Animals

The Animals


All animals are members of the Kingdom Animalia, also called Metazoa. This Kingdom does not contain the prokaryotes (Kingdom Monera, includes bacteria, blue-green algae) or the protists (Kingdom Protista, includes unicellular eukaryotic organisms). All members of the Animalia are multicellular, and all are heterotrophs (that is, they rely directly or indirectly on other organisms for their nourishment). Most ingest food and digest it in an internal cavity.

Animal cells lack the rigid cell walls that characterize plant cells. The bodies of most animals (all except sponges) are made up of cells organized into tissues, each tissue specialized to some degree to perform specific functions. In most, tissues are organized into even more specialized organs. Most animals are capable of complex and relatively rapid movement compared to plants and other organisms. Most reproduce sexually, by means of differentiated eggs and sperm. Most animals are diploid, meaning that the cells of adults contain two copies of the genetic material. The development of most animals is characterized by distinctive stages, including a zygote, formed by the product of the first few division of cells following fertilization; a blastula, which is a hollow ball of cells formed by the developing zygote; and a gastrula, which is formed when the blastula folds in on itself to form a double-walled structure with an opening to the outside, the blastopore.

Somewhere around 9 or 10 million species of animals inhabit the earth; the exact number is not known and even our estimates are very rough. Animals range in size from no more than a few cells to organisms weighing many tons, such as blue whales and giant squid. By far most species of animals are insects, with groups such as mollusks and nematodes also being especially diverse. By this measure our own group, the vertebrates, is relatively inconsequential.

Research continues on the evolutionary relationships of the major groups of animals. For the sake of convenience, we shall follow the system outlined in Hickman and Roberts (1994), but for some groups we shall incorporate the results of current research in our classification and discussion.

Contributors

Phil Myers (author), Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan.
2009/03/29 02:02:08.805 GMT-4


To cite this page: Myers, P. 2001. "Animalia" (On-line), Animal Diversity Web. Accessed April 03, 2009 at http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Animalia.html.


Disclaimer: The Animal Diversity Web is an educational resource written largely by and for college students. ADW doesn't cover all species in the world, nor does it include all the latest scientific information about organisms we describe. Though we edit our accounts for accuracy, we cannot guarantee all information in those accounts. While ADW staff and contributors provide references to books and websites that we believe are reputable, we cannot necessarily endorse the contents of references beyond our control.

Other formats: OWL

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Dragon Ball Z

DRAGON BALL ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ


Goku:

Goku is a pure-hearted saiyan who defeats all opponents. He is the first to turn into a Super Saiyan in 1,000 years! He is also the first to reach Super Saiyan Level 3 and Super Saiyan Level 4. Goku is the main and strongest character of DB, DBZ, and DBGT. In DB, he's like the clueless Goten of DBZ, innocent but strong.
In DBZ, he is much more serious and reaches 3 new levels of power.
In DBGT, he is turned into a kid again by a previous villain. Vegeta, his rival, always TRIES to surpass Goku's power but never succeeds. Goku searches the universe for the black star dragonballs so he can wish that the earth won't blow up. Goku never likes to miss a fight, because of this, he dies twice, possibly 3 times. He was supposed to enslave the earth but he fell off a cliff as a child and his mission memory was erased. Although his birth father is Bardock, he was adopted by the old Grandpa Gohan.

Trademark Techniques: Kai-O-Ken,Spirit Bomb, Kamehameha and Instant Transmission


Chichi:

Chichi is the wife of Goku, the overprotective mother of Gohan and Goten and the daughter of the Ox King. Goku and Chichi meet as children at Mt. Frypan and Ox King made Goku a promise for Chichi's hand in marriage for getting Master Roshi. Goku flys off and they meet again in the 23rd annual World's Martial Arts Tournament and Chichi reminds Goku of the promise and Goku, not knowing what marriage is, simply says somthing like "Ok, sounds like fun." After the tournament they get married.
In DBZ, she is Gohan and Goten's extremely overprotective mother bent on Gohan's education (the same goes for GT)!

Trademark Technique: Yelling

Gohan:

Gohan...son of Goku, is one of my favorite characters. He's also one of the coolest fighters. Gohan has been trained by many people, the first was Piccolo in the Saiyan Saga, then Goku trained him in the Room of Spirit and Time/Hyperbolic Time Chamber in the Cell Saga, he was trained by the East Supreme Kai, Gohan was also trained by Kaibit (East Supreme Kai and Kibito fused) and had a 25 hour power-up by the Ancient Supreme Kai (5 hour ceremony, 20 hour actual power-up) in the Buu Saga. In the Raditz Saga, it was the first time he unlocked his hidden powers and in the Cell Saga he used his powers to go Super Saiyan and Super Saiyan Level 2 which led to destroying Cell with a one-armed Kamehameha. In the Buu Saga he "attemted to fight Majin Buu after the Ancient Supreme Kai's power-up but failed. HE also marries a girl named Videl and has a daughter named Pan. In DBGT Gohan went back to school and became a scholar, although, he does aid Goku and the Z fighters occasionally.

Trademark Technique: Kamehameha and Masenko Ha

Goten:

Goten is a pretty funny character in the Buu Saga and looks almost identical to Goku as a kid (except he doesn't have tail and Goku's face and body were and still are fatter) but he has a different uniform. He is also the youngest of all the Super Saiyans but only reaches the first level. Too bad in DBGT he's to worried about getting dates but still helps out Goku and the Z fighters fight. All in all, he's a pretty cool character.

Trademark Technique: Kamehameha

Videl:

Videl is Gohan's classmate at the Orange Star High School and fight s crime with Gohan (the Great Saiyaman). She can also fly snd make energy blasts but very small ones and after a long time of frustration. Videl is daughter the ugly, arrogant, phony, idiotic, fraud.

Hercule:

Ahh yes the idiotic fraud Hercule. The one who claims to have beaten Cell. Actually, he's very relevant. He raises his hand so every one on earth does the same to power up Goku's Spirit Bomb. His daughter Videl is stronger but he doesn't let her know it.

Trademark Technique: Super Megaton Punch (how Hercule first says it)

Pan:

Pan is Gohan and Videl's daughter, she paricipates in the 28th annual World's Martial Arts Tournament and the GT Tournament. Pan also helps Goku fight the Evil Dragons and Gather the Black Star Dragonballs. Pan is a genuine crybaby extraordinare although very strong. She has more than enough potential to be a Super Saiyan but never does, I mean, Goku Jr. has 1/16 saiyan blood and becomes a Super Saiyan and Pan has 1/4 saiyan blood. She just never gets mad enough to go Super Saiyan. Pan is also constantly praised by people for the being the "(not so) Great and
(dis)honorable (and the well-known idiotic Fraud) World Champion!" She is also the grandmother of Goku Jr.

Trademark Technique: Kamehameha


Goku Jr.:

Goku Jr is the great great grandso of Pan and is shown fighting Vegeta Jr. at a Super Saiyan level in the last episode of DBGT. We also see him in the GT TV special and has 1/16 saiyan blood. In the TV special he's is a complete coward/whimp and is bullied by some punk named Pakku at school. He brings the bully along on his quest for the 4-star dragonball at the top of Mt. Paozu. Slowly they become friends as they save each others lives and Goku Jr. becomes very brave and strong. He meets Goku and he tells Goku Jr. he doesn't need the 4-star dragonball or any dragonball to restore Pan's health, he needs courage and love (CORNY).

Trademark Technique: Getting really angry and blasting people away with his energy

The Devils Eyes Introduction

THE EVIL EYE


The evil eye is the name for a sickness transmitted -- usually without intention -- by someone who is envious, jealous, or covetous. It is also called the invidious eye and the envious eye. In Hebrew it is ayin ha'ra (the evil eye), which in Yiddish is variously spelled ayin horoh, ayin hora, or ayen hara. In mainland Italian it is mal occhio (the bad eye) and in Spanish mal ojo or el ojo (the bad eye or just the eye). In Sicily it is jettatore (the projection [from the eye]) and in Farsi it is bla band (the eye of evil).

The evil eye belief is that a person -- otherwise not malific in any way -- can harm you, your children, your livestock, or your fruit trees, by *looking at them* with envy and praising them. The word "evil" is unfortunate in this context because it implies that someone has "cursed" the victim, but such is not the case. A better understanding of the term "evil eye" is gained if you know that the old British and Scottish word for it is "overlooking," which implies merely that the gaze has remained too long upon the coveted object, person, or animal. In other words, the effect of the evil eye is misfortunate, but the person who harbours jealousy and gives the evil eye is not necessarily an evil person per se.

This lengthy article has been subdivided into several sections:

DISTRIBUTION AND HISTORY of the Evil Eye Belief
VERBAL AND PHYSICAL AVERSION of the Evil Eye
DIAGNOSING AND CURING the Evil Eye
CASE HISTORIES of Evil Eye Customs Along the Texas-Mexico Border
APOTROPAIC CHARMS Against the Evil Eye
A WORLD-WIDE SUMMARY of Evil Eye Beliefs
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY and Credits

To save loading time, further commentary and illustrations on the highlighted charms and amulets appear on linked pages.



DISTRIBUTION AND HISTORY OF THE EVIL EYE BELIEF

Many books have been written about the evil eye. The classic 19th century text is "The Evil Eye: The Origins and Practices of Superstition" by Frederick Thomas Elworthy. A short popular survey is "Terrors of the Evil Eye Exposed" (reprinted as "Protection from Evil") by Henri Gamache. The most thought-provoking academic essay i have found on the psychology and the distribution of this belief in world cultures is "Wet and Dry: The Evil Eye" by Professor Alan Dundes, who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. The article can be found in two of his books, "Interpreting Folklore" and "The Evil Eye: A Casebook," the latter a collection of scholarly writings assembled as a text for his anthropology-folklore students.

