http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/413980

As Superman turns 70, our guest columnist ponders the reasons behind this comic icon's enduring popularity today

Superman is 70 this month. He doesn't look a day older than when I met him, but I guess that's why they call him Superman.

Why has he lasted so long? Why is he still relevant to a modern audience, decades after teenagers Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster first imagined the Samson from outer space in the 1930s?

It's not because he was the first superhero, although a lot of people falsely credit him that honour. Popeye had super strength and invulnerability, Tarzan talked to animals, the Shadow turned invisible, and Philip Wylie's pulp hero in his 1930 book Gladiator could leap over a barn, stop bullets with his skin, and lift a car over his head, all long before Superman showed up.

As for the costume? The Phantom wore the tights-and-trunks years before Action Comics No. 1 hit the stands in April 1938, as did Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers every Sunday in colour. The Shadow even wore a cape. So why has Superman left them all behind in history? Why did he age so well when they didn't?

What sets Superman apart from all those who came before and after him, is that he is the personification of the most deeply rooted human belief there is: that there are gods in this world, and if we pray to them, they might help. The wonder of Superman is, that when we ask for HIS help in fighting something so big or dangerous that we poor humans can only fail, he shows up and helps. Instantly. On time. And everybody lives at the end of the story. He is god in a cape. The living answer to our prayers.

The trappings are all there: As a baby, he is sent to us by a father who lives in the sky. His spaceship/basket lands in the reeds of a Kansas cornfield, to be found by a barren woman and her husband who adopt him and create a virgin family. He learns to Americanize his birth name (Kal-El becomes Clark Kent) and "pass" for a member of the dominant culture, hiding his true identity and language. This God-as-American-immigrant spends the next few decades performing miracles, saving lives, and telling people to do good for each other. Much later, he dies saving the world from a monstrous evil named Doomsday, and a year later, is resurrected to live among us again. It's something I'm sure two Jewish kids living in Cleveland (one of them, artist Shuster, being a former Torontonian) didn't see coming when they cobbled Superman together from early science-fiction sources and Depression-era power fantasies, but they invented the American Jesus.

Throughout history, the supernatural creatures and gods of this world have been created and re-created in our image, and Superman is no exception. It's the other secret of his staying power: his adaptability. In every era, he's fought against whatever gives anxiety to that generation. And as he moves through history, he takes on the manners and attitudes of his fellow citizens and continues to be the modern American man. In the '30s, he was a Depression-era brute, but a champion of the downtrodden masses who'd been handed a bad deal by the privileged classes and the world in general. His first stories were about corrupt senators and unsafe coal mines and wife-beating husbands. He was a Superman for the little guy.

In the '40s, he took on a world war. Famously, in a 1943 issue of Look magazine, Superman abducts Stalin and Hitler and makes them take responsibility for the suffering they've caused. Throughout the '50s and '60s, Superman fought against technology and the sense of future shock Alvin Toffler said we were all feeling. Lex Luthor becomes a brilliant but evil scientist with no sense of morality, the ultimate villain for the space age.

On television, Superman was a father figure, benign and wise for an era that still respected dad. In the '70s, the time of the Me Decade and the sexual revolution, Superman focused more on the Man, and less on the Super. Christopher Reeve made Superman a romantic hero. The father figure became a sex symbol for the Studio 54 set.

In the '90s, Superman became the supporting character to the new era of empowered women, in Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. In the comics he got MARRIED, returning the father figure of a bygone era! And now, in the 20th century, in the age of 24-hour infotainment-Web-media, Superman remains king of all media. What other character has his broad appeal across so many different formats? You want hit records? Five for Fighting's "Superman (It's not Easy)" became the anthem for 9/11 rescue workers. Eminem, 3 Doors Down, The Flaming Lips and Our Lady Peace have all had Superman hits in the last decade. And movies? Bryan Singer's Superman Returns grossed a mere $400 million (U.S.) worldwide, which disappointed the executives at Warner Bros., only because they'd spent $200 million making the movie, the largest budget in film history. What about TV? He's in the eighth season of his prime-time series, Smallville.

All is not completely rosy in Metropolis. Superman is famously considered one of the worst video game characters around. And though the Last Son of Krypton stars in at least five different titles selling in the comics market's top 50, he still has nothing in the top 10. It's been years since Superman was a sales monster in the funnybook biz, like Wolverine or Spidey. In the comics shops Superman is sometimes considered too old school, like an aging relative who isn't as in touch as he should be, and when he's handled poorly, he comes off as a little dull.

All of which might be true. But in the hands of brilliant creators, Superman recently won the 2007 Eisner Award (the comic industry's version of an Oscar) for Best Continuing Comic Series, duly recognizing the excellent work of current All-Star Superman creators, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely. Morrison and Quitely have been telling an EPIC Superman story, full of grandeur and godlike behaviour, with every page sparkling with inventive plotting and gorgeous art. Give them a couple more issues and they'll take my man Supes back to the top.

He's got a zillion fansites and e-zines and webrings on the net. And whatever the limitations of a character this powerful in a video game, he's still starred in more than 20 different titles for a half-dozen gaming systems. Someone's enjoying him in computer form.

Finally, for the record, he's still one of the top-selling pyjamas, and the No. 1 comic book-related tattoo in the world. After 70 years, this American God, Superman, is here to stay. He's so basic, everyone "gets" him. He's a part of all our childhoods and will be part of our kid's futures. Happy Birthday Kal-El. Stick around for a while, at least while we still need you.

From Nietzsche to newsprint: how the Superman was born

• 1883: Friedrich Nietzsche needs a term to describe the new sort of being, unburdened by old rules, who will lead mankind. He dubs him the Übermensch, commonly translated as Superman:

"Where is the lightning that may lick you with its tongue? Where is the madness in which we should all be cleansed? Behold; I show you the Superman. He is the lightning! He is the madness!"

