Let's learn cause and effect with Superboy in "The Cigar that Killed Superboy!"

Ever hear of carcinoma, Superboy? As Pa Kent learned the hard way, lung cancer is the most common cancer-related death in America. Remember kids, "super-convenience" may seem swell, but you'll feel far less guilty if you make your parents get their own matches! Better luck with your next set of parents, Kal-El!

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Headlines across the internet are screaming about a chimpanzee named Travis that went bananas and mauled a family friend. I first noticed the story when I flipped past MSNBC, which had apparently had enough of reporting the terrible news from Wall Street ("DOW in Bottomless Free Fall!" "Automakers Beg for $20 Billion More!" "New Investment Scammer Revealed!") today and turned to an in-depth investigation of the case of the crazy chimp.

Travis was apparently treated like a member of the family for over a decade, even joining the family at the dinner table. (Which makes the owner's reported screams of "Just shoot him!" make me wonder how she treats her real children.) Every incident report about the situation includes something similar to "he appeared in advertisements for Coca-Cola." I'm sure that the suits at Coke never considered their association with a sociopathic chimp when they were casting for the part of star Coke-swilling monkey: "Kill Humans! Drink Coke! Ahhhhhh!"

Now, I'm no fan of the primate. ("They're like little, furry people," supporters say, and that's exactly why I hate them.) But, I don't really think this is that big a story, people. It just seems to me like we're looking for something other than the now-commonplace bad economic news. So we've turned to "Monkey Mauls Man" as escapist fantasy.

I mean, who didn't see this coming? Animals snap all the time. (If it were a human, we'd say they "went postal" or whatever phrase is en vogue these days.) We've all seen Planet of the Apes, Monkey Shines, and The Wizard of Oz. We've all read The Monkey's Paw, The Jungle Book, and Curious George. We're all familiar with >shudder< Gleek.

They may seem friendly, start out as "helpers," but soon they're going through the garbage, cooking methamphetamine over your stove, and beating the hell out of your loved ones. Monkeys are bad news. Always have been, always will be. Stay away, people, stay away. Let global warming do it's job.

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I swear, DC is trying to drive me away from comic books altogether.

Honestly, the only reason that I still buy comic books is because I've been collecting Batman and Detective Comics for as long as I can remember. I didn't start at birth, so I've had to do some catching up. But I now certainly own every issue that has been published in my lifetime. It's that sort of loyalty to the adventures of a stupid fictional character who dresses like a bat that has me shelling out however much cash DC Comics charges me on a monthly basis. (I'm not old enough for 10¢ comics, yet I do distinctly remember when "Still only 75¢" stopped meaning anything.)

Once upon a time, heroes were jovial fellows who did the right things for the right reasons. Back then, might didn't make right, but it could make things better. But things began to change; the heroes began to have doubts and flaws. Gradually, the heroes became humans. Soon there came a Crisis on Infinite Earths, and things changed. In the world that survived the Crisis, only the annual ritual sacrifice of some former hero could save the Universe from total destruction. Morbid? Maybe. But it was still better than things to come.

A few years ago, DC published Identity Crisis, a surprisingly dark tale springing from a rape, murder, and slavery for the sake of pure shock value that began the slippery slope away from moral superheroics into the morass of psychological despair that now seems to drive modern comic books. Soon characters were being slaughtered left and right to keep the shock and awe campaign going. Before long, there was Infinite Crisis, in which Wonder Woman was painted as a common murderer and Batman's paranoia had created the most dangerous weapon since the atomic bomb. By the end of that series, the heroes of a previous generation were revealed to be the villains of today: one Superboy murdered another while multiple Supermen were reduced to squabbling over territory like feral dogs.

Now there's been a Final Crisis, a truly unreadable pile of shit (sorry, but there's no way to sugarcoat it) whose encyclopedia of minor characters is targeted at longtime fanboys while ignoring the conventions of storytelling, heroics, morality, and defined character that those fanboys would theoretically hold dear. True to form, DC killed off several major characters simply for "wow" factor. As you may have guessed by now among those characters is Batman.

So DC, in the infinite wisdom of Dan Didio (and by infinite, I mean the man is a bottomless pit), will not publish Batman or Detective for the foreseeable future. Sure, they'll be coming back, but so much for a run uninterrupted since 1939. And I find myself asking if should I be thanking them for making it so easy to walk away.

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And while I'm bitching about black football jerseys, I may as well complain about black uniforms in general. (Let's just chalk it up to Bitch Inertia. "A complaint in motion tends to stay in motion.") Though I could be talking about the home uniforms of the New Orleans Saints, in this case, I'm referring to Spider-Man's black costume. Hell, let's go ahead and include every black super-hero costume. (Villains are excluded. They're supposed to be evil, remember? So Black Manta, you're excused from this conversation. Go rob a sandbank or something.)

