Word: supermanly
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...knew we were going to offend some people," says Byrne, "but the modern audience now wants a superhero who grunts, sweats and goes to the bathroom. He used to be a superman; now he's a superman." Byrne's Clark Kent brushes his hair straight back and wears round glasses. He and Superman are also drawn quite differently, more cinematically and in more garish colors. Superman's superpowers have been modified, and to keep in shape he works out with weights. He reflects the contemporary vogue of male "sensitivity"; DC officials hint he may become involved with AIDS victims...
...which a figure created for children is subjected to adult concerns, much as though Tom Sawyer or Alice in Wonderland were updated by being made to confront sexual problems. Yet despite the myriad changes in the legend, something strong and fundamental remains. DC Comics is delighted that its newest Superman has doubled sales, to 200,000, but that is a relatively paltry number compared with the millions who cherish an older image from their childhood...
This older image, this Classic Coke, the real Superman, is a figure who somehow manages to embody the best qualities in that nebulous thing known as the American character. He is honest, he tells the truth, he is idealistic and optimistic, he helps people in need. He not only fights criminals but is indifferent to those vices that so often lead the rest of us astray. Despite his heroic abilities, he is not vain. He is not greedy. He is not an operator, a manipulator, not an inside trader. He does not lust after power. And not only...
Today, of course, Superman is an institution. After a half-century of crime- busting adventures in Action Comics and Superman Comics (as well as in some 250 newspapers), 13 years of radio shows, three novels, 17 animated cartoons, two movie serials of 15 installments each, a TV series of 104 episodes, a second animated-cartoon series of 69 parts, a Broadway musical and five feature films (not to mention a hoorah of shows featuring Superboy, Supergirl and even Krypto, the Superdog; not to mention, for that matter, a plunder of spin-offs and by-products: Superman T shirts, Superman rings...
...myth, the American myth," says Screenwriter David Newman, who collaborated on the Broadway musical and three of the films. "When we first started writing Superman I, some friends said, 'What are you doing that for?' And I said, 'If I were an English screenwriter and I were writing about King Arthur, you wouldn't be asking that.' " John Byrne, who actually is an English-born writer but now turns out the monthly scripts and drawings for the Superman comic books, calls his hero the "ultimate American success story -- a foreigner who comes to America, and is more successful here than...