Look! Up on the stump! It’s Super-pol!

Nine year old kid asks Rick Perry what Superhero he’d like to be and Perry replies, “Superman.”

Actually what he said, with a condescending twinkle in his eye and a wink to all the moms and dads in the crowd and with every teenager in the audience rolling their eyes, was, “I’m going to show you my age here, because I don’t know any of the current superheroes, but there was one back in my day named Superman.”

Back in his day.  Sheesh.  He makes it sound as though he can remember when Superman couldn’t fly and Batman carried a gun and he grew up listening to the adventures of both on the radio.  Perry was born in 1950.  By the time he was nine Barry Allen had replaced Jay Garrick as the Flash.

Nothing wrong with his choice though.  Superman would be my first choice too.  Then Spider-man.  Batman’s cool but I wouldn’t want to carry all that emotional baggage.

In fact, we’re all supposed to want to be Superman or be like him, at any rate---it’s a matter of character not of power.  Superman’s mission is to inspire human beings to be better.

Perry, however, thinks Superman’s mission was to “save the United States.”  Stop for a second to think about the political narcissism in that statement. 

Perry says he wants to be like Superman which as he would have it means he wants to save the United States.  That’s a beautiful summation of Right Wing paranoia and self-infatuation.  Right Wingers are always convinced that the United States needs saving---from immigrants, from Reds, from liberals, from hippies, from Islamofascists, socialists, and black guys who somehow get themselves elected President of the United States even though all real Murkins voted against him---and they’re convinced that they are the ones to save it.  Well, not they themselves.  Their chosen superhero of the moment.  Even answering a little kid’s innocent question, Perry, the reflexive demagogue, sets himself up as that Right Wing superhero.

Never mind that Superman championed the New Deal and took on the KKK and Joe McCarthy.  As far as it goes, Superman is the liberal superhero.  Batman, I guess, is the closest the DC universe has to a conservative superhero.  Over in the Marvel Universe, when Tony Stark’s wearing the suit Iron Man is the conservative.  Captain America is the liberal.   (Editor’s note: Oliver Mannion points out that among the DC heroes who are actually outspoken about their politics, Hawkman is the conservative and Green Arrow the liberal.)  But the point is that Superman would never set himself up as a political leader of any stripe.

Which gets me back to his mission.  He did not come here to save the United States.  He came here to help everybody.

Forget the tagline about his fighting for truth, justice, and the American way.  Superman doesn’t think of himself as an American.  He doesn’t even think of himself as human.  He’s the last son of Krypton not a favorite son of Texas or even Kansas.

To the degree he was sent here to save anybody, it was to save all of us.  He is everybody’s savior.

Perry’s lucky there wasn’t a version of my nine year old self in the audience to ask the obvious follow up.

“Governor, what myth does the Superman story retell?  I’ll give you a hint, his adopted human parents also had the initials J and M.”

Yeah, I was a smart-mouthed little punk.  Too big for my britches, old-timers like Rick Perry used to say.

Rick Perry, the Christian who thinks he was called by God to run for President, doesn’t know the first lesson all young comic book fans learn as soon as they’re old enough to stop taking superheroes at face value.  Superman is a Christ-figure.

But then he probably has a Right Winger’s view of Jesus, too.  He is their savior and America is His country.  Which is another way of claiming it’s their country.

One more thing.  If my nine year old self had been in that audience, he’d have pointed out something else to Perry.

“But, governor, Superman doesn’t execute people.  Krypton didn’t have a death penalty.  He doesn’t kill people, period.  He goes out of his way not to.  If he ever did, he would be ashamed of himself.  He wouldn’t brag about it.”

So let’s tally it up.  Rick Perry doesn’t understand science.  He doesn’t understand basic conservative economic principles.  He doesn’t understand his own religion.  And he doesn’t understand TV westerns or comic books.

What does he understand?

Hair care, I guess.

Long lead into this video by Jay Smooth pointing out another lesson of the Superman story that Rick Perry may have missed:

To be fair, immigration is the one issue on which Perry has been less extreme than most Right Wingers and Tea Party types.  We’ll see how long that lasts.

Anyway, via Lindsay Beyerstein via P.Z. Myers who makes the case that even if Bruce Wayne isn’t a conservative himself, Batman is the obvious superhero of choice for contemporary Republicans.

Text links above to panels from All Star Superman suggested by Oliver Mannion.

Comments

[Belvoir]

Of course Perry would say, "Superman". No doubt fits his self-image. As far as I know, "..and the American way!" was the tagline from the 1950's television serial, not the comics. I could be wrong.

Very good point about how Superman's horror of death, his oath not to harm, to ever cause anyone's death. It's famously his weakness (after kryptonite): with all his powers, his enemies nearly always have to resort to hostage-taking. Republicans are pretty big on hurting bystanders, and they don't call that FL governor "Lex Luthor" for nothing. Perry's bragging of all the people he's executed (and the nauseating applause that followed) is pretty far from Superman. (Dunno, "thou shalt not kill" was pretty severely underscored for me in my Christian upbringing. I believe the nuns let us know that God didn't really care about the "name in vain" part, the murder part was rather important.)

