Tom De Haven,
Our Hero: Superman on Earth (Icons of America).
Yale University Press, 2010
ISBN: 9780300118179
US$24.00 (hb)
240pp
(Review copy supplied by Yale University Press)
The final chapter of Tom De Haven’s 2005 novel, It’s Superman, begins like this: “And here, at last, is the point where our version of the story merges with all of the others…” (p. 424) It is a self-aware admission that what he has written – an emotional period piece of Clark Kent’s super-powered youth during the 1930s – is only one of tens of thousands of stories about Superman since his first appearance. Now De Haven has written a non-fiction addendum of sorts to his novel in Our Hero: Superman On Earth, part of the Icons of America series for Yale University Press.
De Haven knows that heroes like Superman have become such a part of popular consciousness that many will know the basics of Superman’s story, be it from film, TV, childhood comics, or other unconsciously-absorbed references. He also knows the same holds true for Superman’s basic subtexts. He quickly explains that, yes, Superman is the “Patron Saint of immigrants”; how Superman’s powers of unlimited mobility tap into the same desires that inspired artists from “James Fenimore Cooper through Bruce Springsteen” (p. 6).
But, he wonders, does Superman matter? As ridiculous, as cheesy, as shamelessly old-fashioned as he is – does the Man of Steel have any ongoing cultural relevance? Documenting the media reaction to the much-hyped “Death of Superman” storyline that ran through DC Comics’ titles in 1992, De Haven suggests Superman does still matter, “even though he mattered most for not mattering” (p. 18). In the eyes of many commentators, Superman’s death was worth writing about only to point out that he wasn’t important enough to keep in print.
De Haven has a breezy, intimate style. He admits that comic book history often prefers amusing anecdotes to facts, and he’s happy to retell some while correcting others. For example, there’s one about Superman co-creator Joe Shuster using a quick sketch of the hero to let him off a charge for vagrancy in Miami Beach, and De Haven describes it as “a good, and maybe even a true” story (p. 61). He’s also reluctant to claim that he’s a Superman expert, suggesting a better word for how we engage with the sheer volume of Superman stories available might be “sampling” (p. 23).
A side-effect of this necessary sampling is that some versions of the character will be prioritised and others dismissed. Amongst all the fascinating details listed in the book, it’s the odd and unpredictable Supermen that hold De Haven’s heart. He praises the art of the earliest superhero comics as “flat, emblematic, and ugly, direct from the id to the page” and their stories as “dreamy, dreamlike, otherworldly, so fucking crazy” (p. 32). He also suggests it’s when superhero fans have had too much influence over Superman that his stories suffer. By the end of the 1960s, he writes, “[t]he fans had taken over the fantasy, and for the first time since the early 1950s, sales of the Superman titles fell off” (p. 147).
Perhaps that’s one reason why De Haven can seem more interested in the non-comic book iterations of Superman. (Though he doesn’t shy away from the details of sequential art, as when dedicating multiple pages to picking apart the cover of 1938’s Action Comics #1.) His ideal Superman isn’t one that’s enmeshed in complicated continuity that rewards only the close readings of long-term fans; it’s a hero whose stories, perversely, might have been told by someone treating them like disposable candy. He finds the same rewarding “direct from the id” aesthetic even in odd blockbusters such as 1978’s Superman: The Movie.
Our Hero: Superman On Earth is filled with these contradictions, but that’s also what gives it its insight. Is Superman a figure of pure optimism invented by two teenagers and reinvented by thousands since? Or a corporate entity designed to sell lunchboxes first and produce barely-decent stories a distant second? He’s both, of course, and that’s why he holds a special place in popular culture. “Superman the icon and Superman the commodity,” writes De Haven. “A large-hearted fictional character. And a property worth billions” (p. 24).
Described here, Superman is too big for any particular media; too big to be summarised within a single critical volume; too big to belong wholly either to DC Comics or to the men who originally created him. (Anecdotes threaded through Our Hero slowly coalesce into a ‘Justice for Jerry and Joe’ narrative, and the details of Siegel and Shuster’s struggle to regain some ownership over their character provide much of this book’s heartbreak.) In fact, certain qualities of Superman have become “immutable”, beyond the whims of any individual writer. De Haven writes:
Change any of them, somehow they change back. Give him talents and powers, and inclinations, that aren’t, somehow, him, and one day they’re just… gone (p. 195).
So it is surprising that he chooses to end Our Hero: Superman On Earth with his own attempt at turning a particular characteristic to an “immutable” canon. He mentions more than once how Superman’s motives for doing good are misunderstood. Does Superman act out of guilt or obligation? No – it’s because it “brings him great satisfaction” (p. 206). It’s a perfectly valid interpretation, but it’s also charming that, in the end, and despite his protestations, De Haven wants his Superman to be everyone’s Superman. Just as all fans do, secretly or otherwise.
Martyn Pedler,
University of Melbourne,
www.martynpedler.com.
References
Tom De Haven, It’s Superman, San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2005.
Created on: Monday, 23 August 2010