Portrait of the Writer as a Young Kryptonian...

[alschroeder3]

In the latest Superman #42, Lois, after finding out Clark is Supes, demands why.

Superman-Clark says, "Keeping my identity secret was the only way I could be normal. Or at least normal-ish."

"You're Superman! Why would you want to be normal?!"

"... I just do."

Bingo. Superman doesn't fantasize about being Superman, or being even more powerful. He's already at the top of the super-power pyramid. Superman pretends to be Clark Kent, and fantasizes about being...

David Guthrie.

Who?

Read on...

Literally. For the post-Crisis, pre-Nu52 Clark Kent was a newspaper columnist--and an author of fiction novels. 20-21 pages out of 63 pages of UNDER A YELLOW SUN, published in 1994, before Clark revealed his ID to Lois and married her.

"...understanding for the first time his own mortality--realizing no one is invulnerable."

Or immune to writer's block.

..Or immune to dodging their literary agents.

David Guthrie, his literary alter-ego, is an ex-scuba diver who became a pro bono attorney who aided the poor while dodging his creditors. He wears sunglasses constantly.

Meanwhile, Superman stops some near-sucidal street thugs with "stolen" Lexcorp equipment, and makes a humbling discovery as the blast knocks him through a bookstore window.

Clark interviews a beautiful lawyer on retainer for Lexcorp, Joanna DaCosta, who denies Luthor's direct involvement, that the weaponry was stolen. She's also an admirer of his first book, the JANUS CONTRACT.

Next thing you know, in the novel, David Guthrie books a flight to Cordo Maltese and meets a beautiful woman very like Joanna DaCosta. But real life--and deadlines...intrude.

Reality like electric bills unsent, also. Luckily, Clark doesn't need light to type by...or to fantasize by.

David Guthrie accepts a job offer Preston Trager, a corrupt billionaire who is going to use Guthrie's connections with the man he rescued, years ago, leaping into the sea. Guthrie, at the end of his financial rope, accepts.

We find that Clark writes on an old typewriter Jonathan once gave him when he was twelve.

David Guthrie rushes to the assistance of some kids in a bus, who are being helped by a Lois look-alike called Rebecca Carr, a former columnist for the Gotham Globe.

But his attraction for Joanna DaCosta (who witnesses, and is shocked by, a shootout in a gallery caused by Luthor's thugs) causes some friction with Lois...

Joanna shows up at his door while he's typing, and confesses how shook up and conflicted she is about working for Luthor--great benefits, great salary, but wonders if it's worth all the corruption and criminality she has to cover up. She admits she's attracted to Clark, and offers to take him on a trip she's taking to Boston for the weekend, and Clark tells her he's already involved with someone else...Lois.

Which doesn't stop the fantasy or the sex scene (near sex-scene?) in the novel he's writing...?

Clark works more on the novel, and Joanna leaves a phone message that she'll meet him when her plane gets in---that she has evidence that would tie the crimes to Luthor. Clark rushes to the airport--only to see the Boston flight blow up.

In the novel, Joanna's alter ego dies in a jeep accident-that-wasn't-an-accident and Preston Trager and David Guthrie have a final confrontation.

In real life, Superman had come close to avenging Joanna on a sleeping Luthor. Later, Lois reads his first ending of UNDER A YELLOW SUN.

Perry gives Clark some good advice...(in the novel-within-the-graphic novel, a Perry-type is Guthrie's old diving instructor, and a Jimmy-type works with the Corto Maltese rebels.)

Clark asks for Lois' help, and finds that Luthor's security expert, once a CIA man, had actually destroyed the plane. Meanwhile, in the novel, in the rewritten ending, Guthrie, after overcoming Trager's security agent, manages to board Trager's small plane as it is taking off of Corto Maltese, into a bad storm.

Clark manages to finish the novel just in time, just as Clark and Lois release a story about the connection between a garbage scow that had been stuck in Metropolis Bay for weeks and the "stolen" Lexcorp weapons.

Clark attends the Zenith awards, for "Excellence in Media", and finds he has another fan of his writing....which is pretty ironic, since he was the model for "Preston Trager".

