The Return of Super Hombre!

[badficwriter]

Been meaning to post this for a while. Felt inspired by ComicsAlliance essay on 'Grounded.' About 5 pages from a 17 page story.




The short story in this issue is sort of a prequel to Superman's introduction to Destiny of the Endless that I posted earlier here. That story is part of the transformation of Superman in the 1980s, from DemiGod who can push around planets and turn back time, to being merely superhuman--despite his powers and abilities, he is still as much a bug to them as any human. At the same time, the story is about the balance of being too 'above' and too much involved in the affairs of a race that were so beneath him as to be like pets.

Elliot S! Maggin's first story was called "Must There Be A Superman?" I first read of it in Maggin's introduction to Kingdom Come. Kingdom Come isn't kind to those ignorant of it's characters; it was a long time before I finally was familiar enough with them to actually get through the book. Once done, however, it blew me away. Superman 247, vol. 1, 1972, became the first book I sent away for. It was cheap enough since I didn't care about condition, just wanted to read it.

The Guardians of the Galaxy have asked Superman to save some galaxy or other, in the course of which, Superman is injured. He spends some time healing on Oa and after, the Guardians ask if he'd like a tour. The Guardians also gossip sneakily amongst each other--they intend to plant an idea in Superman's subconscious! (The Guardians were always evil. Always.)





They show him his adventure on another planet where Superman lectured the natives about the need to change their ways because it was their own polluting tendencies that had caused the crisis, and intergalactic heroes would not always be available.





Superman angrily asks why the rest of the group did nothing to help the boy. No one answers.

Superman takes the boy for a walk. The boy tells his story about seeking a better life, but Superman finds himself thinking of his own background as an immigrant. Clearly, he identifies with the boy and his courage.

At the boy's house, people overwhelm Superman with requests. He tells them what he's going to do.



Suddenly! An earthquake shakes the ground! Roofs fall in! Superman leaps to act immediately, mucking about underground.







Muhaha. They're rubbing their hands under those robes, you just know it.

A longtime comic book writer (the text I can't find right now) has stated that reaching out and helping people is how Superman feels like part of the world. It is the human values of good neighbors and giving back to the community that he was raised with. Restraining himself is literally alienating to him.

And from Gary Engle's essay, "What Makes Superman So Darned American?":

Like the peoples of the nation whose values he defends, Superman is an alien, but not just any alien. He’s the consummate and totally uncompromised alien, an immigrant whose visible difference from the norm is underscored by his decision to wear a costume of bold primary colors so tight as to be his very skin. ... .... ... Superman’s powers–strength, mobility, x-ray vision and the like –are the comic-book equivalents of ethnic characteristics, and they protect and preserve the vitality of the foster community in which he lives in the same way that immigrant ethnicity has sustained American culture linguistically, artistically, economically, politically, and spiritually. The myth of Superman asserts with total confidence and a childlike innocence the value of the immigrant in American culture.

The story is posted elsewhere in it's entirety online, but I can't find a legal right for them to do so so I'm not linking.

Not a popular story, despite it's importance. The focus on philosophy, the criticism of Superman...I also imagine most people disliked the subtext that they were depending on others/God to the point of letting those others/God control their lives to their detriment. (The epitome of this theme would probably be the Church of Superman.) My main disappointment is that though the cover and first splash page hint at a dramatic TRIAL!..it never shows up.

Comments

[psychopathicus_rex]

Yeah, this is a pretty good illustration of what superheroes are actually good for. They're NOT here to baby us through life and solve all our problems - they are here to lend a helping hand where it is needed. Most basic problems that plague humanity can be dealt with by those they happen to - not EASILY, necessarily, but it can be done. These are the ordinary things that require ordinary solutions. You don't need a superhero for that. What you DO need a superhero for is when extraordinary problems arise - natural disasters, supervillains, etc. No one expects your average person to be able to handle these things - this is why other countries send aid to places that have been ravaged by earthquakes or tsunamis. Sometimes, people need help - and THAT is what a superhero is for, to give aid where it's NEEDED, not simply where it's wanted. There is a distinct and important difference.

[badficwriter]

I think what Maggin was getting at in his introduction, by calling Kingdom Come the fully realized conclusion, is that Superman's super side, what might be equated with divine might, should be used as you say, YES. But not solving everyone's small problems should not have prevented him from acting as a man. Speaking out about the injustice and building goodwill for people who needed it could have been done in this story without acting as an Overgod.

(The subtext readers at the time would have known was that this was already happening at the time--Cesar Chavez created a union for field workers and his fasting and philosophy of nonviolent strikes put sympathy on their side--this story was definitely written in support of their struggle! But I suppose this falls into the realm of making the fictional world change too much.)