Dundes theorizes that the evil eye, which has a Middle-Eastern, Mediterranean, and Indo-European distribution pattern and was unknown in the Americas, Pacific Islands, Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa or Australia until the introduction of European culture, is based upon underlying beliefs about water equating to life and dryness equating to death. He posits that the true "evil" done by the evil eye is that it causes living beings to "dry up" -- notably babies, milking animals, young fruit trees, and nursing mothers. The harm caused by overlooking consists of sudden vomiting or diarrhoea in children, drying up of milk in nursing mothers or livestock, withering of fruit on orchard trees, and loss of potency in men. In short, the envious eye "dries up liquids," according to Professor Alan Dundes -- a fact that he contends demonstrates its Middle Eastern desert origins.

As Dundes points out in support of this theory, evil eye belief is geographically spread out in a radiating ring from ancient Sumer, where it apparently got its start. It is mentioned the Torah (the Old Testament of the Bible) and its existence is acknowledged by modern Arabs, Jews, and Christians. The belief extends eastward to India, westward to Spain and Portugal, northward to Scandinavia and Britain, and southward into North Africa. Although many people of European descent think it is universal, in fact China has no evil eye belief -- nor does Korea, Burma, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, Sumatra, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Japan, Australia (aborigine), New Zealand (aborigine), North America (native), South America (native), or any of Africa south of the Sahara. It is generally referred to by scholars as a Semitic and Indo-European belief. The Westernmost pre-Columbian outpost of evil eye belief was along the Atlantic coast -- Ireland, England, Scotland, Spain, Portugal, and France; the easternmost pre-Columbian outpost of evil eye belief was India.

The epicenter of currently active evil eye belief is in nations along the Mediterranean and Aegean shores, plus India and the South American countries most influenced by Spanish conquest. It is now a fairly widespread belief among indigenous people in Latin America. Colonialists also spread it to North America, Australia, and New Zealand.

Although it was not a part of the belief-system of sub-Saharan Africans, slaves brought to the New World picked up the evil eye belief from contact with Europeans. In mid-20th century America, "Terrors of the Evil Eye Exposed" by the popular occultist Henri Gamache (author of the better-known "Master Book of Candle-Burning"), was extensively marketed to African-Americans. As with the similarly Jewish-inspired booklet "Secrets of the Psalms" by Godfrey Selig, the Middle-Eastern and Indian folklore Gamache "exposed" was syncretized into African-American hoodoo practices.

Almost everywhere that the evil eye belief exists, its effects are said to occur as an inadvertent side-effect of envy or praise. A typical account of such a mishap might be: "I dressed the baby in new clothes and took him to town and a woman who has no children saw him and said, 'Oh, what a pretty child!' and as soon as we got home he began to vomit!" The "evil" in these accounts of the evil eye indicate that it is thought to be situational in nature and that it is caused by a failure to restrain envy within proper social bounds.

Mentions of the evil eye (ayin ha'ra) in the Bible clearly refer to the role that envy and covetousness play in its development. We can read in Proverbs 23:6 "Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meat" and likewise in Provers 28:22, "He that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye, and considereth not that poverty shall come upon him."

Then over in Mark 7:21-22, we see that the early Jewish Christians believed in ayin ha'ra, for it is written there that when Jesus Christ lectured about defilement, he told his followers that ayin ha'ra comes forth from a man and defiles him just the same as if he had committed a physical crime: "From within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness."

There is a great deal of attention paid to protecting babies from ayin ha'ra among Jews, and red threads are commonly employed for this purpose. Furthermore, in keeping with Professor Dundes' theory that the evil eye is related to dryness or a loss of fluids, it is interesting to note that Jewish folk belief holds that fishes are immune to ayin ha'ra "because they are covered with water," and that the descendents of a certain man named Yosef Tzaddik (literally Joseph the Righteous, but also a pun with Tzaddi or Fish-Hook) are immune to the effects of the evil eye because he was not jealous -- and coincidentally, his name relates to fishes.

Jewish belief in the evil eye has resulted in certain community safeguards to prevent it occurring. For instance, rather than taking a census and thus opening some people to jealousy because they have large families, it was long the custom for each person to simply pay a sheckel (a small coin) to the census taker and let the coins be counted rather than peoples' names written down, to avoid damage from ayin ha'ra. The best month for taking such a coin-census was said to be the month of Adar, which is associated with fishes and the Zodiacal sign of Pisces (The Fishes) -- because "fishes are immune to ayin ha'ra."

Preventing jealousy over the size of a family is also at the root of another Jewish custom, that of not allowing a father and son to be called successively to the reading of the Torah in Synagogue. A reason commonly used to explain this custom is that "an orphan in the congregation who has lost his father, or a father who has lost his son, may be reminded of his loss and feel jealousy and give ayin ha'ra." One exception to this custom is made during the month of Adar (Pisces or the Fishes) when, during the Feast of Purim, the Scroll of Esther (Megillat Esther in Hebrew) is read in its lengthy entirety (the whole megillah!) -- and not once, but twice, which is such a superfluity of Torah reading that everyone gets a turn and no jealousy will be engendered, and even if someone did get jealous, the event would occur in the month of Adar and "fishes are immune to ayin ha'ra."

Some Jews abjure the notion of ayin ha'ra as "superstition" yet explain it in theological terms, saying, "When someone is jealous, he makes a complaint that is heard by God, and if the person who is being complained against is proud or ungenerous, then God judges him and lowers him."

Only in Sicily and Southern Italy is it believed that some people can DELIBERATELY cast the evil eye on others. There the regionally idiosyncratic belief is that certain people (including at least one former Pope) are born with the evil eye and "project" it involuntarily. Such people are called jettatores ("projectors") and their specific form of evil eye is called jettatura ("projection") in contradistinction to the garden variety of envious or praising evil eye, which in Italian is called mal occhio ("bad eye"). Jettatores are not necessarily evil or envious people, according to this belief system, and they are often represented as being saddened and embarrassed by the harm they cause.

In the eastern Mediterranean and Aegean region, especially throughout Greece and up into Turkey, there is a strong tendency to view blue-eyed people as bearers of the evil eye -- probably because few locally-born people have blue eyes and those who do show up, such as tourists, are given to praising and cooing over babies, who are thought to be most at risk from the eye.



VERBALLY AND PHYSICALLY AVERTING THE EVIL EYE

Because the evil eye is a specific form of evil, the protective charms and spells that have developed around it are also quite specific in nature.

In some countries, if a person feels moved to praise a child, fruit tree, or dairy animal, he or she follows the praise by spitting, under the mother's or owner's approving gaze, to remove the taint of the praise. In other areas, praise of a child can be safely mediated by immediately touching the child, to "take off the eye." If the praiser fails to follow these protocols, the mother may invoke religious aid by uttering a formulaic prayer to obviate the possibility of an evil eye incident, or she may speak ill of the child to counter the damage caused by the praise.

It is important to understand that the person who praises the child is not evil per se, unless envy of the mother's good fortune in having such a lovely child is considered evil. In some cultures attuned to evil eye belief, when someone praises a child, he or she IMMEDIATELY de-fuses the threat by touching the child or spitting on it (notice that this is the application of a liquid to counteract the dehydration caused by the evil eye). In other cultures, any child taken to public places is smeared or daubed with a little dirt and a bystander can then safely praise the child by using the formula, "Oh, the child is so pretty -- too bad he has dirt on him" -- or if the praise is not thus de-fused, the mother can respond, "He is so dirty right now!"

In Italy, the evil eye is said to affect men as well as children, nursing mothers, fruit trees, and dairy animals. It brings on impotence, through a drying up of the semen. Typical protective aversions of this problem include making the gestures called the mano fico ("fig hand") and the mano cornuto ("horned hand").

Mano cornuto is a gesture in which the middle and ring fingers are held down by the thumb and the index and little fingers are extended outward like horns. Among some people this is the sign of a cuckholded man, but it is also widely used as a protective gesture against impotency. The mano cornuto is familiar to Americans who read comic books as the gesture Dr. Strange makes when he casts a spell and the gesture Spider-Man makes when he "thwips" web fluid from his wrists. (The popular artist Steve Ditko was responsible for the design of both of these characters, and some comics fans refer to the mano cornuto as "the Steve Ditko hand gesture.")

Mano fico is a hand gesture in which the thumb is inserted between the index and middle finger. It means literally means "fig hand" in Italian, but "fica" or fig is a common slang term for the female genitals, so the mano fico is a representation of the sex act (with the thumb as phallus).

Jews may spit threee times or say "peh-peh-peh", throw salt, or mutter "kein ayin hara" ("no evil eye") when they feel threatened by the evil eye. They may also make a particular hand gesture, placing the right thumb in the left palm and the left thumb in the right palm and closing their fingers over the thumbs. As with the Italian mano fico gesture, the implication is that of a penis in a vagina; the magical protection of male sexual potency from dehydration through appeal to the female's moist genitalia for aid.

In Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan, Moslem people combine an aporopaic approach with a cure. When a child returns home after taken out among strangers, the parents will light a charcoal disk and burn on it the seeds of a plant called Aspand, while reciting a spell -- actually an ancient Zoroastrian prayer -- against the evil eye and directing the smoke around the child. This is done as a prophylactic measure, whether or not it is suspected that the child has been given the eye. In some families it is the cuustom to mingle herb leaves and Frankincense grains with the Aspand to make a more powerful fumigant mixture.



DIAGNOSING AND CURING THE EVIL EYE

A mother takes her little toddler to town and someone sees the child and says, "Oh, how pretty she looks! She is just adorable." The admiring person may gaze overlong at the child. If the mother does not take an immediate pre-emptive step -- spitting onto the child, denying before God that the baby is attractive, or asking the person who praises the child to touch her or spit on her -- the evil eye then begins to operate. By the time the mother and child get home, the child is sick to her stomache and crying. She is flushed, sweaty, and may have diarrhoea. Soon she becomes dehydrated and may be very ill indeed. The mother takes her to a conventional doctor, but "nothing can be done." She finally calls in a local healer -- usually an older woman -- who diagnoses the true cause of the problem and then performs the cure.

