SUPER/MAN is a tribute to not just Christopher Reeve, but his entire family

Early on in the Christopher Reeve documentary SUPER/MAN, we hear Reeve's own voice in an archival interview, discussing how he took extra care during "the Superman years." He dreaded doing something that would lead to a New York Post headline like "Superman hit by bus." The observation reinforces how aware he was that his image and his on-screen alter ego would always be entwined.

And that certainly was prescient. For nearly a decade after the riding accident that left him a quadriplegic, it seemed no reporter could cover Chistopher Reeve without using some version of "He played Superman and now he IS a super-man." (Heck, I even noted that in my own tribute to Reeve in a piece I wrote commemorating the fifth anniversary of his death. Reading it now, it's exactly the kind of tribute this documentary avoids being, to its benefit) 

Certainly even in death, the advocacy he strove for in life has cast a long shadow. Reeve says himself in an archival interview that "People want to believe in a hero." And so, through a combination of his iconic role, some truly bad luck, and his bravery in putting his recovery process on the public stage, Reeve morphed from being the custodian of an inspirational figure, to a source of inspiration himself.

Hope can be a powerful thing. At one point in the documentary, we're told that when faced with a critic who accused Reeve of peddling "false hope," Christopher shot back, "There is no false hope. There is only hope."

No one can decide to be an inspirational figure, as inspiration is ultimately about what people take from you. It's a power that resides with the audience, though it's also dependent on what that figure is willing to give of themselves. For me, that's what a great deal of this documentary is about, how Christopher put aside his ego and allowed the world to see him as disabled during a time when people like him were treated as invisible. A lesser film would have succumbed to a trite and obvious way of telling this story, giving only empty "inspiration porn" to assure us that heroes of untold virtue are among us. 

But what I saw in this film is that the hope that Christopher Reeve represented could not have existed without his family around him. And so this loss of privacy and inviting the public into a private tragedy is not just Christopher's, but a toll paid by everyone in his circle. While the movie never gets as far as explicitly stating that, that feeling runs through much of the narrative.

As obvious as it is that the Christopher Reeve documentary is called SUPER/MAN, by the time it was done, I felt like it could have just as accurately been called SUPER/MAN & SUPER/WOMAN, in tribute to Dana Reeve. Dana's presence permeates this entire story, even though she tragically is no longer with us to tell her part of it. She is a constant presence in all the post-accident footage, including many private home movies shared by the Reeve family.

In archival recordings, Christopher credits Dana with saving his life twice, the second being in the immediate aftermath of the accident that left him paralyzed. He was facing the reality of never moving his arms and legs for the rest of his life, pondering that it might be best for everyone if he just died. Dana looked at him and said with conviction, "You're still you, and I love you." 

That completely changed how he looked at the new life that lay ahead of him. The movie doesn't sugarcoat what she lost alongside Christopher that tragic day, and throughout the narrative we understand the emotional toll she felt mostly in private. That she died less than two years after Christopher is an incredibly unfair loss. Were this a fictional narrative, it would have felt like screenwriter hackery, designed to manipulate more tears out of an already exhausted audience. Here, it's just a reminder that life is under no obligation to give happy endings to those who would have seemed to earn them many times over.

This film also easily could have justified the title SUPER/FAMILY, for while Christopher Reeve's story is the spine of the movie, the picture of Chris that emerges would not be complete without the voices of his children and many family friends. This especially is where the more complete picture of Chris emerges, thanks to their willingness to be frank and open about some of their most private moments. It's easy to take that for granted as an audience member, but throughout my viewing it became the lens through which I took in everything. Unpacking this will require you to indulge me for a brief tangent.

I think you understand grief in a different way after you've lost a parent. There's a different burden that comes with losing someone that close to you as opposed to an uncle, a friend, a grandparent. In those cases, you generally get to deal with that loss on your own terms. But when it's a parent, a spouse, a child... that relationship means that you become everyone else's vessel for closure with the departed.

