Woke Superman: Bisexual, Climate Change-Punching, & America-Hating
The Man of Steel is now the Man of Feels
The body of Superman lies at our feet, raped, bruised, and bloody.
Wokeness claimed yet another victim.
It slipped into the Big Blue Boyscout’s Fortress of Solitude in the middle of the night during one of the few times his x-ray eyes were closed and his muscles, capable of cracking the planet in half, remain loose and relaxed.
The rainbow-colored perpetrator slithered up his body, seeped into his Kryptonian DNA, wreaked havoc on an immune system that’s immune to pretty much everything else, and rendered the Man of Tomorrow into the Man of Sorrow.
No longer is this man a symbol of hope, strength, and the highest achievement of the human condition, for he is now a symbol of angry and righteous souls voracious for a bitter utopia built on their warped perception of Truth, Justice, and the American Way.
Yup, the new Superman’s condition appears terminal, having infected all major organs and the part of the brain where reason happens. I’m no expert on Kryptonian anatomy, but Superman’s symptoms don’t bode well, for him and his sales…
(A note of clarification: the current Superman, who is the subject of this article, is actually Jon Kent, the son of original Superman Clark Kent and wife Lois Lane. Clark is off doing something I don’t give a shit about, as I’ve stopped reading mainstream comics a couple years ago, largely due to the woke STD ruining good characters and good stories.)
Unnatural Bisexuality
Hold on there, Wokies: Before you call me a bigot in the comments section of this article and then block me before I can rip your arguments into unrecognizable burger bits, read the next sentence.
Bisexulity itself isn’t the problem, nor is there anything wrong with bisexual superheroes or bisexual comic book characters.
The problem with Superman’s bisexuality is that it was forced on the character and was obviously intended to cater to the Social Justice League that scours the internet, looking for harmless things to be loud about and genuine horrors to be quiet about.
This version of Superman first appeared in 2015, and because the character is young enough — both in print and in DC canon (he’s still in his teens) — there was plenty of room to introduce his bisexuality in a way that made narrative sense.
But when writer Tom Taylor — who’s actually done good work in the past — decided to reveal Jon Kent’s sexuality ON NATIONAL COMING OUT DAY, I can’t help but look at his creative decisions with a veteran detective’s suspicion.
Ah, but what good is a suspicion when the culprit offers up an admission of guilt?
In an interview with IGN, Taylor stated:
“When I was asked if I wanted to write a new Superman with a new #1 for the DC Universe, I knew replacing Clark with another straight white savior could be a real opportunity missed. I’ve always said everyone needs heroes and everyone deserves to see themselves in their heroes. Today, Superman, the strongest superhero on the planet, is coming out.”
Fuck storytelling, right Tom? Character development is useless if your goal is to win over the shrill, pink-haired hordes.
Superman is Greta Thunberg in Blue Tights
Instead of punching invading aliens or mad scientists, the new Superman is punching…carbon emissions.
Tom Taylor recently tweeted the cover of Superman: Son of Kal-El #7 which depicts Superman participating in a school strike for climate change (and to further establish the Thunberg connection, the cover also features Superman’s boyfriend holding a “skolstrejk för klimatet” sign). The cover can be seen here:
Making great use of that “Superman” title, Jon; you have the ability to kick a hole through a mountain, and you decide to save the planet by cutting class to hold an annoying sign. Your pop would be proud.
Taylor seems to be doing everything he can to make sure this Kent apple falls as far away from the tree as possible, as seen by his quote here:
“The question for Jon (and for our creative team) is, what should a new Superman fight for today? Can a seventeen-year-old Superman battle giant robots while ignoring the climate crisis? Of course not.”
Actually, he can. If these are the types of threats he plans on fighting, then the world must be pretty safe considering it exists in a fictional universe where appearances by malevolent beings from other planets and dimensions are the norm.
Or maybe these extinction-level threats are still taking place, but Superman is being a typical young person and ignoring the real horrors that put humanity on the brink of devastation RIGHT FUCKING NOW, just so he can yell at the weather acting up.
