33 Lifestyles/Superheroes

Dr. Babitha Justin

DEFINITION

Super heroes are typical stock characters with superhuman powers, who are inclined to protect earth, fight crime and bring a parallel order of justice at the face of human chaos and disorders. Opposing them are Super villains who have superhuman powers and who have their energies focused towards destroying the law and order of earth, exposing the carnal weaknesses f mankind and thus by annihilating them, and there by destroying the entire world and human race for establishing their power hegemony.

THE SUPERMAN

The first and the foremost superhero in literature, especially in comic books, is the Superman. If we look into the history of the term and its origins, we can see that recorded history is replete with stories of the superman. Ancient religious texts all over the world as well as mythological and legendary tales of the past point towards the existence of the ‘saviour’-like figure that has superhuman powers over ordinary beings and circumstances.

NIETZSCHE

The early presence of super men can be seen in many religious texts, where the Superman protagonists were prophets and sons of god, who braved adversities, demonstrated miracles and rose above human conditions to achieve the supreme function of being a saviour and sacrificial lamb for the entire human race. From Krishna to Jesus, we can see instances of ultimate self-sacrifice, superhuman will and the power to preside over human destiny. Friedrich Nietzsche, in his seminal work, Also Sprach Zarathustra (1883–85), called the superman syndrome ‘Übermensch’ and in philosophy, he explained that, “This superior man would not be a product of long evolution; rather, he would emerge when any man with superior potential completely masters himself and strikes off conventional Christian “herd morality” to create his own values, which are completely rooted in life on this earth.” We can see the precedence of Übermensch in Goethe and others, but it was Nietzsche who encapsulated the phenomenon in such a way that many suspected it was the heralding of Hitler and his unscrupulous power to bend, break and annihilate the minorities.

Nietzsche was also aware of the existence of Hegelian philosophy of superman or the extraordinary man. Georg Wilhelm Hegel (1770 -1830) had written many ideas of what exactly a superman should be, though he, unlike Nietzsche, did not come to a consistent formulation. In the broadest sense, the Hegelian Superman exists to carry out noble purposes, though the means to those ends can be varied and justified. In Nietzsche, Superman can be someone who keeps doing good to the society, someone who can be dictatorial and whose intentions can go faulty temporarily, but will eventually benefit society and the universe in general. The Superman therefore establishes his own sets of values in the world, and often suffers the fate of being iconoclastic as he does that.

SHAVIAN SUPERMAN

It was probably George Bernard Shaw in 1903 who tried the superman theme in literature in such a way as to make people think, laugh and be self-critical about the theory of human aggrandizement. Drawing heavily from Ibsen and Nietzsche in his play, Man and Superman, Shaw delineates the traditional roles of gender and romance. The play is influenced by the adaptation of the legend of Don Juan touching on the Nietzschean Superman philosophy. The hero, John Tanner, is a Shavian example of a superman with inflated ideas, rhetoric and revolutionary traits which his friends find bordering on the dangerous. But Shaw also exposed the innate contradictions and blatant hypocrisies within the mind of John Tanner, the Shavian Superman.

Shaw had two main objectives in his mind while he wrote about the Superman. Primarily, he believed in the development of a superior human intelligence and the eugenic breeding of a superior race of ‘supermen’. Though he had been quite ambiguous about it, he tried to incorporate his ideals of the figure of superman in Don Juan in the play. Interestingly, Shaw’s superman and Nietzsche’s superman have very little in common than largely presumed. The Shavian superman evolved from his belief in egalitarianism and socialism and had its roots deeply entrenched on the ideas of liberty and equality of human race. Nietzsche’s Superman borders on exclusivity and dictatorship.

SUPERMAN IN AMERICA

The character of Superman is also known as Kal-El from Krypton. He disguises himself in his adoptive home Planet Earth as Clark Kent, a non-performing journalist, when not fulfilling his superhero role. Superman was written by Jerry Siegel and illustrated by Joe Shuster, and has been continually published in a variety of DC Comics from 1938. It was in 1938 that the first superman appeared in the US. He took the American imagination by storm by appearing in the most unexpected cultural space: in the form of a comic book character.

He also appeared at the most unexpected socio-historic time that of the Great Depression when an entire nation was struggling under the weight of fear, insecurities, anger, anxieties and disillusionment. The country reeled under its own reliance on capitalism and the entire economic foundation on which it was built was thoroughly shaken.

