Part I of IV

“Where’s Bill?”

There are movies, books, plays and poems in everyone’s life that they can look back at and say that it inspired them to do something or changed their life in some way. Kill Bill Vol.1 and 2 are two of those seminal movies for me, but not for the obvious reasons. Rather the movies cemented my adoration for the movies of Quentin Tarantino. It’s far too long a story to get into, maybe I’ll tell it one day, but suffice to say that if I had to choose to be understudy to one screenwriter it would be Tarantino.

Regarding Kill Bill Vol. 2, does anyone remember the scene towards the end when Bill shoots The Bride full of truth serum? And while waiting for the serum to take effect Bill (played by David Carradine) goes off into one of those typical off-topic Tarantino rants that circles around the block a few times and then finally comes back home and you realize what the point of it was. The rant was about Superman. From IMDB.com:

“An essential characteristic of the superhero mythology is, there’s the superhero, and there’s the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When he wakes up in the morning, he’s Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristic that Superman stands alone. Superman did not become Superman, Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he’s Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red “S”, that’s the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears, the glasses, the business suit, that’s the costume. That’s the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He’s weak, he’s unsure of himself… he’s a coward. Clark Kent is Superman’s critique on the whole human race.”

Ah, so. Suddenly it all becomes so clear.

For some reason that particular rant struck a particular chord with me this week, so I set out to see what people on the internet were saying about it. One of the more memorable/funny quotes was from peiratikos.net who said:

“…frankly I’m surprised at the number of people I’ve encountered who seem deeply impressed by this allegedly brilliant interpretation. What did you folks think Superman was about?”

My dear Steven, please allow us casual fans of comic books some leeway in terms of getting the bigger picture. While it may be obvious for fans of the superhero genre to easily pick apart the motivations of a character, most people get their superhero fix thru the occasional Superhero movie that comes out once a year or so.

So what do you think about Bill’s rant? Personally I never really liked Superman as a comic character; he seemed far too hokey, too goody-goody. Especially in this time in which the comic industry seems to be trying to put a more human face on their superheroes by exploring the depth of personalities Superman seemed far too one dimensional to me. But in the words of Bill I find his dissection of Superman “fascinating” (you will also do well to know that Quentin Tarantino “borrowed” the idea for the Superman rant from a book titled “Great Comic Book Heroes” which was published over 40 years ago).

I wrote a post earlier about Bizarro Superman, who for the most part did things the opposite way that Superman did them. He said “Hello,” when he left and “Goodbye” when he entered. He rewarded his child for being bad, things like that. IMO Superman, the REAL Superman not Bizarro, is like the Bizarro Human Being.

Superman is super strong. Most human beings can’t outlift a 3 year old female chimpanzee.

Superman is brave. Most people are not (I don’t want to hear your American soldiers in Iraq stories. They’re ORDERED to go there. They didn’t go voluntarily. They get no bravery props from me for just showing up and doing the job they were hired to do).

Superman can fly and see thru buildings. Obviously humans cannot.

On the surface it seems like Superman is some juvenile’s fantasy. Wouldn’t it be cool to fly and see thru women’s dresses and pick up a house???!!! Of course it would. But what about Clark Kent?

Clark Kent is Superman’s human visage. He wears glasses, he’s shy, he’s not brave, he can’t talk to women, he gets picked on and just bends over and takes it. Like Bill said, Clark Kent is who Superman PRETNEDS to be to fit in with us, which means that he genuinely thinks that a substantial amount of the population must be like the character he has created so that he can blend in easily. Clark Kent is Superman’s way of mocking the human race. Clark Kent is Superman’s way of condemning the human race for what he views as weaknesses and short comings. There are plenty of headstrong, physically strong people that Superman could have patterned the Clark Kent character after, but instead he chose an insecure, shy, four-eyed journalist as his visage.

Discuss.

I just came across a piece of pure hilarity (I know that’s not a word) on the Internet, but alas, I will not give credit because this person does not deserve credit

I’ve been thinking about pumping out some comic book scripts lately, and I’ve been doing the requisite research. Of course I couldn’t have done any serious research on comic books without at least broaching the topic of Superman. I of course, like anyone else who ever watched at least one episode of “Seinfeld” has heard of the infamous “Bizarro Superman” episode, where Jerry goes into this long diatribe about Bizarro Superman, who theoretically is the exact opposite of Superman. He says goodbye when he enters and hello when he leaves. He rewards his kid for bad behavoir (Bizarro Superboy of course) and even has a wife named Bizarro Lois.

From “This am Bizarro Page:

A grotesque imitation of Superman fashioned out of lifeless matter. Clad in an invulnerable costume just like Superman’s and endowed with all of his mighty super-powers, Bizarro possesses a dim copy of Superman’s super-keen mind. His flesh is white, the color of chalk, and his face appears faceted, as though it had been chiseled out of rock. His black hair is matted and unkempt. He is well-meaning but witless, super-powerful but pathetic. His speech is illiterate and ungrammatical. Because Bizarro’s mind is an imperfect imitation of Superman’s, however, he is capable of flights of occasional super-genius. Because he possesses dim duplicate memories of all that Superman knows, he is well aware that Clark Kent is secretly Superman.

So let me get this straight. He is the exact opposite of Superman, but his skin is chalk-white? Shouldn’t he be black? Seriously. Superman is white, and Bizarro Superman should be black!

Now given that Bizarro Superman was conceived of in the 1960’s I’m not surprised that the Bizarro version wasn’t black. The only possible black superhero characters that could have existed in those days were

• JANITORMAN! Saving little negro school children with his super powered mop.
• DOMESTIC GIRL! Maid/Nanny by day, crime fighter by night.
• MR. SHORTORDER COOK! Dem knives ain’t just for cookin’!

But then realizing that the opposite of White Superman should be a Black Superman, then you start to realize a whole host of other screwups by the boys at DC.

• Superman is super strong. Shouldn’t Bizarro be super WEAK?
• Superman can fly. Bizarro at a minimum shouldn’t be able to fly. Taken to an extreme he should only be able to crawl around on the ground. Hissing of course.
• Superman is good looking. Bizarro should be ugly.
• Superman is tall with big muscles. Bizarro should be short and fat.
• Clark Kent has a pretty girlfriend who is too stupid to recognize him as Superman with his glasses off. Conversely Bizarro should live at home with his crippled mother who beats him.
• Superman has a job at a newspaper. Bizarro should be sitting at home lounging in his BarcaLounger collecting Disability checks (from the crawling).

So from this short list we can say that Bizarro Superman SHOULD be a short, fat, super weak black man who lives at home with an abusive mother and collects disability checks. You think that’d sell?