And - whether or not this is the intention of the other mourners - the effect is such that you end up taking on their grief. Though they come to console you, the strange nature of this interaction means that you find yourself consoling them, that in this exchange they get closure. Sometimes it means that they feel useful in passing on, "your father was so proud of you. He talked about you all the time." In other instances it's simply a matter of them intending to help with your grief but well before they have managed their own. 

You end up hearing a lot of people talk about how much your father meant to them. Which is nice, until you find yourself enduring it ten times in a row - while you're getting a handle on your own feelings. While realizing the obligation of this encounter means the other party must walk away assured they have done A Good Thing. I mean no disrespect to any close family and friends when I say that some of the best conversations I had about losing my father were with people who never knew him and were able to be there just for me.

For most of us dealing with loss, this is something that persists across weeks, perhaps months. When your father was someone like Christopher Reeve, I don't know if that ever ends.

I thought of that often as the film frequently returned to Reeve's children as its narrators. Matthew and Alexandra are from Christopher's relationship with British model Gae Exton, while the younger Will (now a correspondent with ABC News) is Christopher and Dana's child. Among the many voices that contribute to the documentary, their perspective is the most potent.

It was impossible not to think about how over the last nearly 30 years since Chris's accident, these three have had to play the role of giving closure to those who admired and were inspired by their parents. Matthew Reeve and I are less than a month apart in age, a connection that makes it impossible for me not to think about what it would have been like for me to deal with this burden at the age I was at the time of Chris's accident and later his death. 

I vividly remember reading the news of Chris's accident the same weekend that I was at a cousin's wedding. It was just before of the end of my 9th grade year, during a summer where I was working as a swim lesson aide and spending many, many days at the local pool. The contrast between my summer and what that summer must have looked like for the Reeve family is rather stark. I can't imagine dealing with a tragedy that enormous, let alone doing it so publicly.

We eventually learn that following Chris and Dana's deaths, Matthew stepped up at the age of 26 to fill in as a surrogate parent to his younger brother Will. Matthew was dealing with that obligation thrust upon him when I was somewhere between writing coverage for agents and sharing an apartment with two roommates.

You don't always get to chose the moments and experiences that define your life for you. Sometimes those come from moments that belong to other people. From what we see here, the Reeve siblings have an incredible amount of grace in accepting what their lives became and how they chose to share some of that with us.

I lost my own father four years ago, an experience I commemorated in this post that I've never quite been able to revisit in full. In that case, the public display of mourning helped, though I'm still not sure I fully grasp that other people have actually read it. Not long after that, I paid him tribute in a story I wrote for the SUPERMAN & LOIS comic. It was another public display, but one where I felt in control of how I presented my feelings, and thus, and experience I was comfortable with. 

But not every instance in which I've been asked to tap into those feelings of loss has been cathartic. I've not always had the opportunity to revisit those feelings on my own terms, and sometimes that's resulted in less pleasant experiences. Throughout Matthew, Alexandra and Will's interviews, I couldn't help but think about how much this documentary appeared on their terms, and if the necessity of promoting it via weeks of media interviews was at all more of a burden to endure.

I wondered if this documentary in some ways was how their whole family reclaims the narrative of Christopher Reeve from the "he played Superman, then he became a super-man" distillation. The movie doesn't hold back from pointing out less admirable moments in Reeve's life. It also takes time to explain how he clashed with some in the disabled community. It rarely dwells long on these particulars (we're kept at a respectful distance from some of the inner-family conflicts while still told enough to infer what need not be made explicit), but they're given enough spotlight to keep the film clear of any charges of hagiography

It's to the film's credit that it's able to tell Christopher Reeve's story in ways that feel fresh even to the Superman fan who's seen every special feature pertaining to the movies. His work as Superman gets about as much focus as necessary, but through perspectives not usually employed. The story of how he was cast usually falls to director Richard Donner or casting director Lynn Stalmaster. Both men passed in 2021, before this project was shot (though a few archival interviews with Donner are briefly integrated.) Instead, it's Jeff Daniels, who was in a play with Chris when he went to screen-test for the part, who tells us about those days in Reeve's life. 