Gradually, we can see that Superman was apotheosized into a folk hero and a cultural icon, thus becoming a force that had its origins from a comic book and transformed into an image that augmented a multimillion dollar film industry. The influence of the Superman went far beyond the comic book which was primarily meant for young readers. The creation of Superman was the result of the putting together the imaginative idea of a person possessing superhuman strength and power proportionate to that of folk and mythical heroes. According to a critic, “An essential element of this popularity has been his canonization as an archetypal representative of nation’s highest ideals, the defender of ‘truth, justice and the American way.” (Thomas 85). Many American critics agree with the fact that the superhuman form and power of Superman may have had its origins from mythologies and folklores and even the Nietzschean Uberman to a large extent. Concurrently, the impulse of the comic character Superman to transcend human strength, become a social menace frequently and also possess flawed judgments and decisions, are uniquely American. “Mythology and epic literature are indeed replete with the superhuman deeds of gods and heroes, but the concept of a heroic human being with super strength and super power is an amazingly modern and uniquely American phenomenon, a product of science fiction literature of the turn of the century.” (Thomas 85).

AMERICAN PREDECESSORS TO SUPERMAN

Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Martian Romance hero, John Carter, was perhaps the first superman like figure in American literature. The year was 1912 and John Carter was an earthman transported to Mars and due to Mar’s lesser gravitational force of Mars, he is capable of jumping from rooftops to rooftops thus attaining a superhuman stature to defeat many of his Martian adversaries. From Carter onwards, a new series of heroes emerged, whose strength was a distinction they naturally possessed. By the end of the Victorian era and the beginning of the new century about to be sandwiched between two wars, the strength of Superman like Carter and Superman himself was also followed with a pseudo-scientific rationale. Their rationale led to the belief that homo-sapiens had the capacity to scale their ordinariness and normal capacities to become homo superiors. They could advance their powers, transmogrify, adapt to new environments and even mutate with animals and aliens to create a superior race of human beings with superhuman skills and power.

Though Superman was introduced early, the reception was pretty lame till many supermen series hit the newsstand as science fiction comic books, mini novels and short stories. The Great Depression helped the launch of the Superman in the imagination of the American public. Early superman-like characters were cast as outsiders and monstrous freaks, and unlike the Frankenstein-like monster, were tormented and persecuted because ordinary people could not comprehend his superior powers, abnormal appearance and strange personality”( Thomas: 87). Critics also note in the earlier versions of superman, there were patterns which led to the conventional conclusion that he either died or got robbed of his superhuman powers at the end of the story or series.

Two seventeen-year-old students, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the former wrote and the latter illustrated, invented the character Superman, who clearly gave a welcome break from the Frankensteinian and Nietzschean conventions of super humanness. Superman in America was created as a Messianic figure, who was the champion of the oppressed and devoted himself to serve the needy humanity Unlike his (superhuman predecessors), superman not only chooses a place for himself in the society, he identifies with and aids his fellows and in turn is accepted, even glorified by them. He is the embodiment of society’s noblest ideals, a man of tomorrow who foreshadows mankind’s highest potentialities and profoundest aspirations but whose tremendous powers, remarkably pose no danger to its freedom and safety .

The connection between the ominous debacle during the Great Depression and the construction of a superman icon is an engaging a phenomenon. Siegel’s early Superman version had a balding, leering old scientist coincidentally preparing a young man with a secret drug to create a clairvoyant, mental giant who almost like a mentalist, sees through and controls human minds. He also has the ability to travel between superhuman spaces in the galaxy. The insecure scientist then tries to eliminate the giant and at one point tries to become the giant himself.

The Superman series and their mass production during the Great Depression indicate that the indefatigable American Dream was still alive and the superman concept kept alive, America’s hope for upward mobility and a penchant to take over the reins of control of the entire humanity. Many theorists also argue that, many phenomenal changes occurred during the Great Depression as America started accommodating its outlaws and misfits and thus the gangster movies and supermen series became widely acceptable and popular.

THE OUTLAW HERO

The desire to be a success, to be somebody was even more central to the superman story than to gangster movies. Superman was not only a success but it was so popular that his existence posed a threat to the entire planet- he was potentially the most powerful and wealthiest person on earth (Thomas 94). Superman, by that time, had also become the striking epitome of laissez faire individualism, a symbolic contradiction, especially under the crumbling rubric of a nation’s economy. This was exactly the time when the pressure on the government too became high-pitched for increased social securities with a new emphasis on centralised regulations and collective actions. This need was a historic departure from the status quo. As the critic Andrew Bergman points out, the wide spread disillusionment with a particular system, and the deflection of the problems by hoping to build up self-sufficient and efficient institutions from within led to the need for Superman during that time.

TRANSFORMATION AND ASSIMILATION OF SUPERMAN IN 1940s

The indomitable outlaw was slowly assimilated and absorbed into the American popular imagination in the 1940s. The early Superman of Siegel and Shuster was indeed an outlaw who locked horns with the establishment in his fight for social justice. In the war-driven 1940s we can see Superman fighting the enemies hand in hand with the federal government, and thus, almost becoming an honorary policeman. By that time Superman subsumed his radical individualism and thus became conventionally incorporated into the established social order.

