Pop Culture

GET REAL, MAN OF STEEL

Chuck Austen plans to make life difficult for Superman. ``Superman will bleed, he will fail, he will lose his job, he will face his two greatest challenges, one with punching, the other with words and heart,'' he has warned.

But while Austen might sound like a true villain, he's merely a comic-book writer -- and he plans to save Superman, not destroy him.

Superman's publisher, DC Comics, has described Superman as the ``greatest of all heroes''. In 1979, writer Harlan Ellison even suggested that the superhero -- along with Sherlock Holmes and Tarzan -- was one of ``the three fictional characters every nation knows''. Lately, however, legend has failed to translate into sales. Superman's most popular monthly comic-book, the self-titled Superman, sells only 23,000 copies at comic book retailers in the US. (Sales at newsstands, supermarkets and other outlets are a closely guarded secret, but are probably much smaller.) By comparison, Batman sells more than 100,000 copies, and X-Men sells 75,000. So much for the ``greatest of all heroes''.

It's not a new problem. Batman risks his life to fight crime, but what's the risk for someone who can fly through the sun without getting a sunburn? Keeping the comic-book readers interested, without changing Superman's essential character, has been a frequent concern.

Over the years, Superman's editors and creative teams have tried to boost his sales with gimmicks. In 1986, writer-artist John Byrne reinvented the superhero's alter ego, mild-mannered ``Daily Planet'' reporter Clark Kent, as a penthouse-dwelling novelist. Six years later, Superman was even killed -- with great success. The comic book The Death of Superman, where he was beaten to death by an alien psychopath, sold over four million copies.

Death, of course, couldn't last forever. After his resurrection, he married his girlfriend, Lois Lane, after one of the longest courtships in history. Their nuptials in 1996 tied in with a wedding on the television series Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.

This marriage proved a disaster, commercially at least. Lois and Clark was cancelled, and sales of the comics went downhill. It might have been long overdue, but it broke one of the unwritten rules of both television and comic-books: don't break the sexual tension.

As Batman and Spider-Man have proven, the best way for comic-book heroes to increase their sales is to go Hollywood. But even here, Superman is having a tough time. A much-discussed Superman movie, still in pre-production at Warner Bros, has already won dubious publicity for its script problems, and its troubles securing both a director and a lead actor.

The only current version of the Superman story to win much success is Smallville, the television series about Clark Kent's high-school years. The series, now in its third season in the US, has much in common with last year's very successful Spider-Man movie. Both are about mild-mannered, super-powered teenagers, in love with a beautiful girl next door who is dating the school jock. Smallville is Superman minus the costume: an insecure, very human character.

Injecting some humanity into the character is on the comic-book writers' agenda as well, as DC prepares for an overhaul. Popular writers and artists have been hired to take over at all three monthly Superman comics -- Superman, Action Comics and The Adventures of Superman -- in April. The three comics will have different writers, artists and stories, but under the same editor, Eddie Berganza, they will form part of the same continuity. If major life-changes happen to the characters in one title, they will need to be included in the others.

And changes are certainly planned. Artist Jim Lee, who broke sales records with his 1991 stint on X-Men, will move his drawing board to Superman. Lee has described the changes as ``chaotic -- but fun chaotic! You get a sense that big things are going to come out of it.''

Austen, meanwhile, is taking over the writing chores at Action Comics. While he regards Superman with awe (``He's the original. The icon. The first superhero. In a lot of respects, the only superhero,'' he said in one interview), he believes the main problem is not that he's too powerful but that he's too wholesome.

``I think being sanctimoniously magnanimous can be a part of someone's character,'' says Austen. ``But it's more interesting, and more understandable ... if Clark is a schlub, a loser, a guy who can't get a break like the rest of us... That's human.''

Austen plans to take Superman back to basics, returning to the character created by teenage writer-artists Jerry Siegel and Jerome Schuster back in 1938. ``What charmed me about the original was Superman's sense of humour. He was light, funny, charming, and violated civil rights left and right. He was no boy scout. He carries the bad guy along power lines at one point to scare information out of him! Great stuff.''

Greg Rucka, who will soon be writing The Adventures of Superman, is less forthcoming about his plans. He has his own ideas, however, on where Superman's main problem lies. ``Clark has become very difficult to relate to,'' Rucka said in August. ``He's a Pullitzer Prize winner and New York Times best-selling novelist and you look at him saying, `Yeah, I know lots of people like that!'

``We see Batman's motivation very easily. Superman's motivation at the end of the day is entirely altruistic: `I just want to do the right thing.' People are kind of bored by that. It's not as sexy as `I'm gonna make criminals pay for what they did to me.'''

Four months before Austen's works hits the shelves, some readers are already concerned. His current stint on Marvel Comics' The Uncanny X-Men (a sister comic to X-Men) also swung the heroes in a new direction. According to long-time readers, he turned the series into a soap-opera. (``Let them complain,'' he said. ``It just means I'm getting sales up and I've got job security.'')

The biggest worry has been prompted by some of his interviews, in which he has hinted that Superman will have an affair with his teenage sweetheart (and "Smallville" romantic interest) Lana Lang, leading to a marriage break-up with Lois. ``I'm very public in my dislike of Lois,'' says Austen. ``She's the original gold-digger. Clark meant nothing until he was Superman. She was horrible to him, and he chased her like a whipped puppy. Any therapist would tell you, this is not a romance made in heaven... [Lana] liked Clark as Clark first, and then also as Superman. Much healthier.''

One fan, writing in an internet chat room, has suggested that Austen has it all wrong. Lois might have been a gold-digger in 1938, but things have changed since then. ``Austen's not working from those stories. He's working from the story created by Byrne back in the eighties. Lois fell in love with Clark, and he didn't reveal he was Superman until after they were engaged.''

For the moment, Austen is unrepentant. Clark and Lois's marriage, it seems, is on borrowed time. But how far will he go? ``They are not Charles and Diana,'' said a DC Comics insider when the couple were married. ``Anyone who believes in truth, justice and the American way cannot get a divorce.'' It is not known whether Austen will break that rule, but a major part of ``the American way'' is capitalism, and happily married superheroes don't sell.

Rucka is kinder to Lois. ``She's the woman that Superman falls in love with. Think about who that woman has to be ... This is a guy who's seen wonders we'll never see and Lois is, to him, one of those wonders. The biggest thing that gets me, and one of the reasons that Lois gets tarred with the `bitch' appellation, is that we assume rightly that Clark would be attracted to a woman who is strong, passionate and capable.'' Nonetheless, if Austen turns Superman into an adulterer or a divorcee, Rucka will have to follow suit.

Says Austen: ``Superman is such an icon, you can't really do anything with him for fear of screwing up some licensing deal. Therefore, his sales [have been] less important to the company than maintaining his status quo. That can make for some pretty dull stories. You literally can't do anything to surprise people.''

As the sales have fallen, however, those rules have been relaxed. Under Austen, Rucka and others, Superman will soon be ... a loser? Not exactly. Austen insists that, whatever happens to Superman, he will be a better character. ``He will face it all with charm, a sense of humour, and commanding presence. People will like this guy, and admire this guy, and he won't be the boy scout that even other superheroes make fun of.''

The controversy has already begun. However, DC Comics will have to wait until April to find out whether Superman will return to the best-selling status he enjoyed in the 1930s and 1940s (and very briefly, in the 1990s), or whether the market forces will defeat our hero once again.