Thanks, guys.
“The SDMB - Your Source for Information on the Most Obscure Stuff in the Multiverse!”
Regards,
Shodan
Surely I am not the only SDMBer who has seen one of the few remaining copies of the original Action Comics #237 (the one they retracted before final distribution) “Yarmulke of Steel, Matzo of Cardboard”?
Those who have been affforded the rare glimpse of this gem will recall that Clark, after stumbling upon Lois’ personnel records at the Planet discovers that Lois is Jewish (the family’s name was changed from Lanisberg on Ellis Island). Clark/Supe goes through quite a crisis before finally deciding he needs to be circumcised so as not to appear “unclean” to his love.
Several very graphic panels follow in which a hapless moil breaks several blades attempting to cut through the foreskin of steel. Finally, Clark confesses to Lois that he is “unclean” and hence is not suitable to be her mate. Lois breaks down and tells Clark that her entire family converted to presbyterianism during the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg trial and that she loves him just the way he is.
Sadly, this very moving issue never saw the light of day, as D.C. bowed to the prevailing McCarthyism and anti-semitism and withdrew it in favor of a hastily slapped-together replacement in which Superman battles a cell of East-coast communists with disturbingly Jewish features.
If you ever get the chance to see this remarkable “lost” issue, check it out. One copy is kept in the Museum of Jewish Culture here in Manhattan, but may only be handled with rubber gloves and tweezers.
Next we’ll be asking “When he lays cable, does he blast 'em through the ceramics?” and “How come when he farts the seat of his dockers don’t blow apart like a shotgun shell when off…and why doesn’t the gas kill everyone in the room like nerve gas?”
Come to think of it, lets see Allison Mack & Kristin Kreuk smile through that one… 
**How was Superman Circumcized? **
With Thor’s Hammer, naturally.
Ike,
It’s easy to get confused with pre/post Crisis and for that matter, the pre Crisis material is confusing enough.
The indestructibility of both hair and nails, like everthing else, comes from the yellow sun, at least from 1960 on.
However, the earth’s atmosphere is necessary to inhibit hair growth beyond the increasing size of Kal’s head! (Presumably the same holds true of nails.)
This was a holdover from pre-1960 stories, which referred mainly to the gravity difference, but occasionally to the atmospheric differences: Earth/Krypton. There was only one previous time the system star was hinted at. *
According to Fleisher’s Encyclopedia, there was a 1953 story which vaguely referred to a difference in “solar” radiations (which a scientist used in part to raise a super-kid on earth) but such was never referred to until the 1960 story in which Supie expalined to his cousin why no one was super on Argo City, on a fragment much, much smaller than earth. (The Superman story in the same issue showed Kal struggling to survive and still pose as super in “another dimension” which by no coincidence featured (without editorial comment) a RED sun. While Supie was shown without powers before, this was the very first scene with a red sun.)
:dubious:
- Come to think of it, there was the story debuting both Brainiac and the bottle city of Kandor. Nor-Kan, an old colleague of Jor-El’s explians to Kal the they took the liberty of building their own “sun”:
“~Stuck inside a cold, dark bottle, we constructed our own artificial sun, a fireball moving on tracks.~” Or something like that. It was of course red in the 80 -page Giant reprints, but I have no idea whether it was red in the original printing. Could have been red because that was how the writer imagined a “fireball”; in any event it was not commented upon, either as resembling Krypton’s or as inhibiting powers. Had the writer had this idea, it would probably have been portrayed as Brainiac’s idea, rather than the Kandorians’.
“I SAY THEE OY!!!” ;j
Because his powers result from living on this planet under a yellow sun, Superman always had them, except during Kryptonite-induced episodes.
As to the clothes, my recollection, bolstered by this huge pile of DC comics and the Superman Encyclopedia, is that, yes, Ma Kent made his costume out of the Kryptonian blankies that he came with; she was able to sew them, with threads unravelled from the same fabric, because the needle just passes between the threads in cloth when you sew.
As an avid Superman fan for about 35 years, particularly of The Legion of Superheroes, the comic that caused most of the mess that required all this “pre-crisis” and “post-crisis” Superman hooplah, I’ve been fortunate enough to have a complete understanding of all the jibberish that other dyed-in-the-wool Superman fans have been spouting here.
Basically, it all boils down to which Superman we’re talking about.
Pre-crisis universe… if his natural parents circumsized him before launching him for the great plains then he would have been snipped. If they didn’t, he could only have been genitally altered if he did so himself using kryptonite-based cutting instruments (ouch!)
Post-crisis universe… Given the Kent’s background and location, Mr. Happy more than likely got a trim.
