by Patrice Downing, Contributing Writer
Have you ever seen a hummingbird walk? No? There’s an evolutionary reason for that. Because hummingbirds spend a majority of their lives in flight foraging for nectar to keep up with their intense caloric needs, their legs have adapted. In fact, in most species, legs are positioned further back on their bodies and have developed to grab and perch, thus leaving them unable to support their tiny muscular bodies via bipedal locomotion. They are also the only type of avian athletes capable of flying in reverse. Pretty cool ability for an animal that starts its life breaking out of a shell the size of a blueberry.
If it’s your first time here, you may be wondering, What do scrawny hummingbird hind legs have to do with a superhero movie featuring one of the most beloved and iconic comic creations of all time? Well that’s easy… nothing whatsoever. No new nemesis named the Ruby Throated Rogue or secret LexCorp prototype patents for a Hummingbird Flyer, nor has the Daily Planet switched from having Cub Reporters to Hummingbird Contributors. No, my friend — the path I followed finding all these tasty tidbits about the anosmic avians is what brings us here today. I came into possession of these nuggets of nature knowledge after watching 2011’s The Big Year and the week-long bird-centric binge that followed. I felt the writing was a little too specific for such a niche hobby not to be at least partially based on real people and events, so down the research road I ran. During my investigative journey, I found a book, interviews, several documentary shorts featuring Al Leventin, Sandy Komito, and Greg Miller talking about their experiences competing in the 1998 North American Big Year, and ultimately a handful of specials featuring hummingbirds. Hummingbirds are one of the first species spotted in the film, mentioned several times by the real competition participants for their elusive and evasive movements, and one I personally enjoy spotting in my own backyard. After watching Every Little Thing, a documentary detailing the rehabilitation efforts of Terry Masear mending tiny injured trochilidae, I came across the David Attenborough narrated The Secret Lives of Hummingbirds. I couldn’t help but notice after almost three hours of nothing but hummingbirds that I never saw any of them, even with injured wings, walk. A handful of zoological and ornithological websites and publications later, I learned about their evolutionary proclivity for flight. And that is why we are here: to filter through the fabricated, peek beyond the puff, and sift out the superficial in search of finding the Fact On Fiction.
As I mentioned earlier, this time down the rabbit hole, we are going to be trekking back to the beginning of the creation of Detective Comics’ first, most formidable, and famous of all heroes, Superman. Unspurprising for a character creeping up on becoming a centurion, there is no shortage of content available on the Boy in Blue. I thought the amount of documentaries on dragons was intense, but that’s nothing in comparison to the sheer volume of factual content on the Kid from Krypton. I found everything from films that focused on the character’s creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (Secret Identity: The Origin of Superman), YouTube film retrospectives covering Superman films over the decades (“Rowan J. Coleman” The Ultimate Superman Movie Retrospective | SUPERCUT), and even a documentary that looked into the tragic “curse” on actors that played the character (The Curse of Superman). Ultimately, I knew I wanted to find something that blends a bit of everything to get the full picture of where the idea for the Last Son of Krypton came from, his evolution over varying periods of American history, and how his appearance in film has influenced the superhero genre. While that seems like a pretty tall order, I did manage to find exactly what I was searching for.
2006’s Kevin Burns directed Look, Up in the Sky! The Amazing Story of Superman has it all! In just under two hours, this densely packed doc covers everything from Siegel and Shuster’s meeting and early works, DC acquiring the rights to the character, the serialization of Superman into radio and television, and his leap into cinema and beyond. The Amazing Story of Superman is told through decades of archival footage, clips, interviews, commercials, and of course comic and newspaper images, all tied together through the narration of the recognizable voice of Bryan Singer’s iteration of Lex Luthor. This is my only caveat recommending this particular documentary: The narration is voiced by Kevin Spacey, as Singer’s film released the same year. If you prefer to avoid this documentary due to his inclusion then I would recommend the less Superman-focused but equally informative Secret Origin: The Story of DC Comics. It has a similar vibe, and the historical coverage obviously overlaps, but with the inclusion of milestones for other popular DC heroes like Batman, The Flash, Wonder Woman, and the character portrayed by its narrator (Ryan Reynolds) The Green Lantern.
Now back to the main event: Did you know in 1966, Broadway even got in on the Man of Steel mania with the musical production “It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s Superman”? Though it had a relatively short run on stage, it was popular enough that ABC decided to make a TV version nine years later starring future Miss Scarlet herself, Lesley Ann Warren as Lois Lane. But this doc doesn’t just cover the chronological timeline of the character, but the impact that societal events had on the evolution of storylines as well as Superman’s physical appearance, and why certain comic runs are more scarce than others. And while there has been plenty of Kal-El in the 19 years since this film was produced, it still feels like we get full coverage of the character. Another item of interest I found throughout the film was the volume of personalities across all disciplines of entertainment that cite Superman as an influence. I was of course expecting actors, writers, and artists to be in the mix, but there were so many more. Comedian Jerry Seinfeld famously has an affinity for the Man of Steel, starring alongside an animated version in a popular series of American Express commercials. Kiss band member Gene Simmons does as well. I think Simmons pretty accurately sums up exactly why so many people latch on to the character in childhood: “The guy down the street wanted to be a sports jock. I wanted to save Metropolis.” A sentiment echoed by several interviewees throughout the doc for good reason, Superman has permeated basically every aspect of our lives. The Big Blue Boy Scout has festooned lunch boxes, bedsheets and car hoods, had his own cereal, been immortalized as a balloon in the Macy’s parade, as well as appeared on U.S. postal stamps. As of this posting, searching “Superman” on Amazon results in over 30,000 items — that’s equal to the same search for “Batman” and “X-Men” combined. In fact, the only comic hero or villain I could find with the same or more results was Spider-Man, which tracks, when you consider at one point (as noted in the documentary), there was only one figure as universally recognizable around the world as Superman, but I won’t spoil that here (cough cough… it might be a gloved and shirtless rodent or a bearded man with a bag full of toys).
The journey that led to the creation and popularization of one of the first ever comic super heroes is certainly an engaging one. From his design and adaptations throughout the entertainment industry as technology evolved, to his infiltration into pop culture, Superman in all his iterations is clearly here to stay.
And that’s going to wrap things up for this month’s deep dive into the dynamic origins of Clark Kent and his more recognizable alter ego. Thank you for joining me on this month’s investigative journey through the entertainment landscape as I dug up the details, rooted out the real, and sifted through the sordid in my quest to find the Fact on Fiction.
You can read more from Patrice Downing, and follow her on Serializd and Letterboxd