(note hammer and sickle on chest!)Posted on 05/16/2003 11:20:08 AM PDT by adam_az
Joseph Stalin and Superman would seem to have little in common except their shared nickname, "the Man of Steel." Stalin was a brutal dictator who murdered millions, while Superman is the mythical embodiment of truth, justice and the American way. Yet in Superman: Red Son, a new three-part comic book series, the first of which has just been released by DC Comics, writer Mark Millar posits an alternative universe where Superman grew up on a collective farm in the Ukraine in the 1930s rather than in the idyllic Midwest town of Smallville, U.S.A.
Indoctrinated with communist ideology from birth, this new version of Superman grows up to be a "champion of the common worker" who "fights a never-ending battle for Stalin, socialism and the international expansion of the Warsaw Pact." In the first chapter of the series, which is selling briskly at comic book stores, the Stalinist Superman is well on his way to leading the Soviet Union of the 1950s to victory in the Cold War, using his superpowers to make his native land the world's only superpower.
Although using the Soviet Union as a background, the storyline is actually a sly comment on contemporary world politics, where the United States dominates the globe like an unchecked giant. Just as President George W. Bush is willing to bomb any country that could challenge American hegemony, the Soviet Superman uses his strength to gain global dominance.
Graced by strong, muscular art by Dave Johnson, the first issue of Superman: Red Son also demonstrates that there is a deep affinity between the aesthetics of superheroes and traditional socialist realism; both styles favour strong, manly physiques flexing their muscles.
In an interview with The Times of London, Millar admitted that playing around with an icon such as Superman is a provocative step. "Drawing images of Superman tearing down the Stars and Stripes and kicking in the White House doors with a hammer and sickle on his chest is the equivalent of making a joke about Princess Diana at her funeral," he observed.
Comic-book fans such as Jordan Elliot, who manages a Superman fan Web site, object to what they see as Millar's politicization of the beloved superhero. "I've always thought that politicizing Superman is a mistake," Elliot says.
Yet in many ways, by mixing up Superman with real world politics, Millar is helping to return the character to his roots.
As originally conceived by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster in the 1930s, Superman has always tried to make life better, not just by defeating bad guys like Lex Luthor and Brainiac, but also by intervening in political events.
One reason why the idea of a communist Superman is mildly plausible is that cartoonist Shuster could trace his ancestry back to Russia. Born in Toronto in 1914, Shuster's immigrant Jewish family had arrived in North America from Kiev (via Rotterdam). "Superman didn't really come from the planet Krypton, he came from the planet Minsk or Pinsk," political cartoonist Jules Feiffer once observed in a wry discussion of the immigrant origins of many early American comic book artists.
After Shuster's family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1924, he met his future collaborator Jerry Siegel. As second-generation immigrant Jews who came of age during the Great Depression, Shuster and Siegel developed their politics in a distinctively left-liberal milieu.
As social historian Irving Howe notes, from the 1920s onward American Jews were "largely committed to a politics of liberalism, both in the narrow sense of voting for the New Deal wing of the Democratic party and in the larger sense of favouring an internationalist foreign policy, a strong defence of civil liberties, active social legislation on behalf of deprived groups, and special efforts to help American blacks."
The liberal politics that Shuster and Siegel shared can be seen in the earliest Superman stories, from the mid-1930s, before their publisher took editorial control in 1948 after a protracted legal battle. Reprinted by DC Comics in a series called the Superman Archives, these early stories show Superman as a crime fighter with a distinct political conscience. He is seen fighting against a wife-beater, a lynch mob, two munitions manufacturers, some war-crazed military dictators, a drunk driver and a gangster who tries to take over a labour union.
Like the movies of Frank Capra and the Warner brothers from the same era, these early Superman tales are animated by a charmingly naive version of New Deal liberalism. Superman uses his fists to fight the social problems that U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt tackled through social legislation. Not surprisingly, Superman is even described in one panel as the "saviour of the helpless and oppressed."
In one story from Superman #1, the Man of Steel tackles labour relations. The story opens with a coal mine collapsing. Superman rescues Stanislaw Kober, a worker trapped in the accident. Afterward, in the guise of Clark Kent, Superman finds out the cause of the accident. The miners turn out to be poor immigrants exploited by a cruel and criminally negligent employer.
"Months ago we know mine is unsafe," Kober says. "But when we tell boss's foreman they say: 'No like job, Stanislaw? Quit!' " The plight of the miners leads Superman to take the matter into his own hands by pulling an elaborate trick on the owner of the mine, Thornton Blakely. Using a series of elaborate and implausible deceptions, Superman gets Blakely and his capitalist friends trapped in the same coal mine that nearly killed Kober. After being "rescued" from this near-death situation, Blakely agrees to improve working conditions for his employees. In the last panel, Clark Kent says, "Congratulations on your new policy. May it be a permanent one!" However, Kent also thinks: "If it isn't, you can expect another visit from Superman!"
In Superman: Red Son the famous Kryptonian is shown battling against such practical problems as breadlines and the arms race. However odd this communist Superman may seem to some, he does bear a family resemblance to the left-liberal superhero who battled injustice back in the 1930s.
ROFL! My father continually wondered aloud what would have happened if he could have sent a gross of Claymore mines and a couple dozen Thompson .50s with ammo back to the Texans besieged at the Alamo.
Not much. Who was trained at flying back in those days?
"Okay, start her up..."
BlamRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
"What's that noise?"
"I don't know but it sounds like it's ready to blow!"
DC did some stories like this back in the as recently as the 1980s. There was Weird War with dinosaurs and army men, centaurs vs. tanks:
And then there was the WWII hippy soldier:
Because damned intellectuals dug it?
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