Super-hero comics still aren't selling that well, but oh those movies! On top of the financial success of Iron Man and The Dark Knight, the consumer is now living in a marketplace where the minutia of corporate film studio executives can not only be written about in publications like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, but the day-to-day decisions and quotes are on the internet in such rapid fashion that at least somebody is going to guess the future right every single day, which makes the internet seem like a veritable treasure trove of the brightest and most forward-thinking individuals on the planet. All you have to do is vote "This will be terrible" or "I can't wait!" and you'll be right, at least half of the time! This is the kind of power that used to be the purview of only the most vaunted of literary minds, individuals like Lester Bangs and Bosley Crowther—but obstacles of talent shalt hold us back no more. The ground has opened up, and our trash culture is the new money pit, and there's no way, no possible way whatsoever, that comic book super-heroes won't find anything but increased cultural cachet from here on. It will only get better! Eventually Adrian Tomine and Chris Ware, those two repugnant individualists unwilling to try their hand at the helm of an Ultimate Fantastic-Four run will get their act together and join Bill Griffith, who will officially take over as the head creator behind the upcoming Nightwing cross-over event, Bungled Souls In The Piazza. S'true!
Jim Lee's epic-selling turn on the Batman comic series Hush is one of those comics that DC would like to find some way to publish fourteen of, every single month. While the story had—well, let's put it nicely and say "not a lot"—going on, Jim Lee's art on it was a definitive example of why he's the current model for super-hero art. That's not to say that he's the best ever, or that he's even the best artist currently working, but it is to say that what Jim Lee does with super-heroes in Hush is what the majority of super-hero artists strive to do, and it's what a large majority of readers are willing to buy. The way he drew Batman…oh, mama, that is "the way" most people want Batman to look. So when he made the decision to follow a year on Batman with a corresponding year on Superman, DC Comics and the people who buy DC Comics couldn't have been happier. But instead of going with one of the standard Superman scribes, DC made what has to be their most outré decision regarding the character since he turned Electric Blue: they hired Brian Azzarello, a brilliantly talented writer who had never hid his personal lack of enthusiasm for the super-hero field. When it was all said and done, what they produced was a "gritty" Superman: a tough, cold and cynical take on a Superman who told Batman that he "didn't like him," threatened to dismantle the planet Earth itself if it didn't back off, a Superman who, and this is the one that always got me chuckling, picked a cancer-ridden priest as his confessor because the priest's impending death was more likely to keep the confession safe than, well, the concept of trust. (Or justice, American way, so on.)
It's not to say that what Azzarello and Lee did was a bad comic—in my own personal opinion, its general weirdness and overall gloom makes it far preferable to read than the histrionic nonsense that was the Hush storyline—but what they did was produce a Superman that's probably more of an honest meditation on the character's actual "super-powers" then anything else, and it makes for an uncomfortable book to read. It's a comic that portrays a character who seems completely distant from everything and everyone around him, a man whose incredible abilities has so isolated him from his one-note "peers" that it's impossible for him to even engage in a frank discussion. It's a Superman who creates an entire world in his spare time, and then decides to make himself forget the act on a whim, only so that his carelessness can be exploited by a forgotten villain, with catastrophic results. It's a character that, as Azzarello writes him, has moved and grown beyond whatever "values" and "ideals" might have been inserted in him as a youth and now keeps his own council to the point where his behavior is inscrutable even to those who know him best. In the comic, when Superman finally happens upon his wife, what serves as the most romantic portion of the book is also its most frightening—because as much as Superman seems to love Lois Lane, his behavior is more that of a child with his favorite toy, and he doesn't show any ambition to deal with the consequences of his behavior until he's satisfied his own carnal desires. When you witness Clark's joy at discovering Lois, the next thought is "Man, what would he have done if she were dead?" What For Tomorrow is, more than it is a "Superman" comic, is a story about a creature who looks and sounds human, but has such an inhuman amount of power that one doesn't feel inspired by him, or attracted to him—one feels frightened by him. 
Tucker Stone's writing may be found in print in Comic Foundry and online at The Factual Opinion, where he frequently reviews new releases.
This Ship Is Totally Sinking is © Tucker Stone, 2008
