Posted in: Comics, DC Comics, Superman | Tagged: 5g, dan didio, dc comics, grant morrison, supergirl, superman

Grant Morrison On DC Comics Wanting To Make Supergirl Fascist As Well

Supergirl fascist? Grant Morrison is continuing their Xanaduum Substack recollections of the events surrounding Dan DiDio, DC Comics, 5G and the new DC timeline that led them to write the Superman & The Authority mini-series that was eventually published by DC Comics, even though 5G and Dan Didio had, by then, been dropped.

We knew from previous commentary on Bleeding Cool that DC Comics had wanted Jon Kent to take on the role of Superman while Clark Kent would have aged, as a much older Superman, take an authoritarian bent, assemble a new Authority in that vein, – and we had reported on this three years ago. What we didn't know until now that other plans would have seen Supergirl pushed in "an increasingly fascistic direction for reasons that made scant sense to me" as well. Nazi Kara? Say no, Dan… though Infinite Frontier did end up suggesting Jon Kent would become a tyrant.

Grant instead pitched a different take on that older Superman and his new Authority, compared to Doc Savage with a team of operatives working with him. A little Tom Strong there? Because they were vehemently against any kind of authoritarian Superman – or Supergirl. "Dragging imaginary childhood paragons off their pedestals to reinforce a fairly facile point about the tendency of real-world heroes to exhibit feet of clay, struck me and strikes me still as imaginatively lazy."

And Grant got their way. Even as Dan Didio was fired by DC and 5G was dropped by intervention. While Action Comics writer Philip Kennedy Johnson was able to hammer it into his own Superman stories and continuity he was working on. Grant did leave with a year's worth of storyline ideas that could be picked up by someone. As to its actual publication, Morrison says "I could only guess they'd spent too much on me already to throw the whole thing in the bin, even if only the kindest soul could ever pretend it dovetailed with any aprés-Didio DCU continuity." Come on Grant, all you need is a big enough hammer. Bleeding Cool was able to identify a few of the grey-coloured cracks along the way. In upcoming Xanaduum sections, he promised more on Manchester Black and Superman's Authority costume? Have you subscribed yet? So you don't have to put up with my paraphrasing and get it straight from Grant's fingertips?

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