Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero by Danny Fingeroth

Abigail Sanchez
HSPC 104

Disguised as Clark Kent is a very interesting book it goes from telling the history of how the book came to be and the book is divided into four sections as I liked to see the first second it talks about how the Jewish came to America to live a better life and accomplish the dream they knew they couldn’t make a reality back home. When comics were first made they weren’t very popular but they were created to give people hope when there was none left. Even if life was the worst it could be comics gave the people an escape to a world where they were hope where dreams came true.  A large number of the creators of the most famous superheroes were of Jewish background, secular, religious, or both. The book explores how the Jewish consciousness of these individuals impacted the content of the comics and contributed to making characters such as Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, and Wonder Woman into the most familiar popular-culture icons of all time--on television and in movies, as well as in the four-color pages in which they originated. As immigrants with a history of persecution, Jews came to America with their heads down but their eyes open. Finding in America a civilization freer of officially sanctioned anti-Semitism and replete with a philosophy that allowed the individual to succeed to the extent of his or her abilities, Jews were faced with unprecedented freedom and opportunity. Yet there were limits, spoken and unspoken, that they dared not push. Many were relegated to trades and fields with a taint of shabbiness to them. The garment business was one. Another was entertainment, of which the outer edges of the formerly old-line publishing industry was another: the pulps and the comics. Fingeroth reflects on the phenomenon of the heavily Jewish elements that, consciously or not, went into the creation of the superhero. Centering on questions of Jewish identity, which is historically about the push and pull toward and away from that very identity, "Disguised as Clark Kent" brings valuable insight into the fantasies that fuel our imaginations and entertainment industry, as well as many significant and often hidden aspects of our society. Fingeroth admits that in researching his book, many of the creators of the superheroes he interviewed denied that there was anything particularly Jewish about their creations. They also claimed that they never experienced anti-Semitism in the comic-book business nor did they recollect any serious discussions with their peers about how predominantly Jewish the business and the creative end of the industry were. Fingeroth, nevertheless, disagrees with this assessment. He contends that Jews have been attracted to social movements such as socialism, communism, Zionism, and Freudianism What they had in common was “a desire to rebuild the world in a way that would transcend the petty hates and prejudices of the human condition.” Fingeroth notes that the comic-book industry was preceded by the world of science fiction writing, which found its outlet in the pulp magazines, foremost of which was one edited by a Jewish immigrant, Hugo Gernsback. Like the comic books, these publications included stories, mostly by Jews, that explored the possibilities of new technologies as a means to improve humankind’s condition. Fingeroth further notes that Jewish cartoonist Jack Kirby’s Spider-Man, who is described by his creator as a misunderstood adolescent longing to be acknowledged as the well-intentioned person he was, echoed the immigrant Jews’ quest for acceptance. Similarly, the X-Men were members of a persecuted group (mutants) who just wanted to fit into a “world that hates and fears them. Fingeroth notes that by the 1970s, the ethnic background of the superhero no longer needed to be disguised, and the comic-book industry proceeded to showcase the identities of certain Jewish characters. This very interesting book sheds light not only on the role Jews have played in the creation of the comic-book superhero, but also their enormous contribution to American popular culture in general. It was a really interesting book to read and  now I know how it fits into our class it shows how the Jewish struggled a lot and no matter how bad they had it they never gave up they found ways to have hope and not give up on that dream that they always wanted.