Ted Anthony of the Associated Press considers the legend — and the passport – of Superman.
Superman by Jim Lee (DC Comics)
There is a scene in the 2006 movie “Superman Returns” that captures the fabled Man of Steel in an extraordinary moment. Floating high above the Earth, gazing down upon America, he listens with his super-hearing for cries of help as a cacophony of people, in all the world’s languages, live their lives.
The message is clear: Kal-El of Krypton – strange visitor from another world and, let’s face it, America’s ultimate illegal immigrant – is a citizen and protector of the entire planet Earth, not merely the 50 United States. For 73 years, Superman walked, leaped and flew through the skies as a presumed American, his red, yellow and blue a stand-in for the red, white and blue of the nation he adopted as a boy when his spacecraft crash-landed smack in the middle of a Kansas farmer’s field.
Until now. In the latest issue of “Action Comics,” 900 issues after he first appeared in 1938, Superman stood on the grounds of Camp David on a foggy afternoon and told the president’s national security adviser that he planned to renounce his U.S. citizenship. Seems Washington didn’t much like Superman showing up at a peaceful protest in Tehran, Iran. Also seems Superman didn’t much like Washington calling him out on it.
“I’ve been thinking too small. I realize that now,” the Man of Steel says in the story by David S. Goyer. “I’m tired of having my actions construed as instruments of U.S. policy. `Truth, justice and the American way’ – it’s not enough anymore.”
Backlash came quickly, if predictably. Republican politician Mike Huckabee called it “disturbing,” Bill O’Reilly weighed in, and already there is talk that the brief story was just a one-off – or even that it never really “happened” in the larger continuity of the Superman saga. In the world of comics writing, such things are easily solved.
However it turns out, though, a point long implied has been made explicit: Whether in fact or perception, the character of Superman has been loosely cast for generations as an instrument of American policy, spreading democracy’s ideals around the planet even as he becomes more of a global citizen with each passing decade.
From the earliest comics by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Superman was positioned as a defender of America. By the time Max and Dave Fleischer made the first cartoons about the character in the early 1940s, it was more explicit: He battled caricatured “Japoteurs” and was clearly on the side of the Allies during World War II.
read more, click on the link....herocomplex.latimes.com

Until now. In the latest issue of “Action Comics,” 900 issues after he first appeared in 1938, Superman stood on the grounds of 
T
By Sal Loria





















Recent Comments