One Note: Mike Meginnis
Superman faces death with surprising grace and charm.
In One Note, Gabriel Blackwell asks writers for just that: one note, a single paragraph, on what they’re reading right now.
Today’s note comes courtesy of Mike Meginnis:
I’m currently about 1/3 through writing a weird, satirical tragicomic epic about superheroes. I very rarely read hero comics, not because I think I’m above them but because their reality so often disappoints when compared to their potential. Most of the time I stick to the hilariously complex Wikipedia summaries of comic book histories. Classics of the genre include Hank Henshaw/Cyborg Superman, MODOK, and Professor X. These Wikipedia pages remind me of everything I love to hate about hero comics, but Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s All-Star Superman reminds me of everything I love to love about them. The series begins with Lex Luthor exposing Superman to a lethal overdose of Earth’s Yellow Sun, thus dooming Supes (his cells begin to self-destruct) and multiplying his power (he has all that Yellow Sun goodness). Superman faces death with surprising grace and charm. Morrison’s script is as optimistic and earnest as Superman himself — at one point, Clark Kent tells Lex Luthor, “You and Superman could have been friends!” and you can see that he means it, that he would like to be friends even now. Quitely’s art captures that sweetness with a warm, elegant geometry, and Jamie Grant’s gentle colors truly seem to glow. In general, I find Superman’s brand of goodness sort of terrifying, which is a big part of why I’m writing my hero book. (That, and my love for the Hulk.) But I like to pay particular attention to stories by people who see things differently than I do when I’m reading for a novel, and All-Star Superman‘s faith in its hero serves as an excellent defense of a character I never believed and a genre that often cannot be defended.
Mike Meginnis has published writing in The Collagist, The Lifted Brow, Big Fiction, Booth, SmokeLong Quarterly, elimae, and many others. He serves as fiction editor for Noemi Press and co-edits Uncanny Valley with his wife, Tracy Rae Bowling.
