(This is my first open thread, lets hope I don’t mess this up.) The Justice League film is coming out soon. I don’t know about anyone else but I have heard “Superman is lame” or “Superman is Stupid” a lot lately and I disagree with that. So here is a small defense of Superman. (This is some small parts of a rant I am known to go on about Superman.)

Superman to me is the ideal good hero: compassionate, caring, optimistic, smart, strong, a sense of justice not revenge, and having a desire to help everyone no matter who they are. There is no real grim or darkness in his origin, not counting Krypton’s destruction so he isn’t mopey all the time like some other heroes. Other than a few bullies he had an idealized childhood and decided to make the world a better place and wants nothing in return other than to see people happy and safe. We don’t have a lot of superheroes like that anymore because everybody should be dark, angry and have a tragic back story now days. Except for Superman, every time they have tried it never stuck and I think that’s telling on how important Superman is as an idea of what a superhero can be.

“Superman is lame and too powerful to be relatable.” This is a common argument and Grant Morrison, who has said more and better than I ever will about how great Superman is, had a nice reply to everyone. “Superman is relatable his stories are the same as yours they about guilt, fear, loss, and love just on an epic scale. You walk your dog around the block. He walks his dog around Saturn. His relation to people isn’t in his powers it’s in emotions and his struggles to deal with people every day.” (Paraphrased due to the original quote being really long.)

As the world has gotten darker, Superman is a character I think we need more of now days. We have too many Antiheroes as main character. What we see as heroes reflects what we see as what good people should be like. For a long time, it was characters that embraced the darkness and violence and even if we don’t want to admit it, it did subtly change how people saw solutions to problems. I want more of our pop-culture heroes to be good for altruistic reasons. I think now more than ever we need heroes who are without question going to do good and the right thing. When I come to a problem with somebody I try to think about how a character like Superman would deal with it. It tends to end better than if I try to use force, either psychically or verbally. I leave you with one of my favorite little Superman stories.

Yep still causes me to tear up a little. Have a great night everyone. And thanks for reading this weird little rant of mine.