Someone once quipped “Superman is a fantasy comic book about a powerful straight white man who is nice.” Which is pretty funny and also probably correct about some versions of Superman. There are other versions, though. Guess which I want to talk about?
One could argue that Superman (or at least some versions) isn’t white. He’s not even human. He’s an alien from the planet Krypton. His marvelous powers derive from that fact. OK, I hear some of you say, but he looks exactly like a white guy1 and everyone treats him or at least his persona Clark Kent as white. How is that not being white2?
It might be useful, if one were a member of a deprecated non-white ethnic minority, if it were possible to present oneself as white. News flash: it is possible and people have done this frequently enough that there’s an accepted word for it. Perhaps several words. One is “passing.” Historical examples abound. Some who have opted to pass have done this so effectively that their descendants had no idea that their ancestors had been considered non-white.
Pre-Crisis Superman is more like someone consciously passing for a white American better than he is like someone who believes he is one by default. He reserves his birth name, Kal-El, for use by family and close friends. The public knows him by an adopted stage name. To his co-workers, he uses the unremarkable (in an American context) Clark Kent. If you were to ask his co-workers what religion Clark Kent is, they might guess Lutheran or Methodist or some other sort of Protestant. None of them would suggest the correct answer, “Raoist,” because that’s not a detail Kal-El shares with co-workers.
Additionally, because he possesses abilities no standard model human has, from super-strength to invulnerability to super-senses, Kal-El has to be continually on guard lest he accidentally reveal he is Kryptonian by, say, casually lifting a truck out of his way3.
Not only is Kal-El an alien but in many continuities, he is an undocumented alien, having been rocketed to Earth as a baby. He never passed through any formal immigration process. Now, the border policies in place when the 1938 version of Superman would have landed on Earth were considerably less stringent than they are now, but they did exist and Kal-El was in violation of many of them4. Later versions of Superman broke the law to an even greater extent.
Having arrived as a child on Earth, Kal-El has done his best to assimilate into and be a constructive member of the dominant culture5. He not only embraces his adopted nation’s values; he uses his unique abilities to exemplify them. This is in no way unusual for immigrants, although the manner in which Kal-El pursues this goal is unusual. However, his public faces (Clark Kent, and to an extent Superman) are different from the Kryptonian one would encounter in the Fortress of Solitude. Kal-El is a true blue American! And he’s also a Kryptonian born and bred, who finds it prudent to be judicious about how he presents himself to his fellow Americans.
It’s probably not entirely coincidental that Superman was created by two Jews6, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who were both sons of immigrants (and Shuster was an immigrant himself, having moved from Toronto to Cleveland at a young age), in a time when prejudice against immigrants was on the rise, when antisemitism was rife7 and most white Americans did not question the numerus clausus policies then in place. Their creation, Kal-El, can be an inspiration to Americans, celebrated across the nation… as long he first circumvents reflexive white American xenophobia by convincing them he is one of them.
- It’s pretty weird that most Kryptonians look just like white Americans. It’s probably due to something the Guardians of the Universe did. Most of the weird stuff in the DC Universe seems to because of the Oans, one way or another. Of course, if Kal-El had been purple and be-tentacled, Siegel and Schuster couldn’t have told the stories about him that they wanted to.
- Who is and who isn’t white varies considerably by era. Ben Franklin, for example, dismissed the “swarthy Swedes” as very definitely not white. Within living memory, Italians weren’t considered white. Given this, it’s most reasonable to assume white means what we point to when we say it. And I am not pointing at any Kryptonians just now.
- Interestingly, the old Superman radio show, Kal-El is a lot more casual about using his powers while in his Clark Kent persona than in his comic book version. In the “Clan of the Fiery Cross” serial, Kent thinks nothing of leaping through a window to save a boy from certain death. The show seems to think speed and blatant gaslighting can preserve Superman’s secret ID, but it is hard to believe his co-workers don’t know Superman and Clark Kent are the same man. It is fortunate that infant Kal-El was found by the Kents. If Superman had landed in front of William Joseph Simmons, “Clan of the Fiery Cross” would have played out quite differently.
- If you want to be depressed, read this article on Paddington’s legal status in Britain.
- Since Crisis on Infinite Earths, the assimilated immigrant passing aspect of Superman seems to have been largely transferred to his colleague J’onn “The Martian Manhunter” J’onzz. Post-Crisis Kal-El was decanted on Earth, with no personal experience as a child of Krypton. J’onn J’onzz arrived on Earth as an adult, is very much a Martian, and while he can pass as a white American, this is a conscious choice to better blend in with humans, if only because his human colleagues are in habit of keeping the corpses of dead aliens as trophies. Also, J’onn isn’t particularly enamored with the US.
