Superman: For Tomorrow

[uadlika.insanejournal.com]

Back when I was just getting into comics I devoured everything I could get my hands on. Since I am a Superman fangirl Superman: For Tomorrow was recommended to me. I would post a mega-post about it, but the truth is, I don't get it. I read both volumes in the vain hope that what was set up in the beginning would make sense by the end. I'm still wondering. However, I liked the art and it remains one of my favorites if only for the Lois and Clark (well...Superman, more on that below) moments in it. But it still confuses the hell out of me. If anyone understands and can explain a few things about this story to me I will give you an internet cookie and my undying gratitude.

These scans are from Vol 2 of For Tomorrow, originally from Superman (vol 2) #212.

So Lois and like 2 million others "vanished" a year ago. A lot of the story deals with Superman dealing with that (and it is Superman). In this segment, Superman gets to the strange vanishing world that is never truly explained and meets...Clark. This is WTF moment #4 (approximately) for me. I included this scan because of the last panel:



What. The. Hell? It's been established over and over again that while Lois does love Superman, she loves Clark too. Clark is probably first in her heart, but I'm not entirely certain that she differentiates all that much. She loves her husband, whether he wears tights or glasses. He's her love.

I've skipped a page here. Superman monologues that Lois "has her faults, of course, but they only prove to make her perfect..."



INCOMING!!!!



Yes Supes, I'm sure that Lois DID make a man out of you.





I think I remember on the old s_d that it was speculated that the "dolphin" was actually Lois' dress.

And then we skip to:



They never show us the good stuff D:



Anyways, then they go to "Metropia" and discover Supes' parents (wtf moment #6) and there is a monster that is vaguely doomsdayish but is actually some sort of government experiment and a priest and there is stuff about the Phantom Zone and it's all Superman's fault and a battle and everyone gets back to normal and "forgets" (?) and Superman gets a new Fortress and I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT JUST HAPPENED OOOH LOOK NAKED CLARK/SUPERMAN/KAL-EL/WHATEVERTHEHELL HE IS CALLING HIMSELF IN THIS.

So...yeah. Some explanation by those more knowledgeable than me would be nice, because I have lost count of the WTF moments. And this is my last contribution to Lois and Clark week, because the week is over and I have other stuff I should be getting to. I hope you enjoyed it with me!

Comments

[mullon.insanejournal.com]

It still kinda fits well with Drug Week.

[uadlika.insanejournal.com]

In that maybe if I was on drugs I would be able to understand it?

[sherkahn.insanejournal.com]

That's pretty much how I felt after reading this storyline.

It made NO sense what so ever to any of the continuity... like I was trying to remember Supes history after staying awake for 3 days, and my mind blurred it.

[statham1986.insanejournal.com]

I've never actually read the story, but fully intend to now that I've seen some of the art (and Azzarello/Lee sounds like a better team-up than Loeb/Lee any day), but wow. Does Jim Lee's art not look so much better when it isn't mired in horrible dark colours?

There's just something about these pages that makes them pop so much more than Lee's work on Hush, and I know for a fact it has to do with the colours.

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

Does Jim Lee's art not look so much better when it isn't mired in horrible dark colours?

Meh. Still sucks.

[scottyquick.insanejournal.com]

It's not as bad as others, I just don't understand what all the fuss is over him.

[seriousfic.insanejournal.com]

Maybe we should have "Post-Coital Significant Others Use Their Superhero's Costume As A Glorified Bathrobe" Week. Because daymn.

[superfixated.insanejournal.com]

Seeing this gets me more excited for the upcoming Geoff Johns/Jim Lee JLA project, whenever that'll be.

[queen_marshed.insanejournal.com]

The art's so pretty~~~

Gonna have to get my hands on this~

[(Anonymous)]

For Tomorrow was so bad. At least Hush was decent until the last issue when it went to shit. This wasn't a Superman story, it was an Azzarello story that just happened to have Superman in it. Around the Wonder Woman fight (which made no sense), you could tell Azzarello was making it up as he went along, and all the angst and moaning and generic government conspiracy #4564 with Ord and making the Priest a bad guy, it sucked.

Also, Zod was in the story, but at that time (maybe 10 issues earlier in Action Comics) Zod had just died. He was actually merged with the Soviet version of Superman that was ruling Pokolistan. DC has had so many fucking Zods it's ridiculous.

