Superman and his not-so-secret origin

I just read issue 3 of Secret Origin - the new (sigh) origin tale for Superman. As if the public wasn't well aware of his origin story as it is - it's a tactic to not only sell books but to smooth out continuity somehow - but instead of a tasteful retcon in current books, it's going to take a whole 6 issue origin tale. It's bad enough that the books so far have accepted whole heartedly the idea from Smallvile (cue puking noise) that Lex Luthor and Clark Kent both lived in Smallville and knew each other, but it seems that a lot of the sense of originality behind the 2003 reboot attempt by Mark Waid, Birthright, seems to be gone. As controversial as that reboot was, I loved it mainly because it really gave us a modern Superman, and was an excellent jumping off point for the character in the new decade. Plus it had plenty of original ideas that actually made Superman an interesting character. Not so with Geoff Johns' offering, which I can say, although I've enjoyed certain story beats in the arc, it's still far from the man's best writing.

The Superman:The Movie references that abound in this particular issue weren't even "wink and a nudge" - they were about as subtle as a Sherman tank. I thought we were getting an interesting new take on Superman with a few mixes of past mythologies, not a rehash of the freaking movie and bits of the show Smallville (ugh). The S:TM worship has been happening in recent comics way too much for it to even be "cute" or considered an homage at all. Right now it's just copious and lazy, lazy writing. In the years since the Byrne reboot, this is all we have to show for it?

This is the same kind of lazy writing that doomed Superman Returns to be nothing more than a cutesy retelling of the 1978 movie. So far, Secret Origin #3 just showed us Superman:The Movie set in a time with cellphones and email. Great.

Clark's outright bungling clumsiness was also pushing it a bit. I much preferred Birthright's take on it. The justification for that story was so much stronger: blend in completely, be a wallflower, so that no one could ever think you're putting on an act to cover up the fact that you're a superhero. It made sense there - I don't know whether Johns is just spread too thin these days with writing for Blackest Night, Green Lantern, the Flash, the show Titan Maximum, etc. but I think it took its toll on him on these issues with some of the lazy devices he's been using.

The good stuff: the stuff that wasn't aping Superman:The Movie. The public's slight mistrust upon seeing Superman and not just immediately accepting him as a good guy. The re-christening of the powerful material as "Metallo". Lois' character design was very nice - she had a nice frame and didn't fall prey to the disproportionate female character design most comics characters have.

That leads me to the absolute highlight of the series: the art is fantastic. I can at least see why Geoff Johns goes the Superman:The Movie route with some of the writing because Gary Frank just runs with the Christopher Reeve look for Clark and Superman, which I think is fast becoming the iconic look for the character for the 2000s. The other character designs aren't that much of an homage, but they look really, really good. The covers have also been really good, where each one takes us through an important stage in Clark's life - plus it's the hokey "line em up" technique which actually does make the series worth collecting by single issue.

They say there are no original stories, just very good retellings. Well, my friend Matt says that, but it's quite true. That's the reason I even bothered with Secret Origins: even though it's a story we've heard a thousand times, it's always worth investigating whether it's being told well. It's about 60% there, I'd say - again, unlike Mark Waid's Birthright, Johns still hasn't really gotten to showing us a Clark/Superman that we can actually find interesting. Which is a shame, since he's now a custodian of a character that both Bryan Singer as well as the assclowns behind Smallville have failed to deliver as compelling. What Johns has managed to do well is to give us an interesting tale of Superman's backdrop: Smallville, his parents, the Daily Planet staff. Perhaps while Batman is defined by his rogues gallery, Superman is defined by the people around him. Weird toothy smiles or not, his gallery of...cohorts? shines pretty well.

I'll follow the series through, but for now, if I want an origin tale, I'll either stick to Birthright or John Byrne's 80's riffic yet still awesome Man of Steel. Never read it? Think of Clark as the 80's guy from Futurama. But with less bone-itis.