Artifex's Journal: Superman is Dead.

(Here's my rejected story submission:)

Top story currently in the news is that Christopher Reeve, 52, died of cardiac arrest over the weekend. Sadly, this comes just as news starts surfacing that nerve grafts might become practical within 10 years as treatment for those who are paralyzed. Reeve, of course, had been paralyzed for the last nine years as a result of a riding accident, but had always hoped to be able to someday walk again...

While Christopher Reeve's filmography includes such diverse themes as roles opposite Muppets and achieving time travel through sheer will, it was the donning of tights and other comic-book imagery that garnered him lasting fame. And yet, it was only late in life, after almost everyone thought his riding accident would remove him from the picture forever, that the true strength of his spirit asserted himself, in what would truly be the role of his life. As a result, he will be missed for his extensive and public rehabilitative efforts and his activism, as well for his acting career.

By the end of his life, with his perseverance setting an example for many thousands of others with spinal paralysis, his foundation spending millions of dollars on pioneering research and therapies, and his personal lobbying on behalf of stem cell research, he had truly grown into the role of a super man.