Smallville the TV show universe… Well, honestly, the gods only know. This show, as much as I love it, has so altered any known history of Supes to date that we’d only be guessing. Since that is what we’re all here to do, boys and girls (as opposed to solving world hunger, avoiding war, or curing cancer) then I’d guess that he is probably sporting a bald second head.
The show establishes that he may have been hard to handle in his early years, but it clearly indicates that he didn’t become invulnerable until after puberty. Again, given Jonathan and Martha’s background and location, I doubt that they’d have been infected with the circumcision as an evil scarred of psyche theories and would likely have seen to it that Doc Brown chopped on little Clarkie’s wang, if the Els hadn’t already done so.
Not bad for my first post to The Straight Dope, if I do say so myself.
Diceman wrote:
How was Superman raised as a child? What do you do when a super-toddler throws a temper tantrum? What did Ma and Pa Kent do when young Clark disobeyed them? (I guess spanking is out of the question.)
This gives new meaning to “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you” 
You know,
The only thing more frightening and ubelievable than somebody asking this question
is having so many people answer it
and know what they are talking about…
That line was actually used on Lois and Clark. Clark/Superman came down with amnesia, and Pa Kent broke a baseball bat across his chest to convince him that he was really Superman.
HEY!
My thread is on Threadspotting!
Sorry for interfering with the tread but am I to understand that circumcision is usual in America with non-jewish people? Why? Since when?
WAG, Superbaby version 1.0 was so naturally good he never required punishment. In later versions, his parents would be able to discipline him through normal means, if necessary.
MusicJunkie: Yes, circumsion is fairly common in the USA for non-Jews, but don’t ask me why. It has been going on since at least 1959 because that’s when they chopped me. (And my family is non-Jewish.)
I was waiting for somebody to say this
You know, when Superman sneezes, it doesnt kill someone ten feet away. Every time he exhales in normal breathing, it doesnt knock down the furniture. It`s likely that some conscious effort is necessary to make the superpowers kick in.
And there is such a thing a muscular control. A beefy, weightlifting man having sex with a dainty little ballerina partner wouldnt normally break her arms and legs during the act, although he might be capable of doing so. Its plausible that Superman doesnt crush the bones in someones hand in when he gives a friendly shake, he doesnt yank every door off its hinges and he doesnt demolish a sexual partner. He`s spent most of his life learning restraint and control, and this would naturally be evident in the bedroom.
That Larry Niven essay was well written and amusing, but it was comedy after all. Like a Woody Allen article or a Steven Wright insight, it can`t be taken at face value.
As for Supergirl… well, she did have a wild party on her 18th birthday inside that little bottle city of Kandor, where she had no powers, and she never talked much about it later.
Krypto the superdog, though, did leave a trail of mutilated cats over much of the Earth. Teaching him not only to not chase cars, but to not flip them over and rip them apart when he did catch them, took a lot of patience.
Isn’t it obvious? Superman doesn’t fart. You never see him going to the bathroom, do you? He breaks down all the food he eats at the nuclear level, fusing the nuclei together until he can’t get any more energy out of them. As those of you who study nuclear physics (or astrophysics) know, you’ll get energy out of a nuclear fusion reaction only if the final product doesn’t have a bigger nucleus than iron – fusing iron into something heavier takes more energy than it releases. Therefore, for maximum efficiency, Superman would fuse all of his food and water and air into iron.
That’s why he’s called the Man of Steel.
Welcome to the bizarre weirdness of pre-Mort Weisinger Superboy. The story’s called (something like) “The Brat of Steel” and Ma and Pa Kent’s ploy goes as far as Pa Kent packing his suitcase and leaving, promising a divorce (without saying the word. of course, this being the early '50s) because Ma coddles him and has spoiled him.
This sort of thing happened all the time in the Super-titles. There’s another one where to “teach Lois a lesson”, Superman lets her marry Bruce Wayne who she thinks is Superman. He lets things progress all the way to the alter before he flies in as Superman and then watches while she has to break off the marriage to Bruce in front of friends and family and admit that she was only marrying Bruce to trap Superman. Superman and Batman share a good laugh afterward since they’ve taught her a lesson.
Another one has him spanking her (not in a sexual way, either). On the other hand, there’s just as many stories where Lois does something similar to Superman to teach HIM a lesson. And no one ever minds and it’s ALWAYS taken with good grace.
When you’re reading Superman stories from the '50s, you just have to assume that you’re reading about a completely alien culture where people look human, but don’t really act human.
It’s part of the charm.
Fenris
Sorry, I didn’t notice this question had already been answered by someone who knew what he was talking about.
[packing up my WAGs and going home]