Some interviews with Reeve also augment that portion. There were moments where I found myself mentally adding what would have been Margot Kidder's stories about working with Reeve, but in general, it's wise that the voice of the film comes from people who knew Reeve as a person before they ever knew him as Superman.

In showing us Reeve's faults and lesser moments alongside his successes, the film somehow becomes more inspirational than it might have otherwise been. A person doesn't have to be defined by their relationship with their distant domineering father, any more than not having a great example of a marriage precludes them from eventually discovering the kind of love that changes your perspective on romance.

We think we need Christopher Reeve to be Superman, but in exposing his human frailties, it highlights that any one of us has the power to be an inspiration to someone. Without Dana Reeve, Christopher might not have seen the final nine years of his life. Certainly it's hard to imagine Christopher being a public face for paralysis without the love and support of his wife. Could he have had so many positive days without his children rallying around him? You need people there to give you the kind of life you want to live for.

This is as much the story of what Christopher Reeve achieved as it is the story about the love around him that made that possible. In opening themselves up to tell that story, I hope the Reeve family has found peace. May they receive at least as much grace and love that they have put out into the world.

Richard Donner put me on the path I'm on today and I'll be forever grateful

Richard Donner's SUPERMAN was the first movie I can remember falling in love with. It wasn't my introduction to Superman - Super Friends, SUPERMAN FROM THE 30s TO THE 70s, and a few stray comics had taken care of that - but it was my first experience with a living, breathing Superman who looked like he could have stepped right off the pages of the comics.

As a kid, I remember first knowing the film only in segments, as my bedtime meant I never saw the regular ABC broadcasts to completion. At first, the movie ended for me after Superman saved the helicopter. The next time, I saw all the way to just after Superman and Lois's flight together. The first time I saw the complete movie was around the time of my sixth birthday.

This seems impossible to fathom now, but my family didn't yet own a VCR. We had to rent one along with two movies that were selected to show at my party. My parents knew I wanted to see SUPERMAN but they also knew that another movie was likely to go over bigger with my friends. They agreed to let me put it to a vote - my film versus the other one.

STAR WARS won. And so it was with some slight bitterness that I experienced my first viewing of another film that would eventually become an obsession of my childhood.

Of course I finally saw SUPERMAN in full, and soon after that my family got their own VCR and I rented all of the SUPERMAN films obsessively. For some people of my generation, STAR WARS is the movie that made them want to be storytellers. For me, it was always SUPERMAN. 

I began to learn what visual and special effects were by studying that film and the making of it. Donner's dedication to "verisimilitude" opened my eyes to WHY certain stories work. Around the same time I discovered reruns of the old BATMAN series, which could not have taken a more different approach to how it adapted a beloved comic book character. Where that show played up how absurd Batman and his villains were within their world, Donner's movie was reverent. It somehow gave us a Superman who was true to his comic depiction and set him in an approximation of the real world.

Richard Donner showed us that you could make a good, optimistic Superman without compromising the character or the world he was set in. The post-Watergate era was a cynical one, and Donner ran right at that. He showed us that while the world was becoming more jaded, Superman's continued purity in the face of that made him an even more aspirational hero than ever.

That's one of those great things you learn about writing Superman. You don't "update" him so much as you change the world around him and much of your conflict comes out of his reaction to that. For instance, KINGDOM COME is a wonderful story about how the world seems to pass Superman's values behind and then when he returns, it's more apparent than ever that his brand of heroism is necessary.

Donner's Superman is the North Star for many Superman writers across multiple generations. Obviously, a lot of that comes from Christopher Reeve's iconic performance, which I paid tribute to long ago here. And much of the power of that film's script comes from Donner's brilliant collaborator, Tom Mankiewicz, honored here. But it was Dick Donner who was the conductor of it all, the steward of that vision. The theatrical cut of SUPERMAN II (a patchwork of production by Donner and his replacement Richard Lester) and especially SUPERMAN III make it clear how much was lost when Donner's voice was out of the conversation.

Without Richard Donner’s SUPERMAN, there would be no modern superhero films as we know them. Every successful superhero franchise since has built on his work. It was the CITIZEN KANE of comic book adaptations. He was as much a legend as the character he curated.

