Superman Is Better Than Batman

An Essay for The Kryptonian

“Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s SUPERMAN!”

We thought 1999 to be the greatest year animated television could ever have. Gargoyles, Batman the Animated Series, Cowboy Bebop, Pokémon the Anime, Superman the Animated Series, Batman Beyond, Dragon Ball Z, and others blessed the decade. We rose out of childhood steeped in colorful costumes, magic swords, and the desire for heroics. But one show impressed me beyond others, leading to a lifelong fandom: Superman: The Animated Series. It was–and still is–the least popular show of its time among my friends. We often argued about Superman (is he cool, is Batman better, etc). I always fought for the kryptonian, but my friends all liked him least of all. Now, 25 years later, with more learning and the advent of the new Superman trailer, it is again time to defend the big, blue, boy scout.

First, the argument: Superman is the GOAT, for he is greatest in virtue, power, struggle, and sacrifice. In fact, he is the greatest in all things heroic. But now the naysayers all leap forward, proclaiming that Superman isn’t the greatest in entertainment! And that’s the chief accusation against Clark, isn’t it? He can’t be beaten. He’s perfect. He's boring. All of these are, at least at surface level, fair accusations. There are many bland Superman comics, episodes, and books. I’ve seen/read them. Brandon Sanderson, lord of the nerds, agrees with this issue. In his creative writing series (available for free on Youtube), he says, and I’m paraphrasing here, “Superman is a hard character to write good stories for because he is the best puncher in the universe.” Stories need conflict. And since Superman is stronger than everyone else, he doesn’t seem to have any conflict. He appears to auto-defeat all enemies. There are a few supervillains who can threaten him, but they can’t be present in every story. Reasonable people should view Superman as boring if he never has to struggle. Let us further strengthen the argument against Superman and say for the purposes of this essay he can defeat every villain easily. Yet, even if he is unbeatable in a fight, Superman is still the most worthy and interesting hero to read about or watch.

Never fear, for C. S. Lewis and Plato shall provide the lead-shielding needed to defeat the naysaying-kryptonite. Plato, in his Republic, tells the story of the ring of Gyges. It is a story about Gyges, a shepherd, who travels down the mountain one day, and he finds a magic ring that turns him invisible. With this ring, Gyges realizes that he can do nearly anything he wants. So he goes into the capital city, steals whatever he likes, kills the king, has sex with the queen, and generally acts as the worst kind of person. One of the conclusions that Plato draws from this story is that hardly any man, given the opportunity to commit evil with impunity, could resist the temptation. Everyone who has snatched an extra cookie or peeped at something they shouldn’t knows Plato is right. The ring put Gyges in a state of perpetual temptation, and he acted, no doubt, as most of us would. Plato does conclude that some people can resist temptation, but to be able to take or do whatever one wants all the time is too much for a man to bear. C. S. Lewis, brilliant man that he is, wrote about temptation in Mere Christianity:

No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness — they have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means — the only complete realist.”

To be clear, Superman is not Christ, but he is Christ-like. Superman is the shepherd with the ring. He can take, or do, whatever he wants at any time. Despite the power to be a tyrant, Superman resists. Lewis’s point proves that Clark must be virtuous, and intimately acquainted with the desire for evil, since his powers offer him many opportunities for abuse. To have great power and wield it responsibly is the greatest strength. One struggles to imagine how Pa and Ma Kent taught little Clark to be virtuous, but God knows it’s a good thing they did.

Yet, Superman does not easily dismiss his passions and desires. He struggles with them, just as we all struggle with our passions and desires. We see Clark wrestling with them in the fantastic story “For the Man Who Has Everything.” It’s the second episode in Justice League Unlimited. At the heart of this 22-minute story is the true cost of living a life of heroism. This is an absolute banger of an episode, so stop reading and go watch it before I spoil it.

(If the reader watched the episode, skip this paragraph. If not, don’t.) “For the Man Who Has Everything” is about Wonder Woman and Batman going to Superman’s Fortress of Solitude to give Kal-El some birthday presents. When they arrive, they see Superman bound up in an alien plant that has knocked him unconscious. Mongol, an alien conqueror who is strong enough to (maybe) kill Superman, steps from the shadows and reveals that he has trapped Supes with the “Black Mercy,” a parasitic plant that feeds delusions to its host. These visions become whatever the host most desires, so the host never wishes to awaken. Eventually the plant siphons all life from its host, killing them. Superman dreams that he is a farmer on Krypton, with a wife, a son, and a dog. He is not famous, powerful, nor financially rich. He clearly loves his life. But the voice of Batman penetrates the dream, and Kal-El ultimately decides to give up the fantasy, despite having to say good-bye to his son and perfect life. He leaves the black mercy’s clutches, defeats Mongol, and saves his friends.

