Rant #3,328: (Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman

We live in a crazy world, where up is down and down is up, with the seriousness of this situation horribly perpetuated by what I spoke about yesterday.

But today, we are going to look at the other end of this topsy-turvy angle ... and maybe have a little fun talking about what amounts to nonsense, woven into current events.

We have a "migrant" crisis in our country, where illegal aliens supposedly seeking asylum coming here in droves without much being done to stem the flow.

I was reading the newspaper yesterday morning, and I came across an article reporting that a copy of Action Comics #1--the debut of the character of Superman, the greatest superhero of them all--sold for a record $6 million to an anonymous buyer.

Well, as a former comic book collector--who sold my remaining collection this past summer when my family was in the process of changing residences--this completely boggled my mind ... remember, this comic book originally sold new for a dime.

Anyway, the newspaper also had an article or two about the migrant crisis, and I simply put two and two together, and this question arose:

"Is Superman an illegal alien?

And then, "Is Clark Kent a U.S. citizen?"

First things first, although both can kind of be answered in one fell swoop.

Superman is the ultimate immigrant, not coming from another country, but another solar system.

He came here as a baby when his planet of origin, Krypton, pretty much imploded in the sky.

He was found by Jonathan and Martha Kent--who go with other names depending on where you look--rescued from a miniature spacecraft that his blood parents--Lara and Jor-El--who sent their only child in to to save him from certain death.

Baby Kal-El was raised as the Kents' own child--again, in some accounts the baby was first put in an orphanage before the Kents legally adopted him--and Clark was brought up to understand thst he had a gift, one which he could use to benefit mankind.

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the team that created Superman, said when they were alive that Superman's very creation paralleled the Jews coming to America in the early part of the 20th century, but again ... is Superman an illegal alien?

No. He is not.

In the comics, he became a universal symbol.of truth and justice, "and the American way," as the TV show has reminded us for the past 70 years.

His stories have been translated into many languages, his exploits are not just national, but international and interplanetary, and he is sort of in a category by himself: a citizen of the world ... so not only is he a citizen of the United States--although in more recent iterations of the character, he has renounced his American citizenry, but that's another story for another time--he is also a citizen of every European country, and really, every country on this planet.

So yes, Superman is an alien, but not an illegal one.

The second question intertwines with the first, and is a bit more complicated, although the number of words to describe my feelings on this subject will be much less, but each word will carry more weight.

As I said, I think Superman is recognized as a "world citizen " but Clsrk Kent is another matter.

I think that way back when, the Kents could have gotten away with saying that Clark was their natural born child, because especially in the rural areas of the country, hospital births were not as prominent as they were in bigger cities.

And the part of Smallville they lived in seemed to be very rural and secluded, so they could get away with it ... and remember, Social Security did not exist when the character was created in 1938, so the Kents did not have to bother with that facet of citizenry.

(I assume that Kent needed a Social Security number when that facet of our lives came upon us in 1940, when payments began and all Americans needed their own unique number, so he got his when, let's say, my parents and all citizens got their numbers.)

Thus, because of his parents' necessary white lies, Clark essentially became a citizen the moment he came to earth and the Kents found him.

This scenario could not happen in today's world, but way back when, it certainly could.

And if you go with the storyline that Clark was initially adopted by the Kents from an orphanage, then the Kents went through all the legal procedures to adopt this foundling, cementing the fact that he is a U.S. citizen.

I am sure that others might have different opinions on this, but I just provided you with my own reasons for thinking the way I think.

Now again, we are talking about a completely fictitious character who never actually lived.

But even though the character is popular around the planet, and thought of as a citizen of the world, Superman represents America ... the best of this country.

Although we are talking about a completely fictitious character, that character, in its own way, is George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson and Martin Luther King, all rolled into one.

So finally, is Superman an illegal alien?

No.

Is Clark Kent a U.S. citizen?

Yes.

And my feelings on this are, as they say, "more powerful than a locomotive ... ."