"Death" to America
In 1987, the American academic Gary Engle published an article entitled What Makes Superman So Darned American? It's a reasonable question. The character of Superman has been associated with America and American values almost from the very beginning. Images of Superman proudly defending the US flag are the very stuff and essence of American popular mythology. But (it could be argued) Superman is not American. He was born, as everyone knows, on the planet Krypton and sent to Earth as an infant. He is not human. He has X-ray vision. He's faster than a speeding bullet, can leap tall buildings in a single bound, etc. etc. None of these characteristics are qualities we generally associate with Americans. And yet, as Engle points out, Superman is the ultimate American. First, and most importantly, he's an immigrant . No nation on Earth has so deeply embedded in its social consciousness the imagery of passage from one social identity to another: the Mayflower of the New England s