Does Superman NEED A New Power?

image source: http://whatchareading.com

In issue #38 of Superman 52 the Man Of Steel gets a new power. He also gets a new costume but it’s still not the classic outfit we all know and love…except for the “cool kids” who prefer battle armor I guess. Geoff Johns may be trying to play to John Romita Jr’s strengths as an artist, although this move affects the other artists for Superman’s other appearances–Batman/Superman, Justice League, Action Comics–who might not pull it off as well.  And it’s not like Jim Lee’s design hasn’t had its own critics (including myself), although to be honest you’re not going to please everybody no matter how hard you try.

But the costume is a minor issue. It’s the new power that everyone is talking about. How necessary is that? It isn’t. It only serves to further show that Superman, like the rest of the DC Universe, are not in good hands.

Even if I had income right now I wouldn’t be buying Superman because they pushed the price up higher than most independent comics. I was willing to pay a higher price for Godzilla because IDW isn’t as big as DC and doesn’t have as much coming in. DC shouldn’t have to push their comics up to four or five dollars, but they are, and the “Man Of Tomorrow” storyline isn’t interesting enough for me to pay too much for a comic book. It’s also why I wouldn’t have continued with the Multiversity one-shots. So a lot about what I’m hearing comes from flipping through an issue at Stop & Shop and a spoiler-heavy review of Superman’s new power. I’d say this commentary also has spoilers but this took place while I was mourning someone more important so anyone who cares probably already knows about this anyway.

Superman’s newest superpower is the “Super Flare”, in which Kal-El can send out all of the stored solar energy in his body bursting out. While it causes major damage it also leaves him without powers until he can get a good 24 hour solar recharge, leaving him vulnerable until then. Johns is leaving after next issue, after this one storyline. I get the impression that Johns just wanted to make his mark on Superman, because apparently Secret Origin isn’t enough once you finally realize that DC history changes on a whim. I think the power is unnecessary, and I’ll get into why, but at least it’s a power that makes sense.

Superman’s history is littered with brief or one-shot superpowers. Some of them work in theory, but most of them were too silly to hang around.  The ones above are the ones that survived. I think the dating is a bit off, though. Superman was always invulnerable to a degree; they just upped the limits of that invulnerability to surviving a nuclear blast without flinching. Heat vision began as an offshoot of his X-Ray vision, the heat of which could, properly focused, start a small fire. By the 70s it has already become a heat ray and nowadays it’s a go-to power to attack with, which seems rather harsh for Superman. You’re setting a dude on fire with that thing!

However, the “super flare”, which works like a Dragonball Z move, could make a form of sense. In the comic Batman explains how the power worked. Supposedly his heat vision is just forcing the built-up solar power through his eyes. This could, and this is my theory, be how he uses it for flight, only through…I don’t know, the pores of his skin or something but someone is going to bring up the fact that he’s clothed–it’s an admittedly hastily put-together theory. However, if he does expel a small amount of power to propel his flight then the same method could be used to force it all out at once, hence the solar flare…sorry, Super Flare power.

That said, he doesn’t need that power. There continues to be this strange insistence that Superman must always be the most powerful being in the DC Universe. (Does the Spectre have a New 52 counterpart?) If at some point somebody comes up with someone who is as or more powerful than Superman, then Superman has to get more powerful. Until he gets TOO powerful to properly write about and has to get his power levels dropped down for a while, until the next person comes along insisting Superman has to be the most powerful. This is proof that these people don’t understand how to write Superman.

THIS IS HOW YOU DO SUPERMAN!

It’s not Superman’s powers that make him Superman. It’s HOW he uses his powers and WHY. When writers can’t stop themselves from making evil alternate universe Supermen or Superman analogs they prove that they don’t understand this. He has great power but, to take from Spider-Man, he understands the great responsibility to help other people using his gifts. It makes perfect sense that someday someone or something will come along that is more powerful. He’s still more powerful than most mortal men, thus he’s still super. It’s just that someone is closer to Ultimate Man than he is. And so what? Powers are not what makes Superman.

That scowl says everything that’s wrong with the New 52. The costume doesn’t help, either.

But I’ve discussed this to death and nobody at DC is listening, so let’s make fun of the costume. THIS is supposed to be an improvement over the regular New 52 costume? Oh look, there’s a little yellow spot on the belt. Kind of like the Man Of Steel outfit but with brighter colors. The belt actually draws your attention more to the crotch area and it looks so plain. That’s why that area was red, to break things up. (Also, Martha may have run out of blue baby blanket while making it so she sewed part of the red blanket in there. My theory anyway) The collar’s still a bit high but they dropped Lee’s obsessive V-cut, so that’s a plus. Then there are the fingerless gloves. Why does Superman have fingerless gloves? They’re kind of dumb. They took out the armor lines, which I want to support but it helps make the outfit look even more like pajamas than the classic outfit. It fails to recapture the dynamic look of the iconic outfit in favor of continuing to go for the military/cop uniform look. It just doesn’t work on Superman but while the armor would look okay on an original character this one just doesn’t impress at all.

I suppose I should mention one more thing they did.

“No Clark, the line is ‘he’s dead, Jim’. You need to watch more Star Trek.”

As you know I’m all in favor of superheroes letting a select group of non-superheroes in on his or her secret, to form a support base of non-supers to remind them, and us, that they’re human beings and not gods. It’s through interacting with their “normal” friends that we, the audience, learn to relate to the heroes. But why Jimmy? Even in this “Clark and Lois aren’t romantically into each other” continuity they’re depicted as very close friends. Jimmy and Perry are also friends with both characters but Lois was his confidant until Lobdel sent them off in different directions. Johns is supposed to be fixing Lobdel’s mistakes with Clark’s personal life before running off so why not fix Clark and Lois’ friendship by having HER assume the confidant role she’s had even before she learned they were the same person? Does Johns just like Jimmy better or something? It’s the right idea, but the wrong person. It’s disappointing and further cuts Lois out of the loop.

So DC continues to screw up Superman. I don’t know who is taking over for Johns, but I’m sure he or possibly she…oh who am I kidding, DC doesn’t have enough female writers it actually cares about enough to put one on Superman…will also be more interested in leaving his mark than writing good Superman stories. I don’t mean good stories, I mean good SUPERMAN stories. There is a difference. I have no reason to read this version of Superman. He doesn’t resemble any Superman I know and loved most of my life and I don’t like his replacement. It’s a shame, really. Superman is my favorite DC superhero. At least he was.