The Superman Paradox

By: MSJ

Imagine being the most powerful being in the world: strong, unstoppable, and virtually omnipotent. A beacon of hope in an otherwise cynical world that not only causes change but is change. Now sit back in imagine writing Superman, a character that can do anything and cannot be killed. How would you make him compelling if there is no danger that can even make him bat an eye? This is the question that many writers and detractors of Superman come across whenever discussing the big blue boy scout.  He is overpowered so there is nothing that can be done to make him interesting. Many people will rely on this tiny caveat as a way to write off various characters as unrelatable or uninteresting; so as to not even attempt to experience a story. While the idea does rob stories of dramatic tension, when handled correctly it actually becomes very negligible or a boon to the series.

Before diving even further into this I  want to define what overpowered means. Typically, whenever a character of any form of media is considered overpowered it refers to the fact that their abilities, or power set, are too powerful for any sort of threat to arise that could potentially beat them. Also, their very presence in a story could very well break any tension or drama in the story. A clear example of this would be a role-playing video game where you're at a high level, and you go back and fight lower level enemies, things would be just too easy. The same tense feelings of despair against a foe and hope that one can prevail are lost after the initial encounter because now the same enemies haven't shared the same growth in strength that you have. Now they are merely ants facing off against the proverbial atom bomb.

Superman, both as a character and a comic book, has been in existence for over seventy-five years now but cannot seem to break this stigma: he is an overpowered character thus making him uninteresting. This line of thought is actually false. Overpowered he is, boring he is not. His powers do not make him interesting, rather it is his personality and the challenges that he overcomes that make him both fascinating and relatable. In fact, some of my favorite stories have seen him at the height of his powers: All-Star Superman (he cures cancer), Kingdom Come (super gulag),  Final Crisis (he sings to save the universe), and Injustice (super dictator) just to name a few.

A common theme among each of these is that while his powers were a major factor in achieving the impossible what actually makes those stories dear to me is the portrayal of  Superman. Kingdom Come was a four-issue miniseries in 1996 by Mark Waid and Alex Ross that was intended to be a deconstruction of the current anti-hero trend. It followed an older more cynical Superman returning from a self-imposed exile after the dawn of a new generation of heroes; ones who were more violent and willing to resort to extreme measures than their predecessors were. The miniseries dealt with themes of collateral damage and authoritarianism as Superman fought to train the new heroes as well as usher in a safer, better world in the face of Armageddon. Just typing that sentence fills me with the glee of a child eating ice cream. With that being said, Kingdom Come is just one of numerous stories that have a wildly powerful version of Superman but is wildly entertaining despite the prospect of him being too powerful. It is the character that defines how good the story is and not his powers.

By not making his physical feats the focal point of a conflict and rather focusing on an abstract internal conflict it requires complex solutions as opposed to a simple physical solution. As I have mentioned before, Kingdom Come is just one example of how to properly utilize Superman without losing any of the sense of drama or tension that may come from a story that follows a character not as powerful as him. To reiterate the best way to write a Superman story is to focus on internal factors such as ideologies or fears rather than external such as how to best beat this character into submission.

One day I was speaking with a friend, less speaking and more yelling at each other. During the conversation about Superman, he stated that when people claim that Superman is overpowered the writers have to take his powers away.  This is both true and false simply because with over seventy years of stories writers have had to find ways to shake up the status quo in superhero comics, even if said changes do not stick. Speaking broadly, take into account that Batman was paralyzed, Spider-man was cloned, Captain America was a werewolf, and despite a considerably shorter span lifespan, Spawn fought God and the Devil. Radical changes to existing characters, no matter how ridiculous they may be, is par the course for superheroes. Being highly specific as well, in some medium or another, superheroes losing their powers is another commonality found when dealing with the genre.  For example, the Hulk on no less than three separate occasions in comics has seen Bruce Banner either lose his ability to become the Hulk or even be divided into two distinct physical entities. Therefore knowing that these sort of shake-ups happen all the time, the claim that Superman losing his powers is the only way to make him interesting is not the most sound of arguments.

Some writers appear to be cognizant of these pitfalls that come with the character despite there being numerous incorrect representations of Superman or comics, but the best tend to shine bright and elevate the character to the same levels that he is romanticized as.

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