Well, that touches upon one of my biggest gripes with Byrne’s Superman: he completely dismisses his ethnic roots and identifies solely as a human, even going so far as to call his knowledge of Kryptonian culture “meaningless.”
Later writers found a better balance and allowed him to be properly bicultural again.
I’ve been reading it and, yeah, I like it. I usually feel that way when they put him in space.
Hey, I appreciate that and I certainly can’t tell anyone how to feel about anything, and I’m definitely not saying that people with dual identities need to choose one or the other. That’s just not the lens that I’m viewing this argument through, but I appreciate why you would.
My point is more of why should fitting in be that important in the first place? To make it personal for me, I never fit in. I still really don’t. Growing up, I never really liked Superman because he looked like the pinnacle of fitting in, and, partly, that was because doing so was the preoccupation of many of his stories after Byrne. He was a football star, a successful professional, and he never rocked the boat.
Whereas, when I read the Silver Age material, I saw a different guy. One who embraced the things that made him different as what made him special. One who was not constantly worried and preoccupied with being a certain way to fit in with everyone else around him. For me, that’s where a lot of this debate comes from. It’s not only about Clark Kent, but how he needs to look like a specific kind of American (the “right” kind of American) to justify his place in the world.
Yes! Thank you!
He even had Kal’s rocket be a “birthing pod” so he could technically be born in America (which is really kind of odd considering Byrne is Canadian).
Byrne has said that his own experience of being born in the UK and moving to Canada at a young age informed his view of Superman. Byrne does NOT consider himself British, so Superman does NOT consider himself Kryptonian.
I remember this. Yeah I didn’t like the “meaningless” bit either. I chalked it up to Byrne not quite understanding the immigrant experience, even to someone who was essentially “born” here. Probably a product of its time, too, with the Cold War not quite ended and all the nationalistic sentiments that came with that.
Having said that, and to contradict myself (because I do that), the excerpt you shared does come right after Clark learned the truth about his origin, all the languages and culture and history downloaded into his head at once. The reflex is kind of understandable to be honest. It’s like raising a kid with no acknowledgement whatsoever of their heritage, only to try and force it all upon them as an adult. It doesn’t work.
Like you said, later writers smoothed that out and did a better job of finding a balance there.
We were writing our posts at the same time. I guess I was wrong in my assumption there. That was his experience… very interesting.
If you really read through that era of Superman comics, it never really gets any better. Byrne’s World of Krypton paints it as a really terrible place. They were decadent and emotionless with their technology. They persecuted religion. It was treated like it was nothing to celebrate. Even after Byrne left, there was a clear formula of anything alien (and especially anything Kryptonian) is bad which drove Clark to try and fit in even more.
…Hence my least favorite era of Superman comics.
Not to dismiss his own personal life altogether, but a white guy moving from England to Canada probably isn’t a cultural change that fully qualifies a person to explore the harder aspects that can come with the immigrant experience…
And people say that Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel was unfaithful to the comics! 
Awww, nah, Snyder’s Superman is the Post-Byrne Superman. …Those %#@%ing movies…
Thank you for that perspective. It definitely helps me look at things from a different angle.
I guess we all (readers and writers) look at these characters through different lenses, informed by our own unique life experiences. Therefore certain depictions will resonate with some, but not with others.
I read all the Byrne volumes a few years ago, and I remember the “cold Kryptonian culture” bits. Somehow it didn’t feel completely off base at the time though. Other than Jor-El, they kinda sorta came across that way in Superman: The Movie, which pre-dates Byrne.
But but but he he killed Zod!
Love those ■■■■■■■ movies 
Influenced by that Superman yeah, but I wouldn’t say it’s the same.
I lowkey always loved that about post crisis Superman simply because it allows for Superman to run for president legally.
So did John Byrne’s Superman . . . but he didn’t even have the excuse of it being in the heat of the moment as Zod was about to kill some innocent people.
That mighta just been Marlon Brando vibes… 
But, I do also mean the stuff after Byrne. Check out all the Eradicator material from the Post-Crisis era, if you haven’t already. That’s a pretty clear example of how you were supposed to read Krypton back then. The positive aspects of Krypton didn’t re-enter the mythos until the Loeb revamp in the year 2000.
My perception is… close enough. What really bothered me about Snyder’s Superman is that he really wasn’t very inspiring. In both films he was too conflicted about his own identity and about whether he should actually be Superman to actually be a symbol of hope. This is also the sense I get from Post-Crisis Supes.
There is a President Superman! And he’s great!
Everything after Crisis on Infinite Earths
Actually…
The greatest retcon in the post crisis era, in my opinion, goes out to J.M Dematteis Martian Manhunter origin.
Yes, it did erase mars 2 and his role as Martian king from continuity but I honestly perfer it.
Martian Manhunter has only been enhanced by this melancholic tragedy of J’onn J’onzz being the sole survivor of his planet.
I mean… there was a reason that Crisis happened, and it was the lesser of two evils (they were considering licensing their characters out to Marvel). But… I really wish that they kept more than they did after Crisis ended…
I dont know if someone said this yet but Tim drake was really done dirty in the new 52. It was nothing but retcons. His skill level, his costume, his background, he no longer uncovered Batman’s identity, his incompitance got his parents (who are no longer dead, but also different people entirely) put into witness protection, he was NEVER Robin, and they made it so Tim Drake wasn’t even his real name. Even though DC says they changed it back (more retcons) the character hasn’t really recovered from it.