- I should point out there are parallels between Superman and Moses but also significant differences. Moses, for example, while raised as an Egyptian royal, rejoined the Jews to led them out of Egypt, whereas Kal-El remains on Earth with the humans. Yeah, yeah, Krypton blew up. There were an astonishing number of Kryptonian survivors.
- In the context of institutionalized antisemitism, Lois Lane’s incessant “Yeah, you claim to be a white guy from Kansas and you look like a white guy from Kansas, but what are you, really?” takes on an entirely different tone.
I must point out that footnote #4 links to a wikipedia article about “The Guardians of the Universe,” rather than Paddington’s legal status.
Well, bother. I have the original on hand and that was entirely my linking error. It should have linked to this.
Updated, thanks!
[7] See also Mrs. Krabitz who is determined to find out what secret her perelfectly polite neighbors, the Stevens’ are hiding
One take I saw on Tumblr that I like is that Clark’s coworkers see him ducking out whenever there’s trouble, have difficulty getting clear answers out of him on things like his past or what church he goes to or whatever…and rather than assuming he’s Superman, they just figure he’s undocumented and no one is willing to risk ICE grabbing him. So they all protect what they think is his secret, thus never looking closely enough to figure out his actual secret.
-READS ARTICLE-
… well yeah, obviously.
This is more usually subtext than plain text, but it’s been right there in Big Blue’s backstory from the very first (Though I’m one of those who believes that ‘Kal-El’ is Clark’s birth name, rather than the name he thinks of himself by – after all, he was raised by Ma and Pa Kent, not Lady Lara & Jor-El in almost every continuity).
Also, given the circumstances of his arrival on Earth Kal-El might arguably have slightly more room for benefit of the doubt than most ‘illegal aliens’ (If an infant floats ashore in a life-raft after a ship-wreck, does that make it an illegal immigrant?).
I’d guess Golden and post-Byrne Superman thought of himself as “Clark”, Bronze Age as “Kal-El”, and Silver Age as “Superman”.
It is my impression immigration control officials are not known for cutting persons of any age slack.
I can’t speak for the current administration, but for those reliably bound by law the Foundling Act says someone of unknown parentage discovered under five years old is considered a birthright citizen if no evidence otherwise is shown before age 21.
Different versions of Superman have learned their origins at different stages of life. The Golden Age version genuinely didn’t find out till he overtook the light rays from before Krypton’s explosion well into his adult career. Silver/Bronze Age Kal-El had an eidetic memory of his first three or so years on Krypton and didn’t make much of a secret about his origins as Superboy. (Though of course no one said anything about Clark.) Post-Crisis Superman actually was born in the US. And so on.
I just saw a panel from a recent comic where Wonder Woman, Superman, and Batman all touch the Lasso of Truth before revealing their true names. Do you think I can remember what Superman answered?
(Batman said Batman because of course he did)
Terry: “That’s MY name now.”
Bruce: “Try telling that to MY subconscious.” >:-)
The link from the first “passing” is entirely wrong.
Updated, thanks!
Superman is not an “illegal immigrant,” certainly not as an adult, since the statute of limitations would’ve long, long since expired. If he weren’t discovered to be a non-native before the statute ran out (or something like that), he could legally claim to be a native. Besides, illegal entry is only a misdemeanor, despite how it’s demonized by certain political factions.
For that matter, national territory is considered to include its airspace up to the edge of the atmosphere, so if Kal-El’s capsule came in at a steep enough angle, then it might not have actually crossed any legally recognized borders between the US and another country.
On the subject of passing for white, Dean Cain, who played Superman in Lois and Clark, is 1/4 Japanese, but does not choose to identify as biracial. There’s also the ethnically Chinese-Dutch Kristin Kreuk, who played the fully white Lana Lang in Smallville (both her biological parents were played by white actors). I always felt that was a missed opportunity, since “Lang” is a legitimate Chinese surname. While we’re at it, we could also include TV’s Wonder Woman, Lynda Carter, who’s half-Latina but downplayed the fact at the time.
I admit to being extremely fond of Mr Dean Cain’s look as Superman – partly, it must be said, because he was probably my introduction to the character and partly because it makes perfect sense for Clark* to be the sort of Kansas farmboy who reminds people of that old story about the Kent family having an ‘Indian Princess’ a few generations back on their family tree.
*I agree that this is a matter on which comic book fans can disagree in good faith, but if a vision of Superman doesn’t make me cry “Clark!” like a man seeing an old friend, in my book it’s not a very good version.
