The Man of Steel Stands Tall Against the Klan

The graphic novel, Superman Smashes the Klan (DC, May 12, 2020) was actually inspired by the 1940s Superman radio serial Clan of the Fiery Cross. Beginning in 1940 New York City's WOR radio station began broadcasting The Adventures of Superman. The radio program was based on the best-selling character from creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. While the serial itself originally aired from 1940 to 1951. In 1946 the serial ran a storyline entitled The Clan of the Fiery Cross, which was a thinly veiled takedown of the Ku Klux Klan. As could be expected, this storyline elicited cries from listeners that it caused Superman to become too political. However, instead of detracting from Superman’s popularity, the serial proved to be a so successful, that it actually helped in reducing the Klan’s real life recruitment efforts.

In 2019, New York Times bestselling author, Gene Luen Yang (American Born Chinese, Boxers and Saints, The Terrifics, New Super-Man) along with artist Gurihiru (Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Unstoppable Wasp) began a personal retelling in comicbook form, a serialized version of that story. Then in 2020, the three-issue limited series was collected into a 240, square-bound format and re-issued, along with the essay Superman and Me by Yang.

This Superman story takes place in 1946 and centers around teenage siblings, Roberta and Tommy Lee as well as their parents who have recently moved from Chinatown to the center of Metropolis, home to Superman. Tommy, who is older, is the more outgoing of the pair, quickly makes friends in the neighborhood, while Roberta, who is shy, longs for home. The story opens up with Superman facing off against Atom Man, a German soldier that is by designed by Nazi science but powered by Kryptonite. While Superman manages to take him out, the Kryptonite makes him woozy until Inspector Henderson (a Black man, and yes, this becomes important later in the story) takes both it and Atom Man away. As it turns out, both Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen are also there to witness the fight.

Upon moving into town, Mr. Lee takes a job as a scientist in the Metropolis Center while Tommy hooks up with the local youth baseball team. Unfortunately, by joining the team he inadvertently shows up the team’s star pitcher, Chuck who heads home to his Uncle Matt. As it turns out Uncle Matt, is not only something of a racist, but a member of the Clan of the Fiery Cross. Meanwhile, Clark Kent is having some odd visions as a result of being exposed to the Kryptonite (even though he doesn’t yet realize it). Clark is also seeing a pair of weirdly alien creatures (a distorted view of his Kryptonian parents). Over at the Lee’s their house is attacked by several members of the Clan of the Fiery Cross, who burn a cross on their lawn. Fortunately, the police arrived in time to break things up. Unfortunately, there are other, far more deadly things afoot as the Clan plans on wrecking even more havoc in Metropolis. 

One of the interesting aspects of this story is that, as it takes place in the past, this version of Krypton’s Last Son is a bit different than the version from the character we are used to seeing. This Superman can’t yet fly but can "run faster than a locomotive" and “Leap tall buildings in a single bound”. So for all intents and purposes he is very much the Superman of the 1940s, mostly unaware of his true Kryptonian origins, and not quite as strong as we know him to be in this era. Needless to say, other things are different, Inspector Henderson (who didn’t appear until the Superman TV show in the ‘50s running from ’52 to ’58). Still, he’s enough like the Superman we now to successfully carry the book.

To return to the story, the members of the Clan of the Burning Cross return to the Lee’s to do more damage, kidnap Tommy, and plant a bomb and all sorts of other nasty mischief. Fortunately, Superman, the Lee children, Jimmy and Lois are around to help out, bringing the story to a happy, and successful conclusion. There is also a sub-plot involving Mr. White as well as Inspector Henderson and Chuck’s nasty Uncle who feels it necessary to unload quite a bit of “white purity” with an extra helping of racial hate directed at the Inspector (told you that his skin color was going to come into play).

As stated at the beginning of this article, Gene Yang rounds out this wonderful graphic novel with a very in-depth, historical essay about not only his own personal history with the Man of Steel, but on his history of growing up as a Chinese-American on the West Coast intermingled with what racism was like for both Blacks in the South an how that mirrored some of what he and other Asians dealt with on the West Coast. He compared and contrasted how the hatred and exclusion from how “regular” Americans were treated. Offering up some very enlightening insights to what being non-White in this country is seen by those who aren’t.

