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RICHARD KLUGER
nice couple decides to adopt the tiny strongman. No indication, mind
you, of any documents on the rocket ship identifying the child (and had
there been any, they surely would not have identified him as "Super–
man"-you wouldn't call a baby that, even on Krypton). No, the Super–
man part had to be invented, for that nice couple was named Kent, and
their little hulk grew to sup'ermanhood as a member of the family. When
his adoptive parents died, "Clark decided he must turn his titanic strength
into channels that would benefit mankind. And so was created-SUPER–
MAN, champion of the oppressed," etc. So no one's going to tell me
Clark Kent slept with that costume on under his pajamas.
But why did he maintain the two identities? Mr. Feiffer never
touches on this basic question. Surely Superman could have performed
his constabulary function quite as well without retaining the Kent alter
ego. Why all that skulking around in closets and men's rooms and on
window ledges shucking his baggy Clark Kent suit? I'll tell you why.
Because--Feiffer's "Superman . . . never needed anybody" not with–
standing-because Superman wanted
love.
He looked like a man, talked
like a man, indeed
was
a man, albeit a peculiarly endowed one. Why
assume he had no libido? Is it not more logical to assume he had a
super
libido? He could, of course, ravage any woman on earth (not excluding
Wonder Woman, I daresay)-may well have, in fact. But that is not
lc:>ve. Nor, understandably, did he want to be loved for his supermanhood.
After all, anyone can love a Superman. What he wanted was to be loved
as a mortal, as a regular guy;
ergo,
the Clark Kent identity. He was
testing
Lois Lane, But she, the dumb bitch, never got the picture; she
was unworthy of
him.
Yet-yet I think he loved her; why else did h'e
keep saving
her
and not a million other skirts? Beyond this, there is a
tantalizing if somewhat clinical and highly speculative theory about why
Superman never bedded down with Lois, never really let himself get
hotted up over her; Superman, remember, was the Man of Steel. Consider
the consequences of supercoitus and the pursuit of The Perfect Orgasm
at the highest level. So Supe, a nice guy, had to sublimate. This is the
same conclusion that Mr. Feiffer reaches but by no m'eans the same ap–
proach: "The ideal of masculine strength, whether Gary Cooper's, Lil
Abner's, or Superman's, was for one to be so virile and handsome, to be
in such a position of strength that he need never go near girls. Except
to
help them. And then get the hell out. Real rapport was not for women.
It was for villains. That's why they got hit so hard." My argument has
more pathos to it: it is a sign not of strength that Superman never goes
near girls but, rather, of his critical flaw.
Mr. Feiffer does better in his discussion of Batman, noting as he does