• 1905: George Bernard Shaw, no stranger to a catchy turn of phrase, borrows Nietzsche's notion for his play Man and Superman, in which his hero seeks to change the world but is instead domesticated.

• 1929: Cleveland teen Jerry Siegel puts out what's now regarded as the first fanzine, a collection of pulp sci-fi stories. It's illustrated by his new school pal Joe Shuster, a soft-spoken youth from Toronto. Around the same time, the Great Depression hits and Siegel's father Mitchell is murdered at his store. Clearly, justice needs a champion.

• 1930: Writer Philip Wylie publishes his novel Gladiator, in which young Hugo Danner, a product of his father's experiments, finds himself impossibly strong, fast and impervious to harm. He tries to use his talents for good, but the world fears and frustrates him. Siegel reads the book ...

• 1933: Siegel and Shuster's latest amateur story is "Reign of the Super-Man," in which a vagrant, made superhuman, tyrannizes the world. They refine their idea and pitch it to comic-strip syndicates. (All the real funnies were in the paper then.) No luck, but one comic-book publisher is desperate enough to try it . . . eventually.

• 1938: Action Comics No. 1 brings the first Superman story, partially a cut-up version of Siegel and Shuster's newspaper samples. If you have a copy, note Clark Kent toils at the Star, a name Shuster borrowed from his hometown paper. Also note that your comic's value is estimated at a million dollars.

The Adventures Of Übermensch.



Reminds me of an ancient Saturday Night Live skit called "What If Superman grew up in Germany, Instead of America." Dan Aykroyd played Klaus Kent/Uberman and Michael Palin (Monty Python) played Hitler.

Bump for Mr. Templeton, since he just joined IMWAN.

Welcome to Ty.
Enjoy your stay.

Ty is great! I LOVED his work on the Elongated Man tale in Secret Origins. He also provided great inks with Mike Parobeck's pencils in Elongated Man's vastly underrated mini-series.

Welcome, Ty. Always great to have a true comics professional here amongst the savages.

Olsen? Is that Jewish?
No, It's dutch!
He's lying!

And soon to be in its tenth, and becoming the longest running Sci-Fi show in the US.

Not bad for a septuagenarian.

Thanks for the welcome guys. This essay that Rawburn reprinted is from an article in the Toronto Star a little over a year ago (hence all the bragging references to the Star in the article, and their connection to Superman). It comes complete with an illustration of Superman leaving grizzled old versions of Popeye, Shadow, Tarzan and the rest in the dirt. The drawing was left off the online version, but took up a chunk of the page when they originally ran the article in olde tyme print, and since the drawing was half the reason they asked me to write the thing (as ANY staff writer could have put together the same essay), I'm tossing a link to the illustration here for you guys to pick apart and make fun of the art. Favorite part: Drawing the Shadow with a walker, making him the SHADOW-WALKER.

Since I'm new here, and don't know how to attach things, here's a link to my own entry about this months ago, on my home page, where you can see the illustration, and the page from the Star itself.

http://tytempletonart.wordpress.com/201 ... the-blind/

Ty the Guy
http://www.tytempleton.com

Here:



Awesomesauce.

That picture a riot - sure looks like Kal has held up a lot better than his contemporaries!

I like your sense of humor as evidenced by the comments section.
Sekowsky? Sure, I see it too.

I'm not trying to be too mean, but when I was a kid, I was the guy who would get home with my latest issue of Supergirl, Wonder Woman or JLA and open it up and go..."SEKOWSKY?!? What did we do wrong, lord?" IT wasn't that Mike was a terrible artist, he sure drew better than I could at the time, but when you were getting Gil Kane, Curt Swan, Dick Giordano, Neal Adams or Bob Oksner just the issue before, it could be a blow to the side of the head to find the editor had switched to Mike....

Sorry Mike S. But you were the Don Heck of DC. (And yes, Don Heck was lovely, back in the FIFTIES, but was hard to get excited about following Kirby, Buscema, or Cockrum, as he often did.)

Ty the Guy
http://www.tytempleton.com

I understand perfectly. I was that guy too.
I'll bet almost all fans "of a certain age" were also.
One of the joys of our hobby is the ability to appreciate anew that which one did not when one was, shall we say, "less exposed" to the nigh infinite interpretations of imaginative images.
My paticular 'then and now' is Frank Robbins' Batman.
And a perfect example of my uneducated eye was the thrill I experienced when Gil Kane took over Hawk & Dove after Steve Ditko's final issue.
Dumb kid, what did I know?

Welcome, Ty! I love your work!

Welcome, Ty -- I still cherish my complete run of Stig's Inferno and have been a fan ever since.

I've come to terms with the whole, "If you don't like Sekowsky's art, you just haven't given it enough time to grow on you."

I've given it 50 years, and it still hasn't grown on me.

@uncle twitchy.

LOVE the Beatles gif in your sig...but I have to ask. What happened to BEATLES: TWIST AND SHOUT (their second album in Canada and Japan) or BEATLEMANIA mitt die BEATLES (the first German release) If you have every other international release, it seems odd to leave them out.

Ty the Guy
http://www.tytempleton.com

Agree. Excellent!




I felt the same way about Dick Dillin.

I was only going for the British and US releases since that's what I own. One of these days I'll do a fully comprehensive one that includes singles, solo work, and so on. I'll call it The Compleat Beatles Gif and it will be prohibitively large and bury us all.

Welcome Ty! Can I ask how you found IMWAN? Very pleasant surprise to see you here.

By the way, love, love, love your clean style. Hm. I might need to re-read Stig's Inferno one of these days.