MYTHCOMICS: [THE 'LONG ORIGIN OF SUPERMAN], SUPERMAN #1 (1939)

Batman's first origin, short though it is, still qualifies as a bonafide mythcomic. However, not so much Superman's.

I didn't reference the short one-page origin from ACTION COMICS #1 in my analysis of the two-part story that introduced the Man of Steel to comics-audiences, largely because it wasn't part of the story proper. Now, as I explore the subject of "how short can a myth be," I have to ask whether the single-page origin by itself constitutes a myth. And my answer is that it could do so-- but it doesn't.

The main Superman story in ACTION was not even the complete story that Siegel and Shuster had assembled in their pitch to the comic-strip syndicates. Even the full story, later fully printed in SUPERMAN #1, doesn't explain anything about the character's provenance or powers. It seems likely that the editors of ACTION #1 felt the need of at least a quickie explanation, and thus readers were given a one-page summary of "who he is and how he came to be" on the inside front cover.

But despite establishing some major myth-motifs. the one-pager never brings them together into a cohesive myth-scenario, so that it is at best a "near myth." In contrast, the two-page origin from 1939 expands on the fragments of 1938, and does assemble a genuine, albeit short, myth-continuity.

The first page is largely "the beginning:"

While the last page provides both the "middle"-- the general sense of Clark Kent growing to manhood, the death of his parents-- and the "end," in which Kent decides to become a costumed hero.

By the time the two-page origin appeared in the SUPERMAN #1 (dated Summer 1939), the comic strip, launched in January 1939, had fleshed out much of the backstory, conveying the first visual depictions of the hero's real father and mother. I may explore the comic-strip origin in more detail at some time, but for now, suffice to say that Superman does have at least one very short mythcomic in his repertoire. 

LOIS, MANSPLAINED

Since I remarked in the previous essay that I thought Lois Lane was a more intrinsically "mythic" figure than Jimmy Olsen, I'll provide a little justification of that statement here.

In the first official "mythcomics" post here, I only touched upon the significance of Lois Lane in passing, but I've noted elsewhere that she's highly significant as the "chosen bride" of Jerry Siegel's "Christ with Muscles," no matter how far in the future their unison might take place. This 2014 essay provides a refutation to Noah Berlatsky's rhetoric of victimization-- i.e., that Lois was always being maltreated by the main hero-- and shows that, even though she had her share of faults, she was on the whole an admirable character, and something of a "tough cookie" for her time.

In the next day or so, I'll devote a mythcomic essay to one particular Lois tale, and it comes from DC's long-running LOIS LANE comic book, which presented a somewhat different version of the character. Whereas the comic-book Jimmy Olsen was strongly modeled on the radio/television character-- even if comics-Olsen showed some significant departures-- Lois seems to have been remodeled less with reference to the "Adventures of Superman" TV show and more in line with what editor Mort Weisinger thought would sell to his readers. There's a fair amount of anecdotal evidence to the effect that SUPERMAN'S GIRL FRIEND LOIS LANE was more oriented toward female juvenile readers, and even though all of the raconteurs on the title were male, it seems a safe bet to say that they re-modeled Lois in line with their perceptions regarding feminine soap-opera, albeit adjusted for a juvenile audience. If Lois had held on to any of her streetwise toughness and courage during the period when Jerry Siegel was drummed out of the DC ranks, that last remnant of that previous characterization was well and truly gone by 1958, when the magazine was launched (following a tryout in the SHOWCASE magazine, by the bye). Lois wasn't seen to slug anyone, as in the panel above, until about 1966.

Perhaps because Lois, unlike Jimmy, was viewed as a full adult, there are more adult concerns in the stories, albeit filtered through a juvenile lens. Many of the stories are just as silly as the ones in the JIMMY OLSEN title, but there is a greater propensity to allude to Lois as a mythic concatenation of womanly traits. This often reflected negative characterizations typical of men's humor, like accusations of overweening feminine curiosity-- but even these retain a certain larger-than-life quality. In the remainder of this essay, I'll briefly touch on some of these myth-kernels, though with the caveat that nearly none of them qualify as mythcomics.

