Lightkeepers' Logs

So, next month, there will be a new Superman movie. The first trailer of which made me fear the worst with its GRIMDARK aura and Pa Kent seemingly suggesting his son should have let people die rather than show his powers, the second was better, putting more emphasis on hope, and also, it had Lois Lane, and the third has that advantage as well but still seems to go for a lot of Wagnerian pathos, not that surprising given we're talking about Zack Snyder as director and Christopher Nolan as producer. Which, um. Is not exactly how I like my Superman story told, with one particular exception.

Back in the 90s, when I first started to get into superheroes, Superman was the one who took a regular beating in discussions as the one who's boring, impossible to update because he's good and not ambiguous, only palpable in combination with someone who is ambiguous, like Batman, and what not. I can't say I had strong feelings on the subject - I had seen the first three Chistopher Reeve films in the 70s and 80s, but only once each, with no more emotional echo than mild interest. I had also read The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller (aka the first one to feature Miller's Superman-is-a-tool-for-the-establishment interpretation). However, then came the tv show Lois & Clark, and lo and behold, affection was ignited. Looking back, not least because of one significant change Lois & Clark made in comparison to the Richard Donner films and also what bits and pieces of comics I'd read. While keeping the 40s screwball comedy set up of Clark Kent competing against himself-as-Superman for Lois' affections, it jettisoned the idea of Lois disdaining Clark while adoring Superman in favour of a narrative where while Lois initial' reaction to Clark is irritation (and initial reaction to Superman is being wowed), the two become (bickering) best friends and partners (as journalists) independent from Lois' Superman crush (and flirtations with other guys). In fact, looking back, Lois & Clark is perhaps the most successfull tv story with a falling-in-love-with-your-best-friend arc, not least because it shows us the the two of them becoming friends first. Lois and Clark sitting on the floor of her apartment eating pizza and talking their ears off is one of the images from the show that sticks with me and sums up the type of relationship they have.

Now, if Dean Cain's character is firmly anchored on the "Clark Kent is real, Superman is the mask" side of the interpretation (and also very unangsty; he's got no issues with being adopted or being an alien, and while he is in love with Lois before she's in love with him, he's not pining or stalking), this is, in fact, not the only only Superman interpretation which really managed to impress me and capture my fannish affections. And the other one which did is exactly on the opposite end of the spectrum, it's extremely dark and yet utterly plausible at the same time. Though the name Superman is not used at all, because we're talking about JMS' short lived Supreme Powers series which used some half forgotten Marvel characters which were transparent takes on the Justice League and rebooted them. The Superman character in Supreme Powers, Mark Milton/Hyperion, is basically the best take I can imagine if you really want to go for hardcore angst and a dark interpretion of "what would really happen if a superpowered alien baby crashlanded on Earth. He's found by a kindly couple, alright. Who keep him for all of a few hours before the goverment - who of course have registered the vessel he came in - take him. And the "kindly couple" who actually raises him in a Norman Rockwell idyll are goverment agents supervised on tv all the time, with the idyll taking place in a confined environment. (The emotional horror there for all parties is considerable. Because raising a toddler who could pulverize you with a look - not because he means to, as an accident in the course of a childish tantrum - is deeply scary, and so you understand why the agents who are Mark's "parents" are too afraid of him to love him, and are faking it all the time, which in turn when makes for a horrible truth waiting to be realised as Mark grows up.) Mark absorbs all-American-values and the idea that it's his duty to save the world not because he grows up in Kansas but because he's brainwashed and deliberately indoctrinated on a daily basis. Not just so he'll end up as the perfect goverment weapon but because - and this is important, as it makes things not black and white but complicated - the idea of a child, and later an adult of nearly unlimited powers is frightening, and so the generals arguing for this program aren't evil supervillains (though you can call them cold-blooded bastards), they have a point.

In the course of the series, Mark finds out his entire life was made up of lies, tries to quit working for the goverment, with the result that due to a calculated smear campaign, he goes from being the beloved superhero Hyperion to an evil Alien in the public's eye, and finally gets a team of other meta humans sent after him, survives various assassination attempts and finally arrives at the conclusion that beneficent dictatorship (of himself) is the only way to go; in short, the generals have created exactly the nightmare they were afraid of (not for nothing does JMS use quotes from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as mottos for individual chapters). It's a pretty relentless tragedy, very compellingly written. (The Supreme Powers series then peters out in various spin-offs, but the first two trade volumes plus the Hyperion miniseries really are great storytelling.) It's also the ultimate in Superman-as-Alien-with-a-capital-A interpretation. (Also it probably says something about pop culture's response to the present that Superman for the longest time was the quintessential American dream - the stranger who arrives as a child and loves his country/planet of adoption wholehearteadly - and the closer we get to the present becomes the American nightmare - immigrant child ends up danger precisely because he was distrusted and contained from the start.) So yes - I'm able to go with that end of the spectrum, too.

