Elliot S! Maggin talks Jor-El/Al Gore

[JulianPerez]

Elliot S! Maggin posted an op/ed piece in the Los Angeles Times recently about the eerie similarities between Al Gore and his recent environmental film, and Jor-El, Superman's father:

Look, up in the sky! It's Al Gore! (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-maggin4jun04,0,7737099.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions)

The essential jist of the S!'s comparison is that though Krypton was ruled by scientists, their mentalities over time became bureaucratic, stodgy, and less service oriented, similar to those of lawyers and economists, and thus, Jor-El, when he made his famous prediction, was viewed as both a maverick and a rival. The comparisons to political institutions in the United States suggest themselves.

For those of you that collect Maggin quotes, here's one from this article:

Fiction, when it's any good, is a fantasy that tells the truth.

[Michael P]

So does this mean that one of Gore's hot daughters is going to become the Superwoman of another planet?

[Ontir]

What a great article. Maggin must be younger than I thought, because there weren't sonograms when I was in utero. The reason I mention this here, is because I'd assumed he was gone from comics, because he'd reached retirement age. If he hasn't, or hell, even if he has, I'm wondering why isn't he still writing comic books?!?

Mr. Maggin, if you read this post, COME BACK! WE MISS YOU!

One of his interesting points, is that a Science Council might be better suited to govern, because of their code of ethics. What most captures me, is that there is an orthodoxy in modern science, that is every bit as dogmatic as any theology. People who have opposing theories are silenced, their evidence scorned, their grants eliminated, not always because they are wrong, but because they don't adhere to the prevailing model. This is, of course, the typ fo thinking that lead to Pope John-Paul II giving an apology to Gallileo a few years ago. One would think that scientists, of all people, would learn from such lessons, but alas; they're no less human than the rest of us!

[NotSuper]

Mr. Maggin, if you read this post, COME BACK! WE MISS YOU!
Indeed. It's a shame that he doesn't have SOME role with the Superman comics or DC. I've always thought he'd make a good editor and I'd love to see him do an arc of All-Star Superman.

[NotSuper]

Just to add: Maggin seems to have liked putting references to political individuals in his work, occasionally even having them show up.

- Noam Chomsky appeared in one of his novels.

- He had Lex Luthor suspect that Superman might be Ted Kennedy (!).

- He had future people suspect Superman might have been Ralph Nader (!).

- Bobby Kennedy was mentioned as one of Earth-Prime's first super-heroes.

I plan to mention this in my upcoming review of the first Superboy-Prime story.

[davids]

And How many scientists are crying hot house in order to get goverment grants! i don't have all the facts, I admit that. Neither does al Gore and he won't admit it!

But there are certain facts.
The first is that it has been warmer in the past.... much warmer. and I'm not talking Dino time here I'm talking recorded history.

The Roman warming, 34 bc to 64 AD. The romans grew grapes and set up vinyards in England. It then got cold, the grapes died, the romans left and no more wine making in england until....

The medieval warming period, The world got warm again, very warm. much warmer than it is today.

The population boomed because of the plesant climate and abundant harvasts, vinyards made a come back in England. So much wine was shipped to France from england the french wine makers protested. Ice disapered from the north Atlantic, Vikings settled in ice land, greenland, and north america.

In greenland Vikings farmed and grazed cattle and sheep on hills that today are covered in ice and snow year round!

Then around the 14 century the littile ice age began.
Good bye british wine, good bye vikings in greenland. Ice choked the north sea, and ships could not reach their now starving colonies.

Eskomo's were spoted off the coast of scotland, The thames river froze so much every year, they had a frost festivile. New york harbor froze solid so thick you could walk from manhatan to jersey.

People spent more and more time indoors to get out of the damp and cold. They brought their animales with them. with the farm critters came the rats and on the rats came the fleas and with the fleas came the Bubonic plauge [The Black death] and half of europe died.

This time came to be known as the little Ice age and it lasted until 1830 or so when the tempurture began to rise once again.

The greatest temperture rise this century was between 1900 and 1945. Then between 1945 and 1965 the temperture droped once again.

In that time the on coming new ice age was all the rage and all the talk in scientific circles. In the national geographic year in I believe 1957 to 1858 that was all the talk. Grants were handed out and studies made to study the oncoming new ice age.

Global warming is happening, but is it a natural force of nature that has happened in the past and is just repeating itself now?

I don't know, nor does Gore or a bunch of so called experts looking for fat goverment grants.

Remember no one ever got a grant trying to prove that global warming is not man made!:evilangry

[protege]

Is this some sort of AL-a-GORE_y?:D

[LordEd1976]

Is this some sort of AL-a-GORE_y?:D

You just HAD to go there, didn't you?

