GUNN SHOTS

 

"Our plot has nothing to do with All-Star Superman, but some of the aesthetics of what Grant wrote and what Frank drew were incredibly influential," he continues. "They also had that sort of science fiction, and the idea of Lex as a mad science sorcerer, almost. You know, science is his own sort of sorcery. And the giant, you know, the monsters and the threats and all of that the Silver Age look through a green lens. I think a lot of that was taken from All-Star Superman, and that was my biggest one, for sure. Also my favorite."-- Total Film.

This comment, made by James Gunn to various press-reps while publicizing a SUPERMAN LEGACY trailer, seems to be all that he ever said about the influence of the Morrison-Quitely ALL-STAR SUPERMAN on his film. The opening sentence, where he notes that he's not attempting anything like the ALL-STAR plot, didn't stop a lot of fans from speculating that the Morrison work would be a major thematic influence, rather than just influencing some aesthetic aspects of the movie. (I note that the Total Film essay specifies that some members of the cast took inspiration from the GN as well.)

Now that I've both reviewed the film and re-examined ALL-STAR, I don't even think Gunn took much from Morrison/Quitely in terms of aesthetics. Gunn and M/Q are both making use of the garish, larger-than-life imagery of Silver Age comic books. But Gunn takes those images at face value, while M/Q find ways to illuminate the symbolic potential of such images. For instance, Gunn's Fortress of Solitude carries no sense of wonder: it's just a repository of things Gunn needs to make the story work: a solar-ray healing machine for Superman's wounded body, and robots to attend his recovery. Interestingly, David Corenswet is quoted in this IGN piece as to how affected he was by the M/Q depiction of the Fortress, allowing him as a performer to have insight into the "gentle loneliness" of the Superman psyche. I think Corenswet conveyed in his performance the sense that, even with human friends and a few fellow Kryptonians, Superman is still terribly alone. In my ALL-STAR review I considered the possibility that the M/Q "vision of interconnectedness...makes Superman so devoted to helping others, and it may be the only thing about ALL-STAR to influence James Gunn, even though Gunn chose a totally different direction." But now I don't think Gunn, even though he may have comprehended what M/Q meant re: the connectedness of people, took any influence from ALL-STAR there. 

Gunn does want to convey a sense of Superman as being motivated by a deep and soulful caring for all living beings, even the kaiju-creature Luthor sends to tear up Metropolis. But the closest Gunn comes to articulating that motivation comes in the final scene between Superman and Luthor:

I'm as human as anyone. I love, I get scared. I wake up every morning and despite not knowing what to do, I put one foot in front of the other and I try to make the best choices I can. I screw up all the time, but that is being human. And that's my greatest strength.

        

Now that's a vision of commonality, but not of interconnectedness. It doesn't really explain the hero's extraordinary reverence for life-- something not shared by his fellow superheroes. Hawkgirl cheerfully executes one of the villains, saying, "I'm not Superman," thus channeling the sentiments of many of the harsher comic-book vigilantes, some of whom Gunn has adapted, such as Peacemaker. This scene suggests that even though Gunn was trying to convince viewers that Superman's great kindness is the new "punk rock," he knew that the audience would want to see at least one villain pay the ultimate penalty, and Luthor was clearly not going to be knocked off. Barring new info from seeing the movie a second time, I think Gunn was just trying to find some way to rationalize Superman's dominant Boy Scout image. He might have built more upon a possible "savior complex" the hero had built up in reaction to his understanding of the "legacy" left him by his Kryptonian parents, but if Gunn meant something along those lines, the concept didn't make it into the finished movie.

More Gunn Shots to come, possibly.

    

MYTHCOMICS: "SUPERMAN IN EXCELSIS" (ALL STAR SUPERMAN #1/ 10-12, 2007-08)

 

Even before I saw and reviewed SUPERMAN LEGACY, I'd heard somewhere that James Gunn might have been influenced by Grant Morrison's 2007-08 limited Superman series, ALL-STAR SUPERMAN. I don't intend to research what Gunn might have publicly said about the Morrison work, though I assume he did make some statement or other. My reaction to the assertion was that I thought Gunn might have borrowed this or that storytelling trope, but I highly doubted that he would have any interest in Morrison's predominant themes of archetypal realities and creative evolution. But now that LEGACY is a box-office success, that leads me to examine ALL-STAR through the lens of myth-explication.

