Comic Book Encounters: Johnny Saturn

Johnny Saturn no. 1-5, Scott and Benita Story: If Johnny Saturn met Clev the Bloodhound, they would be immediate and total BFFs. They are gritty muscle-men, each butchered by years of voluntary abuse, heroic without the assistance of superpowers, and disdainful of clever superhero gimmicks.

The difference is that Johnny Saturn is satirical. Or, I think it’s satirical. The comic does not, at least, take itself one hundred percent seriously. Or else JS wouldn’t return from the dead by sucker-punching the “Angel of Noble Failures,” a self-described guardian for deceased losers.

The comic does a good job of juxtaposing the mangled, worn-out body of Saturn with the perfect, David-like physique of The Utopian. Utopian is a genuine superman with impressive powers and a cape. He is also ridiculous and flamboyant. Johnny Saturn beats him to a pulp, Persephone detains him in a web of binary code, and Dr. Synn, the arch-baddie, flicks him away like an overly enthusiastic gnat. This despite his much lauded super-strength and his ability to fly. Clearly, Scott and Benita Story are making a point about the superhero genre in general, namely, that such powers don’t exactly cultivate a wellspring of good personal qualities. Clairvoyance might actually make a person insufferably conceited.

Meanwhile, Saturn, ugly, gruff, and unsubtle in a big way, has disproportionate stores of empathy and courage. He touchingly dedicates himself to helping the city mole-people, who are being captured and experimented upon in droves by a government-protected mad scientist. I can’t imagine Superman serving these pale, poor underworld citizens quite as diligently. Saturn quickly becomes their king. In the end, he decides he belongs there, in the sewage system community. These are his people. He is the antithesis of the metahumans like the Utopian who look down on the world from above.