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07/16/08 - (1)
Superman? OK, so there are a few certain truths Orbiting the stellar existence of the Man of Steel, The Jew boy from Krypton, Kal-El —
That pseudo-Hebraic moniker given to Superman, By his nerdy Clevelander yid creators (Writer Jerry Siegel and illustrator Joe Shuster),
An appellation roughly translating as "Kal the Powerful," Sole survivor of his exploding planet, Arrived at Jonathan and Martha Kent's Smallville, Kansas, farm,
A cute little baby materializing magically, mystically (Somewhat reminiscent of Moses Being discovered by Pharoah's daughter, in the bulrushes,
And Jesus appearing in Mary's virginal womb), Growing, through legendary heroics, into iconic proportions, As the savior of all mankind, omnipotent, omniscient.
OK. That said, a few troublesome questions persist, Fail to fit comfortably into the myth — Tears in the tight blue tights, brief red briefs, cape.
For instance, if Siegel and Shuster gave birth to Superman, In a thirteen-page set of panels, Which they sold to DC Comics, for ten dollars a page,
Along with, unwittingly, all future ownership of copyright, And, two years after the first (June '38) appearance of the strip, The Macy's parade featured a huge Superman balloon,
And, ever since, the franchise, spawning from comic books, Into newspapers, radio, television, movies, video games, Has grossed, for DC, hundreds of millions, billions,
How is it that the faster-than-a-speeding-bullet, More-powerful-than-a-locomotive, Able-to-leap-tall-buildings-in-a-single-bound super phenom
Couldn't ensure his wimpy conceivers even a meager livelihood, For the majority of their adult careers, Provide both boys with a piece of the American Dream pie?
And perhaps more to the point, If Superman was, indeed, so indomitable a force for good, A paragon of decency and fairness, a guardian of freedom,
Then how come he couldn't convince George Reeves Not to take his own life, close down his fifties TV series? And why, in 1995,
Couldn't he keep Christopher Reeve from crushing his spinal cord After falling from his horse, in an equestrian competition, Dying eight years later, crucified on his ventilator?
These and other anomalies leave me skeptical, I guess. Then again, if Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman Was, after all, just another incarnation of a Diaspora Jew,
The rationale for making him a supermensch is understandable, Since the chosen have always had to rely on chutzpah — The power to lift their five-thousand-year history of dreck.
07/16/08 - (1)
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