RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books Pa Kent: Dead Again

NY Daily News:

• In "Action Comics" #870, hitting shelves Wednesday, DC Comics is killing off the man who first discovered Superman as an alien baby sent to Earth from the planet Krypton way back in 1939's "Superman" #1.
  
  "If baby Kal-El had fallen in the hands of a lesser man, the world would be a lesser place," said Geoff Johns, the writer behind the story.
  
  Ted Alexander, an employee at Midtown Comics in Manhattan, said it'll hurt the Man of Steel — not to mention comic fans — a lot more than any Kryptonite. "I read the issue this morning and I was shocked," Alexander said Tuesday.
  
  Older fans can be forgiven if they're having déjà vu: In the original Superman tales of the 1940s, his parents die of natural causes while he's still a teen. And in the 1978 "Superman" movie, Jonathan Kent, played by Glenn Ford, also dies of a bum ticker.
  
  But when Superman comics were relaunched in the '80s, however, his parents made a miraculous recovery and became a major part of the title.
  
  In "Action Comics" #870, a distracted Superman can't hear his mom's cries for help in time, and despite his super speed, can't get to his father's side in time.
  
  "He'll feel a lot of guilt that he wasn't fast enough, strong enough or powerful enough to get there in time," said Pat Yee, co-owner of Midtown Comics.
  
  No one feels worse about the death of Pa Kent then the writer who killed him.
  
  "It was probably the most difficult scene I've ever had to write," said Johns."That's why there's no dialogue in the scene, there's nothing left to say."

Comic Fans actual reaction =

I love how the soundbyte/quote they got from a comic shop was "I was shocked!"

If he was, then he's clueless to comic books as a genre...

Not to mention the last issues' whole "male bonding" stuff practically screamed "he's about to die, folks."

The only way it could have been more obvious would have been if Pa had announced he was only three days away from retirement.

And, let's face it: between the Donnor movie, Smallville, the Singer film and WB's desire for "synchronicity", not to mention Johns' desire to ape as much of the Donner movies as possible, I'm surprised it took this long to off the old duffer.

This just in: Ted Alexander, an employee at Midtown Comics in Manhattan, has announced that he's reeling in surprise from the deaths of Uncle Ben, Battlin' Jack Murdock and Thomas and Martha Wayne.

they forgot to mention Bucky, Jason Todd, and Gwen stacy,

And the Insurgency forum.

Bucky and Jason ain't dead fuck-o!

And who knows about Gwen these days. Maybe Spidey's deal with the devil brought her back too and we just don't know it yet.

maybe she's Jackpot! And her power is to get fingered in the twat and secrete blood and white stuff!

I liked the issue. Superman dominates Brainiac, only to see what happens as a setup for the New Krypton story. For just a moment I was thinking everything up to now would be a red herring and Ma would end up dead. In my mind Jonathan died around OWAW. Shortly after, I think around Godfall maybe, he was de-aged. Old man Kent was gone.

He looks pretty old in that artwork of Gary Frank's. Did he get re-aged again?

It's not so much that he got de-aged, what happened is that in Birthright he and Ma were replaced with older versions of the Smallville actors. As Smallville got suckier and suckier, the artists started moving away from those versions.

Ah, I understand. Merely yet another example of DC changing its books to reflect a TV show or movie at precisely the moment where no one gives a shit about said book or movie.

It sometimes takes Johns awhile but eventually he does get around to killing off any character or ruining any storyline that came after Crisis.

Personally, I prefer a dead Pa Kent. The whole "with all my powers I couldn't save him" angle was, IMO, a vital part of the Superman legend, the moment where he learned that he wasn't infallible.

However, that moment/lesson only really works if, as in the original comic books, the Donner movie and, even, Smallville he learns it as a teenager, before he puts on the cape.

I agree with it being a vital part of Smallville and Superman I & II. But I don't agree with it being vital to Superman. Sure, there's plenty of stories where the father seems to have to die before the son can venture off to do great things. It's a story that I, personally, can relate to. But for God's sake man, Superman lost an entire planet (or country if you want to strip things down). In my mind Superman is all about preventing the destruction of another world, which Johns has explored. That's covered a lot in Smallville and more in the comics. The upcoming New Krypton story seems to want to contradict that concept. Based on interviews, Johns seems to be out to make Superman more special.

By "special", do you mean "retarded"?

No Snarf, my friend, I don't.

Rob Kamphausen ass-kicky Administrator cobra kai
15000+ posts Thu Oct 09 2008 01:05 AM Reading a post
Forum: Comic Books
Thread: Pa Kent: Dead Again

And if we ever want him back Superboy Prime can just hit a wall

Yeah, the point of losing Pa is not about him preventing a planet's destruction or even about the father having to die before the son can accomplish something.

