Am I not getting something in What's so funny about truth, justice and the American?

[ebarde]

I've recently read that issue, cause most people will cite it amongst the greatest Superman stories. And going into it, I thought it would be sorta like Kingdom Come as in a comic that sorta has a meta narrative about how 90s anti-heroes for a while were seen as the hot thing while Superman is considered extremely outdated. But when I got into it, it became really clear that the comic was parodying the britsh invasion of comics, and characters such as The Authority and Constantine. Which is all fine and good, but as someone that has read quite a bit of those comics, this issue just felt like the authors had a pretty surface level understanding of what they're parodying.

Like the Elite in the book are basically a bunch of massive hypocrites that go around murdering everyone, and destroying whole cities with really no worries about collateral damage. Which is really weird cause those types of people are usually the villains that the Authority faces off against. Like, the Elite is so clearly supposed to be a deconstruction of the Authority, but it literally does the opposite of what the Authority does(Although I suppose the Millar run is closer to the Elite, but that is far from the most iconic portrayal of the characters).

Also, Manchester Black dresses and talks just like Constantine, even though like...any comparison I can draw between the both of them would be pretty surface level at best. And it just feels disingenuous to have this whole story about the conflict between american and british heroic ideals at the time, but make the british side of things the most absurd surface level parody ever so you can have Superman prove he's better than them even when you go out of your way to misrepresent the british heroes to that extent.

[LaZodiac]

"I thought it would be sorta like Kingdom Come as in a comic that sorta has a meta narrative about how 90s anti-heroes for a while were seen as the hot thing while Superman is considered extremely outdated."

I mean that's exactly what it is. It's just presented in a different way than Kingdom Come. It IS riffing on the Authority, but specifically the point where the Authority became hot garbage. It is based on the Millar run. It's not directly against the so called British invasion of comics, it is about Millar's style of trash making use of these darker heroes, using some small aspects of the Authority as basis.

[Rater202]

It was written to appeal to people who are sick and tired of people who praise Sociopathic Anti-Heroes who kill criminals by showing that kind of "hero" as being exactly what they are(Murdererous sociopaths and hypocrites) and showcasing why heroes like Superman have such a great value on the sanctity of even the lives of a criminal.

[Rynjin]

Both SFDebris (https://sfdebris.com/videos/animation/supermanvstheelite.php) and Linkara (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQNQNBHghho) have done good videos explaining the themes of the comic/movie and circumstances behind its creation.

[ebarde]

Idk, I think if it's meant to be parodying Millar's writing in specific I feel that then all the other references that had nothing to do with Millar just feels very out of place. And I don't know, I feel the story kinda writes Superman really weirdly as in he's way too affected with these guys that stand by a contradictory ideology that really makes no sense whatsoever, and then at the ending he just beats them by giving them a taste of their own medicine which honestly seems a bit cop-out ish and out of character for Superman. I feel that for them to actually pose an ideological threat to him, they would need to not have so many kick the dog moments, it honestly makes very little sense how everyone turned on Superman on a drop of a hat considering the Elite's claim to fame was destroying a whole city.