History Repeats in ‘Superman Smashes the Klan #1’ Review

Writer: Gene Luen Yang / Artist: Gurihiru / DC Comics As Gene Luen Yang discusses in a personal essay at the back of Superman Smashes the Klan #1, there was a radio show called The Adventures of Superman that ran in 1946 where Superman took down a gang of white supremacist. It prominently featured a Chinese American family moving to Metropolis, and they were subsequently victims of the Clan of the Fiery Cross. You can guess their real-world inspiration. And in 2019, we live in a different kind of landscape that unfortunately has way too much parallels to our history. And more frustrating still, we live in a time where there is a non-trivial part of the comics reading community that thinks comics need to be apolitical, that Superman is capable of being apolitical like that’s even possible for a character that is illegal immigrant alien refugee, no matter how white-passing he is. All that said, comics are political. Comics are a tool for education and change and this story brought to us by Yang and Gurihiru, a Japanese Studio, is meant to provide a historic window into the 1940’s. It’s meant to be a parable for younger readers and a reminder for older readers. It may seem like an odd story, but it’s an honest, heart-felt tale that feels so familiar and so perfect in a lot of ways.

Superman Smashes the Klan #1 opens with Superman fighting a Nazi supervillain because that’s really the only way you could start a story like this. Immediately from the get, you notice how much love …