Wrestling with Caricatures in “Superman Smashes the Klan”

Cover of Superman Smashes the Klan #3, showing Superman, Lan-Shin Lee and her brother staring proudly ahead with the Metropolis skyline behind them.

Superhero comics have a long & troubling history of using racist stereotypes & caricatures. “Superman Smashes the Klan” reckons with the emotional and material effects of that history, showing how pop culture can both perpetuate bigotry and inspire us to resist it. 1/13 #Superman

Cover of Rebecca Wanzo’s 2020 book The Content of Our Caricature: African American Comic Art and Political Belonging.

As Rebecca Wanzo observes, “Comic art evolves from the tradition of caricature” and “caricaturing racial bodies became an instrument… in justifying colonialism and other state-based discrimination.” Thus, comics have participated in creating the visual language of racism. 2/13

A 1940s Sub-Mariner image showing him attacking a Japanese caricature with octopus arms.

African American caricatures were common in the late-nineteenth century and persisted well into the twentieth century. But during WWII, when superheroes first surged in popularity, Japanese caricatures became especially visible. 3/13

A Fu Manchu caricature on the cover of Detective Comics #1 from 1937, where Batman would debut a few years later.

These Japanese caricatures were often rooted in earlier Chinese caricatures, such as the “Fu Manchu” character type. Fu Manchu is an evil scientific genius, often involved in the drug trade and human trafficking and always trying to infiltrate & overthrow Western societies. 4/13

Cover of John Kuo Wei Tchen and Dylan Yeats’ 2014 book Yellow Peril!: An Archive of Anti-Asian Fear showing a caricature of a yellow octopus encircling the globe.

Fu Manchu (and his many imitators) are steeped in “Yellow Peril” tropes. This trope is based in racist fears about East Asian migration, which supposedly threatened the racial purity of Western countries. Asian immigrants were also blamed for taking jobs & stagnating wages. 5/13

An 1880s poster celebrating the debut of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

These fabulations had real effects, including everyday bigotry & violence as well as laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which effectively barred legal Chinese immigration to the United States. US quotas on Chinese immigration weren’t completely lifted until 1965. 6/13

Lan-Shin regards a movie poster for Captain Desmos vs Genghis Ahkim, The Intergalactic Conqueror,” in which Ahkim is a Fu Manchu caricature juxtaposed a square-jawed white man.

In “Superman Smashes the Klan,” Lan-Shin Lee reluctantly attends a movie with her (mostly white) friends featuring the Fu Manchu-esque villain “Genghis Ahkim, The Intergalactic Conqueror,” probably directly inspired by Ming the Merciless from the Flash Gordon franchise. 7/13

Lan-Shin watches the film that uses racist tropes and feels increasingly isolated.

On this page, writer Gene Luen Yang & artist Gurihiru use framing to emphasize Lan-Shin’s isolation, both from her supposed friends & the popular tropes depicted on screen. They also juxtapose images & dialogue from the film with Lan-Shin’s reactions & internal monologue. 8/13

The film’s racist tropes aren’t the source of Lan-Shin’s isolation. But encountering them compounds it, especially when “earthlings,” who are apparently white, are contrasted with “aliens,” who are Asian caricatures. This emphasizes the dehumanizing aspect of caricatures. 9/13

The Ku Klux Klan articulate their “one race, one color, one religion” beliefs while a cross burns on the Lee’s lawn.

Importantly, while the film is clearly fantastical, its rhetoric is similar to that of the Ku Klux Klan, who clearly see themselves as akin to the heroic Captain Desmos. Like Desmos, they are costumed vigilantes (supposedly) protecting their community from “alien scum.” 10/13

Content of the image is as discussed in the post.

The Ku Klux Klan Grand Imperial Mogul exploits racist stereotypes less because he believes them than in the service of personal financial gain. As the Mogul explains in this scene, the Klan stokes racial animosity to recruit members whose money lines his pockets. 11/13

The Imperial Mogul of the KKK says they manufacture hate because they are in the business of selling hate.

Seeing a single caricature doesn’t make someone a bigot. But “Superman Smashes the Klan” uses the historical example of the KKK in conversation with comic book tropes to showcase thematic & practical intersections between caricatures & deeply ingrained structural racism. 12/13

Superman hovers above a baseball stadium, announcing that he is an immigrant.

The comic also, however, showcases the power of popular stories to resist racist tropes. Seeing an immigrant and literal alien become a beloved hero helps inspire Lan-Shin’s heroism which in turn inspires Superman–which can hopefully inspire readers beyond the page. 13/13