JLA #4

[history79]

8 pages of 24

Comments

[icon_uk]

Yup, Superman being a Rao-ist makes no sense at all. (and one reason Byrne altered Superman's default explative from "Great Rao!" to "Great Scott" was that Clark Kent invoking Kryptonian deities when he'd been raised human was a no-no)

[laughing_tree]

I'd say "Great Rao" makes perfect sense in the context of someone purposely wanting to connect with their heritage because they realize it'll otherwise go extinct. It's like those Native American groups whose ancestral language died out long ago but are now purposely trying to revive it. It's the sort of thing Superman would want to do, I think.

[icon_uk]

If he was a fervent Rao-ist then I'd say fair enough, but he never seemed to be, he used the words without meaning beyond a mild expletive ,or if they did have meaning he never showed it, which would seem a bit hypocritical.

[laughing_tree]

Any more hypocritical than an atheist saying "oh my god" or "Christ" as exclamations? Plus, Rao was the name of their sun too, wasn't it, so it has a meaning beyond the religious one.

[junipepper]

I always thought that was a deliberate act by Superman -- presenting a different persona than Clark Kent. But that it was also meaningful to him in its own way. Kal-El is who he would have been if things had been different.

Adopted children very often seek out connections to their birth heritage.

[espanolbot]

Right, it'd be like if Worf cursed by invoking Klingon gods as a kid despite being raised by human adopted parents in Minsk. Sure, he could be invoking his people's culture, but since (like Clark) he approached his culture from the outside, as it were, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.