peace, and no safety, not for anyone, while they still lived. Taking a life, it changes everything… and nothing.
When I got back to Earth, I wanted to quit. Retire. I told everyone who knew who I was that I was done. And I thought I was. Just thinking about what I’d done- what I’d had to do- it made me sick inside. And I was getting ready for work, I think I’d just gotten out of the shower, and I heard someone on the street whisper, “His bike won’t stop,” and a second later someone else say, “That bus is going to hit him.” And I could tell by the acoustics that it was coming from Southside, that long hill down towards the docks, and before I realized it I was flying there at full speed, my cape billowing behind me. There hadn’t even been a momentary thought, it just happened, I was doing it. And I scooped up the poor kid just before his bike went under one of those big city buses. Our trajectory took us a few hundred feet in the air, and he was terrified, scrambling like a cat to get out of my arms as his heart raced, so I asked, “What’s your name, son?” And that was when it hit him, that he hadn’t died and wouldn’t now, and he calmed immediately and told me: Jeremy Beckman. As I sat him back down on the sidewalk I said to him, “Jeremy Beckman, I think you saved my life today.”
ID: Are you okay? We can stop here if you’d like.
S: No, I… I really have been blessed with this life, I know that. Most people don’t get to, to see people express that kind of gratitude, and kindness. And every day is like that for me- has been like that for me- and I think that’s a special moment for me, because for that one brief moment, I realized that all this time, I hadn’t been saving other people- by giving me a purpose, they’d been saving me. I’ve had really dark times in my life, but every time I think I want to give up, something small and seemingly innocuous like that happens to make me realize life is worth it. And I’m going to miss it.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. 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.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
S for Salacious
Indigo Ding-a-ling: Okay, so who’s your hero?
Superman: Um… you?
ID: No, but that’s a good guess. No, I’m told that Beneath the Cape will not be published. Ever. I’m told that the publishing house was bought out by a new company called Wayne Publishing, and also that a team of very rabid lawyers have descended upon the manuscript with claims of defamation, libel and slander. Now, last week you talked about your ability to sense lying, well try mine.
S: I… really didn’t know.
ID: Huh. You didn’t. Which actually does kind of make sense, seeing as I can still smell the pepto coming off your breath. Kidding, I can see the bottle sticking out of your bag, see the top isn’t zipped all the way.
But funnily enough, I came across Wayne Publishing’s parent company, Wayne Entertainment, the little we hiding under big WE, Wayne Enterprises', skirt. Their first division was Wayne Film, which you might recall popped up after yourself and, uh, “Big Barda”- God I hope that’s her proper name- made a “video.” It seems under the influence of someone called “Sleez” the two of you did some “acting.”
S: If you don’t stop doing air quotes I’ll take your fingers away.
ID: Heh. Your newfound ability to deadpan notwithstanding, I wasn’t finished. Apparently WE (the little WE) bought up the distribution rights as well as every extant print and proceeded to sit on them. I was speechless for like a day and a half; regardless of whatever influence you might have been under at the time- Spanish Fly, Barry White, maybe some hypnotic whatever- you did SuperPorn. We’re just going to take a moment, for you, myself, and the folks reading at home, to let that set in.
--------
And we’re back. But here’s the rub: I may have, in my search, discovered elements of the manuscript and/or movie that’s been rather unquietly swept under the table. Journalistic ethics dictate that I divulge this information, at least as far as it’s informative and not just salacious- though, because I am the man I am, that’s not a line I’m very good at sussing out. But I’ll offer a trade. You answer me truthfully about sex as part of today's interview segment, and I forget the things I know. Now I understand that a person’s sex life isn’t just their own, so, you don’t have to identify partners or their proclivities, but I want honesty, here. I’m more interested in the psychological implications than I am in the gooey details.
S: I think you’re lying.
ID: About the gooey details, a little, but I doubt the audience skews as pervy as I do personally.
S: I mean about having details. I think you’re bluffing.
ID: But you’re not sure- you can’t be sure. Because I may not know everything, but I know some things. So you’ll answer my questions. I’ll be gentle- after all, it’s your first time.
S: One caveat: you stop that.
ID: Fair enough. I think your history shows that you can have an imtimate relationship with a woman- so a far more interesting question is, given your physical differences- what’s sex like?
S: Are you asking about whether Kryptonian genitalia is analogous to human, or are you asking more generally?
ID: I can guess from the scornful way you said the first that it's a stupid question, so we'll go with option 2.
S: I can feel the ebb and flow of each oxygen and nitrogen atom across my skin as I cross a room. I can count the number of water molecules tumbling down my throat when I drink. When you see the world, you’re looking through a $30 children’s microscope; I see, feel, touch and experience everything at the magnification of an electron microscope. There’s really no way to express to you what it’s like, how it feels- you have no comparison that even parallels. I was curious once, myself, and J'onn showed me what being human was like telepathically, and the English language, even Kryptonese, fail to convey even in simplistic terms the gulf between our experiences.