See, once upon a time in 1973, Marvel got it in their heads to give Namor, the Sub-Mariner a black costume. Sure, it seemed innocuous enough at the time, especially since Namor didn't have much of a costume other than a green Speedo and some little wings on his ankles. However, the new costume failed the first test of superheroic costume design; namely, a good superhero costume design should identify the hero and his powers at first sight. The new costume was terribly ugly and seemed to say little more than "I, Prince Namor, King of the Sea, am ready to disco!" Not surprisingly, Namor's comic was cancelled soon afterwards. Though this swift cancellation would seem to have serve something of a mandate that the black costume was unwelcome, the damage had been done: at least one fan thought, "hey, a costume in all black would be great!"

By 1984, that poor, misguided child had grown up into a poor, misguided man, and Spider-Man was given a new costume. Replacing the famously creepy red and blue costume with a black unitard may be the greatest error in comic book history. Between issues, Spider-Man went from friendly neighborhood wall-crawler to mopey, self-indulgent anti-hero. It turns out that the black costume was really a semi-sentient alien symbiote seeking to devour Spider-Man. (I told you that black costumes were no good, Spidey. But did you listen...?) Yet the fans seemed to enjoy seeing a classic design, perhaps the most clever costume in comics history, carelessly discarded for a shapeless, colorless travesty.

This, of course, started a trend of new heroes dressed in all black. Soon every movie with a superhero in it featured a black costume. Batman and the X-Men cashed in their leotards for black leather. And the sickness spread. When Superman briefly "died" in 1993, we mourned his resurrection in a suit notable for it's lack of color. Gone was the traditional blue, red, and yellow. In the garishly decorated world of the 4-color funny pages, "black costume" equals "death" or worse, "cancellation." Still the fans cried for more.

A decade later, we should have seen it coming. Poor Superboy, once a rebel wearing a *gasp* black leather jacket (what a clever nod at the time: a super-hero who wore his tights underneath the mandated black leather!), was suddenly wearing a black t-shirt and blue jeans by 2002. Not just black, but also not even a super costume! Horrors! Is this the logical conclusion for "realism" in superhero comics? If I were to suddenly gain super powers, would I be limited to what was already hanging in my closet? (Smallville, I'm looking at you!)

Fortunately, there may be a happy end in sight to this terrible trend. Shortly after Superboy turned his back on spandex, he was killed in a battle with an alternate-universe Superboy. And the murderous mirror universe twin still wore his classic red, blue, and yellow tights! It's pretty hard to cheer for the "hero" when the "villain" is meeting out the cosmic justice for blatant uniform violation. I guess when the good guys wear black, the bad guys have to change with the times. (Maybe you should still be paying attention after all, Black Manta.)

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On today's very special semi-final "Teen Tournament" episode of Jeopardy!, none of the brainiac children knew that the imperfect foe of Superman with two consecutive "r"s in his name was "Bizarro." What is America's youth coming to when no one knows who Bizarro is? (The one kid brave enough to buzz-in guessed "Who is Lex Luthor?" Great Caesar's ghost!)

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On the upside, I did get to hear Alex Trebek pronounce the name of Bizarro's home planet, "Htrae."

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Today I wore a Fantastic Four logo t-shirt with my Superboy leather jacket, and the sales staff at Best Buy, EB Games, and Kroger all gave me grief about wearing Marvel and DC trademarks together. I was impressed by the knowledge that these people had about comic book publishers and copyrights. Though they were admittedly all much, much younger than I am, each property had a movie in the past 2 years, so I shouldn't be too surprised, I suppose. In any event, long live comic books!

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I've now seen Superman Returns, and it sucks, just like I expected it would. Though, to be fair, I expect most things to suck, so this indicates no special prediction on my part. However, most of my pre-viewing complaints were proven completely accurate.

Sure, Routh does a fine job of impersonating Christopher Reeve, and Spacey makes a passable Gene Hackman. Too bad they were playing Superman and Lex Luthor instead. The rest of the cast seemed almost carelessly chosen. Bosworth's Lois is way too young and entirely too emotional. (Note to all future actresses who want to portray Lois: see Jennifer Jason Leigh in The Hudsucker Proxy and emulate that. THAT's Lois Lane.) Langella's Perry White and Marsden's Richard White both lacked substance, but it could have just been poor scripting. Everything else was. And that's what tanked this baby.

The producers of the movie would have done well to follow the old entertainment maxim, "give 'em what they want." Superman is nearly 70 years old and has profitably appeared on popular radio, television, and movie programs for decades. Why now did they decide to modify the costume and give him a child? They didn't update Jimmy (other than giving him a digital camera) or Perry, Smallville or Ma Kent. No, the one thing that they shouldn't have changed is the one thing that they messed up. Here's a hint for the next film, Singer: if it ain't broke, keep your damn hands off it.

Stop reading now if you don't want spoilers to the movie.

