Superman Turns 70!

Comic Book Resources is reminding us all that February 29 was Superman's 70th birthday. First introduced to the masses in 1938, he's now a super-senior citizen. CBR is asking folks to detail their most visceral Superman experience. I don't really have one. What I respect most about this character is that he tries to be moral, forthright, honest, and self-motivated. He has the power to crush Earth's enemies and the power to vanquish anything that bugs him, really. But he's a study in self-control and genuinely humanist values.

I've been taking some heat from female academics lately for studying comics and graphic novels. They tell me the sequential art form is too dominated by men, that the characters are poor representations of femininity, and that the images and portrayals of women in comics are degrading and immature.

They're right -- to some degree. Often within these bereavements, though, these critics make blanket statements or assumptions: assuming the traits of super hero comics are found in all sequential art, mistaking the commercial comics as the standard bearers of the form, failing to consider that male representation in mainstream comics is often just as immature and exaggerated as is female representation, and assuming that there can be no value in what they see as a flawed form.

I'm unapologetic when I say I actually care and think about issues concerning young men. As the father of two boys, a career educator, and an informed citizen, I read the research and see with my own eyes -- have experienced in my own life -- how we're losing our young men, especially our young men from backgrounds of poverty, to unchecked appropriations of hyper-masculinity via media and possibly media-created or government- spun notions of "culture" and acceptable behavior (all of which which usually boil down to having no real humanist masculinity in them at all).

Knowing this has only increased my respect for characters like Peter Parker, Steve Rogers, and Clark Kent, characters who have the power to do amazingly terrible things, but who have decided that being supermen doesn't mean having amazing powers, but actually means rising above the banality and perversion that can be the animalistic human existence, the one bent on domination, ego, and violence. Superman is the Greek and Neoclassical ideal: Everything in the proper moderation, tempered by reason and logic, and infused with a strong moral core. He's super not only because of his alien powers, but because of how he embodies the best of humanity.

I make a habit of buying my young male relatives a Superman t-shirt at least once in their lives. As I tell my wife, "There's a time in every little boy's life when he wishes he could be Superman." I hope I'm still right, and that we're looking up to Supes for generations to come, not just because he's faster than a locomotive or could hurl our planet into the sun at any moment, but because he embodies potential power filtered through rational thought, a sincere caring for all of humanity, a balanced point of view on all things constituting the human experience, and a resolve to use his potential for the shared benefit of others.

Do I want my sons to grow up looking like Superman? Not especially, but would I be happy if they embodied the best of his character? Absolutely.

Now, I could easily embark on philosophical notions of gender, morals, and humanity here, or I could examine whether or not I'd be just as happy to have a daughter look up to the best in Superman, or I could extrapolate on the commercial character-building process that is the super hero comics' m.o. and thereby say either that it is silly to look up to a character that is the conglomeration of so many influences or suggest that the communal aspect of Superman's creation and continuing development actually supports the notion that "it takes a village" to raise children with good moral cores by showing that our group mentality, our group morality, must come into play when teaching our children right from wrong, what traits are admirable and which are not, or I could berate myself for speaking of a fictional character with such praise.

But, instead, I think I'll simply say "Happy Birthday Superman! And keep doing what you do best: Reminding us that our best selves are the potential super-men (and women) in all of us."