[psychopathicus_rex]

Well, he DID, sort of. That's more or less what his whole 'you don't need me to solve your problems' speech was about - he was saying that they had already been on the right road to solving (at least some of) their problems, and that if they'd stuck to Manuel's example and refused to back down, that particular issue might have been resolved without his help. Essentially, he was inspiring them to fix their own lives by shifting the praise to someone else - that sounds like 'acting as a man' to me.

[arilou_skiff]

Allow me to pointedly disagree :p

Once you have the kind of power Superman does, you'renot going to be able to sit back an say "Not my business." Yeah, you CAN say that there are things better left for people to figure out themselves, but that too is in a way an excercise of power (in that you're declining to intervene when you could have)

But if Superman sees someone dying that he could save, and does not, then he's responsible for that death. That' the fact of power.

He might argue that there are good reasons to let that person die (some could probably even be agreed with) but the responsibility for that decision is still his.

[psychopathicus_rex]

I'm not saying that he should sit back and say 'not my business', I'm just saying that there are some places where he's needed, and others where he isn't. The dying man scenario that you mention would definitely be one of the former - that's what heroes DO; they're there to help. However, there's a difference between 'we're in danger! Somebody help!' and depending on outside assistance for things that really don't require it.
Take this example here. Supes shows up, and someone exclaims "Now you can solve all our problems!" ALL their problems. They want the boss thrown in jail, which is reasonable enough (although he can't do it, 'cause the guy wasn't breaking the law), but they also launch into requests for him to fix their leaky roofs and the like. In short 'make everything better, Superman!' But he CAN'T do that - he could do what they asked, but that's not solving their actual problem. Their problem is that they're poor immigrants being exploited by others, and what's he going to do about that? That's the sort of problem that, when you start fixing it, you can never stop - and that sort of fixing makes people dependent on him, which is a bad thing. When the earthquake knocks down their houses, that's different; it's only being decent to fix them up again - after all, what are they going to do if he doesn't? They're poor orchard workers; they can't afford new houses - but that's because outside forces were at work beyond his or their control, and it'd be unfair to leave them homeless due to such forces when he can restore the status quo. That's what he's good for - when they NEED help, simple, basic help, he'll give it. He can SAVE their lives, he can even help improve their lives, but he can't fix them - that's their job.

[valtyr]

the guy wasn't breaking the law

Oh, beating kids who won't work for you is legal in California? Fancy.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Oh, hey, I'm not defending the guy - he's a heartless brute, but I don't think bullying his employees is in and of itself a crime, or at any rate not one severe enough to be put in jail for. He certainly DESERVES a stretch in the cooler, but I'm not sure whether or not there would be a legal justification for putting him there. I mean, Supes must know the law pretty well by this point - wouldn't he have hauled the guy off to the pokey if he'd thought there was a chance of him staying there? Plus, when he angrily talks about 'knowing his rights', he sounds pretty confident.

[valtyr]

I don't think bullying his employees is in and of itself a crime, or at any rate not one severe enough to be put in jail for

Oh, so assault isn't a crime in California if you're assaulting an employee? I'm pretty sure if my boss slapped my face and told me he'd beat me until I went back to work, he'd have a decent chance of spending a short time behind bars, but then I live in the nanny state and all.

[psychopathicus_rex]

I'm not sure where assault legally ends and begins - or, at any rate, where it ended and began back in '72, when this was written. Does a slap count as assault, or does it have to be something more significant? I don't know.
I dug out my copy of 'The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told', wherein this is collected, to see if it would shed any light on the situation - and, er, it MIGHT, I'm not sure. There's a panel which isn't included here where the following exchange takes place:

Supes: "And as for YOU, Mr. Harley, the law will... "
Harley: "Let go of me - or I'll have you arrested! I'm boss here - I know my legal rights!"

This is... somewhat illuminating, but not much. It could be that Superman was saying 'that's against the law, you can't get away with that' and Harley was just blustering, or perhaps Superman was the blusterer, trying to frighten Harley into making amends somehow, and Harley was, for all his brutality, legally in the right - as I said, he seems pretty sure of himself. It could be read both ways.
Another factor here, as badficwriter pointed out above, is current events at the time this was written - Cesar Chavez was standing up for field workers' rights, which at that point weren't too great. It's possible that, at the time this was written, someone in Harley's position really COULD smack his workers around like that and get away with it, and it was the injustice of this sort of thing that Maggin was highlighting in the story.

[valtyr]

I'm quite sure it's a crime. Try slapping and threatening someone and find out. (Don't try that.) Of course, crimes against oppressed classes are rarely treated with equal severity to those against oppressors.

If only young Manuel has some powerful ally who could provide impeccable witness testimony and draw media attention to the crime committed against him.

