Superman and the Authority

Welcome back to Waiting on the Trade, a comics book club for people who don’t have time for monthly comics!

In this episode, guest host Callum Smith helps us navigate the wild world of corporate superhero comics, as we discuss Grant Morrison, Mikel Janín, Jordie Bellaire, and co.’s Superman and the Authority.

This Month’s Discussion Questions

1. Is this a complete story?
2. Do superhero comics need an accessibility scale?
3. Given the current proliferation of authoritarian Supermen, how did you find this portrayal of an older but more progressive Superman?

Explanations, Observations, and Links of Note

• If you want a deep dive into how this particular sexy-dad-Superman sausage was made, here’s the start of Grant Morrison’s Superman and the Authority annotations. (Of which Cal and I gave the TL;DR version.)
• Yes, we mistakenly used “he” instead of “they” to refer to Morrison a few times in this podcast. We apologize! It’s a tough nut to crack, sometimes, converting a pronoun that’s been in your head for nearly 25 years to a new one ...
• If you want to learn more about the scuttled plans for DC’s 5G initiative (it’s actually kind of fascinating), here’s a catalog of Bleeding Cool’s articles on the topic.
• What we’re talking about when we talk about evil Superman. (Also, if you want to read more about why I can’t with The Boys, click here.)
• And finally, we didn’t quite get around to discussing Grant Morrison’s different takes on Superman throughout their career. If you’re interested in an examination of Morrison’s Many Supermen, click here.

Follow-Up Recommendations

If you liked Superman and the Authority, we think you might also like:

• Action Comics: Warworld Rising.
• All-Star Superman.
• ShortBox’s many wonderful comics.

New to the show? Waiting on the Trade is a monthly comics podcast, run by two gents who don’t have time for monthly comics. If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can email us at [email protected].

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As always, thanks for listening!