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Superman Smashes the Klan

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Superman Smashes the Klan
Publication information
PublisherDC Comics
ScheduleBimonthly
Formatsquarebound
Publication dateOctober 2019 – February 2020
No. of issues3
Main character(s)Superman, Tommy & Roberta Lee
Creative team
Written byGene Luen Yang
Artist(s)Gurihiru
Letterer(s)Janice Chiang
Editor(s)Maria Javins

Superman Smashes the Klan is a three-part superhero limited series comic book written by Gene Luen Yang with art by Gurihiru and published by DC Comics. It is a Superman story loosely based on the 1946 The Adventures of Superman radio show's story-arc, "Clan of the Fiery Cross."[1][2][3]

Plot

In 1946, the Lees, a Chinese-American family, move from Chinatown to the Metropolis suburbs in the wake of World War II after the father, Dr. Lee, starts a new job at the Metropolis Health Department. The family faces "overt and subtle racism as they settle into their new community" and the book focuses on the children, Tommy and Roberta.[4] Roberta's true name is Lan-Shin but she uses Roberta "for the ease of the white people around her".[5] "While Tommy joins a local baseball team and uses self-deprecating remarks to make friends (referring to his family as 'wontons' to his white peers), Roberta struggles to fit in".[4] The family is targeted by the local Ku Klux Klan — the Klan burns a cross on their lawn and attempt to firebomb their house.[2] Dr. Lee "tries to distance his Chinese family from the black men who helped them in the aftermath of a Klan attack for fear of being grouped in with them".[5]

Tommy and Roberta then find themselves increasingly threatened while new friends such as Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane and Inspector Henderson try to help and are then similarly targeted. Meanwhile, Superman's own efforts to assist the children are complicated by disturbing visions that prove linked to his own self-doubts and confusion about his own self-identity.[2][6][7]

Influences

Superman Smashes the Klan is loosely based on a 16-part episode story-arc, “Clan of the Fiery Cross,” from the radio serial Adventures of Superman which ran from June to July 1946.[3][6][8] In the radio serial, "Superman exposed Ku Klux Klan codewords, rituals, and its bigotry — all based on intel collected by activist Stetson Kennedy — before a national audience. The show damaged the group’s reputation and led to a steep decline in membership from which the KKK never recovered".[6]

An interview with Inverse states, "unfortunately, the Klan didn’t disappear. Though a fraction of what it was then, 'the ideas driving the Klan seem to be making a resurgence,' Yang says, adding that racist violence in Charlottesville, the white supremacist mass murderer Dylan Roof, and other events pushed him to revisit Superman’s original battle with American bigotry. 'Superman Smashes the Klan is my attempt to talk about these modern issues in an old context,' he says".[6]

Yang learned about the radio serial in Freakonomics (2005) by Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.[6][7][8] Yang stated that the book brought "it up because it had a real-world effect. For fanboys like me who are criticized for having our heads in other universes, this was a great example of a guy in a cape that had a real, positive effect on the world".[6] Yang said, "I remember talking to my son about it after I read it, and the next time we were at the library we found a book on it, called 'Superman vs. the KKK.' It was fascinating. At the center of it was this Chinese-American family that moves into Metropolis. I'm Chinese-American, and I grew up in the 1980s and read Superman comics, but I don't really remember seeing a lot of folks who looked like me in those stories".[8] Yang also highlighted the immigration connection with both Superman and the Chinese-American family.[3][7][8]

Reception

Reviews for Superman Smashes the Klan were generally positive, especially with regards to its message and themes. Pierce Lydon of Newsarama praised Gene Luen Yang for exploring the "subtle and insidious ways that prejudice shows up in our everyday life."[9] Rory Wilding of AIPT Comics said the series "succeeds as a positive and somewhat educational adventure about the acceptance of others."[10] Sheraz Farooqi, for Newsweek, wrote, "a poignant moment in the story comes when a member of the Klan is cheerful of Superman's powers, taking it as a sign of white supremacy. This ultimately is the catalyst for Superman to reveal himself as an alien to the rest of the world, unashamed of not being a human".[3]

