Superman the Racist

What to do with Superman?

I was killing time at the Writer's Center last night with friend and fellow teacher Chris Piers. He asked me what I'd do if DC gave me a run on Superman. It's a good question - Superman has to be the hardest character to write. He really doesn't have any flaws, he really can't be beaten, and his alter-ego lives comfortably. Superman in inherently boring, and a writer needs to write his or her ass off to make him interesting. Never-the-less, I think I came up with the Superman pitch to end all Superman pitches and I'll just throw it out there in case DC's looking for some new writers.

So...there was this other race on Krypton - one that we haven't really heard about yet. Let's call them Kryptanos. These guys were the cheap labor and political hot topics on Krypton. The rich Kryptonian whites hired them illegally to work the fields and mow the lawns. If a Kryptonian needed some help with home repairs he'd zip on down to the local drug store in his pick-up spaceship and pile a couple of Kryptanos into the back. These guys stole jobs from hard-working Kryptonian whites, even though no Kryptonian white would be caught dead doing the work the Kryptanos were doing.

Anyway, Krypton blows up and everyone's dead except for Superman...or so we thought! Turns out a handful of Kryptanos managed to escape the destruction and after lazily siestaing through space for many years they finally found themselves on Earth. Of course, the Earth's yellow sun gives them superpowers too, and thinking they can make a couple of bucks for cerveza they spend their days heroing around Metropolis as well.

Turns out the citizens of Metropolis love these guys. The Kryptanos remind Metropolis of a less "in-your-face" Carlos Mencia whereas Superman is kind of like a less "urban" Bill Cosby. Now when little Betsy's cat gets stuck in a tree she doesn't call Superman for help - she calls one of the Superhombres.

Superman is obviously livid. Metropolis is his city, after all, and these dirty Kryptanos think they can just show up and take his job? So Superman goes on this crusade to not only kick the Kryptanos off of Earth but also to put up a fence that'll keep other Kryptanos from getting in. It becomes this huge political issue with superman stoking the fires for multiple story arcs and ends with the citizens of Metropolis picking up torches and pitchforks and brutally murdering the Superhombres in their sleep. Everything goes back to normal...until the Superhebes make their way to Earth and hoard all of Metropolis's money!

Labels: comedy, comics

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