All-in-all, the stories of Superman Smashes the Klan, the Lees, Gene Yang, other non-whites in America, young Tommy and his hateful racist uncle, as well as Superman himself all spin together into a similar tale, one that should provide a bond for all of us to live together in a land where we are all immigrants, descendants of immigrants or slaves, or indigenous peoples. I know when I was growing up we were taught that this country is a melting pot where all races and peoples mixed together. Unfortunately, it is sad to learn that some folks never bothered learning that lesson. Hopefully, with more books like this one, perhaps others will come to learn this as well.

Interestingly enough, this 2020 graphic novel hits on several points also made by James Gunn's 2025 Superman film, including immigration, inclusion, and (oddly enough, a bit of my own mantra, that of Power and responsibility), making this a much more powerful, and importantly unifying message across the DCU. 

 

 

 

Let's hear it for James Gunn!

We honestly have to give Director James Gunn top marks for finally producing a superhero movie that I, personally, have been waiting years to see. He has developed the “initial” movie in a planned ongoing mythology that bypasses the (so-called) “mandatory” (re)telling of the hero’s origin when the lead actor has been replaced and does what I’ve been talking about for quite some time now. Just tell a story.  In one interview, Gunn said it himself. “We don’t need to go there.” Gunn’s statement acknowledges that—for all intents and purposes—we all know the basic elements of Superman’s origin and his arrival here on Earth.

Needless to say, while there certainly are many superhero characters who are not known by the general public, there are quite a few whose origins are already known or already explained in previous films. As I’ve pointed out elsewhere (over and over) retelling a character’s origin is something oddly specific to superhero films. Rebooting a story and retelling the main character’s origin is just bad storytelling. By way of example, Let’s look at the cinematic history of James Bond, perhaps one of the most well-known fictional characters who doesn’t wear spandex.

Since his debut film, Dr. No in 1962, there have been 29 Bond films (including the original Casino Royal and Never say Never), seven actors (including David Nivin) who have played Bond, and some 27 villains. Further, we never got an actual origin story for Bond until Daniel Craig portrayed him in Casino Royal (2006). Compared to Lex Luthor appearing in five of the seven solo live action films; Green Goblin appearing in three of the Eight solo live action Spider-Man films; Magneto appearing in eight of the 14 X-Men films; and the Joker appearing in seven of the 13 Batman films.

My point here is that many of these comicbook characters have been around for 87 (Superman) to 62 (X-Men) years, and yet the films keep going back to the same legacy villains when each of the various heroes has around 100 (or more) villains, not every film has to go back to the same small group of villains when each of them have such a wide wealth of a rogues gallery. This is why Marvel introducing movies with The Guardians of the Galaxy (under Gunn), Ant Man, and Dr, Strange, are important.

Hopefully, now that Gunn has brought the Guy Gardner Green Lantern, Metamorpho, and The Engineer into the DC Cinematic Universe (with the promise of more of the same) we can all move past that there are only a few heroes with only one villain each.

 

Truth, Justice, and a Better Tomorrow: A Superman Story

So, we just came from watching the new James Gunn Superman flick—which we thoroughly loved—and we wanted to talk a little bit about it. This isn’t our review, we’ll be writing and posting about that later (We’ll link back here to hook you up with that review as soon as it is written, posted, and approved). But for now, what we want to do here is to talk a little bit about how there are reports on social media about how Gunn turned Superman “Woke” and they don’t like it.

To those people who feel this way, all I have to say (as someone who has been reading comics since 1961, working in the field as a journalist since 1981, and as a comicbook creator since 1986) You have no idea what you are talking about here. And trust me, as I’m something of an expert in this.

But first, allow me to go back a few years when the first Wonder Woman film came out in 2017. Back then a pair of conservative talking heads whined on-air about how disrespectful it was that the film changed her uniform from red, white, and blue like Superman’s. This without clearly realizing that her costume was never red, white, and blue, and neither was Superman’s. Hers has always been red, gold, and blue, while Superman’s was red, Yellow, and blue. Further, neither of them are actually Americans, Wonder Woman is from the mythical island of Themyscira, while Superman (Kal-El) was born on the planet Krypton and is (technically) on Earth (and in the U.S.) illegally.

