What’s So Funny about Truth, Justice, and a Better Tomorrow?
In 1938, two Jewish kids from Cleveland created Superman—Champion of the oppressed, the physical marvel who swore to devote his existence to helping those in need! And ever since then, the Last Son of Krypton has had a stranglehold on the collective American consciousness in a way that few fictional characters have. Superman has become a lightning rod, harnessing the fears and beliefs of America's passing decades. In the 1930s, he fought corrupt corporations in a world disillusioned by the Great Depression. By the 1940s, he sold war bonds. The 1950s made him a suburban father, dog and all. Reagan’s America turned him into a red-white-and-blue icon, sidelining his immigrant identity. Like the course of a mighty river, the shape of Superman ebbs and flows, and it will likely continue to shift and change long after all of us are dead.
Yet strangely, despite Superman’s success in meeting the needs of each decade, in the 21st century, Superman has struggled to find his footing in the zeitgeist and the silver screen. Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns grasped at nostalgia for Donner’s Superman: The Movie, failing to forge its own identity. When that didn’t work, Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel attempted to thrust Superman into a gritty post-9/11 world, but ultimately failed to make a compelling and likeable Man of Steel. Now, though, with James Gunn’s Superman comes a third attempt at creating a Superman who can meet the cultural moment. At a time when kindness feels rarer, and when the American way, that promise of liberty and freedom, rings hollow, what does the Man of Tomorrow mean for the 2020s? What can we make of truth, justice, and a better tomorrow?
The American identity has defined Superman for the better half of a century. From WWII war propaganda to military recruitment ads in 2013, Superman has been American for a long, long time, the ultimate defender of the status quo. But should we continue to let that define the character? Gunn’s Superman throws the audience right in the fray, as Superman deals with the fallout of stopping the fictional Boravian invasion of the Jarhanpur. The only wrinkle? Boravia is an American ally, and Jarhanpur has a checkered history, not always friendly towards the United States. In meddling with the international interests of the world’s dominant superpower—and his own home—Superman puts himself directly in its crosshairs, as the government waits patiently for the perfect reason to take him down. Gunn’s Superman captures a part of his identity that’s long been forgotten. Superman wasn’t always the perfect all-American boy. When Siegel and Shuster created him, he was just the opposite. He was a fierce protector of the oppressed who took on even seemingly mundane forms of evil, from landlords to the war-profiteering politicians of the US and Boravia. Somewhere along the way, though, that got lost in translation, and we were left with a superhero less interested in breaking those barriers. Even the recent surge in Superman as a collection of “hope-core” tweets and TikToks is a neutered version of the character. But Superman’s main title isn’t called Hope Comics, is it? He doesn’t simply hope for the best in people. Gunn’s Superman is someone who disregards international posturing, willing to stop a war simply because “people were going to die”. In our 2020s, Superman can rebuke the American identity that has justified so much hurt and be a bonafide Man of Action who stands up for its victims.
Cynicism has taken over our cultural landscape, especially in the superhero genre. One only needs to look at The Boys and Invincible to see that audiences crave a take on superheroes that’s more realistic, more violent. The world is a fucked up place, and power fucks people up. That has become the mantra of the 21st century, born out of endless scandals, hollow institutions, and a media ecosystem built on distrust. In a world almost ninety years removed from Superman’s inception, the Big Blue Boyscout who saves kittens from trees has largely been written off as boring. What makes Superman unique compared to the hundreds of superheroes created since 1938? The answer to that question is crystallized in a scene between Clark and Lois after the world has turned against him. Lois has spent the movie as a cynic, someone who’s spent her whole life asking hard questions and interrogating the actions of those in power. Her headstrong conviction causes them to clash when Lois drills Clark on his intervention into the Boravian invasion. To her, the most powerful being on the planet imposed his will unilaterally in the midst of a geopolitical conflict, much like the tyrants and strongmen of history. To Clark, he just can’t stand by while people are going to die. He takes people by their word, sees everything from enormous kaijus to a single squirrel as monumentally beautiful. Can someone be that naive? That genuine? From a journalistic perspective, Lois has to place devil’s advocate, to assume an ulterior motive, that there’s something buried deeper under the surface, while Clark’s instinct is to reject the very idea that doing good needs justification. In a world dominated by cynics and the likes of Lex Luthor, who salivates at the chance of power, Superman is a disruption, a radical. In times like these, seeing the beauty in the world is the real counterculture. That’s where Superman reveals the character’s greatest strength and why people have been adapting him with each new decade.
The Superman myth is about what greatness really means, what kindness can do. Superman: The Movie manifested this through Reeve’s unabashed compassion and gentleness. In Smallville, kindness took the form of being unable to hide in obscurity when there are people suffering, to act before thinking. Now with Superman, greatness and kindness are defined by the choices you, and you alone make. Superman is an alien from a distant planet who has come not to rule using his powers, but to help. Gunn’s Superman initially believes that this was a purpose given to him by Jor-El and Lara. When this assurance in his mission is taken away from him, he realizes that a supposed mission sent from the stars isn’t what defines him, or even the kindness afforded to him by two Kansas farmers when he was a boy. What defines Clark is that when given the power of a thousand suns, he chooses to do good every single day. Where some insist that power inevitably corrupts, Superman insists that power can ennoble, that strength can be wielded with gentleness. No life is too small. Everything has worth. When it’s easy to be cruel, being kind is punk rock. Gunn’s Superman captures what is so central to the myth of Superman, and why in the words of Alan Moore, if there is any legend comparable to the ageless myths of antiquity, there is Superman.
I can’t help but think of Grant Morrison’s All-Star Superman when I write about what the myth of Superman means for our cultural identity, especially in such an unsure decade as this. Issue #10, “Neverending,” briefly features Renaissance philosopher Pico Della Mirandola, famous for his discourse “Oration on the Dignity of Man”, a rumination on what makes man worthy of existence. The ultimate conclusion of Pico is that humanity are the great imitators, capable of learning and taking from existing creatures. We have been given the tools to be great, and we need but look to the heavens and reach. What Morrison proposes is that if Pico is right, if we are the great imitators, who else to imitate but Superman? James Gunn has gone on record saying All-Star Superman is one of the biggest influences for his movie, and through this, the message of Gunn’s Superman is clear.
Who is the Man of Tomorrow for the 2020s? He’s not a patriot or platitude, but a man of action whose kindness resists cynicism. Regardless of whether it’s intentional or not, the Boravian-Jarhanpur conflict and Superman’s intervention steeps the character in the very real fears of the 2020s, fears of being powerless to the hate and greed that have become the driving forces of every facet of life. He becomes a vision of how to fight that hate. Gunn’s Superman is someone willing to rise above nationalistic dogma, who refuses to be dragged down by cynicism, and who will fight for what’s right no matter how complicated things seem. Just by being who he is, he inspires others to follow suit. He’s the greatest version of us, a reminder that we too can be endlessly loving when we try. To imitate Superman is not to chase invulnerability, but to practice compassion with the same persistence he shows in saving the world, to be kind in a world that’s so often not. The Superman myth endures not just because he is such a fantastical character, but because he exists as the everyman. We are all Superman in our own adventures, with our own ill-trained pets and larger-than-life battles and journeys of self-discovery. To live like Superman is to seek the truth in a world clouded by lies, to pursue justice even when it defies power, and to radically believe in a better tomorrow. That’s the myth that has endured since 1938, and that’s why Superman still matters. When kindness is rare and hope feels fragile, nothing could be braver than choosing to believe we can fly.