ID: Okay. Given that, the fact that you look like a movie star- well, okay, Brandon Routh and Chris Reeves were both soap opera actors before they played you, but still, soap operas have pretty people on them, too- and the fact that you can leap small buildings with a single bound- how is it that you’re not a total whore?
S: I guess… my parents just raised me to believe in physical intimacy in a certain way. Growing up, I never even really imagined the idea of a carnal relationship outside the context of a romantic one. And really, by the time I reached an age and a point in my life where the thought could even really occur to me, I’d had other experiences that had taught me that I prefer romantic and physical monogamy.
ID: I’m going to give you a list. I’m not going to include any of the possibles I’ve come across, but we’ll keep it at the likelies: Lois obviously, Lana likely, Chloe definitely, Lori Lemaris- now that one you’re probably shocked I know about- Barda, Maxima, Cat Grant, Lyla Lerrol. I mean, you’re not a billionaire playboy, but still, respectable- especially since this is just the likelies. Care to deny?
S: No comment.
ID: And that is what we in the printed news industry call a non-denial. It’s like an admission, only more libelous. Still, you can usually print it so long as you mention the caveat. But on the subject of Maxima, why didn’t you ever just agree to give her a super baby?
S: It goes back to what I said about romantic relationships taking precedence over physical ones, because physically, Maxima and I were compatible, but personally- well, I don't even know about compatibility, because she never stopped dry-humping me and stood still long enough for us to have even a single meaningful conversation.
ID: And on the subject of super babies, you knocked up your wife a few years back. There are a lot of questions, really, so I'll let you just tell us how.
S: I'll skip the birds and bees part- that's pretty standard. Then there was, not getting too graphic, some “catch and release.” We talked about a turkey baster or getting help from a fertility clinic
ID: Wait, you intentionally got Lois pregnant?
S: Yeah. Absolutely. We were at a point where Lois wasn't fulfilled anymore as a reporter, and she was happy with our relationship, but she just wanted something else, too. Eventually she realized she wanted to be a mother. So we did a little research, and a little planning- and after just two tries, well- apparently we're both very fertile.
ID: Okay, so if you intended to get your wife pregnant, what happened to the baby?
S: Same thing that happened when you thought the pregnancy was unintended- Lois miscarried.
ID: Oh. And were there complications? Can she not have children now?
S: Nothing like that, no. She just... losing that first one. You know how that old saying goes, that it's better to try and fail than never to have tried at all? Well, for her at least, losing that first child was more horrible than anything she'd ever imagined. She told me it was like losing me, but worse, because she also lost a part of herself, too. And for the longest time she just felt empty inside. And I think she's come a long way since then, but I don't think it's a scar that ever really heals. I mean, maybe, if I'd lived a little longer, maybe we would have tried again sometime down the road.
ID: You're talking about yourself as if you were already dead.
S: Am I? Hmm. I guess in a way, I feel like I am. Lois and I finally had to go shopping. She was bursting into tears every time she saw me, and I finally got it out of her that she could handle watching me die, slowly withering away, but that my clothes, big and baggy like they were, they just reminded her too much of how far gone I already was. She just needed not to have it in front of her right now. And that was when it hit, when I was in a dressing room, trying on pants that wouldn't have fit me even in high school- that's when I realized that I don't think I'm getting out of this one- and I don't think I have that much time left. I'm actually scared by that.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. 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: Um… you?
ID: No, but that’s a good guess. No, I’m told that Beneath the Cape will not be published. Ever. I’m told that the publishing house was bought out by a new company called Wayne Publishing, and also that a team of very rabid lawyers have descended upon the manuscript with claims of defamation, libel and slander. Now, last week you talked about your ability to sense lying, well try mine.
S: I… really didn’t know.
ID: Huh. You didn’t. Which actually does kind of make sense, seeing as I can still smell the pepto coming off your breath. Kidding, I can see the bottle sticking out of your bag, see the top isn’t zipped all the way.
But funnily enough, I came across Wayne Publishing’s parent company, Wayne Entertainment, the little we hiding under big WE, Wayne Enterprises', skirt. Their first division was Wayne Film, which you might recall popped up after yourself and, uh, “Big Barda”- God I hope that’s her proper name- made a “video.” It seems under the influence of someone called “Sleez” the two of you did some “acting.”
S: If you don’t stop doing air quotes I’ll take your fingers away.
ID: Heh. Your newfound ability to deadpan notwithstanding, I wasn’t finished. Apparently WE (the little WE) bought up the distribution rights as well as every extant print and proceeded to sit on them. I was speechless for like a day and a half; regardless of whatever influence you might have been under at the time- Spanish Fly, Barry White, maybe some hypnotic whatever- you did SuperPorn. We’re just going to take a moment, for you, myself, and the folks reading at home, to let that set in.
