Why The World Doesn’t Need Superman
This is not written to be the article that Lois Lane wrote in the recent movie, but you are more than welcome to read it from whatever perspective you wish. Her story won a Pulitzer in the fake world. I doubt I will ever write anything Pulitzer worthy, but feel free to remind me that my writing skills need a fairly large amount of improvement and be sure to mention I won’t ever win the Pulitzer. I don’t have the same readers as The Daily Planet, and I don’t live in Metropolis. To those random visitors I keep getting from Australia and England, Norway and Canada- please feel free to comment some time. If you must know though, yes, the story Lois Lane wrote in the recent Superman movie did inspire this ridiculous blog post.
The Story
When I think ‘why the world doesn’t need Superman’, I know he doesn’t exist. We create Movies, TV shows, cartoons, comic books, etc. around a character that isn’t real, but there is obviously a need and market for him because of the amount of media that is consistently produced. So as I discuss why the world doesn’t need “Superman” I may talk about why we do/don’t need the character and media surrounding him in our world. Superman was initially just a concept and character that was created by Jerry Siegel and Canadian artist Joe Shuster in 1933. Published by DC (Detective Comics). Since then, there are many volumes of different kinds of media surrounding him.
Why Do Many In Our Society Enjoy This Particular Fictitious Character?
As I was growing up, I always enjoyed movies and other media content that showed people with powers beyond the the limits of a normal human, or at least people and characters that had perfected a skill. The Flash, Batman, The Hulk, Wolverine, Superman, The Karate Kid, SpiderMan, Alex Mack, The Green Lantern, Iron Man, Captain Planet, and lets not forget the most important duo of all; Pikachu/Chuck Norris.
Many of them ( knowingly not all ) have a strong moral code and a secret identity that presents them as normal during the times their super powers aren’t needed. Clark Kent is a pretty famous one, considering we are discussing the need for Superman. This is probably incorporated into the characters life to make them easy to relate to, more believable, which is also why they all have at least one flaw or weakness ( to make them appear imperfect like we are ). Most of us probably want a secret power or two, and Superman has most of the ones that are on the favorite super powers list, making him again, even more appealing. Honestly though, most every country with citizens who can read and are allowed to read, have Superhero’s of some kind ( I enjoyed reading some of the Super-Heroes on Wikipedia that other countries have). Still, even 3rd world countries even have fables and stories about people who did amazing things or have a super power.
In a recent areallygoodname.com exclusive interview with my roommate and co-worker Dan, I asked him the following questions. Though a mass study is supposedly “more accurate”, Dan should be able to represent the average person, right?
(since many obsess over him as it is, still knowing he is fake)
There you have it, a world with out Superman still turns the same as it always has, especially since we are already a world without real Superman. But I have to assume that if Superman had never been created, we would probably just have had another iconic superhero take his place. Like… Jon-Boy! or… SuperJon!… or LittlePinkies!
Though I really haven’t drawn any conclusions on the matter at this point, I think it would be interesting to hear some responses on whether or not we need this fictional character, maybe because it somehow gives us hope, or fills a fantasy of some kind- or maybe that we don’t need our head in the clouds learning about someone who doesn’t exist. You tell me. Personally, I would probably be just a little more intelligent if I had never seen the first Fantastic-4 movie, but enjoyed the recent Superman movie that just came out. Kevin Spacey is an excellent Lex Luthor, and the director is awesome. You can respond in either sense of whether or not Metropolis needs Superman, or rather does our real world and society today needs this fictional character for some reason?
The End. . . “but I am le tired” . . fine… take a nap, then THE END.
UPDATE:
Kevin Smith wrote an article that got him a lot of criticism on the topic, but he apparently feels that comic book creators and writers need to kill off Superman and Batman. His justification for this was that by killing them, we can set to rest their iconic place in our world and open the space up for others characters that people can write about, create movies for. . etc. Let some other super hero’s take the place on top of the pedestal for a while. We pretty much know everything about Batman and Superman.
