Barbelith Underground > Comic Books

Basically, all of that is two readings: either Clark is an illusion and Kal is actually Superman, or there's no esssential difference between the two of them and they're more integrated than, say, Batman and Bruce Wayne.

I kinda go with the second reading but a bit differently, in that Kal and Clark are different, but neither are the dominant personality, they're both critical parts of the character. The Super and the Man.

When Clark is Clark he is Clark. Jonathon and Martha Kent's son from Smallville. It's an essential part of how he identifies as a Human and relates to those about him. Experiencing life from a grassroots level, understanding why people feel trapped and frustrated and powerless.

Kal is like the spirit of Clark, the bit that's able to fly out of the body and set to right all those things you'd normally feel powerless against. He's totally unbound. Impervious and unbreakable. He's the ultimate potential of the human animal. To me, Superman ain't Super cause he can fly and move mountains. That's just a side-effect of his true Supernature which is and his unwavering Will and perfect altruism.

Lex is rabid in his desire to kill Kal, but confides in Clark and shows warmth and even respect. Similarly, as Kal he can fly into the Stratosphere and be omnipotent and omniscient, as Clark he can go right to the macro level and experience life with the blinkers on (I reckon Superman would love Spore). Standing amidst it like a rock or a reed in a stream. Living with the chest out or with the chest in.

What I liked about this issue is that it really highlights why Superman and Lex Luthor are such perfectly matched adversaries. Even when neither has a full picture of what's going on they're still playing an incredibly multi-layered game, fighting against and with each other at the same time.

Kal goes in as Clark to get under Lex's skin and try to save him from himself. Lex is manipulating Clark to try and use him against himself. Lex is demonstrating what makes Human beings super, and Clark is demonstrating what makes Superbeings human. Clark saves Lex from the Parasite and Lex saves Clark from the Parasite. And though Lex might look like a total idiot by having Superman under his nose the whole time and not realising it, he still holds a majority of the board because thanks to him, Superman is dying anyway.

Couple of random thoughts...

Superman is Lex's dread of his own mortality made flesh. The thing that stops him from realising his goals and something that'll still be around long after he's dust. Being human he responds to it by lashing out. He wants to acheive immortality by destroying the symbolic figurehead of his eventual death.

Whatshername, Lex's neice plays that role for Superman. Lex might die along with him, but his spirit lives on in her. And she's younger (And younger and younger. And younger. Did I mention younger?).

That last vaginal panel. Fear of death on Clark's face. The process of death as being born into something else. A Morrison Theme™. The River Styx is also the Birth Canal, and he's being ferried across by his own personal Charon, the spiritual successor of Luthor, who embodies sex as much as she does death.

Experiencing death is the key to truly understanding Humanity. Even jumping in fright in full-on Human Clark mode, he still knocks a weight bench with enough force to almost topple it. He has to face this and pass through it. It's his Abyss (without the watery aliens).

Next issue it looks like he's back home, getting to grips with this by way of his Father. The Bizarro stuff also looks the mottled, wrinkled, decaying part. Think there's any chance of the Sweetie-bright immortality of the beginning shifting as the book swings into the second half? A la Vol. 2 of the Invisibles?

All-Star Superman