Mike Greare on “John Carter vs Superman”, how they’re alike, how they’re different

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This morning as I was trying to keep my foot on the accelerator of John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood (and there is a confirmed release date for the book now — more on that later) I found myself wanting to flesh out a bit more on the John Carter-Superman connection, and so in my googling I came across this pretty interesting article by Mike Greare  on the Sequart Research and Literacy Organization blogsite.   He describes having come into the release of John Carter with only a general knowledge that John Carter was a seminal figure in science fiction and possibly the original super-hero.  He’d never read the books.  After watching the film (which he is a bit unfairly critical of, but never mind, that’s not the point) he started reading the book and became obsessed with them, and in the process started thinking about John Carter vs. Superman.  It’s at this point that the article becomes quite interesting.

After stating the obvious — both have the benefit of coming from a planet with higher gravity and thus can leap tall buildings and have what appears to the locals to be superhuman strength, he then writes:

John Carter is of Mars. During his time on Earth, he would gaze longingly up to the red planet, which ancient peoples named after the God of War. Carter was a former Confederate soldier, a veteran of the American Civil War, and said that for him, “the fighting man, it had always held the power of irresistible enchantment.” When he is transported to Mars, he finds a plethora of cultures that are built on war and killing, and he fits right in.

He is a master swordsman and quite adept with a gun as well, and he and his allies leave a mountain of bodies in their wake by the end of the first novel alone. He is the masculine God of War and Battle and Strength. He’s the guy that sword fights naked in the forest for hours on end and when it looks like he’s not going to make it out alive, he says something like, “well, they’ll at least be telling my story for a long time.” It’s exciting, swashbuckling adventure at its finest, and when you read it, you feel like you could be that guy, too.

Superman also represents a celestial body, but the one that he embodies isn’t the warrior spirit of Mars, but the nurturing, fatherly spirit of the sun. When Superman’s origin was later revised to take into account the yellow rays of Earth’s Sun (Sol) as opposed to the weaker, red rays of Kyrpton’s Sun (Rao, which was worshipped at one time by the Kryptonians), his most important character trait was finally locked in. Superman, unlike John Carter of Mars, is not a warrior. He doesn’t kill, he doesn’t use weapons and he wasn’t a soldier in his former life.

In his former life he was the son of a scientist, and was then raised by a couple of kindly farmers, people who based their livelihoods upon the sun’s light. While he was rocketed to a planet full of savage, warring humans, his way was not to beat them at their own game, but to teach them to rise above it. He brought with him the light of the sun to illuminate and enlighten the human race, to teach it to shine on with compassion and wisdom even in its darkest moments, even when faced with its darkest enemies. Superman protects everybody, he touches everybody and while he may occasionally lay down his life for us, he never stays dead for too long. He’s the sun, our solar savior, so to speak.

Soldier and savior, war and wisdom, combat and compassion. It’s infinitely interesting for me to ponder the archetypal nature of these characters, and how the germinal idea of Superman might have been planted with John Carter. It not only speaks to the idea that such super-heroic characters are the start of a new mythology that is taking shape around contemporary pop culture, but it also raises the idea that perhaps we as a people are moving from one of these iterations to the next. Perhaps we too are moving our of the realm of Mars and into the realm of the Sun.

 

3 comments

  • John Carter and Superman are both aware of their physical superiority, but at the same time keep a humble profile. Both at the same time are proud of their inheritage, but try to adapt to their planet of choice. Both teach by exemple, not by preaching (depends on which version of Superman of course). Both are sci-fi heroes! They don’t interfere voluntarily on the politics of their worlds (the only time John Carter does that proactively is to stop a guild of assassins). Both have a chivalric attitude and strong code of honor. The author says Superman doesn’t kill, but he surely punches a lot of people in the course of his adventures (probably the result of being published in a more conservative format, say that to the wife beater Superman throws out of a window in one of his early appearances!). Both fall in love at first sight and stay faithful to their brides for life.

    I see more common points than differences between the two!

  • Those are some excellent thoughts. The contrasting of the John Carter archetype and the Superman archetype is an interesting endeavor.

    The writer is correct that John Carter is an archetypal warrior, in a sense the embodiment of Mars, but in his description of that archetype and his contrasting of it with Superman as the embodiment of the sun, he oversimplifies John Carter’s role on Barsoom somewhat.

    About Superman – “While he was rocketed to a planet full of savage, warring humans, his way was not to beat them at their own game, but to teach them to rise above it.”

    I recognize that this statement is more about the nobility of Superman, but the implication that John Carter beat the Barsoomians at their own game does not quite ring true. He certainly became the Warlord of Mars, and was the impetus for wars and conquest, but it was never with a bloodthirsty, “I’m going to show them” attitude. John Carter fought for the love of a princess, and fought against tyrants and abusers in every form. It turned out that his efforts against those villains often involved large-scale war, but he did NOT start wars because of any superiority complex or because he desired conquest. He was a hero who fought with and for his friends against evil. Which sounds a lot like Superman…

    “(Superman) brought with him the light of the sun to illuminate and enlighten the human race, to teach it to shine on with compassion and wisdom even in its darkest moments, even when faced with its darkest enemies. Superman protects everybody, he touches everybody and while he may occasionally lay down his life for us, he never stays dead for too long. He’s the sun, our solar savior, so to speak.”

    Aside from the references to the sun, that sounds like John Carter. JC’s statements at the end of “Warlord” about bringing the Barsoomian races together so they might live in peace and harmony is his personal mission statement. If there was a considerable body count in the wake of that ambition, it was due to the evil tyrants that stood in the way of the good of Barsoom.

    That excerpt is a lot of fun, and it’s good to see more writers putting serious thought into John Carter’s role as a prototypical superhero.

  • Dotar Sojat wrote:
    “After watching the film (which he is a bit unfairly critical of, but never mind, that’s not the point) he started reading the book and became obsessed with them,”

    Well now that’s not a bad thing. He started reading them and found them more compelling than this movie which proves that both the movie is introducing people to the books (a win for the movie fans) and two that they’re discovering that Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars is lot more entertaining than Stanton’s Emo Carter (a win for the book fans.) So everyone wins!

    “He brought with him the light of the sun to illuminate and enlighten the human race, to teach it to shine on with compassion and wisdom even in its darkest moments, even when faced with its darkest enemies.”

    I think you could say the same thing about John Carter here too. Granted he loves the thrill of battle more than Superman but he does illuminate and enlighten the races of Barsoom-from convincing the Tharks to join with the Red Men to revealing the treachery of Issus, the Therns and the First Born, he provided the same inspiration as Superman. That said that is also a really good explanation of Superman’s appeal. He does illuminate and inspire, heck he was always my favorite because he wasn’t conflicted or “damaged goods.” Both men stood for what the believed in and did what they had to do. To me that is a honorable thing.

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