This episode is jam-packed with incredible moments, but the one most suited to this discussion occurs when Superman asks Mongol, “Do you have any idea what you did to me?” Mongol answers, “…You had to give up your heart’s desire…it must have been like sawing off your own arm.” Mongol cannot conceive of a greater loss than harming himself because he is a selfish being. But Superman is not selfish, which means he knows the greater depth of pain that is self-sacrifice, to give up a good for the sake of another. Kal-El gave up a family, a home, a perfect life, everything he wanted, to save his friends and his adopted homeworld. Superman held the ultimate ring of Gyges in this story (even more than he usually does). No amount of super strength, flying, or heat vision could grant this to him, nor could those abilities free him from the black mercy’s grasp. Clark gave up his dream in favor of a hard reality through a choice of will.

Sanderson makes a similar argument in his lecture series. He first admits that Superman is a hard character to write for (as stated above) but then says he is a fan of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (another excellent TV show from the ‘‘90s). In Lois and Clark, Clark and Lois have to deal with problems that Clark’s superpowers don’t always solve. There are investigations, an invisible crime spree, some high school students with superhuman intelligence, and in one episode Clark has no way to use his Superman powers without putting lives in danger. All these challenges can’t be punched or super-sped away. He must find alternate solutions. Really, in proper Superman stories, he is less of an action hero, and more of a dramatic hero.

This is not unique to Lois and Clark, either. This is a fundamental aspect of Superman storytelling. Behold his permanent archenemy, Lex Luthor. Luthor is a human, and while hyper intelligent, he possesses no superhuman abilities. The reason Luthor is Superman’s nemesis is because Superman won’t overpower Lex. Meanwhile Luthor constantly tries to either kill Supes or ruin his life. Luthor attacks Superman’s reputation, friends, family, and in the mediocre-but-still-awesome-mini-series Public Enemies, President Luthor brands Superman a federal criminal. These are all trials that Superman must defeat in nonviolent ways. Clark's ultimate enemy is an enemy who knows that Clark has many weaknesses–not just kryptonite. Luthor knows this, and he exploits the greatest weakness: Clark’s humanity.

It should be said though, when Superman does need to use his powers to kick-ass, boy oh boy is it exciting. When Supes finally defeats the black mercy and starts laying into Mongol, or when he throws down with Darkseid in the Justice League Unlimited finale, or when he fought Doomsday (the first time, in 1993), or when he fights Zod, or Lobo, or anyone in his league of strength, it’s a great fight. But he only comes to blows as a defender or guardian. Superman is in a way a father or older brother to mankind. He has tremendous gifts which he shares with us, but he also has communication issues, a secret life, and a job he can’t talk about that forces him to travel.

A brief word must be said about bad Superman stories. Superman began in the 1940s, and in the past 80 years there have been more forgettable stories than memorable. This is partly due to the commercial nature of all superheroes: monthly comics, movies, and TV series are churned out at an incredible rate. Because of this, long-lasting superheroes are a product of natural selection. Over time, the bad stories fall away and the good stories coalesce into a character of great depth. Batman is an excellent example of this. Batman The Animated Series easily stands out as an excellent series for the character. It participated in the tradition of Batman stories, but it also added a great deal. All the slag of bad Batman stories that miss the mark don’t stand the test of time. They fade, and are forgotten, while the best continue in a living, dynamic tradition.

This should be the same for Superman. But somehow Supes is condemned to carry his failing stories through the years. People are quick to remind one another of laughable Superman tales, and only the laughable ones. Perhaps there are just too many bad Superman stories out there. Perhaps his role as a dramatic hero means that audiences are disappointed when they see him. Maybe it’s the high-expectation; if Superman ever does something that is outside his dynamic tradition–throwing Zod through populated buildings, for example–people are quick to point out the flaw. His perfection makes him boring, but people are angry when he isn’t perfect. This conflict is true in Superman’s fiction, but also true in our reality. The big blue boy just can’t win.

Some people will still dislike Superman stories regardless of what is said here. Such is the way of taste: Those who love Rieslings are not always in love with Bourbon. And to be fair, he's not the GOAT in terms of action. His best stories are less feats of power and more human theater— fewer bar-fights, more courtroom-dramas. But disliking a character does not decrease the greatness of that character. If Superman stories are hard to write, that makes them more valuable when they are excellent. For when audiences and writers treat our friend Kal-El as a fish-out-of-water, a man who desires peace but can never know it, and as a man begged to hold up the world, we suddenly find a universally interesting, lovable, good–and tragic–man.