Sun God, Quintessence of Mankind.
"It's a Bird! It's a Plane! No it's....
!!!Superman!!!
"Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective Comics, Inc. (later DC Comics) in 1938, the character first appeared in Action Comics #1 (June 1938) and subsequently appeared in various radio serials, television programs, films, newspaper strips, and video games. With the success of his adventures, Superman helped to create the superhero genre and establish its primacy within the American comic book. The character's appearance is distinctive and iconic: a blue, red and yellow costume, complete with cape, with a stylized "S" shield on his chest. This shield is now typically used across media to symbolize the character.
Creation and Conception.
Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster had initially created a bald telepathic villain bent on dominating the world, in the short story "The Reign of the Super-Man" in Science Fiction #3, a fanzine Siegel published in 1933. Siegel re-envisioned the character later that year as a hero bearing no resemblance to his villainous namesake, visually modeling Superman on Douglas Fairbanks and his bespectacled alter ego, Clark Kent, on Harold Lloyd. Comic strips such as Li'l Abner and Dick Tracy influenced its original artwork. Siegel and Shuster then began a six-year quest to find a publisher. Titling it The Superman, Siegel and Shuster offered it to Consolidated Book Publishing, who had published a 48-page black-and-white comic book entitled Detective Dan: Secret Operative No. 48 Although the duo received an encouraging letter, Consolidated never again published comic books. Shuster took this to heart and burned all pages of the story, the cover surviving only because Siegel rescued it from the fire. Siegel and Shuster each compared this character to Slam Bradley, an adventurer the pair had created for Detective Comics No.1 (March 1937)."-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman
Symbolic
"Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's original design from the mid-'30's. Swap out the 'S' for a 'G' and you'll have something resembling a law enforcement badge carried by J. Edgar Hoover's G-Men." -http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/big-screen/2012/apr/02/superman/
"Comics creator and historian Jim Steranko has cited the pulp hero Doc Savage "The Man of Bronze", as another likely source of inspiration, noting similarities between Shuster's initial art and contemporary advertisements for Doc Savage: "Initially, Superman was a variation of pulp heavyweight Doc Savage". Doc Savage had the alter ego name of Clark, had a secret fortress in at the North Pole, and was a superman of intellect and physic. Steranko argued that the pulps played a major part in shaping the initial concept: "Siegel's Superman concept embodied and amalgamated three separate and distinct themes: the visitor from another planet, the superhuman being and the dual identity. He composed the Superman charisma by exploiting all three elements, and all three contributed equally to the eventual success of the strip. His inspiration, of course, came from the science fiction pulps", identifying another pulp likely to have influenced the pair as being "John W. Campbell's Aarn Munro stories about a descendant of earthmen raised on the planet Jupiter who, because of the planet's dense gravity, is a mental and physical superman on Earth."
Doc was big,,look who else was inspired by him.
" Given that Siegel and Shuster were noted fans of pulp science fiction, it has been suggested that another influence may have been Hugo Danner. Danner was the main character of the 1930 novel Gladiator by Philip Wylie, and is possessed of the same powers of the early Superman. The story concerns a scientist who invents an "alkaline free-radical" serum to "improve" humankind by granting the proportionate strength of an ant and the leaping ability of the grasshopper. Eight years later, both metaphors were used to explain Superman's powers in the first comic of his series. The scientist injects his pregnant wife with the serum and his son Hugo Danner is born with superhuman strength, speed, and bulletproof skin. Hugo spends much of the novel hiding his powers, rarely getting a chance to openly use them. The novel is widely assumed to have been an inspiration for Superman, but with no real evidence to support it.
A copy of the book can be seen on Hollis Mason's shelf in one panel of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladiator_(novel)
"Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book" by Gerald Jones http://www.amazon.com/Men-Tomorrow-Geeks-Gangsters-Birth/dp/0465036562 (I see used copies for a buck, get this great book!)
