Comics Journal writer Tom Crippen titled an essay about Superman "The Big Dumb Dream." It's funny because it's true: Superman, and the superheroes that followed him, are, as dreams go, big and dumb. There's a kind of genius to that bigness and dumbness. If people like strong, powerful heroes, why not create a hero who is exponentially stronger and more powerful than any hero ever seen before? But the genius is also the genius of the lowest-common-denominator panderer. Siegel and Shuster, Superman's creators, figured out exactly what big, dumb thing the public wanted--and the rest is history.
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