Next up, in 2022 other conservative TV talking heads (probably from the same network) were griping that Marvel has gone woke by creating a female Hulk, without realizing that She-Hulk first appeared some 43 years earlier in her own Marvel Comicbook. According to information at the time, the character was created to protect the company’s trademark on the green-skinned Hulk character’s name. In fact, there is a video clip of a reporter interviewing Bill Bixby (who played David Banner on the TV show. That clip is shown below.

My point with these first couple of paragraphs is that quite often, the folks on (pretend) TV news shows very often don’t know, or even understand, even the simplest of things (which can be looked up) on which they are reporting, and if they can get simple (not important) things like those I cited wrong, then how can we trust them getting actual important news correct.

Then there is the case of Dean Cain (who played Clark Kent/Superman) in the CBS TV show Lois & Clark, The New Adventures of Superman (1973–1977). Sometimes, proving that even when they have some understanding of who the character is because they actually played them on TV. Cain re-entered public awareness recently with his negative assessment over Gunn’s film (without even having seen the film). Cain claimed that the film is too woke because it celebrates Superman as an immigrant (somehow forgetting that only is he an illegal immigrant, but that there was an episode of Lois & Clark that dealt with the same topic.

Another issue the conservative Cain mentioned about the film is Gunn’s changing the long-standing mantra first associated with Superman m the 1950s TV show, stands for “Truth, Justice, and the American way” to “Truth, Justice, and a better tomorrow”. Well, two things here. First, under our current administration, America isn’t as welcoming to immigrants as we were in the ‘50s. Second (and more relevant to the character) those of us who actually read comics already know that back in 2011 (Action Comics #900), Superman addressed the full council of the UN and renounced his U.S. citizenship and declared himself to be a citizen of the world. Thus, making the “…for a better tomorrow” a far more reasonable pledge.

THIS JUST IN!

Shortly after posting this article, we learned that Dean Cain (who is Japanese American and whose father's entire family was interned in a camp in Idaho during WWII) has recently announced that he is joining ICE! 

Having written all that, we have seen the new Superman film and let us state that we fully enjoyed it and state that it is easily one of the best stand-alone Superman films ever made (and the presence of Krypto certainly helped in that regard). Further, the appearance of the Justice Gang (especially Metamorpho, an old favorite of ours) added to the film’s fun. Plus, the addition of Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor was simply brilliant. Ultimately, we believe that a large part of the misunderstandings covered in this article stem from the fact that many folks still believe that superhero films, and the comics from which they are based, are still “junk” or “kiddy” fare, and not legitimate literature or cinema. And frankly, as far as we’re concerned, that’s simply a crying shame.

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Oh, and just to let all’y’all know that I know what I’m talking about, in 1961 I moved from reading syndicated newspaper comic strips to reading comicbooks. Around 1978 I joined comicbook fandom and began to contribute to an APA (Amateur Publishing Alliance). In 1981 my first comicbook article was published in Amazing Heroes #5. In 1986 my first comicbook (Agent Unknown: Renegade Press) was published. I spent the next 15-20 years working as a journalist in comics, writing for virtually all of the magazines that covered the comicbook industry. Currently I still post about comics both here and over at HubPages, I also still write comics at Dark Fire Press, and other indie publishers. 

 

I just happened across this Indie film and had to share it with you all.

An everyday guy (Wilson) transforms himself into wannabe superhero the Crimson Bolt after his wife leaves him for Jacques (Bacon), a suave drug-dealer. Joined by teen-sidekick Libby (Page), the duo engage in war against crime and look to take down Jacques and his empire.

I so totally want to see this film!

It stars Ellen Page, James Gunn, Gregg Henry, Rainn Wilson, Liv Tyler, Michael Rooker, Linda Cardellini, Nathan Fillion, Andre Royo, Kevin Bacon, Lloyd Kaufman. Near as I can tell  it came out in 2010, and is now headed for the Independent Film Channel.