Though the character of the Weisinger Lois was a little too hard-nosed to go in for occult matters, I find it symbolically significant that the first issue of her series attributes to her a "witchy" power. Note Superman's apparent fear of having his powers surpassed.

Here's the first of many issues in which Lois is "body-shamed" in some way. Some find these sort of tropes to be representative of the whole series, which is certainly throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Though Lois isn't really any sort of tough jungle-babe in this story, it's amusing to see her take a leaf from the book of Sheena. Some will recall that Sheena preceded Superman in being the first major comic-book character published, even though the jungle-queen's sales didn't take off until after the Man of Steel became a superstar.

One of the first stories really condemning Lois for the sin of curiosity. The big giveaway? Lois has the head of a cat, or rather, she thinks she does, having been given a post-hypnotic suggestion to punish her for an act of intrusive curiosity. It's interesting that the hypnotist in this case is female, though.

Weisinger recycles a trope used by Siegel in an earlier story, in which Lois was supposed to get powers from a super-blood transfusion.

Jimmy Olsen's relationship with Superman never lent itself to stories like this one.

Second of a two-part story in which Lois marries Luthor and spawns an evil son. However, he later marries into the family of Superman and Lana. Ah, if only Weisinger had edited Greek plays!

"The Snoopiest Girl in History" reveals that Lois traveled in time and gave rise to the legend of Pandora.

Lois again travels in time, gets stuck on Krypton, and decides it's a good idea to steal Superman's father from Superman's mother. Only at the end of the story does she realize that she might have ended up becoming the mother of the man she always wanted to marry. Writer Otto Binder must have been digging into his Freud the day he scripted this one.

Lois has the distinction of re-introducing Catwoman to the DC universe after the villainess had been exiled for eight years, probably because of her being mentioned in SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT. Sadly, no actual catfight takes place between the two Golden Age icons, though Lois does get to take a walk on the wildcat side by assuming Catwoman's identity.

"Shock story of the year," indeed. It's hard to believe no one at DC knew that Joe Shuster had done not entirely dissimilar work for a 1954 skin magazine.

Aside from a reprint issue, here's the last issue edited by Weisinger. Appropriate, since she starts off as a witch and ends up as the bride of Satan.

MYTHCOMICS "A WALTZ OF SCREAMS" (VERTIGO VISIONS: DR. OCCULT, 1994)

Thus far in my reviews of mythcomics and null-myths, I’ve barely touched upon the attempts made by DC, and, to a lesser extent Marvel, to render “adult” versions of their own “superhero universes.” While this has led to a fair number of bad comics, I tend to think that the experiment has resulted in more good comics, mythic or otherwise, than the influence of confessional dramas upon the so-called “artcomics.”

Not all of the comic books in DC’s VERTIGO line are based on characters once aimed at the general juvenile audience that once purchased comic books from mainstream newsstands. The refurbished SWAMP THING remains the jewel in the Vertigo crown, albeit more in terms of prestige than sales: Gaiman’s SANDMAN possibly came closer to winning “pride of place” in that department, if I may be allowed a mixed metaphor. Gaiman also launched the mini-series BOOKS OF MAGIC, which comprised a sort of “occult history of DC Comics.” The mini-series spawned a fairly long-lived regular series, as well as a curious one-shot—the latter being my chosen subject. 

The 1994 “Doctor Occult” one-shot probably never had a fair shot at generating a series at the time, even though the titular character had been revived in the course of the 1991 BOOKS OF MAGIC mini-series. To this date DC has never reprinted the adventures of the character, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster in 1935, a few years prior to the publication of the creators’ signature character Superman. (This blogzine reprints a short "Occult" story from an ostensible ashcan issue DC published in the 1930s.)

