ESSENTIAL // 2.13.03

SUPERMAN FOR ALL SEASONS
by Dave Potter

SUPERMAN FOR ALL SEASONS
Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale
DC Comics
$14.95, 208 pages
ISBN: 1563895293
STAR16903

I will freely admit that I agree with the main criticism of the super hero genre: its far too dominant in the marketplace for the long-term health of the industry.

So why am I writing a piece about the original super hero character and labeling it as essential reading? Because the truth of the matter is, corporate properties such as Superman are extraordinary outreach opportunities to the vast majority of Americans who are not, at present (judging by sales figures) buying and reading comics.

And the other truth of the matter is, there are far too few "outreach" super hero books on the shelves today, books that are accessible and interesting and mind-opening for readers that are taking their first steps in exploring the medium.

Take the latest example. The show SMALLVILLE is smashing ratings records lately. Granted, its rating records for the WB, which isn't even a real television network, but let's run with the idea for a second. It'll help illustrate another important disparity.

SMALLVILLE, which isn't even one of television's top rated shows, regularly draws a seven digit viewing audience. By comparison, the comics from which the television show draws its inspiration sell maybe five figures at best. Tens of thousands of readers versus a few million viewers.

What's vexing is, there's not really anything in the comics to offer to a viewer of SMALLVILLE that might be curious to explore the characters roots. For all the grief at Marvel Comics when that publishing company failed to cash in on the visibility and popularity of the X-MEN movie a few years, DC Comics has utterly failed to do something to date to cash in on the success of the TV show aired by a sister company.

Enter SUPERMAN FOR ALL SEASONS. Published long before SMALLVILLE was even a glint in the WB's eye, this book is a perfect companion for fans of the show. If you pick it up you'll instantly recognize that the same themes are being explored with the same characters and in the same settings.

SMALLVILLE, for all the dismissive talk of being Dawson's Creek with superpowers, treats its iconic main character like an icon, which SUPERMAN FOR ALL SEASONS is meticulously constructed to do as well. It doesn't disappoint.

Writer Jeph Loeb constructs a tale in SFAS that looks at the underlying theme explored in the idea of watching a young Superman grow up in SMALLVILLE: if a man has all these wonderful powers, why does he become a hero? In SMALLVILLE, a young Clark is still growing up, learning about his powers and people. The idea of Metropolis and Superman are far off in his future, thoughts not even formed enough to express.

SFAO starts off in this same environment, exploring how a young Clark makes the decision to move to Metropolis and become a hero. How he is confronted by the cruelty of man and evil, and realizes that he cannot solve every problem, save every life, right every wrong. And how he goes back for more after suffering this crisis of conscience.

Loeb very nicely uses each chapter as a thematic season in this journey-spring, summer, fall and winter. He also narrates each chapter by an important person in Superman's life: Jonathan Kent, Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, and Lana Lang.

The thing that makes SMALLVILLE work as an updating of the iconic Superman character is that the show understands what few comic writers seem to about successfully writing the character. Mark Waid, at a writing panel at last year's SDCC correctly noted that many writers feel that the character is not an interesting writing exercise because he's all powerful. And that's what misses the point. He is NOT all powerful, and has an all too familiar weakness.

His heart.

Superman is a character that is an all-powerful god raised as a mortal. He has mortal feelings and mortal attachments. He was raised by mortal parents, has mortal friends and is in love with a mortal.

Most importantly, this God isn't here from a grand utopian paradise to show us the way. He was raised, almost from birth, in an all too forgettable mortal town going through the same life experiences that we all did growing up.

SMALLVILLE gets that this is what makes Superman one of the great iconic characters in the last one hundred years of fiction. Jeph Loeb got it too. Its no coincidence that Loeb was added as a producer to SMALLVILLE once it hit its second season, and has written some of the shows best-received episodes.

Perhaps even more important to the success of SFAS than Loeb's understanding of the character as an icon is the artist's understanding of this as well. Artist Tim Sale gives us a young Clark Kent in a Smallville that looks like a Norman Rockwell painting. He moves us effortlessly from tornadoes in a Kansas wheatfield to the skyscrapers of Metropolis to an undersea submarine to high earth orbit.

Sale's panel construction is not the widescreen style that's become so prevalent of late, but he uses spacious panels on pages where he bothers with panels. On just as many, he gives us splash pages and double page spreads that convey the majesty and power of an icon at work. Conveying a sense of majesty and inspiring a mythic feeling whether its grand deeds or a boy talking to his high school sweetheart, Tim Sale nails the iconic nature of Superman, aided in no small part by a brilliant coloring job from Bjarne Hansen, who infuses each scene with the right lighting, texture and mood at a level that would do Peter Jackson proud.

Odds are, you know somebody who is a fan of SMALLVILLE. If they have any interest at all in exploring the medium from which the show came, there is no better book to place in their hands than SUPERMAN FOR ALL SEASONS. If they like the book, it can be a stepping stone to other works in the medium that they might enjoy.

So should you be angry that superheroes dominate the marketplace? Of course. But its also worth getting angry over the fact that in 65 years of continuous publication, this work is one of a handful of memorable and accessible stories for one of the great iconic characters this medium has produced.

SUPERMAN FOR ALL SEASONS is available for order from your local retailer with Diamond's STAR code STAR16903. If your retailer can't or won't order this book from the largest backlist publisher in North America using this handy dandy STAR code, we suggest you find a store that will.