Why the World Needs Superman

By Matt Slavick ’06

I’ve always wanted to be Superman. When I was little I owned a pair of red underwear that I would wear over my pants with a cape fashioned from a tattered, faded red towel. I would roam the neighborhood battling unseen forces of evil, fighting for truth and justice, defending all that was good in the world—at least until I was called in for supper.

In college, I dressed as Superman for Halloween, not once, but twice. I’ve seen Superman: The Movie countless times and I often literally dream of wearing blue tights and leaping into the sky.

With all of the excitement surrounding the release of Superman Returns, I pondered why the story has managed to endure since its inception in 1932. With his perfect looks, unchanging costume, and not a sullen bone in his alien body, Superman has for some time now been viewed as the un-hip comic book hero. He was called an “overgrown Boy Scout” in the first Christopher Reeve flick, and that was thirty years ago. Where’s the darkness? Where’s the anguish? Why is he still flying around in these pessimistic times?

In the movie Kill Bill, Vol. II, the title character has a monologue that claims Clark Kent is Superman’s opinion of humanity in physical form. Bruce Wayne wears a mask as Batman, just as Peter Parker dons his outfit to become Spider-Man. Their superhero alter egos are their disguises. But Superman’s disguise is Clark Kent. “Superman did not become Superman,” says Bill. “Superman was born Superman.”

I disagree with this assessment. Superman was Clark Kent long before he was Superman. He never knew his biological parents and was raised under the influence of Kansan farmers who instilled the values that allowed him to become who he is. Adopted infants take on the characteristics of the adults who raise them. It’s nurture, not nature, and he is as human as the rest of us.

Clark Kent is more than a disguise. He is the embodiment of what it means to be human—the pain, the failure, the fragility. I am Clark Kent. So are you, and everyone else in the world. He’s the total normality of mankind, the bumbling fool we all are, the nerd who will never get the girl.

But Superman’s nature is undoubtedly something special and one doesn’t need the genius of Lex Luthor to understand just how special he is. The man can fly, for god’s sake; he can shift the flow of mighty rivers and raise continents with his bare hands; he can turn back time.

When Clark Kent runs down the street, rips away his shirt, and leaps into the air as Superman to fight whatever danger awaits, we identify with the wish to transform ourselves into something god-like and plunge headfirst into our own personal treachery without fear of physical or emotional harm. We want to be him and annihilate whatever threatens us.

This is precisely the reason why Superman still captures our imagination. We consciously or unconsciously cast the image of ourselves onto him because we desire the safety and security his invincibility provides. Who cares if we’re a nerd or mild-mannered if bullets bounce off our chests and heat rays shoot from our eyes?

When Superman catches the plummeting Daily Planet globe in the new movie, he literally bears the weight of the world on his shoulders. We’ve all felt this way at times. The hardships of life leave us wishing to be indestructible or to escape from it all. If fantasy became reality, we wouldn’t need a hunk of metal, or even our imagination, to leave the confines of Earth and its unpleasantness. We would simply jump into the sky and disappear.

The world needs Superman because he has become an outlet to project our tragedy into hope and our failure into success. As children we want to fly like him because it is fun. As adults we are desperate to shed our insecurities just as Clark Kent sheds his suit and tie. To become something greater than we actually are is the real fantasy. Otherwise we’re just frightened grown-ups leaping the great chasm of life, wearing nothing but our underwear and a tattered towel for a cape.

Matt Slavick ’06 is currently a mild-mannered editor for a legal publishing company in Philadelphia.