On Superman

I am still planning on posting my thoughts on Jesus, masculinity, and culture but that topic is a bit more complex. And since I just received a word of encouragement to continue in my writing, here is a brief aside on the greatest of all superheroes, Superman:

I have been reading comics for most of my life and by far my favorite character is Superman. It was not always so. I started reading X-Men due to the '90's cartoon and my older cousin's interest. The tale of a band of misfits fighting for a better world despite the animosity of the populace fit in well with an anti-social Christian kid. But it was my youth minister who got me interested in Superman. I got on board the comic during Grant Morrison's JLA run, which was right during the height of Superman, Electric Blue Boogaloo. Despite that, I loved Superman. I had glanced through enough comics at the grocery store (back when there were comics at the grocery store) to have seen his stories. I had caught the fringes of the death and return storyline, the return of Lex Luthor, and other assorted tales. Through my youth minister I learned a bit of his history, some of his story trends (every time that Superman is dealing with radiation poisoning, whether kryptonite or solar, Parasite shows up…every time), but mostly I learned to appreciate why he was the greatest.

Everyone knows Superman's origin story: the last child of a dead world, sent to Earth. But it wasn't until I started thinking about him in comparison to other superheroes that it started to make sense. Take Batman. Bruce Wayne was the son of loving, wealthy parents. And in an instant, they were taken from him, along with his innocence. Bruce Wayne died that day, and what took his place, though it would long go without a name, was a creature of pain and darkness. His is a life defined by loss, and as such it is supremely sad. Not so with Superman. His parents, in seeing the destruction around them, did the only thing they could to protect their son. They sent him away to a place beneath their technological might, which proved so lacking in saving themselves, but abundant in the one resource that any good parent wants for their child: love. And this is what defined him and is supremely beautiful. Batman does good in the hope of saving others from what he has suffered. Superman does good because the sacrifice made on his behalf was sufficient to save him. In light of the cross, I guess it's not too hard to see the appeal.