Superman Trying to Bring Peace Without Interfering.

[superfangirl1]

Action Comics #900.

Comments

[shanejayell]

Uhm... was Superman EVER an official US Citizen? I mean, where was this established pray tell?

[divi_d]

""Truth, Justice, and the American Way" -- It's not ENOUGH anymore."

I APPROVE!

[toby_wan_kenobi]

Presumably since he was raised in Kansas by two parents who found him there - it's not like babies that get dropped off at hospitals aren't American citizens because nobody knows who their parents are. It's a logical assumption.

Superman giving up his citizenship, on the other hand, is kind of dumb as a gesture. And kind of antithetical to his origin, too.

[toby_wan_kenobi]

Depends on how you construe the American way. Being an idealist, I go with "liberty and justice for all", but I know that I'm in the minority, and I understand why.

[pyrotwilight]

Well yeah. Clark Kent has US citizenship. Superman? Dunno.

And since I doubt he'll reveal himself as Clark Kent to the world it seems a weird thing to say. And I think you have to have a citizenship with a country, trying to take away any citizenship would be impossible, I think.

Unless he wants to say he legally controls a part of the unclaimed Antarctic (which could work I guess) as his own country.

[divi_d]

Well, it's more that when you associate with a single country you come off as biased (and, in fact, probably are biased).

I'm fully in support of viewing America as a country with virtues: Liberty and Justice, Equal Opportunity (we're not the best at it, IMHO, but we do try to use it as a selling point, and we may become good at it in the future), but there are other countries with these ideals as well. Someone as big as Superman using the country's name as short hand for this... it just doesn't look very good.

[icon_uk]

Byrne's Man of Steel had Clark be born on American soil, since he wasn't born until the matrix released him.

Nowadays, not quite so literal.

[kd_the_movie]

Hunhh. Im not only surprised that they used actual real life Iran and its (somewhat) current sociopolitical climate but that they didn't just do a lazy summation of the Israel/Palestinian conflict with proxys (as that seems to be the common thing to do when commenting on the Middle East).

[valtyr]

Wow, this is... rather well done. I can sympathise with him a lot, here.

[icon_uk]

This seems to be intent on the same sort of thing that the Silver Age took in it's stride, Superman was officially a citizen of the world (Well, the nations comprising the United Nations awarded him that freedom)

[darkknightjrk]

Yeah, I'm thinking that if they follow up to this, it would be more of a symbolic thing.

[damianwayne]

If you're disgusted with the "American Way" then show them how to act by setting an example. Taking your toys and going home isn't exactly the moral high ground, Supes. Also, can't wait to see how writers handle Clark Kent suddenly deporting himself.

Rubbish.

[jaybee3]

One would think that if Superman had forsook his US Citizenship (which Clark still has so it makes no sense anyway) in response to the US Military under Sam Lane, with the expressed permission of the DCU President (who gave Luthor his pardon for the "bomb", remember) committing genocide against 99% of the remaining members of his species (including Kal-El's aunt and uncle) I think that would have made more of a statement and actually given the New Krypton story - which DC wants us to forget - more of a lasting impact (and maybe get people in the US to reflect that Sam Lane wasn't a "hero" - which is how most of Earth sees him according to James Robinson and Sterling Gates).

Instead we get the idea that Supes giving up his citizenship is as arbitrarily done as his decision to walk across America because some crazy lazy slapped him.

[drexer]

Ditto.

I mean, it's not that I think the 'American Way' is a bad concept; it's just that it has such a baggage with it, with all the main images we outsiders get from the USA being the fundamentalists shouting it high in the air like a mantra, and the tying of concepts such as 'manifest destiny' unto it that it's hard for me to read that phrase and enjoy it fully.

Even more when watching so many writers tiptoeing around the concept in clumsy attempts, never wanting to let it go nor to fully embrace it.

For a long time I hoped for that one moment when someone asked Superman what he stood for and he would answer "Truth, Justice, and Humanity".

[vitruvian23]

One wonders if his promise 'not to engage' would have extended to standing by if the guard had in fact opened fire on the protestors, or if he would have done his usual thing of intercepting the bullets with hands and heat vision, and perhaps melting the firing pins on the guns.

[toby_wan_kenobi]

I totally understand that.

