The HOT-T-T news in comics this week is that, in Superman #13, Clark Kent has quit his job at the Daily Planet to start a website because print is dying and internet something something. I hate when they do this crap.
This is the kind of event in comics1 that gets mainstream attention precisely because mainstream society is not paying attention to comics the rest of the time. Think about all the times you’ve read about a comic book storyline in a newspaper article. Some character died. A character that’s been on TV is getting a new look. The Avengers are fighting the X-Men. All of these things are “dog bites man,” which does not become newsworthy just because some people do not pay attention to dogs. Comics Alliance put it best in their headline: “Superman Leaves ‘Daily Planet’ Newspaper For Third Or Fourth Time.”
Still, I can’t beat up on mainstream coverage of comics; after all, somebody has to make sure my dad hears that Green Lantern is gay. (Of course, somebody else ends up having to explain that it’s the Green Lantern he’s never heard of, in one iteration of a parallel universe. That person is usually my brother.) What really steams my hams is DC’s crude attempts to revitalize Superman with these stunts. Ultimately I do not trust that Scott Lobdell has any stories to tell about this event, or that DC particularly cares.
I complained about this last year when Superman renounced his citizenship (which led to exactly zero stories before being retconned away by the reboot), and I would argue the problem has only gotten worse. DC does not know what to do with Superman–sometimes I get the feeling he’s been lumped together with Aquaman in terms of “this character is embarrassingly silly but we have to publish stories about him anyway.” 2 In lieu of actual ideas about how to properly use Superman, DC can only constantly invert aspects of the character. Superman is the sole survivor of Krypton, so let’s introduce more survivors. Superman can fly, so here’s a story where he doesn’t fly. Superman has a thing for Lois, so now he doesn’t. Superman works at the Daily Planet, so here’s a story where he quits. Experimentation is fine, but it’s been about six years since I saw a Superman comic that was saying anything except “Look how hard we’re trying to make this not be a Superman comic.” If I wanted to read not a Superman comic, I’d buy Batman.
Past a point, these gimmicks lose meaning because the model they defy has been left so far behind. After everything else that’s been changed about Superman in the past year, is anyone really all that impressed that he’s going to break with tradition? Lobdell wants to jump into writing Superman with a cannonball splash, but so did Geoff Johns, J. Michael Straczynski and Grant Morrison, and by now all the water has been splashed out of the pool. So when Andy Diggle comes aboard with “Check this out…Superman’s abandoned his traditional costume for a black outfit!!!” it means absolutely nothing.
What Superman needs, I think, is consistency. Not necessarily tighter continuity, but just a general sense that this is the same character as he was 70, 20, or even three years ago. 3 Any idiot can decide to have Clark Kent, the most famous newspaper reporter in fiction, quit the newspaper business because “print is dying” and Superman has better things to do. What would be far more interesting is to explain why Clark would remain a newspaper reporter in spite of reaching those conclusions, which have presumably crossed his mind long before this week.
Personally I ain’t no writing genius or nothin’, but I’m willing to take a stab at rationalizing Superman’s adherence to a dying medium. First off, in the DC Universe the Daily Planet is on the same level as the New York Times, which is not going to cease print operations anytime soon and already has an online edition. Second, if Clark is so butthurt that the Planet covers trivial celebrity gossip, I’m pretty sure he could balance it out by posting some hard-hitting journalism to whatever blogs are on dailyplanet.com. Leaving to complain about it on his own website sort of sounds like giving up and running away, which are two things Superman doesn’t tend to do. Third, while the old “Clark uses the Planet‘s reporting to tell him where Superman is needed” concept doesn’t make sense anymore, the inverse is perfectly acceptable: Clark uses his exploits as Superman to discover the sources of injustice in the world, and reports those injustices in the Planet to tell the public where its help is needed in the never-ending battle. Headlines like “America needs to stop taking Lexcorp’s shit” or “Superman can’t end famine by himself, you guys” have more clout coming from a great metropolitan newspaper than the blogosphere.
Now, the rationalizations stated above may not be to your liking. But the point is, every incarnation of Clark Kent has worked at a newspaper for most of his adult life, so there must be some reason that overcomes the obvious problems with that arrangement. Figuring out what that reason is makes the difference between leaving your mark on an iconic character or petulantly deconstructing something that someone else is going to reconstruct once you’re gone. For example, “Lois doesn’t seem to notice Clark is Superman because she’s actually protecting his identity as an anonymous source” might be kind of clever. “Lois doesn’t notice Clark is Superman because comics are stupid so now Lois is suddenly not stupid” would be a childishly simplistic solution to the problem, which would not stand the test of time.
