Superman Smashes The Klan Review

Written by The Wandering Fox

Hello everybody, it’s me, the Wandering Fox. I’m back to talk to you of probably my most favourite superhero, Superman. As we know the big blue Boy Scout has been around since 1938, saving the planet, rescuing cats out of trees, all the while working as a reporter at the Daily Planet as Clark Kent and lives happily with Lois Lane. He’s battled many foes in the years since from Lex Luthor to Darkseid, Bizarro, the Toyman and Cyborg Superman, but what if I told you Superman battled a foe long ago and was a true battle that showed Superman is a man who is against hatred? Then you will be surprised to know that decades ago, Superman took on the Ku Klux Klan, which is among the most vile and hateful groups that was ever created. Superman battled them in a radio story called “The Clan of the Fiery Cross”, which focussed on Tommy Lee and his family, Chinese immigrants, suffering torment by the clan until Superman stopped them.

Then come many years later, in 2020, Gene Luen Yang loosely adapted the story into a graphic novel titled Superman Smashes the Klan!

I remembered reading the novel on the internet and quite liked it and years later I thought I’d buy it to have in my home. Having re-read it I thought I’d give it a review for the blog.

The Plot

The story is set in 1946 and Superman has just defeated the Atom Man, a crazed Nazi scientist who tried to destroy the Metropolis damn. However, Superman uncovers his suit’s source of power is a green crystal which begins to send Superman on an emotional journey. At the same time the Lees, a family of Chinese immigrants who lived in Chinatown, have moved to Metropolis after Dr Lee, the family man, has got a job at the Metropolis Department of Health. Though the Lees are welcomed kindly by Jimmy Olsen and the Unity House, they aren’t greeted so kindly by Dr Matt Riggs, who is soon revealed to be none other than the Grand Scorpion of the Ku Klux Klan. The Lees and Superman’s lives end coming together as the hatred of the Klan forces them to confront their worst fears and the prejudice from others for being different.

The story to me is paced pretty well and does have that steady build up from light hearted fun to the emotional and darker corners the book takes you in both with Superman and the Lees. It’s interesting as well how Gene had Superman start off as not having fully gained his powers and as we see Clark here had a tougher childhood with him feared to be a demon by the bullies of Smallville that has stopped him from fully gaining his powers. This coincides well for the story of the Lees as Tommy and his little sister Roberta try settling into Metropolis and the family trying to adapt themselves to American culture. Tommy is the sporty and strong minded kind of boy who is happy to try out anything new which has him be well approachable to the other kids in Unity House except for Chuck, whereas Roberta is much withdrawn and feels unsure of the big changes as well as coming to question herself if she is a good girl or was bossy.

It does well at balancing out some darker and comedic moments like how though Lois is kidnapped by the Klan and the Grand Scorpion holds a sword to her with him saying the sword was passed down many generations, Lois notices it’s got a $2.99 label on it. Later it’s revealed the Klan has a load of these swords with the price labels XD

There’s a great contrast as well in which after encountering the green crystal, which is Kryptonite, Clark sees in the mirror and looks at himself as a stereotypical bug eyed alien and that’s how he sees the visions of Jor-El and Lara, his childhood fear of being different and not of Earth made him fearful of where he came from. This comes well later as Roberta and the Unity House go to the cinema and watch a movie which has a stereotypical Asian supervillain which makes Roberta much uncomfortable, not helped at all by how some of the kids, though not intentionally, mistaking Roberta and Tommy as different Asians and make off handed comments which only annoys Roberta a bit more. The book does try to find a balance between those who make racial comments unintentionally without even realising how bigoted they’re being to the utter hateful drivel the Klan spouts out. Then there’s how the book does tie this together in the end when the Grand Scorpion tries to convince Superman to help the Klan kill anybody that isn’t white, calling him the “Living Proof of how Superior the White Man can be!” Then later at the climax realising Superman is an alien he tries to turn all of humanity against him for he’s not human.