Sometime the evil eye is diagnosed from the circumstances: the child was well in the morning, was praised or gazed upon, began sweating and vomiting and the cause is clear. But most often the diagnosis and cure involve a complex series of rituals, which vary by culture. Water, oil, and melted wax -- liquids -- may play a part, or the ritual may center on an eye-shaped and liquid-filled natural object, the egg. Cures, when effected, are usually said to be dramatic, almost instantaneous.

In Eastern Europe, the evil eye is diagnosed by dropping charcoal, coal, or burnt match heads into a pan of water. If the coals float, the child has been given the evil eye.

In the Ukraine, melted wax may be dripped into holy water to diagnose spiritual diseases. If it splatters or sticks to the side of the bowl, the patient is suffering from the evil eye. Secret prayers known only to women are recited and the holy water is used to bathe the victim. The wax is reheated and this time when it is poured into the water, it sinks to the bottom in a solid lump, indicating that a cure has taken place.

In Greece, Mexico, and other places, holy water is given to the child to drink and/or drawn on the child in the form of a cross. If the remorseful perpetrator can be made to spit into the water before the child drinks it, so much the better. In order to avoid direct accusations of having caused such a calamity, a family member may stand outside the church when the supposed perpetrator attends and ask all who pass by to spit into a cup of holy water, thus embarrassing no one.

In Italy, diagnosis is made by dripping olive oil into a basin of water, a drop at a time, while reciting secret prayers, passed only among females in a family. If the drops run together in the form of an eye, the evil eye is the cause of the illness. The cure consists of reciting prayers while dripping oil into the basin of water again and again -- sometimes for hours -- until a perfect array of oil forms that does not resemble an eye.

In Mexico, both diagnosis and cure are often accomplished with whole uncooked hen's eggs. An egg is rolled across the child's body or placed beneath the bed and then cracked open. If it is "hard" or "looks like an eye" then the evil eye has caused the child's illness.



AN ORAL HISTORY OF EVIL EYE CUSTOMS ALONG THE TEXAS-MEXICO BORDER

The following collection of evil eye stories was made by Soledad Perez among "the Mexican people of Austin, Texas" in the fall and spring of 1948 and 1949. The commentary is hers as well. This material appears in "The Healer of Los Olmas and Other Mexican Lore."

EVIL EYE

The evil eye is an ailment common among small children. It is believed that it is caused by excessive affection. If a woman or a man sees a child with physical attributes which he admires, he must touch the child and invoke God's protection so that the baby will not suffer from the evil eye.

Children seem to be most susceptible to this ailment, although adults may suffer from it occasionally. Babies suffer the direst consequences. They have a very high fever, a lack of appetite and sleep, and usually a swelling on some part of the body. So if a woman casts an evil eye on a child's hand, it will be swollen and red.

In most instances, the cure for evil eye is simple. It consists in passing an unbroken egg over the face and body of the victim, sweeping him, or transferring three mouthfuls of water from the mouth of the person casting the evil eye to the mouth of the victim.

After the cure, precautions must be taken in the disposal of the egg or eggs used. They must be thrown out in a shady place or buried. If the sun's rays strike them, the evil eye will attack the victim anew. (For evil eye cf. D2071 and D2064.4 in Thompson's Motif-lndex.)

EVIL EYE (1)

When a person suffers from the evil eye, he says, "I was given the eye." To cure this an unbroken egg is passed over his face. Afterwards, the egg is broken in a saucer, and it is placed under the bed.

Another remedy is to find the person who cast the evil eye and force this person to give the victim three mouthfuls of water.

In order to decide whether a person is suffering from the evil eye, the egg placed under the bed must be examined after the cure has been administered. If a white membraneous film appears over the egg, it means that the person who gave the evil eye is a man. If only an eye appears on the egg, it means that the person who cast the evil eye is a woman."

(Informant 3.)

EVIL EYE (2)

When Chita was small, I took her down town on one occasion. She was a pretty little girl, and people admired her. While I was standing at the counter of one of the de- partment stores, a little Mexican woman approached me and wanted to touch Chita. She said, "What a pretty baby! Won't you let me touch her hair and eyes?"

I didn't like for people to be touching the baby; so I said, "No, please don't touch her!"

The little woman left, and I didn't believe in the evil eye; so I thought no more about it.

The next day Chita became ill. She had a very high fever and was flushed and uneasy. I called the doctor. He came and looked at her. Two or three days went by, and Chita didn't improve. She just seemed to get worse. We went from one doctor to another, but it didn't do any good.

Finally one day my comadre Mrs. Ramos came over, and she looked at Chita and said, "This child is suffering from the evil eye. I can cure her if you will let me try."

I told her to go ahead; and she did. She asked for two eggs and a cup. One of the eggs she passed over Chita's whole face. Then she took the egg, broke it, put it in a cup stirred it, and made a cross with some of it on Chita's forehead. While doing this she pronounced several prayers. The other egg she placed on the mantelpiece in the living room and asked that no one touch it.

The next day Mrs. Ramos came back. Chita's fever was gone, and you could tell that she was better. Mrs. Ramos then took the egg from the mantelpiece and broke it. If I hadn't been there, I wouldn't believe it, but my husband and I both saw it. The egg looked as if it were hard-boiled. Mrs. Ramos said, "Chita will get well now. The evil eye has gone into the egg; that's why it looks like this."

Chita got well.

(Informant l.)

EVIL EYE (3)

In my home, whenever anyone became ill my aunt was called.

On one occasion it was believed that my little brother had the evil eye. My aunt came and passed an unbroken egg over my little brother's face. Then she broke the egg, and taking some of it, she made a cross on his forehead. After that she said several prayers and swept my brother from head to foot. She took another egg, broke it, put it in a saucer, and left it under the bed. Later, when my aunt took the egg out from under the bed, she said that she could tell my brother had been suffering from the evil eye because an eye had formed in the egg.

(Informant 17.)


Both Perez's introduction and the second collected story accord with the notion that *touching* the child dispels the eye or prevents it from being cast. In story #2, the mother all but admits that it was her mistake in not letting the admiring woman *touch* her daughter that led to the child coming down with the evil eye.



APOTROPAIC CHARMS AGAINST THE EVIL EYE

A mother whose child has once been struck by the evil eye will soon take the advice of the other women in her community and acquire an amulet for the child to wear to repel the evil eye in the future. This sort of charm is called a repellent talisman or apotropaic charm.

The design of these charms varies from one area to another. The simplests are threads or cords, often red. More conspicuous are the amulets, often in the form of an eye, a hand, a horseshoe, or a combinations of two elements, such as the popular eye-in-hand and horseshoe-and-eyes. There are other, locally popular charms as well, such as the Hamsa hand, Hamesh hand, Hand of Fatima, or Hand of Miriam, that derive from other iconographic and symbolic sources.

In Greece and Turkey, the most common form of apotropaic charm is the blue glass eye charm called the Nazar Boncugu or Nazar Boncuk, which "mirrors back" the blue of the evil eye and thus "confounds" it. Turks make beautiful blue blown glass Nazar Boncugu or Nazar Boncuk charms in the all-seeing eye and eye-in-hand patterns, as well as in regionally-specific forms i call the horseshoe-and-eyes and eyes-all-over styles. Modern Turkish women -- and Americans who like the "look" -- wear jewelry-quality sterling silver evil eye bracelets, made not only in the traditional shades of blue, but in ultra-hip fahiona colours. For a further account of some Turkish Nazar Boncugu or Nazar Boncuk charms designed along these lines see the web page called "Your Name On Rice," in which i describe meeting a Turk who made and sold blue blown glass eye-charms on the streets of Berkeley, California.

Among the ancient Egyptians the eye of the god Horus, called the wadjet or udjat eye, was worn for magical protection. Although found in many materials, by far the most numerous are those made of blue-glazed faience or steatite.

In the Middle East, turquoise blue faience beads ("donkey beads") are used to protect livestock from the evil eye. These beads can be seen dangling from a modern Egyptian luck-bringing and apotropaic blue glazed wall plaque in the form of a horseshoe, made in Egypt.

In India, cord charms strung with a blue bead are placed on newborn babies; when the cord decays and breaks and the blue bead is lost, the child is considered old enough to have escaped the dangers of the evil eye.

Among the Kalbeliya Gypsies of India (the tribe from whom the European or "Bohemian" Gypsies are descended), the "mirroring back" of the evil eye takes the literal form of fabulously ornate multi-coloured mirror charms which are crocheted, braided, and wrapped with beads, buttons, and tassles. The practice of croocheting hundreds of tiny mirrors into fancy cloth -- especially wedding garment cloth -- is also widespread in parts of India.

In Nepal, where a hybrid form of religion called Tibetan Buddhism combines elements of the old animist beliefs with reverence for Gautama Buddha, a wonderful amulet called the eye of Buddha is worn to reflect back the evil eye.

In contemporary U.S. novelty catalogues, one can see advertisements for a so-called "eerie eye charm" which is a life-like blue eye set in an eyelid-shaped bezel.

In addition to blue bead eye-charms, numerous other eye-design and hand-design amulets are used to repel the evil eye.

One of the oldest forms of hand-talisman is the Roman hand of power, a bronze votary of a hand covered with symbolic images that was kept on the home altar to protect and bless the entire family.

In countries where Catholicism is the dominant religion, a Christianized version of the Roman hand of power is given traits of the eye-in-hand and the resultant image is called "the Most Powerful Hand of God" or mano poderosa.. In this apotropaic charm -- usually carried on the person in the form of a holy card or, as in Peru, as a protective package amulet, the symbolic images that cover the hand have been replaced by saints and a gaping crucifixion wound represents the eye in the palm.

In India, Israel, and the Arab countries the eye-in-hand charm is common. It may be carved of bone or cast in metal, with an engraved image of an eye in the palm or a cabachon-cut stone standing in for the eye.

