McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.

Finally, Superman, with his solitude intact, begins fighting crime. He saves the world twice each night during his first week on the watch. Criminals and evil masterminds of the world rue the day Superman found his way home.

The Fortress of Solitutde is Superman’s home. It requires a giant key to open the Fortress that only Superman can carry – inside are relics of his home planet, or things that remind him of home. A statue dedicated to his parents, the bottle city Kandor, Krypto the dog. It is a sacred place. Like the immigrant’s suitcase. The immigrant’s suitcase is filled with books and clothes from his (former?) home. Photographs, from a past that nobody in the current reality wants to know of. A past best erased, but for what price? A past now reified and conserved, whether it is a suitcase or a fortress of solitude. A chance to preserve your sense of self-identity, but one that is in stasis and never changes nor can change. But also one needed for inner peace. Have you found your fortress of solitude yet?