Superman’s origin story is an adoption narrative in disguise. A child sent from a dying world by parents who love him enough to choose his life over their presence in it; raised by adoptive parents who recognize something extraordinary in the child they have taken in; discovering, as he grows, that he is fundamentally different from those around him, possessed of abilities that set him apart from the ordinary world. This structure resonated with immigrant experience—the child who arrives in a new world, who carries something from the old world that distinguishes him, who must find a way to live between his heritage and his new home. Whether Siegel and Shuster consciously drew on their own experiences as the children of Jewish immigrants is speculative; what is clear is that the structure maps onto that experience in ways that many readers have found resonant.
The secret identity element—Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter, concealing Superman, extraordinary protector—introduced a duality that proved endlessly productive for storytelling. The question of how and whether to reveal a true self; the cost of maintaining a disguise; the tension between extraordinary capability and ordinary social existence: these are not trivial themes. They map onto experiences of professional life (the person who is far more capable than their workplace allows them to demonstrate), of social difference (the person who must conceal aspects of their identity to function in a particular environment), of the gap between interior experience and exterior presentation. Superman’s secret identity is a compelling premise precisely because it generalizes to recognizable human experiences.