7 ms·

"‘Oh yeah, we need to know if you’re a citizen.’ You know, I was born and raised in Kansas like Superman" Superman was an undocumented alien.

haloux 8y ago
. . .(but superman wasn't _born_ in Kansas)
- mnw21cam 8y ago
  Yeah, and there was one episode of the TV series where a reporter asked to see his green card.
- bobbyi_settv 8y ago
  He was conceived on Krypton. He was born in Kansas when the Kents discovered the crashed ship containing him in his "birthing matrix" (Kryptonian artificial womb) and he emerged from it. At least, that was official origin in the comics starting with John Byrne's The Man of Steel in 1986 and for several decades afterward. That version of the story also explains why he looks enough like the Kents to pass for their biological son: the birthing matrix is designed to shape the child to look like whoever removes him from it because only his parents are supposed to do that.
  - jaclaz 8y ago
    >At least, that was official origin in the comics starting with John Byrne's The Man of Steel in 1986 and for several decades afterward. For someone born in or around 1938 (actually earlier as the first 1938 stories depict him already as a past-teen age man) reading the story as re-written in 1986 is not particularly reliable. In the original Kar-El was born on Krypton allright and sent to the Earth as a newborn. And - whether he was actually born on Krypton or on the Earth - the Certificate of Birth is definitely false IF it states that Jonathan and Martha Kent are their parents, an on th eother hand actually adopting him wouldn't have been as easy as it may seem from the comics strips. See also (for fun): http://thelegalgeeks.com/2016/06/18/how-did-ma-and-pa-kent-adopt-superman/ http://thelegalgeeks.com/2016/06/18/how-did-ma-and-pa-kent-a... In any case I would say that Superman's citizenship and actual legality of documents as Clark Kent are highly debatable, and I wouldn't be using that as an example for proving US citizenship.
    - cardiffspaceman 8y ago
      I don't know if this is researchable but I think the animated Superman TV show shows a human infant going through space before arriving in Kansas. It sounds very close if not identical to what you have here.
      - jaclaz 8y ago
        Strictly speaking not human, he is an alien. ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_Superman#Pre-Crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_Superman#Pre-Crisis "In 1938, DC Comics published Superman's debut in Action Comics #1, Siegel and Shuster were required to cut the story down to thirteen pages, and so the origin story was reduced to a single page. The story described a scientist on an unnamed doomed planet placing his infant son into a hastily designed spaceship and launching it toward Earth. When the spaceship lands, a passing motorist finds it and turns the child over to a local orphanage" "The first issue of Superman, published in 1939, also featured the origin story. Max Gaines had written to Siegel and Shuster and asked them to expand the origin sequence to two pages, and to include four pages that detailed how Clark Kent became a journalist as well as a full page feature that expanded on the scientific explanation for Superman's powers. In this issue, the passing motorists are revealed to be the Kents, who leave him at the local orphan asylum but later return to adopt him. " etc. I guess you are talking of the circa 1995 series: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_Superman#Superman:_The_Animated_Series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_Superman#Superman:_T... first episode was titled "The Last Son of Krypton", not "Yet another baby from Kansas".
        cardiffspaceman 8y ago
        I think 1995 is too recent for me to have seen it at the age I saw it. Perhaps the Fleischer Studios one[1] was running on TV at the right time? Let's leave that as a rhetorical question having nothing to do with TFA on BofA. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_(1940s_cartoons) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_(1940s_cartoons)
        8y ago
cryptozeus 8y ago
Lol....man the world we live in. I remember growing up thinking superman was the most American thing you can think of and now a days its about immigration. In that sense all Americans other than natives are illegal immigrants :)
- ataturk 8y ago
  Leave it to idiots to use Superman as some kind of example as to why illegal immigration is good! You need to hear yourselves. Just to play along, Superman's human parents played him off as their own child, so more like an adopted kid. Also, back in the '40s or whenever the hell Superman comics began, there wasn't instant "Mark of the Beast" SSNs applied to all infants and things were much more wishy washy as far as who came from where because a) nobody cared and b) here was not massive welfare available and thus no welfare fraud. Lastly, unlike the teeming multitudes of leeches, Superman was actually a productive citizen. ETA: Know Your Customer (KYA) was begun after 9/11 during the Bush Administration's acceleration of Orweillan policies designed to make extra billions for corporations that provide services to government. Same old same old.
- nebulous1 8y ago
  " In that sense all Americans other than natives are illegal immigrants" Well, no. Decedents of though.
  - mac01021 8y ago
    "Natives", here, clearly means people born in the country, rather than aboriginal.
  - tialaramex 8y ago
    Birth right citizenship was invented by the White American colonists who decided that fuck the cost of setting up the colonies, they were going to be "free" now and do whatever they wanted. If you arrive somewhere and decide that the new rules say you were always in charge and you get to choose all the rules, don't for a moment think those rules are any more legitimate just because you say so. Nobody asked America's existing inhabitants whether they wanted European colonies. The Europeans took whatever they pleased. Nobody asked them for permission to form the United States of America either. And that birthright citizenship of course didn't apply to those native inhabitants except - after the old white men running things started to very slowly become aware of how amazingly racist they were - retrospectively. It also didn't apply to all the black slaves they'd imported, or the cheap Chinese labour they imported for decades. Those weren't white people, and so, thanks to racism, they weren't counted as "people" at all and weren't entitled to your imagined birthright citizenship. It's all very ugly underneath. "I'm declaring myself owner of this whole cake. Now, I'm going to give you one small slice to share between you. Don't fuss! It's my cake after all, even if you did make it".
Meekro 8y ago
Clark Kent was legally adopted by citizens as an infant, and is therefore legal.
- lagadu 8y ago
  After illegally gaining entry to the country. That said he might qualify for refugee status, depending on whether the state is willing to recognize Krypton.
- mikeash 8y ago
  I don’t think that follows. You don’t become a citizen merely by being adopted by citizens. You can eventually become naturalized if you fit the criteria, but having entered illegally tends to be a huge obstacle to that.
- magduf 8y ago
  Um, I don't remember it this way, at least not from the 1978 movie. How would they legally adopt him when his origin was completely unknown (well, the Kents couldn't exactly tell the county officials about finding him in an object from space that landed in their back yard...)? They didn't get into the legalities in the movie, but presumably they just claimed they had him naturally. Of course, this is lying, but as far as the government is concerned, he should be legal.
- LinuxBender 8y ago
  Was he declared abandoned and legally became a ward of the state for a brief moment?
PKop 8y ago
So was Zod.
- castlecrasher2 8y ago
  tell that to Zod's snapped neck
tzs 8y ago
For those interested in a more technical discussion by lawyers of Superman's legal status, check out this post on "Law and the Multiverse" [1]. [1] http://lawandthemultiverse.com/2010/12/22/superheros-and-immigration-status/ http://lawandthemultiverse.com/2010/12/22/superheros-and-imm...