Earlier this year I showed my five year old son Donner’s SUPERMAN. I was worried that after SPIDER-VERSE and LEGO BATMAN he’d find it slow and boring. He was enthralled the entire time, barely even asking questions (usually the more questions, the less interested he is.) 43 years after release, it hasn't lost its magic.

Something I had suspected but didn't realize until yesterday was that Donner's SUPERMAN is the most commercially successful film adaptation of the character. Per this THR article, in 2016 dollars, the film made $1.09 billion. That makes it not only the most successful film to feature Superman, but more successful than any DCEU film except for AQUAMAN. That's rarified air up there with the last two Nolan Batman films.

Richard Donner’s Superman obviously was massively influential on SUPERMAN & LOIS and an inspiration to those who make it. Our Superman is drawn from a lot of eras, but I think it's fair to say that our Superman compass very often points to Donner's vision.

Dick Donner made me a Superman fan, a filmmaker and a storyteller. He's as much responsible for where I am today as anyone. And that's why it was especially sad to get the news the same week I'm about to walk into the SUPERMAN & LOIS room as a full Staff Writer.

Yes, I'm burying the lede. I almost made that announcement its own post, but it seemed fitting to say that here. You can draw a straight line from Richard Donner's work to where I am today, the path I've been on most of my life, and it is so bittersweet to have this personal achievement in tandem with his passing.

91 years is a long time to be on this planet, but that doesn't make it any less sad to lose him. I'm sorry I never got the chance to meet him and my condolences to everyone who was blessed enough to know him and love him in life.

My tribute to Robin Williams

I've been working on a number of writing projects lately, which has contributed to my absence from this blog. In fact, this week started with me making the final push on my latest screenplay, so because of that, I've only now been able to write a remembrance of Robin Williams, whom we lost on Monday to an apparent suicide.

We've been through enough celebrity deaths in the information age that there's a pretty standard script that gets followed. First there's disbelief, then sadness, then recollections of favorite roles. Finally comes well-meaning but ghoulish cartoons of other characters mourning the death of the character's portrayed. Then it's back to business as usual. The whole thing usually takes about five, six hours.


I don't know if I've ever seen quite what followed on Twitter for the next day or so. EVERYONE was mourning this. People didn't even have to say his name, just were posting things like "Tragic. Just awful." "He was my favorite," "Oh Captain, My Captain!" Some people had personal encounters with him, virtually every famous person I follow had some anecdote about him being the nicest, funniest guy on set. Norm McDonald (whom I've never found that funny, to be honest) might have had the best one.

He was my favorite comedian. Or at least he's the first comedian I could ever remember being my favorite. I tried to remember my first Robin Williams experience and the best I could come up with was my parent's tape of Good Morning Vietnam, a staple of car trips from the time I was eight until about the time I was ten. Like any eight year-old, I repeated why I heard, so next time you watch that film, picture his "It's DAMN HOT! That's nice if you with a lady, but it ain't no good if you in the jungle!" speech being enthusiastically quoted by a child.

I remember that every time he was a guest on a talk show, I'd set the VCR to record, knowing it would be a fun appearance. I remember seeing that the Genie was the role he was born to play. I remember being blown away at how intense he could be in films like Insomnia and One Hour Photo.

And I remember reading that when Christopher Reeve woke up after his accident, paralyzed and suicidal, it was Robin Williams who first made him laugh by pretending to be a Russian proctologist mistakenly assigned to his room.

I used to think that suicide was a selfish act, and it IS - to quote Williams himself - "a permanent solution to a temporary problem." But then you see friends struggle with depression and you realize it's not that black-and-white. The people that go that far have been battling demons for a long time, that you really have no idea what goes on inside their head.

You'd like to think that if he saw the outpouring of love for him afterwards, he'd have found strength to go on. But the guy had three kids, three kids he loved very much. If that didn't stop him, knowing what this would to them, then whatever he was going through must have been dark.

