Like many Americans who travel widely around the world, he is sick and tired of having American policies attributed to him personally and being tabbed as a tool of Washington.
You can just forget about “Truth, justice and the American way,” the slogan Superman has been intoning since the 1930s. Superman is now going for globalism. And it’s all because of Iran.
In the latest issue of “Action Comics,” Superman flies to Tehran to stand between the political protesters and the forces of the regime in order to show the demonstrators “they weren’t alone.”
Superman stands in Tehran silently for 24 hours as he is pelted with gasoline bombs, but also receives roses and cheers from the demonstrators. The crowd is not fired on and the protest ends peacefully.
Back in the US of A, Superman meets with the president’s national security adviser.
“I stayed in Azadi Square for 24 hours,” Superman explains. “I didn’t move. I didn’t speak. I just stayed there.”
But the comic version of the Islamic Republic called Super-man’s action an act of war and accused him of operating on behalf of the American government. “I’m tired of having my actions construed as instruments of US policy,” he says.
And, for that reason, Superman explains, he is going to give up his American citizenship. “I intend to speak before the United Nations tomorrow and inform them that I am renouncing my US citizenship,” the Man of Steel with X-ray vision tells the national security adviser.
Superman didn’t say if mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent—Superman in everyday disguise—would also have to give up his US citizenship—and perhaps even his job as reporter with The Daily Planet.
Superman explains to the national security adviser: “Truth, justice and the American way—it’s not enough anymore. The world’s too small, too connected.”
The news that Superman would turn in his US passport shocked and stunned many in the United States. And lots of them were quick to assail the comic book publishers for turning on the United States.
But publishers Jim Lee and Dan DiDio assured red-blooded Americans that Superman wasn’t criticizing the United States. Seeming to backtrack from the comic storyline, they said in a statement, “Superman is a visitor from a distant planet who has long embraced American values. As a character and an icon, he embodies the best of the American way.” Superman, they said, remains “committed to his adopted home and his roots as a Kansas farm boy from Smallville.”
Web commentators had a field day with the story.
“So now he’s a world cop,” wrote one. “I thought that WAS the American way.”
Another noted that Superman was born on the planet Krypton and complained: “The guy is America’s most famous ILLEGAL alien.”
An angry ex-fan wrote: “He was never a natural-born citizen anyway.… Go back to Krypton.”
One commentator put the story firmly in contemporary context: “I demand to see his birth certificate.”