A man in sky blue tights soars high above the streets of Metropolis: his fire engine red cape streaking behind him in the wind, a yellow diamond with a symbol similar to the letter “S” proudly displayed in red on his chest. The residents of this city are to feel a sense of awe and hope when seeing him pass them by. They have confirmation that their way of life is safe behind his duty to protect truth and justice. This man in the sky is known to them only as Superman— the Man of Tomorrow.
Though Superman and his city are fictional characters in a world populated with larger than life foes and monsters, his onlookers are very real. Albeit, instead of watching from the ground below, they read his stories in the medium of comic books. Likewise, the people spinning his yarn faced their own earth shattering foes.
Like nearly all of the comic book industry of the early and mid 20th century, the writers of Superman’s adventures were Jewish. Many of the people in Jewish America had arrived in the nation out of a need to survive. Their enemy was not a mythical being from space like Superman would have fought, but rather a very real threat of annihilation in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. For this group, America was a new hope for life, a wary celebration of a better tomorrow without the threat of extermination. Yet whether they liked it or not, as Jewish America settled into place in the United States, they found themselves part of a new global conflict, the Cold War. Like every other American, they too were on the front lines of the terrors if the war were to go hot.
For the purposes of this paper, Jewish America is identified as the collection of immigrants and citizens in the United States who identify as members of the Jewish faith.
During the course of the Cold War, Jewish America’s vision of the future went from one a bright, pristine, and safe one following the end of the Holocaust to one swelling with dread from the existential threat of a nuclear war. In these decades comic books featuring Superman and his supporting cast mirrored these sentiments, stemming from lively and upbeat to grisled and disturbed.
The topic of Jewish America taking the lead in the comic book industry is nothing new to scholars. Arie Kaplan’s research in the novel From Krakow to Krypton makes clear the influence of Jewish experiences in the second World War across the industry. Likewise, Les Daniels depicts the plight of Superman’s co-creators, who used their own experiences in life to craft their character in his work of Superman: The Complete History.
More closely to the purposes of this paper, Marie Gould has examined the idea that Superman’s tone has shifted with greater cultural sways in the United States since his inception. Gould makes clear that this is the case for American society, particularly for the middle class in her peer reviewed paper entitled Dissecting The Man of Steel. However, like the work of Kaplan and Daniels, Gould’s discussion of Superman’s reflection of middle class ideologies in the United States ends there. The purpose of this paper is to build on that— in particular to explore Superman’s reflection of Jewish American middle class ideologies throughout the course of the Cold War.
From his inception, Superman’s mythos were grounded in Jewish folklore. The character’s creators were two Jewish men named Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in 1938, just before the dawn of World War II in 1938. With the turmoil happening in Europe, Superman was seen as a modern day Golem —a creature derived from Jewish folklore to save Jews from the stressors of reality. However, moving just a few years into the future to 1945 and the end of the war, the Jewish population no longer needed a hero to save them; they wanted a messiah. For millennia the Jewish population had waited in the wings for a grand savior to whisk away the troubles of their world, a messiah. The Jewish messiah is said to usher in a new age on Earth, an age of the divine, an age where the Jewish people triumphantly reclaim their homeland of Israel. So by the time the Holocaust came to a close and the Jewish world was reeling from the destruction, they looked anywhere they could to find a messiah. As such, Superman was selected to fill this void. In Superman’s story, the allegory of the messiah replaces Israel with America, a land safe for Jews to exist and thrive.
The big difference here is that though he is to be larger than life, Superman, like many of the Jewish immigrants flowing into the United States following the second World War, was a refugee. It makes the character uber relatable to this audience, with him filling in as “the ultimate immigrant, the supreme stranger in the strangest land.” They found solace in the fact that he too was uneasy in his life from not knowing the norms of his new home despite his grand power.
The Jewish population in America really strived to become part of their new homeland. To an extent, this meant viewing their new home as larger than life, same as they viewed their fictional Superman. As such, cities ranging from Toronto to Cleveland and other urban centers that were hubs of immigrant life became the setting of Superman’s tales under the pseudonym of “Metropolis.”
Metropolis is a term that employs the idea of motion. Ever changing, ever growing. This was the way of life Jewish America was experiencing in the latter half of the 1940s. The population was attempting to coerce itself into greater American society, which was a multifaceted being in its own right. It was a society that had just put itself on the line similar to the Jewish population, and thus also was looking for a stable, reliable depiction of what the future had in store for them.
Then, it should make sense that Joe Shuster borrowed the name Metropolis from a 1926 film of the same name. In the film, Metropolis is a near future version of New York City. Despite the film portraying the city as “thematically confused” between various social classes, one constant remains; it represents what tomorrow could look like in major cities.