…
Yeah, judging by the writer’s comments and the audience he’s targeting, I think it’s a sure bet that it’s the latter.
The American Way is Problematic Now
“Truth, Justice, and the American Way”
Damn. What a fine statement for a superhero to have, especially one as inspiring and pure as Superman.
Sure, it’s corny and old fashioned, but flashy and new don’t necessarily equate to greatness.
However, DC’s powers that be seem to think that Superman needs to be gentrified, robbed of his classic, ageless sheen in favor of a bland, executive-mandated makeover whose expiration date is tied directly to the whims of a capricious and rabid mob.
And that’s why instead of “Truth, Justice, and the American Way”, Superman’s new motto is “Truth, Justice, and a Better Tomorrow”.
Fuck me, DC. With all of the other politically correct changes you’re making to Supes, you might as well change his motto to “My Truth, Social Justice, and the Woke Way”.
In a DC Comics blog post, DC Chief Creative Officer and Publisher Jim Lee had this to say on the motto’s “update”:
“Superman’s new motto of ‘Truth, Justice, and a Better Tomorrow’ will better reflect the global storylines that we are telling across DC and to honor the character’s incredible legacy of over 80 years of building a better world. Superman has long been a symbol of hope who inspires people from around the world, and it is that optimism and hope that powers him forward with this new mission statement.”
On the surface, it’s just a few words that’ve been replaced. But let’s wise up and speak in plain terms here: Woke Folk hate America.
In their opinion, it’s nothing more than an evil cis-heteronormative white supremacist patriarchy.
In reality’s opinion, however, it’s none of those things, and, despite plenty of flaws, is actually one of the most tolerant places for women, people of color, and LGBTQQIA+ folks to live.
If we weren’t living in the Woke Ages and everything wasn’t made into an unnecessary issue around identity, then this change in Superman’s motto wouldn’t come off like such a desperate attempt to remain relevant, and would probably even be considered a welcome refurbish of a cultural icon.
But, like all other pieces of pop culture that get molested by woke ideas, subtlety and craft go right out the window to make room for blunt, force-fed sermons on the plight of the oppressed.
Gabe Eltaeb, the colorist for Superman: Son of Kal-El, appeared on a livestream hosted by Cyberfrog creator Ethan Van Sciver (himself a former contracted DC employee) and stated that he will not renew his contract with the publisher to protest the changes being made to the character, stating:
“I’m finishing out my contract with DC. I’m tired of this shit, I’m tired of them ruining these characters; they don’t have a right to do this…What really pissed me off was saying ‘Truth, Justice, and a Better World’. Fuck that it was ‘Truth, Justice, and the American way’…My Grandpa almost died in World War II; we don’t have a right to destroy shit that people died for to give us. It’s a bunch of fucking nonsense.”
Eltaeb’s statements here are hyperbolic, but understandable; DC Comics, along with Marvel Comics, aren’t so much updating classic characters as going scorched earth on them and their legacies, alienating longtime fans who’ve stuck by them to gain favor with those who’ve based their personas on such ridiculous beliefs as skin color matters, biological sex doesn’t exist, and everyone who voted for Trump is a white supremacist. These are the fans comic book publishers wish to attract.
Eltaeb continues:
“They call us bigots and racist and shit, I would ask them, find me in the fucking mainstream — not on the fringes — one fucking book, one fucking t-shirt, one movie that says that leftism is bad, and conservatism is good. Find it for me — they fucking won’t. They’re not letting people have a voice — they’re the fucking bigots.”
And he’s right.
If race and gender and sexuality matter so much to this bastard subset of comic book fandom, they’re no better than the Nazis they claim to see everywhere. They don’t base their judgement on the strength of the story and character arcs and penciling and inking of the comic — base their judgement on the immutable characteristics of the characters and their creators.