The Middle East is home to the hamsa hand or hamesh hand charm (also known as the hand of Fatima among Arabs and the Hand of Miriam among Jews). This hand-shaped apotropaic charm may be cast in metal and worn as jewelry, but larger ones, inscribed with prayers of magical protection are often made of blue-glazed ceramics and hung on a wall.

In North Africa, a cabachon cut eye-agate stone may be used in conjunction with the hamsa hand design.

In America and England, jewelry-quality chams have been made from cat's eye shells. The eye-like shells are also carried in the pocket for personal magical protection.

In Sicily a lemon (a liquid-filled, eye-shaped fruit) may be pierced with nine nails and placed above doorway to prevent a jettatore from entering.

In Naples a piece of the rue plant (which has eye-shaped fruits and a strongly repellant odour) may be pinned to the clothes or a silver charm made to vaguely resemble the plant, and called a cimaruta ("sprig of rue") may be worn as a necklace.

Red is another color employed against the eye, mostly in regions where blue is not used: Red cords around the neck or wrist protect babies in eastern Europe and also in India. Likewise it is an old Jewish custom to place a red thread on a baby to protect it from ayin ha'ra.

In Mexico a large brown legume seed that resembles an eye, called ojo de venado ("deer's eye"), is hung from a red cord and outfitted with a fluffy red tassel and a holy print of a saint. It can be worn on the person, hung over the baby's crib, or dangled from the rear-view mirror of a car to ward off the evil eye.

In Italy, when a man's potency is threatened by the evil eye, gold or silver hand charms making the mano fico ("fig hand") and mano cornuta ("horned hand") gesture are used to repel the evil. These amulets are usually carved of blood red coral, and sometimes found in silver or gold. They are worn as necklaces, watch fobs, and pocket pieces by men and boys.

Corno (horn) or cornicello (little horn) is the name for an Italian amulet that looks like a long, twisted animal horn, rather freeform in design, usually carved of blood coral, but also found in red plastic, silver, gold, or blown glass. In America it is called "the Italian horn." Due to its phallic shape, it is usually only used by males.

A naturally branched piece of red coral "twig" is sometimes worn in place of the Italian horn amulet, and it may be made into a pin rather than a hanging amulet and then may be worn by a woman or girl.

Carved red coral amulets in the form of the mano fico, the mano cornuta , and the corno were everywhere in Italy when i travelled there as a child with my parents in 1957. Every town had a jewelry store that sold them and all the men seemed to be wearing them. I wanted one badly, but my mother explained that i could not have one because only boys were given them to wear and i would be breaking a cultural taboo. They are, as she explained to me, a specific against impotence.

More recently, Italian-American women have taken to wearing such "male" amulets as the corno , but now that i am collecting these things and don't care what people think of my interest in "men's" as well as "women's" mysteries, i find that although tiny red coral cornicelli can still be had (for a high price), coral mano fico hands are comparatively rare, due to the near extinction of Mediterranean coral, caused by water pollution and over-harvesting. Reproductions in pewter are sometimes found in America.

In ancient times, the moon goddess was invoked as a protectress of babies, nursing mothers, and milk animals, so her lunar crescent was used as an apotropaic charm. The previously mentioned North African eye-agate, crescent, blue bead, and hamsa hand charm is an old example of this usage.

An ancient Egyptian charm that combines the protective colour red with the protective power of a mother goddess is the so-called buckle of Isis charm or tit amulet. In fact, this amulet represents the menstrual pad of the goddess; it protects nursing mothers (Isis is generally shown suckling her son Horus) and young babies.

The use of a horseshoe to represent the lunar crescent is also ancient. Throughout Europe horseshoes are nailed to doors to prevent the evil eye from entering houses and barns. (The horseshoe charm has also acquired a second function, to "draw" luck to the bearer just as a horseshoe-magnet might attract iron filings or magnetic sand.)

In the days before automobiles came into use, draft horses and donkeys that pulled cabs and wagons in towns, where many people might see and admire them, were protected from the evil eye by apotropaic charms. In addition to the Middle Eastern blue faience donkey beads and Gypsy mirror charms mentioned above, locally popular amulets for animals include a scrap of wolf's fur (Naples), bells (all of Europe), images of mermaids called Sirens (Naples), and ornamental "horse brasses," often cast in the form of a lucky horseshoe (England).

I have dozens of examples of the above apotropaic amulets hanging on the wainscotting of the wall to my right as i sit in my office and type, and a few have overflowed onto the Lucky W Windowsill, where the morning sunlight is playing upon them gently. My livestock and my child are very, very safe.



A SUMMARY OF EVIL EYE BELIEFS WORLD-WIDE

PERPETRATORS
Envious people
Those who praise children
Those who suffer from covetousness
Those with blue eyes (xenophobia among brown-eyed racial groups)
Childless women
People born with the unfortunate propensity to inadvertently project the eye
ETIOLOGY
Overlooking (old British term; means gazing too long upon coveted item or child)
Praising without touching or spitting to void the damage
Projection from eye (Sicilian term for one who gives mal occhio is jettatura, from the same root-word as ejaculation and projection)
VICTIMS (AND SYMPTOMS)
Nursing infants (they sicken and cry; their mother's milk may dry up)
Young children (they sicken and cry; they may vomit or become listless)
Milk cows and milk goats (they dry up)
Fruit trees (they wither and die or they do not bear fruit)
Fathers and sons (orphans or fathers who have lost sons envy them)
Adult men (they become impotent)

(Note: as Prof. Dundes points out, most of these symptoms involve the loss of FLUIDS.)
APOTROPAIC CHARMS and GESTURES
Refusal to accept praise on behalf of child
Spitting on child
Spot of soot or dirt on child so child will not look pretty
Formulaic phrases
Protective hand gestures
Amulets that replicate protective hand-gestures, such as Mano Cornuto and Mano Fico
Eye amulets or jewelry such as
the All-Seeing eye,
Utchat or Wadjet eye,
the Eye of Buddha,
Blue glass eye disk / Nazar Boncugu / Nazar Boncuk / Nazar Bonjuk, and the
Ojo de Venado or Deer's Eye seed
Blue stone beads and blue glass eye beads
Eye-agate amulets or jewelry
Eye-in-hand amulets
Cat's-eye shells
Hand of Power and Powerful Hand / Mano Poderosa images
Hamsa hand / Hamesh hand / Hand of Fatima / Hand of Miriam
Cord charms that decay and release a blue bead
Mirror charms
Fumigation with Aspand seeds burned on charcoal and recitation of spell
Red thread or red cord
Red coral horns and twigs
Buckle of Isis amulets
Horseshoes
Crescent-shaped objects

(Note: Some of these involve reflective imagery, others are protective.)
CURES
Olive oil dripped into water with prayer
Wax dripped into water with prayer
Coals or match heads dropped into water with prayer
Passing a whole raw egg over the face, then breaking it
Breaking an egg in a dark, shadowed place, unseen
Breaking an egg and drawing a cross on the victim's forehead
Throwing an egg into the bushes or against a tree (if tree is victim)
Placing a broken egg in dish beneath victim's bed
Piercing a lemon with iron nails
Victim drinks three sips of holy water
Victim is bathed in holy water
Victim spits at giver of evil eye three times
Water or spittle from inadvertent perpetrator is passed to mouth of victim
Collection of spittle from group (anonymous donation); victim drinks spittle in holy water

(Note: As Dundes points out, these involve use of fluids and/or eye-shaped objects (egg, lemon) which contain fluid within them)



ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE EVIL EYE

(--)
Exhibition of charms and amulets.
Papers and Transactions of the International Folklore Congress, 1891 pp. 387-393
David Nutt, London, 1892

Bonner, Campbell
Studies in Magical Amulets Chiefly Graeco-Egyptian.
University of Michigan Press, 1950

DiStasi, Lawrence
Mal Occhio (Evil Eye): The Underside of Vision
North Point Press, San Francisco, 1981
ISBN 0-86547-033-2
(This is a personal, almost poetic account of evil eye beliefs, beginning with the author's Italian-American family and ranging thence through time and space to cover neolithic eye-goddess worship; the Horus (wadjet) eye of ancient Egypt; the cult of Mercury; Sumerian and Cretan eye-motifs; the theories of Freud, Jung, and Campbell; and the displacement of mother-goddess worship with the rise of the Indo-Europeans. There are a few photos and drawings of amulets and seals, but it is not a heavily illustrated book. CY)

Dundes, Alan (ed.)
The Evil Eye: A Folklore Casebook.
Garland Publishing, Inc., New York, 1981
(A must-have book for folklorists; this is a collection of previous writings on the subject, most out of print and very rare, organized and annotated by Dundes. It also contains Dundes' important article "Wet and Dry: The Evil Eye." Augmented by Elworthy's book, this collection forms a nearly complete picture of evil eye belief worldwide. CY)

Elworthy, Frederick Thomas
The Evil Eye: The Origins and Practices of Superstition
John Murray, London, 1895; many subsequent reprints, including Collier Books, London, 1958; Citadel Press, New Jersey; still in print as of 1998).
(I consider this book a classic of Victorian thoroughness and tenacity. Elworthy studied the evil eye in depth, with special reference to then-contemporary beliefs in Naples, Italy. The photographs in the reprint editions are not of high quality, but these pages and pages of apotropaic charms, all purchased by the author, are unlikely to be duplicated ever again.

Gamache, Henri
Terrors of the Evil Eye Exposed
[--],1946; reprinted and still in print as "Protection from Evil")
(A good collection of evil eye customs from around the world; it also includes a few other folk beliefs. There is no overview, as with the Dundes or Elworthy material, but for a cheap, secondary source-book, this is very handy to have. It can be purchased from The Lucky Mojo Curio Co. book list. CY)

Hudson, Wilson M. (editor)
The Healer of Los Olmas and Other Mexican Lore
Publications of the Texas Folklore Society Number XXIV
Southern Methodist University Press, 1951, 1966, 1975
(An interesting collection of Texas-Mexican folklore. The Soledad Perez oral history material cited above is the only part of the book that deals directly with the evil eye. CY)

Maloney, Clarence
The Evil Eye
Columbia University Press, New York, 1976
(Great anthropological treatise covering the evil eye in recent-to-modern cultures. PR.)