Previously I reviewed just one two-part story in ALL-STAR, the Bizarro sequence, without saying anything definitive about all twelve issues. I will now state that even though the ALL-STAR series is almost certainly the best Superman story of the 21st century (and may continue to do so if the comic continues until 2099), its diverse stories don't all sustain my concept of symbolic concrescence. Morrison made a studied effort to bring all his concepts under his chosen theme, the aforementioned ideal of creative evolution, but I don't think he was successful across the board. He formulated a sort of "frame-story" in which the villainous Luthor finally manages to doom Superman, and this frame starts with issue 1, becomes a leitmotif throughout issues 2 through 9, and culminates in issues 10-12. The stories in 2-9 are many times better than what usually passes for a good Superman story in this century, but their purpose is not predominantly to illustrate the main theme. The "in-the-frame" stories are Morrison's attempt to isolate all the quintessential tropes of the Superman series up to that point-- mostly the tropes of the 1955-70 Silver Age-- though he works in references to other eras (Steve Lombard of the 1970s, Doomsday of the 1990s). For me, the frame-story, for which I've used the title Morrison gave to the last installment, is the only segment that thoroughly fulfills the theme of creative evolution.

         

 

"Excelsis" begins with daredevil billionaire Leo Quintero (note the possibly coincidental resemblance of the name to "quintessential"). He and a crew of androids fly a spacecraft to the periphery of the sun, ostensibly to map the solar body, though there's also a reference to taking fire from the sun in some Promethean endeavor, in line with a couple of references to the Ray Bradbury short story "The Golden Apples of the Sun." However, Lex Luthor, who's apparently aware that Superman is watching over this scientific project, smuggles on board an android timed to blow up the ship. Superman bursts in and expels the android, but in so doing, he like Icarus (not a Morrison reference) flies close to the sun. Even though the sun is the source of most or all of Superman's fantastic powers, the hero's not able to simply barrel his way his way through the solar mass here, as he did in so many other comics-tales. The Kryptonian's system is poisoned by too much solar "information," and Quintero informs Superman that he's likely to die soon. As something of a measured boon, Quintero also states that if he can't save Superman with his science, he'll try to create "replacement supermen."

While anticipating his death, Superman seeks to arrange his affairs for that contingency, though he still has to deal with continuous menaces to Metropolis. One of his most vital decisions is to reveal to Lois Lane the truth of his double identity, as well as giving her a guided tour of his Fortress of Solitude. Among the many wonders he shows off is a "baby Sun-Eater," which is Morrison's only reference to the history of Superboy's involvement with the Silver Age Legion of Super-Heroes-- though the creature pops up later in a more essential role. Lois doesn't entirely believe the hero, and he isn't truthful about everything. Superman informs Lois that his recent visit to the sun "tripled my curiosity, my imagination, my creativity"-- which seems to be true in a general sense-- but the hero doesn't tell the girl reporter that too much sun has also killed him. (I wonder if there's a parallel to the psychotropic drugs that appear in many Morrison stories, though I don't know how often such substances result in death in his stories.)

   

Superman keeps busy despite the sword hanging over his head. As Clark Kent he interviews Luthor, who's been sentenced to execution, and the hero isn't entirely able to conceal his revulsion at the mad scientist's waste of his talents. He finds a new world for the Kandorians to inhabit. He visits the Kent farm, recollecting the circumstances of Pa Kent's passing, which in Morrison's world involves a meeting with "Supermen of the Future." And, to experiment with seeing how Earth would get along without him, he creates his own pocket-planet, "Earth-Q," which is essentially our own world (complete with an artist, implicitly Joe Shuster, creating the fictional Superman). Morrison presents this Superman as a modest god who constantly seeks the best for mortals, albeit a god with human limitations.   

   

Morrison's intra-frame stories are loosely united by a "twelve tasks of the hero" motif, but the final and most important feat is that Superman, unlike Captain Ahab, succeeds in "striking the sun itself." But this isn't the non-sentient solar orb that accidentally poisoned the hero. Rather, this surrogate sun is Solaris, a solar computer from the future, an entity who wants to usurp the position of the regular sun and become the object of Earth's veneration. Luthor's responsible for Solaris' presence as well, apparently because the villain didn't want Superman to go off and die in private. Instead, Solaris bombards Earth with red sun radiation, so that Luthor will be able to personally torment and execute a powerless Superman.      

