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Man of Tomorrow
Wednesday, May 31st, 2006 by joelSuperman is billed as, among other things, the “Man of Tomorrow!� The reason for this? I am not certain what the original writers of Superman comics were thinking when they decided this would be an appropriate tag-line for the “Also Man of Steel,� but what it MEANS is that Superman is an ideal, a goal, for humanity in general. He supposedly came from a planet of people advanced both physically and intellectually, who had no war and no crime. So Superman is, apparently, an evolutionary mark we hope to hit one day in the future. To be physically superior to the point that we are indestructible, but morally and intellectually superior to the point that the physical superiority really isn’t needed to, say, survive a hostile world or fight crime.
We tend to have this idea that, while wisdom and secrets lie in the past, knowledge and intelligence lie in the future. There are essentially two visions of the future propagated in science fiction. The first is a Utopian concept that the future will be, if not perfect, then much, much better. Star Trek is probably the most obvious example of this vision. Did I just mention both Superman and Star Trek in the same article? Is there any way I could convince you all at this point that I am not, in fact, a geek?
Back on track, the second idea of the future is the Dystopian concept. This one states that the future holds nothing but death, tragedy, and pain. For this we could look at “1984� or “Fahrenheit 451� or “The Terminator� or “Mad Max�. Hopefully you get the point.
I, myself, tend to be more of a Topian kind of guy. I don’t tend to believe the world gets significantly better or worse as time goes on. New advances in science and technology bring with them new headaches and stresses and unfortunate circumstances that replace the old ones addressed by the new discoveries.