When speaking on Eltaeb’s rant on his livestream, Van Sciver had this to say:
“Gabe just exploded on my livestream, he had a lot to say, a lot of feelings and a lot of thoughts that he wasn’t able to share because he was working for DC Comics. And that’s the reality. You cannot come out and be a conservative and criticize the company that you work for in this way. You have to be completely supportive of the corporate agenda, whatever it is. You have to keep your negative or critical opinions to yourself, and it’s so liberating to be able to not work for DC comics and be able to say exactly what you think. And I think that’s what Gabe is going through here.”
Van Sciver is absolutely correct here. Not only has the culture of these companies moved extremely far to the political left, their employees, and worst of all their creators, have to follow suit. And if they disagree with the direction the company is taking the characters, it’s shut up and learn to comply or get the hell out you Nazi.
Diversity and inclusion initiatives are being enforced in countless creative domains, and because paychecks and reputations are on the line, the artists are expected to base their creative choices on these mandates.
But why should audiences trust the decisions of executives who are using Woke Twitterati as their editors instead of actual editors? They fucking shouldn’t, that’s why.
It sounds like Tom Taylor is the main man behind the recent violations of Superman’s character, but he’s in perfect harmony with DC Comics’ move away from storytelling and towards propaganda. Taylor pulled the trigger, but someone else hired him to do the job.
Tom Taylor and the other artists willingly marching in time to DC Comics’ politically correct song are making creative blunder after creative blunder. In addition to those already mentioned in this article, they’re completely missing the chance to have their cake and eat it, too: keep longtime fans happy by ensuring that legacy characters remain un-fucked-with, and attract modern audiences by creating new “diverse” and “inclusive” characters.
Mind-blowing idea, this I know.
But it’s a bulletproof one. If one approach doesn’t work, then put your efforts towards the other approach. And if both approaches work, then even better.
And yet, even with a fruit hanging so low in front of their faces, DC’s heads decided to split the difference and incorporate the worst of both worlds: “Superman, bend over and think happy thoughts, cuz we got a hot rod of queerness here and it’s coming in hot.”
I mean, writer Tom Taylor nearly said as much about the new Super Abomination he’s created:
“We didn’t want this to be ‘DC Comics creates new queer Superman’. We want this to be ‘Superman finds himself, becomes Superman and then comes out,’ and I think that’s a really important distinction there.”
Creating a new character from scratch was apparently too arduous a task, and so he went with force-fucking some intersectionality into an existing character instead. “This one’s for you, my fellow Social Justice Leaguers!” Taylor surely thought after spending about six minutes planning out the new Superman series.
But perhaps I’m being too harsh on Taylor; surely this isn’t a feeble attempt at cramming “representation” into a series about a character whose farts are equal to that of an A-bomb, right?
Wrong.
Here’s what Taylor had to say about it in a DC Comics blog post:
“I’ve always said everyone needs heroes and everyone deserves to see themselves in their heroes and I’m very grateful DC and Warner Bros. share this idea. Superman’s symbol has always stood for hope, for truth and for justice. Today, that symbol represents something more. Today, more people can see themselves in the most powerful superhero in comics.”
Goddammit, Taylor.
You’ve misstepped at every possible turn with the conception of this new incarnation of Superman. I really don’t see how you could be any less of a comic book write —
“Can someone with super sight and super hearing ignore injustices beyond his borders? Can he ignore the plight of asylum seekers?”
(Sigh)
That’s it.
Let’s just kill mainstream comics.
Just take it behind the barn and put a bullet in the back of its head and bury its corpse out in the field where we’ll easily forget about it.
Mainstream comics are no longer about distracting us from the divisive issues of the world, their creators now hellbent on constantly reminding us of them.
Whimsy and fun and excitement have been replaced with lectures and warnings and righteous stupidity.
Subtlety is an outdated artform to the dominant comic book creators, as they’ve now adopted blunt-force directness as they’re operative Artist’s Ethos.
But that’s what happens in the Age of Rage, when everything is political and a potential source of emotional harm to someone. Creative innovation must take a backseat to the preservation of feelings.
Art is dying a slow, ignominious death, but at least a few groups aren’t offended.
