The Sword of Superman: A Retrospective from someone who was THERE!

Oh the Pre-Crisis era.  For those of you who don’t know, the Pre-Crisis era refers to any event that happened before “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, the first and arguably best revamping of the DC comic book universe.  It was an unprecedented event whose sole purpose was to cut the wheat from the chaff, as it were, and clean up the history of the shared universe that had characters doing all matter of crazy things, sometimes in two places at once.  Basically, continuity was Swiss cheese at the time and nearly impossible to follow.

During the pre-crisis era, Superman had a wealth of wonky powers, some of which made absolutely no sense whatsoever.  One element however sticks out in my mind from way back in the ancient days of 1984.

Growing up in Portland, Texas, a sleepy little town on the Gulf Coast, just north of Corpus Christi, comics were not in great supply.  I was five, and if I wanted comics, I had to hitch a ride with my parents whenever they happened to go to Feudos, a neat little market in one of the quiet shopping centers in town.  Feudos had them all…at least to a five year old’s perspective.  Spider-Man and Superman are the ones that stick out in my head.  One specific comic stands out in my memory of this time, and if you haven’t heard of it, don’t feel bad.  It became part of the chaff that was Crisis on Infinite Earths.  It is, of course, the Sword of Superman, ala “Superman Annual 10”.

Now during the pre-crisis era, you would get several explanations for one single event, and the most famously confused event ever was “Why the ‘S’ shield logo?”

Well NOW we all know that it was the family crest for the House of El on Krypton, but back then it apparently had a more significant meaning.

According to the issue, during the Big Bang some primordial matter and energy came together and formed itself into something like an English broadsword.  Because reasons. 

 

This sword, bearing the “S” shield just existed in history since the dawn of time and when Ma Kent was making Superboy’s first costume, the sword reached out to him telepathically to place the “S” emblem on his suit, apparently because the sword knew he would be important one day.

Later Superman would come into contact with the sword and it would turn him, basically into a god.  I mean more so than he already was.  He became an all knowing, all seeing protector of good, truth, and righteousness.  Think the Infinity Gauntlet, but for good guys.

But there was a price that came with all this power.  The populace he was sworn to protect feared him.  Granted he’s wielding a sword, something that’s generally identified with cutting and stabbing, not something you want to associate with the defender of life.  That’d be like giving Superman a gun…

Yep, that happened too, but that's for a different blog.

So Superman rejected the sword in a sequence of panels that was so weird it may have permanently scarred my young psyche.  Not enough to make me stop reading the comic. I read it till it fell apart, not unlike what happens to the sword!

                       

 

Spoiler alert, don’t let a pre-teen handle comics without educating him on how to properly care for them in the even they are worth money one day.

So Superman rejected the sword’s power, and it seemed pretty cool with it.  It wasn’t mad at all as it left back into the cosmos and, a year later, was seemingly wiped from history.

But why?  With all the stuff that has trickled through the veil of time over the years, why has Superman’s Sword remained off limits?  Well, at the time it was written out of existence we had Superman and Supergirl, and a slew of super-pets.  That limited who could wield the sword to exactly two people.  Its not like the Infinity Gauntlet or the Cosmic Cube, who could potentially be wielded by anyone.  Its tied directly to two characters and pretty much halts the story all together.  If writers thought it was hard to write around Superman’s powers before, giving him the potential to have infinite power makes it very difficult.

Then there was the growing cast of Team Superman, involving Steel, Superboy, Supergirl, the return of Krypto, and so forth.  Now you could bring in the Sword and let it have some options on which to present that power to, but then how do you get rid of it to let the characters have normal stories again?  It’s been around literally since the dawn of time.  It’s not getting destroyed.  You could put it in the Fortress under lock and key, but then, how can you have cataclysmic events when you could just pull out the sword and fix everything?  How do you justify the Death of Superman if the Sword could have taken care of Doomsday in short order?

I think, personally, from both a nostalgic point of view and from a story telling point of view, you could justify bringing the sword back into continuity.  Tweak it’s origin just a bit, where it became the symbol of Hope on Krypton and later was adopted as the crest for the House of El, and leave it “out there” waiting for Superman to prove himself again.

Just a thought.

Thanks for reading

 

 

Supergirl + Flash...Dawn of Cuteness?

Alright, so it happened.  I hope to God you guys watched it.  If you haven’t, check out CBS Access or CBS online and see if you can grab it real quick (an hour of your life you won’t regret) and come back because we are going into some serious spoiler territory here.

I don’t often do reviews of stand-alone episodes, but this is different.  This is one of my absolute favorite shows, the Flash, teaming up with the gang from Supergirl.  This episode worked on a lot of different levels.  First of all, if you are like me and only have a tenuous relationship with Supergirl (ie. I’ve watched one, count em one episode so far) this episode served as a great jumping off point as during its events it re-established Supergirl’s premise.  In many ways I came into this show like Barry did.  I’m unfamiliar with the scope of the Supergirl Universe so I really get to know these characters roughly the same time Barry does and he serves as a great entrance point for new watchers.  Like Barry, it doesn’t take the audience long to get up to speed as to who everyone is, at least their fundamental roles on the team.