I saw the roll call of his fan favorite performances on Twitter: Aladdin, Mrs. Doubtfire, Dead Poets Society, One Hour Photo, Hook, The Fisher King, Insomnia, The Birdcage, Good Morning Vietnam. Multiple fantastic dramatic performances, and he's still thought of as a comedian first. He excelled in edgy roles and was beloved by kids everywhere. That is a career. You don't see Anthony Hopkins doing a drag comedy or Pixar film. But Robin Williams did it all without falling on his face.

There aren't many like him, who touch so many generations with such varied iconic performances. It's why you can't go anywhere on the internet without someone paying tribute to him this week.

We should all strive to live our lives in such a way that when we depart this Earth, those mourning us will be as generous and sincere in their tributes as those who knew Robin Williams personally.

He was a kind, classy guy who brought joy to a lot of people. I wish the way he left us better reflected that.

Thoughts on Smallville and its place in the Superman mythos

Smallville wraps up an impressive ten-season run tonight, and I must admit that I’m writing this entry partly because I want to, but largely because I feel like it’s expected. Anyone who’s read this blog for any length of time is probably aware of the fact that I’m an unabashed Superman fan. The first Superman movie is one of my all-time favorite films. I’ve got a complete run of Superman comics going all the way back to the John Byrne reboot in 1986, and since the beginning of 1989, there has not been a new issue that I haven’t bought the week it came out.

It’s also pretty well known I worship at the altar of Joss Whedon, and thus, am something of a fanboy for that WB/CW-genre of show. So you’d think a show that basically announced itself as Superman-meets-Buffy would have been appointment TV for me from the get-go, right?

Tell ‘em, Lex.



When I was growing up, occasionally I’d see articles by comic writers and editors, talking about how the George Reeves Adventures of Superman was their definitive Superman, and how even Christopher Reeve’s strong performance couldn’t displace that. I couldn’t really relate to that. For me, Reeve WAS Superman. George Reeves was fine for his day, but definitive? I just couldn’t see it. And it’s completely alien to me to think that Dean Cain could be fixed in anyone’s mind as the “true” Superman.

So when Smallville came along, I was only too happy to let the next generation have it. As I’m reminded whenever I wander over to some of the fan boards, I’m really not the audience for this show. When you have a fan base that hates the idea that Clark ends up with Lois and actively doesn’t care if he puts the Super-suit on, you’ve pretty much lost the thread.

I actually made it a point NOT to watch the show during its first season. I just couldn’t take seeing the adventures of a young Clark Kent being reduced to little more than a kryptonite-freak of the week adventure series. The early press basically made sound like they took the Superboy trappings, removed the costume, and put it in a Buffy Season 1 paradigm, only replacing “Hellmouth” with “kryptonite.”

The one time I did tune in, the episode turned out to be little more than a ripoff of that Lois & Clark episode where everyone gets drugged and horny for each other, which in itself was a rip off of “The Naked Now” episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which, of course, was little more than a rip-off of Original Trek’s “The Naked Time.” Smallville’s take wasn’t all that interesting, and at least the Lois & Clark episode had the virtue of Teri Hatcher in her prime doing the Dance of the Seven Veils.



(You really CAN find everything on YouTube)

But the following season, the Powers That Be did the one thing that would get me to sample the show again, they brought in Christopher Reeve for an episode that actually suggested the story might point more directly towards the Superman mythos.





I started re-sampling the show and found it had gotten better. My initial feeling that I had trouble embracing it due to it not being close to continuity was disproven when Allison Mack’s Chloe Sullivan (a character unique to this incarnation) was actually the first character I took a shine to.

So I started watching the series semi-regularly and eventually regularly. Like any series there were strong episodes and weak episodes. The production value was generally strong, and the episodes often were entertaining – though occasionally too reliant on “borrowing” from popular feature films like The Hangover.

Season Three was generally enjoyable, while Season Four was abysmal, owing largely to a terrible main storyline that attempted to weave 17th Century witches into the main storyline. The purpose of this was either (a) to justify a strong focus on the Lana character by tying her to the mythology or (b) to justify an episode where the three female leads spent an episode possessed and dressed in skimpy goth-like corsets.