Tylor, E. B.
Notes on modern survival of ancient amulets against the evil eye.
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 19:54-56, 1890

CREDITS

The material in this article was developed from 1995 through 1999 in the usenet newsgroup alt.lucky.w. I want to give particular thanks to the contributions of Paul Edson (weldonkees@aol.com), Cadwaladr (cadwaladr@aol.com), Gearry T (GearryT20@aol.com), Harlan Thornton (Hthorntn@aol.com), Pete Rhode (megalith@ccnet.com), and Althaea Yronwode (azyron@itsa.ucsf.edu). Also thanks to Majid Abdul, who gave me my first sample of Aspand and to the Jewish Mailing List for archiving a series of posts on ayin ha'ra at http://www.ottmall.com/mj_ht_arch/v28/mj_v28i55 (Jewish Mailing List Volume 28 Number 55, February 1999).


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P0K3/\/\0N

<> 

 Name: Ash Ketchum

Japanese Name: Satoshi

Goal: To be the greatest Pokemon Master

Age: 12 (started his journey at 10)

Hometown: Pallet Town

Likes: Pokemon, catching pokemon, and pokemon battles

Hates: Team Rocket

Voice Actor: Veronica Taylor (American)


  Ash Ketchum, the main character of the Pokemon series, is a determined Pokemon trainer from Pallet Town. After receiving his first Pokemon (Pikachu) from Professor Oak, he had no clue of what he was doing. Eventually, he and Pikachu had become the best of friends, and by gaining friends like Misty and Brock, Ash gradually learned more and more about the values of friendship with Pokemon.

  Not only did he learn from his friends, but he also learned from his life-long rival, Gary Oak. Gary and Ash were rivals ever since they were little kids, however Gary was always the more knowledgeable about Pokemon. Ash usually lost each time they battled, but that never made Ash lose his determination. He actually gained wisdom from his losses to become a better trainer. 
   
 
  After many memorable, exciting adventures with his friends in the Kanto Region, Ash was ready to compete in the Pokemon League at Indigo Plateau. He was able to utilize the skills he learned from training and was able to defeat numerous unique trainers. Unfortunately, his winning streak had to come to an end when he sent out his Charizard as a last resort in a battle against Richie, a boy with as much determination as Ash. Charizard was a lazy Pokemon at the time and felt that it wasn't worth the effort to fight Richie's Pikachu. Ash and Richie remained friends after the battle, and Ash was proud that he was even able to make it to the top sixteen.

  After his loss at the Indigo Plateau, Ash decided to continue Pokemon training at the Orange League. There, he had to say good-bye to his friend Brock for a while. Eventually, Ash and Misty met a Pokemon Watcher named Tracey Sketchit. Tracey, being a Prof. Oak fan, decided to join them after finding out that Ash personally knew the famous Prof. Oak. Ash was able to connect a lot more with his Pokemon (especially Charizard) in the Orange League since earning badges meant working with Pokemon instead of just battling with them. With his strong connections with his Pokemon, he was able to defeat the Pumello Gym Leader, win the Orange League trophy, and earn a place in the Orange League Hall of Fame.

  By the time Ash, Misty, and Tracey came back to Pallet Town, Professor Oak informed them about the Johto League, a region to the west where new adventures awaited. Without any hesitation, Brock decided to rejoin Ash and Misty to explore this western region. There, Ash met and caught brand new Pokemon, and met tons of new Pokemon trainers. By this point, Ash was battling much more strategically than he was in his previous experiences, because dealing with new Pokemon and Pokemon abilities meant expecting the unexpected. After winning several contests, the Whirlpool Cup, and his eight Johto badges, he was ready to compete in the Johto League at Mt. Silver. Like in the Indigo League, Ash defeated numerous trainers. He even defeated his rival Gary Oak in an intense battle that came down to each of their last and strongest Pokemon (Gary's Blastoise against Ash's Charizard)! Ash unfortunately lost in a battle against Harrison, a trainer from the Hoenn Region. In that battle, Ash had to face more than just Johto Pokemon, but he also had to face Harrison's Kecleon and Blaziken (Pokemon which were only capturable in the Hoenn Region). It came down to a heated battle between Ash's loyal Charizard and Harrison's speedy Blaziken. It almost turned out to be a draw, but Charizard had received just a bit more damage than Blaziken. Ash was proud enough that he had made it to the top eight.

  Seeing all the incredible new techniques of Hoenn Pokemon inspired Ash to set off to a new journey - a journey to the Hoenn League, where much more new Pokemon await his capture. After an emotional goodbye, Brock and Misty go back to their Gym Leader duties, and Ash travels to Hoenn with his best-bud Pikachu. Ash has to start out fresh, so he leaves all of his other Pokemon with Prof. Oak, and he also gets some new clothes from his mom! After arriving in Littleroot Town, he meets May, a ten-year-old girl who wants to travel with Pokemon. Together, Ash and May set out to travel the Hoenn League... 

 Ash now carries these Pokemon with him  
  
 Pikachu
received in "Pokemon I Choose You!"

Treecko
captured in "Tree's A Crowd"

Taillow
captured in "You Can Never Taillow"


Corphish
captured in "Gone Corphishin'"

Torkoal
captured in "Break Through Steel Valley! Torkoal vs. Steelix!" 
   
  
   
  
 

 Ash left these Pokemon with Prof. Oak  
  
  Bayleef
evolved in "Current Events"

Cyndaquil
captured in "Good 'Quil Hunting"

Totodile
captured in "The Totodile Duel"

Noctowl
captured in "Fowl Play"

Bulbasaur
captured in "Bulbasaur and the Hidden Village"

Phanpy
hatched from egg in "The Egg...Hatches"

Heracross
captured in "A Sappy Ending"

Snorlax
captured in "Snack Attack"


Kingler
evolved from Krabby in "Round One, Begin!"


Muk
captured in "The Legend of Dratini"


Tauros (30)
captured in "The Legend of Dratini" 
   
   
  
   
 
   
   
   
   
   
   
 

 Ash used to have these Pokemon  
 Charizard
evolved from Charmeleon in "Attack of the Prehistoric Pokemon"
left at Charicific Valley in "Charizard's Burning Ambitions"
re-obtained from Liza in "Dragonite! Invoke the Imperial Wrath"
sent back to Charicific Valley in "Blackthron City Gym! The Final Badge"
re-obtained for Silver Conference in "The Ties That Bind"
sent back to Liza in "Johto Photo Finish"

Squirtle
caught in "Here Comes the Squirtle Squad"
left with Officer Jenny and Squirtle Squad in "The Fire-ring Squad"
returns in "Love, Pokemon Style!"
sent back to Jenny and Squad in "Johto Photo Finish"

Larvitar
hatched from egg in "Hatch Me If You Can!"
given back to its mother in "Mother of All Battles!"

Chikorita
caught in "The Chikorita Rescue"
evolved into Bayleef in "Current Events"

Beedrill
caught and given to Casey in "The Bug Stops Here"

Lapras
caught in "The Lost Lapras"
returned to its family in "Viva Las Lapras"

Pidgeot
evolved from Pidgeotto in "Pallet Party Panic"
left to protect Viridian Forest in "Pallet Party Panic"

Pidgeotto
caught in "Ash Catches A Pokemon!"
evolved into Pidgeot in "Pallet Party Panic"

Charmeleon
evolved from Charmander in "March of the Exeggutor Squad"
evolved into Charizard in "Attack of the Prehistoric Pokemon"

Charmander
caught in "Charmander! The Stray Pokemon"
evolved into Charmeleon in "March of the Exeggutor Squad"

Krabby
caught in "Mystery of the Lighthouse"
evolved into Kingler in "Round One, Begin!"

Primeape
caught in "Primeape Goes Bananas"
given away in "The Punchy Pokemon"

Haunter
caught in "The Tower of Terror"
released in "Haunter vs Kadabra"

Butterfree
evolved from Metapod in "Challenge of the Samurai"
released to breed in "Bye Bye Butterfree"

Raticate
obtained from trade in "Battle Aboard the St. Anne"
traded back in "Battle Aboard the St. Anne"

Metapod
evolved from Caterpie in "Ash Catches A Pokemon"
evolved into Butterfree in "Challenge of the Samurai"

Caterpie
caught in "Ash Catches A Pokemon"
evolved into Metapod in "Ash Catches A Pokemon"

Spider-Man Profile 

Spider-Man is the quintessential Marvel character. Although a super hero, he is spared none of the slings and arrows of ordinary life; he experiences difficulties with friends, family, sweethearts and employers. His powers enable him to do good, but not to improve his own lot in life, and it is his simple humanity, rather than his exotic talent, that has won him millions of enthusiastic fans. He is one super-hero who has not lost the common touch, and in fact he is frequently described as "your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man." 

In his 1962 debut, Spider-Man took to fighting crime for a reason commonplace in comc books: he was motivated by the murder of a father figure, his Uncle Ben. Yet Spidey's driving force is guilt, not revenge; he must live forever with the knowledge that he could have prevented the killing if he had not been so self absorbed. Perhaps he suffers from a classic Oedipus complex; in any case he is certainly neurotic, forever agonizing over the choices that confront him when he attempts to do the right thing. Despite his best efforts, he is viewed with a touch of suspicion by those in authority, and is sometimes considered little more than a criminal himself. 

Although nobody seems to understand him, Spider-Man has the spirit to be a joker as well as a tragic figure. He is quick with a quip, appreciates the irony of his endless predicaments, and relishes the chance to play tricks on people who never suspect that he and Peter Parker are one and the same. 

