Highway 62

So, this week's comics, which were available today and not tomorrow like I previously thought.

Infinite Crisis #4
I want a shock. A surprise. I know, I'm probably looking in the wrong place. Though I get a chuckle out of the whole Crispus becomes the Spectre scene. Mostly because I saw it coming like three issues ago of GOTHAM CENTRAL. But then there was the whole "And if there is a God -- What'd we do to piss him off so damn much?" line.

Hey fictional characters! Good news! There is a god! He's called the author. I'm sure there's good reasons that he's all pissed off and in your grill, but as fictional characters, you don't get to know that.

At least, I think there's a good reason...

But let's talk about something more pleasant. I bet you know what I've got in mind. A little ALL STAR SUPERMAN #2. Oh yes.

If you're a hater, just skip the rest of this entry. That's okay, I won't hold it against you. Nor will I think any less of you.

What I really love about this series, besides the non-tortured Superman driven by angst and anguish (as oppsed to what we're getting a heaping helping of in the same as it ever was DCU--and if you think INFINITE CRISIS will change it, you've got another thing coming), besides the sense of scale and drama that Quitely puts on the page, besides the sharply, minimally-written characters, is the feeling of the casual impossible. That's something that's been totally lost in superhero comics (for the most part) of the last, I don't know, twenty years. And that was the thing that got me reading superhero comics in the first place.

The Fortress of Solitude encapsulates that better than even the trip to the sun in the first issue. The trophy room is home to both tragic icons (Kandor and the Titanic), but monuments to catastrophes averted (The space shuttle Columbia), as well as favorite comicbook icons. It's an impressive blend of symbols, and it's just out there. Morrison lets Quitely's art draw attention to these things, but there's no breathless prose explaining the significance of these objects. He doesn't need to, at least not by my reckoning.

And did I mention that the key to the Fortress fits in your hand, but weighs a billion pounds? Sure, it'd fall to the center of the earth and create its own gravitational pull with that kind of weight, but that's never a concern. Casual impossible. Like feeding a creature in the super-menagerie hand crafted miniature suns, or the time telescope which causes more problems than it solves. And is that Qward sitting in a storeroom?

Of course, the real casual impossibility is the destruction of Superman's secret identity as Clark Kent, as well as Lois' inability to believe it. Superman's hoisted on his own petard: his legendary honesty works against him and is undone when it's revealed that he's been lying for years and years. But even his honesty has limits, as he refuses to share with Lois the motivation for his words and actions--his impending mortality. Honesty and perception are the dramatic axis on which the story, yes, the story, revolves around. Sadly, there's a moment where that axis gets thrown with the revelation that Lois' increasingly paranoid actions is caused by exposure to some unknown chemical compound. Yes, that's right in fitting with the silver age Superman stories that Morrison acknowledges and references, but it does weaken the story he's telling right now.

However, the germ of that reaction, deceit in the face of Superman's supposed peerless honesty, still informs the story. And really, wasn't that what most of those silver age stories were all about? Superman finding a way to trick Lois and everyone else into believing he wasn't Clark Kent?

People complain that Superman is unbeatable, that there's no way to defeat him and that makes him boring, but Morrison's found a way around that. Even when he's ostensibly revealing all of his secrets and flinging himself wide open, he still can't let go completely. He can't publically acknowledge (or even privately to Lois) his own mortality. Nor can he let her enter his "forbidden room" (sort of a physical manifestation of the grim secret he's keeping. And that single secret makes even his innocuous birthday gift to Lois take on a sinister tone. That's where the conflict comes from. Sure, you may not be able to beat Superman physically, but he can trap up himself with doubt.

I said doubt, not angst. Just 'cause this version of Superman has doubts doesn't mean he's a neurosis-ridden mess. Thank goodness for that.