There are plenty of pundits and thinkpieces making the rounds right now, desperately reaching for any angle they can offer to explain why the recent electoral failures of the Democratic Party. But there's only one that's actually worth your time: the new season of Collective Action Comics, a "podcast about radical politics told through some not so radical comic books," which just launched this week.
And yes, I am completely serious.
I was already a fan of Collective Action Comics—particularly the last season, which skewered the Bush-era ugliness of Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch's wide-screen neocon Avengers reboot, The Ultimates.
This new season takes aim at the Death and Return of Superman comics—the very first issue of which was published 32 years ago this week. Podcast host Nat Yonce cleverly places that iconic story in the the historical context of its publication: coinciding with election of President Bill Clinton and the consequent right-ward, anti-crime shift of the Democratic Party. Like the Democrats, Superman in the 90s largely lost sight of his revolutionary socialist beginnings. The Man of Steel was no longer a circus strongman fighting corrupt landlords and OSHA-violating factory owners—he was now a figure of the establishment, working hand-in-hand with the police, military, and intelligence community to curtail the ever-growing threat of upheaval from the economically distressed denizens of Metropolis.
In that context, there was simply nowhere else for Superman's storyline to go but to set him up to fail against a dumb fashy demagogue strongman, then immediately resurrect him, having learned nothing at all from the exercise. Oh, except maybe to spin off Superman into four other Supermen who each sort of represented a slightly different demographic but were really just largely the same thing at the end of the day.
Sound familiar?
It's not hard to see the seeds of the modern Democratic Party in the slide from Reaganomics to the post-Soviet globalization and all of the corporate consolidation that came along with it across the decades. Collective Action Comics cleverly links the cynicism of the corporate comics publishing industry—specifically, the guy who literally wears hope on his chest—with the corporatized cynicism of the DNC.
This argument works in large part because of Yonce's unabashed love for the superhero genre. He knows his stuff, and he appreciates all the nuances and complications of the mainstream comic book industry. You might even say that he has the same affection for the corporate entities of DC and Marvel as he has for most mainstream liberals. (#iykyk)
The first episode of Season 3 of Collective Action Comics is available wherever you listen to podcasts. Here's the official blurb:
What does it mean to be "super?" What does it mean to have "power?" The Death and Return of Superman has us asking these questions in an era when it was less and less appropriate to do so. It was also a time of deep unrest, being the first sprout from the seeds of counterrevolution the previous decade. The ostensible leaders of resistance to such reaction were about to take us on quite the merry chase, and many liberals in the US were relieved to be "represented" once again, despite all evidence to the contrary. Join us. Join us as the Man of Steel dies and with him, our tomorrows. We may yet see them reborn.
(Did I mention that the sound design is absolutely killer? Seriously this podcast is worth it just for the audio collaging.)
A quick correction: Death of Superman was published, and Clinton was elected President for the first time, in 1992 – that's 32 years ago, not 22 as stated in the article. Time flies! (Thank you, Dean!)
