Interesting detail in Adventures of Superman

[james_davis_nicoll]

In this version, Jor El wanted to send Lara to Earth (sending Kal El almost seems an after-thought). What if she had accepted and accompanied her son on his trip?

(assume they reach Earth alive and well because "they die on the way" is boring)

Comments

[michael a. davis (from livejournal.com)]

Assuming the George Reeves Superman was as old as George Reeves, you get a nigh-invincible alien demigod (and one trained in the sciences, if we go by the way the character was written even back in the day) making her debut in 1914 (with a kid in tow).

Hey, maybe she goes over and stops WWI! That'll lead to a healthy development of human culture, I'm sure.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

This version has her arriving in 1926/27.... So more likely WW2....

[doc-lemming.livejournal.com]

I'm seeing the immigrant story writ super: she never quite gets the hang of the local language, still has an accent, doesn't date (possibly because sex with her for a human would be kind of like sex for a drone with a queen bee--assuming she felt anything, or took care of herself, and thank you for providing the inspiration for the details, Larry Niven).

She has the reputation of being sort of clumsy because even after all these years, she has yet to get used to her strength. Or invulnerability. Kal says, "Why don't you fly there, Mother?" and she sighs and says the Kryptonian equivalent of "Eh," and takes the bus.

Kal, though, grows up human. He speaks fine English (and Swahili, and Lithuanian, and ...) and has these human values, instead of trusting the values of Krypton like his mother does. No, he never rebels, but he's got some odd ideas about the rights of these monkeys.

Yes, he'll probably marry one of them, they're all he knows, but she tries to sabotage or subvert that. And while she certainly thinks it certainly is their Kryptonian right to help these monkeys up the ladder of adequacy, she had in mind something more like ruling a small nation and remaking it in the image of Krypton.

(Actually, she might do that, not because she's EEEvil--she isn't--but to provide for Kal. And that would be a very different story.)

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

...she had in mind something more like ruling a small nation and remaking it in the image of Krypton.

Which small Earth nations would be good candidates for someone with Kryptonian superpowers to take over, by persuasion, by force, or by other means, circa 1914?

[connactic.livejournal.com]

That would depend on what level of "Kryptonian superpowers" they had, as well as what other heroes/villains were active at the time. At some points in the comic, Superman could have taken over the planet. At his debut, I am not sure if he could have withstood, say, a nuke, although that may have just been because there weren't any around then.

(according to wikipedia, he could withstand nukes by 1946).

[rwpikul.livejournal.com]

A bit late but: The original introduction didn't even describe him as invulnerable, it said that "nothing short of a bursting shell" could hurt him.

Never mind a nuke, conventional bombs would have been an issue for him.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

European or Japanese or American colonies?

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Where's a good hi-res map of Earth c. 1914?

PS: And which DCU-specific nations do we allow for the existence of for our purposes?

PPS: mcwetboy might be of some help here.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

How hi-res do you need? Google 1914 map wikimedia turns up various candidates.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

After doing my own search, the question is narrowing down which maps to use.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

It hadn't occurred to me that there might be fictional countries already part of the universe of the comic.

Seems slightly less interesting than seeing her adventures in a real country. But I've got an open mind.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

And why does it have to be small?

Germany would do just fine, once the armed forces were wrecked and their supporting industries repurposed.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

Where-ever she likes, if she uses her powers correctly. I recall this comes up in Red Son, wherein Kal-El becomes a diplomat on the grounds that while he could conquer the Earth in an hour, he would then be crushing rebellions for centuries.

Germany, in the 1920s or 1930, might be a good candidate...

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Aline Towne was in Radar Men from the Moon, so she knows her rockets.

What would Supermom's costume be like? Or would she just dress in the styles of the Old Country?

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Old Homeworld style, perhaps. She might even successfully influence fashions wherever she settles in.

[avram]

A grown-up alien super-scientist with working spaceship could change the world so thoroughly that her having super-strength and invulnerability seems like a side issue (except in that it makes her harder to assassinate or intimidate).

Unless she had some kind of Prime Directive-like scruple keeping her from altering the direction of Earth’s development.

Thinking about this highlights the differences in story objectives between the 1930s and today (at least in comics and science fiction). Writing this story back then, Siegel and Shuster would almost certainly have given Lara some kind of Kryptonian super-device to overcome the language barrier and let her blend in. A modern writer would want to highlight the parallels to the real-world immigrant experience, or showcase the effects of Earth being changed by an alien culture.

[kithrup.livejournal.com]

What happens with Superman in this case? Raised by Ma & Pa Kent, he was an unshakable bastion of morality (aka "Truth, Justice, and the American Way", presumably before "the American Way" involved systemized torture, gulags, and monitoring the communication patterns of every single person in the country).

If he's raised by Lara, does that stay true? Is he still unshakeable in his beliefs, whatever they are? (Jor-El's unwillingness to defy the council and do something more, makes me think that Kryptonians are not particularly good at the whole concept of flexible morality.)

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

You might be entertained by Red Son, which I mentioned above; it's an alternate timeline graphic novel wherein Kal-El's spaceship lands not in Kansas but in the USSR. Kal-El does have ideals involving Truth, Justice, and the locally conventional philosophical stance. (He takes a while to realize that Stalin is Not A Nice Person.) He's still a hero - but he never got indoctrinated to the ideas that a strong man should not take political power or that killing was never justified. Complications follow.

[michael a. davis (from livejournal.com)]

Let's see -

She lands in Kansas in January 1914. She's taken in by a kindly farm couple called the Kents, who find the crashed rocket and are a generous host to the young widow and baby getting on their feet in the new land.

[michael a. davis (from livejournal.com)]

I sense a coming crisis with Edison.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

That could be entertaining in its own right.

Alternatively, she intervenes between Edison and Tesla.

[kithrup.livejournal.com]

Or Edison and Tesla join forces and become the first supervillains!

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Pre-empting Alexei Luthor?

[kithrup.livejournal.com]

Oooh... Luthor could be an orphan she adopts/fosters. Resulting in sibling issues later in life.

[timgueguen.livejournal.com]

Worst case scenario, you end up with a female version of Stardust the Super Wizard. who lets all sorts of horrible crap happen to the people of Earth so she can appear at the last minute to "save the day."

[bruce munro (from livejournal.com)]

Hey, he saved New York before any damage was done... http://www.misterkitty.org/extras/stupidcovers/stupidcomics29.html

And I imagine her punishments of the bad guys wouldn't be quite as..._elaborate_ as Stardust's.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

So when in the cannon did it become Martha and Jonathon Kent rather than Sarah and Eban?

[wild-patience.livejournal.com]

I like this version of Krypton (which was truer to the old comics) much better than the sterile version foisted on us in the 1978 movie, which then was inserted into the comics as well.

Kryptonian Women, Threat or Menace?

[(Anonymous)]

The arrival of Lara and son confirms what Von Braun has been saying and raises the status of Edison and Tesla. Or does it make war more likely and make the weapons even deadlier? Does it render the biplane obsolete in favor of jet aircraft?

It would be humorous if Edison gains status and works to discredit Lara. Maybe he allies with Tesla to deal with a bigger threat. He wouldn't be a bad guy like Luthor but one like the Prankster.

If somebody steals and hides the rocket that makes the details of Lara's story harder to prove. I don't think Luthor should be a European but an amoral analog to Howard Stark.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Just watched the relevant part of this, about 6:49 into the clip. The rocket has room for only one person. So, sadly, Lara and Kal don't both get to go.