In acknowledgment of the fact that today is the Fourth of July, American Independence Day (sorry to you across the pond) we thought it would be appropriate to take a look back at the appropriately titled Superman story from March 2001 “What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way?” This issue of Action Comics, #775 was written by Joe Kelly with art from Doug Mahnke (who’s really made a career out of drawing Superman) and Lee Bermejo. The issue also got a celebrated animated adaptation called Superman vs. The Elite in 2012 which saw the return of voice actors George Newbern as Superman and David Kaufman as Jimmy Olsen from the DC Animated Universe. This story is often heralded as one of the greatest Superman stories of all time (and sometimes the most overrated). Let’s dive in.
Action Comics #775
Written by Joe Kelly
Penciled by Doug Mahnke and Lee Bermejo
Inked by Wayne Faucher, Jose Marzan, Tom Nguyen, Jim Royal, Dexter Vines, and Wade von Grawbadger
Colored by Rob Schwager
Cover by Tim BradstreetExtra-sized issue! Has Superman become outdated in our modern world? A new aggressive team of metahumans called the Elite certainly thinks so, and they’re about to wreck the Man of Steel’s truth, justice, and American way. And if a lot of innocent bystanders get killed in the process, so be it!
I had never read this issue before today, I had only seen the animated film which ranks as one of my favorite DC animated films of all time. What surprised me the most here is just how brutal the artwork here is compared to the film. This feels, pardon my most likely appropriate language, trumped up in a way that that animation style is not in its mostly clean crisp way. Bermejo’s art has changed so much to what it is now that seeing him here evoke a grungy Michael Lark or Mitch Gerads is really appealing rather than his very digital looking style now. Same with Mahnke as this earlier version of his art relies less on the heavy line work he’s known for now. The colors are also brighter, and surreal in a way that this story really deserves. While both medium’s tell the same story, the animated movie is most assuredly more hopeful, while this is a middle finger and a call to action.
“What’s So Funny” was written during the time that Warren Ellis, Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s “The Authority” was really popular, and the 90s model of exacerbated stories with real world consequences was at its peak. This story follows Superman come into contact with the superhero team the Elite, an allegorical stand-in of the Authority, made up of leader Manchester Black (recently seen drawn by Mahnke again in “Superman”), Coldcast, Menagerie, and The Hat. The Elite operate in an area of moral ambguity and grey, they helped to topple a Libyan regime and then immediately kill a team of villains in Tokyo. People love them for it. As Jack Ryder tells Clark at the Daily Planet at the beginning of the issue “The age of Superman is over. Viva the Elite.” It’s really cool seeing Ryder show up in this issue, not something I was expecting, and I also forgot there was a spell where Lex Luthor was president and Amanda Waller worked for him. The fun bits of continuity in this issue are really cool and makes me want to read some more of these late 90s early 00’s “Superman” and “Action Comics” stories.
The issue continues as Superman confronts and is humiliated by the Elite and is confronted by the idea that maybe the Elite’s actions are ok. At one point he flies by a group of kids playing superhero and there are some dressed like the Elite members and a kid dressed like Superman bemoaning the fact that he has to be Superman because he cannot kill anyone and that’s just no fun. You can see Superman struggling with this idea, but Superman cannot and will not compromise. Because Superman is more than a man. Superman is an ideal.
In the final showdown between Superman and the Elite broadcast to the world at dawn on Jupiter’s moon Io, the story gets the most meta that it’s been so far. There’s a moment in Manchester Black’s monologue to the world where he tells them Superman must die first, that he says, “I want you to know something too. As this ends, quicker than you’ve ever imagined, you’re the first–you sure as hell won’t be the last. Because when you’re costumed cronies and hangers-on rise up to ‘avenge’ their fallen dream they’ll get worse. The use of the word “avenge” by Kelly is very explicit, implying that if Superman as the original, as the myth, as the beginning is compromised, then everything else and every other hero story falls too. It also of course evokes the Avengers at Marvel dealing with their own issues, and soon too after this Mark Millar would launch “Ultimates” for Ultimate Marvel which deconstructed the team and handing them over to their base selves. This is comic book prophecy at it’s best while showing us things we have already experienced with The New 52 and a Superman who is not the morally superior mythological figure.
Continued belowAs the Elite seemingly kill Superman this ramps up, and Superman is not dead and seemingly kills the team and for a moment you think Big Blue is compromised before getting this panel as he seems to about to kill Black from a sense of moral high ground and compromised humanity. But again, Superman is not a man he is an idea. And ideas can’t be killed or compromised.
The comic ends with Superman telling Black he will never stop fighting for that dream of truth, justice and the American Way. Because dreams do not die.
This issue may be one of those overrated or hyped up books, but ultimately what it shows is a Superman that is immune to the ambiguities of the world we live in. He is ultimately aware of and in the midst of, but nonethless above, and beyond and more than. As Grant Morrison wrote in the Outro of Supergods “the idea of Superman is every bit as real as the idea of God,” and that has to mean something in a medium that showcases stories with no sense of moral compass, and a world that eats from the trash cans of ideologies that poison humanity.
The Elvis Costello song the title of this issue is based on, “What’s So Funny Bout Peace, Love and Understanding?” asks
“So where are the strong?
And who are the trusted?
And where is the harmony?
Sweet harmony.”
And I think what we find here is not a harmony that is in an ideal. It’s in the indefatigable figure of Superman.
This Fourth of July I think many of us in the States, and maybe in the world, are asking what is there to celebrate? What’s so funny about peace, love and understanding? What’s funny about truth, justice, and the American Way, and American idea not of power down of as Manchester Black says, “the American military-commercial-right-wing way,” but a power that builds up. Where is that?
Danny Fingeroth wrote in the end of his book Superman on the Couch:
As I’ve stated several times in this book, pop-culture both reflects and is reflected by society. Perhaps the flaw is thinking of media and entertainment as separate from our lives. Given the ubiquitous nature of media and fantasy images, there is no longer a clearly defined dividing line between the two. Perhaps what superheroes really tell us about ourselves and our society is that reality informs fantasy, fantasy informs reality, and we have to be careful how we choose our heroes and our values. Sooner or later, realities will confront us that we, both personally and as a society, will have to deal with on our own, with no superheroes there to swoop in to save the day. We each have to be our own superhero. It’s the work of a lifetime
As we grill, crack open a cold one, and break out the boats and jet skis, remember that today. You are your own hero. In a world devoid of truth or post-truth, in a world denying justice to many and giving perverted justice to the few, and in a country that doesn’t know what the fucking way is gonna be or if it’ll have Trump buildings lining both sides of the street, remember, ideas are bigger than people.
Superman is an idea, and ideas can’t be killed, and that’s no joke.