Secondly, this episode came out less than a week after Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice broke a few box office records, and before Marvel’s Civil War epic due out later this summer.  That said it actually serves as a big refreshing gulp of wholesome in a sea of hero vs hero media.  Barry and Kara have personalities that naturally click with each other.  Grant and Melissa’s personal and professional history helps in this as well, but ultimately the actors have just this fantastic chemistry with each other and that shines through the whole episode, so much so that I rather wish this had been an hour and a half long episode rather than the standard 48-50 minute running time.  That certainly would have ironed out a few problems.

So what’s the story?  Well roughly around the same time Silver Banshee is coming into her power set and attacking people at CatCo (still sounds like a pet store-terrible name) Kara is knocked unconscious by a sonic blast and hurled out of a window when she is saved by none other than The Flash.  Realizing they both have powers, Barry and Kara get to talking, discovering that Barry has traveled here from Central City, and an entirely different universe.  Barry is looking for what his people call “Earth 2” to have a final face off with a villain named Zoom, but for more of that go see The Flash.  Seriously watch it.

Barry hooks up with Team Supergirl in an effort to find a way back to his universe, but while they are doing that, Silver Banshee springs Livewire from jail.  Both have a hate for Supergirl, and Livewire isn’t too fond of Cat Grant either, so they team up to bring down the cheerleader of steel.  Thinking she only has to contend with Livewire, Supergirl enlists the aid of the Flash (who is more than willing to lend a superfast hand) and they go to face the villain with absolutely no battle plan, despite Barry’s suggestions that they have one ready.  Supergirl is confident that with their combined powers they’ll make short work of the villain and is understandably surprised when Silver Banshee shows up to tip the scales.  Receiving a beat down, Barry suggests a strategic withdraw, and the two regroup to assess the situation.  During this time Kara shares some of her recent personal struggles with Barry who can actually relate to those very specific situations.

Real quick, its important to understand that Supergirl is still in season 1, so the titular character is going through her rookie year while Flash is already well into season 2, so he’s been there and done that, and a testament to Barry’s personality, rather than be jaded by his personal experience, he’s willing to serve as a pseudo mentor to Kara.  He understands exactly what she’s going through, more than anyone else in her world can.  He explains to her that some of the problems she is going to deal with can’t be handled by powers, only time, trial, error, and experience.  He relates to the fact that they are both used to dealing with conflict by falling back on their powers, but that can’t always be the answer.  This exchange, I think was probably the strongest moment in the episode and for both characters.  Barry is finally serving as the mentor figure, when he’s had so many mentors in his time, and he’s learning that when you teach, you learn and when you learn, you also teach.

Kara is receptive to his advice and they soon discover that Livewire and Banshee have kidnapped Kat and taken her to an open park.  There they plan to publically execute her if Supergirl and Flash don’t make an appearance.  During this very brief battle Supergirl puts herself in harm’s way to save a helicopter, while Flash is knocked out on top of a roof (so glad you were here to help buddy).  This turns public opinion, which had waned from Supergirl, back into her favor as the citizens come to her aid and actually defeat the villains for her.

Flash and Supergirl say their goodbyes as they do an impromptu race to get Barry home.  Kara later meets up with James Olsen and finally kisses him, only for him to turn into a brainwashed zombie and wander off with apparently everyone in the city as they are being controlled by Kryptonians.

Let me back up just a bit: James Olsen.  Oh I love what they did with James because he was always the coolest kid in school, and he knew he had Kara’s heart, and never had to work for it, but seemed to keep her at a distance.  When Barry enters the picture and the two instantly click you quickly see James starting to get jealous.  Again, Barry and Kara’s personalities naturally mesh, and they can relate to each other on a lot of levels.  Plus Barry has an impressive skill set to go along with his amazing powers.  He’s super smart and very likable.  Which starts to piss James off, and Mehcad Brooks pulls this off perfectly.

Now let’s look at a few negatives of the episode.  The fights feel very short and anticlimactic, which is why I think this would have been better served as an hour and a half episode.  I say hour and a half, because I think if you pushed this to a two hour episode you would have drawn it out longer than the content would allow.  Giving it an extra thirty minutes however could allow for extended fight scenes and a chance for Supergirl to really earn the city’s trust again.  A lot of that felt very rushed, but it could also indicate that the city wasn’t that mad at her after all.

I’ve heard complaints that it didn’t seem like the Flash had a lot to do here, and he didn’t, but Barry Allen did.  Barry Allen worked with the team to track Livewire, and Barry Allen mentored Kara.  This was really more about characters than it was about spectacle.  Even Winn trying to talk Silver Banshee down, that was more about character development than the actual fight inside CatCo.  Character development is really where Supergirl shines, but it could take a few lessons from the Flash in beefing up its fight scenes a bit.