The universal gripe with the movie is Lois' child. Just as every real human being can tell that Clark Kent and Superman are the same person, every real audience goer can tell that the child is Clark's long before the "big reveal" when the child KILLS SOMEONE. The mere presence of this child completely ruins the story of the film, presenting an insurmountable obstacle to the necessary suspension of disbelief required to enjoy any fictional film, especially one with flying men.

First of all, I refuse to believe that Clark Kent would leave the planet Earth after having unprotected sex with Lois Lane before confirming that she was not pregnant. I don't know one American male who has had unprotected sex who hasn't at least briefly worried about the possibility of unwanted pregnancy. (It's the American Protestant upbringing, I suspect.) Even though he's an alien, I don't think Superman is that different from other Americans in that respect. I know that church-going Pa Kent gave young Clark the Birds-and-the-Bees story at least once, so I'm pretty sure that Clark knew the consequences of a wild night out with Little Superman in the driver's seat.

Since this film is built on the stories of Superman and Superman II, it is perfectly reasonable to suppose that Superman could have knocked up Lois during the hours when he was powerless during Superman II. And under post-Crisis on Infinite Earths continuity, Superman didn't gain his powers until adolescence, saving Lois from any mortal wounds while carrying the super-sired child. This certainly bypasses the potential difficulty of super-sperm as related in Larry Niven's infamous essay. But I still say the Superman that I was weaned on would have checked in on the action in Lois' womb once his powers returned before departing for the remains of Krypton. It would have been the right thing to do. He would simultaneously be easing his own guilty mind while confirming his beloved Lois' state of health before abandoning her on his search for his roots. Anything else would have been cowardly, an adjective that should never be applied to Superman.

Secondly, during the course of the story, Superboy reveals that he has super-powers by killing a man with a piano. Though this action is in defense of his mother, the child should never have had to perform this action. One of the moral tenets that has served Superman well over the years has been the belief in the sacred right to life. Though Superman has had to deal with many crooks, thugs, miscreants, gangsters, criminals, and murderers, he has never killed any of them, thanks to the rigid moral upbringing that he received from his parents. He would be horrified if his progeny used his powers in such a way as to result in someone's death. The manslaughter of the criminal cannot be justified as self-defense for the child or the mother because if the child does have super-human power such as Superman, he had the means to prevent the death though other applications of super-strength. The child's choice to use strength kill was inevitably a failure by the parents, since the child could never be expected to make such a rational use of his power with his limited understanding of the world. He is, after all, a child. Lois' refusal to admit that the child was Superman's and Superman's refusal to live up to his responsibility resulted in the child receiving poor moral guidance for such inevitable situations. (Any child of Lois Lane is going to end up in life-threatening danger. It's in the genes.)

Worse yet, during the movie, Clark Kent is shown in a bar drinking a Budweiser with Jimmy Olsen. Ignoring the question of whether bow-tied Jimmy Olsen is old enough to drink beer, what is this scene supposed to show other than a promotion of an Anheuser-Busch product? Superman doesn't drink beer! Though he's presumably immune to the effects of alcohol (as well as any additional poisons), Clark would never drink booze, especially in front of his impressionable pal, Jimmy.

Superman is paranoid that he might lose control of his powers and harm someone. The theme of irresponsible use of power has been part of Superman's mythos since his radio days. There's a television episode ("Superman in Exile") where he chastises scientists for not knowing what powers they are unleashing from the atom. The Superman I grew up with wouldn't even risk imbibing and damaging his own judgment. He also wouldn't encourage Jimmy to drink by setting a bad example himself. Though it may be acceptable for Jimmy to kick one back and relax after work, Clark shouldn't and wouldn't encourage him. However, if Jimmy wanted to drink chocolate milk, that's a Quik Bunny of a different color. Superman has pitched everything from Kellogg's Frosted Flakes to Radio Shack Computers to American Express Credit Cards. But so far as I'm aware, he's never pitched for anything quite so dangerous or controversial as alcohol before. What's next? Superman handguns? After this movie, it ought to be condoms. Tsk, tsk, Warner Brothers, for handling a product placement in such an irresponsible manner.

It's clear that Singer and company simply don't understand what makes Superman super. More accurately, they probably don't care, preferring to make their fame and fortune by putting their stamp on an American icon. Singer and pals decided to simply tweak a formula established by a previous director in order to jumpstart a cash cow franchise. Nevermind that the 70s movies have a few plot problems and Christopher Reeve is dead. Nevermind that Superman is among the most well-known and cherished of American icons. They figured that they would just push on, changing all of the wrong things, and audiences would love it. It's exactly that sort of arrogance that caused the film to lose $70 million on its domestic release. According to Box Office Mojo, the film cost an estimated $270 million to make. If accurate, that makes it among the most expensive movies in history. But a flop by any other name....

America knows what it likes, and it doesn't much like Superman Returns. And I agree with them.

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