Recently, Mark Millar has been posting about what he'd do with the Superman character if given the chance. It all started in
at Millarworld. Here are some highlights that I took from Fanboy Rampage:
On his connection to Batman: "[Superman and Batman are] both orphans. They absolutely understand each other and know that there's nobody else they can count on as much as they other. PS I know Superman isn't an orphan in this dreadful period he's been under seige (from 1986 until Hitchy and I fix him again), but the true understanding of the character is, like Bambi, he loses his Mum and Dad again. All the iconic heroes do whether it's Superman, Bambi or Batman."
On why Bryan Hitch is his ideal Superman collaborator: "Hitchy's even worse than me. Although he looks much older and has trouble sleeping through the night without a piss, Hitchy is only three weeks younger than me. Thus, we grew up on the same Cary Bates Superman comics aged 6-14. Exactly the same comics. We were also 8 years old when we saw Superman and Hitch, like me, can repeat the entire movie line for line. You should hear our daily phone chats. They're a hymn to Superman. Fixing this mess has been our destiny. It'll happen. Not for a while, but it'll happen."
On Clark Kent: "Clark is a pair of glasses. Superman doesn't need glasses. He puts on the glasses for no practical reason; just to dress up and pretend to be this mid-westwern guy he's not as a means of rubbing shoulders with the people on this planet. Superman would have thought he was human until puberty. Until maybe 12. The easiest way to understand it is to think of Jesus in the temple and the moment where his mother has to tell him the truth. He always knew he was different and alone. This is when it was all explained to him. He could still love his parents, but Clark is him trying to understand what humans are all about. As Elliot Maggin puts it, Clark Kent is a living, breathing work of art."
On Lois Lane: "Superman doesn't love Lois. Clark loves Lois and Superman tries HARD to love Lois, but he can't because she's the wrong species. But he tries. Again, Maggin sums it up beautifully. It doesn't have to be complicated... Clark loves Lois, Lois loves Superman, Superman loves Clark [...] Perfect. This is also one of the reasons Superman shouldn't be married to Lois. It's just stupid. It makes no sense and destroys the whole dynamic. Superman is God, Jor-El is the Holy Spirit and Clark Kent is Jesus. The Kents are Mary and Joseph and Lois is Mary Magdelene. She's the NYC girl who's fucked her way around the city and found nobody who measures up. She's just had it with men and is focusing on her career... then Superman shows up. This is why Margot Kidder was perfect for the role and why Lois should be played by someone around 30 even if Supes is being played by a 25 year old. You'll see what I mean when we fix it."
On the current version of the character: "[Kingdom Come] is close to perfect. Waid gets it. None of the other American writers do, though Loeb comes close. His only weakness is getting caught up in the whole farmboy thing. The farm is where he grew up and knew he was NOTHING LIKE THESE PEOPLE. He affects it for the Clark persona, but that's it. He's as Kryptonian as Jesus is divine. Did Jesus shag Mary Mag? I don't think so. Superman should never shag Lois. It's insane and what happens when artists start touching tyoewriters. Jimmy is the reader-identification figure and the comedy relief. PS I'm saving everything else for the launch. No other ideas from me here, I'm afraid, in case some c**t nicks em."
On mixing metaphors: "No brimstone for Superman. He's interesting enough without it. He sees Earth the way immigrants saw America 100 years ago. He sees a chance for hope and a new life after losing his homeland as a kid. He loves people because he recognizes their great potential and, like Krypton, he wants to encourage them towards the Utopia his father sent him from. Forget Byrne. Read the Bible."
On the previous pitch Millar had made with Grant Morrison, Mark Waid and Tom Peyer: "The pitch we did was very late 90s and all the things I WOULDN'T do if Superman was being revamped now. It was nice, but it was the whole retro 60s thing that Grant's into as opposed to what I'd want to do myself. This thing was pretty good, but would be absolutely wrong for now. It still had Superman married to Lois and all that spit. There was another draft Mark Waid added with Earth getting a mind-wipe to forget that stuff and it had some nice touches, but I'd just start from scratch."
On how close Superman is to humanity: "Humans were apes less than 50 million years ago. Kryptonians are what we'd be like in 20 billion years. I have this all worked out as part of the proposal. In the last two years, I've filled two entire ring-binders with the plan. There's some AMAZING stuff in here. Hitch has also been doing little design doodles for the last five years. It's fate that we met."
And when some people disagree with Millar's idea of the perfect Superman: "Anyway, you're all wrong and I'm right
It'll make much more sense once Hitch and I deprogram you from 18 years of John Byrne and Mike Carlin."
I have to say, many of the stuff Millar is proposing sounds great. What does everyone else think?
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