How to Haunt a Superman?

[alschroeder3]

One page from the latest Action #38. Comments after you read it.

Quick summation; Lovecraftian spirit-thingee gets into Smallville by a rip in the Phantom Zone that happened in the recent Doomsday storyline.

I'm not enthralled with all the storyline---it's combining too many horror cliches, it's too much, and Smallville now is more like a town in Stephen King's Maine, I don't see any way for it EVER to become the old sleepy Smallville again...but I will say one thing for Pak. He gets Superman. Not everyone does. Elliot Maggin did, Denny O'Neil didn't.

His worst nightmare? That his beloved parents--the only two people he ever trusted unconditionally---secretly feared him, tried to brainwash him lest he destroy the world. Earlier in Pak's run we see a time when Clark accidentally set fire to one of Jonathan's fields, with his first use of heat vision, and Jonathan was momentarily scared before running to comfort a terrified Clark.

To think they might have secretly passed notes, terrified they might have been overheard, hoping he wouldn't be glancing their way...that they raised him via platitudes to keep him from ripping the world in half...

It's just reasonable enough--that through he says, as he should, "Lies", over and over-- there's a momentary doubt. Because what parents, raising a child with that much power, WOULDN'T have those fears? And Clark's intelligent enough to realize that.

Nice nightmare. Just creepy enough to be the centerpiece of the issue.

Comments

[qalchemist]

Isn't that what Hyperion's assigned 'parents' did in that Supreme Power run?

[doctor_spanky]

Yeah but they were government agents assigned to watch him. The sparrow metaphor, and the idea that they really did love him but came to regret it, is creepier and more demoralizing because it diminishes love into just an instinct.

Greg Pak's a good writer

[freezer]

Unless I'm crossing my memory streams, a similar thing was portrayed in Irredeemable.

[beardedjellybean]

Yeah, and it's one of the many reasons he goes batshit insane. The Plutonian (a superman expy) spends most of his life in foster care (even he doesn't know where exactly he comes from. Inevitably every family discovers his powers (which he has had from birth), become completely terrified and send him back into the system. In one such case the adopted parents give birth to a baby boy and bring him home, where a young Plutonian (Daniel) begs to be able hug his little brother.

I'm pretty sure that parents know about his strength at this point, and are very reluctant but eventually allow Daniel to hug him. He squeezes just a little to hard and gives his brother brain damage. When next shown, it revealed that the parents are so scared of Daniel that they have spent a good part of their lives ONLY communicating through notes just so he can't find them using his super-hearing.

[sagrada]

Then he found them anyway. That moment of sheer, helpless terror was like ice injected into the spine for me. Irredeemable was never subtle, but it was mostly effective.

[shadur]

Isn't that part of the basic plot to Irredeemable?

[silverhammerman]

I'm very on the fence about this version of Action Comics, and this arc in particular has done nothing for me. The cast is good, the art is good, even the writing is, actually, quite good, but it's not coming together for me. It's just all about mopey failure Superman, a take on the character that I have absolutely zero interest in.

I dunno, I'd just like to see Superman cheer the hell up and go on an adventure, because I know this creative team can do that really well, but instead Action is stuck being the sad Superman book.

[bradygirl_12]

I've always said as much as the world owes the Kents for 'raising Clark right', they were two of the luckiest people on the planet that he didn't turn out to be sociopathic. Their lives would have been hell. They took a big risk but it worked out (luckily for them and the world). Clark's innate goodness is his greatest power.

[bruinsfan]

In some respects I think it depends on when his powers start activating. If we're talking John Byrne's Man of Steel run where they developed slowly, his upbringing would have progressed more or less normally. But a super-powered toddler where the parents aren't physically able to establish limits would be truly nightmarish. Just think of a tantrum during the Terrible Twos backed by the power to throw cars like toys.

[bradygirl_12]

*nods*

There were some fun Silver Age stories about SuperBaby! ;) And the classic Superman's Babysitter comes to mind.

My own personal headcanon is that he had some of his powers from the start but on a mild scale: he could run faster than other boys and jump higher and maybe put a dent in the railing with his fingers, but other powers like super-hearing and X-ray vision came at adolescence. He learned restraint from a very early age! I kind of mixed up a lot of canons there. :)

[night4345]

Even a seemingly normal Superbaby would be terrifying to take care of. What if he had allergies to things on Earth or diseases both viruses and hereditary? The Kents wouldn't be able to take him to a doctor and even if they did the doctor would have no clue how to help.

[bradygirl_12]

A Superbaby would be very challenging! I think luck had a lot to do with the raising of Clark, though the Kents always are the primary influence. Still, even in their quiet moments together they must have breathed big sighs of relief at all the potential problems that could have cropped up not happening.

[espanolbot]

I think that it's kind of hilarious how Man of Steel managed to botch the issue so badly, I mean, Martha Kent was great in that film... but it's kind of implied that Jonathan contributed nothing but confusing and contradictory "advice" that included "letting a bus full of children is better than letting your secret become public" and "you are destined for great things... but if you want to be something other than a farmer, I'll disown you!".

[bradygirl_12]

Yeah, the portrayal of Jonathan was one of many problems I had with that movie. It just didn't feel like Jonathan to me! I thought his death was stupid, too. You mean that with all that cyclone wind blowing around Clark couldn't have made it look like he was catapulted to his father and therefore save him in front of those witnesses? Way to scar a kid, Jonathan!

[espanolbot]

The way the movie depicted him, I wouldn't be surprised if that was actually his way of getting the last word. Like "Answer back to me, eh? Well, I'll just let myself die like an idiot to traumatise you into staying on the family farm! That'll learn, ya!".

[shadowpsykie]

i am not sure i buy the whole "the angriest person is most at fault" there are different types of anger, such as righteous anger. anger isn't a problem, it's when anger is unjustified and misplaced. anger can be a great motivator. anger against injustice, anger against, opression.

Malcom X was angry, MLK was angry, Harvey Milk was angry, and they, for the most part, did good things with their anger.

[starwolf_oakley]

Stormwatch had something like this with a character called "The High." IIRC, they said "He was raised by farmers, and people keep forgetting that farmers have politics."