Superman was born Kryptonian, raised Methodist and sketched into existence by two Jewish teens in 1930s Cleveland. Faith and morality are his DNA.

There are no overt religious references in Superman comics. But over eight decades, he’s been viewed as a divine entity, a savior figure — his sacrifice Christ-like, his will to lead as strong as Moses parting the Red Sea, and his compassion akin to a bodhisattva, an enlightened being who guides Buddhists on the spiritual path.

While scholars, comic book writers and fans alike are struck by the religious undertones in Superman comics, they say what separates Superman from the ever-growing pack of superheroes is his singular ability to bring hope in a hopeless world.

James Gunn’s ‘Superman’ sparks conversation

As fans celebrate Superman Day on Friday, marking the 87th anniversary of the original superhero’s birth, they are also eagerly anticipating James Gunn’s film “Superman” set for release on July 11. This version starring David Corenswet, the first Jewish actor to play Superman in a major film, promises a return to a version of a vulnerable Man of Steel who is rooted in values espoused by most faiths — goodness, compassion and hope.

The film has sparked a conversation about the place of Superman in the world and his personal code of ethics after several recent depictions of superheroes as anti-heroes. Corenswet said in a recent interview to Fandango that what captivates him about Superman is how he chooses to see good in people and not dwell on the negative.

“Why think about all the terrible things when we can focus on the good things we did today?” he said.

In the same interview, Gunn said his Superman will reinforce the character’s core value of preserving life at any cost.

“He believes that the sanctity of life is of the utmost importance,” Gunn said, noting the contrast with Superman’s archnemesis Lex Luthor, who values scientific advancement over life.

Symbol of hope and positive masculinity

It was precisely this benevolent, hopeful version of Superman that inspired Robert Revington, who teaches at the Vancouver School of Theology at the University of British Columbia, to go skydiving in a Superman costume on his 28th birthday. And yet Revington, a Christian, balks at Christ-like portrayals of his favorite superhero.

“I like Superman and I like Jesus,” he said. “I don’t necessarily want to conflate the two. To me, the best depiction of Superman is as a symbol of hope.”

Revington also sees Superman’s relevance today as “an example of positive masculinity.”

“He’s this version of strong, but compassionate masculinity, which several prominent figures don’t necessarily embody,” he said.

Revington and many others’ beloved iteration of Superman appeared in “All-Star Superman,” a 12-issue series published by DC Comics between 2005 and 2008. The superhero saves a young person who is about to take their own life with the endearing message: “You are stronger than you think you are.”

Grant Morrison, who wrote those comics, has said his view of Superman was shaped by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s “Oration On The Dignity of Man,” which argues that humans ought to be more virtuous than angels.

Superman speaks to our better angels

Humans, Morrison said in a 2008 interview, become what they imitate, which is why he made Superman an inspirational character.

“We live in the stories we tell ourselves,” he told Newsarama, a comic book website, and can choose to be “the astronaut or the gangster. The superhero or the super villain. The angel or the devil. It’s entirely up to us.”

As a result, said Matthew Brake, founder and editor of Pop Culture and Theology, Superman “is an idea that can inspire us to be our best selves.”

Superman’s character is also shaped by his upbringing as a Kansas farm boy, raised by kindly parents — Jonathan and Martha Kent. They are portrayed as Methodists in the comics.

Superheroes, in recent decades, have received less-than-flattering treatment. In “The Boys,” a comic book turned Amazon Prime series, the Superman-like character, Homelander, is a government-sponsored hero whose smiling exterior conceals the heart of a sadist.

“Invincible,” a comic turned television series from Robert Kincaid, author of the “Walking Dead,” features Omni-man, a Superman-like character who turns out to be an alien invader bent on conquest. The main character, Invincible, is Omni-man’s son, and must choose between protecting the Earth or taking his father’s side.

“Dune,” the famed sci-fi book adapted into blockbuster movies, warns of superheroes’ frailty

“Heroes are painful, superheroes are a catastrophe,” Dune’s author Frank Herbert once wrote. “The mistakes of superheroes involve too many of us in disaster.”

A relatable superhero

But Superman has cemented his place in pop culture not just as a beacon of hope, but also as a character relatable to many, regardless of race or ethnicity.

Gene Luen Yang, who has written several Superman comics, is best known for his 2020 graphic novel “Superman Smashes the Klan,” a story about a Chinese American family moving to Metropolis in 1946 and facing discrimination from the Klan. The story follows the Lee family as they confront the white supremacist group with Superman’s help.

Yang sees his own experience as a Chinese American mirrored in Superman’s story.

