How Superman Has Been A Moral Goal For Decades

How Superman Has Been A Moral Goal For Decades

As audiences grow increasingly cynical, is it still possible to think of Superman as a realistic character – or even an aspirational one?

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How Superman Has Been A Moral Goal For Decades

Imagine yourself as a child. The world around you has been flipped on its head and you can sense the stress of the adults around you. You’re too young to fully understand what’s happening, but you know people are scared. Clips of the news make their way to you – pictures of war, stories of communities of color being persecuted, and a growing sense of nationalism all across the world. In the afternoons, though, you sit with your siblings in the living room and tune in to hear the story of a man who fights for justice. Your local radio station doesn’t have the strongest signal in your neighborhood, but for Superman, you make it work.

Like the radio show, Superman comics were accessible to children from many different communities. By the 1940s, Superman was already a huge hit and his image was everywhere – from the newspaper funnies where Superman helped out America’s military overseas to the comics where he fought bad guys in Metropolis and beyond. Superman quickly became a household name.

Superman was first published in Action Comics in 1938, and the character, famously created by Jerry Seigel and Joe Shuster, has been dissected by critics and academics ever since. Clark Kent – and by extension Superman – is characterized as unironically good for the sake of being good. He is a character who genuinely believes in justice and doing the right thing. For some modern readers, this can be read as unrealistic, and childish, but for decades Superman has been a character to look up to.

How Superman Has Been A Moral Goal For Decades

From 1940 to 1951, The Adventures of Superman was a nationally syndicated radio show with sky-high ratings. Aimed at young audiences, the episodes were short, simple, and oftentimes interrupted by commercial breaks urging listeners to eat all of their Kellogg’s Pep cereal. Stories played out over several episodes, as Superman stopped robbers, saboteurs, kidnappers, and a slew of other bad guys, delighting audiences across America. On the surface, the radio show seems like simple, splashy children’s entertainment, but as Superman continued it began to tell intelligent stories of justice that seem shockingly fresh and relevant, even to the modern listener.

To tune into The Adventures of Superman is to tune into another time that feels oddly like our own. The war was over, but new battles at home and in communities across America were starting to shape the nation. The Adventures of Superman saw this and responded with their radio show. “Drought in Freeville”, an episode which first aired in January 1947, follows Clark Kent and Lois Lane as they track a story to the small, rural town of Freeville. A group of diverse war veterans who are participating in a new homesteading project are butting heads with locals, with accusations of bigotry and theft flying between the two groups. What Clark and Lois’s investigation turns up, though, is a story of racist politicians using voter intimidation to maintain power. In another story, “The Skin Game”, a local bigot shoots Jimmy Olsen while aiming for a teenage Black athlete that runs on Jimmy’s track team.

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Fans of Superman may be most familiar with the 1946 radio story “The Clan of the Fiery Cross”, made famous by Rick Bower’s book Superman versus The Ku Klux Klan. For 16 episodes, Superman fought a fictitious version of the Ku Klux Klan, which the program repeatedly described as “undemocratic”, “un-American” and “evil”. Every day, kids across America ate their Kellogg’s Pep cereal and cheered Superman on as he thoroughly trounced the program’s newest bad guys. The radio did such a good job at portraying the Clan of the Fiery Cross negatively that it actually affected attendance of the real-life Klan, and destabilized their power for decades.

How Superman Has Been A Moral Goal For Decades

There’s a sweetness to Superman, highlighted in schmaltzy post-War comics like Action Comics #93, which has Superman celebrating Christmas with children around the world, including a few refugee children. The comics are often goofy and show Superman’s altruistic nature, reiterating the idea that doing the right thing can make the world a better place. From scaring crooks straight to using his powers to save town festivals, small businesses, and performing other small acts of kindness, Superman wasn’t just there to fight the big bad guys, but seemed to delight in helping the little guy. Even when he believes he is dying, like in Superman #66, he makes sure that his last hours are spent making sure the world can continue on without him.

The empathy and kindness with which Superman traditionally tackles problems carry into modern comics. In Paul Dini and Alex Ross’ Superman: Peace on Earth, we see Superman look at the poverty and hunger in his city and in the world beyond and resolve to do something about it. He sets about delivering food all over the world but ultimately fails in his mission to solve world hunger. It was, after all, a nearly impossible mission. However, the honest, if naïve, effort, and the real desire to see big change makes Superman seem that much more good.

How Superman Has Been A Moral Goal For Decades

In Superman #701, a woman stands on a building ledge, preparing to jump. Superman has the ability to grab her, to bring her back down to the ground, but, instead, makes the promise to allow the woman to make her own decision. And, then, he waits. Panel after panel shows the sun sets, stars coming out, and Superman waiting with the woman. The patient silence is without judgment and expresses a take on empathy not always expressed in media. Superman, in those panels, shares something vulnerable and truly human with a stranger and that feels like a superpower.

This empathy, this goodness, can seem unattainable and unrealistic. Readers have grown more cynical, making stories like #701 seem saccharine and silly to some. Audiences don’t believe people are good for the sake of being good anymore. “What if” explorations of the Superman character are more common now. What if Superman’s spaceship landed in Soviet Russia? In Nazi Germany? Would he still be good? Who would he serve? What stands out most about these two particular stories – Millar’s Red Son and Morrison’s Master Men – is that both present a Superman who questions and then abandons his authoritarian role.

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Alternate universe and timeline stories and one-offs pepper comic history. Stories like Injustice, which present Superman as power-mad and violent, are agreed to be not a true part of the canon, but their own separate stories. These characteristics are not who Superman truly is. It is interesting to consider that even the most cynical versions of Superman, that reject the idea of a truly good individual with Superman’s powers, are treated as not actually Superman.

Perhaps, then, Superman and his goodness remain so valuable to audiences because there is a longing for naivete. In today’s fractious world, it can be difficult to believe that goodness exists, so characters like Superman become even more treasured. While the aspiration to be as good as Superman may feel unreachable, people reach for that goal anyway.

Superman comics are, of course, not without their flaws. They are subject to the biases of writers and are sometimes a product of their times. Specific slurs aren’t used, but language and characterization around race and ethnicity is still a product of its time. In both the comics and The Adventures of Superman, Lois is often shushed and occasionally played as less clued-in than the other reporters around her, despite her obvious experience and tenacity. Patronizingly, she is referred to as a “girl reporter” and a “kid”. The radio show portrays the bigots as always very, very bad, lacking the nuance of similar stories today, but it’s important to remind ourselves that the show was aimed at kids and impressing on young people the belief that it was “American” and just to fight bigotry where it is found. This message feels just as relevant now as it likely did then.

Despite these flaws, Superman remains an aspirational goal. Not because of his super strength, but because of his super empathy, his kindness. He helps the little guy, he offers a listening ear to people who are grieving, and he stands up against bullies and bigots. For those of us who aren’t Superman, trying to live up to the Kryptonian superhero may feel impossible. In listening to and reading Superman, it’s possible to get the sense that this is not a new feeling. Over seventy years ago, people were trying to stand up for the same things during a time when war and bigotry, hatred, and a fear of growing world-wide fascism left the country feeling unsteady on their feet.

It’s scary to abandon cynicism and pursue empathy, kindness, and hope. Take comfort – even Superman makes mistakes and then tries again to do better. Superman isn’t good because that is his default state, he is good because he pursues goodness. So, pursue being like Superman – help, listen, stand up and fight. Oh, and don’t forget to eat your Kellogg’s Pep cereal.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/superman-hero-decades-history-dc-comics/

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