Parodies of Superman did not take long to appear, with Mighty Mouse introduced in "The Mouse of Tomorrow" animated short in 1942.[158] While the character swiftly took on a life of its own, moving beyond parody, other animated characters soon took their turn to parody the character. In 1943 Bugs Bunny was featured in a short,Super-Rabbit, which sees the character gaining powers through eating fortified carrots. This short ends with Bugs stepping into a phone booth to change into a real "Superman" and emerging as a U.S. Marine. In 1956 Daffy Duck assumes the mantle of "Cluck Trent" in the short "Stupor Duck", a role later reprised in various issues of the Looney Tunes comic book.[159] In the United Kingdom Monty Pythoncreated the character Bicycle Repairman, who fixes bicycles on a world full of Supermen, for a sketch in series of their BBC show.[160] Also on the BBC was the sitcom My Hero, which presented Thermoman as a slightly dense Superman pastiche, attempting to save the world and pursue romantic aspirations.[161] In the United States, Saturday Night Live has often parodied the figure, with Margot Kidderreprising her role as Lois Lane in a 1979 episode. The manga and anime series Dr. Slump featured the characterSuppaman; a short, fat, pompous man who changes into a thinly veiled Superman-like alter-ego by eating a sour-tastingumeboshi. Jerry Seinfeld, a noted Superman fan, filled his series Seinfeld with references to the character and in 1997 asked for Superman to co-star with him in a commercial for American Express. The commercial aired during the 1998 NFL Playoffs and Super Bowl, Superman animated in the style of artist Curt Swan, again at the request of Seinfeld.[162]Superman was featured in the ScrewAttack's web series Death Battle, where he fought a hypothetical battle similar toDeadliest Warrior with the character Son Goku and won. Superman was voiced during the battle simulation by the voice actor ItsJustSomeRandomGuy.[163]
Superman has also been used as reference point for writers, with Steven T. Seagle's graphic novel Superman: It's a Birdexploring Seagle's feelings on his own mortality as he struggles to develop a story for a Superman tale.[164] Brad Fraserused the character as a reference point for his play Poor Super Man, with The Independent noting the central character, a gay man who has lost many friends to AIDS as someone who "identifies all the more keenly with Superman's alien-amid-deceptive-lookalikes status."[165] Superman's image was also used in an AIDS awareness campaign by French organizationAIDES. Superman was depicted as emaciated and breathing from an oxygen tank, demonstrating that no-one is beyond the reach of the disease, and it can destroy the lives of everyone.[166]
Superman is also mentioned in several films, including Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin, in which Batman states, "That's why Superman works alone..." in reference to the many troubles caused by his partner Robin, and also in Sam Raimi'sSpider-Man, in which Aunt May gives her nephew Peter Parker a word of advice not to strain himself too much because, "You're not Superman, you know," among many others.
Literary analysis
Superman has been interpreted and discussed in many forms in the years since his debut. The character's status as the first costumed superhero has allowed him to be used in many studies discussing the genre, Umberto Eco noting that "he can be seen as the representative of all his similars".[167] Writing in Time in 1971, Gerald Clarke stated: "Superman's enormous popularity might be looked upon as signalling the beginning of the end for the Horatio Alger myth of the self-made man." Clarke viewed the comics characters as having to continuously update in order to maintain relevance, and thus representing the mood of the nation. He regarded Superman's character in the early seventies as a comment on the modern world, which he saw as a place in which "only the man with superpowers can survive and prosper."[168] Andrew Arnold, writing in the early 21st century, has noted Superman's partial role in exploring assimilation, the character's alien status allowing the reader to explore attempts to fit in on a somewhat superficial level.[169]
A.C. Grayling, writing in The Spectator, traces Superman's stances through the decades, from his 1930s campaign against crime being relevant to a nation under the influence of Al Capone, through the 1940s and World War II, a period in which Superman helped sell war bonds,[170] and into the 1950s, where Superman explored the new technological threats. Grayling notes the period after the Cold War as being one where "matters become merely personal: the task of pitting his brawn against the brains of Lex Luthor and Brainiac appeared to be independent of bigger questions", and discusses events post 9/11, stating that as a nation "caught between the terrifying George W. Bush and the terrorist Osama bin Laden, America is in earnest need of a Saviour for everything from the minor inconveniences to the major horrors of world catastrophe. And here he is, the down-home clean-cut boy in the blue tights and red cape".[171]