Both of those spoke to Smallville’s two major flaws. First, they’d bend the storylines and the concepts to service the Lana character, possibly one of the most irritating and unlikable characters to grace the WB and CW networks. But I don’t want to turn this into a rant about how the guys running a Superman show seemed more interested in telling stories about their pink princess Lana, so I’ll leave it at that.

The second flaw was that there was no amount of fan service that they wouldn’t stoop too. Erica Durance’s Lois was basically a cosplay Barbie for the producers and after a while it got a little ridiculous. And yes, Teri Hatcher got the same stuff during her time on Lois & Clark (see the earlier clip), but it felt like an even bigger crutch here.

I think the other Achilles Heel of the series was that it just didn’t know how to get the characters from A to B in the uber arc of the series. Lex Luthor started off as a good guy, but his path to evil wasn’t a very well-built road. He basically became a villain because the mythology dictated he was supposed to be evil. Around season 4, characters would suddenly talk about Lex as if he couldn’t be trusted. It was all telling and no showing – one of the series recurrent flaws.

Clark’s path was also equally problematic, particularly as they brought in other heroes like Green Arrow and Supergirl. In the Smallville universe, not only was Green Arrow the first hero to operate in costume, but he’s the one who formed and led the Justice League. The writers had a real opportunity to show Clark stepping up and becoming proactive by being the one to gather and unite all the heroes he’d met over the first few seasons, but instead he ends up just one more recruit for Arrow’s team. The Supergirl storyline showed a similar lack of forethought, as she not only had powers Clark hadn’t yet learned to use, but this season she made her public debut ahead of Clark’s Superman debut. This is a little like having Batman trained by Robin.

But in cases like that, the actors often showed an impressive ability to rise above the writing. Justin Hartley and Laura Vandervoort each had enough charisma to make their respective Green Arrow and Supergirl characters fun to watch, and pretty much all of the main cast performed strongly enough that even if you hated the plots, the actors could keep you engaged. That goes for Michael Rosenbaum, Erica Durance, John Glover, Annette O’Toole, John Schneider, Cassidy Freeman, Aaron Ashmore, and Callum Blue as well. It's this cast that has kept the show going for ten years, and I can understand how this generation will see them as the definitive incarnations of those characters.

But the underlying problem was still the overriding sense that Clark Kent had to be dragged to his destiny kicking and screaming. Clark never felt pro-active on his journey to Superman. No matter what he did, there was always someone there to tell him it wasn’t enough. Not only that, but it seemed like every aspect of the familiar Kent/Superman dual identity that we came to know is more or less thrust upon Clark by someone else. In the comics, Clark decides to do good, puts on a costume and goes to work publicly. On this show, he shies away from the spotlight while for years, hearing people tell him what he should.

It’s hard not to see a parallel between Clark and the actor who plays him, Tom Welling. Welling has said since the early years of the series that he’d never put the costume on. The early motto of the show was “no tights, no fights.” I get an actor’s reluctance to step into an iconic role that can lead to typecasting for the rest of their career. On the other hand, I think once you’ve played “Clark Kent,” the damage is done. The fact that you don’t actually put the cape on probably isn’t going to save you when you’ve become an entire generation’s conception of the Man of Steel.

But Welling and the producers have held to the line that this is not a show about being Superman, it’s about the journey towards Superman. The problem is that as a show that was expected to run for five years has now run twice that long, The iconic Superman settings eventually had to be accommodated. At a certain point, for the sake of Clark not seeming entirely wishy-washy and ambivalent about what he does, the cape has to come on. Clark and Welling have run from their destiny long enough.

There's a lot of talk about the costume making an actor look silly, but it doesn't have to. Dean Cain was an unconvincing Superman because he always seemed to be apologizing and overcompensating for the outfit. He'd puff himself up and speak in a put-on authoritative voice as Superman. Reeve took the opposite tact - "I just let the costume do the work." He wore it as casually as an old pair of jeans and THAT is what made him a strong Superman. Brandon Routh seemed to take the same approach, and I hope that it's something Welling learned.

