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Forum Name: Undocumented Features General
Topic ID: 2145
#0, A Reflection on "Last Transport"
Posted by Gryphon on Apr-21-12 at 11:43 AM
I was reshelving some of my comics comps the other day and ran across the first DC Archives volume of the 1959 Supergirl stories, which I hadn't read in many years. As I thumbed through it, I was struck by the contrast between the way Kara's presented there - and in later reinventions of the character that have been done in less startlingly dated eras - and the way she appears in Last Transport.

I'm not just talking about the fact that any 1959 comic, particularly one with a female protagonist, is going to be jaw-droppingly different when viewed from the early 21st century. The main point that keeps coming to my mind is also in evidence in much more recent treatments of Supergirl's origin. Here's what I'm getting at:

In the comics, when Kara arrives on Earth, established characters always react with a sort of patronizing high-handedness. In 1959, Superman isn't particularly suspicious (which is odd considering that her original story of where she came from and why is ridiculous even by the standards of 1950s comics, but that's another rant), but he is almost instantaneously pompous and controlling. "The world isn't ready for you and you're not ready for the world," he decrees at once, and packs her off to an orphanage(!) with instructions to wear a mousy wig, not get noticed, and on no account run even the smallest risk of appearing in public as Supergirl. When she inevitably does (because the stories wouldn't even be as interesting as they are if she never did), he carps at her constantly about her cover, even if she risked blowing it to save his stupid Silver Age ass.

Something similar, albeit a little more friendly, happened in Superman: The Animated Series. Instead of an orphanage, Superman packs her off to live with his parents in Kansas (an option I acknowledge he didn't have in 1959, since they were dead by the time he was an adult in the pre-Crisis DCU), only reluctantly allowing her to make use of her powers and nearly pitching a fit when she does it in a colorful outfit. ("Three. Years. On a farm. In Kansas," as she explains to Stargirl in JLU.) At least, though, he doesn't immediately straight-arm her to a discreet distance; she does become part of the family.

(This is particularly surprising compared to the original version because the Animated Universe Kara isn't actually related to Superman. Hell, although biologically Kryptonian, she's not even from Krypton. 1959 Superman shuttles his own first cousin off to an orphanage and mostly tries to ignore her; cartoon Clark Kent admits in public that she's his cousin when she isn't.)

Even in the 21st century, when Loeb and Turner revived her in Superman/Batman, something similar happened. She got out from under it a lot faster than in the old days, and didn't wear as many clothes doing it, but still - no sooner had she arrived on the scene than both Superman and Wonder Woman were telling her she needed to hide herself from the world. Clark at least didn't repeat his original "obviously my secret identity would be ruined if you were hanging around" business from the old days, but he wanted her to stay with him in Metropolis as a civilian and, I don't know, pretend she didn't have superpowers, while Diana took over the old-timey "you need training, you're not ready" line and dragged her off to Paradise Island. (Compared to all that, Batman's assumption that she must've been some kind of villainous McGuffin must almost have been refreshing. At least he just wanted her to leave.)

In the light of the above, note the trajectory of Last Transport. Upon arriving in New Avalon, practically one of the first things Gryphon asks her once she's past her give-me-space-to-grieve period is whether she's gone flying yet, and upon finding out that she hasn't, he prompts her to do so. He's making offhanded remarks that she could go into the El family business later that same day, and when she turns up in costume having a superpowered punch-up shortly thereafter, he's neither surprised nor dismayed to learn that she plans to make it a regular thing - in fact he's delighted. He certainly doesn't try to talk her out of it, much less decree she shouldn't do it.

Part of that is just because that's the way the UF universe rolls - she doesn't even need a secret identity in New Avalon - but the contrast still sort of belatedly leaped out at me as I reread those old comics. I don't know that I was consciously trying to say "this is stupid, you guys, it works this way" when I plotted LT, but looking back on it now, it seems evident that it must've been somewhere in my mind.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#1, RE: A Reflection on
Posted by Prince Charon on Apr-21-12 at 05:28 PM
In response to message #0
LAST EDITED ON Apr-21-12 AT 05:30 PM (EDT)
 
Well, there's a huge webpage mostly devoted to how much of a dick Superman can be, but yeah, his treatment of Supergirl stands out, especially in the modern reintroduction, where it makes even less sense: there's supers all over the place, after all, more so than in the 1959 DCU - though at least Diana's 'you need training' reaction is reasonable (humans are fragile), far more than Kal's 'just pretend you don't have powers' WTFery.