Incidentally, something weird is going on with Reactor’s site software yet again. When I open a page, the comments won’t display for me (in Firefox) until I switch the “Oldest/Newest” view to the other setting.
A related problem: In long comment threads, the site fails to display all the comments. Additional comments should automatically load when you scroll down, but they aren’t doing so.
Yeah, I just had that happen too. Weirdly, I saw all the comments before I entered my own but now that I have I can only see all of them by toggling between Newest and Oldest view.
[Edit in case it helps site techs: I’m using the latest Safari on a MacBook.]
Appreciate it! I’ve been experiencing the same issues with the comments since yesterday, and have been updating the rest of the team, so it’s being looked into, but not sure what the problem is yet…
Frankly, this site software has been a dysfunctional mess ever since the Reactor relaunch, and I’m amazed the folks in charge didn’t demand their money back from whoever sold them this lemon and replace it with software that actually works. Even going back to the old pre-relaunch software, with all its problems, would be massively better than what we’re stuck with now.
PREACH
Re footnote 1 – wasn’t turning up with tentacles etc. and promptly being attacked by all and sundry one of the common events of the “Dial H for Hero” comics? Most of the heroes I can remember looked very alien. Judging by this example, Kal-El with tentacled would not have a happy life.
Another example here is “John Jones”, the Martian Manhunter, who has to disguise himself just to live a normal life on Earth – if Kal-El didn’t become a superhero he would have had no real identity problems, that’s definitely not the case for Jones.
I’ve read that since Superman can only pass as white and even he can’t be everywhere, Martian Manhunter is essential the Superman of the Southern Hemisphere. (See also Justice League Unlimited, where he turns out to have been on extended sabbatical as a Chinese native.)
It’s a mercifully forgotten fact that Billy Batson once went undercover as an African American. Whatever you’re imagining right now, the actual comic was worse.
And then there was the one from 1970 where Superman used a Kryptonian machine to change Lois Lane into a black woman so she could have a Black Like Me experience of how the other half lived. Here’s an article about it, as well as the 1992 storyline where the Punisher was temporarily turned black through plastic surgery:
https://www.looper.com/108000/thats-whats-punisher-lois-lane-black/
In the CW Supergirl television series, the Martian Manhunter is Black while in human form. They never did have any discussion on why he would choose to take on the identity of a minority group, when he could quite easily have chosen to have more privilege. This was left to the viewer to infer.
Milestone’s Icon is a similar variation on the Superman story. In that, the infant future-Icon’s camouflage based his appearance on the antebellum slave who found him. IIRC he also had an alien form, but his human appearance wasn’t thenceforth changeable through his long lifespan.
Actually they did address that. Initially, J’onn took the form of DEO agent Hank Henshaw and impersonated him as protective camouflage. (This is because the character was originally meant to be Hank Henshaw for real, but after the pilot, the producers decided it would be more interesting if he was really J’onn J’onzz.) Later on, after Carl Lumbly joined the cast as J’onn’s father, they did one or two episodes addressing why they chose to remain in the form of Black Americans rather than choosing a safer identity. It had to do with Green Martians being a persecuted minority on Mars, so they were being true to their own heritage in a sense.
Ever since Lumbly played J’onn J’onzz in Justice League Unlimited, it’s become common to depict J’onn’s human form as Black. He’s been played in live action by Phil Morris on Smallville, David Harewood in Supergirl, and Harry Lennix in Zack Snyder’s Justice League. (The only white J’onn in live action was David Ogden Stiers in the unreleased JLA TV pilot from the ’90s.) The majority of animated versions of J’onn have been played by Black actors — Lumbly, Dorian Harewood (no relation), Kevin Michael Richardson, Jonathan Adams, Nyambi Nyambi, Phil LaMarr, Ike Amadi — but others have been played by actors of other ethnicities like Miguel Ferrer, Nicholas Guest, and Crispin Freeman.
I’ve often wondered if J’onn tending to be played by African-American actors is a direct result of Mr Lumbly doing so well by the role (Also, Mr David Ogden Stiers as J’onn J’onzz is one of those curiosities of history that one would have loved to see more of – I wonder if he’d have been willing to voice the character in animation?).
I’ve always assumed that was the case, yes. Lumbly was the first screen version of J’onn that was widely seen, and he made a strong impression, so it’s no surprise that it was influential on subsequent depictions.
And yes, Stiers as J’onn was inspired casting. And he did extensive work in voice acting in his career, including multiple Disney movies, a couple of Studio Ghibli English dubs, and Solovar in Justice League (as well as the Penguin in Mystery of the Batwoman, the one time the DC Animated Universe Penguin was played by someone other than Paul Williams).