By and large, its portrayal offers a sense of preparedness for that potential tomorrow. In a post-World War II America, that is exactly what the Jewish population would like to have— a tomorrow. It’s helpful that on top of that, the tomorrow dreamt up by the name Metropolis is a progressive one where all corners of the globe, and in the case of Superman, extraterrestrial life, may live in peace.
One of the main goals of Jewish America was to fit into the established American society. This was a world that Jewish immigrants saw as idealistic and safe compared to where they had come from. And if Jews were to feel safe anywhere in the world, it was within America they could feel like they had room to breathe. This in no small part was thanks to the United States having a monopoly on nuclear weapons. Part of fitting into this American society meant that the Jewish population was keen to feel secure in their new homeland.
Indeed, the world bore witness to the atom bomb’s might after the US dropped it on Japan at the end of World War II. It created a sense of peace on the world stage generated from fear. The bomb was a powerful solution to a call to arms. This is seen as clearly as ever in Action Comics Volume 1 Issue 101. The story, published in 1946, sees Superman lose his mind fighting a villain. His madness lingers on until he comes face to face with a nuclear explosion from a government test. He regains his sanity and seeing a reporter, snaps a photograph of the mushroom cloud from up in the air.
It is interesting to note that Superman grabbed the camera from the reporter. Over the course of the story, members of the media and celebrities are also met with a maddening rush similar to Superman’s. In a way, it’s hinting at a craze of paranoia and unease from the bomb. Though the US is the only body to have a bomb, there still is a spike of the unknown among its residents. The American population —Jewish or not— had seen a weapon capable of wiping out millions of lives in an instant. They did not know how it worked, much less if and when it would be used next.
If the unknown was causing problems, then education was the solution. Such was the case for Superman directly flying through the fallout of the bomb’s explosion. Jewish America was learning how to be “American” in the eyes of the status quo of middle class America. Instead of a raging anxiety from the existence of the bomb, they told themselves to be impressed by the might of their new state, proud of what their nation accomplished in their military technology.
Over the years, this sentiment began to take more center stage in the Superman mythos. Eli Rosenbaum, a former member of the department of Justice, points out that by the 1950s Superman’s motto became “Truth, Justice, and the American Way.” America was the land of opportunity for Jews now, a place for the community to exist on its own feet. As long as they were spiritually part of the United States, they were allowed to be a part of the American dream and worked toward further cementing themselves into a part of the larger society.
Jewish America was on a very narrow path now at this point. In the comic industry they had “to be at once defensibly observant but vigilantly conformist.” They did not want to attract the attention of individuals like Joseph McCarthy and his UnAmerican Activities Committee.
The Jewish population was still no stranger to the fear of being “the other.” Though “housing, educational, and job quotas were being dropped as Jews were being accepted into the establishment as never before … so much that had defined American Yiddishkeit —leftist politics and noisy Jewish boosterism— were being discouraged.”
Jewish America tended to be more left leaning by nature, and thus constantly feared being discriminated against by the government for this mindset. In the eyes of the mid 20th century US government, anybody that could potentially be too far left leaning would be communist, a denotation that was distinctly unAmerican.
Anxiety flowed through the Jewish members of the comic book industry, and so they censored themselves. Per Rosenbaum, current events such as the Korean and Vietnam Wars were left on the cutting room floor of topics in the books. Instead Superman fought villains that were imaginary by design, whether they be magical or alien. Either way, the idea of the unknown being the enemy was still ever present. These enemies fell time and time again to Superman, the known. More than anything else, this was a presentation of American exceptionalism, that Americans —Jewish or otherwise— could triumph over “the other” for years to come.
Instead of just portraying their modern society as an idealistic one that was to prosper for years to come, Jewish authors did attempt to show off the Earth of Tomorrow itself when painting a picture of a party that was to never end. A 1965 issue of the Superman series introduced a character named Klar Ken T-5477, a distant descendant of the Man of Steel from the year 2965. Just like the world of the modern Superman, Klar’s was bright and colorful. Klar, the Superman of his era, was a figurehead of hope, a stalwart against hysteria.
However, his weaknesses are altered in a way that a person would have to read between the lines in order to find any flaws. The original Superman’s famous weakness is the rock Kryptonite, fragments of his birthworld that made their way to Earth. This future Superman was shown to be immune to Kryptonite thanks to a build up of tolerance of the past generations. Now though, Superman finds seawater to be harmful. The explanation given is that it has been altered by an event known as the “Pollution War,” a reality altering event for the citizens of Earth. It’s supposedly that the aforementioned was in fact a nuclear conflict, poisoning the oceans and fundamentally changing the way people had to live their lives.