Gryphon, OTOH, is basically not a dick.

“They planned their campaigns just as you might make a splendid piece of harness. It looks very well; and answers very well; until it gets broken; and then you are done for. Now I made my campaigns of ropes. If anything went wrong, I tied a knot; and went on.”
-- Arthur Wellesley, First Duke of Wellington


#2, RE: A Reflection on
Posted by The Traitor on Apr-22-12 at 05:33 AM
In response to message #1
gryphonnondickery.com?

---
"Yeah, I'm definitely going to hell/But I'll have all the best stories to tell" -- Frank Turner, The Ballad of Me and My Friends


#3, RE: A Reflection on
Posted by mdg1 on Apr-22-12 at 06:44 AM
In response to message #2
>gryphonnondickery.com?
>
>---
>"Yeah, I'm definitely going to hell/But I'll have all the best stories
>to tell" -- Frank Turner, The Ballad of Me and My Friends

That's an EA smear site.

OTOH, gryphonsangels.org has had to switch to larger ad larger servers over the years, and presently runs on a Matrioshka brain the size of Jupiter. But it's by invitation only.


#4, RE: A Reflection on "Last Transport"
Posted by BlackAeronaut on Apr-22-12 at 11:00 AM
In response to message #0
Yow. I knew that the industry was chauvinistic back in the day, but DAMN!


Black Aeronaut Technologies
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"Murphy never sleeps, but that's no reason to poke him with a sharp stick."


#5, RE: A Reflection on "Last Transport"
Posted by SneakyPete on Apr-25-12 at 05:36 PM
In response to message #0
>Part of that is just because that's the way the UF universe rolls -
>she doesn't even need a secret identity in New Avalon - but the
>contrast still sort of belatedly leaped out at me as I reread those
>old comics. I don't know that I was consciously trying to say
>"this is stupid, you guys, it works this way" when I plotted
>LT, but looking back on it now, it seems evident that it must've been
>somewhere in my mind.

And this is why I keep coming back and reading - and re-reading - your stories. You take many and varied elements, many of which I've liked in their original incarnations, and give them the Six Million Dollar Man treatment, making them better, stronger, and faster.


#6, RE: A Reflection on "Last Transport"
Posted by jhosmer1 on Apr-26-12 at 08:51 AM
In response to message #5
I try to look at it not as a condemnation of what they did in 1959, but to see it as proof that we have come a long way as a society in recognizing such prejudices and rejecting them. After all, the world of over 50 years ago was a very different place, one that we probably have trouble recognizing.

I remember watching the movie "Something the Lord Made" (Alan Rickman, Mos Def, about early heart surgery pioneers.) Early on in the movie, as part of a scene, they show two african-american characters standing aside on a sidewalk to let some white people pass. I knew, intellectually, that this happened, but SEEING it shocked me. I couldn't understand why they would do such a thing.

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."

As for Superman:TAS... well, I could say that Supes panicked at suddenly having a super-powered teenager in his life. :)


#7, RE: A Reflection on "Last Transport"
Posted by Zemyla on Apr-27-12 at 05:36 PM
In response to message #0
For me, the difference between Superman and Gryphon isn't chauvinism so much as experience. Clark Kent is a rather sheltered 20-something from a farm in Kansas, and has never been a parent before, which is the role he's being forced into here (quite unexpectedly, no less). He's terrified of screwing up, and he's terrified of losing her, which would be a double-blow, both on a personal level and the fact that where he thought he was the last Kryptonian, now he knows there's another, and he doesn't want to lose her.

Contrast this with Gryphon, who:
(a) knew Kara was coming,
(b) has about 400 years of experience on Superman,
(c) has multiple children, both biological and adopted, who
(d) have all gotten into the heroing business, quite successfully. Between him and his circle of friends, he could write "So Your Child Wants to Be a Galactic Hero". Speaking of which:
(e) He has a tremendous support structure. Superman may have had some super-friends, but at the end of the day he had to hide who he was from the world and its governments. Gryphon basically is a government unto himself, and he literally has an army at his fingertips, and several others within easy reach (WDF, CFMF, GENOM, the Autobots, Salusia, etc). Plus, Kara herself made a number of super-powered friends on her first day, friends who would, and did, fight for her. Add to this the fact that:
(f) He is not as frightened of his children dying as Superman was. That may sound callous, but it's a statement of the fact that he knows they can handle themselves, he has faith in them and their friends, and even should the unthinkable happen, the doors of death are not closed to him. I'm sure he doesn't consciously rely on this fact, and Kei's disappearance may have shaken his faith in it, but if Kara were to die in battle, he'd weep and grieve, and then take a week-long vacation to visit her in Valhalla.

