It's a Bird...

So, I've been thinking a lot about writing again recently. This is for several reasons. Not the least of which is the fact that Nanowrimo started again yesterday, and again I am not participating. Nanowrimo is the reason I was able to finish a novel in the first place, and it doesn't seem right that I can't participate in it again because of my newfound authority for LCT.

Regardless, I'm really getting the itch to write again, and I'm thinking about Superman specifically. Over at Newsarama (I say this because I'm not actually reading Superman comics as they come out but in collections) people are saying that Superman has become a real puss over the past 5-10 years or so. I can't say as I disagree with them. When he was created, he was a hero to the oppressed, overturning crooked politicians and being really progressive in his pre-pubescent politics. By the fifties, however, all the rough edges had been polished off the character, and he was dealing with five diffferent types of Kryptonite and having his powers messed with every other issue. It was a low point for super-hero comics, and both he and Batman had fallen into high camp wackiness. The difference was that Batman was able to return to his more brutal beginnings in the 70s, while Superman became the Big Blue Boyscout, and he never really recovered. It's to the point where writers don't want to touch him because he's so hard to get a handle on.

But what if he was returned to his progressive roots? What if we were reminded that he's an investigative journalist as well as a superhero? That's what I've been thinking about. For me--and maybe this is just because "my" Superman is the one in Man of Steel--Superman isn't the last survivor from an alien superculture, for a Kansas farmboy who's trying to help the world the best way he knows how.

So I've been thinking about what I'm going to do after LCT, maybe in January, is sit down and bang out a Superman novel in a month. I think I could do that. Might even be fun.