the boy scout myth

[Gernot]

Heck, DC had a FEW of their heroes become immature jerks.  Clark Kent became an unreliable hick, Batman became an emotionally stunted paranoid, and Green Lantern was turned into a drunk. 

Thank goodness for the Chronicles and Showcase volumes! 

[unclesporkums]

I don't know about DKR. In Superman II in 1980 (Donner's/Mankiewicz's footage shot around 1977) Otis refers to Superman as an "Overgrown Boy Scout"

[Nykor]

If it helps any, the earliest reference I could find of Supes described as a boy scout was on page 25 of the essay The Spawn of M.C. Gaines, written by Ted White, the opening piece in the nostalgic essay collection All in Color for a Dime. All was published in 1970, though Wikipedia says that the pieces contained therein were written in the early sixties.

[carmine]

I don't see how even Silver Age Superman was much of a boy scout other than being "morally upstanding". It's not like he spends a lot of time camping.

[TELLE]

Uncle Mxy (above) posted the cover to Superboy #15 (1951) featuring SB tying a tree in a knot to impress some Scouts. The feature story has Superboy actually joining the Smallville Boy Scout troop.

The whole thing is summarized here, at Comic Book Resources: http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2012/01/31/comic-book-questions-answered-was-superman-the-big-blue-boy-scout-ever-an-actual-boy-scout/

[TELLE]

Batman, Robin and Superman salute the BSA (World's Finest #46)

[Nykor]

If it helps any, the earliest reference I could find of Supes described as a boy scout was on page 25 of the essay The Spawn of M.C. Gaines, written by Ted White, the opening piece in the nostalgic essay collection All in Color for a Dime. All was published in 1970, though Wikipedia says that the pieces contained therein were written in the early sixties.

I should have included the context of the quote and the quote itself above: White was discussing the unlikelihood of a Golden Age young Superman fan caring whether the creators (Ellsworth, et al.) got the physics of Superman right; in the next paragraph, he said, "Superman was a myth-figure: he was our dreams personified, even as he must have been Siegel and Shuster's. Superman was, almost literally, the perfect Boy Scout. We still believed in Boy Scouts then."

[Adekis]

Huh. I know people have used the phrase "Boy Scout" ironically for a long time, but I didn't realize we already "didn't believe in" them by 1970. That seems awfully early.

Of course, in this day and age it's easy to see why the term is often disparaging, and to see why we often get bent out of shape when Superman is called a Boy Scout. Until 2014, boys were denied membership to the scouting program for not being straight! Until just last year, openly gay adults weren't allowed in the organization as troop leaders or what have you, and still allow for individual troops run by religious organizations to practice this kind of unfair discrimination. Transgender boys are completely excluded, though trans girls are not excluded from Girl Scouts. Not to mention the BSA's exclusionary stance toward atheists, despite having "respects the beliefs of others" listed in the Scout Handbook.

I could imagine Clark being one of those Eagle Scouts who mailed his badge back to the national organization over the discrimination that atheists and trans boys face from the organization. Calling Superman a Boy Scout doesn't just speak to our national cynicism about Boy Scouts, it also makes a political statement about Superman that I think is inconsistent with his character.