Superman For No Seasons

Every generation gets their Superman. The Golden Age of Comics, that in which Superman was created and spearheaded, had George Reeves and the Fleischer Cartoons upholding a standard of the triumph of American ideals. The Silver Age had Christopher Reeve, a Superman who was the most super of all men, in power, deed, and attitude. The Bronze and Modern age had Dean Cain, the least super, the most man, the product of John Byrne’s reimagining to make Clark Kent the focus of Superman stories. This New Age of superhero comics has Henry Cavill, the moodiest of them all. He’s a Superman, in two appearances thus far, who has been wrestling with his identity as either Kryptonian or earth-immigrant. This is a Superman who is unsure if he wants to be a hero or can even be a man. It doesn’t help that DC Comics, publisher of all the Superman stories, doesn’t actually know what they want from Superman either, and in fact, have gotten used to destroying the character every time this quandary comes up.

Superman, for the millennial age, has an identity crisis. Our earliest Superman wasn’t even Superman, but the decade-long struggle of Tom Welling as a coming-of-age Clark Kent. Superman, for most of us, stayed a boy always just out of reach of fulfilling his adult potential. Welling was never fully in the suit, never fully the hero we all wanted him to be. Looking back at the final scene it’s strongly suggested that the Smallville Clark Kent is nothing more than precursor to the long-lasting Donner-derived, Curt Swan-inspired Superman that Christopher Reeve and Brandon Routh suited up as. The millennial’s Superman in the end was a reflection of their father’s Superman.

DC Comics tried to change Superman for the younger set. Five years ago a company-wide reboot of continuity altered Superman the most dramatically. The costume changed. The origin story was tweaked, again. The power set was altered. Most importantly, Superman was made younger, more cocksure, downright arrogant at times. This was a Superman made to fit the prevailing narrative of a generation that couldn’t be told anything, that was seemingly more interested in navel-gazing than the world at large.

Still, once the sheen of this new version wore off the character seemed to lose steam. Was this new Clark Kent prepared to live in a modern day where heroes seem in short supply? Or was this Superman nothing more than an updated version of the Golden Age people’s crusader? The jury is still out on this one, but that hasn’t seemed to stop DC from doing the most with the character; exposing his secret identity, massively depowering him, and, soon, killing this Superman. In the 5 short years of the New Age Superman he has been put through the ringer and yet we’ve still no great grasp of his character.

This uncertainty of what it means to be Superman has come to fruition in the Man of Steel franchise under the auspices of director Zach Snyder and writer David Goyer. In two films establishing Superman as a figure of change the creative team does its upmost to pound into the viewer’s head that Clark Kent has no real idea of what he’s doing and is at constant war with himself to do the right thing. In Man Of Steel the internal war was symbolized as the wishes between his two different fathers; one wishing he keep himself safe by hiding a full expression of himself, the other prodding him to become the transformative figure of the world. (Oddly, whatever wants from his mothers are neglected; one is noticeably erased from the film after a few establishing scenes, the other relegated to doting and helpful without much of an opinion). This first film reads entirely as a pastiche of the story of Jesus Christ. It was met with positive acclaim, if some trepidation.

In the sequel, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, Superman is even more of a cypher. The messianic visuals are kept to a minimum except in one ghastly racially insensitive scene. Superman alternately ranges from cavalierly doing what he can to help the world despite criticism to significantly doubting his place in the world, even ultimately ghosting on the entire world. Clark Kent is no better. Here he is almost entirely defined by his relationship with Lois Lane as he is so ineffectual in his professional life. While it may be a bit of inside baseball, it strains credulity to believe a desked reporter at a major metro wouldn’t be able to work on more than one story at a time. The petulance involved in a young reporter not fulfilling his editor’s orders is damning. While this may be the most sync’d of all portrayals neither character ends up coming across as truly likable and nothing close to superheroic.

While there is fault to place on the myriad of creative teams about how to make a lasting, if not definitive, image of Superman, there must be difficulty in creating a Superman for every age. It’s possible too much of the character is rooted in the sense of wonder we saw played out in mid-century from which his mythological status reigned. Unlike other characters whose flaws and weaknesses are well established, Superman only got more powerful, became an even greater person, in spirit and ability. At a time when we have so few real-life heroes suspending disbelief in a man who is greater than all of us, seemingly without fault, is difficult. Maybe the collective minds of DC and Warner have it right every time they kill Superman. Maybe someone that good can’t exist in the world for very long.