Scott Bukatman has discussed Superman, and the superhero in general, noting the ways in which they humanize large urban areas through their use of the space, especially in Superman's ability to soar over the large skyscrapers of Metropolis. He writes that the character "represented, in 1938, a kind of Corbusierian ideal. Superman has X-ray vision: walls become permeable, transparent. Through his benign, controlled authority, Superman renders the city open, modernist and democratic; he furthers a sense that Le Corbusier described in 1925, namely, that 'Everything is known to us'."[43]
Jules Feiffer has argued that Superman's real innovation lay in the creation of the Clark Kent persona, noting that what "made Superman extraordinary was his point of origin: Clark Kent." Feiffer develops the theme to establish Superman's popularity in simple wish fulfillment,[172] a point Siegel and Shuster themselves supported, Siegel commenting that "If you're interested in what made Superman what it is, here's one of the keys to what made it universally acceptable. Joe and I had certain inhibitions... which led to wish-fulfillment which we expressed through our interest in science fiction and our comic strip. That's where the dual-identity concept came from" and Shuster supporting that as being "why so many people could relate to it".[173]
Ian Gordon suggests that the many incarnations of Superman across media use nostalgia to link the character to an ideology of the American Way. He defines this ideology as a means of associating individualism, consumerism, and democracy and as something that took shape around WWII and underpinned the war effort. Superman he notes was very much part of that effort.[174]
Superman's immigrant status is a key aspect of his appeal.[175][176][177] Aldo Regalado saw the character as pushing the boundaries of acceptance in America. The extraterrestrial origin was seen by Regalado as challenging the notion thatAnglo-Saxon ancestry was the source of all might.[178] Gary Engle saw the "myth of Superman [asserting] with total confidence and a childlike innocence the value of the immigrant in American culture." He argues that Superman allowed the superhero genre to take over from the Western as the expression of immigrant sensibilities. Through the use of a dual identity, Superman allowed immigrants to identify with both their cultures. Clark Kent represents the assimilated individual, allowing Superman to express the immigrants cultural heritage for the greater good.[176] Timothy Aaron Pevey has argued other aspects of the story reinforce the acceptance of the American dream. He notes that "the only thing capable of harming Superman is Kryptonite, a piece of his old home world."[42] David Jenemann has offered a contrasting view. He argues that Superman's early stories portray a threat: "the possibility that the exile would overwhelm the country."[179] David Rooney, a theater critic for The New York Times, in his evaluation of the play, Year Zero, considers Superman to be the "quintessential immigrant story...(b)orn on an alien planet, he grows stronger on Earth but maintains a secret identity tied to a homeland that continues to exert a powerful hold on him even as his every contact with those origins does him harm."[180]
Critical reception and popularity
The character Superman and his various comic series have received various awards over the years. Superman placed first on IGN's Top 100 Comic Book Heroes in May 2011.[12]
- Empire magazine named him the greatest comic book character of all time[181]
- The Reign of the Supermen is one of many storylines or works to have received a Comics Buyer's Guide Fan Award, winning the Favorite Comic Book Story category in 1993[182]
- Superman came in at number 2 in VH1's Top Pop Culture Icons 2004[183]
- Also in 2004, British cinemagoers voted Superman the greatest superhero of all time[184]
- Works featuring the character have also garnered six Eisner Awards[185][186] and three Harvey Awards,[187] either for the works themselves or the creators of the works
- The Superman films have received a number of nominations and awards, with Christopher Reeve winning a BAFTA for his performance in Superman: The Movie
- The Smallville television series has garnered Emmys for crew members and various other awards[188][189][190]
Video games
Main article: List of Superman video games
While Superman is largely considered to be the archetypal superhero, and the flagship character of DC Comics, he has enjoyed virtually no success in video games. A variety of Superman video games have been released, starting with 1978'sSuperman for the Atari 2600, none of which have been commercially successful. One of the most notorious examples is the1999 game for the Nintendo 64, simply titled Superman (although often erroneously called Superman 64 due to the tradition of N64 games putting the number "64" at the end of several titles), which is largely considered to be one of the worst games of all time.
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