That said, I'm not sure how his renouncing his citizenship is going to make people think he's any less American.

I suppose it could be changed to fighting for truth, justice, and liberty now that we're not fighting the Commies anymore.

[divi_d]

I don't think "disgust" has anything to do with it. At least from what I'm reading here, the issue is Superman is trying to dissociate himself from ANY country because it makes other countries more likely to get pissed off with his actions, and the country he associates himself with more likely to get flack for his actions (in this case, America being accused of an act of war).

[toby_wan_kenobi]

Pyro, that's a totally legitimate point and I should have remembered that folks in the DCU don't actually know that Superman is from Kansas. Apologies for the condescension and the brain fart.

He should just take over some unclaimed rock in the middle of the ocean.

[fifthie]

I generally kind of dislike this sort of direct reference to real-world events in comics because it always comes across as dissonant with, well, a lot of things.

The last couple panels, about the soldier being brave, that was a really good, perceptive bit, I liked that.

[leoboiko]

This is a decision that makes a lot of sense. I hope they make Diana follow suit—I never understood why an Amazon diplomat of a wonder island with Greek roots should dress in the American flag. No particular beef with America, it’s just that I would enjoy seeing a little more of… you know, [i]other[/i] cultures represented in the big tier. Like Greece.

[damianwayne]

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, because of the way he said "I'm tired of" rather than "I don't want" in regards to his actions being misconstrued. Plus the whole idea pangs of very un-Clark to me.

It's a sensible choice for Superman - maybe going the world citizen route as was mentioned above. But does it fit for Clark? No. Not from where I stand. But meh, let's see how things unfold before I get all salty.

[baxter2814]

How do I hate this run? Let me count the ways....

Okay, I can't. There's just so much wrong I can't even articulate it all. So let my icon speak for me while I just rant instead:

Please, please, please for the love of God stop this bullshit. Remember when Superman just ran around stopping floods and fighting supervillains? Remember when he hung around Metropolis unless he was really needed elsewhere? Remember when he really, really, really didn't like to ever do or say anything political ever? When he wouldn't even comment on Luthor's election? And what's this citizenship bullshit? Of course he's an American. His home is Metropolis. REMEMBER???? Metropolis, as in, America. He's not some figurehead for the world, floating impersonal and objectively over the atmosphere. He's just a superhero. People in the DC universe don't have the same idiotically hyperbolic notions about Superman being some generic "ideal" or some lazy philosophical notion of Costumed Space Jesus that we have in real life. This is just crap.

I really, really hate that people are trying to use Superman as anything other than "random superhero who just so happens to be more popular than everyone else". Just STOP. It makes him into a generic pool of free floating ideas instead of a character, which is the excuse stupid people use for not liking Superman. If I didn't know that he's usually not like this, I'd say they were totally justified. I'm sorry, but this obsession with making Superman into everything good and holy is irritating beyond belief and is really unsustainable. I'm going to bury my head in Byrne's and Jurgen's runs until DC stops taking themselves so fucking seriously and starts tellings stories about people instead of ideas.

On the other hand, it IS kind of a cool gesture. But it's just not Superman. Why couldn't they have someone like Wonder Woman do this kind of thing? Oh right, retconning out everything that makes a character unique. For the 167th time I'm again reduced to wondering what was wrong with a superheroine ambassador who could actually handle this kind of political material without looking like an idiot.

Okay got that out of my system...it's been building slowly since Infinite Crisis.

[divi_d]

I agree. When you reference real world events but mix in super-beings, it does tend to come off as a little weird. It also means you have to be careful to REALLLLY do your research, because if you get things wrong it can potentially be VERY offensive to those involved.

On the other hand, creating new things to function as METAPHORS for real world issues, that I like. It can still be done offensively, but it's a lot harder, and you're also given a lot more creativity to explore the situation, hypothetical variants on the situation, and how the presence of superheroes might change things.

[baxter2814]

But that's something that annoys me — Superman isn't the only superhero in the world, and he's not going to fool anyone: his home is still Metropolis, and everyone knows it. The idea that they would really care that much just strikes me as unrealistic.

[mullon]

Nope, stop it, involving Superman in real world stuff never works. It always looks stupid.

Also, from what little I understand about international stuff, he can get multiple citizenships instead of further dissassociating himself from the people who he doesn't want to look like a god to.