Every Messiah Fails, The Moment He Tries

I Was Thinking, Too, Of Superman And His Fortress Of Solitude.

His Dreams Had Always Been Houdiniesque: They Were The Dreams Of A Pupa Struggling In Its Blind Cocoon, Mad For A Taste Of Light And Air.

As For Comics, One Has Only To Turn To The Characteristic Output Of Marvel Comics, For The Period From About 1961 To About 1975, To Find Not An Expression Of Base And Cynical Impulses But Of Good, Old-fashioned Liberal Humanism Of A Kind That May Strike Us Today, God Help Us, As Quaint, But Which Nevertheless Appealed, In Story After Story, To Ideals Such As Tolerance, Technological Optimism, And Self-sacrifice For The Benefit Of Others.

Along The Way, He Or She Discovers That The World Has Been Broken For As Long As Anyone Can Remember. Everyone, Sooner Or Later, Gets A Thorough Schooling In Brokenness. The Question Becomes What To Do With The Pieces?

[my Dad] Didn't Do Much Apart From The Traditional Winning Of Bread. He Didn't Take Me To Get My Hair Cut Or My Teeth Cleaned; He Didn't Make The Appointments. He Didn't Shop For My Clothes. He Didn't Make My Breakfast, Lunch, Or Dinner. My Mom Did All Of Those Things, And Nobody Ever Told Her When She Did Them That It Made Her A Good Mother.