Superman renounces U.S. Citizenship, people freak out.

In issue 900 of Action Comics, Superman decides to renounce his U.S. Citizenship after his appearance at an Iranian protest is considered an American "Act of War." Tired of his actions being construed as U.S. policy, he decides to meet with the United Nations and renounce his U.S. Citizenship.


My opinion? Well, I'll go ahead and quote

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Read more and watch videos here:
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/05/02/superman-us-american-citizenship/

 

Hoo boy, where to start?

While I'm not the biggest fan of it, there is nothing wrong with making a political statement in comics. DC does it from time to time and Marvel does it quite often. For example, a few months ago, as part of Batman, Inc., DC introduced Nightrunner, AKA, Le Batman of France. Nightrunner happens to be a Muslim, causing racists to get pissed. DC did this for two reasons. First, it made a good origin story due to the second reason. The second reason is that it made a positive and relevant anti-racism and anti-religious intolerance messages (see footnote.) Another example would be Marvel's Civil War, but the less said about that bit of soapboxing (that used Iron Man as an allegory for conservatives and Captain America as an allegory for liberals, even though Captain America is one of the most conservative superheroes in comics), the better.

This, however, is a publicity stunt disguised as a political statement. Sure its less blatant than the last publicity stunt that DC pulled that resulted in any canon surrounding Wonder Woman being completely ****ed, but its still a blatant publicity stunt to try and bring in more readers. What's worse is that this is completely pointless.

Superman is, symbolically, a citizen of the world and no single country. He doesn't have a US citizenship to renounce. Due to his symbolic worldwide citizenship, he has every right to go wherever he wants and help whoever he wants. This comic, by stating that he is an American, is contradicting a pretty major part of Superman's character for the sake of pretending its a political statement to pull a publicity stunt to bring in more readers.

Both fortunately and unfortunately, its working. Comic stores all over the country are sold out of Action Comics #900 and there's a second printing on the way. I say this is fortune because its gotten people who might normally not read comics to pick the issue up and more people reading is a good thing. I say its also unfortunate because its just further proof that controversy sells. Most of the non-comic readers who picked up Action Comics #900 only picked it up because of the controversy and will most likely only stick around for another two or three issues before losing interest. This also means that DC is likely to pull more publicity stunts instead of trying to bring in more readers with compelling and interesting storytelling.

Personally, I was going to pick up either Action Comics or Superman now that JMS's train wreck of a story that is "Grounded" is out of the way, but I think I'll continue to pass it up, much like I did with Wonder Woman when she got her publicity stunt in the form of a total retool. Besides, if this really was to get "The American Way" removed from his slogan, they'd have been much better off doing it quietly by just not using it anymore.



*For those who don't know, there has been some problems in France with race and religion based violence. DC's use of these events for Nightrunner's origin story was basically them saying that violence based on race and religion is stupid. Now, this made the racists at the Council of Conservative Citizens go nuts. They got pissed because it wasn't a "true Frenchman" that was being given the title of Le Batman of France. Just about every comic news source didn't try to hide how stupid this was (and one in particular took a break from the news just to call the Council of Conservative Citizens the racists they are.)

 

Now, speaking as a non-comics reader, (I.E: I've read Watchmen and Superman: Red Son, and that's all as far as comics are concerned), I have to disagree with this. Most media external from comics tend to paint Superman as an All-American hero, and on basis alone, I really agree with you. He is a world citizen, he fights to save the world, not just America, but his character in and of itself has that tie to America that if I'm honest I can't even pinpoint. This is something that always irks me about the JLA, the fact that are, by name, an American association yet serve as an indepentant organization with no real ties to the US at all.

However, going off of that panel alone, yeah, that link with America can easily become something of a burden to Superman, with him being a political nuisance of some kind because of his link with the USA. However, Superman overcoming problems he can't just fry with Heat Vision is a good thing, because it should make interesting stories. This is a back-door escape, and as you say, is basically a publicity stunt on DC's part with a hinting at an actual social commentary.

Yes, I'm saying a lot of this without knowing a whole lot about the context, but I enjoy the wild and interesting stories that Superhero Comics and Graphic Novels can produce. I hate Superman, but I loved Red Son. This just seems a wierd thing to do in my opinion.

 

I'm not an avid reader of comic books, but I have to admit I love this narrative device. It re-invests the image of Superman to the audience since now he isn't the All-star American that he's been portrayed as for years, making him more universally applicable to the worldwide audience. But in the real world I don't know why this is such a big problem. To me it's a great plot that can develop into many arcs and grip the reader making them want to read on, but I don't see it as a nationality or political thing, to me Superman has always been the face of humanity with no definite allegiance to any one country but the Earth as a whole.

I think this is too much stress over a story. Besides, I doubt that this will be perminent, he'll be an American again it's been who he is for too long I doubt he'll simply throw that away for too long, he just needs to find his faith again, i'm sure.