A Review of Becoming Superman, by J. Michael Straczynski
This is an autobiography of a man who has lived his adult life in the Hollywood film trade, and the book came out in 2019, so is it appropriate to call things spoilers? This is not a work of fiction, just as his screenplay for Changeling is probably the only Hollywood production ever to proclaim simply to be a true story, not a story “based” on true events. He had tons of documentary evidence to prove to lawyers his right to call that movie a true story with no invented characters. Just as in the US, the truth is defense against libel, spoilers apply to mysteries and thrillers, not autobiographies.
Trust me. No matter how much I give away, this book is worth reading in its entirety.
Now for the review.
I knew of JMS, as he became known to his fans, since his days on the revived Twilight Zone and his days hawking and making Babylon 5, and I have heard him speak many times, so I picked the book up knowing it would be a good read, despite a title that I didn’t understand and that sounded a little grandiose.
Then I started reading it. I was gobsmacked by what the man has been through. A father who was a con-man, drunk, sadistic, physically abusive Nazi (not a Neo-Nazi, a real one–he kept the uniform and even made his son wear it once), a mother who conceived him in a whorehouse and who literally threw him off a third-story roof when he was 7 (only saved by a tangle of antenna wires that left him scarred and bruised), a parade of bullies and sadistic nuns at 12 different schools in his first 12 years of education. Dickens’ orphans would count themselves lucky not to be him, and that’s not even all of it.
But despite the wounds of such an upbringing, this is not a book that asks for sympathy, rather a book of the triumph of a humble hero haunted and, in some ways, crippled by his upbringing. The title is about his hero and the only role model in his life, not that he could keep his comics or even afford the 10 cents to buy them sometimes. Trying to become Superman, an alien orphan from another planet with an unshakeable resolve to do only good, is likely the only thing that made JMS sane and good.
This is a man who has heard the equivalent of “You’ll never work in this town again!” about his news reporting career, his TV animation career, his prime time TV career, and his movie scriptwriting career. Yet he kept going and even thriving, moving on to the next challenge.
For aspiring writers, there are the tales of random encounters with great writers like Rod Serling who was probably the only person to read some of his stories as he had them displayed on a table at celebration of the creative arts at his Junior College, praised them and gave him advice when JMS had no idea who the man was. Then there was Harlan Ellison whom he cold-called at one point of despair for encouragement, and whose advice was, “Stop writing shit!”, and whom he later became friends with. There was Norman Corwin whose guest classes at San Diego State, JMS had to break all the rules and cheat to get into.
This is the man who created himself as a writer who could be given an assignment and turn over a better-than-competent script in days, a man who could write 111 hour-length scripts for Babylon 5 while also overseeing almost all parts of production. If anything, I think he could be Superman’s hero.
Musings of a Restless Mind 