"i spent my life with Superman"

i love Superman. i tried to write this once already. it was not the piece i wanted to write. it grew into some kind of academic defense of the character, and it felt too much like work and not enough like the nostalgia and love i wanted to describe.

it sounds funny, doesn't it? i love a comic book character. go ahead. laugh. there are endless aspects to Superman that i could intellectualize and examine endlessly. perhaps that is for the evil twin of this post to explore. this post, the good post, is for meandering my way through my memories and impressions of the character...how Superman has informed my identity from childhood...

what little boy didn't want to be Superman? that is the only defense i can offer for my childhood obsession; i can find no excuses for its following me into adulthood. i don't know if i remember my first Superman comic book. it may or may not be the one i'm thinking of now. i don't remember too much of it: i couldn't read, but i knew that 'damn' was part of the dialogue. and i remember a panel with a half naked Superwoman, mid costume change. and there was Lex Luthor, and Kryptonite, the works.

i would sit on my dad's knee, and he would read it to me. he used to tell me stories about when he was a kid, and he'd get a quarter for an allowance. 15 cents went to ice cream. the other 10? a Superman comic book. there must have been something in that experience he wanted me to share; i can't think of any other reasons why he should have read me that comic book. from what i remember it was barely appropriate reading for a kid of my age. as i'm writing this now i think i've recalled how it found its way into my hands -- at a hotel, some kind of convention perhaps. people littering my small field of view, moderately distant to my eyes, and now, my memory; my father behind me, hand on my shoulder. one figure stood close, a thick, tall man, suited, in his mid thirties. he looked at me. he peeled a book off the stack in his hands and slapped it into mine: Superman. my heart raced.

now that i think about it, that was a course altering moment in my life. who could tell that for the next twenty years i'd be enfatuated...?

standing even more monumental in my mind, of course, is Superman: the Movie. it came out two years before i was born, and because video rental back then was something you did secrety out of the back room at the local pizza parlor, i think what i saw was a theatrical re-release. Dad's fault, again. if it were up to my Mom, i wouldn't have seen it, i'm sure -- Superman, and Star Wars and the Last Starfighter -- traditional great 80's fare were too much for an impressionable little kid like me. turns out she was right. but thank God for Dad.

Christopher Reeve was Superman. he brought the character to life, and he's burned himself into the mythos. when comic book artists drew Superman, up into the late 90's, they were drawing Christopher Reeve. that 'S' is scorched into my brain, those primary colors. i hate yellow. unless its inside Superman's crest. there, up on the scree, you could see him fly, could see his cape flap behind him. though couldn't remember that it was called 'heat vision,' i was thrilled at what i could only describe at four years old as his 'laser eyes'(what four year old knows what lasers are?). you could see it all in the flesh. you believed a man could fly.

Reeve's set jaw and blue eyes crystallized the screen. that movie is spectacular. even its frustratingly corny moments endear themselves to me. yes, i am fully aware of the tricks that nostalgia plays on one's judgement. even so, the Superman of the movies became Superman for not just me, but everyone who saw it.

now i'm older. and what of Superman? the gloss of my childhood obsession hasn't worn off, but i can see behind it now. what was relevent to me then -- the desire to fly, to run, jump and take off, to burn a whole through the front door -- is not what is relevent to me now, appealing as it still might be.

people say Superman is a boyscout; that he is somehow two dimensional because he is good, because he follows the rules, because he does what is right. and some people argue that it is just his nature. he is naturally good, that thoughts of evil and personal gain don't, for a moment, cross his mind. its not a terrible argument -- he is an alien, and perhaps kryptonian nature measures up a lot better when put next to human nature. this, they argue, is what makes Superman boring, two dimensional. i say it is the boring and two dimensional argument that does that.

the only point of reference i have for this statement is myself, but through my experiences i've come to this conclusion at least: doing good is not easy. holding yourself to a higher standard is not easy. i don't think its any easier for Superman because of some inherent virtue he has over anyone else. its just as hard for him, and the burdens are bigger, and the stakes are higher. not to mention that he could get away with doing as he damn well pleased with impunity. wouldn't the temptation always be there for him, to abuse his powers? no, i don't think he is more virtuous by nature...it is simply by choice, by force of will.

doing 'good' isn't easy. give Superman a little credit.

listen to me...
i talk about him like he's real...
of course what i mean is, give me a little credit for the good decisions i've made....

