The Nazis must be rolling in their graves realizing that the Übermenschen that they described are actually the Israelis of the IDF. The Nazis are all dead and buried and the IDF is kicking ass to all of the anti-Semites in the region.
This was a riveting article worth reading twice ! Israelis are Superheroes in my books. Shuster was Canadian. I remember the tv comedy show Wayne and Shuster. I think they put out a recorded skit about Julius Ceasar. "I told him, Julie don't go , don't go Julie ."
Interesting and I don't wish to criticize the author, but this seems like a bit of over-thinking. I'm 82 years old and have fond childhood memories of Superman and Batman comics that basically showed bad people in our world, doing mean things, and featured brave heroes, fighting them, and helping those who couldn't help themselves. The lesson was, help and protect your fellow man. The men and women of the IDF are our modern examples.
This is true but it's also important to see fictional characters in their cultural context, beyond their authors' intentions. There were supermen before Superman, as described in the first half of my essay.And of course, the coming WW2 unleashed by self-declared supermen cannot be overlooked. Siegel and Schuster wanted to have a Jewish Ubermensch but there is a bitter irony in the fact that he is not human but an alien. The Nazis regarded Jews as literally not human.
Thanks for the detailed response. When those nice Jewish boys were creating this character in high school, they never could've dreamed how famous Superman would become, how many TV shows, movies, costumes, toys, etc. would result. All they had in mind was a comic book! As Gomer Pyle would've said, "Surprise, surprise, surprise!"
Aryans were depicted in Nazi propaganda as blond and blue eyed. Why? Hitler was not blond and blue eyed. Could it be that blond and blue eyed was set as the ideal physical characteristics because Jews were considered to be swarthy?
There was a whole elaborate "science" of racial anthropology in which the ideal Nordic type not only had blond hair and blue eyes but also a narrow skull and a whole lot of specific physical features. In caricatures, Jews were depicted as swarthy, but blue eyes never saved anybody from extermination. Nazi scientists believed they could establish the "racial type" by elaborate skull and body measurements. Of course, it didn't really work, but they "believed the experts". Part of what Mengele did in Auschwitz was concerned with this kind of research into racial types.
If some think Superman is a Nazi/SS based character then why on Earth would the authors have milquetoast Clark Kent at all? I'm 73 and grew up with those comics and even as a kid knew this was fantasy but fun to read, Of course George Reeves on TV was a favorite then and now.
Nazism was and still is, a lie from start to finish. Everybody knows Hitler and Goebbels were runts. What distinguishes The Third Reich was its totalitarian methods of recruiting and meting out Psychopaths and Psychopathic Violence which killed 50 Million Whites in World War Two. This is how we know Nazism is a lie. They murdered Whites. Even Nazism’s Biological argument is a lie: reducing Humans to breeding (like Dogs) catastrophically narrows the Gene-Pool and destroys the Diversity absolutely necessary for fitness and survival. It is noticeable that Germany cannot field even a national football team to win now. Why? Because the best have been killed off in War and the Nazi ‘biology’ war. How did such Evil break out? Because of the Dark side in Human Nature. The Nazis killed off The Men in a grotesquely hidden act of jealousy. Darkness all the way.
The Nazis must be rolling in their graves realizing that the Übermenschen that they described are actually the Israelis of the IDF. The Nazis are all dead and buried and the IDF is kicking ass to all of the anti-Semites in the region.
This was a riveting article worth reading twice ! Israelis are Superheroes in my books. Shuster was Canadian. I remember the tv comedy show Wayne and Shuster. I think they put out a recorded skit about Julius Ceasar. "I told him, Julie don't go , don't go Julie ."
Interesting and I don't wish to criticize the author, but this seems like a bit of over-thinking. I'm 82 years old and have fond childhood memories of Superman and Batman comics that basically showed bad people in our world, doing mean things, and featured brave heroes, fighting them, and helping those who couldn't help themselves. The lesson was, help and protect your fellow man. The men and women of the IDF are our modern examples.
I always suspected that Superman was inspired by the Golem.
It’s an interesting idea, but the Golem was more influential in relation to other science-fictional archetypes, such as Frankenstein’s monster.
Definitely agree about Frankenstein's monster ("Abby Normal?"). Just speculation I've had, regarding Superman.
This is true but it's also important to see fictional characters in their cultural context, beyond their authors' intentions. There were supermen before Superman, as described in the first half of my essay.And of course, the coming WW2 unleashed by self-declared supermen cannot be overlooked. Siegel and Schuster wanted to have a Jewish Ubermensch but there is a bitter irony in the fact that he is not human but an alien. The Nazis regarded Jews as literally not human.
Shazam!
Thanks for the detailed response. When those nice Jewish boys were creating this character in high school, they never could've dreamed how famous Superman would become, how many TV shows, movies, costumes, toys, etc. would result. All they had in mind was a comic book! As Gomer Pyle would've said, "Surprise, surprise, surprise!"
Aryans were depicted in Nazi propaganda as blond and blue eyed. Why? Hitler was not blond and blue eyed. Could it be that blond and blue eyed was set as the ideal physical characteristics because Jews were considered to be swarthy?
There was a whole elaborate "science" of racial anthropology in which the ideal Nordic type not only had blond hair and blue eyes but also a narrow skull and a whole lot of specific physical features. In caricatures, Jews were depicted as swarthy, but blue eyes never saved anybody from extermination. Nazi scientists believed they could establish the "racial type" by elaborate skull and body measurements. Of course, it didn't really work, but they "believed the experts". Part of what Mengele did in Auschwitz was concerned with this kind of research into racial types.
If some think Superman is a Nazi/SS based character then why on Earth would the authors have milquetoast Clark Kent at all? I'm 73 and grew up with those comics and even as a kid knew this was fantasy but fun to read, Of course George Reeves on TV was a favorite then and now.
Nazism was and still is, a lie from start to finish. Everybody knows Hitler and Goebbels were runts. What distinguishes The Third Reich was its totalitarian methods of recruiting and meting out Psychopaths and Psychopathic Violence which killed 50 Million Whites in World War Two. This is how we know Nazism is a lie. They murdered Whites. Even Nazism’s Biological argument is a lie: reducing Humans to breeding (like Dogs) catastrophically narrows the Gene-Pool and destroys the Diversity absolutely necessary for fitness and survival. It is noticeable that Germany cannot field even a national football team to win now. Why? Because the best have been killed off in War and the Nazi ‘biology’ war. How did such Evil break out? Because of the Dark side in Human Nature. The Nazis killed off The Men in a grotesquely hidden act of jealousy. Darkness all the way.