DON'T WORRY, I CAN EAT SOLID STEEL

The above image is from Action Comics #241, dated June 1958, one of the inclusions in DC's SHOWCASE presents 'Superman' volume.

WARNING WARNING WARNING Comics geekery post hereby ensues WARNING WARNING WARNING

While I enjoy modern comics stylings (I was going to say "sequential arts" or some such, but it sounded pretentious) -- a big umbrella covering people as varied as Alan Moore, Kurt Busiek, Warren Ellis and Bill Willingham -- there's a lot of charm to these 30-50-year-old stories from what they call the "Silver Age." In addition to the sheer suspend-yer-disbelief thrill ride of the sometimes-dense plotting, these collections provide a number of sociological glimpses into the American mindset of the times. The treatment of women, for instance -- it's a bit ambivalent and somewhat confused. Lois Lane, in the 50s-60s Superman comics, is portrayed as a successful, ambitious career woman who loves her work (journalism) and is very good at it -- it's mentioned matter-of-factly that her work has been instrumental in putting several major criminals away, for instance, and she thinks nothing of jumping out of planes or diving to the sea bottom for a story ... and yet, she's also portrayed as a lovestruck girl who would be quite willing to chuck that all to live in Suburbian Domestic Bliss with the man of steel.

Also notable is the 50s/early-60s Better Living Through Science vibe in American culture as reflected in the superheroes: Every single DC crimefighter of the area seemed to have a complete, innate knowledge of most pertinent information of every scientific discipline -- physics, chemistry, engineering, biology, geology, etc. Not just the ones who were physicists (Atom) or forensic scientists (Flash) in their day jobs, but even the Bachelor of Arts crowd like Superman (who seems to have been the world's leading expert in applied robotics, since he seemed to have built a robot in every other issue, in about five minutes). At the very least, if you were a superhero of the era, you seem to have been expected to have the periodic table of elements memorized for immediate recall. Check this bit of mental meanderings from the Martian Manhunter, fighting an iron being on a distant planet in a 1961 issue of Justice League of America: "If I can't get in to Kromm, maybe I can bring Kromm to me! To do that I must find some lodestone ... which has the magnetic property to attract iron ... and that's what Kromm's body is composed of! If I can't find any lodestone, I'll have to make some out of hematite, of which there is an abundant supply! The chemical formula for hematite is Fe2O3 -- for lodestone, Fe3O4! With my Martian knoweldge of transmutation, I'll add one atom of iron and one of oxygen to hematite ... thus obtaining lodestone!"

Got all that? That's why this guy was in the Justice League. That and meritorious achievement in the use of exclamation points.

But then there are some moments that are just hysterically funny. Which brings us to Superman's cake, above. That panel is hysterical on so many levels.

First off, Batman apparently has, somewhere in his Batcave, a gigantic Bat-Oven for whenever he may need to bake gigantic amounts of pastry. Holy cholesterol -- not even the 60s TV show went there.

Second off, there's the implicit assumption that just any ol' cake won't do for the Man of Steel. No, Superman has to have a Giant Super Enormous Cake. His appetite, notably, had never been portrayed as being out of comparison with the normal (in fact, the Silver Age-Superman allegedly didn't even need to eat, which is kinda dubious). There was this whole Bigger-Is-Better mindset of the time, I suspect -- and Superman would have nothing but the best, hence the biggest. (I won't even touch those candles with Clark Kent's face, other than to say they're kinda creepy.)

Third: Batman baked the cake. For anyone who's followed the Grim, Inscrutable, Borderline-Misanthropic Dark Knight of the past 20-30 years, that's almost impossible to imagine. The modern Batparanoid has no time to eat a Tic-Tac, let alone bake a Giant Super Enormous Cake -- not until crime and evil have been driven from Gotham and the world is restored to the idyll that existed for a 10-year-old rich kid before his parents were shot.

Fourth: Check out Superman's not-at-all-ambivalent remarks on his confidence in Batman's culinary acumen: Don't worry, I can eat solid steel.

In other words, it doesn't matter what poisonous mound of vileness you're cooked up; I'll probably survive it.

I wouldn't recommend saying such to your significant other the next time he or she feeds you:

"It's a new recipe; I hope you like it."

"Don't worry, I can eat solid steel."

If their eyes aren't shooting kryptonite daggers at you, it's Truest of Love.


*******

Sounds and Images: "Eleanor" (Vigilantes of Love)
State O'Mind: Amused