Anything with Superman is a mixed bag for me; I either love it or I hate it. The Man of Steel is just a difficult character to "do" right because he's essentially an invicible god with little or no flaws. There are stories with Superman that I consider perfect, such as Alan Moore's "What Ever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" or Joseph Torchia's "The Kyrptonite Kid." And, unfortunately, there are Superman stories that completely miss the mark such as whole "Death of Superman" arc and Bryan Singer's "Superman Returns."
Today, I've come across another Superman story that I can add to the "perfect" list. It's a short animated piece titled "A Smallville Man" by Mauricio Abril, and it evokes what the original Siegel and Schuster Superman was all about...being a champion of the downtrodden and the powerless. It even has a frame or two which harkens back to the classic, "Action Comics" #1 cover. See if you can spot it.
From Abril's post at Moviepilot where he published the short: "The film explores the relationship between Superman's past and present through separate stories that takes us from the jungles of South America to the quaint streets of his hometown of Smallville. For those not quite familiar with South America, it's like America but south. The two story lines ultimately converge thematically to show that the 'S' on his chest represents not just his alien power but also that of his humanity."
"What I've always enjoyed about the mythology of Superman is that he becomes this great hero specifically because it was the Kent's who found and raised him," Abril continues. "If he had landed anywhere else, he would have become someone entirely different. So 'A Smallville Man' became my outlet for emphasizing that part of the mythology. It became a story about how the essence of what makes Superman the hero that he is can be traced back to the influence of his parents, in this case his father's willingness to do the right thing by standing up for someone else. "
Abril said the animated piece took him a year to create and contains over 150 hand drawn, black and white panels. Check out the poignant "A Smallville Man" below:
