The Man of Steel #1

[lordultimus]

Comments

Re: Mmm...

[laughing_tree]

See, it's because of how the immigrant metaphor angle plays out that I don't like Byrne's take. He does his all to minimize Superman's connection to his Kryptonian (read: foreign) roots, to the point where he's practically Kryptonian *only* at the level of genetics. He even makes Krypton a sterile hellhole to minimize any sense of tragedy in its demise.

It strikes me as a xenophobic take on assimilation, born from a perspective where his Kryptonian-ness inherently gets in the way of his humanity/American-ness. He's the idea of a true American from the perspective of someone who thinks Americans shouldn't think of themselves as hyphenated Americans (an opinion Byrne himself has voiced online.)

One could make the argument that the pre-Crisis Superman leaned too far into the alien side but if so, Byrne's version overcorrects and goes way too far in the other direction.

Re: Mmm...

[bradygirl_12]

I do like the Silver/Bronze Age version of Krypton. It was a beautiful place with its Jewel Mountains and Scarlet Jungle and the society had a lot going for it. The Byrnes version of sterility took away a lot of the sense of loss when Krypton exploded.