"Dopey Is Sacred Here"

Actual photo of Superman and God,
proving that they are not one-and-the-same person.
No photographic evidence yet clearing Clark Kent, however.

I don't moderate all my comments, though I try to read most of them.

Among the comments not moderated by me was one that my co-moderator would only refer to as "nasty."

It said something along the lines that I should be (literally) arrested for saying anything disparaging about DC, and that the commentor was going to contact Blogger to have my blog taken down.

Meanwhile, 2000 dead in Georgia, Russia is at war, and an American has gotten stabbed to death at the Olympics. Today.

But what was really important to this person was that nobody disparage DC Comics or question their rights over Superman. (If it was indeed the Superman post he was referring to. It could have been those Countdown posts).

In this person's mind, there might have even been a connection to it all; that if we besmirch an American institution like DC, if we weaken its hold on Superman -- the "commies" win. Yeah, we might end up in a conflict with China or Russia one day -- and that's when we need Superman and the Justice Society intact. And we can't have people screwing around with Green Lantern, either.

It reminds me that some fans have a near-religious attachment to their superheroes. Scratch "near" -- it's just plain religious.


I mean, what do you do in a religion? You have sacred books. "Crisis." "Kingdom Come." "Infinite Crisis."

You also quote those books a lot, and refer to specific passages.

Then, there is the concept of what's canonical, and what's apocrypha. As you know, many many people have died in religious disputes over these issues -- and continue to do so.

But you just have to have continuity. Or else -- it all falls apart. And you can't let "wrongheaded" beliefs -- like Spider-Man shouldn't be with Mary Jane for the rest of his life -- hold sway. Because then you have heresy. And you know what they do with heretics.



Looking back on it, I feel DC knew very well the fervor with which their loyalest fans held to their characters. And this goes beyond standard comic book readership, to just people who idolize Superman or Batman but don't know a lot about the monthly comics themselves. I always thought that if DC could really get those particular fans to buy the comics, they'd really be swimming in dough.

So at DC I was told that we had a very special job -- we were the caretakers of icons.

As such, there was a protocol, especially for the most popular characters.

"Superman" can't do this, "Batman" can't do that. The logos on the chest had to be drawn just right. And Power Girl's breasts needed to be a certain size. Seriously. It's a trademark.

But there was a sense that we were to avoid any scandal relating to the company or the characters at all costs -- that nothing should darken the aura of Superman in any way, directly or indirectly.

And we took that pretty seriously. That's why a lot of us were very neurotic about doing the wrong thing -- in terms of how we interacted with the public, in terms of what the characters were allowed to say in their word balloons, everything. I know some people joke about DC being "The Kremlin" -- this is probably why.


And for companies that have such iconic characters as Superman in their stable, this can be common.

Take, for example, Disney. When I was editing Disney books for Acclaim, one of our writers came up with a story called "Dopey The Genius," in which the Snow White character temporarily becomes smart. Disney completely rejected this on the grounds that it too radically challenged the concept of "Dopey." As our Disney contact told us: "Dopey is sacred here."


Obviously, Superman is not Dopey. Neither is he God. Neither is he a real person.

What Superman is, at best, is an inspirational symbol. But inspirational symbols are tricky.

You should let the symbol inspire you, but you shouldn't get too attached to it. Let Superman inspire you "in the moment" -- but then step out of that headspace and admit to yourself that he was a character created by two kids who were in turn inspired by other heroes. Admit to yourself that back in the 1940s, the company that would eventually become DC Comics took a chance on a concept, saw that it had a lot of potential, and sought to retain as much rights and financial gain on the concept as possible -- as many companies did and do.

Admit to yourself that one day, DC Comics will lose the exclusive copyright on Superman, and that many many artists and writers of varying degrees of talent and varying motives and political leanings will seize upon this character and do a 1,000 different things with it.

Yes. They will. A few might even make him gay.

And what will be done then? Will a holy war be declared to suss out just who the "correct" Superman is? Is it like "Crisis On Infinite Earths" -- but for real???

And as much lip-service as is paid to the Loyalists -- and indeed, DC has of late largely shaped their output to cater to them -- when the new generations are in full bloom, and if the tide changes, and if the 2012 equivalent of Rob Liefeld and Alan Moore shows up on the doorstep of collective comic book culture with the Latest Thing, those sacred continuities and characterization might just be bent and morphed to serve the current climate.

***

I don't cotton to the notion of superheroes or fictional characters as religious icons. I mean, it's fun to look at it all and play around with the concept, in Joseph Campbellian terms -- it's a nice place, and all, but I wouldn't want to live there.

I think religion -- real religion, that induces faith and mobilizes people to act -- is something very very delicate. The thought of that mixed with the place where I got my free comps every week and which fed me potato chips from the conveniently-placed vending machines -- kinda makes want to vomit. That, and the idea of Power Girl as the Virgin Mary. Or Mary Marvel as the Virgin Mary, for that matter.

And one of the things that religious fervor can -- but certainly not always -- do is make one excuse/cover up whatever indiscretions, scandals, negativities, and wrongs that have been committed by the agents of said religion. Because the power of the religion -- or the government, or family unit, or what have you -- is in the belief in its essential infallibility.

In such a mindset, the Siegel situation is a potential apocalypse -- Siegel and Siegel's heirs being considered the Adversary. What is worth more: Superman the intact icon with the DC bullet (or is that a swirl?) to the top left of him, or some creator's rights issues? Icon of millions versus some heirs to some guy?

But if you really love Superman -- Superman in its entirety, the real Superman -- you have to take it all into consideration. You can't hate its creator.

If you really idolize a person or an icon or an entity, but blind yourself to any warts that might obscure the picture -- you're worshiping something that is incomplete, and largely a product of your own mind more than its reality. You don't have to focus on the warts -- but shooting the messengers and burying the victims doesn't make the warts go away.

Then again, you can worship Dopey...