If hardcore fans remember Doctor Occult, they will remember him as (1) having been patterned on Seabury Quinn's popular ghost-hunter “Jules de Grandin” from many issues of WEIRD TALES during the 1930s, and (2) from excerpted scenes that showed Occult temporarily donning a Superman-like costume, in a tale published before Superman himself saw print. Even more hardcore fans may know that in some stories Occult had a “power” most uncharacteristic of manly males of the time-period  Like fabled Tiresias, Doctor Occult was a man who could change into a woman.

“A Waltz of Screams,” written by Dave Louapre and rendered by Dan Sweetman, focuses on Doctor Occult and his female alter ego Rose, two identities locked in the same body. Louapre spends no time telling the reader how this state of affairs came about, and only a one-page text prelude establishes Occult’s mythos. In keeping with various details from the Siegel-Shuster stories, as well as some retconned material, Occult is a mystic seeker who is allied to a beneficent group of magicians, “the Seven,” and is opposed to malign magi ruled by a villain named “Koth.” But Louapre’s concern is not with mystic battles, but with Occult’s “dark night of two souls.” In the course of the tale, Occult becomes separated from his feminine alter ego, and must seek through assorted mystic realms to achieve re-integration.

Whatever the merits of the “gender politics” of the LGBT community, those politics have resulted in a fair number of the bad comics mentioned. Louapre’s script for DOCTOR OCCULT shows an awareness of the evanescent nature of sexual characteristics, but by page 6 he at least shows that he has a sense of humor about the matter. The first five pages of the story deal with Occult being brought into a case dealing with a hysterical rape-victim, during which Occult repeatedly shifts into his alter ego of Rose, and vice versa. But this portentous opening is followed by a scene in the doctor's office, where his secretary Marly is watching a TV talk-show with the following line of dialogue: 

“It’s my right as a man to be a woman if I want. This is America!”

I won’t dwell on Louapre’s plot at length. It's a fairly standard one, being little more than an excuse to separate the male and female sides of the hero and then put both spirits through various phantasmagorical ordeals. Eventually they are able to discover the fiend manipulating them, the aforementioned Koth, and hero and heroine regain their unity. What elevates Louapre’s script is not his plot but his poetic exploration of the theme of seduction. In the first five pages, when Occult/Rose enter the dream-consciousness of the rape-victim Rachel, the sex-shifting hero(ine) has the sensation of falling. He/she thinks:

“Not a fall from grace—grace is for the uninitiated. But a fall toward the waiting arms of awakening—and the alluring caress of sexual chaos."

In these two sentences, Loupare puts across three distinct thoughts:

1. He distances his characters from the Christian idea of “grace” as a beneficent gift from an all-knowing father-god, asserting that humans who have undergone mystic initiation have learned some deeper truth.
2. He associated the act of falling with awakening rather than succumbing to sleep.
3. He raises the notion that sex itself is alluring precisely because it is chaotic.

I’ll admit that one’s tolerance for Louapre’s poetic effusions might have been strained by a longer continuity. But “Waltz” is just long enough to put across the politically incorrect notion that “everyone wants to be taken at some point.” This is not of course a validation of the Rachel-character’s violation, but is rather an acknowledgment that human beings are, even under the best circumstances, fascinated by power and pain. 

Following the inevitable defeat of Koth, Occult meditates on Rachel’s recovery by thinking, “It hurts to abandon the beautiful lies, but then pain is a natural component of healing.” Rachel’s innocence is taken from her, but her attempt to hold onto it, to deem it a “treasure” in its own right, is the psychic malady that the psychic detective must heal, in part by reuniting his/her own sexual nature.

Over the years Doctor Occult and his feminine alter ego have remained minor players in the DC universe. The Louapre-Sweetman story does indicate a deeper, I might even say Bataillean potential in the revised character-- though if BOOKS OF MAGIC didn't jump-start the character's career as a "Vertigo Vision," I doubt he'll catch fire from any of his various guest-starring gigs in JUSTICE LEAGUE storylines.  