PENALTY!! 15 yards for bad pun. still first down.

[Dustin Griffin]

Another wierd similarity: Krypton was destroyed by the Internet.

[Ontir]

No, Davids, you don't have the facts, but Al Gore does, and he spells them out quite succinctly in an Inconvenient Truth, where he talks about the Roman Warming, and why, even if there is a cyclical element at work, that's NOT good news for us!

If scientists were "crying hot house" it wouldn't do too much good for them in terms of grants, as the Feds tend to silence those whose work provides the previously mentioned "Inconvenient Truth!"

We're talking about a loss in some 40 years of a third of the arctic cap. The glaciers of europe are melting, as are Antarctica and Greenland. If you think that trifling, your sadly mis-informed. I suggest you see the film - and the evidence! Contrary to your assertion, people do make a great deal of money, from the government, alleging that global warming isn't the crisis it actually is, just look at all the propaganda the current administration has put out, a good deal of which, you've repeated.

I'd love to see Maggin do an All-Star Action as both his own, and a counter-point to Morrison's, which I love!

[the film freak]

Should we call him Gore-El?

Oh I'm so witty :rolleyes:

[Ontir]

That's funny. :D

[JulianPerez]

I'd love to see Maggin do an All-Star Action as both his own, and a counter-point to Morrison's, which I love!

Oh, you can say that again! Granty's great, but he can't compare to the S!-man.

Morrison's Superman is a fundamentally polite sort of guy, who when he has dinner on the Titanic with Lois, pulls a chair out for her.

Maggin's Superman on the other hand, though, has this wonderful, playful sense of humor. When I saw the grinning, dimpled Christopher Reeves tell Lois that "statistically, flying is the safest way to travel," I said to myself, "either Maggin wrote this movie, or they're following Maggin's lead."

Actually, I think Maggin would also make a pretty great Spider-Man writer, come to think of it.

What most captures me, is that there is an orthodoxy in modern science, that is every bit as dogmatic as any theology. People who have opposing theories are silenced, their evidence scorned, their grants eliminated, not always because they are wrong, but because they don't adhere to the prevailing model.

I'm not saying that scientists always behave themselves or play nice, or there isn't an element of ego involved with academics, or that scientists can't be persuaded by charismatic people just like the rest of us - after all, there was one person whose name escapes me now, who argued very passionately for his view of the Ancient Mayan writing, which was totally wrong, but he was terribly persuasive, and his point of view was so dominant that Ancient Mayan was only deciphered after his death.

I am saying, though, that science has a self-correcting nature, which is not true of politics and politicians. In science, people will follow a fool, but not forever. Alas, the same is not true of poltiics.

[Ontir]

Scientists LOVE to say that they all weigh the evidence and accept proven fact, but I've seen people who've gathered proof for their theories, that didn't fit the accepted position, and they're ridiculed while their opponents make excuses - with no proof - of why their evidence is wrong. Will the orthodoxy eventually change their mind? Perhaps. Will they destroy careers, and ruin lives while foolishly adhering to things, because they're not what's previously accepted, yes. It's wishful thinking that the scientific community is a higher evolved, or more progressive group.

I had a professor who said that long distance spaceflight was impossible. That was it. I asked about quantum mechanics and string theory. He offered Einstein. I asked about the discrepencies, and a theory about the speed of light NOT being a constant, which was brand new 10 years ago. He said he'd never heard of it, and dismissed it. I aksed if he thought it was possible, that there were things he and the scientific community didn't know that could alter his statement, and he said, "No." He's not the first or the last to make such statements, and that again brings us back to the Vatican apologizing to Gallileo.

[PatrickG]

Maggin is a few years older than Jeph Loeb, I think. As I recall, they went to college together...

And I may be wrong but I think Jeph Loeb recently hit 50.

So, in his mid-50s, Maggin is in that limbo where he's younger than guys like Claremont, Thomas, Cockrum and Perez (I think) and older than Waid and Morrison's generation (late 30s, early 40s -- I think).

What's interesting, IMO, is how most of the modern comics industry is either big 70s talent or talent that came into its own in the late 90s.

People who hit their stride anywhere between 1982 and 1992 without a lot of notable prior work seem to have vanished or diminished in profile, with a few notable exceptions like Dan Jurgens.

I suppose it's a case of being too "old" to be hot young talent and too new to be "industry legends". That... and guys like Cary Bates seemed to leave for Hollywood even as Hollywood started invading comics.

[Ontir]

Of the 80's talent pool, there are many writers who went on to TV/animation, and a number of artists who've gone on to advertising/commercial art. I wish we could get Sinkiewicz to come back and do a year of something! I'd love to see him do a Legion fill-in!

[dupersuper]

Superman DID do the Kingdom Come novelization...that was only a few years back.