April 19, 2024
I never became fascinated or preoccupied with comic books, not even when they sold for 10 cents apiece. And for the life of me I cannot understand how a comic book can become a collector’s item worth $1 million today.
However, the June 1938 issue of Action Comics, featuring the first appearance of Superman (holding a green sedan over his head) was sold for a cool million dollars recently. Admittedly, Superman, with the possible exception of Spiderman, is the most iconic fictional super hero to grace the American landscape in the last 100 years.
From the beginning when Clark Kent, the mild mannered reporter of the Daily Planet, sensed trouble in Metropolis he would dash into a phone booth or a closet and rip off his shirt, expose the bright red “S” on his action hero attire, unfurl his red cape, and fly off to assist some poor soul in distress, foil a bank robbery, or thwart the evil deeds of his arch enemy, Lex Luthor.
Superman is not just a mighty hero, but an American hero who dedicated his life to “truth, justice, and the American way.” Those of us who watched George Reeves fight crime with the help of his friends from the Daily Planet saw him as a champion for this country’s way of life.
After all, Superman is “faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings with a single bound.” But even this “Man of Steel” has an Achilles heel – kryptonite. When Superman comes in contact with kryptonite he becomes as weak as a newborn kitten.
Anyone who would shell out a million dollars for a comic book, even a first edition 1938 Superman comic book, has a weakness as well. It is called misplaced priorities, a Superman obsession, or maybe even lunacy.
However, my opinion of Superman as a fictional hero has been diminished because I just read an article indicating that this fanciful, but spectacular, superhero has renounced his American citizenship. Although that announcement was not made recently, I just found out about it.
Superman was miraculously transported to Earth from the dying planet of Krypton and was adopted by a family in Smallville, Kansas. However, in the report I read this champion of the nation’s basic values has now decided that he wants to stand for something bigger than the United States.
According to the New York Times, Superman went before the United Nations and declared, “I’m tired of having my actions construed as instruments of U.S. policy. Truth, justice, and the American way – it’s not enough anymore.”
When I read this I saw it as a veiled attempt to introduce the principle of globalism into our society in a new and inventive way. To have Superman as the hero of the world rather than just the United States sounds innocent enough, even benevolent. However, it is just like so many other issues being introduced into our society to diminish America’s founding principles, our exceptionalism – yes, and our sovereignty.
The removal of trade barriers and tariffs, the elimination of national borders, the quest for a universal language, the push for a single global currency, and the advocacy of religious pluralism all serve to promote the idea of globalism. And now the publishers of Superman have gotten into the act.
Dennis Prager, writing for the Conservative Institute, stated, “To the liberal publishers of Superman, the hero’s American identity just didn’t feel right. Maybe that was what people wanted from 1938 to the late 20th century. But this national security stuff has got to go. We should all be world citizens.
“This example illustrates a primary difference between left and right: their respective views of nationalism and national identity. The rejection of national identities began with the founder of leftism, Karl Marx. He ends his major work, Das Kapital, with the famous left-wing motto, ‘Proletariat of the world, unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.'
“Marx regarded national identities as backward and useless. In his view, the only identities that mattered were class identities — the working class and the ruling class. If a worker thought of himself first as a German or Englishman, rather than as a worker, Communism would never be achieved.”
Marx’s view of globalism is antithetical to a Christian worldview. Globalism is a secular, humanistic religion of sorts that envisions a one-world government. While the church is global and the Kingdom of God is not constrained by national borders, we dare not seek to establish a one-world system and amalgamate the political, economic, and particularly the religious views of all the nations into one homogenized philosophy of religion. It would be disastrous!
According to Dan Koenig, teacher of Bible prophecy, globalism is actually doomed to fail, because you cannot have global unity when the world is fragmented and divided over so many issues. The world has created more nation states, not less. In 1990 there were 79 countries in the world. Today there are about 200 and new nations are being created every year.
During her campaign for president in 2016 Hillary Clinton said, “My dream is a hemispheric common market with open trade and open borders.”
However, it does not look like that is happening at this time even though there are politicians and business tycoons trying to achieve international unity and a one-world government. Such a government will exist for a short period of time under the rule of the beast/antichrist; but it will ultimately fail under that demonic leadership according to the last book of the Bible (Revelation 13-17).