That was just it though, a change in how they lived their lives, not the ends of their lives. Dorfman saw nuclear war as an inevitability at some point in the future. He did not, however, see it as the end of the future. Sure, it was going to happen in his eyes, but it was merely a speed bump in human history. Tomorrow would still see humans freely living their lives across the globe, Jews included. Was it irksome to think that a destructive war was still on the horizon? Probably. But a hint was all Jewish writers could make on the topic. If it happened, it would not be allowed to be so. Fears of being suspected of communism were enough to decide that.
1979 was the next time an overt tragedy would be depicted in a Superman title. Jewish writer Paul Kupperberg revealed the final days of Superman’s birth world in the miniseries World of Krypton. Like the dynamic of New York and Metropolis portrayed by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster decades earlier, Krypton is painted as a futuristic wonderland version of Earth. Not so different from Earth, however, is the depiction of just how the inhabitants of Krypton treat their planet.
It’s been overused by its residents, stripped of its vital resources. The planet itself is frail, its core unstable. Yet Kryptonians are too cushy in their lives to bother to make a change.
In theory, this is analogous to how the US and Soviet Union viewed the Earth. It was a breadbasket of resources for their own wonders and modern life, not to mention their weapons. These powerful nations sought to extend their reach to just about every corner of the globe, not taking too much care to how the planet appears so long as they are able to rule it.
This is a much more open criticism of modern society and where it might lead than seen in the first few decades following the end of the second World War. The idea that marvelous worlds like that of Krypton could be in any type of jeopardy was unheard of in the Superman mythos prior to this event. Yet it still remained distant from the lives of Jewish America and the middle class that read these comics. Yes, it was tragic that Superman’s world and people perished, but it was all fictional. There was no real peril in it. Even for the writers, it was a side step away from tragedies such as the Holocaust. In that instance, the Jewish population had no say in politics. Here, the warning could be heeded by the readers in order to alter the direction the world was heading in, on paper at least.
Though if Kupperberg and co. were using analogies in 1979, by 1985 they most certainly were not. The cover of Superman 408 must have been a startling sight for anyone who picked up the issue. The cover alone was a drawing that was infamously different from the typical ones used to advertise comics. On it, Superman is shrieking in agony at his view of a destroyed Metropolis, exclaiming “They finally had a nuclear war and nobody survived except me!”
Opening the book itself, Superman walks through the streets of Metropolis. He has the disheveled remains of a suit over his costume, the shreds of his human life that are now destroyed. Despite all his intense power, Superman is left to sulk alone; he could not overcome the challenge of a very real world threat. Gone are the days of Superman as a metaphor for a secured and guaranteed world. This is quite the bleak outlook.
Something that could get lost in the mix of it is an interesting turn of events for Jewish voices on world issues. Instead of having this story be an allegory or stand in for a dismal future for simply just the Jewish population, this is a story about the future of all mankind.
Jewish America now feels comfortable enough in its footing in society to critique the world, more specifically the policies of the US government when it comes to foreign relations and war. Figures like Joseph McCarthy were long in the rearview of the everyday American canon, and the threat of being accused of being a communist no longer meant being fully shunned by the whole of the court of public opinion.
By this time, non-Jewish writers also found their place in the comic industry. Perhaps it was the fact that they were not Jewish, or perhaps it was the fact that Jewish writers themselves were now pushing the envelope on what was allowed to be said in the comic book medium. Regardless, writers like Frank Miller did not shy away from vilifying the US government in stories, even depicting the sitting President, Ronald Reagan, as an obstacle for the heroes to overcome in his 1986 story The Dark Knight Returns. This story is much more grounded than the fantastical ones presented in the previous years.
Though the story’s focal point is Superman’s ally Batman and not the Man of Tomorrow himself, the character is still as present as ever. Instead of being just a symbol of Americana in the anecdote, Superman is a genuine agent of the government itself. Superman’s moral compass has been called into question here, with the idea being presented that the country hasn’t been a proper leader in global politics as of late, very much the opposite of how it was viewed ten to twenty years beforehand. This discrepancy is apparent in the ages of the characters as well, with both Superman and Batman being depicted as later in their careers. Batman is said to be 55 years old, with Superman, despite being physically ageless, at a similar spot mentally.
They do not fight crime anymore to better the world, but now do so out of an empty sense of obligation to retain the status quo of their home for better or worse. Again, this is a fair depiction of Jewish America’s assimilation into greater American culture. This is a group that has fought tooth and nail to be a part of this society, to find a place in it to belong and move forward in the world. Now that they’ve got one, they grow disillusioned with the society that they once yearned to join. Superman is not a beacon of a better tomorrow. He is a government agent, a government that actually is run behind the scenes by enemies of the Man of Steel. It is irrefutable, something that is not the best for a sustainable society.
