Superman is bigger than the comics that birthed him, bigger even than the films and the television series that have infused him throughout our culture. He will endure in some form for another seventy-five years and another, because, unlike Spider-Man and Batman, he is not the hero with whom we identify; he is the hero in whom we believe. He is the first, the purest, the ideal. As long as character traits such as selflessness and perseverance manage to retain any cultural currency whatsoever, we will need a Superman to show us what they look like.