However, based on the trailers and, um, the repertoire of the people involved, in seems to me the latest film might want to have the angst without thinking through the whys, wherefores and logical consequences. Or rather: do that annoying thing Nolan's Batman movies did where they seem to question the superhero premise but do really just the opposite. I.e. the problem isn't that the citizens of Gotham idolize the late Harvey Dent, it's that they don't idolize Batman, and once they do, the idolizing is just fine. So if Man of Steel is about how everyone responds paranoid to the idea of a superpowered alien but then once he's proven he's really a good guy everything is fine, well, that strikes me as a somewhat hollow compromise between the two different extremes of how you can tell this story.

Also: I'm about the 4045664th person to observe on this, I know, but one reason why the Marvel movies so far by and large are more enjoyable than their DC counterparts to me is that for all that Marvel delivers the angst, too, their heroes get to enjoy their superpowers as well. Now Batman being Batman, it's understandable that we don't have Bruce Wayne geeking out about how nifty he's made the Batmobile. But if there is one DC superhero who is really ideal for showing someone enjoying the their powers in between world saving, it's Superman. (Unless, again, you go for the superpowered-kid-could-accidentally-kill-us emotional horror of the Mark Milton interpretation.) There is one scene in the trailer where Superman takes flight which makes me hope they'll do at least a bit of that. But the rest of it makes me fear angst will outweigh the enjoyment by far.

And there is no reporter partnership in the trailer at all, woe. The scene with Lois in it intrigues me, but she's talking to not-yet-christened-Superman here, not to Clark. And with all the rest of the trailer emphasisizing the danger/shock of discovering there is an alien among us, I doubt the film will go for the Clark Kent, Reporter at the Daily Planet part of the myth at all. Which in turn makes me realize that what I really want from a Superman movie, and am not likely to get, is a big screen version of the first two seasons of Lois & Clark, not a superhero movie at all but the tale of two bantering reporters, one of whom has superpowers, fighting crime together. And that's my problem.

And it's a week since I watched the Elementary finale. I feel bereft of Watson & Holmes (and friends) already. Woe. Even more so since I don't think fanfiction can help there, because Elementary (so far) is the type of show which gives me precisely what I want on screen, which usually means fanfiction does not. I'm not saying it's perfect. But somehow I suspect that better plotted mysteries won't be what fanfiction-writing fandom will focus on. :) (If I'm wrong there, all the better, of course!)

The greatest charm of Elementary to me was that it really sold me on the Holmes & Watson friendship, and used its 24 episodes for the season luxury well. There are American shows which make me feel they would benefit from a shorter season (for example: Battlestar Galactica not so coincidentally had a far better ratio of good versus mediocre or bad epsiodes in its first season when it had only half the usual number of episodes), but not this one. Because for the relationship to work the way it does, it's important it doesn't start instantly. There is no immediate recognition in our two main protagonists that they are exactly what's missing in their lives. Not that there is something wrong with instant attraction (either in romantic or friendship stories), but it's a far more often told trope, and so a friendship that developes slowly felt like something fresh and rately told on screen. It also works very well with the show's premise of letting Holmes and Watson learn from each other. By the time we arrive at the mid season point which an episode opened and closed by the statement "I think what you do is amazing" , it has earned this mutual recognition and respect, because we've learned about the main characters along with themselves.

The mutuality is so important for Elementary. One fear that was voiced before the show aired was that making Joan Watson a sober companion so she'd have a reason to move in with Holmes at the start of the show would simply be a gimick, or reduce her agency compared to all her male predecessors who move in with their Holmes because they want to. Instead, Joan being a sober companion proved to be instrumental to the how the show works, and how the friendship comes to be, and that it gives her a reason for house sharing at the start is the least of it. When Arthur Conan Doyle made Sherlock Holmes use cocaine, the disastrous effects of drug use weren't as known as they are today, and so many later incarnations took that element and dealt with it in various ways Doyle couldn't have anticipated when he introduced it. Though I think the only example of a SH story that made it crucial was Nicholas Meyer's novel and later film script The Seven Percent Solution, and even there one is left with the impression that once Holmes has gone through the immediate cold turkey stage of withdrawal with the help of Sigmund Freud, he's fine. By contrast, Elementary, because it's a tv show that has the space and time to do so, makes it clear that addiction is something that never goes away. In the finale, we get this exchange:

Spoilery character, apropos Holmes' drug addiction: But you're well now.
Holmes: I'm sober.

