Too Good For His Own Good

We can call it the Superman problem. Superman is, to put it mildly, a bit overpowered. He has extraordinary strength, can fly really really fast (not just faster than a speeding bullet—faster than light), has impermeable skin, X-ray vision, heat vision able to burn through just about anything, cold breath able to freeze just about anything, superhearing, and just in case that isn’t enough, he can hold his breath for a super-duper long time. Weaknesses? Well, just one. His X-ray vision does not work through lead.

Oh yeah…and kryptonite. A green rock which instantly reduces Superman to complete and total helplessness whenever he gets near it. Fortunately, kryptonite is extremely rare on Earth, so people can’t just get some whenever they want to thwart Superman. Also fortunately, despite the fact that there is so little kryptonite that nobody can just go get some, there is always some available whenever the plot needs Superman to suddenly get weak in order to provide some drama to the situation.

If you have a Superhero who is literally indestructible and has a massive array of offensive powers at his disposal, how do you write a story for him?

Batman is easy. He has no superpowers, just a lot of toys. He is dark, brooding, and psychologically interesting. It is easy to create intricate plot situations for him.

That is the DC problem: the most superpowerful of all their superheroes, the superhero everyone knows, is just too powerful to figure out how to craft a plot around him.

Or so I thought.

Then I read Superman: A Celebration of 75 Years. I had not read many old Superman comic books because I was convinced they would be rather dull and repetitive. Villain comes along, Superman shows up, kryptonite shows up, Superman finds way to get away from influence of kryptonite, bad guy loses. Lather, rinse, repeat. What could be interesting about that?

What I found instead in this book was a marvelous set of rather fun stories. The fun part was not the drama of watching Superman figure out a way to beat the villain. That is part of the fun of a Batman story, but plays very little role in providing the enjoyment of a Superman story.

What makes Superman so interesting? He is a really good guy. Really good. He stands for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Bad things come along and here is this absolute paragon of virtue who never wavers. He just does the right thing. Over and over he does the right thing. Someone is in danger, he helps them. Someone has an evil plan, he stops them. Nobody dies. Good wins.

Why isn’t Superman the most popular Superhero of all with endless amazing movies about him? Because of the answer to this question: Do you want the heroes in your story to be good?

The antihero is all the rage these days; a morally reprehensible person who does good things for all the wrong reasons. The morally tortured hero is also all the rage these days; the hero who wants to do good but has some character trait causing an internal moral tension. Interesting superheroes have flaws, right?

So, imagine a superhero who is strictly Good. He is Just. He cares about Truth. He fights for the American Way. Ok, that last one instantly raised your hackles. Who talks like that today?

So, set aside the American Way bit for a second. Superman is perfectly Good and fights for Truth and Justice. Would you like to read a bunch of stories about a guy like that? No wonder DC can’t figure out how to make a decent movie with Superman in it. Who wants to watch a movie where the hero is Good and Virtuous?

In other words, the reason Superman stories are so hard to craft has nothing to do with the fact that Superman is so powerful. The problem is that he is so good. It is easy to write a story where this incredibly good and virtuous hero does incredibly good and amazing things. If it made us happy to see good triumph over evil, to see selflessness rescue people from tragedy, then Superman stories would be as good as we can get.

Superman is, in other words, a role model. You would never tell people they should be more like Batman or Deadpool. But, being more like Superman would be highly commendable. He is selfless, always helps others who are in need, always stands up against evil and injustice, always cares about Truth. He is the very model of the good person, the good citizen.

Indeed, Superman is such a fantastic Role Model, you might even want to set him up as your National Hero. Let’s identify his goodness with the country. Let’s say Superman fights for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Let’s set this as our aspirational standard. We want a nation that is good enough that Superman could be our National Hero.

We do have National Days for everything else, so I hereby propose that Congress pass a law making Superman the official Superhero of the United States. Then they should declare a day to be National Superman Day. On that day, we all celebrate by being good to one another. Any objections?