haloux 8y ago

. . .(but superman wasn't _born_ in Kansas)

mnw21cam 8y ago
Yeah, and there was one episode of the TV series where a reporter asked to see his green card.
bobbyi_settv 8y ago
He was conceived on Krypton. He was born in Kansas when the Kents discovered the crashed ship containing him in his "birthing matrix" (Kryptonian artificial womb) and he emerged from it. At least, that was official origin in the comics starting with John Byrne's The Man of Steel in 1986 and for several decades afterward. That version of the story also explains why he looks enough like the Kents to pass for their biological son: the birthing matrix is designed to shape the child to look like whoever removes him from it because only his parents are supposed to do that.
- jaclaz 8y ago
  >At least, that was official origin in the comics starting with John Byrne's The Man of Steel in 1986 and for several decades afterward. For someone born in or around 1938 (actually earlier as the first 1938 stories depict him already as a past-teen age man) reading the story as re-written in 1986 is not particularly reliable. In the original Kar-El was born on Krypton allright and sent to the Earth as a newborn. And - whether he was actually born on Krypton or on the Earth - the Certificate of Birth is definitely false IF it states that Jonathan and Martha Kent are their parents, an on th eother hand actually adopting him wouldn't have been as easy as it may seem from the comics strips. See also (for fun): http://thelegalgeeks.com/2016/06/18/how-did-ma-and-pa-kent-adopt-superman/ http://thelegalgeeks.com/2016/06/18/how-did-ma-and-pa-kent-a... In any case I would say that Superman's citizenship and actual legality of documents as Clark Kent are highly debatable, and I wouldn't be using that as an example for proving US citizenship.
  - cardiffspaceman 8y ago
    I don't know if this is researchable but I think the animated Superman TV show shows a human infant going through space before arriving in Kansas. It sounds very close if not identical to what you have here.
    - jaclaz 8y ago
      Strictly speaking not human, he is an alien. ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_Superman#Pre-Crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_Superman#Pre-Crisis "In 1938, DC Comics published Superman's debut in Action Comics #1, Siegel and Shuster were required to cut the story down to thirteen pages, and so the origin story was reduced to a single page. The story described a scientist on an unnamed doomed planet placing his infant son into a hastily designed spaceship and launching it toward Earth. When the spaceship lands, a passing motorist finds it and turns the child over to a local orphanage" "The first issue of Superman, published in 1939, also featured the origin story. Max Gaines had written to Siegel and Shuster and asked them to expand the origin sequence to two pages, and to include four pages that detailed how Clark Kent became a journalist as well as a full page feature that expanded on the scientific explanation for Superman's powers. In this issue, the passing motorists are revealed to be the Kents, who leave him at the local orphan asylum but later return to adopt him. " etc. I guess you are talking of the circa 1995 series: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_Superman#Superman:_The_Animated_Series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_Superman#Superman:_T... first episode was titled "The Last Son of Krypton", not "Yet another baby from Kansas".
      - cardiffspaceman 8y ago
        I think 1995 is too recent for me to have seen it at the age I saw it. Perhaps the Fleischer Studios one[1] was running on TV at the right time? Let's leave that as a rhetorical question having nothing to do with TFA on BofA. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_(1940s_cartoons) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_(1940s_cartoons)
        8y ago

