The Man of Tomorrow 

Superman was persuaded to hire an IT guy. "Why do I need email?," he asked. "I can see clear to the horizon. I can hear radio frequencies across the globe." But his mother Martha wanted to send him photos, and Lois was always looking for a decent Scrabble partner. Most compelling, the NSA had evidence that Lex Luther was developing an advanced computer virus to take over the world. "How are you going to save us," the President asked him, "if you don't even know how to open up Outlook?"

"If I can't open up Outlook, I'll be the only one safe from the virus!" But he didn't like to think of himself as ignorant, so he hired a cousin of Jimmy Olsen's to install a complement of hardware and software into the Fortress of Solitude.

"How do I turn it on?," he asked the IT guy.

"The Internet? You don't turn on the Internet. It's always on, like the Sun."

Lois came over to show him how it all worked. "You should Google yourself! Look—one million, four-hundred sixty thousand results! Hey, click on the 'News' link: see if my stories are at the top."

"It says I already have a page on MySpace. What's MySpace?"

"Don't worry about MySpace," Lois answered.

When she came back a week later, he was still sitting at the computer. "Hey Lois! I'm the mayor of the Fortress of Solitude! @ThatSuperman has 400,000 followers!"

"You have a Twitter account?"

"I've got to protect my online brand, Lois."

The Internet afforded Superman with a whole new set of data that he could use to monitor crime, and to keep peace and order across the planet.

"Wait—Lex Luther is your Facebook Friend?"

"Well, we know a lot of the same people from high school. And sometimes he harvests my crops in Farmville. Anyway, he doesn't really have time for world dominion anymore."

The Internet was far more effective at eliminating violent crime than Superman had ever been, because the criminals now mostly stayed at home—uploading photos of old capers, editing Wikipedia entries on classic bank heists, and playing each other at Mafia Wars till they fell asleep at their keyboards, icing each other all night long, from the safety of their dreams.

The Introspective Superhero 

or, Fortress of Solitude, pt. 2

The Introspective Superhero would happily rescue people, if only he knew with certainty that's what they wanted. But it's hard to know what's best.

Take Anna, for instance. Her tabby cat Bartholomew is currently stuck up a tree, beyond Anna's reach. Bartholomew is getting more and more frightened at his situation, and he keeps pushing himself farther up the tree, as if sensing that the ground is an enemy from which he must retreat. Anna, too, is beginning to panic, though she's normally quite level-headed: she thought the cat would have good enough sense to come down by now, and since he hasn't, she's becoming unsure of how to resolve the situation.

Nothing would be easier for the Introspective Superhero than to swoop in, fetch the cat off its branch, and return it safely to Anna's worried arms. But how much better would it be, he wonders, if Anna were to arrive at her own solution—remembering, say, the old stepladder in her apartment building's shared garage; setting up the ladder; confronting her own modest fear of heights; and, from a rung halfway up, luring the cat Bartholomew back down to safety? How much more confident and empowered would she feel? How much more fond of her cat, and herself, at the opportunity, years from now, to look back nostalgically at her afternoon's heroics, and how her actions had brought her and her cat closer together? The intervention of the Introspective Superhero would not help her. It would diminish her.

Even in matters of life and death, the path of the Introspective Superhero isn't always clear. He remembers painfully a time when, during a bank robbery at United First Federal, one of the thieves pointed a gun at the chest of a police officer and fired. The Introspective Superhero used his lightning speed to interject himself between the officer and the speeding bullet. But the policeman was furious. "I was wearing my vest!" he yelled, pointing at his Kevlar. The gunshot wound would likely have been trivial, but would have afforded the middle-aged beat cop a medal, promotion, and a path to an easy retirement. The District Attorney, too, was put out by the hero's actions. Till he'd arrived on the scene, it had been a clear open-and-close case of armed robbery; but against the Introspective Superhero, all weapons were useless, and the bank robber's lawyer convincingly argued the judge down to a misdemeanor.

Superpowers, it seems, don't make the world less complicated. Rather, because they afford the hero with near-infinite options, they make the world incredibly more difficult to manage. Each choice presents so many possible outcomes that it's impossible to guess which one is best. That's why most nights, though the hero could be saving innocent lives, instead he elects to stay at home and do very little. The best way to make the world better, he reasons, is to avoid it altogether.

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 

The world's strongest man wants to make omelette, but every time he tries to crack an egg, he crushes it, so he gets shell in the frying pan and yolk all over the floor. (Sometimes it's not easy being the world's strongest man.)

The world's strongest man owes $125 in library fines because he keeps tearing out pages. (Sometimes it's not easy being the world's strongest man.)

The world's strongest man hits a home run every time he has an at-bat, so baseball isn't any fun for him. (Sometimes it's not easy being the world's strongest man.)

The world's strongest man once ate a fork by accident. (Sometimes it's not easy being the world's strongest man.)

The world's strongest man can't put on a condom without tearing it. (Sometimes it's not easy being the world's strongest man.)

The world's strongest man has never forgiven himself for the accident with his puppy when he was a boy. (Sometimes it's not easy being the world's strongest man.)

The world's strongest man is tired of being called "Ox," "Bull," "Hoss" and "Big Guy." (Sometimes it's not easy being the world's strongest man.)

The world's strongest man wants to give you a kiss, but he won't because he's scared of hurting you. (Sometimes it's not easy being the world's strongest man.)

The world's strongest man worries that no one will love him for his mind. (Sometimes it's not easy being the world's strongest man.)

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 

It was another routine day in Metropolis for Superman, the day he saved the single-engine jet from crashing into the city. The plane had lost power to its stabilizer and gone into a flat spin from which it surely never would have recovered, had Superman not flown in to save the day: the Man of Steel managed to grab the plane by its engine, arrest its spinning, and guide it to a safe landing in a nearby baseball field. The four passengers of the plane were grateful and in tears, while the Little Leaguers stopped their game to cheer.

Unfortunately, the force required to catch the plane in mid-air was also enough to dislodge the jet turbine, which broke loose from the body of the plane, and plummeted out of the sky and into an apartment building below. It tore through the building and killed two dozen people.

Superman, exceptional in so many ways, had never been the most thoughtful hero: decision-making while flying faster than a speeding bullet does not lend itself to introspection. Good and evil had always been for him, if simplistic, at least clear. When he received the news of the two dozen deaths—deaths which had been directly caused by his own well-intended efforts—he was devastated, and confused like he had never been before. For the first time in his life, Superman questioned his own ability to discern right from wrong—so he did what any reasonable thinking person would do in such a situation: he stopped rescuing people, and retreated to his Fortress of Solitude, there to wait and contemplate, until which time his path of action would become infallibly clear—which is to say, never.

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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