[Superman] is a national figure, perhaps the most worshiped and adored of our time. (p. 256)

The simple and marvelously effective idea back of "Superman" was to take one of the interplanetary heroes who … had added supernormal powers to their sex-bursting physique, and allow him to whip through the setting of our place and time….

We have always worshiped heroes, and Superman is only a modern cousin to Paul Bunyan, who once took an annoying tornado by the dark, fast-twisting, deadly tail, and cooped it up in a homemade cage…. (p. 257)

There is, of course, a deeper reason for Superman's present, enormous popularity. The world, life itself, has come to be fearfully difficult for millions of people. When one considers that millions of people of Jewish ancestry were despotically and deliberately destroyed by Hitler, it is obvious that tyrannical forces have been in operation which make Caspar Milquetoasts out...