There is one last flash of the final page in the book, where Rebecca Carr (the fictionalized Lois) says, "Maybe you made out with your soul intact."

Guthrie replies, "If not my wallet. Guess I'll never get rich-- but at least I can live with myself."

An interesting graphic novel, the way it weaved in and out of Clark's life and the novel he was writing. Interesting that Clark's fiction writing isn't science fiction, unlike most of his adventures, but sort of John D. MacDonald-Lite--an ordinary man with scruples trying to make his way in a corrupt and dishonest world.

Oh! Although it wasn't a Zenith award, I was pleased this morning to find that the Drunkduck version of my webcomic, A REASONABLE CASE is one of two comics nominated for "Best Completed Comic" in this year's Drunkduck awards---after winning for the "Best Philosophical Comic" last year. Now that's the way to start a day!

Comments

[halloweenjack]

Congratulations! And this excerpt makes me regret missing Under a Yellow Sun when it came out.

[sagrada]

Likewise, congratulations! And thanks for posting this, it's a nice change from the random supervillains and shake-ups. This is the kind of Superman stuff I love best.

[glprime]

I'm surprised Clark never wrote a deconstructive superhero novel where he could vent his frustrations as Superman through the voice of a similar character. Virtually no one would think twice of a prominent writer from the same city writing a novel trying to get in the head of such a famous hero.

[jlbarnett]

they might take it as him insulting Superman though

[glprime]

"Picture for the Art section, guys?"
"Sure thing, Jimmy."
"That's it, just hold up the book between you... hold it... *click*"
[Thanks for doing this again, J'onn. I know it's not often I ask, but everyone once in awhile it helps to-]
[Keep up the myth? I get it. Believe me. For a person who maintains so many alter egos off-hours, I get it.]

LOCAL BOYS - Famous metahuman hero Superman poses with author Clark Kent as the writer celebrates the release of his new book, The Weight Of The Cape, out this fall.

[alschroeder3]

Yeah, but a lot of people don't like to write about their everyday life. Now consider what Superman/Clark's everyday life is like...no, I think there's a reason he never wrote about superheroes. (I presume; everybody acted like UNDER A YELLOW SUN was not a huge departure from his previous novel, THE JANUS CONTRACT.)

[wizardru]

Wow, I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed the Superman of the 90s, where they really figured out ways to tell interesting stories about him where Clark's life was just as interesting as Superman's. The art here is quite nice, too.

[bradygirl_12]

"Nihilism doesn't become you."

Can we send Lois' words to Zach Snyder and the rest of the gang plotting Batman vs. Superman?

As a writer, I approve of this story! Clark's humanity wrapped up in his writing? Perfect! :)

Love that touch of the typewriter being a gift from Jonathan when Clark was twelve.

[alschroeder3]

I echo your sentiments about sending the "nihilism doesn't become you" to Zach Snyder.

[cricharddavies]

It might be that the best answer to the question "why would a superman want to be normal?" is that "it's an actual challenge that I can't easily overcome." (Something that Nietszche perhaps wouldn't have grasped.) Of course, Pre-Crisis subverted this by having Supes-as-Clark use his powers subtly all the time. (As Al, of course, is well aware. ;) )

[bruinsfan]

I still think "because my parents were normal people and I want to be like them" is an excellent answer.

[jlbarnett]

in Lois & Clark he put it like this "Clark is who I am, Superman is what I can do."

[alschroeder3]

Superman is a near-god who wants to be a fallible man. That's why we love him so...even when he overplays the imperfections in Clark Kent. Which is probably the deep seated reason I'm having such trouble with this new direction. We want to be him, in power and adventure. He wants to be us...finding perfection insipid and boring. Unlike the Marvel heroes, he has no deep-seated flaws or tragedies. He was an infant when he lost Krypton, and cannot really empathize with it. Yet he still wants to...desperately...be one of us. The mythological Hercules or Thor reveled in their power. Superman revels in the humanity he fakes, finds his own power no big deal.

[sagrada]

Nietzsche's superman was just somebody who made (and kept) their own morals and ethical standards independent of their society's, it had nothing to do with physical or mental capability. Just the power of being that different would be enough.

[alschroeder3]

I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about. *Grin*