The Expository Essay

The Other Side of the Bridge

He goes by many names, the Man of Steel, The Last Son of Krypton, Kal-El, and Clark Kent, but it is by the name given to him by the Daily Planet, Superman, that the most famous hero of all time is most recognizable by. Arguably the most famous comic book character in history, Superman has worked his way up from a lowly comic book character to an an American cultural icon. It is to Superman to whom we compare ourselves, and his weakness, kryptonite has become a metonym for a general weakness or fault. Possessing a strong American-based moral view of what’s right and wrong, Superman stands for everything Americans hold dear, truth, freedom, liberty, and justice. Although most associate his origins with the influential Action Comics #1, published in 1938, Superman actually appeared five years earlier, in a science fiction story entitled The Reign of Superman, published in 1933, in which he is unrecognizable, and is based off a misreading of the Ubermensch of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. While the modern Superman bares little resemblance to the original Nietzsche inspired one, his evolution as a character over the years away from his original depiction has actually increased the amount of similarities that he shares with the Ubermensch of Nietzsche lore, so much so that he now serves as an almost perfect model for the Ubermensch that Nietzsche presents in Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

In the new Superman movie, Man of Steel, Jor-El, the Kryptonian father of Superman speaks to his son in a message, telling him that he “will give the people an ideal to strive towards.” This characterization of Superman, as a hero for people to look up to, has been portrayed for years in the comic books. In the DC universe, the normal people as well as other superheroes highly respect Superman, and look towards him as a savior and a hero, a force for justice, someone to aspire to. But Superman was not always the man who people looked up to. In his first appearance, The Reign of Superman, the Man of Steel resembled a certain bald super villain more than Christopher Reeve, and acts like him to, possessing telepathic powers instead of his later ones, and being intent on world domination and villainy. Although Superman’s co-creator Jerry Siegel claimed that this early version of Superman, and his spiritual successor Lex Luthor were based on the Ubermensch of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, it seems more evident that he is actually based off a common misreading of Nietzsche. In their interpretation, Superman’s co-creators  made the same mistake in reading that the Nazi’s did, interpreting the Ubermensch as a superior version of man whose rightful throne is the world. Even as Superman began to evolve into his red and blue wearing modern form, he still possessed aspects of the original characters, including dubious morals, and a solemn disregard for the safety of others and the damage of property in the pursuit of his goals.

Superman continued his destructive rampage until 1954. Widely considered to be one of the worst acts of regulation in the United States, and standing as a huge violation of the first amendment, the Comics Code Authority was adopted in 1954, with every major publisher eventually falling under its sway. The Code changed the way Superman was portrayed completely. Instead of being the overpowered being with little concern for anything except getting the job done, Superman was transformed into Nietzsche’s Ubermensch, although not intentionally. Throughout Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche portrays the Ubermensch not as a villain, but as a hero who will save the world from the nihilism that comes with the death of God. The Ubermensch, with his new morals and values will become an ideal for humanity to strive towards. And that, an ideal to strive towards, in the words of Jor-El, is what Superman became. He started working alongside the police, and because this was the Cold War, Code Superman also began to work with the US government, fighting against communism and its influence by spreading the United States approved message of justice, liberty, and freedom for all. Just as the Ubermensch serves the people as a guide in their time of need, safely carrying them out of the nihilism and back into the light, Superman serves as a hero to inspire people, and in the continuing of Jor-El’s words from earlier, “You will give the people an ideal to strive towards. They will stumble, they will fall. In time, they will join you in the sun. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders” (Man of Steel).

In the Superman mythos, there is a variation of Superman’s coming to Earth, a wrinkle in time one could say. In the distant future, after the sun has gone red and the rapture has come, a scientist named Jor-El sends his baby Kal-El back in time, to when the sun was still a bright yellow, and humanity was still on that bridge, between the lesser and the greater. Superman was sent to serve as the Ubermensch for the people, a prophet guiding humanity into becoming the Kryptonians, or Ubermenschs (Millar). That idea, the idea of eternal recurrence, the predestination paradox, whatever one wishes to call it, forms a central part of the story of the Ubermensch and Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the idea that humanity is always destined to become the Ubermensch over and over again, that “man is but a rope stretched between the animal and the Ubermensch,” between the lesser and the greater (Nietzsche 11). The Ubermensch is not merely an ideal to strive towards, it is our destiny. In that way, the story of Superman, his origins and who he’s become over the years, have resulted in a Superman that shares much more with the Ubermensch then just a name, he is the Ubermensch. 

Works Cited

Man of Steel. Dir. Zach Snyder. Prod. Christopher Nolan. Warner Brothers, 2013. Film.

Millar, Mark. Superman: Red Son. New York: DC Comics, 2003. Print. Elseworlds.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Trans. Clancy Martin. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1885. Print.

Siegel, Jerry, and Joe Shuster. "The Reign of Superman." Science Fiction: The Advance Guard of Future Civilizations Jan. 1933: n. pag. Print.