Man of steel is part Moses part immigrant

The great thing about comic books is that they not only appeal to children, but when franchised out into the adult world for mass-entertainment, they also speak to adults.

And when adults look at them, they see things that children don't.

In her review of the Zack Snyder-directed Man of Steel, the latest version of the adventures of Superman, movie critic Manohla Dargis sees the flick as a multilayered story. In the manner of William Empson's classic, The Seven Types of Ambiguity, Dargis unearths the myth of a technology- apocalypse, Moses-in-Superman, and Superman as industrial laborer/immigrant saga, among a host of other "ambiguities."

Krypton is facing destruction because it's technologically too advanced. The architecture of the city is sleek and steely reminding us of the sleek and steely structures designed by Zaha Hadid in some of the biggest metropolises of the world. Michael Shannon, the guy who built an underground shelter to protect his family against an impending storm in Take Shelter, plays the destructive villain who would destroy Krypton and earth with all his ill-gotten tech smarts. 

Superman is sent off into the earth in a Moses-type basket. He has Jewish origins as is revealed by his original name. The Moses reference is reinforced when Superman is shown as a burning body on the rooftop of a factory that is set on fire. He escapes unscathed. 

The trailer above shows him as an immigrant, the old-fashioned outsider who comes to these shores and labors away in the old-fashioned industrial-worker role. Zor-El broadcasts to the earthlings, "he looks like you, but he is not one of you." (Now that sounds a bit like Superman is Edward Snowden!)

A biography of Superman

Biographies of fictional characters are rare, however, where comic action heroes are concerned, it is an eminent possibility.

Larry Tye has written a biography of Superman and part of the history of Clark Kent/Superman is also a history of the artistic evolution of the creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Siegel and Shuster, Tye writes, grew creatively along with the popularity of their hero. Starting as a typical fighter for social justice with a hardened body, Superman's "superness" grew with a "steady dreamlike magnification till:

His million-­decibel yell had enough intensity and pitch to topple tall buildings. What if a building fell on him? A tickle at most. His nostrils were super-acute. His typing was super-fast. . . . His gaze was intense enough to hypnotize a whole tribe of South American Indians at once. He could converse with a mermaid in her native tongue and beat a checkers expert his first time playing.