I really don't think there are laws against stopping a man from beating up his employees, even in the 1970s.

[badficwriter]

No. But the point of the situation was that all the people standing around could have easily stopped him, even if they didn't continue the strike. It's not a Superman situation.

[valtyr]

Whether or not Superman should intervene when he witnesses a crime being committed isn't really my point here. I'm just correcting that the guy broke the law, unless California really does let you slap employees across the face while threatening to beat them until they co-operate.

[icon_uk]

The Rev. William John Henry Boetcker put together a list of axioms (usually, and wrongly, attributed to Abraham Lincoln) sometimes called "The Ten 'Can't's or "The Industrial Decalogue"

1 - You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
2 - You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
3 - You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
4 - You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
5 - You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
6 - You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
7 - You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
8 - You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
9 - You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative and independence.
10 - You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.

9 and 10 are the cases in point here I think.

[arilou_skiff]

Actually, the funy ponit is how wrong those are.

1 is wrong on it's face 2 and 3 are basically the same, 4 again depends on the situation, 5 true but only to a very limited extent, 6 is wrong.. It all depens on what you do with your borrowed money, 7 is true I guess, 8 depends if you're talking long-term or short-term and what other option you hve, 9 is debatable (what do you mean by "character"?) and 10 is a tautology.

But really, the point as missed: I'm not arguing that SUperman is neccessarily wrong in not helping those people: Just that it doesen't matter: Because he has the power, he's not really giving them a choice. (Which is the nature of power)

[icon_uk]

I should have added that I don't agree with all these points, but I can't agree with your assessment of some of them.

Not sure what's wrong with 1, as many Western economies have shown over the past couple of years, discouraging thrift leads to living beyond your means, which is never a good thing long term.

2 is incorrect ONLY in a closed system and is also true in context, bringing someone strong down does nothing to increase the strength of the weak, who remain as they were before.

3 is not like 2 at all (2is internal, 3 is external. "Strength" is your own, whilst "Help" implies someone doing good for you), and is correct, taking down the big boss does nothing for the little people directly

6 isn't wrong at all, again, as current economic crises will attest.

9 What does anyone mean by character? In this context, strength of conviction and adherence to ones personal principles.

In what way is 10 a tautology?

[arilou_skiff]

"Living Beyond Your Means" is all depenant on what you're investing in.

2... Well, human society (and more specificaly, politics) IS a closed system. Power is a zero-sum game.

3. Depends on what the big boss is doing, no?

6. THe issue is with people investing in bad things, not in borrowing money. What we've had recently is a massive malinvestment (for various complicated and interconnected reasons)

9. I.. Really can't see that being affected either way.

10. The "shouldn't" part. It renders the entire statement meaningless. Yeah, of course you shouldn't do for people what you shouldn't do for them: That's inherent in the sentence-structure.

[icon_uk]

1 "Living beyond your means" isn't a reference to investment, it's a standard term indicating that you are spending more than you earn.

2 No, "Humanity" is a closed system (at least until an alien society is discovered), human societies are not, as the plethora of countries and power blocs in our world prove. Politics is about relative power levels.

3 Not in principle, no. Taking down the big boss does nothing for the individual within themselves, it simply removes the big boss from the equation.

6 If you're stability is based on money you owe to someone else, it's not really stability per se, as the person you owe the money too has influence and power over your stability.

9 That's the point, if someone is doing everything for you, you'll have no incentive to develop your character, it's encouraging a dependent personality.

10 There isn't actually a "shouldn't" in that one, there's a "should", so, no tautology.

[arilou_skiff]

1. Yes, and that is pretty much a prerequisite for most investment of any scale. (See. Credit markets, italian banking, mercantile revolution, the dutch, etc.)

If it was not phrased as an absolute (eg. "Living above your means is not guaranteed to bring prosperity") that's a different ball-game.

LOTS of people who have ended up filthy rich started out indebted over their ears.

2. Yes, that was my point: Power is a zero-sum game. (unlike say, prosperty or material goods or other stuff like that) If someone gathers more power, someone else becomes more powerless.

3. As mentioned, that depends on what the problem is. Sometimes the big boss IS the problem itself. Again, if the statement would have been qualified with "Not neccessarly" or some such there'd have been no issue, but the statements are absolute.

9. That depends on your convictions in the first place, no?

10. Yes, it's the same thing. You can parse the sentence into "You shouldn't do things that shouldn't be done."

[valtyr]

In short, bootstraps?

Seriously, that's a recipe for keeping the poor poor. They can't even borrow seed money for businesses?

You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.

How about paying for education?

[icon_uk]

Not really, it's a recipe for emphasising that if you want to empower the powerless, it's not enough to tear things down around them, you give them the chance to empower themselves.

