First off, he's kind of a cop-out when it comes to superheroes. He has every superpower imaginable e.g. super strength, flight, x-ray vision, laser vision, super speed, etc. He's also invulnerable. He can get hit by a train and nothing happens. He can even go hang out on the moon without any precautions.
Now, I know there are some fanboys and fangirls (cause we do exist, believe it or not) out there that will call foul on that last comment. He's not 100% invulnerable. He is vulnerable to kryptonite, the ore form of a radioactive element found on the planet Krypton (or so says wikipedia). But honestly, that's also a bit of a cop-out. The only thing that can weaken him is essentially a rock that was blow out to space when Krypton was destroyed. Yes, there have been synthetic versions of it created but in order to do that, you have to be super smart and super rich.
Recently, I have expressed my distaste for Superman via Facebook where I was advised by Joe to not judge Superman too quickly. Though he dislikes Superman as well (he called him the big blue boy scout), he said I should read All-Star Superman as it does explain why the world needs Superman. He did advise me that while I may still loathe him, it may help him seem less "toolish."
If it had been anyone else but Joe, I would've just blown it off. But considering Joe was the one who got me into this whole mess we call comic-book-love, I had to read it. I promptly ordered it on amazon.com, patiently waited for 5-8 business days, then sat down and read All-Star Superman.
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| This is what it looks like, fyi. |
For example, all of those things I mentioned above enable almost every story of Superman to be wrapped up quite nicely in an almost deus ex machina (esque) type of fashion. He gets shot with a kryptonite gun by Lois Lane (who shot him because the robot left the lab door open so some chemicals leaked out causing visual distortions and paranoia or some such bullshit) but instead of hurting him, he just conveniently discovers he has a new invulnerability to green kryptonite.
However, I think the thing that bothers me the most about Superman is the overall simplicity of everything. Superman is the good guy. He always is the good guy. He is basically incapable of doing anything bad. He really is the "big blue boy scout." No matter what, you know exactly what he's going to do in every situation. To me, this is simplicity to a boring degree. It makes him almost a flat character. There is no complexity, no questions of morality in his character. He's just good.
The same goes for his arch nemesis, Lex Luther. In All-Star Superman, it attempts to go into why Lex Luther hates Superman so much but doesn't do a very good job. Essentially, he just doesn't like Superman. It does get a bit more into the reasons but that's pretty much it. After talking to Jarom (who is my resident comic book go-to guy), it's a bit more than that. Lex Luther hates Superman because Lex Luther wanted to be Superman. They both wanted the same things. It's just Lex Luther wanted to go about them in a different manner so the two of them ended up competing against each other. And since you can't really compete against Superman, Lex became his arch nemesis. The prime motivation for Lex Luther to act against Superman is jealousy? It seems kind of petty.
Keeping these two things in mind, I was able to fully explain why I dislike Superman so much. It's because Superman, his characterization, his storyline, etc., is exactly opposite of everything I love about my favorite superheroes/heroes.
My favorite hero/comic book characters are Batman and Hellboy. One of the reasons I love Batman so much is the complexity of his characterization and his storyline. Think about it. He's a man who wants to do good by being a vigilante, by going independently of law enforcement. He wants to do good by beating the crap out of bad guys–and he likes it! He gets a kick out of beating up bad guys (pun very much intended). He is haunted by the deaths of his parents and yet his quest to rid the city of the evil that took them away from him has become his obsession.
Also, there is the question of whether or not his very existence leads to the creation of super villains such as the Joker or Two-Face. They are a reaction against him. Does he feed their motivations? Where does the line between Batman and them lie?
What I like about Batman is there's a lot of gray area to deal with. He's a man that choses to do good but you know that if the course of his life had been different, he might not have ended up on the side of good. He's a man who has the potential to be bad but chooses not to.
Same goes for Hellboy, in a sense. The guy is destined to use his Right Hand of Doom to summon the Ogdru Jahad and therefore the end of the world. Yet he chooses to fight on the side of good, to essentially fight against his destiny because it's the right thing to do. It's unimaginably hard and it causes him to live a very lonely life but he does it cause it's right.
I guess that's why I don't like Superman. There's no complexity with him, there's no gray area. In a sense, there is no choice for him. He's always going to do the right thing no matter what. I really do wish that the writers of Superman would put him in more moral dilemmas, in situations where the only two outcomes are losses. That's the only way I think you could make it interesting. Of course, they'd probably solve it with another deus ex machina and ruin the whole thing.
Stupid big blue boy scout.
Love you.
Mean it.