cryptozeus 8y ago

Lol....man the world we live in. I remember growing up thinking superman was the most American thing you can think of and now a days its about immigration. In that sense all Americans other than natives are illegal immigrants :)

ataturk 8y ago
Leave it to idiots to use Superman as some kind of example as to why illegal immigration is good! You need to hear yourselves. Just to play along, Superman's human parents played him off as their own child, so more like an adopted kid. Also, back in the '40s or whenever the hell Superman comics began, there wasn't instant "Mark of the Beast" SSNs applied to all infants and things were much more wishy washy as far as who came from where because a) nobody cared and b) here was not massive welfare available and thus no welfare fraud. Lastly, unlike the teeming multitudes of leeches, Superman was actually a productive citizen. ETA: Know Your Customer (KYA) was begun after 9/11 during the Bush Administration's acceleration of Orweillan policies designed to make extra billions for corporations that provide services to government. Same old same old.
nebulous1 8y ago
" In that sense all Americans other than natives are illegal immigrants" Well, no. Decedents of though.
- mac01021 8y ago
  "Natives", here, clearly means people born in the country, rather than aboriginal.
- tialaramex 8y ago
  Birth right citizenship was invented by the White American colonists who decided that fuck the cost of setting up the colonies, they were going to be "free" now and do whatever they wanted. If you arrive somewhere and decide that the new rules say you were always in charge and you get to choose all the rules, don't for a moment think those rules are any more legitimate just because you say so. Nobody asked America's existing inhabitants whether they wanted European colonies. The Europeans took whatever they pleased. Nobody asked them for permission to form the United States of America either. And that birthright citizenship of course didn't apply to those native inhabitants except - after the old white men running things started to very slowly become aware of how amazingly racist they were - retrospectively. It also didn't apply to all the black slaves they'd imported, or the cheap Chinese labour they imported for decades. Those weren't white people, and so, thanks to racism, they weren't counted as "people" at all and weren't entitled to your imagined birthright citizenship. It's all very ugly underneath. "I'm declaring myself owner of this whole cake. Now, I'm going to give you one small slice to share between you. Don't fuss! It's my cake after all, even if you did make it".

Meekro 8y ago

Clark Kent was legally adopted by citizens as an infant, and is therefore legal.

lagadu 8y ago
After illegally gaining entry to the country. That said he might qualify for refugee status, depending on whether the state is willing to recognize Krypton.
mikeash 8y ago
I don’t think that follows. You don’t become a citizen merely by being adopted by citizens. You can eventually become naturalized if you fit the criteria, but having entered illegally tends to be a huge obstacle to that.
magduf 8y ago
Um, I don't remember it this way, at least not from the 1978 movie. How would they legally adopt him when his origin was completely unknown (well, the Kents couldn't exactly tell the county officials about finding him in an object from space that landed in their back yard...)? They didn't get into the legalities in the movie, but presumably they just claimed they had him naturally. Of course, this is lying, but as far as the government is concerned, he should be legal.
LinuxBender 8y ago
Was he declared abandoned and legally became a ward of the state for a brief moment?

PKop 8y ago

So was Zod.

castlecrasher2 8y ago
tell that to Zod's snapped neck

tzs 8y ago

For those interested in a more technical discussion by lawyers of Superman's legal status, check out this post on "Law and the Multiverse" [1]. [1] http://lawandthemultiverse.com/2010/12/22/superheros-and-immigration-status/ http://lawandthemultiverse.com/2010/12/22/superheros-and-imm...