Batman’s aloof distrust, Spider-Man’s insecurities, Wolverine’s uncontrollable temper.. fan boys have ‘em. That’s part of the appeal.

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@Boysen Hodgson: Lovely and very well though your words are friend…

I Really, really loved this article Larry, truly one of the best ever written about Supes… He is a honorable, light hearted, modest guy, but through this all qualities it makes him bigger and different than the others and that’s what a really real Hero is…And all of those precious qualities must be preserve by every one of us who dreamed for a better tomorrow, because if people who believe in this kind of integrity gone, the world soon will end by itself…

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And it is far easier to let ourselves off the hook by engaging and indulging the shadowy aspects of our psyche … distrusting and ridiculing the golden aspects of the unconscious that we all carry. We ridicule Superman because of the deep fear that we feel for looking ‘naive’ in our pursuit of the simple path … helping those who need help. Selflessness. Compassion. Empathy.

There’s a Marianne Williamson poem that begins – ‘Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.’

Many of us – and I point to men specifically – have been overcome by that fear and have shrunk back from the possibility of our own greatness. The attractiveness of the ‘dark knight’ is a reflection of our own comfort with immaturity and irresponsibility. It is easier to be the enraged Wolverine or the conflicted Parker than the man of steel – because MANY of us have been wounded, punished, ridiculed and deceived when we took the brave and innocent path of simple truth, faith and goodness. We have banished that boy-scout to the shadows.

Luckily, not all of us are willing to let him die there.
There is still a real heroes journey out there to be taken.
The Mankind Project.

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i am deeply touched by your article and thankyou for it! thankyou for showing me that there are people who see the man of steel the way i do.

here’s to hoping the new film grants him the quality of character that the late great Christopher Reeves graciously portrayed of him!

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With respect to a previous poster, the animated series treated Superman just as poorly as the comics have for the past couple of decades with very few exceptions.

Here’s hoping that JMS makes him great again.

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Sadly comics in the last decade had not been very kind to Superman and he has been written as wishy washy and in real danger of getting boring as hell. DC needs to reevaluate what is going on in his comics and give it a kick up the behind as the current status quo and supporting cast compared to Batman and Green Lantern is colorless. Ironic when Superman mythos is so rich. But if DC are going to persist on w writing him as a wimpy whiny naive farm-boy mooning for Lois Lane it’s no wonder we are all sick of it. I bet that’s half the reason Superman Returns bombed too.

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Superman can still be trying to do the right thing but why can’t he have moments where he loses his patience and get’s a bit angry? Why can’t he make a bad judgement call without being considered a dimwit?

Clark was raised by two down-to-earth souls and carries them with him but he doesn’t need to be naive. Why can’t Superman have more of a whole world sense about him when dealing with people? I mean he doesn’t need to look at the world as a wide-eyed newbie. He can have more a way about him that the George Reeve’s incarnation did. He doesn’t need to be the Donner/Christopher Reeve ‘Superman’. Sure Chris looked incredible as the character and had some great moments but, c’mon people, he was naive in a lot of ways.

My version of Clark is the one who traveled the world trying to discover how he fit in before he ever even thought of adopting the Superman personna.

This article, while interesting and thoughtful, forgets that the larger conversation is about whether Superman can still be entertaining in a world that is looking for more drama and can’t be satisfied with just feats of ‘derring’ combined with a flashy costume and fantastic abilities. He’s got to be a character that we can empathize with and relate to. He doesn’t have to be a terrible person but he also can’t be two-dimensional.

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