As originally depicted by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, Peter Parker was just a bit of a wimp. Bright, imaginative, but nonetheless an alienated adolescent, he might well have been a typical comic book reader. Although he has matured and gained in confidence over the years. Spidey is still all to human. He misses appointments, catches the flu when he needs to fight, forgets to put film in his camera and has trouble paying the rent. In short Spider-Man remains Everyman, "the super hero who could be you." 

 
From 1982 to 1988, Spider-Man was seen around town in this black costume,but now he has returned to his true colors.


Caught in the web 
The first Spider-Man story was originally intended as no more than a one-shot experiment, and almost didn't get into print at all. "Martin Goodman didn't want to publish it," recalls Stan Lee. Goodman was convinced that readers would find the subject of spiders distasteful. 

Fortunately for all concerned, a comic book called Amazing Fantasy was about to be canceled due to faltering sales. "Nobody cares what you put in a book that's going to die," Lee says, "so I threw in Spider-Man. I featured him on the cover and then forgot about him." For the occasion the comic book reverted to its original title of Amazing Fantasy, an appropriate amendment since Spider-Man was to be the most important adolescent super hero in comics. 

Spider-Man was the hero and teenage helper rolled into one; he was his own sidekick. Marvel's first editor, Joe Simon, theorized that kid companions like Captain America's Bucky were important because they gave the protagonist someone to talk to; Spider-man talked to himself. In fact he has delivered more siloquies than Hamlet. In his first appearance he mused out loud but subsequently Lee adopted the device of the thought balloon with its characteristic bubbles. "I used those thought balloons to help the exposition," says Lee. "I could put interesting thoughts there that weren't necessarily about what ws happening in that particular panel - something to hold the reader's interest." 

Spider-Man, despite the fact that he was not originally intended to star ina series, became the epitome of the radical innovations that characterized The Marvel Age. Lee used him to challenge the very concept of the super hero. Spider-Man was neurotic, compulsive and profoundly skeptical about the whole idea of becoming a costumed savior. The Fantastic Four argued with each other, and The Hulk and Thor had problems with their alter egos, but Spider-Man had to struggle with himself. 

In the original story (August 1962), Peter Parker is a bookish, bespectacled high school student, isolated and unpopular. An orphan, he lives with his elderly relatives, Aunt May and Uncle Ben. While attending a science exhibit, Peter is bitten by a spider that has accidentally received a dose of radioactivity. As a result, Peter acquires the agility and proportionate strength of an arachnid. He sews his own super hero uniform and uses his scientific knowledge to build mechanical devices that eject sticky webbing, but he is less interested in fighting crime than in making a buck. Disguised as Spider-Man, he becomes a professional wrestler and then demonstrates his abilities on television. Hw blithely ignores the chance to stop a fleeing thief, but his indifference ironically catches up with him when the same criminal later robs and kills Uncle Ben. Eventually Spider-Man subdues the murderer, but for a tearful Peter Parker, there is no peace. He wanders remorsefully off into the night to the accompan iment of Lee's now famous caption: "With great Power there must also come - great responsibility!" 

This story, with its challenge to comic book clichés, created an unexpected sensation. "A few months later," Lee recalls, "we got the sales figures, and that Spider-Man issue of Amazing Fantasy was one of the best selling books we ever had. There were no flies on us, so we put him out in his own title." However, the usual months of creative and production work leading to publication kept #1 from appearing until March 1963. 

Until this time Jack Kirby had been drawing all of the company's new characters, but Spider-Man ended up in the hands of another artist. Kirby drew several pages of a version of Spider-Man, but he never completed a story. Kirby's version was as bold and dynamic as the rest of his work, but Lee wanted something a bit more offbeat and edgy. Steve Ditko was the artist to provide it, an Lee asked him to illustrate the initial Spider-Man adventure. The now famous cover for the first story was drawn by Kirby and Ditko together. "Steve Ditko was a fine artist, " says Kirby, "and he did a fine job on Spider-Man". 

Born in 1927 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Ditko had already won a cult following with the dark moody tales he had illustrated for comic books like Amazing Adult Fantasy. An intensely private individual who shuns personal publicity and consistently refuses interviews, Ditko has always preferred to let his work speak for itself. The analogy to Peter Parker working behind the mask of Spider-Man may not be entirely inappropriate. Ditko was the perfect choice to depict the new antihero, a skinny kid who just didn't know what to do with the extraordinary gift that had unexpectedly come his way. "Steve was every bit as inventive as Jack Kirby was," says Lee. "He always added so much." As time went on, Ditko also began to contribute significantly to the plotting of the stories. From the very start, Ditko's sensitive, humanistic portrayal of the beleaguered Peter Parker was enough to alter the look of the medium forever: he brought a touch of realism into a world of fantasy. 

Peter Parker - His Life and history
Peter Parker was only a young boy when his parents died in a plane crash. He immediately moved in with his fathers older brother and wife. Ben and Mary Parker were an elderly couple with no children of their own, and they raised Peter as if he were their son. They rarely spoke about Peter's real parents, so Peter became convinced that his parents had left him because of something he had done. Afraid of being abandoned, Peter worked hard to win his uncle's approval - though he didn't have to worry. Ben and MAry truly loved their nephew and would have done anything to please him.

High School
Peter was an honor student, and his teachers always thought very highly of him. He always came prepared for class, and completed all of his asignments. The other students , however, had little time for a know-it-all like puny Peter. The girls thought he was too quiet, and the boys considered him a wimp. Peter was pinfully shy, and some of his classmates misinterpreted his silence for snobbery. He had trouble making friends, but never stopped trying. He often invited other students to join him at science exhibits or monster movies. But they usually responded with ridicule, and almost never asked him to join them.

May Parker insisted that peter wear glasses, but after he became Spider-Man his eyesight improved. Flash Thompson broke Peter's last pair of glasses during a shoving match, and Peter never got around to buying a new pair. Before hi gained his spider powers, Peter had considerably less than average strength for a boy of his age. Clumsy and uncoordinated, he also had no athletic ability. He had a fear of heights - even getting a book from the top shelf in the library resulted in his suffering severe symptoms of vertigo.

Peter always thought of his Uncle Ben as his best friend. Ben had an extensive collection of old comic books and science fiction magazines that he enjoyed sharing with his nephew. Peter spent hours reading these comics and their stories about outrageous heroes and their intriguing adventures. He dreamed of being a costumed adventurer like Captain America, striking terror in the hearts of criminals.

Peter Parker graduated from Midtown High with the highest scholastic average in the school's history, but he almost missed the ceremony. Instead of attending to last minute graduation details, Peter was trading punches with a superhuman villain, the Molten Man. He won his fight and arrived home just in time to change for the ceremony. Later, he was thrilled to discover that he had won a full scholarship to Empire State University. 

College
Fascinated with science ever since Uncle Ben took him to his first monster movie, Peter Parker immersed himself in his studies. Despite web swinging and a hectic social life, he was determined to be success and to make his Aunt May proud. Peter was more self confident in college than he had been in high school. Leaving home for the first time, he moved into a bachelor pad and even bought a motorcycle. Spider- Man ruined Peter's college graduation. In the week before the ceremony, Spidey was battling the Green Goblin and the Rocket Racer. He couldn't graduate with the rest of his class since he'd missed a required gym class.

Peter finally got his degree from Empire State University, but he continued his studies as a graduate student, and took a job as a teaching assistant. With all these activities, as well as being Spider- Man, Peter's life got a little too hectic. He decided he needed a rest, and he withdrew from the graduate program. Later, taking Aunt May's advice, he returned to college and continued working toward his master's degree. 

Throughout his career as Spider-Man, Peter has always been torn between his sense of duty and the mixed feelings he has received from the public. This reception has varied from praise to outright condemnation, and it has left the teenager confused about his role. It has even driven him to the brink of despair, causing him to throw away his costume and renounce his alter ego. Nevertheless, his dedication to using his powers responsibly has always led to Peter donning the mask again in the hope that some day the world will learn to appreciate Spider-Man.

Spider-Man's Powers

His Spider-Sense
He may not know if you've been bad or good, but he can always sense when you're dangerous. Spider- Man possesses many incredible abilities, but his most amazing power must be his uncanny spider-sense. This strange tingling sensation, which originates in the back of his skull, warns him of danger. The danger could be something immediate, like a gun being aimed at him or a punch being thrown at the back of his head. Or it could be something subtle, like a slippery floor or a sandwich that contains tainted meat. While his spider-sense cannot tell Spider-Man the exact nature of a particular threat, it always lets him know when and which way to move in order to avoid the danger.

Spider-Man's spider sense is like having a personal radar unit. He doesn't have to worry about watching where he's walking or web-swinging because it always guides him away from danger. Loose ceiling tiles or rotted roof tops don't trouble Spider-Man because his spider-sense warns him in plenty of time to avoid them. Even if he were trapped in complete darkness, hi spider-sense would prevent him from bumping into anything. And Spidey's spider-sense tingles if someone can see the web-slinger out of costume, warning him that he may be spotted.

Like a Geiger counter that somehow reacts to danger, Spider-Man often uses his spider-sense to track down enemies. He has also developed special spider-tracers that are attuned to his spider-sense and can help him to pinpoint foes who are far away. Thanks to his spider-sense, it's practically impossible to sneak up on Spider-Man to ambush him. Not only can he sense the exact direction of an impending threat, but his spider-sense immediately triggers his amazing reflexes to help him avoid injury. He often dodges blows before they are actually thrown. ...Its one weakness is its inability to detect Carnage and Venom.

Since his spider-sense instinctively reacts to trouble, Spider-Man depends on it most when he is in a fight, weaving his way through a hail of bullets without a scratch. Over the years he has come to realize that his reflexes work a lot faster than his mind. Because he can trust his Spider quick reflexes completely, Spidey is free to come up with the witty one-liners he spouts to distract his opponents.

