Comics: Comics: The Problem with Superman

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Superman has always been prissily apolitical--as a resident alien, does he even vote?--but that may be the missing piece. He's a metaphor for America, but an outdated, obsolete America: invulnerable to attack, always on the side of right, always ready to save the rest of the world from its villainy whether or not it wants to be saved. In the past, every decade has got the Superman it deserves, and don't worry, we'll get ours, but he will probably be flawed, more man than super. Americans don't want to be told what to aspire to anymore, who we should be. Our Superman will want to wallow in who he is and find out why he hurts. Keep your eyes on the skies. We're definitely not in Kansas anymore. --With reporting by Lina Lofaro/New York and Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles

Quotes of the Day »

RAY KELLY, New York City Police Commissioner, on the arrest of a New Jersey man in one of the nation's most baffling missing-children cases, the disappearance more than three decades ago of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
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