#comic ages

Bruce Wayne-Detective Comics #27- May 1939-86 years

Dick Grayson- Detective Comics #38 - April 1940- 85 years

Jason Todd- Batman #357- March 1983- 42 years

Tim Drake- Batman #436- August 1989- 36 years

Stephanie Brown- Detective Comics #647- June 1992- 33 years

Cassandra Cain- Batman #567- July 1999- 26 years

Damian Wayne- Batman #665- September 2006- 19 years

Superman: The Legacy // by DC Comics (1936 and Beyond)

Today I want to talk about Superman.

Superman was the groundbreaking guy of a phenomenon that still exist to this day. He's the first Superhero. He was created as work for hire by Jerry Sieguel and Joe Shuster for National Publications in the year of 1936. The preposterous image of a man wearing a unitard and a cape lifting a car over his head opened the imagination of millions of kids in those days, and he became a worldwide phenomenon. He became so profitable that DC Comics asked his creators to follow suit in the following years and thus was born the superhero age. The imagination of these men took Superman to places that most real life adventurers can just dream of and his super powers got him in situations ranging from dangerous to plain silly. Superman is the hero you can count that will always be present no matter how hard things get in comic books. His symbol is as recognizable as Mickey Mouse ears and The Coca-Cola logo. What he stands for is only the pinnacle of what every human being should be. Superman is a decent man. In this time and age some might say that Superman has become dated, but I profoundly digress. I believe Superman has evolved, even in the time when the most hardcore fans left him he has managed to be up and front in the DC Universe. From a man who used to catch bank robbers, now our hero faces interplanetary challenges and the afflictions of common society like corrupted politicians and shady multinationals and government back-staged deals.

Superman however still has so much history to be told, since I believe that every creator who truly loves him should take a crack at him, and leave his mark for the generation they live in. Comic wise he has an ultimate nemesis, he has a woman he cares for (and for a time he was married to her). But he need to be defined for today audiences. The trick is not a gimmick, it's not a new costume, or a new hairdo, or the continuous undoing of his history to replace it with a new one. Superman just need people who cares for him enough to say good stories. No matter if they are set in current continuity or as an Elseworld (although some of his best tales are from the latter). It's easy to dismiss the guy who can do anything, but even the man of Steel can feel and cry. Those of us who read the comics know that Superman cares for loved ones, he feels a sense of loss when they die, we even have seen him step on the gray area of morality and have self doubts about what he should do. Are these not humans traits? The more human they make this alien, the more appealing he is, if you ask me!

I care for Superman. I want him to be a representative icon again. In these dark times, his colors and optimism could bring at least a little spark of hope when we escape from reality and read comic books. In the end, that's how I think he could help a world of hard realities. Don't you think?

Danilo.-