When I was about 5 years old, I argued with a friend of mine (over a Pringles-and-Kool-Aid snack, as I recall) about whether Superman was real or not. He said yes. I said no. (Even then, I was a cynic.)
Thankfully, we knew how to settle the matter: Go outside and holler—as loud as we could—for Superman to come and visit.
It seemed perfectly sensible, of course. He had super hearing, so he’d be sure to get our invitation. And according to the cartoons, Superman loved visiting little kids, even just to tell them to brush their teeth and look both ways before crossing the street.
But no matter how loudly we shouted, Superman did not come. Never was I so disappointed to win an argument. I think both of us held out hope that maybe the Man of Steel was just busy with a galactic crisis or something.
Well, Superman has landed—in movie theaters, anyway. And if you’ve been on Plugged In the last few days, you know it. You can check out our review (along with reviews of some Superman flicks from the past, and you can watch and hear some Superman-related conversations, too. We talked about the broader character of Superman on this week’s episode of The Plugged In Show. And we engage in a rollicking conversation about the movie itself on YouTube, which you can watch below!
But some might be asking, “Why are we paying so much attention to this past-its-prime superhero? Isn’t Superman a little … dull? Do we really need a guy in a cape and red underwear to save the world and tell us to floss? What makes Superman so … super?”
I’m so glad you asked. Let me give you five reasons.
Superman Was the First of His Kind
No one had ever seen anything quite like Superman when he landed on the June 1938 cover of Action Comics, apparently shot-putting a car. Sure, the world had seen some larger-than-life characters in literature, movies and comic strips. But Superman, with his awesome powers, outlandish outfit and a litany of what would become standard superhero tropes was something new altogether.
And he wasn’t just the first superhero to grace a comic-book cover. He was the first superhero to earn his own radio show (in 1940), the first to have a movie (a cinematic serial in 1948 and a full-length film in 1951), the first to have a television show (in 1952). And when he made another jump to the big screen in 1978’s Superman: The Movie, he arguably set the table for the superhero-saturated entertainment world we know today.
You can talk about Batman and Iron Man and the rest all you want. But when someone says “superhero,” it’s likely the guy in the red cap with the “S” on his chest that we think of first. And if you dig superheroes, the man in blue deserves a big tip o’ the cap.
Superman Tells Us That Adoption Is Awesome
Superman gets his super powers from his alien DNA. Born on a dying planet with a red sun and a ton of gravity to deal with, our hero thrives in our Earthly environs—drawing most of his powers directly from our young, yellow sun.
But you need more than powers to be a hero: You need values. And Superman’s values are as homegrown as Kansas wheat. While his Kryptonian parents may have created the man who would become Superman, his Earthly parents—Jonathan and Martha Kent, who took in the alien infant and raised the boy to become the planet’s mightiest do-gooder—fostered the hero.
This backdrop of adoption has been part of Superman’s literary lineage from the get-go, of course. But the new Superman movie gives this theme some added wrinkles and, dare I say it, added depth. In a nice exchange with our titular hero, Jonathan Kent reminds his son that his choices make him the man he is, not his genes. Superman needs that reminder just then. And it’s something we all could keep in mind, too.
Superman Is a Geek—and That’s a Good Thing
Superman has sometimes been derisively called a “big, blue Boy Scout.” And to that, Superman would say, “What’s so bad about that?”
What indeed? In a world where so many other superheroes are sullen and cynical, the Man of Steel stands out with his earnestness. In a world that seems to grow more complex by the day, Superman reminds us that the difference between right and wrong is often quite obvious.
To be a geek, according to Collins’ dictionary is to be “knowledgeable and enthusiastic about a specific subject.” You could argue that Superman geeks out over humanity itself. He loves it—and he loves us—with a sort of uncritical glee, often telling even his worst enemies that he holds out hope for humanity’s reformation.
There’s a delightful exchange in the new movie where Lois Lane makes fun of Superman for his teenhood taste in music: The punk-pop acts that young Clark Kent enjoyed were thought by cooler kids to be pretty terrible. But then the conversation takes a turn. Lois admits that she’s cynical to her core. But Superman? “You care for everyone,” she says, “and you think that everyone you’ve ever met is beautiful.”
Superman pauses for a moment. “Maybe that’s the real punk rock,” he says, and he has a point. In a world where everything seems dark and getting worse, Superman has the ability to see good in almost everyone. And that’s counter-cultural indeed.
Superman Is a Symbol of Hope. Literally.
You’d think the “S” on Superman’s chest would be fairly self-explanatory, right? It stands for Superman.
But you’d be wrong—at least since the first movie in 1978. In that era’s Superman, the symbol was said to have been Superman’s Kryptonian family crest. Subsequent comics expanded the definition even farther: It’s the Kryptonian symbol for hope.
With all due respect to “truth” and “justice,” the word “hope” is perhaps more associated with Superman than any other. Because the character is so powerful and so good, he represents that sense of hope in ways both immediate (“I hope Superman saves me from that falling building”) and philosophic (“I hope that good will always be stronger than evil”).
The new movie touches on Superman’s ability to trigger a sense of hope—sometimes against long odds. But my favorite example comes from the world of comics: All-Star Superman #10, when our Man of Steel saves a teen girl from a suicide attempt.
“It’s never as bad as it seems,” Superman tells her. “You’re much stronger than you think you are. Trust me.” Of all the worlds and galaxies and universes that Superman has saved, this one life impacts me perhaps the most: giving hope to a girl who has run out of it.
Superman Can Remind Us of Christ
From the beginning, Superman has carried a tinge of the Messianic with him. His Jewish creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, were reportedly not religious. Still, it’s interesting that the Kryptonian name they gave Superman is Kal-El, which some interpret as “the voice of God.”
Throughout Superman’s history, we’re given fleeting parallels—some intentional, some not—to his Messianic nature. A few Jewish scholars have compared him to Moses, comparing the spaceship he rode to Earth to the basket that carried Moses down the Nile. But other elements point to a more divine nature.
Superman is, for instance, a man who came from above. He’s wholly different than us, yet human, too. Many stories (though not all) insist that Superman was purposefully sent to Earth to save us. The most obvious nod in this direction is found in 1978’s Superman: The Movie, in father Jor-El’s post-mortem message to his son.
“Live as one of them, Kal-El, to discover where your strength and your power are needed,” his father says. “They can be a great people, Kal-El; they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you … my only son.”
And then, of course, you have Superman’s propensity and willingness to sacrifice his life for humanity. In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, for instance, he uses a kryptonite spear to weaken the oh-so-powerful Doomsday, sending Superman to his own doom. But no matter how dead Superman is, he always seems to rise again.
You can’t call Superman a cookie-cutter Christ figure, of course, and he’s a poor stand-in for Jesus. Despite his powers, despite his goodness, Superman has his own weaknesses and shortcomings—just as his movies do. The new film comes with its own problems: You can read our full review to get the lowdown on those.
But even so, the character of Superman stands out—and if we squint, we might be reminded of an even greater Savior. One who wants to give us real hope not just for this life, but forever. The One who, when we call out His name—in joy or pain, in rage or grief—He will be there for us. Because He always is.
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