Untouched By The Abyss. The Essence of Superman.

Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No! It’s…..a middle-aged Caucasian-looking alien male in the depths of an existential life crisis all confused about what he’s supposed to do and how he’s supposed to relate to the mother of his unplanned child and…wait. Stop. That’s not right.

Sorry Mr. Singer. That’s not what we wanted, but it’s what you gave us when you created Superman Returns (2006, Brandon Routh, Kevin Spacey).

Superman is a good guy. The quintessential good guy. Focused. Confident. Honorable. Strong on myriad levels. And he’s supposed to know what his purpose in life is.

Aside from his early years, when he still hasn’t fully grokked where he’s from and what he’s supposed to do, Superman is supposed to be very simple. He shouldn’t be wrestling with complexities on the level of Nietzsche’s Übermensch (“Overman”…”Superman”….get it?) And he especially shouldn’t be a character as seen through the eyes of Hollywood writers that completely miss what the essence of the franchise should be. Incorporating “relevant social themes” such as disrupted family households, absent father figures, and religious overtones? Really?

People go to see a Superman flick to get away from that kind of stuff.

This? This is awesome

The Superman of the 1950s television show (1952-1958, George Reeves) was awesome. Bad guys are doing bad things. They are stealing. They are smuggling. They are kidnapping. They don’t mind hurting people. Superman is not there for soul searching.  He’s a good guy intent on action. Quickly crack the bad guy on the jaw and send him to jail. Done.

And the Christopher Reeve Superman? I can pay him one of the highest complements I think possible. He makes you want to be a better human. Just by watching Superman The Movie (1978, Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman) you can’t help but want to have more dignity and honesty and selflessness in your own life. He’s humble. He politely points out the negative effects of smoking cigarettes without being judgmental. He keeps his promises (even the one he made to Lex Luthor’s squeeze, Ms. Teschmacher.) And for gosh-sakes, he takes the time to safely retrieve a cat from a tree.

Regardless of how difficult one’s life seems, watching this film is guaranteed to make you feel better.

And I don’t know if I should admit this to the general public or not, but I’ve watched every single episode of Smallville (2001-2011, Tom Welling, Erica Durance). No matter how bad the acting was, or how tired I was of Lana’s whining, or how affronted I was by Oliver Queen’s OCD regarding his phobia of wearing shirts, I kept coming back. The reason? Clark was a good guy. He was the guy that if you threw up in his car on the way home from a Friday night party, he wouldn’t mind.

More frequently than I’d like to admit, I thought, “Clark….just freakin’ TAKE THAT DUDE OUT! Pick him up and throw him at the Sun already!” But he didn’t. He always found a way to be the good guy. He was able to fight with the abyss without being touched by it.

Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns was acceptable in terms of form, but not in essence. It was the low-fat vegan mac & cheese of the Superman franchise. It fills the stomach if you’re really hungry, but your bank account would have to be at $0.23 before you’d even consider consuming it.





Super heroes are super heroes and church is church and never the twain should meet.

Superman is not about family dynamics. He’s not about Christ-like imagery. And he’s DEFINITELY not about voyeurism. Watching a family going about their evening activities with one’s x-ray vision is simply creepy and dark.

Artist : Jim Lee

And ultimately, that’s how one should gauge the Superman paradigm. In terms of darkness and light.

For example, Batman is darkness, with light struggling to maintain control. He uses fear. He actively functions in a manner that displays that he wants to kill the bad guys (but he still never does, hence the internal conflict). When he’s getting information from a bad guy by hanging him off the ledge of a ten story building, one gets the distinct impression that he really would like to drop that guy.

Splat.

There is only a fine line between the Dark Knight and the Joker.    

But Superman? He is light, with darkness occasionally trying to seep in. He doesn’t use fear. He’s civil.  He inspires. He doesn’t want to kill the bad guys, although he knows he could with just the flick of a wrist or a quick blast of heat vision. With all the accompanying restrictions and frustrations, Superman is supposed to be a paragon of ethics and morality. In the good way, not the puritanical, school-nun-hitting-your-knuckles-with-a-ruler kind of way.

He knows that he can’t save everyone on the planet all the time. But he knows that he can inspire others to try to be just as noble as he strives to be.

What should we demand of Man of Steel (2013, Henry Cavill, Russell Crowe)?

No existential crises. No worries about a son born out of wedlock. No pummeling to death of the bad guy. No darkness. No rage.

The bad guy is supposed to have rage. Superman is supposed to have focus and clarity and compassion, even for the villain with which he’s fighting.

I can’t speak for the entirety of the Realm of Geekdom. But what I want, and what I think the world needs, is not another dark, cynical anti-hero. We want and need a Super Hero. Capital “S” and capital “H.”  A hero who knows who he is and what he has to do. One that doesn’t want to kill. One that doesn’t take joy in the suffering of his enemies. One that lifts mountains and moves planets. One that doesn’t lie. One that saves kittens from trees with the same intent that he has when he’s trying to keep California from falling into the ocean. One that impels me to be a better human being.

When I walk out of the theater after watching Man of Steel I want to feel like I need, and can, do something to save the world.

Not turn my back on it.

Written by Stephen Sumner, Action A Go Go’s Sci-Fi columnist.