DC Heroes: Superman
Batman is my favorite superhero. I mean, Batman, the world’s greatest detective, despite being a human being, has been able to fight villains more powerful than him and he has contingency plans for every situation, including those against the members of the Justice League, if they go rogue.
I took some time to look at DC’s first superhero (and the first superhero in the world of comics) who I think I really overlook when it comes to DC heroes, the Man of Steel, Superman.
You might think that Superman is overpowered, which is true or that he’s a pretty bland hero and not as layered as Batman. I thought so, and with that vivid profile of Superman in mind, I took time to research on what makes Superman an interesting superhero in DC comics.
But first, a quick history of the character’s creation.
Superman was created by Joe Schuster and Jerry Seigel. He was initially portrayed as a bald-headed villain in a comic strip named Reign of Superman.
He was later revamped to become a hero and made his first debut in Action Comics #1 in the year 1938. This was during the Golden Age of comics that introduced other heroes such as Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel (later named Shazam!) and Marvel’s Captain America.
From his first appearance in the comics through the years, his powers have evolved but his obvious ones are super-strength, flight and super-speed.
With that brief history about Superman, this article will revolve on the animated film, Superman vs The Elite, which was based on the comic book What’s so funny about truth, justice and the American Way.
In the film, Superman believes that:
He speaks about this at the UN when he was questioned about not ending the criminal career of the Atomic Skull, a supervillain who wreaked havoc in Metropolis and killed people. Instead of just locking up this criminal, who might escape again and do the same damage (which he does, later in the movie), Professor Baxter, who led the meeting asked him:
“Aren’t you the Superman that the 21st century needs? Why not use your power to fix the world?”
Superman answers this by saying that his powers don’t make him the judge of who lives or who dies and that he’s not above the law.
Then come the Elite, a group of super-powered antiheroes, who come to help Superman in destroying a bio-weapon that was wreaking havoc in Bialya. The Elite consisted of 4 guys:
1. Manchester Black: the leader of the squad, a British telepath with immense mental power
2. Coldcast: this guy emits tremendous amounts of energy
3. Hat: a magician, whose magical powers come from his fedora hat
4. Menagerie: a woman who is symbiotically bonded with demonic-looking creatures covering her body
This group comes to this world with a new way of doing things, “fixing the world”. Superman doesn’t agree with their way of saving the world by killing criminals and tells them that as heroes, they don’t have to kill.
After Manchester Black does an international broadcast, telling the world that the Elite will take care of the world by killing all criminals, which they do, they get all the praise for being ‘progressive’.
In the film, there’s a brief montage of citizens being interviewed after Manchester Black killed the Atomic Skull, most of them saying that Superman’s way doesn’t work or seem relevant anymore, compared to that of the Elite. One said something like:
“Superman has always been there for us, but so are those criminals that he’s put away so many times. Maybe his way doesn’t work”
What the Elite had done was in line with the philosophy called the ubermensch, which was coined by a man named Friedrich Nietzsche.
Ubermensch is German for, Superman (I won’t dive in the connection between this philosophy and the character of Superman. That’s a whole other article on its own).
According to Britannica.com, this philosophy, ubermensch, states that “the superior man would not be a product of long evolution; rather he would emerge when any man with superior potential completely masters himself and strikes off conventional Christian “herd morality” to create his own values”.
This is what Manchester Black clearly states when he and his squad fight Superman on the moon:
So what does Superman do, when pushed to the edge by these antiheroes?
Well, he snaps, taking out the members of the Elite, one after the other and lastly, almost finishes off Manchester Black, at the cost of “killing” other civilians (we later realize, he had a contingency plan by using his robots from the Fortress of Solitude to save the civilians).
Manchester wanted Superman to join their way of doing things, by pushing him to the edge. When he snaps and takes out all of Manchester’s friends, thus showing how he would be when he crosses his line, Manchester admits that Superman isn’t himself and we can see Manchester’s cowardice self unfold. This was contrary to the brash proud character trait we saw in Manchester.
Manchester sees the ugliness of violence that frightened him, and with his cameras that were recording the entire event, he broadcasts to the whole world that there’s nothing special about Superman.
Superman proves him wrong after explaining his elaborate plan and that it’s so easy to cross that line out of anger and vengeance, but he’s not like the Elite.
I think with Superman, being this overpowered superhero, with an uncanny disguise as Clark Kent (just glasses, his hairstyle, voice, and walking posture), he does his best to hold back not to let his power corrupt him (except when he was under mind-control in Batman Hush under the influence of Poison Ivy).
He doesn’t decide who lives and who dies. He doesn’t let his powers make him above the law but rather lets the law of the land to deal with the criminals or villains.
In the words of Abraham Lincoln:
“Nearly all men can stand adversity but if you want to test man’s character, give him power”.