However, in a moment of irony, Superman outthinks his enemy-- using "brain over brawn," a line which James Gunn more or less recycled for LEGACY. The hero uses a gravity gun that accelerates Luthor's metabolism, to burn out the super-powers the villain gave himself. And on top of that, Luthor is forced to see the universe through Superman's eyes: "this is how he sees all the time, every day. Like, it's all just us, in here, together. And we're all we've got." This is implicitly the vision of interconnectedness that makes Superman so devoted to helping others, and it may be the only thing about ALL-STAR to influence James Gunn, even though Gunn chose a totally different direction.      

So both Luthor and Solaris are defeated. But because Solaris poisoned the sun, Superman doesn't expire on mundane Earth, but ascends to the Heavens, becoming joined with the body that has slain him. Back on Earth Lois keeps the faith, telling Jimmy that the hero hasn't died, but is only seeking to heal the sun with a new "heart." Morrison suggests but does not affirm that this may be true, but clearly, in this sequence, the writer is using the trope of the hero's death to sum up, not simply his accomplishments, but all the creativity that gave him the status of a modern myth.    

Finally, the Latin phrase "in excelsis" translates to "in the highest," and appeared in a Christian hymn within the phrase "Glory to God in the highest." But within the context of the ALL-STAR stories, "in excelsis" connotes humanity's need to emulate its highest creative potential. This is underscored in issue 10, where Morrison and Quitely give the reader a glance at Earth-Q, where its version of the 15th-century philosopher Pico del Mirandola states the following.

“Let us not yield sovereignty even to them, the highest of the angelic hierarchies! Become instead like them in all their glory and dignity. Imitation is man’s nature, and if he but wills it, so shall he surpass even imagination’s greatest paragons.”

Morrison seems to be alone in drawing a connection between empathy for all beings and "imagination's greatest paragons," and that may be the thing that keeps ALL-STAR on a "higher plane" that most of what passes for "Superman mythology" in this era.       

    

QUICK COMMENT ON JAMES GUNN'S FIRING

Here's another one of my reworked forum-posts, beginning with a quote from my favorite literary critic, Northrop Frye:

In melodrama two themes are important: the triumph of moral virtue over villainy, and the consequent idealizing of the moral views assumed to be held by the audience. In the melodrama of the brutal thriller we come as close as it is normally possible for art to come to the pure self-righteousness of the lynching mob.

We should have to say, then, that all forms of melodrama, the detective story in particular, were advance propaganda for the police state, in so far as that represents the regularizing of mob violence, if it were possible to take them seriously. But it seems not to be possible. The protecting wall of play is still there. 

Frye wrote this in the 1950s, when some intellectuals viewed bestselling authors like Mickey Spillane (who did a LOT of "brutal thrillers") as threats to the intellectual landscape. Frye is arguing that there's a "protecting wall of play" that keeps people from becoming literally infected by the mood of the lynch-mob, which, about ten years previous, Gershon Legman seriously argued was going to happen.

How does this apply to nasty jokes? I think that there's a "wall of play" in Gunn's tweet-jokes. They may not be good jokes, but he's not claiming that he attacked some kid after watching THE EXPENDABLES (one of the more coherent jokes), he's talking about how the movie made him feel "manly" enough to do it-- which I would bet he didn't *really* believe back in the day.

The gist of your post seems to imply that if a real rape-victim read Gunn's jokes, or jokes like them, they would feel terrible to see their trauma trifled with. But if it's a joke, it's NOT REAL. I can't tell a real victim how to deal with trauma, but their pain is not coming from a joke, it's coming from a real act of violence.  Gunn's tweet-jokes are not to my taste, but I have seen black-humor jokes I found funny. Yet no matter where you go, you can find someone, somewhere, who's offended by any joke. 

Black humor is part of our culture, and maybe of every culture, even if some cultures don't want to admit it. I can understand why some people conflate the joke about something bad with the act that actually is bad. But I can't agree with the conflation.