- “Event” as in “something that happens,” not “Secret Wars II continues in this issue.” [↩]
- The difference, of course, is that Arthur has gained faux outsider cred; he’s the Pabst Blue Ribbon to Clark’s Bud Light. [↩]
- Grant Morrison’s effort to revive Superman’s 1930s style of fighting for social justice was in this vein, although revising the role of the Phantom Zone in Kal’s origin story for the 900th time was not. [↩]
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I’m confused. I thought comics were supposed to completely reinvent themselves every three years or so, rebooting to allow outsiders to easily understand continuity and make sure that writers never have to figure out character growth or long-term ramifications of story events.
That’s why people read comics rather than books, right? The closed, limited, looping universes?
*DISCLAIMER: Snark administered by non-comics-fan who is infinitely grateful to film and television for making these characters accessible to her, and who is infinitely grateful to various wikis for catching her up on all the drama she’s missing by lacking the time and money to follow or catch up on any noticeable fraction of any major comic titles
Clark Kent leaving his job to be a blogger only really makes sense if the Daily Planet isn’t roughly equivalent to the Times or the Post.
I think DC -could- tell interesting stories with Clark as, essentially, the journalistic equivalent of a private investigator or hitman. “If you have a story, and no-one else will tell it, maybe Clark Kent will” isn’t a bad hook for both reporting adventures involving Clark, Superman adventures, and mixes of the two.
But leaving him at the Planet can generate so much more drama. Forcing Clark to deal with an editor who in turn is forced to deal with owners, advertisers, and the fact that his medium is basically dying is also a source of good stories.
I think I see what DC is stretching for here; they know print is becoming less relevant, and they have the (right) idea that Superman should be relevant in some way, so they’re moving him online to be an independent journalist.
I just don’t think they understand why print is dying, and I’m not sure anyone there has any idea how online-based independent journalism WORKS. There actually aren’t a lot of investigative reporters working via the medium. It’s mostly policy wonks (guys with actual credentials and expertise in a proven area, like economics) or opinion wonks (who tend to be affiliated with a larger institutions, e.g Andrew Sullivan and the Times/Atlantic/etc.)
Clark Kent is neither of those. Do they know HOW to use him online? I bet no.
I’m with Murc on this.
I actually really like the idea of Clark Kent as some sort of rogue journalist who gets the truth out when no one else will. I would totally read that series.
I feel like we’ve never actually gotten a story that really explores the idea of the Daily Planet dying. That might just my ignorance since I haven’t been interested in any Superman other than Morrison’s Action Comics for quite a while.
SilverHammerMan: The problem with doing a story about the Daily Planet dying is that it would require focusing on the Daily Planet for a while, even if it was just as a side story, and I don’t think DC will muster that kind of focus for Superman these days. But I think it could be really interesting, and would be a good lead in for Superman starting his own news website if, instead of quitting the Planet, he was hit as part of a massive layoff of Planet journalists.
I just have this image of Superman wearing his Clark Kent hat and blogging as he flies.
Does Superman need money?! Any child can come up with (legal) ways to make money with his powerset (x-ray vision to salvage lost treasures, that’s a few issues right there!), not to mention hitting up people/governments he has saved, or borrowing from Batman or Aquaman (who else is rich? Blue Beetle?). Seriously, if Superman asked YOU for a million, you’d try to help him out, right?
Profit doesn’t really seem to be Superman’s main focus, nor would running the website for political influence make sense (since as Superman, he wields enormous influence; and for the short-term, print dinosaurs still hold more influence and get better access).
The whole plot arc only makes sense if Superman really cares to any degree about having a successful, lucrative career. Otherwise, it is a distraction from life saving and villain defeating, etc. Running an independent journalism website is a 24-7 labor of love. Matt Drudge and Andrew Sullican are not fighting crime in their spare time. Superman doesn’t need a reason to stay at Daily Planet, he only needs a believable COVER reason. Huge difference.
A huge amen to everything you wrote.
And, as highlyverbal said, running your own successful website, journalism or otherwise, is a massive undertaking. I always saw Clark Kent working for a large publication as a way of making himself invisible, a cog in the machine. Having him run something changes that whole dynamic, how can he get away to change into the red and blue?
