Truth, Justice...

First off I'd like to point out that back in the Fleischer Superman cartoon, Superman fought for "Truth and Justice". It wasn't until later that "...and the American Way" was added (the George Reeves TV show, I believe). (Probably right about the same time we started saying "One nation under God.")

The Carter era Superman still had a specific place to fight for. When Lois asks Superman "Why are you here?" he unflinchingly replies "I'm here to fight for truth, justice, and the American way." Although even then Lois was amazed that he actually believed this nonsense. (It's a great moment when she is genuinely chagrined that she doesn't.)

Lois & Clark ditched TAW. Not sure that it was ever mentioned in the Bruce Timm cartoon.

In Superman Returns, Perry asks "Does he still stand for Truth? Justice? All that stuff?" In a way I thought it was kind of cute. It's like he just can't bring himself to say it. Well, in the Reeves movies Metropolis was New York, so the Daily Planet would be the New York Times, right? Rings true. (Ok, Metropolis is acutally Cleveland, so that would make the Great Metropolitan Newspaper the Plain Dealer - Close enough.)

So if Superman "belongs to the world", why isn't he fighting for communism? Why didn't he fight for the Axis, just to keep a level playing field? Why doesn't he seem like he'd be particularly pro-North Korea? In Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Superman gets rid of all of the world nukes, which plays into Lex Luthor's diabolical scheme. I'd like to have seen what happened when the world devolved back into full scale conventional warfare, myself. Germany could have been reunited in 1987! Maybe not how we had liked, but what can you do?

The press materials for SR say that the boy in blue now fights for "truth, justice and all that is good". Heh - well, if we're to say that A=B and B=C therefore A=C (it does, by the way) then "The American Way" = "All That Is Good". Well done, WB. What? That wasn't what you meant?

(Hey, I could still be writing about the Da Vinci Code!)