BOOLA, BOOLA, BOULEVERSEMENT PT. 1

In QUICK SUPERMAN DEFENSE I took issue with Noah Berlatsky's justifications for considering the Superman character to be an insufficient representation of goodness. Berlatsky's justifications for this verdict were posted on October 8 on the aforementioned thread:


He treats Lois like crap, pretty much. He’s a bully; he occasionally engages in extra-judicial killing




I'll deal in more detail with the second charge later. At the end of "Defense," though, I cited some reasons as to why I thought Berlatsky's reading of the Superman-Lois relationship, as articulated by their creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, was erroneous.

I don't have at my disposal all of the Siegel-and-Shuster stories of Superman's Golden Age period. So I admit that the survey I'm presenting here will be incomplete, as it's based only on the stories reprinted in DC's Archive editions of the first eight issues of the SUPERMAN title. As many comics-fans will know, these issues are mixtures of new material and reprints of material from the title's predecessor ACTION COMICS. But though this is an incomplete survey, I think it's indicative of the mindsets of the character's creators in the earliest period.  It's possible that the stories in which Superman "treats Lois like crap" dominate later issues in the Siegel-and-Shuster, but it's just as possible-- if not more so-- that Berlatsky is remembering stories he didn't like from later periods of the feature. Most of the modern scorn toward the Superman-Lois relationship has been founded in fannish dislike of Lois' frequent humiliations during the Silver Age, when editor Mort Weisinger wielded almost incontrovertible power over the Superman titles.  I naturally invite Mr. Berlatsky to offer more detailed proofs of his position, but he won't find much in the issues I'm surveying.

Again, as many comics-fans already know, Siegel and Shuster's earliest surviving Superman continuity was originally designed as a comic-strip proposal, which then had to be cut and pasted when the feature was sold as a first-time comic book. ACTION #1 does not reprint the entire continuity of this first sample, but SUPERMAN #1 does. Most fans also know that in her first appearance, Lois Lane accepts a date with stodgy Clark Kent with an attitude of "it's against my better judgment, but..."

This sequence-- which did make the cut in ACTION #1-- presents Lois as no kind of shrinking-violet.  She has a high opinion of herself: she's giving Clark a "break" by accepting a date with him. On the dance-floor she doesn't specify why she avoids Clark, until after an altercation with a pushy mobster.

An interesting line of speculation occurred to me as I re-read this sequence. There's no question that Lois unquestioningly accepts the morality of violence: that she thinks once the goon has intruded on their date, Clark ought to "be a man" and at least attempt to fight the goon. But does she expect this behavior in part because Clark, despite his demeanor, is obviously a big strapping fellow, almost the same size as the goon?  It's a speculation for which I admit there's no evidence either way, given that Jerry Siegel doesn't investigate his characters' motivations in any depth. But the sequence does show that long before Lois meets her ideal Superman, she already has her ideal of masculinity formed as to what men should or should not do-- and obviously, it isn't OK with her if her date asks her to dance with an obnoxious bully.

In that same issue Lois has her first encounter with Superman, who saves her from the mobster and her buddies, who abduct her, possibly-- though a juvenile comic would not say so-- with the intention of raping her. In the second part of the story, Superman saves Lois from a firing-squad.

Several ensuing stories don't include Lois at all. It's possible that these stories represent an early stage of Siegel's plans for the character, in which he would simply bounce about solving people's problems, with no ancillary cast. In SUPERMAN #2, Lois pops up in "Superman Champions Universal Peace." Her only function in the story is to comment on his recent scoop, telling him that he only got the scoop through "pure accidental luck."

In SUPERMAN #3 Clark Kent, investigating an orphanage that mistreats its charges, takes a little precipitate action in his continuing pursuit of Lois. He suggests that the editor send Lois along with him, and much to her chagrin, she's obliged to keep company with the despised wuss. However, they bond a little as they work together to throw off some rival reporters dogging their trail. Lois displays her first evidence of rash action as she sneaks into the orphanage on an intuition that the administrator isn't kosher, and she does find the villain beating a child with a belt.

