That's not a bad piece. Talking about what Bryan Singer is going to bring to the Supes mythos, Lois has a 5 year old kid which may or may not be Clark's (they did get it on in Superman 2, after all), and a lot of fanboys are worried that whole 'brat' issue will throw the series off-kilter. i.e. they don't want Superman with soap-like domestic problems! Wherever this storyline ends up, it shows that Singer isn't afraid to mess around with the fundamentals to give Clark more personal problems to deal with.

People always say Clark is the 'mask' and Superman is his true self, but neither is necessarily true IMO. Clark on the Kent farm and Kal-El in the Fortress of Solitude are the only times he can really be himself. Superman is just as much of a mask as his bumbling reporter Clark persona.

Monkey is this : right.

There are three sides to Superman - Farmboy Clark, Metropolis Clark and Superman. And only Farmboy Clark is the real character. Both the others involve an element of performance. That conversation in Kill Bill was complete and utter BOLLOCKS.

Speaking of Kill Bill vol 2, I recently read Jim Smith's book about his Tarantino's films ("Tarantino"), which suggests that the misinterpretation of Superman was an intentional inclusion; an error by Bill, not by QT. Apparently, it's a reflection of Bill's character: he sees himself as superior to everyone else, sneers at them, and assumes that another powerful man like Superman must be doing the same thing.

So because he's wrong about this, then his whole analogy in that conversation is wrong. The book puts it something like, "Bill's not a bad man because he doesn't understand Superman; he doesn't understand Superman because he's a bad man." It's an intriguing theory...

It's a good book about Tarantino's films; I recommend it. It's quite amazing how much of his work it covers, and in how much detail... right down to his ER episode, his stage performances, and the From Dusk Till Dawn sequels.

Sorry, that link was supposed to point to

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0753510715/qid=1149519832/202-5014017-9943022

And the part of that article about Superman's lack of villains is interesting. The stories where he goes into space and fights similarly-powered aliens and monsters like Doomsday and Mongul are fun, but the best Superman tales are those about the effect he has on the ordinary people around him. I suppose natural disasters and other emergencies are better for such stories than villainous schemes: Luthor's plot is probably the least successful part of the brilliant "A Superman For All Seasons", even though Lex's narration of the events is great.

Apparently, it's a reflection of Bill's character: he sees himself as superior to everyone else, sneers at them, and assumes that another powerful man like Superman must be doing the same thing.

Hmm, interesting. Kind of like in The Man Of Steel (hey, remember when John Byrne was good?) - or maybe it was one of the subsequent Superman issues, either way, it was early in the Byrne run - when Luthor spotted a connection between Clark Kent and Superman, spent craploads of money getting people to gather data on them, and fed it all into a computer, which told him that Clark Kent was Superman...

... and promptly dismissed it as complete rubbish, saying no man as powerful as Superman would hide himself behind a mask like Clark Kent...