Stan Lee once observed that comic
book readers do not want change, they want the
illusion of change. Certainly that was true when I was growing up, in the
case of popular stories like the one in Superman
132.
The tale had Superman, Batman and
Robin watching an alternate history in which Krypton never exploded and Kal-El
was permitted to grow up there. Logically, that would seem to suggest a
superhero story with no superhero, and while that might fly these days in the Gotham TV show, it would never do in October
1959.
In fact, of course, children — by
far the primary audience for Superman then — like reassurance. They like to be
told the same stories in exactly the
same way, again and again. So even though Krypton didn’t blow up, a caped “superman”
appeared anyway in the form of Kal-El’s professor, who called himself Futuro
after an accident gave him (and Krypto) super powers identical to Superman’s.
“Jimmy Olsen” appeared in the form
of Futuro’s pal Kal-El. Kal-El acquired a “spaceman costume” duplicating his
familiar super suit, and also dressed in the weird earthly clothes of Clark
Kent for a costume party. Lois Lane showed up on Krypton and immediately fell
for the super guy. And because Futuro intended to marry Lois and return to
Earth with her, he decided to empower Kal-El with that “one last charge” and
leave him to guard Krypton as Superman.
Perfectly absurd. Perfectly
satisfying.
Wayne Boring was the Superman
artist of my childhood, and although his figures tended to be stiff, he had a
wonderful way with those perfectly round, brightly colored planets and
asteroids that Superman juggled, those massive transparent globular ray guns
and those graceful minarets that soared above the cities of advanced civilizations.
His drawings drew me into his universe. I remember being particularly entranced
by the white-and-violet color combination of Futuro’s costume as he soared to
the rescue.
Futuro’s secret identity, by the
way, was “Dr. Xan-Du.” Writer Otto Binder was signaling, as clearly as
possible, that this was all wish fulfillment.
No comments:
Post a Comment