Updated 2 years ago
The very essence of binary becomes deconstructed. And if you do not actually spend actual real-world money on comics, welcome to this page, but your opinions, your aspirations, or your politics on this frankly do not matter.
New Batman will be black, DC Comics announces
The new Superman comes out as bisexual in an upcoming comic
Superman Changes Motto to ‘Truth, Justice and a Better Tomorrow,’ Says DC Chief
I’m ambivalent about this, or maybe you could say, bisexual.
Comic book heros should reflect the American population, that is understandable and expected. Half white, 90% straight (ish). Most people have the capacity for bisexuality. Sexual preference is a spectrum. It’s just inconvenient to reconcile that with a monogamous cultural values society. If you doubt that, then explain to me how ancient Greeks must have had completely different DNA/prenatal epigenetics.
But removing the American Way is a castration, turning Superman’s DNA into a GMO. Let me explain.
As Dave Chapelle said, empathy is bisexual. It goes both ways. America has indeed been exceptional in the WW2 era, and has gone failure to failure ever since. We startlingly went from a noble war with abundant fruit (South Korea) to a seemingly similar (just switch the terrain and latitude!) miserable shitshow on the wrong side of a war for independence (Vietnam)
The Greatest Generation remembered polio, and they are almost all pro vax, the baby boomers behind them – most of the ones who weren’t hippies and many who were – aren’t. Gen X was of course the master race generation. The 2 after that blew chunks and don’t read comics. Too much attention span required. And their parents aren’t far behind them. We need Superman more than ever. We need comic books. We need books. We need long attention spans to address long term problems like climate change. We don’t need Instagram and TikTok polluting our minds.
Superman to me represented the American dream. He was white, Judeo Christian, straight as a ruler. A symbol of our collective hopes and dreams. He was a square, yes. But he was 𝑔𝑜𝑜𝑑. Not Democrat. Not Republican. Just 𝑔𝑜𝑜𝑑. Like most people used to be. He represented the multicultural polyglot, but he didn’t do that by having beige skin and a family tree with roots in every part of the world. That wasn’t the point. He was simply a living avatar. A postmodern god.
I blame the Republicans, and Trump specifically for the national predicament we are in, and a few far lefties who pissed in the Cheerios.
But Superman is a hero of the past, an anachronism, and no letters you attach to his sexual identity, no causes you add to his ideological repertoire can change that. But he is an anachronism that is important to keep. He is still a symbol of what we can be again.
For all of you who are uncritically elated that all of our cis white male comic heroes are falling one by one to multidiversity, I truly hope you (a) actually buy comics and (b) are numerous enough to convince a cabal of cis white boomer males sitting in offices in Manhattan and L.A. that the industry deserves their attention and investment.
This reeks of Fonzie jumping the shark, and simply sets the stage for some Frank Miller right wing weirdo “re-re-re-reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-imagining” a red-blooded steak-eating Superman at some future time when the pendulum swings back.
The comic book industry is dying. You’d never know it, looking at Hollywood, but it is. Readership is a tiny fraction of what it was during WW2. I offer no solutions, other than to keep up the dialogue and keep reading comics. If all these rainbow heroes are accompanied by great stories, great art, great character development, I am all for it. But let’s not get distracted by gestures and window dressing.
As a postscript, I invite you to view the soft porn comics that Joe Shuster made after he was fired from DC Comics. The desperation in these images mirror the desperation and existential crisis today.