I think the emphasis that has been created around Superman and the hype among the general public - not just in the US - demonstrates an increasingly idealistic mentality. Why do we love Superman? He’s a fix-all! He is the ideal solution to all of our problems. He’s super-human because he can do all the things that no one else can with ease (at least seemingly). He’s never expendable because he can solve any problem with a skill set that no other human being has, and yet he is still human because is does have a flaw (kryptonite). He’s not expendable but he’s also not invincible. That’s the ideal situation. Infinitely powerful and effective yet still human and flawed like the rest of us.
People argue that this sort of character is exactly what people need to keep hope sometimes. There’s a line in SpiderMan 2 that says everyone needs a hero. I agree with that, and for a lot of people SuperMan is that hero. People idolize him. I do, however, also agree that the world does not need characters like SuperMan to feel like we have real, substantial heroes. Everyone needs a hero, this is true, but I think the general population is losing sight of what a real hero is. We have this notion these days that a hero has to be someone who is more than human and has some sort of innate power than your average human being doesn’t have. If a hero could only be a hero by having these sort of super powers, human beings would have super powers. What I think we overlook too often in today’s society of X-Men/SuperMan-type heroes is what heroes we do already have in society. People who I think are real heroes are people who you can’t see standing (or flying) out of a crowd. It’s people who aren’t afraid to look other people in the face and smile as they pass by, who aren’t afraid to hug a stranger, who let the other car go in front of them in line even if they’re in a hurry, people who will stand up for what’s right when things go wrong just for the sake of standing for something, even if they know they won’t win or it isn’t cool. Those people are the people who really make a difference in this world. The truth is that the Earth would keep turning even if none of us were on it, so really the world doesn’t need anyone. But to keep society turning, we need less SuperMans and more friendly strangers and next-door-neighbors.
A hero can be a hero without super-human powers. Too many of us forget that.
Superman’s appeal probably also has something to do with the supernatural. He’s a christ figure. That is, he represents the divine but he is physical and we can have a really connection with him because he was really here.Superman fulfills a similar roll (I’m not talking about salvation) He comes from heaven (krypton) he has super-natural powers (divine powers) is completely and utterly idealistic (righteous) and has that physical touch that makes him human (can even be tempted).
I say we don’t need superman, for superman’s sake.
Think aobut it… Crack of dawn and he is hovering over the world listening for an impending tragedy…then down he goes… catches a plane before it crashes into the ocean, pickes up a bus before it drives into a ravine, catches the giant ball from the daily planet building, writes a boring editorial (he has to do clark’s work too), uses his super breath to stop a broken dam, pulls a kid out from in front of a car, uses his laser-eyes to weld a broken bridge…then he spends all afternoon trying to get mr luthor to not destroy the world (while avoiding that green rock) stops by Lois’s place, then back to it–he acts as a human flak jacket for some poor lady, saves someone’s dog, uses X ray vision to find a lost child, keeps a couple of subway trains from crashing…
Before you know it it’s late. Superman had a big day, he’s exhausted, and he didn’t even get to the grocery store. He slips into bed for a little rest.
During the night there is an earthquake, a mud slide, an apartment building burns down, people die in car wrecks, and a new supervilan arrives. Before superman is back in his cape he is flooded with hate mail! “Why didn’t you save my daugher!” “What was so important that you couldn’t put out a fire?” “My kitten is dead, and it’s blood is on your hands” “We told timmy you’d be at his party, now he won’t speak to us”
I mean come on people, he’s only superhuman. What do you expect?
Poor guy.
(Personally I’d stay C. Kent. Maybe he could use his powers in a new show in Vegas–then he could entertian us, without raising our expectations)
Jay: People definitely need Hero’s, especially normal ones in the real world.
Dan: Thanks for the interview. I have always wondered how many people relate a Super Hero like Superman to a Divine being- and therefore latch on to him even stronger.
Mark: Good to hear from you. Superman could probably definitely take a break sometimes. Well, in the move he took a 5 year break. But yeah- make some sweet cash with his super-powers, finally get Lois Lane ( he did get her pregnant apparently ) and relax for a while. Maybe he could hold a weekly class and educate world, nation, and local leaders on how to prevent problems. Educate the world, and let them do it.
-areallygoodname