Wall Crawling
Nothing seems to unnerve a bad guy more than being approached by a certain webbed crime-fighter who is crawling up the side of a nearby wall. Though Spider-Man possesses many amazing powers, his ability to cling to any surface is certainly the most unsettling. No matter how friendly our neighborhood web-slinger claims to be, the sight of him scurrying across the ceiling can be very distracting. The fact that he looks like a monstrous insect whenever he scampers up a building helped Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson convince the public that Spider-Man is a menace. Many people hate spiders, and are easily frightened by someone who can hang from their ceilings and cling to their walls.

No one knows exactly how Spider-Man’s wall clinging ability works. Peter Parker has often theorized that he has a form of bio-magnetic power that allows him to increase the attraction between the molecules in his body with those of the surface he climbs. All that is known for certain is that he can stick to anything. No matter how smooth or slippery a surface may be, Spidey can attach himself. He just has to keep concentrating until he can bond with it. Unlike his spider-sense, the web head’s clinging power is strictly a conscious act. He can never stick to something by accident. He must deliberately press his hand to an object and chose to adhere to it. Of course, Spidey likes to show off as much as the next fellow. He occasionally likes to run upside down along a ceiling or strides up a wall. 

Once Spider-Man has latched on to an object, only he can decide when to release it. No outside force has managed to pry him from a surface if he consciously wants to stick to it. Foes with superhuman strength have been known to rip Spidey from walls and ceilings, but that’s only because these surfaces have shattered under the strain. Chunks of drywall or pieces of ceiling tile can usually be spotted clinging to Spidey whenever this situation occurs. If someone as strong as the Incredible Hulk were to try to pull Spider-Man off a slab of granite, he might accidentally rip off the web-spinner’s arms before the rock would splinter. Of course, there is an easy way to separate Spider-Man from an object. All a villain has to do is find a way to knock him out. Once Spidey has lost consciousness, his body will automatically go limp and detach itself from anything it is holding.

Though Spider-Man tends to focus on his hands and his feet whenever he is climbing up a wall, every part of his body has the same clinging ability. His back and head can stick to surfaces as easily as his fingers and toes. All he has to do is lean against something and he will stick to it until he decides to free himself.

Strength and Agility
Shortly after he was bitten by the radioactive spider that gave him his amazing powers, Peter Parker accidentally crushed a steel pipe as if it were made of paper. He was astonished to discover that he now possessed superhuman strength. Since then, Spider-Man has often told people that he has the proportional strength of a spider; but he’s actually a lot more powerful. While not as strong as the Incredible Hulk, The Mighty Thor, or The Thing, our friendly neighborhood web-slinger is able to lift almost 10 tons. He can bend a solid iron bar with his bare hands and shatter a concrete wall with a single punch. And in one, spider-powered spring, he has leapt the height of three stories, or the width of a highway. 

Even more impressive than his spiderlike strength is Spider-Man’s amazing speed and agility. When it comes to quick thinking, death-defying, lightning swift, acrobatic stunts, the wall crawling wonder is truly without equal. Spider-Man moves with a fluid and casual grace that can’t even be equaled by trained superathletes such as Captain America or Daredevil. He leaps from rooftops, summersaults over flagpoles, tumbles off water towers, and balances on top of light poles as he routinely travels across the city in his own unique manner. 

Average people have been known to lift cars in times of stress. Spider-Man can raise a couple of Cadillacs on a normal day. Add in the excitement of one of his typical battles, and his power level can shoot into uncharted territory. Over the years the web-slinger has been seen holding up multistory buildings, freeing himself from beneath tons of debris, and flattening cosmically powered aliens.

Spider-Man's reflexes operate up to forty times faster than those of a normal person, and he uses them to dazzle much stronger foes. Faced by the Rhino or even the Hulk, Spider-Man kicks into high gear ricocheting off the walls, ceiling, and ground to barrage his opponent with blow after blow. THe victim, dazed by the wall-crawler's speed, is left punching thin air.

Web-Slinging
Every Spider needs a web, and Spider-Man is no exception. Shortley after he gained his amazing powers, Peter Parker set out to create a web of his own. Peter used his high school's science laboritory after hours and, having studied multipolimer compounds for a few years, he produced an adhesive fluid capable of imitating a spider's silk webbing. TO complete the mechanism, Peter then designed and built a pair of web-shooters that snapped on his wrists.

Peter has improved upon his initial design. He now switches between different forms of webbing by the way he taps his trigger. With a short second tap he releases a thin cable like strand that is perfect for web-swinging. A longer second tap increases the strand's thickness for additional support. If Spiey prolongs the pressure on the fluid, web fluid squirts out in the form of an adhesive liquid which can paste a foe against a wall. A series of brisk taps discharges many thin strands that form a fine spray of webbing, perfect for blinding an opponent.

Peter designed his web-shooters so that he wouldn't accidentally fire them every time he made a fist. Resting in the palm of his hand, the trigger works just like a computer's mouse. He must tap twice in rapid succession to release his webbing. The web fluid is almost solid in its natural state. The spinneret {mechanism in the web shooters} cuts the solid fluid into thin strands. Each web shooter has one web-fluid cartridge locked in, plus nine spares.

Though Peter Parker built the original pair of web-shooters, he now splits up the designs for the various parts and sends them to a number of different machine shops in the New York area. To maintain a degree of secrecy, Peter later assembles all of the pieces himself. Peter has also designed a special utility belt to carry his spare cartridges of web fluid. {The belt can carry 30 cartridges of web-fluid.} The buckle of the belt contains a spider signal which can be projected onto his opponents. Sometimes Peter equips te buckle with a miniature camera. 

The pressure in Spider-Man's web-cartridges is enough to propel a single strand of webbing up to 50 yards, but thicker strands and more complex web patterns can't reach nearly as far. Each of his web-shooters has ten cartridges, and each cartridge contains approximately 1,000 yards of single-strand webbing. [The] web begins to harden the instant it is exposed to air. Given enough time and sufficient thickness, one strand could even bind the incredible Hulk and hold him prisoner - although it's hard to imagine the Hulk standing still while Spidey applies the necessary webbing!

Spidey's normal webbing can easily withstand temperaturs of 1,000 degrees Farenheit. It melts, but it has never caught on fire. If the wall-crawler is preparing to fight someone like the Human TOrch, he can pack a webbing which resists temperatures of up to 10,000 degrees Farenheit. This type can only be released in strands that are as thick as a clothesline. Its special cartridge can only hold 10 yards of the webbing at a time.

Costumes
If clothes make the man, a distinctive costume is a definite must for a budding young super-hero. Of course, Peter Parker didn't intend to be a crime fighter when he first gained his amazing powers - he wanted to go into show business, and he needed an exciting look to match his stage act. Peter learned thatMidtown High's dance class was throwing out some old bodysuits. Slipping into the school after dark, he found one that fit him, took it to the art room, and spent a few hours silkscreening a web pattern on the shirts. He also made a skin tight pair of gloves and boots, and with some one way mirrors he found in the drama class's old prop box, he now had a mask. His first spider-costume was finally ready.

Having the perfect costume is one thing, keeping it is another matter. Peter Parker and his trusty sewing needle have spent many hours repairing the numerous rips and tears his costume has received in battle. Aunt May also contributed to Pete's costume woes. She once found his costume behind the bookcase where he had hidden it. Though Peter claimed it was for a practical joke on his friends, she refused to return it. He was forced to buy a Spider-Man suit from a local costume shop. The imitation was so cheap that it began to shrink and come apart during one of his many conflicts.

Spider-Man's boots and gloves consist of a thin layer of material so that they do not inhibit his ability to stick to walls. Spidey can [also] see out through his white eyepieces, but no one can see in. Running from his elbows to his waist, Spidey's underarm webbing is made of a flexible nylon netting. Beneath his costume's shirt, Spider-Man wears a belt that contains his spider-signal, a miniature camera, and spare web artridges. He keeps meaning to add a change purse, but has never gotten around to it. The major disadvantage of a skintight costume is that there's no room for Peter's street clothes. He either webs them into a ball attached to his back or he leaves them behind.

The Alien Costume
[In the Secret-Wars] Spider-Man found himself on a satellite in a galexy far from Earth. Along with other super heroes, such as Captain America, and super villains, including Dr. Doom, Spidey was brought to the satellite by a near-omnipotent being called the Beyonder. The Beyonder wanted heroes and villains to fight a war on a planet called Battleworld. [There] Spider-Man fought many battles and his costume was left in tatters then he found a machine that could replace ruined clothing. SPider-Man triggered the clothing machine and a round black object sprang from it. It immediately started to spread up Spidey's arm, and didn't stop until it covered his entire body.

After defeating the villains and escaping the Beyonder, the heroes returned to Earth, and Spider-Man took his alien costume with him. The alien costume always seemed to know what Peter wanted, sometimes even before he did. He learned that his new supersuit was capable of generating a seemingly endless supply of webbing, and that it could also change its appearance at will. Peter and his alien costume were always in some kind of psychic contact, even when physically seperated. If the costume was in a different room, it came [slithered] at Peter's summons. [However] each night while Peter slept, the alien costume secretly slipped over him and took the unconscious Spider-Man wall-crawling at night. The web-swinger awoke each morning with no memory of his nocturnal adventures. All he knew was that he felt more exhausted before he had gone to bed.

As Peter's fatigue continued to grow he slept through the entire day and began to have terrible nightmares. So Spider-Man went to Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four) for help. After an exhaustive series of tests, Mr. Fantastic made a startling pronouncement. Instead of an amazing suit made of some unknown extraterrestrial fabric, Spidey's new costume was actually a living creature. It was a sentient symbiote who had formed a mental and physical bond with the Web-Slinger. 

As soon as the symbiote's secret was revealed, it attempted to permanently graft itself to SPider-Man's body. Spider-Man did all he could to escape from the costume, but the symbiote tightened its grip on him, almost crushing Spidey in the process. Luckily ,Reed Richards had discovered that the symbiote was vulnerable to certain sound frequencies. Using theses sound waves, Richards managed to seperate Spidey from the costume. At last our hero was free and the alien was imprisoned.