Which sums it up. (It's not just Sherlock Holmes, either. We meet various other addicts in the show. There is one who's spent decades being sober, being a great sponsor and helping other addicts, but in a terrible crisis, he's still tempted to go back to the drugs, and it's really hard not to.) It's also something the Sherlock Holmes from the pilot, who denies needing help to begin with because hey, he's clean now, he's fine, would never have said. Elementary has a deep respect for the whole (life long) recovery process, the AA system, sponsors - and sober companions.

Mutuality, though. If it were only about Joan helping and Sherlock learning, if this Holmes and Watson relationship were one sided with one party endlessly giving and the other endlessly receiving, it would not be attractive, it would be horrible. (Well, to me, anyway.) Now Joan Watson doesn't need Sherlock Holmes in the sense that her life is bad without him. She has friends, family and a job that she's good at when she meets him. But if he's learning from her about dealing with addiction, the importance of help both giving and receiving, community interaction, she's learning from him the art of deduction. The very premise of a Holmes & Watson combination involves Watson giving Holmes a reason to provide the exposition of how case X is solved and thus explain it to the reader/viewer, too by having Watson repeatedly ask "but how did you" etc. Elementary turns this into a deliberate learning process when Joan accepts Sherlock's offer to become his partner in detecting, and then not only tells but shows us how she gets better and better (with the occasional set back). This, however, is only possible after the two of them have come to respect each other as human beings. If this Holmes had nothing to offer but brilliant detecting skills, this Watson would not stay with him beyond the sober companion time. This is why it's so important that Elementary does not position an "either/or" between mental brilliance and emotion. The show's Sherlock Holmes can be a self-centred jerk (and if he is, he gets called on it, not only by Watson but also the other ensemble members), but he has a genuine passion for justice, a deep loathing of exploitation and power abuse (when the Doyle line about regarding blackmail in some way worse than murder comes two thirds into the show, it fits with what the audience has seen so far) and cares about the victims of the cases beyond solving the puzzle du jour. Which is why the show's Joan Watson can want to stay with him and the audience can want her to as well. Again: if Elementary's Watson were a great character but Elementary's Holmes was not, the show would have failed, at least in my eyes, because nothing is worse than having to continually wonder why on earth character X, whom one loves and respects, would not only put up with but actively seek out character Y, whom one can't stand/is indifferent to/insert negative emotion of choice.

(This, btw, goes for fanfiction as well as pro fic, and certainly applies for 'shipping in any form. I never got people who were rooting for ship A/B despite hating B, and only because character A wanted B. Same goes for friendship or family relationships.)

Tied to this is the fact that Elementary's Holmes and Watson don't exist in a two-of-us-against-the-world universe. Holmes has a lot of respect for Gregson (and vice versa) to start out with, and as the show continues, the initial hostility between him and Bell gives way to friendly respect - with the occasional ribbing - as well. As mentioned, Watson has family and friends, and they are in varying degrees interested, concerned or supportive of her life changing decisions. Both Holmes' and Watson's initial reaction to Alfredo - who goes on to become Holmes' sponsor - shows their inherent biases (if the show presented Joan as perfect and eternally in the right, it would fail as well); they both then go on to form relationships with him that show them learning. It's part of the show's deep humanity and as mentioned connects to the way addiction/recovery is handled overall: people learning from each other. But also: people having principles. Again, I'm not denying that the "unconditional loyalty" trope is appealing. But the older I get, the more I find "conditional loyalty" even more appealing, especially if the condition in question is an ethical one. Over the course of its first season, there are several points where different characters - Holmes, Gregson, Watson and Bell - are in a position where another character they're attached do either seems to do or in fact does something ethically wrong. And their response, while conflicted, is never "my X, right or wrong!"

If you have a show that focuses on people learning from each other, you don't want one of the lessons to be "I can do whatever I like, X will support me anyway". And on this show, it really never is.

This is also a show that lives in the quiet, for all the fun that the banter often provides. The biggest emotional moments often involve nothing more than a sentence or two, and Holmes and Watson sitting next to each other. These are the moments that make me melt in a viewer puddle of goo. And they could not have come earlier in the show's continuity than they do. These are not two people born or destined to be friends, or two people who hit it off immediately. These are two people who have become friends and have taken us along every step on the way. And it was a delightful way, which I already miss going on with them.