“The idea that you have to hide who you are or that you’re caught in between cultures,” he said. “Superman has two names — Kal-El, his Kryptonian name and Clark Kent, his American name. I had a Chinese name at home and an American name in school. So even though I’m a practicing Catholic, I was more drawn to his Jewish roots because that’s where I could relate more.”

Yang sees Superman as the original superhero who inspired almost religious fervor in the geekdom, featuring cosplayers who reenact scenes as a Christian might reenact biblical episodes around Christmas or Easter. A trip to a comic convention is like a pilgrimage where followers collect original art and “all kinds of relics.”

Stories in pop culture also draw from older storytelling traditions, often rooted in religions.

“In some ways, you can think of religions as communities that are built around stories that last centuries,” Yang said. “The idea of self-sacrifice, the idea that you do good deeds without the desire to gain recognition. That’s the whole point of secret identities.”

While his Catholic faith is an important facet of his life, Yang said he never forced religion into his Superman comics.

“I write more about my life and my lived experience of faith, with the doubts and the ragged edges,” he said.

Characters like Superman, while not themselves religious, provide a portal to the sacred through the profane, said A. David Lewis, a Boston-based graphic novelist and comic book writer.

“I love that people take something from popular culture and find some level of spirituality or find a greater connection to some divine source through it,” he said. “But I would never say Superman is just of the Jewish or Christian people. Like some of the best narratives out there, Superman gives us access to something transcendent.”

Superman’s strong Jewish roots

Samantha Baskind, professor of art history at Cleveland State University, is Jewish; she sees numerous parallels between Superman’s story and the history of Jews. Superman’s solitary flight from Krypton in a little spacecraft is reminiscent of how Moses’ mother placed him in a papyrus basket and left him on the Nile, seeing it has his best chance of survival.

Some also compare Superman’s backstory to the Kindertransport, she said, referring to a rescue program that transported nearly 10,000 children, mostly Jewish, from Nazi-controlled territories to Great Britain in 1938 and 1939.

In Superman’s Kryptonian name, Kal-El, chosen by his original Jewish creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the “El” in Hebrew connotes God. In DC Comics, Superman also frequents the “Bottle City of Kandor,” a Kryptonian city shrunk down and placed in a bottle, representing a fragmented piece of Krypton’s history. Baskind said to her it is reminiscent of how diaspora Jews visit Israel.

“There’s also the thinking that Siegel and Shuster created Superman because they were these two, skinny, young Jewish men who couldn’t go out and fight Hitler, but Superman fought Nazis on the cover of their comic books,” she said. In some early editions, Superman held Hitler by his Nazi uniform as he begged for mercy.

Appeal to the religiously unaffiliated

Despite the religious undertones, Superman’s appeal to those growing religiously unaffiliated remains strong, said Dan Clanton, professor of religious studies at Doane University in Nebraska. He says it’s because Superman’s story “truly encapsulates American civil religion.”

“This idea that there are practices and beliefs that provide all, regardless of religious identity, with a sense of being part of something bigger than themselves,” he said.

Neal Bailey, a contributor for over a decade to Superman Homepage and an atheist, believes Superman at his best is a “philosophical pragmatist” solving the most complex problems with the least amount of harm.

“He actually goes beyond religion to see our commonalities,” he said. “Superman wouldn’t care about people’s religious beliefs. He would care more about whether they are living up to their human potential.”

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

VENICE, Italy (AP) — Venice is charging day-trippers to the famed canal city an arrivals tax for the second year starting Friday, a measure to combat the overtourism that officials say is putting the city’s UNESCO World Cultural Heritage status at risk.

A UNESCO body decided against putting Venice on its list of cultural heritage sites deemed in danger after the tax was announced. But opponents of the day-tripper fee say it has done nothing to discourage visits.

Here’s a look at Venice’s battle with overtourism by the numbers:

5-10 euros (about $6-$11)

The tax charged to visitors who are not overnighting in Venice to enter its historic center during the second year of the day-tripper tax. Visitors who download a QR code at least three days in advance will pay 5 euros — the same amount charged last year throughout the pilot program. But those who make last-minute plans will pay double. The QR code is required from 8:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. and is checked at entry points to the city, including the Santa Lucia train station, the Piazzale Roma bus depot and near St. Mark’s Square.

54

The number of days this year that day visitors to Venice will be charged a fee to enter the historic center. They include mostly weekends and holidays from April 18 to July 27. That is up from 29 last year. The new calendar covers entire weeks over key holidays and extends the weekend period to include Fridays.

2.4 million

The amount in euros that the city of Venice took in during a 2024 pilot program for the tax. The city’s top budget official, Michele Zuin, said last year the running costs for the new system ran to 2.7 million euros, overshooting the total fees collected. This year, Zuin projects a surplus of about 1 million euros to 1.5 million euros, which will be used to offset the cost of trash collection and other services for residents.

