A Few Words with the Man of Steel

I love Chicago; great Mulligan Stew here. And da Bears, of course; though they suck lately. 



Okay, so I’ve wanted to clear a few things up for quite some time now. It’s been over seventy years since I first got public attention, and even though I’ve got lots of years left in me, times have changed. I’m not as popular as I once was, but I’m actually okay with that. I’ve realized that people need to figure out most things for themselves, so I’m not really making much of an effort to save the world these days.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m still busy as hell, but I work a different way now. In fact, I’ve moved into life coaching. You wouldn’t believe how many super heroes that once had plenty to do have found themselves struggling to transition into the real world of day-to-day existence. It’s never easy being super or in the case of some, just plain weird; the guilt and self-doubt some of these people have is incredible! Some of them have done some pretty horrible things, and not just to their enemies, either. I mean, the Flash had some real crazy drunken encounters, let me tell you. Several women never knew what hit them. Well, he atoned for all that, rest his soul. I won’t even hint at the things the Batman got into after that article about what really happened between him and Robin. Huh; Boy Wonder, indeed. You think you know a guy.

I can’t really talk about other super heroes very much. Client confidentiality, you understand. I will say that it’s been a great experience to let go of the macho image; it really wasn’t me. Remember that nerdy kid that everyone knew as Super Boy? That's the real me; I’m a nerd and I’m not afraid to admit it. I love delving into the science of things but I’m also something of a spiritualist. I’m a Buddhist and vegetarian, too; not a lot of people know that.

Anyway, I’m getting off topic here, so why don’t we segue into what I really wanted to get off my chest. It’s exactly because I’m a geek in so many ways that I feel I owe the public some explanations. A lot of what they think I did or can do is wrong or has been twisted in ways that helped enrich the Superman franchise. I’ve been carrying a lot of needless guilt about some of that.

So, a good place to start would be letting everyone know what some of my real powers are. I don’t want to disappoint any of my fans, but how I'm portrayed in most of the comic book series and especially in movies is grandiose, and that’s an understatement.

I mean, yeah, the environment of this solar system affords me super strength and near-invulnerability. It also enables me to defy gravity after a fashion, but that’s only because I can use my strength to propel myself long distances. Sort of like super-jumping, if you will. I don’t actually fly, and of course I can land without getting hurt because I’m so strong. Stories about me jaunting about in the far-flung reaches of space are just that; fictions designed to increase the scope of the product marketed around me. Near space, like our solar system, yeah, I can get around a bit, though it takes time.

Also, where I was born, on Krypton, the atmosphere was similar to Earth’s, so I need to breathe like any human. Sure, I can hold my breath for a very long time, provided I’m not engaged in anything too strenuous like fighting, deflecting asteroids or leaping through the sun. Actually, I don’t recommend that last bit; the few times I’ve done it I’ve come out buck naked. Unscathed otherwise, but unclothed, too. You have no idea how embarrassing that can be.

Anyway, like I was saying, I can hold my breath for a long while, so sure, I can zoom around in space a bit. However, people forget that I can’t ‘fly’ at anything like light speed; nothing really does, after all. Even for me to get from here to the moon takes a few hours or so of mostly floating along enjoying the scenery. Trying to get to somewhere like Mars is a leap that requires extra oxygen, several weeks of time and unbelievably complex mathematical formulae to work out the trajectories. If I miss my mark, I may end up floating a very long ways before I find something I can jump off of again.

In fact, anytime I head off-earth I have to be extremely prepared; if there’s no way for me to jump back, I could go bye-bye. Fortunately, I had a very gifted scientist Father and my Mother was no slouch, either; I inherited some great genes. I’ve also had a lot of practice getting things right since I was a kid. Just don’t believe all the newer Super Boy stories about me gallivanting around the galaxy. I was scared shitless if I had to go across the planet, never mind jumping to the moon. It wasn’t until after I graduated University that I had the brains and guts to really push the envelope and figure out everything that’s involved in extra-terrestrial jumping. I could tell you some stories about my miscues that would likely leave you in stitches for hours. I’m still amazed at the luck I’ve had getting back home a couple of times.

Another thing that’s been misrepresented is the supposed heat vision I possess. I don’t need heat vision; if I wanted to, I could heat anything up just by rubbing it for a while. Shooting heat out of the eyes isn’t something anyone or anything can do, as far as I know. There’s just no mechanism known in nature that could account for it. Nice thought, I guess. Same with the x-ray, infrared and micro-vision; they’re all myths. My senses are pretty acute without the need for elaborate fallacies to make them more so. Ask around if you don’t believe me; there’s plenty of cons still serving time that will tell you hiding from me isn’t all that easy to do.

I should also de-bunk the cold breath thing. I can’t blow cold air; I’m warm-blooded just like the rest of you. Hot air is really all I can do, like any blowhard; it’s not as strong a breath as has been shown, either. I can only take as large a breath as my lungs can hold, right? So, while I can force it out at a pretty good rate I can’t maintain it for longer than it takes my lungs to empty. Surely someone’s figured that out by now?

