Look Up

In case you were hiding under a rock, I thought you would want to know that the Superman teaser trailer for the forthcoming 2025 film was released this past week. I’ll even save you the hassle; here’s the piece.

Now everyone has their opinion on what they saw, what’s to come and (most important to way too many) how it reconciles with the version of Superman that they had at some pivotal moment in their lives.

I’ll say this: I liked the Christopher Reeve film. I enjoyed the Brandon Routh film. I thought the Henry Cavill films were great. And I’m just as excited about this one.

More important to me, and the reason I write today, is that Superman is hugely important to my life’s journey in comics. Let’s go back to (I believe) Thanksgiving 2021. As a past practitioner of things political, I always had the belief that our public life could lift us up. But by then, about ten months into the then-new President’s term, it was clear that our public life had descended into places I never dreamt possible. The evening newscasts and pundit shows were downright toxic.

I felt like I was spiralling into depression and needed an escape. So I went back to comics after over 30 years.

The first comics I went to were my old DC favorites. First, to the digital reprints. That led me to the comic shops to see the new stuff. Exploration led me to the podcasting world, and to a particular podcast where writer Brian Michael Bendis was talking about his approach to Superman.

Bendis’ core take: Writing Superman in a pandemic was perhaps the best thing possible because the character was an escape. Superman was the best of us, the best of what we as people could be. How could you NOT love writing such a great character in such dark times?

That resonated with me, and I started reading his Superman. Was it the best ever? No. (I’m a John Byrne guy.) But it was good, and you could sense Bendis’ full-throated enunciation of that “best of us” character in every page.

Superman became my comic-specific touchstone, the place I could go to smile and feel good for a few minutes. And, eventually, it inspired me to try writing comics again…which leads us to today. A bunch of comics, zines and videos sharing the love of the medium with the world as best I can.

So yeah, Superman made everything I’m doing today possible.

I’m excited to see the new movie. I’m excited to see ANY Superman for that matter. And I’ll always be grateful to Bendis – and to Superman – for helping me find a happy place in some really dark times.

See you at the movie theater!