It's meant to be the point where Clark learns that he can't save everyone and he isn't infallible. It's about why he has humility despite his godlike powers.

That's why pre-Byrne (who, god knows, is far from able to understand a character with humility), the death of one or both of his parents was always part of the Superman origin. It was the failure before the triumph.

The Many Lives of Pa Kent

• Comics lost an icon this week when Pa Kent passed away in Action Comics #870. The thing is, this isn’t the first time that Pa Kent’s death has throw Superman’s world into upheaval. In fact, the history of Superman is replete with the many deaths of Pa Kent. Let’s take a look at a character that may in fact have more lives than Catwoman.
  
  Golden Age Pa Kent: Pa Kent gets his first name in Superman #1 in 1939. Though the origin establishing the discovery of the infant Kal-El dates a year earlier to the Action strip, Pa didn’t have a name. Throughout the ‘40s, their names would change on occasion. The 1942 novel The Adventures of Superman by George Lowther even names Pa “Eben Kent” (Ma was “Sarah,” by the way – or earlier in the comic, “Mary” – hey, how many times was Pa married....?). The novel, as well as captioned references in several stories, indicate that both Ma and Pa died before Clark arrived in Metropolis. There were multiple relations of this, so it can be truly said that the many deaths of Pa actually begin early in the character’s history.
  
  But when DC decided they needed to tell the stories of Superman as a boy, both Pa and Ma returned, and became a whole lot more than old people dying in cameo. By 1950, Pa is firmly established as Jonathan Kent, while Ma is Martha by the twelfth issue of Superboy in 1951. An effort to explain the name discrepancies is made later, with the Earth-2 Superman’s adoptive parents being John and Mary, while the Earth-1 Superman’s parents were Jonathan and Martha. The Kents play their largest role in the Superboy title, though we don’t really see until later why they’re mostly confined there.
  
  Silver Age Death: In Superman #161 from 1963, both Ma and Pa Kent purchase the arable ground. While on a trip to the Caribbean that Clark helped realize by building a boat, the Kents find a pirate’s diary. They convince Clark to take them to the past to see how it all occurred. Unfortunately, the Kents later learn that they’ve contracted a “Fever Plague”. Martha, then Jonathan, both pass. Clark blamed himself, thinking that the trip to the past caused the loss. In truth, the Plague came from the pirate diary. Years later, coincidence would have Lois Lane and Lana Lang exposed to the same disease in Superman #362. Superman searches desperately for a cure before realizing in the next issue that his own blood can cure the ladies. The reason this wouldn’t have worked for the Kents, we are told, is that the Man of Steel wasn’t actually with his parents when they were infected. Superman was standing next to Lois and Lana, therefore his body developed immediately resistance to the pure Plague. Hey – we don’t write the things, we just remind you of the things. The second half of this story was collected in DC’s Blue Ribbon Digest for the Best Stories of 1981.
  
  Movie Death: While certain comic stories would have Pa Kent briefly return thru various means, the general perception by the ‘70s was that the Kents were dead. When Superman hit the big screen in 1978, the film came complete with a dramatic sequence featuring the death of Pa Kent (Glenn Ford) by heart attack. This actually wasn’t Pa’s first transmedia death; Pa Kent was also felled by a heart attack in the pilot for the ‘50s TV series.
  
  Pa Lives!: After Crisis on Infinite Earths, both Ma and Pa Kent got a new lease on life. Firmly integrated back into the mythos by John Byrne, Ma and Pa proved popular enough with readers to stick around. Every version of Superman that sprang off of the Post-Crisis template, from Superman: The Animated Series to Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman featured Pa Kent alive and well.
  
  Near Miss . . . near miss . . .: Several times in the years after their return, DC Comics flirted with the idea of whacking Pa again. Pa had a heart attack after the “Death of Superman”, and actually wandered in an out-of-body experience where he helped usher his son’s spirit back towards the land of the living. Pa was missing briefly after the sprawling “Our Worlds at War” crossover, but found his way back. The runs of Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League would feature Pa Kent on occasion, but both series would end with him alive and well.
  
  Direct Hit!: Pa died again on screen in the January 26, 2006 episode of Smallville, titled “Reckoning”. The plot of this one is fairly convoluted, owing much to the complex mythology of the show at that time. In short, Clark reversed time to prevent Lana from dying, not expecting that the balance for her survival would hit close to home. Pa Kent suddenly dies from a heart attack again (symptoms had been visible for a while on the series), and Clark once more finds himself missing another father.
  