The same issue reprints the story from ACTION #5 that I mentioned earlier. Lois' editor refuses to let her report on a dam failure because "this is no job for a girl." He wants Kent, so before Clark finds out about the assignment, Lois sends him on a wild-goose chase, so that the editor is forced to give Lois the job. The editor fires Clark for being unavailable, but as Superman the hero saves Lois from the peril of the breaking dam. For the first time the relationship turns amorous as Lois rewards Superman's efforts on her behalf. Clark gets his job back because he gets the story on the dam before she does, but Lois isn't shown being one-upped in the story; instead, she scorns Clark as a "spineless worm" in comparison with the new "he-man" in her life.

Lois is once more the manipulator in the next story, where she accepts a date with Clark because she thinks it's going to lead her into contact with Superman.  Once Clark escorts Lois to her destination, she takes an action that goes further than her usual hijinks: she slips a sleeping-pill into Clark's drink, so that he'll fall asleep and she can take his place at a rendezvous. Naturally, the drug doesn't affect Superman, who once again intervenes to save Lois' ass.

 The last story shows Lois in an even worse light. She steers Clark into taking her on a date to a toughs' hangout, where she hopes to make contact with a source for a new story. In order to make contact with a gangster, she winks at him while dancing with Clark, so that the gangster shunts Clark aside and dances with Lois. The girl reporter swipes a document from the mobster and then tries to leave, this time using her contempt for Clark's cowardice as a means of disengaging from their date. The result of this foolhardiness is that the gangster and his pals take both Lois and Clark prisoner, though of course Superman intervenes to save Lois while protecting his own identity. Clark also scoops Lois again, and this time she's explicitly shown being flummoxed by his getting ahead of her.

Whereas SUPERMAN #3 is rife with a whole lotta Lois, her appearances in issue #4 are nugatory for my purposes.  In SUPERMAN #5 Clark sees a little boy in danger and, since he has no time to change to Superman, he must save the kid in Lois' full sight. Her words to him are revealing vis-a-vis my earlier theory about her response to Clark: "I've always hoped you'd be like this-- brave, daring-- not frightened of your own shadow!" This strongly suggests that in author Siegel's mind, Lois has contemplated Clark as a possible suitor, but any physical appeal he might have for her is mitigated by his lack of bravado. Lois then proceeds to get them both in trouble again, which Superman has to sort out. In this issue and the subsequent one, most of Lois' other appearances involve the same dichotomy-- Lois admires Superman's courage and despises Clark's cowardice-- until we get to the last story in issue #6. In this untitled story, Superman arrives on the scene of a collapsing stadium, and must choose between saving Lois or a group of children from being crushed by falling debris. Lois, who courageously tells the hero to save the children first, is injured when he does so. However, her injuries vanish like magic when Superman gives her a blood-transfusion. Gerard Jones, among others, believes that Jerry Siegel was floating a narrative that might have made it possible for Lois to become a superwoman, since it concludes with the recovered reporter saying, "I feel stronger than I've ever felt." But if the idea was proposed, clearly the editors, preferring a status quo, rejected it.

This sampling suggests that, contrary to Berlatsky's unsupported verdict, Lois is actually the one treating Clark Kent like crap. Granted, given his pose he doesn't have the right to expect her to give him the time of day, but her rejections are laced with unnecessary contempt and sarcasm. And while I believe Siegel wanted readers to think that Lois' femininity did not keep her from being a good reporter, he also wants them to see that she's also going too far when she drugs Clark or maneuvers him into a possible fight-- though these shenanigans may be justifiable if I'm right that Siegel also meant their relationship to be a combative one.

I imagine that none of these findings, though, will impress the sort of bloody comic book elitist who can only see things ideologically. To do this, said elitist must perform the gymnastic feat that the French call the *bouleversement*-- which I'll discuss further in Part 2.