450,000

The number of day-trippers who paid the tax in 2024. Officials say 8,000 day-trippers paid in advance to enter the city on Friday, among the 77,000 who have already registered so far to enter the city this year. Another 117,000 have registered for exemptions, which apply to anyone born in Venice, those paying property taxes in the city, studying or working in the historic center, or living in the wider Veneto region, among others.

75,000

The average number of daily visitors on the first 11 days of 2024 that Venice charged day-trippers. That’s about 10,000 people more than the number of tourists recorded on each of the three important holidays during the previous year. City council member Giovanni Andrea Martini, an opponent of the measure, said the figures show the project has not deterred visitors.

48,283

The number of official residents in Venice’s historic center composed of over 100 islands connected by footbridges and traversed by its famed canals. The population peaked at 174,000 in 1951, when Venice was home to thriving industries. The number shrank during Italy’s postwar economic boom as residents moved to the mainland for more modern housing — including indoor plumbing which was lacking in Venice. It has been shrinking dramatically over recent decades as local industry lost traction, families sought mainland conveniences and housing prices rose. Activists also blame the “mono-culture” of tourism, which they say has emptied the city of basic services like shops for everyday goods and medical care.

51,129

The number of beds for tourists in Venice’s historic center, including 12,627 in the less regulated short-term rental market, according to April data from the Ocio housing activist group. The number of tourist beds surpassed the number of permanent residents in 2023, according to Ocio’s monitor. Anyone staying in a hotel within the city limits, including on the mainland districts of Mestre and Marghera, pays a lodging tax and is therefore exempt from the day-tripper tax.

25 to 30 million

The number of annual arrivals of both day-trippers and overnight guests roughly confirmed by cellphone data tracked from a Smart Control Room since 2020, according to city officials.

SOLON, Maine (AP) — From the outside, it looks like any other New England church building: a boxy, white structure with a single steeple surrounded by an old stone wall, set against rolling hills and pine forest.

Inside, though, the South Solon Meeting House has a secret unknown even to some who drive through the tiny Maine town every day. The interior of the building is covered in 70-year-old fresco murals that encourage some in the state’s art community to describe it as “Maine’s Sistine Chapel.”

The murals were painted by artists in the 1950s and, while they have long been appreciated by visitors, the recent creation of a website dedicated to them by students at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, has generated new interest in the paintings.

Véronique Plesch, a Colby professor of art, hopes the building inspires more appreciation of frescoes.

“I fell in love with the place, because I have studies frescoes all my life,” said Plesch, who is a member of the board of the historical society that cares for the meeting house. She added that the paintings should stay in public places and not be in private institutions.

The meeting house was built in 1842 and hosted church services until the 1940s, though there were periods of closure, such as times of war. A decade later, Margaret Day Blake found the building in a state of disuse and the former student at the nearby Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture put out a call for young artists to paint frescoes under the school’s supervision in 1951.

The artists were given creative freedom and told there would be no limits to subject matter, but that Biblical scenes would “offer rich and suitable” imagery. The interior was covered in such scenes from 1952 to 1956 and the walls remain adorned with frescoes, including one that references Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.”

Another fresco depicts the binding of Isaac, in which a hooded Abraham prepares to sacrifice his son on God’s orders. The Great Flood is depicted as it was by Michelangelo at the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican.

Two of the 13 artists — Sigmund Abeles of New York City and Sidney Hurwitz of Newton, Massachusetts — both in their 90s, are still living. Both spoke fondly about their time at the meeting house.

“We would go out there and paint and then take a lunch break in the cemetery behind the building. It was a very idyllic time,” Hurwitz said. “I very much enjoyed it.”

Today, the meeting house, which is open to the public without locks on its doors, serves as a community gathering and performance space. Many of its old features, including box pews made for smaller people of a different time, are still intact.

Abeles recalled painting the scene of Jacob wrestling with the angel from the Book of Genesis.

“It’s a very, very special place, and it was a unique experience” to work on the frescoes, Abeles said.

On a recent Sunday morning, Plesch gave a lecture at the meeting house before a group of members of the Maine Art Education Association as part of the group’s spring conference. Long ago, attendants of the building might have been preparing for an Easter service, but on this day it was full of teachers fascinated by the frescoes.

Suzanne Goulet, an art teacher at a nearby high school, said she was previously aware of the frescoes and confessed she had peaked into the windows of the old building, adding that it’s great the paintings are still inspiring art lovers decades later.

“The inspiration is that we bring it back to our students,” Goulet said.