MENAGE A TROIS

This assimilation into the social order is apparent in the story of Clarke Kent the schizoid, the low key, mild-mannered reporter who works for a typical, competitive organisation, who tames the dormant giant within him effortlessly. He has to put up with constant criticism and fault-finding from his exacting boss and faces cut-throat competition from an ambitious and derisive Lois Lane.

Kent’s powerlessness, alienation and inauthenticity are symptomatic of the status frustration of the new middle class of salaried employees who can neither find fulfillment or dignity in their professional life, nor hope for the security and independence that at once came with proprietorship.

Kent’s powerlessness in courting Lois can be sensed when we see her rejecting him and making advances towards Superman, who spins an overwhelming sense of security and protection around her, but at the same time rebuffs her in all possible ways. His ambivalence in expressing his feelings for her comes under our scanner and is often contradictory. This also indicates a larger spectrum as the Superman puts himself above the carnal and proves himself to be an authentic and genuine saviour of mankind, who transforms himself to a superhuman from the moment he dons his attire. This is the schizoid Superman who is not totally emotionally deprived and handicapped. We do witness many moments of suffering and undercurrents of passion in him, which is drowned by the ‘chaste celibate’ aura he maintains that is reminiscent of many tales of Christian renunciation.

In the sixties and seventies, there is a twist to the tale, as Superman marries Lois, as America’s history is also rife with many turbulent happenings which range from Watergate to Vietnam. This era also witnesses a self-conscious and self-evolving Superman who becomes more compliant to the chaos happening in the world. However, despite the historical changes, Superman has always retained the basic ethos of Omnipotence oriented towards establishment simultaneously, holding on to his sacrifice of sexual activity.

TIME IN SUPERMAN

Umberto Eco, in his much-discussed work, ‘The Myth of Superman’ argues that Superman stories take place in an oneiric climate where there is little connection between the past, present and future. The narrative picks its strand from random stories and an illusion of a perpetual present. Perhaps that is also the reason why Superman never married Lois Lane. A marriage would have led to the natural sequencing of the progress of human life from birth to death, where Superman could not have been frozen alone in time. Had this happened, there would have been an irreversible flux in the progression of time which would also have tied down the authors, the plot, characters and the narrative to time. Eco claims that it was through a non-insistence on chronology and on a confused notion of historical time that Superman stories became credible in the American imagination.

DC COMICS AND SUPERMAN

On the one hand we have seen how the Superman dwells on the celibate and temporal space, and on the other, we can see him as a hypersexual being hegemonizing assumptions of body, gender and the roles gender has to play. It will be interesting to trace the birth of a superhero who has taken birth directly from comic books, and grown out of proportion to capture the public imagination of the American people. Siegel and Schuster gave life to Superman in the DC comics, which later, “Stereotypically analysed male body types and the potential for power, as reflected in Siegel’s claim that some of his ideas of Superman came from childhood desire to be ‘real terrific’ so the girls would like him” (Harvey 1996).

Many studies point out to the fact that over the years the weight of male hegemony and female subordination has decreased significantly, however the superheroes are still portrayed as hypersexual beings with body characteristics which are impossible to achieve. The exaggerated musculature of Superman is a glaring example. Though much has changed over the years and the cultural contexts and the politics of the country have remoulded many nuances in the character of Superman, the fact remains that the comic book character has now come of age to dominate the visual and the psychological recesses of not just the American people, but of the entire world.

SUPERMAN ON THE SCREEN: FROM 1948 TILL NOW

There are more than 50 actors who played the role of Superman on screen. The first live actor to be Superman on the television was Kirk Alyn. In the beginning, the producers disguised his identity as they did not want to disappoint the kids and wanted them to believe that Superman was real. The actor became a star, but he suffered an obvious typecasting all through his life. The next name of the superman series was George Reeves, who was already a known actor. To be an inspiration to the younger generation, Reeves famously gave up smoking in order to be a better role model to children. He was so popular that he was the face for Clark for many years. He first acted as Superman in the 58-minute-long film Superman and the Mole Men. Reeves’ performance had been legendary and he traversed the universes of a diffident mumbling Clarke on the one hand to the cool saviour Superman on the other with great ease. Though he lived up to the role of Superman, he died before his time in 1959. In between George Reeves and Christopher Reeve, the most popular men who acted the role of Superman were a few actors like David Wilson, who made single but remarkable and unforgettable appearances on television as Superman, in the musical It’s A Bird, It’s A Plane, It’s Superman, aired in 1975.

