As you may have heard, Superman recently resigned his American citizenship in a back-up story of the anniversary for Action Comics. Due to being a world icon for a new age and not wanting to be seen as a political tool of any nation, Superman said that he would rather protect the whole world as opposed to being forced to be the hero of a single nation. We at Multiversity did not report on this (outside of a review of Action Comics #900), if only because – seriously – the reaction to this was stupid. Some people were so offended by the action they threatened to never read a Marvel comic book again, which just goes to show you that the people having the loudest and strongest reaction to this on the internet were not really reading Superman’s adventures anyway.
Now Superman is fighting Doomsday again while my parent’s friends ask me at birthday dinners for my dad (happy birthday, dad!) what’s going on, at which point I have to then explain that – within the context of the story, combined with perhaps the last three years worth of storytelling – when America puts a gun to Superman’s head (literally, mind you) and tells him he can’t protect the world, it makes perfect sense that Superman would rather be the international hero. My explanations so far to those who do not read comics are for naught as of late, however, and it seems that between this and IGN giving Superman the #1 spot on their greatest heroes of all time list (of 2011), there is more than enough anti-Superman rampage across the internet to go around.
Now, it seems that DC is rather quick to react to this one regardless. Whether this scene was written last week and drawn in at the last second or not is up for debate, but at the end of Superman #711, Superman has a nice long speech (written for him by Chris Robinson) in which he talks about what he loves about America, even taking the time to stare misty-eyed at an American flag. It’s perfectly time given the rabid anti-Superman fervor (and I just bought my nephew All-Star Superman for his birthday), and will hopefully appease some of the people who have had rather negative reactions to Superman’s new world-view.
