Essay: POP-PSYCH, or, Doc, I'm Fed Up with These Boring Figures

"I used to be Superman . . . Wherever you looked I was saving somebody. Then one day I pulled this chick from the river. Do you think she thanked me? No! She just wanted to know why I had this compulsion to rescue . . . She accused me of doubting my masculinity . . . She took one look at my cape and said I was a latent transvestite."

SUPERMAN'S troubles as chronicled by Cartoonist Jules Feiffer, are readily recognizable. It sometimes seems as if most of the U.S. population were engaged in...