It was established back in the early 1970s that there was an island of black Kryptonians that kept themselves segregated from the rest of the planet for the most part. The island was called Vathlo.
And that was mercifully ignored in later versions of the continuity.
There’s a parallel universe in the comics with a black Superman, and WB was developing a movie about him for a while, but I think that’s been abandoned. These days, though, it’s pretty common for film and TV adaptations to cast the supporting characters diversely; there have been several Black Perry Whites and Jimmy Olsens, and My Adventures with Superman features a Korean-American Lois Lane.
My only quarrel where MY ADVENTURES WITH SUPERMAN is concerned is that Jimmy Olsen should still be a redhead! African Americans can absolutely have red hair (and freckles even!), just ask Malcolm X!
Jimmy Olsen is a REDHEAD, you betcha.
On a more serious note, I do tend to prefer an African American Perry White (Partly because of the implicit visual gag, it must be admitted, but also because it suggests a potentially interesting character dynamic where Perry is the mentor helping to cool Clark’s youthful ardour for “Truth, Justice and the American Way” with some hard-won experience).
The only redheaded Jimmy Olsen we’ve ever had in live action was Tommy Bond in the Kirk Alyn serials, which were in black-and-white. Every live-action Jimmy since has had brown or blond hair. And that’s the proof that all those people who say “I’m not racist, it’s just about accuracy” are lying, because they never object to Jimmy not being a redhead as long as he’s white.
We’ve never had a blond Barry Allen in live action either, and only one redheaded Matt Murdock (and that was dyed). I find it interesting that male actors cast as comics characters are less likely to dye their hair to match the character’s color than actresses are. Maybe because hair-dyeing is considered more of a feminine thing in our culture.
Regarding Footnote 5, post-post (post-post-post?) Crisis, Kal-El was once again actually born on Krypton. He was still basically a baby when rocketed to Earth though, rather than a toddler as in the Silver Age, so he would still have had scant awareness of his home world.
in the new, “Absolute Superman” series, set in a parallel universe, things are very different, and Kal-El appears be in his early teens (or close to it) when Krypton explodes.
it all gets a bit confusing, particularly if, like me, you don’t read mew comics all that much.
“Moses, for example, while raised as an Egyptian royal, rejoined the Jews to led them out of Egypt, whereas Kal-El remains on Earth with the humans.”
Late Bronze Age Superman and Supergirl did lead the Kandorian survivors to a new planet where they could be enlarged. But they then did inevitably return to Earth. Though the first storyline planned for Supergirl after the Crisis (when they planned for her to survive and ever have existed) was an extended stay on Rokyn.
DC is full of aliens who look like (mostly white, though less so over time) Terrans: on Rann, Thanagar, Lexor, etc. Plus others whose only difference is being primary colored. (Colu, Korugar, etc.) It’s pretty short (no pun intended) on aliens who look like the Guardians. Maybe the Oans’ main concern is avoiding stolen valor.
Tamaraneans like Starfire have golden-brown skin which can canonically pass for a Mediterranean skin tone or a really great tan (as long as Starfire hid her solid-green eyes behind sunglasses). A lot of people today mistakenly think they’re orange, taking old-style comics coloring limitations too literally despite countless explicit dialogue references to Starfire being gold-skinned.
Although I think the 1980s comics that show Starfire being able to pass as Mediterranean or Latina or whatever were pretty clearly written from a white perspective, in that a white American might mistake different brownish skin tones for each other when an actual member of the ethnic group in question would not be fooled.
Maybe yes, maybe no. A Sri Lankan friend in Chicago used to report that people would not infrequently try to open conversations with her in Spanish.
There is no such thing as a nationality-connected skin tone. If your skin is dark enough, you definitely can pass for any Mediterranean group of people. I speak from experience: People mistake me for an Italian, Arab, Turk, Israeli, Afghan, Pakistani or Indian. I look so Greek Greeks approach me anywhere in the world and go yazoo ti kanis? Yet I am none of the above.
I find J’onn J’onzz adopting a black person identity perfectly logical, coming to a world where dark skinned people are majority. John Sayles’ Brother from Another Planet made a similar point to some of the issues discussed here…
Reminds me of Doctor Who‘s Rosa Parks episode where the folks in 1955 Montgomery, Alabama mistook Yasmin Khan for a Mexican.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Ceylon
With all the “variant Supermans” in the comics, I wonder if there’s ever been a version that’s just as heroic as the standard Superman, but looks like a hideous alien monster.