By depicting the characters as older, Miller creates a futuristic story despite having it set in the modern day of when it was written. He spins a web that the heroes belonged to yesterday. All of the hope that tomorrow would be brighter was a part of that era. The world of the 1980s was the one they kept telling everyone to look out for, and it was not the one the writers of years past had promised. It was confusing, it featured governments once thought as reliable lying, and the line between right and wrong was scraped.
1986 also featured another story that shook up what was thought to be allowed in a comic book, and that was the countless deaths of countless indestructible heroes. DC Comics’ released the infamous Crisis on Infinite Earths series. It featured thousands, if not millions of characters, faceless or otherwise meeting their untimely ends. This story had long term consequences as well. Barry Allen, a close ally of Superman who went by the name “Flash,” was killed off, a move that would not be reversed for decades. Another installment of the series featured the Man of Steel on the cover. In his arms is the Woman of Tomorrow, his cousin Supergirl. She has died in this great tragedy that Superman and the other heroes have been striving to put an end to throughout the story. Heroes who were larger than life had fallen, and that included a character with Superman’s exact skill set. The threats that these heroes stood against were now larger than just Metropolis or the Earth, but now the entire multiverse. And universe after universe is ended in the series until there is only one remaining by the final page. No one anywhere in time and space was unaffected by this event.
This was an extreme version of the costs associated with nuclear war, especially heightened by President Ronald Reagan’s rhetoric of the Soviet Union as an “evil empire.” The whole world was at stake, and the chips always felt like they were down. Tomorrow was not a guarantee anymore. The heroes meant to preserve the continuation of society had genuine weaknesses. It was all just waiting to pour over into reality and burst.
Superman as a character grew to reflect Jewish hopes of tomorrow following the destruction of Jewish life in Europe during the Holocaust and the en masse immigration of Jews into the United States to a poster child of nuclear armageddon. In the beginning Superman is a symbol of “the American way.” The character is the representation of hope for Jewish people to rebuild their lives in a new country following their near total annihilation.
Both new and old Americans felt safe in the country from behind the embrace of their stronghold on the world’s nuclear weapon supply. It created a view of the bomb as a beacon for the good will of tomorrow. After all, if the bomb was only in America, no other nation should dare to oppose them or else face their own destruction. It was a timid recipe for peace.
Jewish America saw hiding behind the bomb as a way to identify themselves as American. After Nazi persecution in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, they wanted to be safe in their new home. They did their absolute most to not step on the government’s toes by telling stories that could be labeled as communist.
But as time went on and the Soviets also built an atom bomb, this sense of security for Jewish America slowly but surely dwindled. We see hints of horrible destruction in stories from the 1960s, albeit not ones the US cannot rebuild from in the case of Klar Ken T-5477 and the Pollution War. By the 1970s and 1980s those thoughts of coming back from annihilation were gone, with even the legitimacy of the US government called into question. The institution was no longer the undoubtable harbinger of peace and justice for its citizens, a group that looked out for the wellbeing of the world.
Like many cultures around the world, the Jewish American population desired a character to muster behind to feel invincible. They had lost too much in the early 20th century, and that’s before even climbing further into the rabbit hole of anti-Semitic sentiments that plagued Jewish communities across the globe for centuries. These were people that had to tell themselves stories of golem and awaited a messiah, for if they did not their constant persecution would be in vain.
And at their moment in history in the mid to late 20th century, Jewish America had Superman. They needed an outlet to feel safe in the United States, and that outlet would be the comic book medium. Yet as Jewish America integrated itself further into greater American culture, they found that not even their symbol of prosperity was a match for the threat of the destruction of the world from modern warfare. Finally Jewish America had thought itself secure in a larger society, but secure in one it felt was ready to blow apart at any moment.Today, Superman is seen as the ultimate superhero that he has been crafted into over nearly a century —both by Jews and non-Jews alike. In the 21st century, the character has been portrayed as moody by the likes of Zach Snyder and as an optimist by James Gunn in film. Quintessentially, both are the Man of Steel despite being two different tones; they are continuations of the weights placed on Superman in the previous decades. Those weights more often than not are deeply emotional reactions to the world around the writers of these stories, and these reactions are both deeply valid. Whether written by Jewish America or not, they reflect the strifes of society and her members and the ability to overcome. These are innately human stories. As Superman moves on to the one-hundredth anniversary of his first appearance, his message must run through the minds of everyone, Jewish or not, to push for that ideal of “truth, justice, and a better tomorrow.”
