Superman: The American Way update in progress

[Daughter of Krypton]

Back in 2001, Michael Mautner kindly submitted his epic poem, Superman: The American Way, told in the same classic tradition as Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey, and we published it online, in installments.  There was a bit of reader discussion on the piece in the now defunct Superman Through the Ages! mailing list; and he also sent along his thesis and a family tree of the "El" family.

I find the whole thing to be brilliantly conceived and executed.

Recently (that is to say, two years ago); he began a youtube series, posting a reading of each Canto of his verse narrative, including scholarly asides.  The audio readings that he has created return the piece to the oral tradition on which the form is based; and the reading is extremely well done and beautiful to listen to.

Because I appreciate hearing it while reading along (it forces me to slow down), I have begun including his videos in each Canto. (note that there are occasionally small differences in the text between the spoken version and the written version; I will be editing the written version to match the newer spoken version. This kind of evolution of the text is part of the oral tradition, so I will be honoring it.)

I am also in the process of updating the American Way section of the site to be a bit more navigable and responsive, along the same lines that I did with the K-Metal section and the new STTA main page.

This is all online here:


(main page: www.supermanthroughtheages.com/americanway/
 or just jump right in here: www.supermanthroughtheages.com/americanway/text/?canto=1 )

and I'll post a follow-up here in this thread after I have completed the update and all of the videos are included.