When writers don't know what to do with a character, they build up the supporting cast and universe to kind of hide that fact. After a while, you can no longer see the character for the underbrush. When that happens, you need to bring out the weed-whacker to clear some of that away so you can focus on the main character.
Well, surprise, surprise. Guess who has gone and done the same thing with Superman? During Superman's snarky tour of America, we're apparently not going to see Jimmy Olsen; Perry White is not going to appear (and Clark can't even be bothered to speak with him directly--he sends a message through Lois!); Lois herself is going to find it increasingly hard to keep dropping in the farther Kal-El gets from Metropolis. The Daily Planet? What's that?!? They're all "underbrush!!" Those guys are just around to "hide the fact that (previous) writers don't know what to do with Superman," anyway!!
I guess it really is going to be like the Incredible Hulk TV series, except more so--JMS has apparently decided that pesky reporters following Superman would somehow get in the way of his story, so he has arbitrarily declared that reporters just wouldn't follow Superman--because, you see, there is absolutely no story to report in the world's most powerful man walking America, no reason whatsoever to cover him rousting drug gangs and saving suicidal women. I mean, even David Banner had Jack McGee...but not the Man Of Steel!! Only strangers to interact with, and that's the way we like it!!
Maybe JMS really is a big fan of those "quasi-anthology" shows, which had the hero traveling from town to town every week, with no permanent supporting cast. That's certainly been his approach at DC so far. And maybe he's right--maybe shows with wandering heroes and no other regulars, like the Fugitive or Route 66, are inherently better than shows with large supporting casts, such as, say, Babylon 5...
But me? I like Superman's supporting cast, and having just endured a year where they weren't around too much, I choose not to hang around while they're completely ignored for another year. So, thank you, JMS, for making it easy to drop Superman.
I liked the fact that during the whole New Krypton saga, Superman's supporting cast all had active roles and we kept cutting back to them.
ReplyDeleteIf you drop Superman, imagine all the posts we'll be missing out on!
ReplyDeleteDon't know how long JMS intends to keep this particular storyline going, but I think he does have a point with his general observation/thesis. He actually said very much the same thing about his aims during his run on ASM, and there we saw that while he did indeed focus on Spider-Man himself (including fiddling with his origin, just as he is now doing with Wonder Woman) and sidelined large parts of Spider-Man's ever-expanding supporting cast, he also spent a lot of time and space exploring Aunt May and Mary Jane and their relationships to Peter. So one has to wait and see which members of the Superman supporting cast will be (semi-)permanently written out and which won't.
ReplyDeleteDid DC whack all those New Kryptonians just to accommodate him?
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