And the art for the last 2 issues turned really bad, as they got different inkers to get the book out, and it got bad.

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

What, you don't think "I'll kill you if that's what it takes to save your life" is a completely sane, straightforward, logical and obvious reason to beat on your best friend?

(Still better than anything Johns has ever written with her, though.)

Zod is the quintessential example of why you can have reboots or you can have nostalgia but you CANNOT ALLOW THEM TO COMBINE if you have ever valued coherence at all.

[sailorlibra.insanejournal.com]

What. The. Hell? It's been established over and over again that while Lois does love Superman, she loves Clark too. Clark is probably first in her heart, but I'm not entirely certain that she differentiates all that much. She loves her husband, whether he wears tights or glasses. He's her love.

Heh. That totally pissed me off, too. But, as it turns out, that Clark is a robot. Which makes the comment make perfect sense. Lois doesn't like the robot, because he reminds her of her love, but he's not her love. I agree with you about it being confusing, however, since both Supes and Lois keep referring to the robot as Clark, despite the fact that Clark is Superman's real name and the name Lois would be used to calling him by.

Just look at the pretty art and ignore the words.

[sailorlibra.insanejournal.com]

Oh, and his parents are also robots he build to guard the place. Just fyi.

[uadlika.insanejournal.com]

I got that his parents are robots, and I got that "Metropia" was built for the population of Earth just in case something happened like Krypton, but I don't get WHY he would make robot models of his parents to guard it, or a robot copy of himself. IT'S CREEPY. I actually never got that "Clark" was a robot, cause he got tortured.

And I still don't get how people got vanished in the first place, or how the monsters fit into it and...how Superman made Metropia and BLAH.

[bariman1987.insanejournal.com]

Did Robo-Pa have a shovel? Tell me he had a shovel and beat people up with it.

[uadlika.insanejournal.com]

Sadly it is his Kryptonian parents. Jor-El and Lara are unlikely to wield shovels. Though it would be awesome.

Is that Superboy pretending to be Batman in your icon? Because I can't think of what else he would be.

[bariman1987.insanejournal.com]

Oh, okay. Though the thought of Pa Kent and Jor-El going at it with shovels (sans powers) is pretty nifty.

Yup, that's exactly what he's doing. It's from Superby v3 #85. Kon's gone to Gotham to hang out with Robin, and he decides to dress up as Batman to get Robin's attention.

[starwolf_oakley.insanejournal.com]

Was it the Timm/Dini Superman animated series that led to the idea that Lois Lane has purple eyes like Liz Taylor?

This scene shows how truly/madly/deeply Lois and Clark love each other. Not revealing that "Clark" is really a robot makes the scene confusing to the reader.

[retro_nouveau.insanejournal.com]

I'm just a man in a silly red sheet...

So what exactly does a prayer smell like? Will a Tic Tac make it better? Four out of five dentists prefer Trident sugarless gum for -- OOOH LOOK NAKED CLARK.

[uadlika.insanejournal.com]

And you've found the point of my post :)

[retro_nouveau.insanejournal.com]

Thanks for kicking off this Lois/Clark week, and for all your posts for it! :)

[uadlika.insanejournal.com]

Aw shucks :)

I honestly didn't mean to start anything, I swear! I just wanted to share the pretty and the snark and things just expanded from there...

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

Isn't Loeb in charge of writing stupid shit like this?

[ozlelila.insanejournal.com]

*Sigh* My shipper heart is happy, even if I'm not a really big Supes fan.

One question: Lois finds sex boring? Not with Supes, obviously, but in general? Man, she must have really dated some duds before Clark came along...

[uadlika.insanejournal.com]

I think she's referring to "Metropia," the place they are currently in. In retrospect I should have cropped those bottom panels as they lead into the next part of the story. But then we'd miss out on more naked Clark back.

[batcookies.insanejournal.com]

It certainly doesn't help matters that Azzy decided to keep pushing Christian themes, symbolism, and references throughout the whole story, even to the detriment of the plot. Wonder Woman's an Amazon warrior blessed by the Grecoroman gods, with an arsenal of weapons of her own.

But for this story she goes and tracks down the woman that's apparently every evil woman in the Bible mooshed together, so she can get the knife that cut Samson's hair, to attack Superman with. Why the hell would that knife be special? Why would she go with that and not, say, the sword used to kill Medussa the first time?

Oh, because bad writing. Okay.