I know DC’s recently started focusing more on their YA books, as well as making sure they’re full of wokeness, so I’ve been staying away from that stuff because I know they’re not for me; YA is generally boring and woke stuff is embarrassing to say the least. But Superman Smashes the Klan sounds like it might be fun in a corny way, and I have enjoyed some of Gene Luen Yang’s comics in the past and Gurihiru’s art is always good, so I gave it a shot. Well, I should’ve just listened to my instincts and not bothered - this was exhaustingly tedious to read.
The blurb describes this book as a “bold and new story” and it’s neither. As Yang himself explains in the afterword, this is based on a Superman radio serial from the 1940s where a Chinese-American family moves to Metropolis and is attacked by a thinly-veiled KKK until Superman steps in. Also, taking a stand AGAINST racism - today? Oh, how “bold” of DC to stick their neck out and take that edgy position on this issue!
So this story is set in 1946 and is essentially exactly as the radio serial was. A fictional version of the Ku Klux Klan called The Klan of the Fiery Kross harass the Lee family who have just moved from Chinatown to Metropolis (“Chinatown” normally describes a district in a larger city but here it seems to literally be its own place, which seems weirdly racist in itself - that there would exist a town actually called Chinatown in the DCU!).
Superman is the Golden Age version of the character who leaps tall buildings in a single bound but can’t fly (yet), and discovers for the first time (umpteenth time for seasoned Superman readers) about his Kryptonian origins. And, while Superman helps out the Lee family from the cartoonishly evil Klan and their absurd plans, the little girl Lan-Shin/Roberta (a character defined by puking at the drop of a hat) teaches Superman that it’s ok to be different and to embrace who you are.
Oy… I guess I was right in that this is a corny book!
Look: I get it, I’m not the target audience for this one. This is aimed at kids who’ve prolly never read a Superman book before, or haven’t read many Superman comics, so the origins/Kryptonite/etc. rehash will seem more fresh to them, and the Scooby-Doo/Saturday morning cartoon-style of it, with its obvious morals, easy characterisation (all the bad guys bar one have that “bad guy expression” so youse can spot them right aways!) and cliched storytelling, won’t bore them so much.
Even so, this isn’t good writing. I mean, the story is so feeble: family arrives in town, bigots bully them a bit - repeat for 200+ pages then have Superman flick them away! Where’s the tension? Hardly anything really changes. A character or two learns a condescending lesson (durrr, racism baaad!) and meanwhile Yang treads water with dull set-pieces as the Klan run about doing stupid things that have no effect on anything: blowing up a school, burning a cross on the Daily Planet globe! It’s such a dull, unimaginative read.
Gurihiru’s art, with its appealing manga-esque style and clean lines, is well-suited to the audience, and looks great for the most part. Not sure why Superman’s Kryptonian parents look like green martians though. And Superman’s cow-lick is stupidly exaggerated here and he doesn’t smooth it down when he turns back into Clark Kent, as he normally does, so that it underlines, even more so than usual, how dumb it is that no-one puts it together that Clark and Superman are one and the same.
Yang does a decent job of introducing Superman here to new readers, explaining the origins of his outfit (from the circus strongmen of yore), the symbol on his chest, and so on. And I liked the idea of making the Fortress of Solitude underwater in a lake in Smallville, rather than some remote location like Antarctica or space.
Mostly though I couldn’t have been more bored with Superman Smashes the Klan. Predictable and uninteresting through and through, this book is one long yawner.
No comments:
Post a Comment