Word: supermanly
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...what it is—not a brand-new idea, but great movie music, Williams style. And after fans see the film a few dozen times, and a few pops orchestras play the score at holiday concerts, maybe Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone will join Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark and so many other Williams works in the canon of American pop culture, forever etched in our collective consciousness...
...have even drafted them into war, as when Captain America famously punched out Hitler. And as TV horned in on the comics audience, its superheroes reflected our moods in war and peace. The 1950s had its straight-arrow Superman; the 1960s, a campy Batman. After Vietnam, we saw comforting images of super-Americans (Wonder Woman, the Bionic Man and Woman); after the cold war, postmodern parodies (Space Ghost). Call it coincidence or prescience, but a new generation of prime-time superhero is arriving for a new decade and a new war. Smallville (the WB, Tuesdays...
Smallville is the story of a teen Clark Kent (Tom Welling) before he becomes Superman. Twelve years ago (the story has been moved to the present, the better to work current music into the soundtrack), Clark's parents found him wandering naked amid the wreckage of a spaceship in a Kansas cornfield, a fact they have hidden from him. Clark knows he is unnaturally strong--his dad won't let him play football lest he hurt someone--but forced to hide his powers, he's considered a nerd at school. There is a lot of corn in Smallville, Kans...
...mold of the comics' stateless supervillains better than Hitler and Tojo did). But both series ring differently after Sept. 11 in ways that will test how the conflict has affected pop culture. Smallville's most interesting character is not Clark but Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum), who will someday become Superman's enemy but here, for now, is a lonely if cynical rich kid who wants to be Clark's friend. One of the Tick's cronies is the randy, obnoxious Captain Liberty (Liz Vassey), a literally statuesque crime fighter who carries a torch and an attitude...
...This has been a time when ordinary people - firemen, policemen, volunteers - have been justly hailed as heroes. They only make the comicbook superheroes seem more artificial. But wondering if this spells their doom is absurd. If anything, the likes of Captain America and Superman can become more relevant during nationalist crises. After the start of World War II audiences couldn't get enough of seeing Hitler and Tojo's minions take it in the mush courtesy of Cap and Supes. Depending on the length and intensity of the coming "War on Terrorism," don't be surprised to see our fantasy...