STRICTLY BUSINESS: TRAVEL OFF THE BEATEN PATH OF BUSINESS

Quick now, what is the best way to foil a car thief?

Take the keys out of the ignition!

With the frigid weather of this winter, many people have been starting their cars and letting them warm up in the morning while they return to the warmth of the home.

There is a problem with this. ... In some cases, the vehicles have disappeared.

Take the case of Peter Lewis.

Lewis is president of MobyTel, a company that sells vehicle-tracking devices in the Washington area. Lewis' device pinpoints a stolen car's site.

Lewis, who was warming up his brand new car for a family ski trip, left the keys in the ignition while he ran back into his house to pick up a pair of boots.

When he came out, the car was gone.

No problem, right?

Wrong!

Lewis had not yet moved his tracking device to his NEW car.

Lewis filed a police report, but a week passed with no results. He placed an advertisement in the Washington Post, promising a big reward for information leading to the thief's arrest.

Newspaper advertising pays

Wow! Talk about advertising paying. ... Lewis received 15 calls, with some callers giving specific sightings.

One caller said he knew who had stolen the car, but that it had been subsequently carjacked by yet another thief.

Anyway, Lewis and some friends started visiting the sites where the car had been seen. He found it on a residential street in a nearby county.

The car's odometer had 2,500 new miles on it, but had suffered only minor damage. The thief had also added a decorating touch -- a pine- tree-shaped air freshener dangling from the rear-view mirrors.

Lewis is happy to have his car, but angry that the thief got away.

He says he learned a lesson. The next time he warms up the car, he'll do it with the doors locked.

Not a bad idea.

There are a number of the brainy new car-tracking systems around.

Once such device, installed in the trunk of a car, sends a signal that is picked up by satellite, which relays the cars's location to a control center, which in turns notifies the police.

The control center then pages the owner with the news. At that point, the owner can call a toll-free number and punch in a security code that, within five minutes, tells the car to cut the ignition. At the same time, a warning is announced in the car that tells the thief the vehicle will soon stop and that police will be notified.

Wow!

'Superman as Cyberman'

Comic-book heroes come and go, or get facelifts.

But not many grab the attention of editorial writers of the New York Times.

Superman, who has been around the comic scene about 60 years, is an exception.

The Man of Steel, the creation of then high-schoolers Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster during the 1930s, was recently the topic of the No. 1 editorial spot of the New York paper.

Most superhero makeovers tend to go unnoticed, but even editorial writers turned churlish when DC Comics unveiled its new, somewhat androgynous togs for Superman, whose super suit is losing its trademark Cape, said the NYT editorial.

DC announced recently its favorite hero (Superman) was shedding the former frumpy look for a sleek new look to entice younger readers.

"Judging from the generalized hysteria, few people had actually kept abreast of Superman's metamorphosis from the Man of Steel to more like us, which has been moving along quite briskly for more than a decade," said New York Times editorial editors in their Jan. 14 issue.

The writers continued:

"For half a century, Superman battled his way through the universe without so much as breaking a fingernail. But fans and comic-book writer grew bored with his invulnerability."

'De-superising' a superhero

"First, writers `de-superised' the suit, which fell to pieces in combat. He began to bleed, not just on rare occasions, but all the time. He became self-doubting and in need for counsel and companionship."

Last fall, DC Comics married him off to Louis Lane. His alter ego, Clark Kent, also became more vulnerable, suffering paper cuts at the office and burning his fingers while cooking at home.

What in the wide, wide world was going on?

The NY editorial explains:

"As Clark continues to go the way of all flesh, the processing of humanizing Superman seems to have been abandoned. The new Superman bristles with electricity and, instead of merely leaping tall buildings with a single bound, he transmits himself through telephone lines. To court the Internet crowd, the DC writers have dumped all the human frailties to Clark, while turning Superman into a kind of Cyberman."

Older critics, say the NY editorial writers, are particularly unhappy about the punky new hairdo and the missing cape.

But stripping away the cape and jazzing up the suit were logical steps in dismissing the old and ringing in the new.

If the old fellow is lucky -- he's 60 now -- the change could give him a new lease on "superherohood."

But, all-in-all, it's all about comic book sales and money. Without sales, Superman could just disappear from the modern scene.

B. Ray Owen is business editor for the Southeast Missourian.