Something else I have to mention is the one weakness I suffered from. I’m not actually affected by Kryptonite. That was a ploy used by the writers to show that I could be weakened; otherwise, there would never have been any bad guys that could really stand up to me, you know? I went along with it, because in all honesty I couldn’t make a living as a journalist; who the hell does? I was off fighting crime or saving the world half the time. How I never got fired from that two-bit rag for missing so much work I’ll never know. It probably helped that I kept my mouth shut about my editor's penchant for transvestites. Of course, everyone knows now, but if Perry'd been found out when he was alive they would have run him out of town. Plus, I would have been smeared for keeping his secret, so it was mutually beneficial, I guess.

So, I got a few royalties from the sales of various merchandise, mostly the DC Comics line. I ignored several abuses of my name and image because I couldn’t sue everyone; I really didn’t need the stress and I figured, what harm can it really do? People are going to believe what they want no matter how hard you try to tell them the truth. I didn’t even bother, until now of course.

Back to the Kryptonite. It didn’t affect me at all; it doesn't give off any more radiation than most other elements. In fact, what many brainless villains thought was Kryptonite was actually Jadarite, an element found here on Earth. It's totally harmless, unless you throw a chunk at someone's head, I suppose. Sure, if you hold Kryptonite near a source of radiation for a prescribed period of time it will become lethally irradiated, though it would take me far longer to absorb a lethal dose than a human. No, my real problem was horrible insecurity. I just couldn’t handle how some of those villains browbeat me, you know? I hated being teased or taunted by bullies. A lot of my early life was spent putting up with shit like that because if I ever reacted, I’d kill someone; that was never my modus operandi. Never. As a result I was scared to near-immobility by anyone who so much as gave me a wedgie. That made high school a nightmare, let me tell you. It took me years of therapy to get over that, but for the sake of my public image they used kryptonite as a stand-in for my neurosis. That was okay by me; what kind of super hero would I have been if everyone knew they could beat me up just by calling me a pansy?

Well, that wasn’t generally a problem with most of the bad seeds I’ve encountered. More often than not they’re afraid of me, so that makes it easy for me to take them out. Only a few ever figured out my weakness; it was kept pretty quiet, as you can imagine. I had a lot of trouble with them when I was younger. Lex Luthor was a royal pain in the ass, in all honesty. Though he was no match for me eventually. You can only harass someone so long before you either get tired of it, have other things to do or move on with your life. He'd badger me, push me into a locked room, and try to taunt me to death. He even tried recordings of constant belligerence so he could go out and get groceries or run other errands, but I’d just blow his tape decks against a wall, or take out the speakers with well-aimed loogies. In the end, he couldn’t be bothered to keep it up; he figured it was better to go straight than to waste more time trying to off me.

That bit about me reversing the spin of the earth in the very first Superman movie? What a joke. Any twelve year-old knows that wouldn’t have reversed time; it would have destroyed the planet, and Lois along with it. Probably most of the solar system eventually, too. Not only that, but I would never have affected a mass so many times larger than me even if I could have flown around it at near-light speeds. Stupid idea, but hey, it’s Hollywood, right? Reality is a lot different. Just imagine the irony: I try to make the earth go the wrong way and while it slows and comes to a stop, everything that’s not firmly anchored - and I mean firmly - keeps going at the same speed it was travelling before. What a bloody mess that would have been. Well, let’s face it; it’s likely the whole place would have been left totally uninhabitable or worse, in pieces.

There’s a good reason why Lois and I more or less stayed together. I miss her quite a bit. She was the only woman who could satisfy me sexually, you know? It used to be horribly frustrating for me that way. It’s very difficult even for normal guys to rein in their impulses, but when you’re super strong and get carried away in the moment, people get hurt. I found that out the hard way...um, sorry, no pun intended... one time in University. That episode cost my family their entire life-savings, but I made good on it eventually. Poor girl could never have a family, though.

Lois was different. Like any woman, she couldn’t actually perform most sex acts with me; she’d of taken too many chances. I mean, I might blow a hole in her head if ... well... you get the drift. But Lois was great, because she knew me better than any woman; she had the reflexes of a cat and knew when to jump, so to speak. I really do miss her.

I took a vow of celibacy after she died. That upset a lot of women who thought it would be fun to ‘take a ride’ with Superman. It’s always been that way. They just don’t realize what it might mean for them if I get lost in the moment. Do you know how hard it is to keep control all the time? It’s just not possible, and it impacts my performance because I have to be constantly vigilant that I’m not crossing the line. Well, it’s just easier now, and seriously, I’m over ninety years old, for crying out loud. I have other things to do with my time.

Speaking of time, I hate to cut this short but I’ve got to get to New York for a four o’clock. It’s about a two minute leap from here; that’ll give me a minute to freshen up. Thanks for the microphone, Jack. I’ll be back for more later.