History of The Nerd Part I #10: The Hidden Truth of The Man of Steel

Behind everything that we take for granted there are two stories. The story that we know, and choose to see every day, is the obvious one; and the other story is the hidden truth. We all choose to believe that Bob Kane created Batman, end of story. The hidden truth is that everything that we love about Batman: the origin, the joker, Gotham City, was actually recreated by Bill Finger – Bob Kane just came up with the design. We know Lead Zeppelin wrote Stairway to Heaven, a song that, by law, must be learned by anyone who picks up a guitar within a month. The hidden truth is that Lead Zeppelin stole the main guitar line from a song titled “Taurus” by an obscure psychedelic band named Spirit (yup, it’s true). Even a universal icon like Superman has an unknown history. Today we take a look at Superman: Portrait of a Jewish immigrant.

Superman is the ideal American patriot. He grew up on a farm in a small midwestern town outside of Metropolis, Kansas, and was used to seeing walking, squawking, animals as food. He’s a muscular slice of 100% USDA approved beef that would make Charles Atlas feel like he could get sand kicked in his face. He also believed in America so much that when he became an adult he put on a uniform to protect its shores and its values. But just like every white picket fence — behind it there is a different truth to be told.  Superman’s origin story of being rocketed from his homeland and the destruction of his people, arrival on earth, and being raised by adoptive parents mirrors that of Moses. The Pharaoh ordered all Hebrew man-children to be killed at birth in order to commit genocide. Parents of a newborn boy build a small ark and sent their child – and possibly the future of their kind- down a river. The boy was found by the Princess of the Pharaoh, who named him Moses and raised him as her own. The two stories share more than a few similarities, they are both about a man from two worlds who is isolated from everyone else because of it. Moses himself did not get the final honor of leading his people to the Promised Land and Superman fights to save humanity until the end of time – his mission in life never to be fore filled.

Moses and the Red Sea	Superman and his Red Cape.

When Superman arrived on Earth, his Jewish sounding name, Kal-El, was replaced with the more Anglo-American name, Clark Kent. He actually spent the majority of his early life assimilating into American culture and in fear of the rest of the world knowing his secret of being an Alien. In 1938, when Siegel and Shuster created Superman, the Jewish people were not really welcomed immigrants in American society. Many Jews had to change their names in hopes of passing as regular Americans in order to survive. The name Kal-El itself is more than Jewish sounding; it has Jewish meaning. “El”, Superman’s family name, means “might, strength, power” in Hebrew. It is also the name for God such as “El Emet”, the “God of Truth”, and “El Olam”, “God Everlasting.”

What about Kryptonite? Okay, Kryptonite wasn’t created by Siegal and Shuster. It was created for The Adventures of Superman, radio show. (The Daily Planet, Perry White and Jimmy Olsen were also created by the radio program.) It was a show that was also written by Jewish Americans. This reinforces the idea that the story of Superman is the story of Jewish Immigration. For a Jew in hiding during the depression, a reminder of  his true origins getting out to the public wasn’t just an embarrassing little secret, it could mean their death. Kryptonite is an actual fragment of his home world. A painful, and potentially deadly, reminder that regardless of how he looked, who raised him, or how much he helped humanity, he is and always will be an alien.

So were Siegel and Shuster consciously creating a secret Jewish icon to infiltrate the gentrified, non-Jewish society? Well, of course, no. They were two poor Jewish kids that lived in the slums of Cleveland. They were nerdy kids that loved comic books and wanted to create something fun. They did, however, use Jewish culture and their own history when they went about creating Superman’s. Little did they know they would change the history of comic books when they did so.

As an immigrant myself, the story of Superman has a special meaning. I just don’t see it as a Jewish story, I see it as the ultimate immigrant story. I am 100% American and also 100% Chinese. I live it two worlds and experience a sense of isolation, as well, because of it. Superman shows me how to not forget where I come from, yet to also not deny myself of the culture I live in. Superman also shows me that because of the two worlds I exist in, I draw strength from them, the strength to go on and do something great, even super.