Superman's American in that, in our real world, he's part of the amazing, colorful, vibrant world of visual pop-culture America produced in the twentieth century. It's just an astonishing thing when you consider in its entirety. But the character himself, as you say, isn't really American. He's an "illegal", an "anchor baby". No, Superman is not American. He's just always evinced, suggested a heartbreaking longing to be, doing some mightily backbreaking work on America's behalf. Sounds like a lot of immigrants . At least Superman got thanks, often.

I can see the Christ comparison you alluded to. It's true, but there's another part. Superman's origin story is that of Moses found as an infant in the bulrushes by a princess. I find something terribly poignant that Superman's creators, two (I believe) first-generation Jewish teenagers in Brooklyn gave Superman an origin where he was found not by a princess but by a good-hearted "non-ethnic" couple in somewhere like Kansas. "Real" America. I wonder if such a thing seemed almost as good, to the authors, then. . To be accepted as "real" Americans, like in the movies. Not ethnic, not in Brooklyn. It's not original, anything I'm saying here about Superman's origins, but there seems a terrible longing for assimilation in Superman's origin story by Siegel & Shuster. And in 1938, turning Nietzsche's "ubermensch" into a hero who could save the day.. well we wish he could have then, knowing the horrors of the war abroad soon after Supe's creation. Superman is an immigrant to America whose only wish was to fit in, doing heroic feats on our behalf, working harder than the next superhero. His secret isn't that he's Clark Kent; his secret is that he was a Jewish orphan and refugee, which wasn't acceptable back in the twentieth century , in 1938. Doing valorous work ever since, just to fit in to his adopted country.

He's an American that way. The furthest damned thing from Perry's idea of who Superman is.

(Cheers to Oliver Mannion, by the way. Hawkman was meant to be a tough cop from another world- I mean, carrying a spiked mace meant business- and Green Arrow was portrayed since the 60's as sympathetic to the countercultural side. I stopped reading superhero comics long ago, but in recent years I'm drawn back to the older ones. The history. It's nostalgia, but it's also appreciation for what a great history superheroes have, what a great pop mythology. I'm terribly fond of them, and thanks to Oliver, I am happy to hear they are keeping their character traits, personalities. As a grown up I think it was the artwork-and spirit of same- by Alex Ross that intrigued me again. His love for the mythology I once loved too. He made me see those heroes anew. )

[The Heretik]

I love the idea of Superman as an anchor baby, but truth is the rest of his family probably will not be immigrating to earth any time soon. Mostly because his home planet got blown up.

And while I am no fan of Perry and however he might save America, as Belvoir notes, the tv show, if not the comic book, always began with a paean to the black and white America of old when evil was not good.

"The Adventures of Superman" Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings at a single bound! Voices: "Look up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Superman!" Announcer: "Yes, it's Superman, strange visitor from another planet who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Superman, who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel in his bare hands; and who, disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, fights a never ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way."

I occasionally wonder what the next strange visitor from another planet might think were to arrive today. He probably wouldn't live in Smallville.

[Lance Mannion]

Heretik, did you click on the picture of Supes up top?

Always click on the pictures, kids. You never know what surprises are in store.

[Oliver Mannion]

Thank you Belvoir.

[Tom Coombe]

I'm pretty sure the "American Way" thing comes from the TV show, and not the comics, just as I'd suspect a lot of people's understanding of Superman comes from his TV adventures.

And maybe Perry SHOULD have been paying attention to current comic books. If he had, he'd known that Superman renounced his American citizenship in Action Comics #900 earlier this year.

[The Heretik]

O, Mannion Man, I am just so blinded by your words, I could hardly see the pictures. Or their crafty hidden links.

[Charles J. Sperling]

For what it's worth:

"The American Way" does come with the George Reeves television show. On the radio show which ran in the 1940s, the Man of Steel fought for "truth and justice."

On radio, Perry -- White, that is -- was Mayor of Metropolis in 1948 and was being touted as a possible Presidential candidate.

[actor212]

In fact, we’re all supposed to want to be Superman or be like him, at any rate---it’s a matter of character not of power. Superman’s mission is to inspire human beings to be better.

This.

You may recall the recent hoopla created on the right when Superman renounced his American citizenship...in favor of becoming a symbol for the other 6.7 billion people on this miserable rock.

I wonder if Perry will get called on that?

[actor212]

Never mind that Superman championed the New Deal and took on the KKK and Joe McCarthy.

Dude, he defended mine workers who were using defective equipment!

[Dave]

I never cease to be amazed at the level of enthusiasm Metropolitans can give birds flying overhead.

I'd advise anyone with any question as to Superman's politics to pick up the first issue of Action Comics 2.0.He's got the attitude that Siegel and Shuster gave him in the 30s, and he's going after corrupt politicians, wife beaters, and anyone outside the law or common decency.

I have a lot of doubts about the DC reboot, but this issue ain't one of them.

"It's Ben Steel and his bear, Hans!"

[xaaronx]

If Perry is anybody, he's Guy Gardner.

Which means he gets knocked the hell out by Batman: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=topxx&id=5&pg=16