Word: steel
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...this month's 50th-anniversary issue of Action Comics, one episode opens with the man of steel indulging in a long and steamy kiss with Wonder Woman. After a good deal of fisticuffs and flying around, though, the tale ends with Superman saying "I was fooling myself when I thought there might be a chance for romance between the two of us, Wonder Woman . . . I admire you, Wonder Woman. I respect you. But I really am just a boy from Kansas." From which it seems clear that the comic-book Superman, at least, remains as squarely virtuous as ever...
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...
...viewers who can still recite, at any mention of Reeves in his foam-rubber muscles, a quasi-liturgical text: ". . . Strange visitor from another planet, who came to earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Superman! Who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel with his bare hands, and . . . fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice and the American...
...began to demand "relevance." What had Superman's crime fighting ever done about civil rights or Viet Nam? Youthful eyes turned to the work of "underground" comic artists like R. Crumb, whose heroes used and acted out words that would have shocked the irremediably respectable man of steel. Even in the swinging '60s, Superman's idea of a really strong expletive was "Great Scott...
Twelve feet high and 120 ft. long, Richard Serra's Tilted Arc stretches like a rampart across the plaza of a federal office building in New York City. It seems only fitting that, as the centerpiece in a drawn-out battle over artists' rights, the steel wall sculpture even looks like a barricade. In % 1985, after workers in the area complained that it inhibited use of the site, the U.S. General Services Administration, which had commissioned the $175,000 piece, recommended its removal. That galvanized the art world and provoked Serra to fight in federal court against any attempt...