The Man of Tomorrow 

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The Introspective Superhero 

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Denim Man 

Denim Man didn't fare nearly as well against The Crimson Dynamo as Iron Man did.

The Strongest Man in the World, pt. 1 

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Seeing Through Superman's Glasses 

The glasses make the man. Consider Superman: his eyesight is keen enough to see through walls and to make out details while flying faster than a speeding bullet—yet he chooses to spend much of his waking life¹ wearing glasses that he obviously doesn't need.

Why would Superman—why would anyone²—wear glasses that he doesn't need?

Will the Real Superman Please Stand Up

Does Superman put on his glasses to pretend to become Clark Kent? Or does Clark Kent take off the glasses to pretend to become Superman?

One argument, popularized by Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill:

A staple of the superhero mythology is, there's the superhero and there's the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When that character wakes up in the morning, he's Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristic that Superman stands alone.

Superman didn't become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he's Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red "S"—that's the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears—the glasses, the business suit—that's the costume. That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us.

Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He's weak… He's unsure of himself… He's a coward.

Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race.

A counter-argument, provided by Superman himself, after revealing his identity to Lois Lane: "I'm Clark, the man you love. Superman is the creation. You named me, Lois."³

Superman Home Alone

One tries to imagine Superman after a hard day's work. His days are long: he averts plane crashes, bank robberies, warehouse fires, in a world with no shortage of violence or accident; and all the while, he maintains a separate, full-time career as a journalist for a major newspaper, working on intense deadlines—an occupation which, unto itself, is a sufficient workload to tire a mortal man.

How does Superman spend his free time? He'd get little joy from our pastimes. What fun would it be for him to play golf, say, if his every shot were an effortless hole-in-one? What point in going out drinking with friends, if he were immune to alcohol's delightful toxicity? (And anyway, does he have friends?) Vacations would hold little pleasure: why sit on a cramped airplane to Paris when he might have flown there himself in shorter time and with the wind in his hair? Then, on arriving, trying to enjoy a relaxing café on the boulevard, his super-hearing is sure to detect some robbery in progress, some accident waiting to happen, someone calling out in distress ("Sauvez-moi!").

No rest for the unwicked.⁴

How does Superman relax? And in these rare moments, is he Superman, or is he Clark Kent? Is he wearing the blue suit and the cape? Or is he wearing the glasses?

It isn't hard to imagine, really. The blue suit and the cape are for us, for our benefit, to reassure us that we are protected and served: Superman dons his uniform and plays his role, just like any cop, just like any doctor wearing scrubs, just like a short order cook, or a Wall Street banker, or a baseball player, or anyone who wears a uniform. But when Superman relaxes, he wears glasses: he wants to hide his alien features and blend in. He wants to be normal. He wants to disappear. When Superman relaxes, he wants to be one of us.⁵

---

1. Does Superman sleep?

2. Cf. Sarah Palin.

3. The best explanation I've heard for why no one ever recognized Clark Kent as Superman has nothing to do with the "disguise" of the glasses. Superman wore no mask; therefore, no one ever had any reason to believe he had an alter ego or secret identity. As Clark Kent, he could hide in plain sight, because no one was actually looking.

4. Cf. Fortress of Solitude.

5. Superman visits his adopted mother, Martha Kent, at her farmhouse in Smallville, Kansas. Here, sitting in the kitchen, with nothing to hide and no secrets to keep, he does not wear the blue suit or the cape. He wears the glasses. She calls him "Clark," and he is truly at home—as much at home as Superman could ever be.

Fortress of Solitude 

(This story appears in the February 2013 issue of Apocrypha and Abstractions.)

2 

"If a hermit lives in a state of ecstasy, his lack of comfort becomes the height of comfort. He must relinquish it."

- Jean Cocteau

On the one hand, the need to be special, exemplary, one set apart. A strong tower rising above the landscape.

On the other hand, the need to belong, to have a sense of place, of community, of family. A low, sprawling city. A litter of puppies and me in the middle.

Day and night. East and west. Yin and yang. Uniqueness, and belonging.

* * *

Dialectic: the contradiction between a pair of opposites: an argument and a counter-argument; a thesis and an antithesis. The two valances stand in tension until they resolve into a third thing, a cohesive synthesis: a birth. A collides with B to make C. Dialectic implies resolution.

Dichotomy: the contradiction between a pair of opposites: two discrete parts, one sitting here, the other there. The two valances stand in tension, tugging at each other in a swirl of friction and gravity. A collides with B, B collides with A, to make ... collision. Conflict. Dichotomy implies no resolution.

It is the difference between soluble and insoluble: Add water, watch it melt. Add water, watch it sink.

It's the difference between solvable and unsolvable.

* * *

Funny the way fairy tales get stuck in our heads when we're children, cementing our world view before we have any real tools of reason or judgment: the lonely hero who can never share his secrets, who can never be fully understood, who longs for a "normal" life but would never trade the one he has, the one in which he gets to live in his fortress of solitude, and think he is special, exemplary, set apart.

Save Me 

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