Superman's Humanity: Understanding The Man

This essay will be talks about the graphic novel Superman for All Seasons. While this essay will be covering themes there will not be too major of spoilers.

I know that Superman has become overshadowed by his dark and brooding companions at DC Comics. Superman is seen as a one-dimensional character by most modern audiences who have seen him primarily depicted in movies and TV shows. Superman is an overpowered alien who comes and smashes terrible guys through buildings and catches planes falling from the sky. Meanwhile, writers who understand Superman write stories that don’t focus on his powers but on his isolation.

Superman has been around since the birth of the superhero genre, which leaves a lot of stories featuring the Big Blue Boy Scout. Superman is known to have saved DC more than once. He was one of the only characters selling consistently. The sad part about Superman is that his most known story is his death at the hands of Doomsday. The story showed how importent Superman is to both the world and those living with him in the pages. There is a reason that no matter how popular Batman or any other Superhero gets, Superman will always be the face of DC.

Superman was viewed as the symbol of hope in both the comics and the real world. His attitude and optimism to see people for the good that they can have always been one of the reasons that he has stayed as my favorite superhero and one of my main muses when looking at comic stories for literary analysis. This preamble shows why Superman is not just a “paper thin” good guy, and his only flaw is that a green space rock weakens him.

For all that I want to say, I have to make sure that you, Dear Reader, have some knowledge about Superman's origin. As most people know, he came from Krypton, and his parents sent him away as the planet was being destroyed. Landing in a cornfield in Kansas, he is adopted by Jonathan and Martha Kent, leading to him growing up as “normal” Clark Kent on Earth.

Until his powers develop and he is shown the spacecraft that came to Earth, he realizes he is not “normal,” far from it. He is not even Human. This is the crossroad that most people, “Superman clones’’ split from Superman.

Most modern Superhero shows have a “superman-like” character who has the powers of Superman but not his humanity. Characters like Omni-man from Invisible and Homelander from The Boys are the two that come to mind as shallow readings of Superman because they don’t have the love for Earth that Superman grew up with. (Just to preface, I have not read the Boys or Invinsable, so there could be redeeming qualities for them, but from what I have seen, they are just evil because that’s what people like villains.)

I hope that soon people will turn away from this villain that comics have become; I think there are many problems with storytelling if the characters that people like the most are the Joker, Harly Quinn, or Lex Luthor. We should want to root for the Hero, not the villains.

Because Superman has had so many stories throughout the years, I will look closely at two of my favorite stories, Superman for All Seasons and Superman: Up in the Sky. Both of these stories help give an insight into the man under the costume and his distinctly Human heart.

I am going to start by talking about “in my opinion,” the best Superman story, Superman for All Seasons. This story sheds light on the man Clark Kent, showing his life before he left for the big city and, his relationship with his parents and the friends he leaves behind in Smallville.

As Superman has his first trouble as a superhero he flys home in a depressed when he realizes that he is unable to save everyone. Superman has to find himself as he leaves the metropolis to go home and talk to his parents to get their wisdom

Jeph Loeb uses some of our most insecurities and puts them into a character who is supposed to be invisible. Even the Man of Steel can feel like he can never do enough and will ultimately fail. He can never save everyone; sometimes, his superhuman abilities will not be enough.

With this, I hope people will stop looking at Superman, like the tall paper cutouts in comic book shops and movie theatres, as a character who can only be interesting if he becomes evil. He is more than his powers. He is a character that has depth. Though he can leap over the tallest towers, He is faster than a speeding bullet. Superman is only a man.