Hillary Chute, for The New York Times, highlighted that all of the characters, including racist characters, "feel complex". Chute wrote that "while it suggests the similarity between the 'alien element' of nonwhites and the alien Superman, the book also confronts how Superman has been interpreted as a white-supremacist Übermensch, and how his visual presence has in the past been co-opted by the intolerant. In other words — as it also does in confronting racism against African-Americans, including by Asians — the book tackles perhaps predictable conflicts, but then deepens with every turn".[11]

The AV Club highlighted that the book weaves personal stories within the historical context and tackles a lot of concepts "for a middle-grade book, from the capitalist roots of the Klan to immigration, but the creative team does it all with grace and careful intention. Even the character design feels thoughtful, as antagonists are drawn without many of the classic markers of villainy, making it clear that physical appearance has nothing to do with risks people pose. If readers didn’t already have the foundation of Superman, they might be overwhelmed by all that, but because they enter Superman Smashes The Klan with clear expectations of who is right and what is wrong, they have more emotional and intellectual energy to absorb and process all of it".[5]

Reviews of the artwork were also generally positive. The AV Club highlighted Gurihiru's "very animated, kid-friendly art style"[5] and The New York Times stated "the vibrant visual world is controlled and inviting. Despite the hilarity of Superman’s enormous, almost frame-breaking body, Gurihiru’s cross-cultural artistic approach avoids the gimmicky".[11] The Washington Post wrote that the art "does a stellar job of heightening the story’s drama".[12] Entertainment Weekly highlighted that "Gurihiru’s art pays tribute to the ‘40s fashion that listeners of the original radio broadcast would have been wearing, while also creating a timeless aesthetic".[13]

References

  1. ^ "SUPERMAN SMASHES THE KLAN". DC. 2019-11-27. Retrieved 2020-05-16.
  2. ^ a b c Silber, Gregory Paul (2020-05-19). "DC ROUND-UP: SUPERMAN SMASHES THE KLAN is the best Superman comic since ALL-STAR". The Beat. Retrieved 2020-08-10.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. ^ a b c d Farooqi, Sheraz (February 19, 2020). "How 'Superman Smashes The Klan' Reconnects Superman to His Immigrant Roots". Newsweek.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  4. ^ a b "Children's Book Review: Superman Smashes the Klan by Gene Luen Yang, illus. by Gurihiru". Publishers Weekly. May 2020. Retrieved 2020-08-10.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  5. ^ a b c d Rosberg, Caitlin; Sava, Oliver (June 3, 2020). "Superman Smashes The Klan explores history through a superhero lens". AV Club. Retrieved 2020-08-10.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  6. ^ a b c d e f Francisco, Eric (May 13, 2020). "Superman crushed the KKK in 1946. Here's why he's doing it again in 2020". Inverse. Retrieved 2020-08-10.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  7. ^ a b c Polo, Susana (2019-10-15). "The Superman story that set the Ku Klux Klan back years is now a comic". Polygon. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  8. ^ a b c d Forsythe, Dana (2019-10-11). "Superman smashed the KKK once, and now he's doing it again". SYFY WIRE. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  9. ^ "Best Shots Review: SUPERMAN SMASHES THE KLAN #1 'Gets to the Heart of Who SUPERMAN Is'". Newsarama. Retrieved 2020-05-16.
  10. ^ Wilding, Rory (2020-05-12). "'Superman Smashes the Klan' review". AIPT. Retrieved 2020-05-16.
  11. ^ a b Chute, Hillary (2020-06-16). "Superman Returns, to Beat Up the Klan". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  12. ^ MacPherson, Karen. "Perspective | Five new books for your teenager's summer reading pile". Washington Post. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  13. ^ Holub, Christian (May 8, 2020). "3 comics to read in May: Grappling with a changing world". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2020-08-10.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
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