Yes, you heard that right. Superman renounced his US citizenship. “Truth, justice, and the American way – it’s not enough anymore.” Enough for whom?

Superman was created in the late 1930s to counter Hitler’s Nazi “supermen.” Kids saw him as the personification of our ideal of freedom. But is freedom still our ideal? After prolonged lockdowns and mandates, I doubt it. So we needed a more woke Superman who didn’t need kryptonite to weaken him – he was already weak.

Besides, he couldn’t renounce what he never had. He was born on Krypton and came to Earth as a baby. The Kents took him in but never adopted him legally. How could they? No birth certificate. So he was born on another planet, was never naturalized, and wasn’t human: an alien x 3.

As if that were not enough, now there are hints Superman is bisexual. Add to this the aging, disheartened new James Bond, and we leave boys with video games to find male role models. Many boys, especially minority boys, grow up without fathers. That is, if they grow up at all and become men, rather than merely sexually mature males.

As we do out best to eradicate “toxic masculinity,” China is encouraging masculinity in its boys,  especially in its soldiers. One need not be a prophet to foresee where this is leading. What role models do today’s boys have to emulate? And what role models do today’s girls have to compare prospective husbands or boyfriends to?

I was luckier than many of today’s boys. I had a father and uncles. I had combat veterans as ROTC instructors. I could watch “Fort Apache” and see the flamboyant John Wayne, or the understated courage and dignity of Ward Bond as the sergeant major. I chose the latter to emulate. How far I succeeded is for others to judge. But I tried. Can today’s boys say the same?