And as Tom accepts the cape, perhaps old fogies (note: I am actually a few years YOUNGER than Welling) like me can make peace with the idea that for an entire generation, Smallville will be “the way Superman is supposed to be.” Tonight I’ll watch the finale to see how it all ends, and hope we reach the destination in a way that validates the journey.

At the end of the day, Smallville brought a new slew of fans into the Superman tent, so I can’t begrudge them their successes. They’ve got a lot to be proud of, and hopefully the creators don’t take it personally when guys like me say, “This isn’t the Superman I grew up with!”

Friday Free-for-All: Christopher Reeve & Superman

This Friday Free-for-All is going to be a little different than prior editions. Usually I'm content to just dash off a quick intro, link to some video clips and call it a weekend. However, today I feel like doing a little more of a tribute. Tomorrow, October 10, is the five-year anniversary of Christopher Reeve's death. As someone who grew up idolizing Superman, this was a black day indeed.

We've seen a lot of celebrities pass this year, icons even. Patrick Swayze. Farrah Fawcett. Michael Jackson. Each time - but particularly with MJ - we were treated to the odd spectacles of massive media coverage and distraught fans shedding tears for men and women whom they never knew personally. Naturally that led to an inevitable backlash - "What's the big deal? Big whup! A singer died. There's a war on! People die every day. Who cares?"

We care.

We don't mourn the celebrities so much as we mourn for what they brought into our lives. The movies that inspired us, that made us laugh. The movies we shared with friends, family and and significant others. The movies that shaped who we are, to the point that they are as much a part of ourselves as the lessons we learned in school and the time spent with loved ones. We mourn the loss of a voice who gave us the soundtrack of our lives. The music that played as we went to our first school dance, on our first car trips, during our first kiss. The reaction to Michael Jackson's death was less about him than it was about us. We had forgotten what his body of work meant to us - and on that dark day of his death, we reflected and remembered.

Every generation has such a day. For some, it might be the murder of John Lennon. For those older, perhaps the "day the music died" stirred such emotion. Others still might remember exactly where they were when they heard Tupac died.

For me, October 10, 2004 was such a dark day. I just remember being stunned silent by the simple headline on the Associated Press. "Christopher Reeve dead at 52" The man who was my generation's Superman, and in my mind, the ONLY Superman - was gone. I felt one of the most fitting tributes was this political cartoon.

If you knew me, you'd understand what a big deal this was. Though most kids my age felt that Star Wars or Indiana Jones were the greatest movies ever made, for me, Reeve's first two Superman efforts held that spot. It was the first Superman film that made me want to be a director at the age of five. I watched all of those movies too many times to count, to the point where I could probably recite the entire movie from heart. I've collected Superman comics for over twenty years and have a complete run going all the way back to the John Byrne Man of Steel relaunch in 1986. I'm probably one of the few people who could best Jerry Seinfeld in a fan-off.

From an early age, Superman instilled in me a strong sense of right and wrong. Don't get me wrong, I read plenty of comics featuring the "darker" heroes. I can appreciate them for what they are. They're interesting characters and they all have their place - but there's only one Superman.

In a lot of ways, for me, Reeve and Superman are practically synonymous. Reeve looked so much like Superman that he could have been cut straight from the comic book. It's hard to think of more perfect casting when it comes to filling the boots of an icon like that. Not only that, but in my mind, he's the only Superman actor who ever fully sold the distinction between Clark Kent and Superman, to the point where you could believe that someone wouldn't guess they were the same person.

One of my favorite moments in the first film is the scene embedded below. Clark shows up to pick Lois up for a date and as he fiddles with his glasses, considers telling her who he is. With the glasses now off, his posture straightens, seeming to grow several inches. His voice drops an octave as he starts to reveal the truth, only to chicken out, immediately hunch over and reassume the nerdy Kent persona. It's a wonderfully done on-screen transformation achieved not with any special effects, but pure thespian skill. (And I'll give Brandon Routh credit for coming close to the same effect in Superman Returns. He's definitely my #2 Superman - but the script didn't offer him the same opportunities to really define his separate personas)




Incidentally, the first three or four times I saw this on ABC as a very young kid, this was essentially where the movie ended for me, as it always led into the commercial break before my bedtime.