So yeah, don't hold it against Clark that he was overprotective of Kara. It's like comparing apples and cybernetic ultra-oranges.


#8, RE: A Reflection on
Posted by Gryphon on Apr-27-12 at 05:55 PM
In response to message #7
LAST EDITED ON Apr-27-12 AT 05:56 PM (EDT)
 
>Contrast this with Gryphon, who:
>(a) knew Kara was coming,
>(b) has about 400 years of experience on Superman,
>(c) has multiple children, both biological and adopted, who
>(d) have all gotten into the heroing business.
>(e) He has a tremendous support structure.
>(f) He is not as frightened of his children dying as Superman was.
>
>So yeah, don't hold it against Clark that he was overprotective of
>Kara. It's like comparing apples and cybernetic ultra-oranges.

You raise a series of excellent points, most of them related to a central truth which I neglected in my original musings: namely, context is king. I can and do dispute only one of them - he didn't have any idea she was coming. Until that pod opened and he saw her, he believed that Zor-El had failed to keep his final promise.

The rest of it, though, is undeniable. Well played.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#9, RE: A Reflection on "Last Transport"
Posted by Pasha on Apr-27-12 at 10:35 PM
In response to message #0
Supergirl is one of the few titles I'm enjoying out of the new DC experiment. Mostly because, upon seeing Kal, her first reaction is to punch him in the face for being an imposter. heck, we're 8 issues in, and she still isn't speaking anything but Kryptonian.

--
-Pasha ("Your accent is horrible. Did you learn Kryptonian from a book or something?")
What was that feeling again?
Oh yes.
-Rage-


#10, RE: A Reflection on
Posted by Gryphon on Apr-27-12 at 10:48 PM
In response to message #9
LAST EDITED ON Apr-27-12 AT 10:49 PM (EDT)
 
>Supergirl is one of the few titles I'm enjoying out of the new DC
>experiment. Mostly because, upon seeing Kal, her first reaction is to
>punch him in the face for being an imposter. heck, we're 8 issues in,
>and she still isn't speaking anything but Kryptonian.

Weirdly, mine's been Red Hood & the Outlaws. I just have to pretend that Arsenal and Starfire are new characters and not anyone we were already supposed to know. This has proven surprisingly easy, possibly because I was never much of a Teen Titans fan anyway (apart from the TV show, which is a whole different ball of wax). And what the hell, I mean, Roy was already ruined. Being a scruffy loser is a significant improvement over the way he was before the Great Upfuck.

That same mental disconnect proved a lot harder with Supergirl, which is probably why I cannot agree. I was much too fond of the previous model to be down with alien anger girl, and that's before we even get to that goofy costume.

Good art, though, design quibbles notwithstanding. That guy's got talent.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#11, RE: A Reflection on
Posted by Pasha on Apr-27-12 at 11:00 PM
In response to message #10

>Weirdly, mine's been Red Hood & the Outlaws. I just have to
>pretend that Arsenal and Starfire are new characters and not anyone we

My biggest issue (aside from the complete misogyny) is that I can't stand Jason Todd. I *should* like Red Hood <1>, he's totally my kind of character, but I just..can't. (Although the bit with him and Tim Drake was kinda neat)

>That same mental disconnect proved a lot harder with Supergirl, which
>is probably why I cannot agree. I was much too fond of the previous
>model to be down with alien anger girl, and that's before we even get
>to that goofy costume.

Yeah, see..I like her total and complete anger at everything. Mostly because she JUST had her planet destroyed, and then people won't stop SHOOTING at her. Girl can't just stop and catch her breath for a second. (I expect that, if she ever gets ten minutes to breathe she'll calm down a lot. I look forward to her first real conversation with Kal.

--
-Pasha
What was that feeling again?
Oh yes.
-Rage-

<1> The only Red Hood thing I've ever liked was when Jensen Ackles voiced him. And it had nothing to do with Jason Todd.


#12, RE: A Reflection on "Last Transport"
Posted by Barricade on Apr-29-12 at 01:32 PM
In response to message #0
I've come to the conclusion that DC & Marvel all have come up with their recent idiotic plotlines, simply so that you can come in and go "No, that's stupid", and have an excuse to write up something awesome, and that makes sense. Because the official stuff lately _is_ just that bad. While your stuff, is just that good.