as i write this now, i'm also fascinated by Clark Kent. Clark Kent didn't grow up as Superman. we think of "Superman" as being Clark Kent's job. it is what Clark Kent 'does': he puts on his suit, goes "Supermanning," and comes home after a hard days work; maybe cracks a beer, watches Conan, drunk dials Lois and goes to bed. its not, though. Clark Kent's job is as a staff reporter for the Daily Planet. he receives a weekly paycheck for what he does in front of a computer screen: writing. Clark Kent is a writer. people don't go into that field on a whim, they don't try it out because, well maybe it might be a neat thing to do. they do it because they're passionate. they dive into that work; they love what they do. Clark Kent writes news stories. he's a journalist. perhaps he has a dream of changing the world as much through his articles as he does by being Superman. mayabe being Superman is something he does because, as one comic book titan once put it "with great power comes great responsibility." perhaps writing is really what Clark loves to do. perhaps he's working on a novel, and he's halfway through the third draft. perhaps his goal this week is to land a face to face interview with the former Israeli Prime Minister, so he can edge out Lois for column inches on the front page of the Daily Planet. perhaps his heroes are Kafka and Joyce. perhaps he just loves words, and lives to fit them together beautifully, intricately, artfully.

maybe Clark sees himself as a writer, and his writing as his main contribution to the world.

of course, what i mean is that i like the idea that maybe Superman thinks of himself as a writer before he even thinks of himself as Superman. it kind of elevates the profession, and the choice i've made with my life...

there is a sort of trinity of identities that Superman contains, or a layering of identities. his public persona is the Superman identity, the Man of Tomorrow, saving the day. in civilian life, he is Clark Kent, mild-mannered, midwestern farmboy. the whole point of the idea of keeping a secret identity is so that Clark Kent can lead a relatively normal life, and protect not only his own privacy but the privacy of those he loves. though it is his public persona, Superman is the secret Clark Kent keeps. but even these two identities, as genuinely as they are a part of his identity, are veneers the character hides behind...somewhere inside, privately, to himself he is Kal-El, the Last Son of Krypton....no one can dispute the normal, wholesome childhood that Superman grew from; raised on a farm by Ma and Pa Kent, he must have had a solid work ethic, he must have been polite and learned from them his mild manners. as an aging couple who couldn't have natural children of their own, they must have showered Clark with all the love they had. its as good a childhood as anyone could hope for. even when Clark starts to show the first symptoms of super powers, its still a background relatively without incident, right? and yet how many years did he spend not knowing where he came from? not knowing anything except that he fell out of the sky and into the lap of Ma Kent? he knew nothing of his natural father and mother. he must have wondered where he'd gotten his icy blue eyes, from whom he'd gotten his jet black hair. to whom did he owe his natural curiosity? from whom did he inherit his inclination toward writing? how long did Clark spend knowing nothing about his heritage? eventually he heard the name "Krypton," learned that Lara and Jor-El were his parents, learned that he had a name he was born with, and it was Kal-El. when he finally had learned something about who he was, was he heartbroken to know that Krypton had been destroyed with everyone, every living soul, and everyone who shared his blood on it? i imagine Superman having a soft spot for Kryptonite; deadly as it is, it is all that is left of a home he will never otherwise see.

Clark knew all of his life he was not human; he was different, special. unique. the questions about his heritage that he sought to answer were bred with the hope that he was not alone, not singular in all the universe. all the answers could only be half a satisfaction, then, when he learned the hard truth; his family was gone, and he would never meet them. Superman in his soul holds up a lost planet, bears the weight of its ghosts, his parents, and the heavy, black holes in his identity that he will never recover; he holds it up to the light of his memory, mournfully. what else can he do? what other respect can he pay? what other way can make his heritage a part of who he is?

they talk about the Superman origin as being the "ultimate immigrant" story. Siegel and Schuster were children of Jewish immigrants; it makes sense. yet they owe the story of Superman's journey to Earth to their heritage in an even deeper way; the Last Son of Krypton floated down the Milky Way in a rocket, the same way Moses floated down the river as a baby, hidden in a reed basket. their parents sent them both away so that they might avoid certain doom. yeah, in a way these are "immigration" stories, if you want to appropriate them that way. but something more personal is going on here; Superman being sent to Earth as a child is the ultimate adoption story, which is something more intimate and more personal.

who does Superman talk to about this part of his life? how do you think it makes Ma and Pa Kent feel, when everything they've given still can't fill in the missing pieces? do you know how strange it is to miss someone you don't even know?

i was a little boy once, and how could i have not wanted to be Superman? it is the right of all little boys. i am grown now, and the only right of grown ups is to face that which is difficult; we save the heat vision, the power of flight for children; we take on the struggles of goodness, of profession, of identity...struggles for which those powers are useless. Superman is who he is, and he's still like the rest of us. his powers, his alien nature haven't afforded him a free pass on the human condition. as a kid i would never have believed i would grow up to be this much like Superman...