Later, [during a power failure] the symbiote escaped from the laboratory and pounced on the unsuspecting Spider-Man. In desperation, SPider-Man lured the alien to the bell tower of Our Lady of Saints Church. He knew that the sound of the bells could free him from the symbiote. The alien, knowing that only one of them could survive the ordeal, sacrificed itself to save Peter. [Rid of the old costume Spider-Man went back to his old look.] The Black Cat, however, thought the black costume was sexier [so] she made a cloth version of it as a gift for Spidey. He used both costumes for many months and didn't get rid of his black one until Venom entered his life.

The Clone Saga
Shortly after Aunt May fell into her final coma, Mary Jane received a phone call from a young man who claimed to be an old friend of the family....

Profile written by Jason Kirk
OVERVIEW


Superman is the last son of the dead planet Krypton, rocketed away as an infant by his father who believed that the planet was about to explode. Arriving on Earth, the child was taken in by Jonathan and Martha Kent, who raised him as their own child. As he grew up, he discovered that due to this solar system's yellow sun, he had fantastic powers, of flight, speed, strength, endurance and enhanced senses. He decided to us these powers for good, ultimately becoming a hero, given his name by reporter Lois Lane, with whom he would come to work at the Daily Planet in his civilian identity and to whom he would eventually become married. Superman carries the most respect from the Western world that any super-hero has ever known and is proud to represent both America and the world. He serves on the JLA, debatably as the team's leader.

HISTORY


Few beings have such a pronounced effect on the history of one world as Kal-El of Krypton has had on the planet Earth. The last survivor of his doomed homeworld he was rocketed to Earth as a child, where he grew up to understand the awesome responsibility that his powers gave him. It is a responsibility that he is uneasy with but handles well.
When he speaks other people listen, his very presence and personal stature make him an equal with the New Gods and an almost messiah like figure to some normal humans. He is a true hero, with a spirit strong enough to endure heaven, hell, resurrection, vast physical changes and keep down a full time job at the Daily Planet. His new energy powers are a consequence of the way that the Kryptonian body processes solar energy. When he was depowered a massive bombardment of solar energy re-energised him and supercharged him shifting him up a gear in to the new energy form.
As an icon he has prompted the genesis of a second generation of superheroes, he has always been a reserve member of the Justice League and has in the past served as its leader before he was killed by Doomsday. He is now the most high profile of the current Leaguers and is often perceived as its leader.

For aeons the Kryptonian civilisation had evolved from humble beginnings, through vast planetary wars and a flowering of both cultural and scientific thought to become one of the most technologically advanced cultures in the Galaxy. However there was a price to pay for this Utopian world. As their technology grew and they achieved near immortality via medicine their society lost the human aspect, they shut themselves away in ivory towers fearing unprocessed soil and individual thought.

It was in to this dying society that the scientist Jor El was to come. One of Krypton's greatest thinkers for generations it was he who finally diagnosed the strange "Green Death" that was killing the population. He discovered that the ancient wars had taken a toll on the structure of the planet unleashing tremendous forces that were fusing the native elements into a new a radioactive compound. It was the radiation from this Kryptonite that was killing his people. However the ruling body would not believe Jor El's prediction that the continuing synthesis of Kryptonite would cause a chain reaction that would destroy the planet.

Knowing that the end was near for his planet Jor El removed his son (still in his artificial womb) from the traditional chambers and placed him in an experimental space craft. Jor El and his partner Lara launched the craft as Krypton began to die. In their last moments together Jor El declared his love for Lara, an act that was totally alien to that cold, dead society.

The craft that carried Jor El's son was programmed to head for our solar system where it finally crashed landed on the back water Kansas farm of Martha and Jonathan Kent. Finding the child in the capsule they rescued him and due to a freak snow storm were able to announce the child, young Clark Kent, to the world as their natural born son.

Clark was not like the other normal children in Smallville, the differences were not immediate to start with, but as he grew he found that he possessed powers and abilities that were far beyond those of his fellow mortal men. Upon graduating from High school he revealed his abilities to his childhood sweet heart Lana Lang and left to explore the world. He roamed the world, helping in secret, developing contacts and sources that would stand him in good stead for a future career in journalism.

Upon reaching Metropolis, Clark entered Metropolis University where he majored in Journalism completing the course in a fraction of the time that it took most students. While there he fell in love with Lori Remis only to lose her when he found out that she was from the Atlantian city of Tritonis and that he thought that she was dead.

With an interview lined up for a position of the Daily Planet, Clark was waiting around in Metropolis enjoying the two hundredth anniversary celebrations and went down to the airport to watch the new NASA space plane come into land. Near tragedy struck when a small plane crashed into the Space Plane. In an instant Clark knew what he had to do. Using his superpowers to catch the falling plane he at last revealed his existence to a watching world. Moving at superspeed he was able to save the plane and make a get away (bar a brief encounter with the reporter Lois Lane).

Clark returned to his parents in Smallville to seek their advice over what to do next. The world had seen him as a superhero, but had not yet made the connection to Clark Kent. It was Jonathan Kent who came up with the idea of a costumed identity of Superman modelled on those of the mystery men from the Justice Society.

Disguised himself while as Clark Kent he returned to Metropolis where he was able to deliver to Perry White the inside scoop on Superman beating Lois to the story (something that she did not easily forgive him). With Perry, Lois and club photographer Jimmy Olsen, Clark was able to build up for himself a second family in Metropolis. All the while Superman patrolled over head fighting the forces of evil that threatened the world and the city.

As Superman he became the focus for the superhuman activity on Earth, his appearance prompted J'onn J'onzz to go public and many other superhumans to use their abilities for the greater good. He worked closely with the Justice League and grew to be the spokesperson for the metahuman community.

Over the course of a decade Clark cultivated his circle of friends including the docker/bar owner Bibbo, the absent minded Professor Hamilton, Jose Delgado a.k.a. the Gandbuster, Guardian and the genetic whiz's from the Cadmus Project, fellow reporter Cat Grant and the otherworldly Supergirl. At the same time he also made numerous enemies including the billionaire Lex Luthor and the Apokolips sponsored crime cartel of Intergang. Clark also fell in love with Lois and over time she grew to love him to the extent that they agreed to be married (after he revealed that he was secretly Superman to her).

Superman eventually met his match in the form of Doomsday, an alien powerhouse trapped for millennia deep beneath the Earth. Freed Doomsday caused a trail to destruction that headed straight for Metropolis. In a grandstand battle Superman was able to defeat Doomsday, but in the process both combatants lost their lives. In the vacuum left by Superman's death four would be heroes emerged Superboy (a clone created by Cadmus), Steel (an engineer who designed battle armour to rid the city of a weapon of his own design now being used by the street gangs), the Last Son of Krypton (later to be revealed to be the Eradicator) and the mysterious Cyborg who actually claimed to be the reanimated corpse of Superman.

Brought back from the other side by a combination of advanced Kryptonian medicine and a near death experience by his father, Jonathan Kent, Superman was not in time to stop the Cyborg (in truth a vengeful former enemy) and the alien tyrant Mongul from destroying Coast City. With the help of his stand-in's, Supergirl and Green Lantern Hal Jordan he was able to defeat the bad guys.

The time that he had been dead caused a number of problems, including competition at the planet from new reporter Ron Troupe. An old figure from his past nearly caused him to lose his cover identity and he obtained the Bottle city of Krandor to look after. However he was to face another challenge when the Sun was blotted out by the Sun Eater. Without the Sun's energy Superman quickly lost his powers and was left powerless. A condition that did not improve when Parallax gave his life to destroy the Sun Eater.

Superman was able to regain his superpowers with the help of the New Gods however not everything was the same as it had been. Kent slowly started noticing an ongoing mutation in his powers and physical existence in a process that came to a head when he mutated totally into an energy based being. It was only Professor Hamilton using Kryptonian circuitry and Lex Corp. experimental cloth that saved Superman by creating a containment suit that allowed Kent to control his new powers. Shortly afterwards he was split into two different beings by the Cyborg, the impulsive Superman Red and the more thoughtful Superman Blue. In an interesting development, when he was Clark Kent he was totally human. As an energy being he was later split in two, and for a while there were two Supermen - Superman Red and Superman Blue. Following his selfless sacrifice for the world during the Millennium Giants crisis, he became his old self again.

POWERS AND WEAPONS


Kal-El's Kryptonian physiology means that under a yellow sun (a.k.a. ours) his cells become supercharged via solar radiation, effectively heightening every normal human ability hundreds of times over. This means that he is one of the strongest and fastest people on the planet. A natural bio-electric aura accounts for his invulnerability acting like a natural force field mere millimetres from his skin, this accounts why his costume is often protected, it was also how Doomsday was able to kill him (when exhausted his aura weakens). The accentuation of normal abilities also applies to his senses allowing his the ability to see most of the EM spectrum, extreme detail and to literally focus past normal matter (a.k.a. X-ray vision).

Perhaps the most notable of Kal-El's powers is his ability to fly by a form of self-telekinesis that also applied to any heavy object he was carrying. A final ability was that he was able to tap his solar energy reserves and to expel that energy via his eyes as a form of "heat ray" vision.

During the time when Kal-El was turned into an energy being he was able to alter his density from intangible down to the point where he was a normal human. In his human state he possessed no powers and was no more powerful that the average human male. The nature of his energy matrix meant that he could control all forms of energy allowing him to control magnetism, gravitational forces, radiation and electricity.

As and energy being Superman could travel as a bolt of lightning landing with a jolt where ever he landed. He displayed some other abilities including the ability to link with electronic systems such as computers, see in vastly expanded and different radiation spectra, emit electrical blasts and to produce a "solid field" that allowed him too physical interact with objects. He was also able to control the shape and size of this field.