Superman [Cart. & Com.; Cin.] A US comic-book superhero who possesses prodigious strength, the ability to fly, X-ray vision, and other powers which help him to battle against crime and evil. His alter ego is Clark Kent, a shy, bespectacled reporter for the Daily Planet newspaper.
He is invulnerable except when exposed to pieces of the green rock Kryptonite, fragments of the planet of his birth, Krypton. Superman was created by the writer Jerry Siegel and the artist Joe Shuster, both aged 17, in 1938.
A man of extraordinary power or ability; a man who performs brave deeds or comes to someone's rescue.
‘You haven't met Zach Ralston. He's one man in a million, Jacob.’ ‘Well, he damn well better be Superman, to drag me all the way out here to the doggamned tundra.’ Deannie Francis Mills "The Trap Door" 1995
You're mixing me up with Superman. I just do what I can to hold the tide back a bit. I leave saving planets to the Met. Liz Evans "Who Killed Marilyn Monroe?" 1997
How to cite this entry: "Superman" The Oxford Dictionary of Reference and Allusion. by Andrew Delahunty and Sheila Dignen. Oxford University Press Inc. The Oxford Dictionary of Reference and Allusion. Oxford University Press. 23 February 2012