And your latter point is sort of counteracted by the term "permanently". When you educate someone (and that's a fine and noble thing), the onus is partly on the person so educated to spread that education themselves.

"Give a person a fish, they can eat for a day. Teach a person to fish and they can eat for the rest of their lives".

[valtyr]

And your latter point is sort of counteracted by the term "permanently". When you educate someone (and that's a fine and noble thing), the onus is partly on the person so educated to spread that education themselves.

I don't follow your logic. If you pay for a man's education (yes, he also has to work for that education, but that's separate to who pays for it) he is permanently bettered for he has access to a resource that he cannot be deprived of. It doesn't matter whether he spreads it; it's still an advantage he has.

"Give a person a fish, they can eat for a day. Teach a person to fish and they can eat for the rest of their lives".

Assuming they continue to have access to fishing equipment, that they are permitted to fish in the body of water, that the fish are not killed by pollution... The 'give a man a fish' theory is why so many international aid efforts do little good. Aid builds infrastructure, but does not in general maintain it. Road are built and left to decay. Schools are built, but new schoolbooks are not provided. Men starve for lack of fish while they are being taught how to tie flies. They watch the road to market disentegrate while new roads are built elsewhere, because they HAVE a road! They should maintain it!

But when people are just clawing out of poverty, they tend to stock up a little for themselves, to defend against famine, drought, sickness (and as the road deteriorates, they know they'll need that extra as the journey to market becomes longer and harder) rather than taking the risk of collective action to resurface the road. (Because it's a brand new idea, they don't have a structure to force everyone to pay, the price to resurface the road is extortionate as they're a poor village with no leverage not a wealthy aid organization, because corruption is endemic and the company might just take their money, because the economy is unstable and the road-surfacing company might collapse with their money,because they know shit-all about roads and might get cheated, because the local economy is barter but the road surfacing company doesn't take chickens as payment.) So they're right back where they started.

'Can' and 'should' are such relative terms. Here, Superman tells a bunch of migrant workers in the 70s they should band together and take collective action against their employer, facing great hardships and possibly violence, starvation and deportation, because they 'have to do these things for themselves'. If Superman stops them being exploited and oppressed, raises them up to the level of his co-workers at the Daily Planet, they'll be spoiled, or something. Perhaps if clawing your way out of crushing poverty is so damn good for you, Superman should knock society back to the Stone Age so we can all experience this character-forming (and often body-destroying) experience. Thanks, Superman!

(One of my favourite parts in Ultimates; Thor refuses to help them fight the Hulk unless they double the foreign aid budget. Sure, foreign aid has its own problems, but it was a nice thought.)

[icon_uk]

I don't follow your logic. If you pay for a man's education (yes, he also has to work for that education, but that's separate to who pays for it) he is permanently bettered for he has access to a resource that he cannot be deprived of. It doesn't matter whether he spreads it; it's still an advantage he has.

I'm not saying it isn't, "permanently" isn't being used in that context. The implication is that by becoming educated, you have a responsibility to become part of the chain that allowed that education to be fostered, so there isn't absolute dependence on one person to fund education. It happens in the real world in the form of taxes. I help pay for the education of others by paying a higher rate of tax because, thanks to my education, I can get a better job than I could without my education. There is no single dependence for funding because it's a rolling system.

And yes, of course, the "Give/Teach fish" analogy has flaws if you want to tear down an analogy to that extent, the underlying principle still applies.

The rest of your polemic I'm leaving alone, for no other reason than it's just not a discussion I'm in the mood for today, though I admire your enthusiasm.

[valtyr]

Actually, no; the quote is "You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves."

As in, you cannot help a person, not you cannot help the state of humanity, that would be "You cannot help man by doing for men what they can and should do for themselves."

(Actually, I think your logic is still flawed even with the second; sure if you pay for someone's education it doesn't better the whole of humanity unless they do something with it, but you've still, by paying for it, done something for them. So if you pay for a man's education when he could afford to pay for it himself, and then he uses it to do good things and better humanity, you have bettered men and Man by doing for a man what he could(and many, especially in America where he was speaking, would argue should) do for himself.)

All right, in as bare and uncomplicated terms as the analogy itself: It's no good teaching a man to fish if he starves to death while he's learning.

[badficwriter]

Please don't read things into the text that aren't there. Nothing says they are illegal immigrants, who'd have to face deportation if they did not work. Hispanic Americans are a very large minority, and the struggle to unionize was led by them. (Chavez himself being an Arizonan whose family previously had their own land before the Great Depression and prejudice robbed them.)

[badficwriter]

I'm not sure I get your point.

Where do you get "Not my business when someone is dying" from "Superman should not do everything for everybody"?