On the way home from a bike ride I found myself talking very seriously with my brothers about the natures of two of our favorite superheroes: Superman and Batman. Thinking about how interesting the conversation actually was, I decided I’d put my thoughts here for people to peruse.
Superman:
Oh boy. The big one. The first real superhero. The Man of Steel. Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings with a single bound! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman!
His name is known the world over.
But have you really thought about who he is as a person?
He typically personifies everything that is good in man. Strong, powerful, moral, kind, and good, he is the perfect man in almost all ways. But something interesting is that he has never let that power go to his head. Not once (in the comic cannon) has he turned evil (on purpose) and attacked the people for any reason! Now, if you look at all the powers he’s got and all the leaders throughout history, this is almost not humanly possible! No man has ever had such power, and all that have come closest have been corrupted.
What makes him different?
Well, in my opinion I think it was the way he was raised.
Though alien, he grew up in a humble lifestyle and without his powers. Superman’s body turns sunlight into energy and gives him the powers he has, but his body apparently hadn’t done enough of this until he was in his teens. That gave him plenty of time to develop a humble, caring nature, instilled in him by his equally humble Earth parents.
So that reveals one thing: Superman is humble. Super-humble (if you’ll pardon the pun), since he can possess so much power yet remain incorruptible.
This is further evident that he chooses to be a small, barely noticeable reporter. Sure, perhaps this position gets him the news quickly, but there are other positions he could have been in equally useful. His choice of a reporter fits this trait of his wonderfully.
And what about his mind? Is Superman super smart? Not really. He gets all of his knowledge through ordinary means. Granted, he can use his super-speed to read books far faster than a normal person, but that doesn’t make him smart. Nope, his mind’s about as normal as anyone’s, though he has more opportunity and drive to improve it than most.
And how about his weaknesses? To list them out from Wikipedia, Superman is weak to kryptonite, Red Sun radiation, magic, massive physical forces and lead. But this list forgets one thing: Superman, even though he is a super powered alien, is, interestingly, only human.
Superman is only human.
Now, I know that technically I’m dead wrong there, but let what I’m trying to say sink it.
What does it mean to be human?
It means making mistakes and regretting them, trying to be good, having to do things you don’t like, and being subject to the pain in your head and heart.
This is Superman’s greatest characteristic, funnily enough. Though alien, he still loves, learns, hates, fears, and is subject to ordinary, mental and emotional pain.
Most people will tell you that Superman is too inhuman and un-relatable.
Instead, I’m saying that he is extremely human. In many ways more human than other heroes like Batman, Wonder Woman, Wolverine, Hulk or Iron Man, who were all (mostly, at least) human. All of those characters have some basic, core issue in their souls that distances them from people, and I’ll get into Batman in this regard in a minute. Superman, however, is just that: an ordinary man with superpowers.
Batman:
Oh Batman… how we love you so. And how little you seem to reciprocate. And how abusive we are. Seriously, the Adam West Batman and the movie Batman and Robin were completely uncalled for. But why do we like Batman so much? I mean, he’s got no real powers and he’s not that nice, but he’s the one who gets all the movies and t.v. shows while superman seems to have been left behind.
Well, I’ll tell you why: Batman embodies our struggle through pain.
The fact is that Superman is too perfect. He fights, he struggles, he saves the day, but at the end of that day he is smiling and happy and perfectly fine. Batman though… Batman is fear, Batman is pain, Batman is horror, and Batman is a man pushing forward through all of that. He’s flawed at his core, which I think a lot of us identify with. Superman’s core and spirit are just fine.
You see, Batman is what he is because of two things: 1) the murder of his parents, and 2) his first fear of bats. The murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents caused him deep and unstoppable pain. A boy with everything, it only took losing his two parents for him to feel like he’d lost everything. Nothing could replace him. None of the money, now his, could bring them back to life. That agony tore at his heart and changed him inside. While other people would let the pain eat them alive until they hit rock bottom where they could start again, Bruce Wayne used his pain to his advantage and used it to drive him to become the Batman. That pain keeps him going even when ordinary men might just give up. And why a bat? Because his fear, his torment, he wished to impose on his enemies. Every dark part of his soul he used to build his persona and strengthen himself in mind and body.
A big question in the comics community is which is the mask? Bruce Wayne or Batman? Which one is he really? I think the answer is fairly obvious: Bruce Wayne is the fake and Batman is the real. Bruce Wayne is built on nothing, while Batman is built on personal torment. I am forced to admit, though, that neither seems adequate to describe the whole man. Somewhere inside there is still joy and goodness in a pure form, but he never lets that part of himself out.
Now, let us get into how inhuman Batman is.
He has no powers. None at all. But he has gadgets galore; realistic things that we can believe might actually exist. He is smart; smarter than perhaps anyone else in his world, it seems. He has spent years honing his intelligence, reasoning and focus. Seeking a battle of wills against Batman is almost certain suicide. Well… it would be if Batman were to kill you, which he won’t. (Also, though I don’t want to get into his rouges gallery, the Joker might be the only one to consistently put Batman’s mind to the test. All the other rouges are forgettable or made specifically because Batman is so darn smart writers have to keep coming up with better foes to pit against him.)
He’s strong, having trained his body to the best of conditions. He has money and wealth, leverage to achieving his goals. All of this is what we, as people, could achieve if we truly tried. This is why Batman is so human and so much more liked sometimes than Superman.
But I want to make it perfectly clear that few people could be Batman, for he is, inside, almost inhuman. At his core something has gone horribly wrong or right, depending on your perspective. He has incorporated his negative emotions into his soul, making him more a creature of the night than a man. If you really wanted to be Batman you would have to shape the core of your being, something so dangerous and precarious you could just as easily become the Joker as Batman.
And with that I will leave you to ponder these two heroes, one of light and the other of darkness. Both, I think, have their merits, and I find it hard for myself to pick between the two. While Superman is good he is also impossible, and while Batman is possible he is also darkness and broken inside. These two characters define our world to some extent, and I hope that you, dear reader, regard this topic as more than just fanciful ramble but as a deep and intriguing topic.
Seriously yours,
Josh
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