I agree that it’s fortunate Kal-El was found by the Kents, but ironically given the rest of the footnote in which you say so the radio show is pretty much the only kind of “prime” continuity — i.e., the flagship comics and media adaptations of a given era, not counting intentionally divergent alternate takes — in which his foster/adoptive parents aren’t part of Superman’s origin (until they’re retconned in later); he emerges fully grown from his ship on Earth and uses the civilian name of Clark Kent at the suggestion of a boy and his dad whom he meets shortly after landing.
Since no one else has mentioned it I have to bring up Justice League: Gods and Monsters where Superman was raised by a couple who are undocumented immigrants. I know in the movie Superman learns that he is the son of General Zod but he is still Superman.
Do we really think Superman, raised from infancy as a baby named Clark Kent in a family that probably attended a Methodist or other mainstream denominational congregation of the Christian faith, worships the sun of a planet he didn’t grow up or even know about until his teenage years, at the earliest? Kent is Kryptonian by birth, but by habit and lifestyle, he’s far more a Kansas farm boy than a “Raoist.”
If he says things like “Great Rao”, and takes part in a ceremony now and again, but doesn’t actually believe in Rao, that’s also a Jewish-American allegory.
Sometimes people choose to connect with their heritage even if they weren’t raised in it. Look at Worf in Star Trek. He was raised from childhood by a human couple who are probably Jewish, but he chooses to identify as Klingon and is an adherent of Klingon religion. In reality, that’s because the show’s writers tended to fall back on stereotyping him as the token Klingon, but in-story, it’s because his adoptive family allowed and encouraged him to learn about his heritage and he chose to embrace it heavily as compensation for being separated from it.
And when it comes to Krypton, keep in mind that it’s a destroyed civilization. Once Clark learned about his Kryptonian heritage, it’s not implausible that he’d want to embrace it and keep its traditions alive, because if he doesn’t, who else will?
It’s also entirely in-character for Clark to deliberately use Kryptonian epithets when being Superman, in order to make it harder for those listening to draw a line between Big Blue and a mere Earthling reporter (The art of the Secret Identity is increasingly neglected and discarded, but Superman/Clark Kent has been it’s acknowledged master for a very, very long time).
Which is also why Superman is generally open about his birth name being Kal-El and is often addressed as Kal by his fellow heroes such as Wonder Woman. That way, he’s open about his “true identity” and people don’t wonder if he has another.
Although in that case, it might sell it better if he occasionally let himself be seen in public as Kal-El in civilian clothes, or do TV interviews in a Kryptonian-cut casual suit, say, so people wouldn’t wonder what he does when he’s not on duty as Superman.
It always bugged me a bit that the Supergirl TV series had Kara Zor-El adopt the human identity of Kara Danvers instead of Linda Danvers, since then Supergirl was unable to reveal publicly that her true name was Kara, so she was stuck being called Supergirl in the media all the time. (It also sounded awkwardly similar to Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel.)
What do you think of Kal-El, Jor-El etc in context of Gabri-El, Dani-El, Samu-El.. and even Isra-El. Coincidence?
Originally, their names were spelled Kal-L and Jor-L. The “El” spelling debuted in the 1942 prose novel The Adventures of Superman by George Lowther, the head writer of the Superman radio series of the same name. So yeah, it’s probably coincidence.
Yeah, Siegel shows much more influence from pulps, newspaper comics, B-movies, and other pop culture (e.g., Wylie’s Gladiator) than anything remotely biblical, Hebrew, or Yiddish. I’d guess “Jor-L” owed more to SF names like Ralph 124C41+ than the Hebrew word for God.
Yes, you’re right, it’s just the kind of weird-looking alien name you would’ve expected to find in comics or pulp magazines.
Heck, “Jor-L” could’ve been derived from “Jerome Siegel” for all we know. And Kal-L could’ve come from his father’s name Michael. Pure speculation, but no more so than the attempts to read religious meaning into the names.
Pretty sure I read a Cory Doctorow story that took just this tack on this subject pretty recently…
The recent Supergirl series occasionally touched on the issue that Clark came to Earth as an infant, while Kara came to Earth as a teen – so Clark was far more assimilated than Kara, who remembered her parents and culture quite clearly (one of the better plot arcs involved a human who became a Rao-ist – or what he thought a Rao-ist was, after being saved by Kara)..
An inspiration behind Superman?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invincible_(2001_theatrical_film)
Not a super man…but a good one
https://amp.dw.com/en/how-southern-africa-remembers-jimmy-carter/a-71187225