By Maeve Edwards
The first time I laid eyes on Superman, I fell instantly in love. I loved everything about him: his blue nylon suit and red cloak, the large ‘S’ emblazoned on his chest, his glossy hair, his chiselled jaw, his red shiny boots.
I fell in love not only with Superman, but also with his alter ego, Clark Kent. I had always been one for the lower status heroes. Cliff Richard over Elvis Presley. The Beatles over the Rolling Stones. My more rebellious sister went for the Bad Boys. Not for her Superman with his honest and dignified ways! No, she preferred his arch enemy and Supervillain, Lex Luther. But I didn’t believe her. How could anyone not love Superman!
My mother used read to us children after we’d had our bath on a Saturday night. At first, it was the ‘funnies’ from the Sunday papers, where she introduced us to Dagwood and Blondie and our favourite, Charlie Brown. We’d sit around the fire in our pyjamas hanging on her every word. Oh, how we longed to be able to read for ourselves, and not have to rely on adults to fill that immense need in those pre television days.
Then, out of the blue, came a parcel from my cousin recently emigrated to California. Inside was an annual about a superhero called Superman, who was all the rage in the US.
What a world opened to us awestruck children. There was Clark Kent bumbling his way around The Daily Planet office with his buddies Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane. I was beguiled by his contrived shortsightedness, his clumsiness, his gaucheness.
When a catastrophe happened in downtown Metropolis, like, for example, a child trapped in a burning building, Clark would slip away from the office, find somewhere private, whirl around in a circle, and hey presto, turn into Superman.
He then flew out the window, rescued the screaming child, placed it back in its mother’s arms, and flew away again before anybody could speak to him.
“You missed him again, Clark!” Lois would say as Clark returned to the office after a particularly exciting rescue event! Our credulity was never stretched! We bought into Superman’s powers with 100% conviction.
Nor did we ever question why Lois Lane, who only had eyes for Superman, never guess that her gauche colleague, Clark Kent, resembled Superman in every aspect of his physical appearance, apart from the horn-rimmed glasses. And nor did she think it strange that Clark Kent was never around when Superman appeared on the scene.
Superman’s back story was a miracle of writerly ingenuity.
As a baby, his parents, Jor-El and Lara, sent him to Earth in a small spaceship shortly before their planet, Krypton, was destroyed in a natural disaster. His ship landed in the American countryside near the fictional town of Smallville, Kansas. He was found and adopted by farmers Jonathan and Martha Kent, who named him Clark and raised him as their son.
It was only when he was a few years old that it was discovered he had superpowers. These his family kept secret until he grew to adulthood when he used his superpowers to help mankind.
We children were enchanted. We wrote to our cousin in California for more Superman comics and she duly obliged. These comics were in great demand on our street and were swapped from house to house introducing the Man of Steel to a whole generation of children on the north side of Dublin.
The first Superman movie, starring Christopher Reeve, was released in December, 1978. Still an avid fan, I was in trepidation in case Hollywood had not captured the essence of my superhero. But the movie did not disappoint.
The scene where the spaceship from the doomed planet of Krypton lands on planet Earth in a field of corn, is as close to cinematic perfection as there could be. The farmer, Jonathan Kent, sees the spaceship crashing to earth, investigates the burning pile, and inside finds the tiny child Kal-El, whom he takes home to his wife.
Christopher Reeve was the perfect Superhero and was true to the comic character. As we all sadly know, Christopher Reeve was tragically paralysed from the neck down in a riding accident in 1995 and died nine years later from a heart attack never having regained any movement in his limbs.
When my first son was born, I couldn’t wait to introduce him to Superman. He likes to tease me now that he was only two years old when I sat him on my lap and forced him to stay awake while I introduced him to my superhero on the TV.
“Watch now! When he spins around, he turns into Superman, and then he can fly! Yes fly! It’s magic, you see!” ÷
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