One of the challenges with any Super(noun) property is that you have to balance the powers with the character and that’s not easy to do on a weekly television budget.  Flash allows a little more room to cheat because you can always have his powers do something without actually needing to show it.  A gust of wind and a sound effect and you’ve planted in your audience that the Flash did something.  Supergirl can actually use this trick too, but I think it doesn’t because that’s a very “Flash” thing.

Kat Grant is still annoying.  I don’t like her, but that’s the character.

So overall, everyone did an amazing job in their roles.  I would love to see Kara show up in Central City, I think that would really shake up some dynamics there.  The fights felt a little neutered, but that’s kind of in keeping with the show.  Hopefully we’ll see more of this kind of cross-company team ups.

Thanks for reading.

Does DC Hate their Fans?

Probably one of the worst things any company, any agency can do is under-utilize it’s assets.  That is why I have dim predictions for Warner Bros./DC Comics future film ventures.

It starts with their announcement that they will be producing a Justice League film set to debut (in it’s first installment) in 2017.  Here is my concern; Since last year DC Comics, via the CW Network, has been producing rock solid live action adaptations for their characters, and while this practice started with Arrow, it really lifted off the ground and gained altitude with the Flash, starring Grant Gustin.  His portrayal of the Scarlet Speedster lends a level of credibility to the shared TV universe as well as a believability to the idea of a man who can run faster than the speed of sound.  Grant has quickly come raced (pun intended) forward as a fan favorite, and easily won the honor of being the definitive portrayal of Barry Allen.

Coupled with that, CW DC will be expanding its universe by including a third spin off series featuring Hawkgirl, standing alongside already established heroes as the Atom, Black Canary, Wild Cat, and Arsenal.  CBS, by way of Warner Bros. television has picked up Supergirl, who is being produced by many of the same people who already brought us the CW DC, so many that, while plans for a cross over aren’t set in stone, they are still open to the idea, so for arguments sake, let’s say they are in the same shared universe.

So to do a quick recap, we have: Arrow, Flash, Black Canary, Atom, Supergirl, Hawkgirl, Wild Cat, Firestorm, Arsenal, soon Vixen, and a slew of villains in the CW DC.

In the shared film universe we have Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Cyborg.

We already have a Justice League.  Yet WB is apparently going for a separation between the TV Universe and the Movie Universe with the diverging point being the Flash, who in the Movie Universe is slated to be played by Ezra Miller.

This is where my head hit the desk.  Why, why would you not cast the guy who brought a new generation of fans to the character?  These fans want to give you their money, let them see their familiar face on the big screen with a stupidly huge budget!

I can’t talk about DC’s movie ventures without at least addressing the ridiculous success of Marvel’s current projects.  Why are Marvel’s projects so successful while DC’s have been, shall we say less than fortuitous?  Because Marvel wants to bring the best possible product to the table, they want to bring a story that is engaging to fans of all ages.  Man of Steel caught a lot of flak because they went for a dark and grittier Superman origin.  While that was not necessary in the least, I can appreciate them trying to bring the Superman mythos into the 21^st century.  Who else did they try to make dark and gritty?  Green Arrow.  They called him “Arrow”, made him talk like he needed a cough drop something fierce, and let him kill people.  And the fans did not like this.  While there was enough support to keep the show going, they eventually had to change the tone of the show.  They did this by dropping the “he kills people angle” and with the introduction of the Flash allowed stories to get a little lighter.  Not too much lighter, but a little.  Shared character Felicity Smoak in the Flash episode “All Star Team Up” even commented that “Central City was the fun city, while Starling was the serious one.”

So where is this rant going?  Well, I can appreciate the desire to step things up for the block buster films WB is planning, I don’t think they should ignore what they are doing on the small screen.  Tone Superman down, make him a little lighter, let the colors of the character pop, visually and figuratively.  Batman can still be dark and gritty, and still share the same universe as Superman.  I think that will ease a lot of fans who honestly want to bring their kids to a Superman or Batman flick.

As for the divergent universes, this can be salvaged by DC’s own history.  In writing this I came to peace with the fact that TV and Movie were going to be separate.  However this can be a good thing, because every now and then DC has to have their core universe butt heads with an alternate one and call it “Crisis”.  You have established two Flashes, a character that can move so fast he can alter time or, in some cases, pop straight out of his own universe into another.  Play on that.  Let that be your big cinematic moment.  Marvel will ramp things up to Civil War, and that’s what Marvel does.  They keep you grounded in politics that happen to involve super heroes.  Let DC’s defining moment be when you rip a hole in your own continuity and their characters have to deal with the fall out of not some legislation, but their own counterparts from other universes.

I can respect DC wanting to be different from Marvel, but please follow their footsteps in one area…respect your fans.