The book even earlier hints at how divided everybody is that at first Dr Lee angrily refuses help from a group of black people after his family has a fiery cross on their garden, showing how again racism can affect us in many different ways. We do have Inspector William Henderson having to face racism in his own police force as there’s a Klansman in the police force who clearly was hoping to try and kill him as soon as he took his badge off, how the Klan are angry black people have worked their way to get the jobs. William is good character in the book btw. The book delves darker as well into how these bigoted groups are so dedicated fi their beliefs they even try to brainwash children into helping them. This is how we get Chuck, the Grand Scorpion’s nephew. At first Chuck is resentful towards Tommy and is bigoted towards him, clearly jealous of how good he is at baseball, but after he learns his uncle is the Grand Scorpion he is disturbed enough though he tries to make excuses at first as his uncle had helped looked after him and his mum after his dad died, but he comes to realise just how wrong he was and that the Klan and his uncle are wrong too. Again, it shows children can be easily manipulated and can say things that are hurtful, but if they end up seen to by a smarter adult who helps them see that they’re wrong and they can do better then they can still grow up to do the right thing.

Chuck breaks his bat after trying to whack Roberta.

Chuck is introduced to the Klan

Superman’s fears of who he is has led to him doubting himself still and Roberta can’t help but notice there’s something about him that is changing and she ends up wishing he could fly and he can save people quicker. This propels Superman to finally confront who he is and learns the truth that he came from Krypton and was sent to Earth by his mum and dad who only wanted him to be safe and the fact Jonathan and Martha, in spite of their protectiveness of Clark, love him fully assures him of who he is and is the best of both worlds. Lois of course is thoughtful enough she gives Roberta a pen with the L.L initials which at first seems to be Lois’s but it’s actually Roberts’s birth name’s initials for Lan-Shin Lee. Roberta is recognised by everybody for being clever enough that Jimmy offers her a chance to be a Cub Scout at the Daily Planet, tying in with how Roberta, like Superman, sees while there is ugliness out there there is good people as well who love them and want them to be themselves or the best they can be, helping Roberta settling into life in Metropolis.

The book is really good though it does have its flaws.

I do wish that we had a bit more of the dynamic with Lois, Clark and Jimmy as while they are written good and Clark and Lois have good chemistry, I kinda wish that we had a bit more of the team’s whole dynamic in this time period and I’m a bit confused by Superman’s thoughts as he looks at Lois, hinting she knows he’s Superman, but there’s nothing from Lois to hint she does know.

I think the book missed an opportunity of doing a history insight in the Klan of how they began as in my research of the Klan there’s actually been different versions of it. Could’ve been good if we had Clark and Lois research on the Klan’s first form which was started by Confederate’s who formed the Klan to oppose black people and their white allies, or how the second faction was formed in the 1920s and saw the fiery crosses and white hoods truly take shape and how the Klan had moved onto opposing not just black people, but of Jews, Asians, Catholics, gays and others. It could have served as a dark moment in which Superman wonders if he can truly stop something that’s been reborn despite their defeats in the past.

Lastly I can’t help but feel the ending is a bit rushed as we don’t get even an angry yell of defeat from the Grand Scorpion as he’s taken away by the police, and we don’t see Clark and Lois reconcile after Lois mistook him for being interested in other women or how Chuck and his mum are doing after he’s been taken away.

Oh and I think there should have at least have been a scene of Roberta reuniting with her old friends.

Those are the only negatives I’ve got though.

Art

I’m not one who usually talks about art, but for this book I’m willing to talk about it. The art is done by Gurihiru who has done artwork for Avatar: The Last Airbender comics and I can tell you the art they do here is superb! Both women should be proud of themselves as the book has this great cartoony feel to it from the character designs to buildings without being overly cartoony while capturing this feel of the Golden Age. You have Superman looking strong without making it too detailed, you have great changes in tone whether there’s a colourful tent or green energy lights and they do a lovely job at the retro science feel they give to the tech. Honestly, if they do a animated film of this they oughta get the animators to really capture the look of the book cos this is really good.

Overall

Superman Smashes the Klan does a great job at returning Superman to the Golden Age and bringing an old story to life with great artwork that does pay tribute to the old days of comics while giving a great tone and good characters to read about, with only a bit of a hasty ending being the only annoyance to the book. Other than that it is a great book and worth of you.

I’m the Wandering Fox and I’ll see you later.