The book talks about Superman creator Jerry Siegel as a thin boy into body building, a huge fad in the 30's. The beginning of the adds where the wimp gets sand kicked in his face while the super muscle man takes his girl.
Superman's costume is in line with the Muscle Man circus types and athletic performers that the young Superman creators would have seen at Coney Island.
Sun God.
in DC "One Million". Superman had lived in the Sun for thousands of years and reemerged like the above.
"The source of Superman's powers has changed subtly over the course of his history. It was originally stated that Superman's abilities derived from his Kryptonian heritage, which made him eons more evolved than humans. This was soon amended, with the source for the powers now based upon the establishment of Krypton's gravity as having been stronger than that of the Earth. This situation mirrors that of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter.
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As Superman's powers increased, the implication that all Kryptonians had possessed the same abilities became problematic for writers, making it doubtful that a race of such beings could have been wiped out by something as trifling as an exploding planet. In part to counter this, the Superman writers established that Kryptonians, whose native star Rao had been red, possessed superpowers only under the light of a yellow sun."
Greek Sun God Apollo.
Modern Mythic Hero.
"Siegel himself noted that the mythic heroes in the traditions of many cultures bore an influence on the character, including Hercules and Samson.
"
Hercules from an animated series in the 60's
Samson.
Super Hero Symbology.
"Hercules from an animated series in the 60's
below- Kirby Hero, the Olympian. from Matt Wagner's MAGE. A Superman shaped shield with lion face, a nod to Superman as the modern day Hercules.
Super Hero Symbology.
Super Strength, Endurance- Earth Element- Physical, the body, health, personal, resourceful. Lions(also linked to Hercules and Samson) and Eagles are symbols of Strength.
Images of Superman with eagles. <(click here)
Lion Superman.?<(click here)
Super Speed- Element Fire- Action, exploration, passion...
X-Ray Vision- The ability to "see through" matter is a theme I will explorer in later post about the X-man Cyclops.){Xray/Xman}
I like to relate the concept of "matter" to the sankrit root Ma, as in Maya, the playful illusion or measuring shapes and forms into the oneness of reality. The ability to "see through" this illusion of matter is regarded as a higher state of consciousness in Eastern type traditions.
Heat Vision- Element Fire- Still in line with over coming matter with a look. The fire element also brings in passion and creativity.
Super Breath- Element Air- Intelligence, creativity, purity. Spiritually known as Chi (Chinese) or Prana (sankrit), mastery of breath is vastly associated with mastery of body and mind and the precursor to superhuman type powers.
Superman can also freeze the moisture in the air with his super breath straddling into the Element of Water.
The Quintessence is present in all of Superman's abilities, his God like nature, his mixing of elemental powers like heat(fire) vision(water), and freeze(water) breath(air), the Fifth element binds the other four elements together. I recall an old comic where Superman uses microscopic/x-ray/heat vision to burns away a cataract from a blind man, returning his sight. Over the years Superman has had several god like powers such as time travel, ESP, and telekinesis. In recent times it was revealed that Superman can even return from death.
It took him a period of power adjustment upon his return, as part of that adjustment, he took a Plasma form and had electromagnetic powers. Pointing to the reality of the Electric Universe and the Super Human being made of pure energy,,all matter is in a plasmic state....
The blue skin has association with Cosmic Awareness and Hindu Gods like Shiva.
Telescopic Vision, Microscopic Vision,-Water Element- Intuition, the unconscious, visualization of forces and rhythms of nature.
It took him a period of power adjustment upon his return, as part of that adjustment, he took a Plasma form and had electromagnetic powers. Pointing to the reality of the Electric Universe and the Super Human being made of pure energy,,all matter is in a plasmic state....
The blue skin has association with Cosmic Awareness and Hindu Gods like Shiva.
Born from the minds of two Jewish immigrant boys, this modern day pantheonic hero remains a human icon and will most likely continues to do so for years to come.
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