By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO, Calif.— The Arts & Entertainment Channel put on a combination documentary and promotional piece last night entitled, Look Up in the Sky! The Amazing Story of Superman.  In tracing Superman's evolution from a comic book figure, to a regular in the Sunday comics, to a hero on radio, television, and movies, as well as the darling of cross-promotional merchandise, A&E examined how the "man of steel" has been reinvented and re-imagined numerous times in the nearly 70 years since two Jewish kids from Cleveland—writer Jerry Siegel and illustrator Joe Shuster—dreamed him up in the 1930s.

The two-hour program built up to the fact that later this month with the release of the movie, Superman Returns, a new generation of Americans will be introduced to the story of the baby who is sent in a rocket from his exploding home planet of Krypton to the planet Earth.  Thereafter, he is raised by the kindly Kent family as a typical small town American boy until he grows into a virtuous adult with super powers.

Curiously, in 1932, Siegel wrote for a mimeographed science fiction periodical a tale entitled "Reign of the Superman," about an evil-doer with telepathic powers who, like most fictional aliens, wanted to destroy the world.  But Siegel subsequently re-thought his concept, imagining an alien who had the strength of the biblical Samson, or the Greek man/ god Hercules, and who used his powers not for evil but for good. Furthermore, this superman lived among ordinary people, emerging from his secret identity as Clark Kent only when his services were necessary to help humanity.

For Superman's Jewish creators, living in a world in which European Jews were being persecuted—and subsequently would be annihilated by the German Nazis and their allies—he was also a powerfully comforting dream figure, a mild-looking stranger who might look weak but in actuality was immune to bullets, or to pain. 

At different times, while trying to define the reason for Superman's enduring popularity, the documentary likened the cartoon character both to Moses and to Jesus—two boys born into Jewish families. 

The Moses analogy recalls how the parents of the future leader of the Exodus put him as a baby into a basket and placed him into the Nile River, thereby sending him to a new world—that of Pharaoh's daughter and the Pharaoh.  In the Superman tale, the baby's father, Jor-El, places him not in a basket, but in a rocket ship, and streams him toward the Earth.  Both Moses and Superman eventually become the standard bearers for a religion.  In Moses' case, of course, it is the religion that becomes Judaism.  In Superman's case, the religion is a civic one—"truth, justice, and the American way."

The analogy to Jesus is that Jor-El gives his son, his only son, to mankind for the betterment of humanity.

From the standpoint of the American dream—that any child, no matter how humble his or her origins, can through hard work become a success—Superman seems an exemplar.  He doesn't just come to the Earth as an all knowing, benevolent being.  He has to learn how to harness his powers and how to distinguish good from evil.

The fact that he is an immigrant is also important.  America became a great country through the combined efforts of wave after wave of immigrants.  That Superman not only is accepted by Americans, but looked up to, teaches the concept that through virtuous hard work other immigrants also can become leaders in this country.  And we have seen this happen again and again, sometimes in the first generation, more often in the second.

Superman powerfully symbolizes how much immigration can do for America.  And lest anyone forget, as the Senate and the House of Representatives consider vastly different bills on the subject of immigration,  Superman did not come to this country with a passport.  There wasn't even a quota for aliens from Krypton.  He just arrived one day—illegally if anyone wants to be picky about it—and our country was better off ever since. 

It is not only that Superman seems to be the embodiment of Jewish, Christian and American civic values  that makes him popular.  For girls, he is a kind, compassionate, strong, perfectly proportioned, idealized man who can fly them off to dinner in Paris, and still have them back before curfew.  For boys, he is a soldier, super-star athlete, astronaut, and a man who is incredibly attractive to women—all rolled into one.  In short, he is everything they could ever hope to be.

Even "villains" like Superman.  Last night's documentary was admiringly narrated by Kevin Spacey, who in the upcoming film will portray Superman's implacable foe, Lex Lothar.   A newcomer, Brandon Routh, will play Superman, just as a generation ago, newcomer Christopher Reeve was selected to reinvigorate the part.  Whether Routh can duplicate Reeve's meteoric rise to acting stardom, we'll find out later this month.  But with 70 years of adulation going for him, Superman will remain our enduring and endearing American myth, however the movie turns out.