Bin Laden and Superman's Latest Adventure

Could it all be a coincidence? Or do we smell a rat (or a superhero)?

To understand why out of all possible dates, bin Laden was finally brought to justice now, it may be necessary to connect his sudden and much-desired death with two apparently unrelated events that took place last week.

The first, which occasioned nearly as much consternation (though less celebration) among aficionados of the struggle between good and evil as the assassination of the dismal and ill-fated chief of al-Qaida, was the announcement that Superman (in episode 900, anniversary edition) decided to go to the United Nations to renounce his U.S. citizenship. The Man of Steel who, since his inaugural appearance in Action Comics in June 1938, dressed in the colors of the American flag and espoused the “American way,” reached this drastic decision after being reprimanded by the chief of security of the U.S. government (an African-American, with a passing resemblance to Colin Powell) for having flown to Tehran to spend 24 hours in a show of solidarity with the demonstrators of the Green Revolution, who are protesting the despotism of Ahmadinejad and his followers. The government of Iran (in the comic book at least; since I doubt that the real Ayatollahs spend their time leafing through the Adventures of Superman) denounced this act — which was done discreetly, and in a spirit of non-violence — as an intervention by the Great Satan into their internal affairs, nearly an act of war.

I have no love for the autocrats of Iran, but one cannot dispute their logic, considering that the Man of Steel himself has for decades represented “truth, justice and the American way.” So Superman, in order to do his work going forward without being bound by national borders and the particular interests of any one state, felt the need to establish his independence from his adopted country. Because, in fact, Superman was not born in the U.S. but on the planet Krypton, having arrived as a baby — without passing through customs or immigration — in Kansas, the exact center of the United States, in a diminutive spaceship. He was adopted there there by the Kents, a family of farmers, who were the personification of the “American way.” He was Ka-El. He would become Clark Kent.

It is hard to exaggerate the indignation with which Superman’s bold act of renunciation, this “slap in the face,” was received by the American people. I have read (seriously!) blogs calling for the new champion of internationalism to be deported to his planet of origin (as if he were an illegal Mexican); a petition is being circulated to have the executives of Time Warner, which owns the rights to Superman, force the authors of the comic to retract it. More than one conservative commentator has seen the superhero’s insult as the definitive proof of the decadence of the most powerful country on earth — even the icon who universally represents our way of life is turning his back on us!

I don’t know how closely President Obama follows the adventures of Superman (we do know that he is a fan of Spiderman, whose New York origins are beyond question), but surely someone has alerted him to the loss of prestige caused by the defection of this great titan.

What happens, for example, if the Man of Steel, champion of the dispossessed, decides to close Guantanamo, or uses his x-ray vision to expose some super-WikiLeak, since he no longer pledges allegiance to the U.S. flag? What happens if he puts himself at the service of a power such as China? (Though, on second thought, there is not much Truth or Justice in that country, so he probably would not accept an alliance of that type.)

In any case, Obama’s advisors must have explained that the defection of Superman should be treated as a major cultural and ideological crisis that could even cost the president his chances at reelection, since Republicans are probably already hatching plans to accuse him of “losing” Superman (as if he were Cuba or Vietnam).

Obama’s response was perfect; by killing bin Laden he proved that the United States did not need a muscle-man who flies and leaps over walls to defend itself against terrorists; that is why they have helicopters and Navy SEALs and computers and weapons — of steel, as it were. What a way to restore the halo of national confidence, which seemed one dent away from permanent damage!

Of course, before he was able to carry out that mission in Pakistan, Obama had to take care of another issue, a problem that had been dogging him for years. How could he stand before the world and reveal the assassination of bin Laden in the name of the United States if a significant portion of the population doubted that the president actually was American? How to contrast himself with the flighty Superman if Obama himself was accused of having been born abroad, in Kenya, which, as we know, is much further from Kansas than the planet Krypton, no matter how much the three places share the Kafkaesque letter “k”?

This is why Obama published his birth certificate a few days ago, silencing those who accused him of being an alien (a word which applies to extra-terrestrials as well as foreigners — yet another significant parallel between the president and the superhero).

But there remains a group of Americans who still believe that Obama was not born on U.S. soil. They insist that the document was forged, that the hospital was bribed and that the mother (born where else but Kansas!) smuggled the boy into Hawaii because she knew that in 40-plus years that mulatto child would be president. I suspect that the only way these recalcitrant citizens would accept that Obama was born in the U.S. would be if he completely bleached his face and skin. Then he would not be so alien.

But for the majority of his compatriots, Obama achieved a triple victory in a single week. Having proved that he was a legitimate resident, and armed with his birth certificate as well as the world’s strongest army, he was able to eliminate America’s evil public enemy number one. And it was all done without Superman’s intervention.

Now I would like to propose a real heroic feat. Since the reason that Bush gave for invading Afghanistan was that the Taliban were sheltering bin Laden, hasn’t the time come to remove all U.S. forces from that mountainous, guerilla-filled country?

I’m sure that Superman, working with the United Nations and brandishing his new cosmopolitan global passport, would be happy to help with the rapid transport of the troops.

It would be beautiful and inspiring to read that episode of the Man of Steel, to see Obama and Superman — both from Kansas, both scorned for being “foreign” — cooperating to create at least a small oasis of peace in a world where, unfortunately, there is a scarcity of both truth and justice.