--------
And we’re back. But here’s the rub: I may have, in my search, discovered elements of the manuscript and/or movie that’s been rather unquietly swept under the table. Journalistic ethics dictate that I divulge this information, at least as far as it’s informative and not just salacious- though, because I am the man I am, that’s not a line I’m very good at sussing out. But I’ll offer a trade. You answer me truthfully about sex as part of today's interview segment, and I forget the things I know. Now I understand that a person’s sex life isn’t just their own, so, you don’t have to identify partners or their proclivities, but I want honesty, here. I’m more interested in the psychological implications than I am in the gooey details.
S: I think you’re lying.
ID: About the gooey details, a little, but I doubt the audience skews as pervy as I do personally.
S: I mean about having details. I think you’re bluffing.
ID: But you’re not sure- you can’t be sure. Because I may not know everything, but I know some things. So you’ll answer my questions. I’ll be gentle- after all, it’s your first time.
S: One caveat: you stop that.
ID: Fair enough. I think your history shows that you can have an imtimate relationship with a woman- so a far more interesting question is, given your physical differences- what’s sex like?
S: Are you asking about whether Kryptonian genitalia is analogous to human, or are you asking more generally?
ID: I can guess from the scornful way you said the first that it's a stupid question, so we'll go with option 2.
S: I can feel the ebb and flow of each oxygen and nitrogen atom across my skin as I cross a room. I can count the number of water molecules tumbling down my throat when I drink. When you see the world, you’re looking through a $30 children’s microscope; I see, feel, touch and experience everything at the magnification of an electron microscope. There’s really no way to express to you what it’s like, how it feels- you have no comparison that even parallels. I was curious once, myself, and J'onn showed me what being human was like telepathically, and the English language, even Kryptonese, fail to convey even in simplistic terms the gulf between our experiences.
ID: Okay. Given that, the fact that you look like a movie star- well, okay, Brandon Routh and Chris Reeves were both soap opera actors before they played you, but still, soap operas have pretty people on them, too- and the fact that you can leap small buildings with a single bound- how is it that you’re not a total whore?
S: I guess… my parents just raised me to believe in physical intimacy in a certain way. Growing up, I never even really imagined the idea of a carnal relationship outside the context of a romantic one. And really, by the time I reached an age and a point in my life where the thought could even really occur to me, I’d had other experiences that had taught me that I prefer romantic and physical monogamy.
ID: I’m going to give you a list. I’m not going to include any of the possibles I’ve come across, but we’ll keep it at the likelies: Lois obviously, Lana likely, Chloe definitely, Lori Lemaris- now that one you’re probably shocked I know about- Barda, Maxima, Cat Grant, Lyla Lerrol. I mean, you’re not a billionaire playboy, but still, respectable- especially since this is just the likelies. Care to deny?
S: No comment.
ID: And that is what we in the printed news industry call a non-denial. It’s like an admission, only more libelous. Still, you can usually print it so long as you mention the caveat. But on the subject of Maxima, why didn’t you ever just agree to give her a super baby?
S: It goes back to what I said about romantic relationships taking precedence over physical ones, because physically, Maxima and I were compatible, but personally- well, I don't even know about compatibility, because she never stopped dry-humping me and stood still long enough for us to have even a single meaningful conversation.
ID: And on the subject of super babies, you knocked up your wife a few years back. There are a lot of questions, really, so I'll let you just tell us how.
S: I'll skip the birds and bees part- that's pretty standard. Then there was, not getting too graphic, some “catch and release.” We talked about a turkey baster or getting help from a fertility clinic
ID: Wait, you intentionally got Lois pregnant?
S: Yeah. Absolutely. We were at a point where Lois wasn't fulfilled anymore as a reporter, and she was happy with our relationship, but she just wanted something else, too. Eventually she realized she wanted to be a mother. So we did a little research, and a little planning- and after just two tries, well- apparently we're both very fertile.
ID: Okay, so if you intended to get your wife pregnant, what happened to the baby?
S: Same thing that happened when you thought the pregnancy was unintended- Lois miscarried.
ID: Oh. And were there complications? Can she not have children now?
S: Nothing like that, no. She just... losing that first one. You know how that old saying goes, that it's better to try and fail than never to have tried at all? Well, for her at least, losing that first child was more horrible than anything she'd ever imagined. She told me it was like losing me, but worse, because she also lost a part of herself, too. And for the longest time she just felt empty inside. And I think she's come a long way since then, but I don't think it's a scar that ever really heals. I mean, maybe, if I'd lived a little longer, maybe we would have tried again sometime down the road.
ID: You're talking about yourself as if you were already dead.
S: Am I? Hmm. I guess in a way, I feel like I am. Lois and I finally had to go shopping. She was bursting into tears every time she saw me, and I finally got it out of her that she could handle watching me die, slowly withering away, but that my clothes, big and baggy like they were, they just reminded her too much of how far gone I already was. She just needed not to have it in front of her right now. And that was when it hit, when I was in a dressing room, trying on pants that wouldn't have fit me even in high school- that's when I realized that I don't think I'm getting out of this one- and I don't think I have that much time left. I'm actually scared by that.
We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Tuesday. 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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