Look, up in the sky - it's a bird - it's a plane - it's...the Messiah!

If you've been walking around New York City today, you might have come across Jews for Jesus distributing Superman Returns flyers. The point its authors, Chad and Kathleen Elliott, make is that the world feels it doesn't need Superman and we similarly feel we don't need a savior. But, say the Elliotts, "sin is the kryptonite of our world. It weakens our ability to choose what's right and it will eventually kill us." [Full disclosure: Chad Elliott is a colleague and friend. However, we have never conversed on the subject of Superman.]

An interesting question comes up about Superman. Is he, as some maintain, a "Christ-figure." And how can anyone answer yes, when as everyone knows, Superman's creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, were both Jewish. In fact, so is Superman Returns director Bryan Singer.

One of the more interesting advocates of the "Christ figure" idea is Steve Skelton, author of The Gospel According to the World's Greatest Superhero. According to Skelton, while the original Superman may not have been a Jesus figure in the minds of Siegel and Shuster, the "Superman canon"—the sum total of all the comics and movies since the early days—gives a different picture.

"El" in Jor-El and Kal-El, as often noted by others too, is the Hebrew word for "God." According to one web site, discussing the pilot episode for Smallville, "in the climax, Clark Kent hangs on a scarecrow cross with kryptonite (a metaphor for sin according to Skelton) around his neck. And again, the parallel is no coincidence. 'I thought there were a lot of metaphors between Clark [Kent] and Jesus actually. And I tried to throw in as many of them as I could,' the episode's director said on the DVD version of the show." Skelton has also noted that in Superman Returns, Superman's father sent his only son to Earth to show humans "the light."

Some views pro and con are given briefly in "Jesus Christ Superman" on CNN online.

Besides the question of whether Superman is a Christ figure, there's the question of whether Superman is "Jewish." Rabbi Simcha Weinstein (pictured here), the "Comic Book Rabbi" and author of Up, Up, and Oy Vey! weighs in on Superman's Jewishness. So does Blair Kramer, who writes that

Despite his superhuman powers, Superman shared some characteristic traits with a majority of American Jews in the 1940s. Like them, he had arrived in America from a foreign world. His entire family—in fact his entire race—had been wiped out in a holocaust-like disaster on his home planet, Krypton. Like German Jewish parents who sent their children on the kindertransports, or the baby Moses set adrift in the bull rushes, Superman's parents launched him to Earth in hopes that he would survive. And while the mild-mannered Clark Kent held a white collar job as a reporter by day, the “real” man behind Kent's meek exterior was a virile, indestructible crusader for justice. This fantasy must have resonated among American Jews, who felt powerless to help their brethren in the death camps of Europe.

Of course, since Jesus was Jewish, it's possible that Superman is a symbol of both Jewishness and of the Messiah. Isn't it, friends of Superman?

Jimmy Olson: Jeepers! You mean Superman is really Jesus?

Perry White: Great Caesar's ghost! I have no time for that nonsense!

Lois Lane (to herself): I always suspected that Superman was Jesus. And some day, I'll find a way to prove it!

You can also check out my exploration of this topic elsewhere.

Superman Logo courtesy Warner Brothers.