I tend to prefer the first Superman movie. Superman II is quite good, though I tend to favor the recently released Richard Donner Cut to the theatrical in many ways. It's not a perfect version of the film, and instead is more of a hint of what could have been had Donner not been fired and replaced after shooting 75% of the sequel. Had he remained on the project, the ending clearly would have been different, so I can forgive that. Donner's cut removes much of the dumber moments with the supervillains and restores Marlon Brando's performance. That alone makes it better.

For instance, in the theatrical cut, we are left to guess at precisely how Superman gets his powers back, a plot hole that bugged me even at the age of five. When he gives them up, he's told in no uncertain terms that the process is irreversible. Yet, all we see is him returning to the Fortress and finding the green crystal. The scene cuts and the next we see of Superman, he's flying through Metropolis like nothing happened.

Not so in Donner's Cut. Observe.

Much more emotionally resonant, no? Superman gets back his powers at the cost of his father's life, essentially. That's missing in the other version, a sacrifice. What's more, it brings full circle the father/son themes that run through the first two films. (And Singer's Superman Returns for that matter.)

I won't bash Richard Lester's theatrical cut entirely, because it gave us what I consider the greatest moment in the history of cinema, bar none, no argument.




Now, I understand being tied so closely to Superman wasn't always a picnic for Reeve. It limited the roles people were willing to accept him in, and like many icons, he fought against being typecast. And then, came that horrible day in 1995 when he was thrown from a horse and paralyzed from the neck down. The narrative that story took wasn't surprising: "Superman paralyzed!" the headlines blared. The frequent news magazine segments on his recovery often introduced their stories with some variation on "He played Superman, and now he's become Superman - having endured a great struggle to give inspiration to many."

What he did in that time was remarkable. He lost all personal privacy, as he relied on a ventilator to breathe - and should it have failed while he was alone, he would have asphyxiated. It's impossible to imagine the hell that results when your body becomes a prison. But he didn't wallow in that. He became an advocate for further research into treatments for paralysis, campaigning tirelessly for stem cell research. He gave a louder voice to people who could not be heard, just as Jerry Siegal and Joe Shuster intended their creation to do back in 1938.

And during that period, he even found time to make a few appearances on the Superman TV series Smallville. I couldn't find the scene online, but this DVD segment on his guest shot is an even more fitting tribute to him in some ways.




Some time after Reeve died, his son released a documentary called Christopher Reeve: Hope in Motion, which featured a trip the two Reeves visiting Israel, which is at the forefront of research into spinal injuries. During that trip, he's taken to meet a young woman at one of the centers. She takes steps towards Reeve under her own power, and remarks that she too had been fully paralyzed, naming her specific injury. (C-2, I believe, but don't quote me.) Reeve is shown saying, with perhaps a hint of wonder in his voice, "That's what I am."

When Superman: The Movie was released, the tagline was "You will believe a man can fly." As a four year-old, I watched Christopher Reeve take to the skies and I believed. In watching that moment in the documentary, I believed that had he lived - he would have walked.

After his death, I donated $10 to the Christopher Reeve Foundation, and received two Superman dog tags as a thank you. Emblazoned with the Superman emblem, the tags also carry a simple message: "Go Forward."

If you're still reading this rambling indulgence, I thank you. Every now and then, I like doing an entry that's just for me. I imagine that tomorrow I'll crack open my DVDs and find the time to watch Superman for the millionth time. It will be my way of paying tribute to the man who embodied a hero we can all look up to, figuratively and literally, and a hero who has been a very significant part of my life. It's as much about mourning Reeve as it is reflecting on what his work contributed to my life.

As Superman's father Jor-El says, "They can be a great people, Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason, above all, their capacity for good... I have sent them you: my only son." Superman and Christopher Reeve both were here for a reason, and I can tell you this - it's not just to sell movie tickets.

I'll leave you with this one last clip - Superman's first appearance saving Lois Lane.