Film History: While Children and adults loved the small screen onslaught of the Superman, in 1978, director Richard Donner and Christopher Reeve brought the Man of Steel to the silver screen in a feature film debut. Superman the Movie was a worldwide smash hit and Superman II followed the suit. The actor who really outshone all other Superman actors with every recasting of the iconic man in red and blue was Christopher Reeve. Primarily a stage actor, Reeve’s life changed forever with his clinching role, and so did the image of Superman change with Reeve taking the lead role. Once Reeve, who had played Superman for many years commented that “by the late 1970s the masculine image had changed… Now it was acceptable for a man to show gentleness and vulnerability. I felt that the new Superman ought to reflect that contemporary male image.” If not sudden, the transition of Superman movies aiming to be big budget productions with landfall receptions also became the main characteristics of Reeve’s time. Reeve’s six-footer body also underwent great transformation, as he typecast the droolworthy ideal body of Superman with well-defined features and sculpted musculature.

Reeve trained under famous body builders and stunt men and perfected the art of transformation, as people watched the onscreen magic of Clark metamorphize into Superman ironing out of the stoop, puffing of his chest, squaring of his shoulders and almost pulled out Clarke’s turtle neck from his creek with a glint in his eyes and smirk on his face. He also did most of the stunt scenes without technical help from the green screen and computer graphics. After battling with paralysis in later life, Christopher Reeve sadly died in 2004. He left The Christopher & Diana Reeve Foundation as his legacy, along with his superb performances.

Actors John Haymes Newton, Gerard Christopher, Dean Cain and Tom Welling acted out the combination of strength and vulnerability which were undeniably the core sentiments in Supes’ popular culture history. The 2016 Superman, who loses his life after his deathly combat with the Batman, Henry Cavill, has become the almost mirror image of Christopher Reeve after Man of Steel was released. In his Dawn of Justice: Batman versus Superman, he locks horns with his friend turned enemy, Batman, played by Ben Affleck and is killed by a Kryptonite weapon. In this movie, the resounding question of the public, do we really need a Superman is debated out in its most practical and theoretical terms. Though Superman dies in Dawn of Justice, he dies with a promise that he will resurrect in the second part of the movie, which will be released in December 2017.

Thus, after 90 years of his conception, Superman is a concept of the Uberman, who has captured the imagination of the young and adult alike, all over the world. The world is waiting for Superman’s resurrection in 2018 with bated breath.

OTHER SUPERHEROES OF OUR TIMES

Other than the Superman, we can see that the American comic history is well-stocked with superheroes. There are masked and unmasked vigilantes, who keep a watch on earth’s well- being and balance. Some long running Superheroes of the American comic and film world are Batman, Spider-Man, Captain America, Wonder Woman, Iron Man, Thor, the Flash, Wolverine, Green Lantern, and Hulk. A close look at the archetypes of the Superheroes, we can see them as “white Anglo-Saxon American middle- or upper-class heterosexual young adult males who are typically tall, athletic, educated, physically attractive and in perfect health”.

It was in the 1960s, an attempt to include Super-heroines into the fold and Marvel Comics tried to include at least one token female character into its superhero menagerie. Wonder Woman, Mrvel Girl, Wasp and the Scarlet Witch were the token women, who were included in the male pantheon of superheroes. With the civil rights movement in America, Black and ethnic superheroes were also successfully portrayed. From 1990 onwards, many attempts were also made to accommodate superheroes and heroines with alternate sexuality and select disabilities. Many new openly gay, lesbian and bisexual characters have since emerged in superhero fiction, such as Rainmaker, Apollo and Midnighter of The Authority, and Wiccan and Hulkling of the Young Avengers. In 2017, Pluin introduced Sign Gene, a film featuring a group of deaf superheroes with supernatural powers through the use of sign language. The film was produced by and with deaf people and nurtures the culture’s self-image by reflecting correctly the core of the Deaf culture, history and language.

Reference

• Ad Neeleman, and Kriszta Szendröi. “Superman Sentences.” Linguistic Inquiry, vol. 35, no. 1, 2004, pp. 149–159. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4179266 .
• Andrae, Thomas. “From Menace to Messiah: The Prehistory of the Superman in Science Fiction Literature.” Discourse 2 (1980): 84-112. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41389055.
• Eco, Umberto, and Natalie Chilton. “The Myth of Superman.” Diacritics, vol. 2, no. 1, 1972, pp.14–22. JSTOR, JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/464920
• Gillan, Maria Mazziotti. “Superman.” Prairie Schooner, vol. 79, no. 3, 2005, pp. 144–145.JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40639377.
• Harvey, Rober C. The Art of the Comic Book: An Aesthetic History. Jackson: MS University Press, 1996.
• Mills, Carl Henry. “Shaw’s Superman: A Re-Examination.” The Shaw Review, vol. 13, no. 2, 1970, pp. 48–58. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40682505.