I can see it now: the EXCITING adventures of Clark Kent poring through his site’s comments section to weed out rude/racist/offensive comments. Can Superman stop people from being Wrong On The Internet in time to save the kitty stuck on a tree? Will Luthor hire a legion of trolls to spam Clark’s site in order to keep him too busy to investigate Lexcorp corruption? When the blog’s server is down, will Clark fail to update the blog on a timely manner when the Earth is in danger – and will his advertisers and readers understand the lack of informatives updates in a moment of crisis, or will they leave for a more dependable site? THIS IS IT, TRUE BELIEVERS!
“I do not trust that Scott Lobdell has any stories to tell.”
Fixed that for ya.
If they REALLY wanted him to be “reporting stories no one else will”, they should turn him into Art Bell.
Superman is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, literary inventions of the 20th century. If you can’t make money with Superman, it’s not Superman’s fault.
Does anyone else spot the bitter, bitter irony of DC publishing a comic about print as a dying medium?
Less bitter irony and more like complete cluelessness?
Just reading the comments above makes me believe the idea that “clark kent leaves the Daily Planet” was discussed as a joke, but some idiot with power at DC thought “Best Idea Ever!”
I got a dollar that says by a years time Clark will be back working at the Planet.
As someone who does some online content writing for extra money, I have really been enjoying this post and the replies. Especially the reply by Les Fontenelle. That was brilliant.
After following the link over to Comics Alliance and seeing Clark Kent complaining about the Planet covering reality show stars and stories of that nature… All I can say is that he better start his own blog.
If Superman wanted to do online content writing for most of the sites I’m aware of, he would get disgruntled in a hurry because–based on what gets the page views–many people who spend a lot of time on the Internet are more interested in things such as a hoax about Justin Bieber allegedly having cancer, what Kim Kardashian has been wearing lately. or weird stuff that happened on Honey Boo Boo than they are in real news most of the time.
If Supes wanted to be financially successful, he would probably have to hire some freelancers to generate the same kinds of fluffy content that he doesn’t like seeing in the Daily Planet. Or at the very least, do Cracked or iO9-style articles about nerdy pop culture stuff (“14 movies you loved as a child, but you shouldn’t because of the huge glaring plot holes”) in order to generate some traffic.
“He’s going to be the non-douchebag version of Drudge” isn’t very plausible as a business plan. It’s easier for me to believe in x-ray vision.
@Brian T. – Is this the kind of unbelievability you’re talking about?
Kirala, that is a hilarious article.
However, I was thinking more about the kinds of stuff they really publish over at the Huffington Post.
Right now, they have a bunch of substantial political articles and a big story about the freak storm on the East Coast. But they also have front page stories about Jennifer Aniston getting married, wardrobe malfunctions, “Madonna Booed at Concert” and a story about Kim Kardashian going to a costume party dressed as a mermaid.
Not exactly the hard news Superman would want to see on the front page. Unless he wanted to know why Leigh Weingus has decided to stop watching Suburgatory, I guess…
What I’m saying is, generally speaking, the Internet is worse than print in terms of generating the type of content that caused him to quit.
I can see Superman’s tell-all blog now:
“Ever Seen Batman and Bruce Wayne in The Same Room Together? SHOCKING EXCLUSIVE!”
“Sex and the (Bottle) City (of Kandor)”
“Which Costume Hero Has The Most Nip Slips? Pics Inside!”
“Lex Luthor Wins 2012 World’s Biggest Douchebag Award”
“Shocking Pics of WW on Themyscira Nude Beach: Wonder Woman Needs Wonder Bra”
“Is Guy Gardner: Warrior Actually Guy Gardner: Gay?”
(If Superman is a mean drunk, he’d be more terrifying as a tabloid writer.)
I’m actually okay with Clark leaving the Planet.
I can’t remember the last time that the Daily Planet was used as anything other than a convenient holding area for supporting characters that never get developed.
Periodically someone will try to do something interesting with Perry or Cat or Jimmy but then the next writer will come along and the whole slate gets wiped clean again.
I started reading Superman back issues during that brief window when Clark was a television reporter for WGBS. So the idea of Clark as a traditional print reporter was always a bit of step back for me. Besides, if we’re going to embrace the whole nu52 mantra of no sacred cows, this seems like a good place to start.
Not that it matters truthfully, in a less than a year I suspect Clark will be holding down a desk again at the Daily Planet and the status quo will grind on.
Y’all wanna impress ME, do it like the first season of the old George Reeves show, all film noir and everything.
Elasticlad I was thinking something similar while reading some of Jimmy Olsen’s late seventies/early eighties stories, where he’s actually a competent reporter. As a supporting character in the more recent superbooks, he never seems to be competent at anything, but nobody’s going to go full Silver Age goofball … so he turns up sort of pointless, except one of those characters with a permanent sinecure.