They’re both so good.) The conceit of the Black Mercy hangs together much more strongly in this version, since Krypton isn’t plagued by unrest, but by seismic activity that only Clark notices, and that is exacerbated by Batman’s attempts to get the plant off of Clark in the real world.
THE MAN WHO HAS EVERYTHING SUPERMAN CBR HOW TO
(I will never be able to decide whether I prefer a sentimental Batman cultivating a unique rose for his bestest buddy, or a horrendously undersocialized Batman handing over cash because he doesn’t know how to people. The plot is functionally identical, although there’s no Robin, and it’s Wonder Woman who gives Superman the rose for his birthday, while Batman awkwardly offers cash. Let’s pause for a minute here to take a look at the Justice League Unlimited adaptation of this story. (Don’t worry, bud, you’ll check that box off in exactly 30 years from this story, if you don’t count your semi-neglected clone!) But that being the hook just highlights the essentially patriarchal nature of a story that continually disregards its female characters as collateral damage and sexual props. Superman’s heart’s desire is to have a son. The answer is in the most powerful and heartbreaking panels of the story: when Kal kneels in front of his son and tells him, “I don’t think you’re real.” Even though I find the story around them hollow, these panels pack one hell of a punch. So what is he seeing in his dream world that’s so valuable? What element of it are we supposed to read as his heart’s desire? And Superman’s rage towards Mongul when he’s freed implies that he’s had something precious dangled in front of him and then taken away. The Black Mercy is, it would seem, bad at its job.Įxcept, when the Black Mercy lands on Batman, the fantasy world he’s given is exactly what we would all imagine he would want. It starts out with drudgery, and descends into violent chaos. But the world we’re shown isn’t the irresistible fantasy that would make that true. The central conceit behind the Black Mercy is that the victim is perfectly capable of breaking its hold, but would never want to. His cousin gets stabbed and his mother is dead. His father goes from “miserable crank” to “burgeoning space Hitler” in a handful of pages. Krypton is plagued by unrest, and his extended family is at the center of it. His job, which his father looks down his nose at, has him working from dawn to dusk, to the point of physical pain. What doesn’t make sense is that his life on Krypton is…pretty lousy? Sure, he’s married…to essentially a one-off character he fell in love with 25 years ago who has no actual personality. Now, this is a pre-Crisis Superman, one who looked at his Kal-El/Superman persona as his real self and Clark Kent as a disguise, so it makes total sense that his perfect world would be a non-exploded Krypton.
The Black Mercy is supposed to give Superman his heart’s desire. Look at the way the distorted text increases our sense of the volume of Superman’s shout! Absolutely masterfulīut what struck me, upon finally reading the original telling, was how it completely fails to live up to its central premise. Kal then drives to the crater where the city of Kandor used to be, hugs his son, and tearfully tells him that though he loves him, he’s pretty sure Van isn’t real.
Since she was targeted for being House of El, Kal decides it’ll be safer for his family to leave the city, but as he and Van head out, they come across an Old Krypton rally, with Jor-El spewing a fascist-tinged speech. Lately, he’s cozied up with the ominous-sounding “Sword of Rao sect” and the “Old Krypton movement.”Īfter speaking with his father, Kal is called to the hospital by his aunt Allura his cousin Kara (Supergirl, in his waking reality) has been attacked by anti-Phantom Zone protestors and is in critical condition. See, Jor-El still predicted that Krypton would explode, but since it obviously didn’t, he was forced to resign from the Science Council in disgrace and has become a bitter, conservative reactionary, railing against drugs and “racial trouble” with immigrants, as well as popular pushback against incarceration in the Phantom Zone - a method of punishment which he invented. Almost immediately, however, we see the cracks in Kal’s perfect existence, primarily centered around his father.
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