  Does This One Count?: We can’t forget that another Pa Kent died in All-Star Superman #6 just last year. Granted, these stories take place outside the continuity of the mainstream DCU, but it’s another death of another Pa Kent nonetheless.
  
  Finish Him!: And so we come to this week, and the new issue of Action. After the machinations of Brainiac reach the Kent farm, Pa falls once more. This makes one recall the scene in Justice League of America #0 in which the characters were discussing the late Mr. Kent. One has to wonder how much of the blueprint for the DCU that issue actually is now...
  
  There you have it. A brief look at some of the deaths of Pa Kent. (Did I say some? Well . . .there was radio . . .). Considering all of this, one is given to wonder: why must Pa Kent always die? My take is that it’s the nature of things. Children grow into adults, and eventually parents die. In a comics environment that frequently employs soft reboots, it’s not surprising that Pa dies and returns from time to time. Still, I find the deeper meaning to be almost Campbellian, as the hero must learn to function without those that grounded/supported/trained him. So, before we go, raise a glass to Pa Kent. He’s served Superman well . . . and likely will again someday.

While Johns is one of the writers out there who seems to be rebuilding the Silver age sometimes (or at least resurecting it's continuity) the difference between his work and much of the other stuff that doig the same thing is pretty simple: I am enjoying it.

Johns' writing is like having a carrot-flavoured ice cream. Some people will think its an innovative re-invention. For others, its a bland vegetable pointlessly made too sweet.

Mmmmmm, Gwen Stacy...

i always hated this argument. so any adult with a living father isn't a real adult with humility? come on, that's just stupid. Clark could make the wrong choice between two people on the opposite sides of metropolis, or make a simple mistake.
mark waid wrote a great flash story where a villain is attacking a mall and there's a burning store. wally asks if anyone was in there, someone says no and wally says "i won't check then" and goes off to the fight. a few issues later he's sued by a woman who was in the store and ended up burned horribly and lost her legs. he learned humility because he made a simple understandable, but wrong, choice. the stranger who wasn't his father still had an impact.

and the original superboy story where the parents died involved time travel. hardly a grounding story where he learned humility.
and isn't it a little weird that the adult experienced superman lacked humility, by your logic, until now?

The 1963 Superboy story in question is hardly the "original" version of the Kents' deaths, and it isn't the one that people remember when they think of how Superman lost his parents. For that, check out The Origin of Superman from circa 1949. I'll post a scan later, if I can find it.

No, that's not the point. The point was that, from 1938 to Byrne, the moment where one or both of his foster parents dying was the moment in THIS PARTICULAR NARRATIVE where the "boy" became a "man."

Even if the first issue of Action Comics, it was the death of the Kents that "strengthened the determination that had been growing within him" to use his powers to fight for justice.

You are correct that the creators of Superman could have found another story narrative to learn humility-that, despite his powers, he would sometimes fail, just as Waid did with Flash. However, they didn't.

Byrne never bothered with anything like that (that I can think of right now), but Jurgens did a pretty decent story about a young Clark learning humility after letting his friend drink and drive.



The best part of the story was that no one got infected by kryptonite radiation and went bonkers. Also I remember thinking how nice it was that all through the story Clark never puts on any brightly colored rings that alter his behaviour. That was a really nice touch.

I'm just fucking with you r3x. Go get me an enchilada.

And a soda.

I was pleasantly surprised by Jurgens run as writer. I think at the time much was made he was just given the writing gig to keep him from leaving DC for Marvel which reportedly offered him a writer/artist gig. I thought his run was one of the best. One of the top Superman artist in my opinion, especially when Thibert inked his stuff...

Jurgens' Superman is usually what I think of when I think of "Superman". Not necessarily the definitive, mind you, but close to it.

Jon Bogdanove & Louise Simpson had a helluva good run as well. I always liked his version of superman.

As a kid I loved Jurgens and Grummett (because his style kinda looked like Jurgens) and hated the other guys (Bog, Guice and Ordway). Bob McLeod was so-so. All of them grew on me eventually, especially the Bogdanove/Janke convo, which art-wise is probably my favorite now. Last year Harley sent me an early Man of Steel issue I didn't have and it made me come with joy (though the picture of her boobs she slipped into the comic probably helped).

Grummet was a big favorite of mine. I was a huge Byrne fan when I was younger, X-Men, Fantastic Four, She-Hulk, but he really made a turn for the cheese/crappy with the end of his Superman run. Grummet to me captured the powerful art that at one time made Byrne seem great without the crap or goofy faces.

Yeah, I remember being at a convention with Roger Stern who was showing off Grummett's pages and saying, basically, "no one's going to miss Byrne".

Roger Stern had a great run on Captain America!