Word: mortals
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Such speculation goes even further. Experts have pondered the fact that Superman's original Kryptonian name, Kal-El, resembles Hebraic syllables | meaning "all that God is." Greek and Norse mythology have been invoked to show that Superman resembles a god who comes to earth and walks among men in mortal guise. Screenwriter Newman sees yet more exalted implications in the legend. "It begins with a father who lives up in heaven, who says, 'I will send my only son to save earth.' The son takes on the guise of a man but is not a man. The religious overtones...
Before they go any further, a message from Superman's mother tells him he must give up all his superpowers before he can get involved with a mortal. This raises a philosophic question of Thomist subtlety: Can the figure subsequently seen naked under the sheets with Lois be considered the real Superman? Or is he now just a newspaper reporter on a spree? To eradicate all such problems, the screenwriters magically imbue his kiss with the power to make Lois forget her discovery...
More significant, it was time for Superman to move on from radio and comics and enter a new medium, time for a mere mortal to impersonate the man of steel on the screen. Kirk Alyn, an agile dancer, began appearing in Saturday serials in 1948, letting his voice drop by an octave each time he reached for his necktie and declared, "This looks like a job for Superman...
...sudden, painful awareness: "In the next room Rosa and Bridget were still sleeping. The windows of the apartment were closed, and the heavy throbbing of their sleep could be felt even in the kitchen. Their forgotten existence awoke inside him for a moment and then passed away." Of such mortal moments is the immortal Bartfuss made and remembered. R.Z.S...
...there before the mortal audience was the collision of George Bush and Dan Rather. The two hurled angry clumps of words, and their clumps broke and powdered against each other's gleaming indignation. Not a molecule of coherent information emerged from the encounter -- except the encounter itself. The medium is the message, in Marshall McLuhan's famous dictum. Bush afterward compared the exchange to combat, but if so, it was the combat of Saturday morning cartoons: Bang! -- Poof! Boom! -- Poof! Language disintegrated on impact. When Bush slugged Rather with the line about Rather's once walking...