My buddy Russ was a good football player. About my size, so not a moose, but strong. Sadly, he never really got along with our high school football coach, so his playing time was limited. One Thursday before a Friday game, the coach was going through the game plan: telling the assembled team in some detail general and specific assignments. The team we'd play was bigger, so we'd have to trap-block. The guards would drop back from their man, and run down the line and catch the advancing defensive tackle or linebacker on the opposite side of the line. The running back would take a fake and the fullback would hit the gap between the right-side guard and tackle. Stuff like that. After about 10 minutes, Coach Korn asked the team if we had any questions. Russ, knowing he was not going to be playing the next day- and knowing that the coach knew he knew this- raised his hand. Coach Korn eyed Russ warily: "What is it, Baggett?". "Coach", Russ said as the 80 or so half-padded players looked on. "Coach. If Jesus Christ and Superman got into a fight, who do you think would win?". Through considerable effort, I managed not to laugh.
Fast forward thirty-five years: Last night, Lady Di and I saw "Man of Steel" at Walterboro's lone theater, Ivanhoe Cinema 4, and Russ's question popped up again. Confused? Well, yeah. See, in "Man of Steel", Superman is presented as a Jesus figure. Jor-El (played by Russell Crowe), a scientist from Krypton, seeing his planet about to implode, puts his infant son in a ship to a similar planet- Earth- to save his child and maybe to save Earth. Young Kal-El is found in Smallville, Kansas, by the Kent family. Dad (played by Kevin Costner), obviously knows his boy is different, because, you know, he found the kid in a space-ship. Mom and dad also discover his amazing strength, lazar vision, and lightning speed. Over the course of time, mom nurtures him, and Dad tells him he's obviously got a very special reason for being there, and eventually he'll know, but in the meantime, to keep his head down and not to tell anyone about his powers, because he doesn't know his purpose yet, and the world just won't understand him. Not hard to imagine another adoptive father, Joseph, telling young Jesus the same thing. When some bad guys- who, by virtue of their timely banishment managed to survive Krypton's destruction- arrive to conquer and colonize Earth, Superman has to step up to save Earth. Guess how old is at this auspicious moment? How's 33 grab you? There are plenty of other parallels between Superman and Jesus, and I'm quite sure they've been pointed out by lots of folks before (when I excitedly mentioned my theory in my post-mortum of the movie to Lady Di, she was all, "Duh!", so, I'm evidently not breaking any new ground here). Anyway, I thought of Russ, Leto Falcon football, and Coach Korn. And I've finally got an answer: Russ, Jesus wouldn't fight Superman. Jesus is Superman.
