Superman
A hero turns 80
Superman and (right) his creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
THIS YEAR marks a milestone for DC’s iconic Superman. It is the 80th anniversary of the creation of the Man of Steel, alter ego of mildmannered Clark Kent, and his appeal is just as great today as it was then. Only last week a new animated film, The Death of Superman, was released on video.
We wouldn’t have any of the Marvel heroes — The Avengers, Thor, Iron Man or Black Panther — without Superman, who was created by two Jews from Cleveland, Ohio; Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. The character has appeared in eight movies since Superman: The Movie 40 years ago and a number of TV shows over the years including Lois & Clark and Smallville.
Why has the character lasted so long? Paul Levitz, DC’s former president and arguably the man who has written more about the company’s legacy than anyone else, says: “I think the fundamental story elements of Superman touch the humanity in us, most especially the triangle between Superman, Clark and Lois.
“Who among us hasn’t wished that object of our desire would see past our weakness to the strengths within?”
Jews have always played a major role in popular culture but Levitz sees the initial appeal of comics for Jews as a simple one: “At the beginning, it was simply — the Jews were children of the newest wave of immigrants, unable to break into the more established professions or creative fields, and comics were open to them with many of the early publishing companies being founded by Jews.
“Lacking restrictions, and in many cases with referrals from relatives or friends, they found the doors open. There is, of course, a rich tradition of Jewish storytelling, including the somewhat superhuman adventures of men of faith as told in the European Chasidic tradition, that also encouraged it.”
DC’s current publisher Dan Didio has a theory of his own about Superman’s enduring appeal: “We talk about the orphan aspect of the character. He’s lost his world, lost his people. He’s found an adopted home. We’ve always identified that as the immigrant story in some ways. I think that’s something that people can refer to, always feeling like the outsider. And I also think it’s just the enduring qualities of who he is and who he stands for.”
Siegel and Shuster had plenty of Jewish contemporaries. There’s Bob Kane, co-creator of Batman, Jack Kirby and Stan Lee at Marvel and Will Eisner also working extensively in the medium. Didio sees several reasons for the continued appeal of comics for them: “I think it’s an interesting art form. If you look back at the early origins of comics, it was very New York-centric. A lot of the artists and writers lived in that area.
“So it was always that bit of a melting pot in those days of different nationalities, different ethnic groups and different religions all coming to that. And this was one of the ways that Jewish creators found a way to find a voice and express themselves.”
This year sees a prominent Jewish creator at the helm of Superman once again. Brian Michael Bendis, who spent two decades at competitor Marvel, has just started as writer on Superman, penning Superman and Action comics. For him, Superman is very much a part of Jewish culture, as Bendis told me recently: “Superman is actually a very Jewish story. It’s the Moses story backdrop with a sci-fi bent. I have always felt a connection to it ever since I was a kid.”
Former Marvel editor and writer Daniel Fingeroth believes it was the fact that other parts of publishing weren’t open to Jews was one of the main reasons that they were attracted to comics: “I really don’t know if the percentage of Jewish comics creators today is especially high, certainly not anywhere as high as it was 80 years ago. Back then, [when Superman started] being shut out of many other areas of publishing led local New York Jewish kids who were good at telling stories visually and verbally to the new, low-paying and not-respected field of comic books.
“Perhaps what attracts modern Jewish creators to comics, besides the appeal the medium has to people in general, is a sense of heritage, that it is a business that was started largely by immigrants, and the children of immigrants, of Eastern European Jewish heritage.”
So, 80 years on, the character that started it continues to be one of the most enduring and prominent cultural icons in any pop culture field, starring in comics, film and TV. Not bad for two Jewish boys from the rust-belt of the US.
It is a very Jewish story, Moses with \ûR »