Superman

A Fragment from History

Most historians account those years when earth suffered under the dubious benevolence of the supermen, descendants of Lara and Jor-el from the planet Krypton, as a period of futility and catastrophic dependency for mankind.  Recent attempts to rehabilitate that era, under the guise of nostalgia, are misguided.

Humanity’s first contact with the son of Lara and Jor-el augered well for world affairs.  For several years, at least, the first generation Man of Steel fought criminals, repaired natural catastrophes, and performed public works on a gargantuan level.  However, it will also be recalled that this super-hero developed an inordinate fascination with the more remote realms of the universe, exploring them with increasing obsessiveness until he vanished forever.  As famously observed, super-strength and super-speed was not accompanied by super-skill at map-reading and navigation.  The first-generation Superman was often late to crime scenes due to his poor directional sense and it is surmised that on his last expedition – no doubt to inspect ancient ruins on a dusty planet  in some incredibly remote binary star system –he simply lost his way in the labyrinth of the universe and was unable to find his way back to this blue planet that he had adopted as his home.

Not to worry:  Superman’s son, the former Superboy appeared on the scene to replace his peripatetic father.  Unfortunately, Superboy was less interested in fighting crime then in imposing spurious, short-lived, and ultimately disastrous remedies on natural forces threatening catastrophe.  The explosion that obliterated much of Indonesia was an unfortunate consequence of Superboy’s use of several hundred tons of boulders to stopper a volcano threatening eruption in that archipelago.  Geologists now agree that the forces building within that boulder-corked mountain were primarily responsible for the vast amount of destruction wrought by the ultimate eruption.  Similarly, Superboy’s diversion of the Nile into irrigation canals that he had etched in sub-Saharan Sudan deprived Cairo and Alexandria of their water, turning those once-thriving cities into ghost towns and forcing millions into exile that politically destabilized adjacent regimes in the Middle East.  The tragic and apocalyptic consequences of Superboy’s attempt to suture the San Andreas fault with airline cable and molten copper are all too well-known.  And so, the catalog of misadventures can be extended almost indefinitely – it seems that Superboy never dammed a torrent with a overturned mountain without subsequent failure of those measures resulting in far more devastation than the original natural disaster threatened.  The vast deserts now girdling the coast of Africa remind us that Superboy’s channels conveying salt seawater onto the coasts of Liberia and Sierra Leone were useless without reliable desalination equipment.  And, generally, the machines jury-rigged by this Man of Steel were hopelessly inadequate for the monumental tasks proposed.  Super-strength unaccompanied by super-intelligence is more dangerous than helpful.

The third and fourth generations of Supermen were genetically defective, addicted to violence and criminality themselves.  We all know the tale of their fortunate strife – fortunate only because it brought an end to their depredations -- resulting, finally, in the Fisticuff Event.  This cataclysm completely wrecked Australia and flattened, as well, the peaks of New Zealand to within fifty feet of sea-level.  Finally, however, the centrifugal energies resulting from father Superman whirling son Superman around and around, and vice-versa, generated sufficient energy to fling both of the super-powered malefactors into a wild, eccentric orbit, calculated to spin elliptically around the Milky Way every 400,000 years.  From the force of their own combat the two battling superheros were unable to re-establish any trajectory sufficient to return them to earth and so, fortunately for human-kind, they have been accounted mssing in action for the last several decades. 

Saddened at the demise of their forbears, the next couple generations of Supermen were useless fellows.  Morose, cynical, and bitter, they refrained from any altruistic actions at all.  Perhaps, they are not to be blamed for their course of scrupulous inactivity.  The first of that feckless crew, Superman V, decided to ameliorate world suffering, not be enhancing mankind’s economic resources or means of food production, but rather by erecting a series of colossal amusement parks free to the public.  Unfortunately, the rides and other entertainments offered at the parks were calibrated to super-strength and super-endurance and, as a consequence, thousands perished.  More disturbing, however, was the rash of lawsuits brought against Superman V by Time-Warner, Universal Studios, Six Flags and other large corporations operating amusement parks of their own.  Trapped in a web of injunctions issued by various Federal Courts, Superman V pronounced his legendary curse on mankind – “if human beings will not take pleasure in my parks, I will find other ways of making them oblivious to suffering” –  devoting the remaining years of his life to the invention of ever more powerful forms of heroine and marijuana.  The number of poor wretches who owe their addictions and consequent disability to Superman V is literally beyond computation.  

Supermen VI discovered that he could brew a decoction of green kryptonite sufficent to wholly deprive him of his super-capacities while inducing a euphoric haze.  VI dubbed this intoxicating beverage Irresponsibility.  Quickly, he became addicted to this toxin and spent most of the rest of his life, quaffing Irresponsibility and ignoring mankind’s cries of relief.  Criminals, including super-genius masterminds developed to combat the supermen, timed their violent sprees for weekends when it was known – and, indeed, had been announced – that VI was off-duty, under the influence of the brew that he concocted.  And, of course, the totally destructive effect of this beverage on the succeeding Supermen VII and VIII is all too well-known.

The last of the Supermen seems to have autistic.  It is problematic for a mere human beings to psychoanalyze the mind of a superman.  But it will be recalled, with horror, that the first act of Superman IX was to relocate the moon, placing that heavenly body between earth and the sun in a much tighter orbit so as to induce a flicker effect that he seems to have found aesthetically stimulating.  Of course, the tidal results on cities once known as New York, San Francisco, and Hong Kong are well known.  Not to speak of the migraine and epilepsy-inducing strobe effect, the seventy-foot tidal surge experienced at present-day sea coast cities such as Berlin and Pittsburgh is an artifact of this quixotic endeavor.  The remainder of this melancholy story is well-known.  After altering the moon’s orbit for his personal delectation, IX became increasingly taciturn, morose, and indifferent to events occurring around him.  In his 23^rd year, IX withdrew to a rapidly whirling chunk of asteroidal pig-iron where, unless he has committed kryptocide, he remains to this day, immersed in contemplation of the vertiginous rings of Saturn.