Since his 1938 debut, Superman has become one of pop culture’s most popular and influential fictional characters, though some of his adaptations make fundamental mistakes regarding his characterization. As an icon whose recognition goes far beyond his original medium of comic books, Superman has been adapted to various formats, with many becoming famous in their own right. This includes Superman: The Animated Series from the 1990s and the Injustice: Gods Among Us multimedia franchise, as well as films like Richard Donner’s 1978 Superman film and the modern DCEU movies. While the former two deserve their beloved status, they make major mistakes with their depictions of Superman which Richard Donner and Zack Snyder avoided in their respective films.
While many qualities of the early Superman comics existed before his 1938 debut (such as a superpowered being and a hero with a secret identity), Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s magnum opus forever changed the pop culture landscape by creating a character who stood for absolute justice in ways that the legal system couldn’t and society could be inspired by. While Superman’s popular status as the first superhero is a matter of debate, he helped build the superhero genre which eventually became a cultural juggernaut that dominates the entertainment industry to this day, due in large part to superhero comic adaptations, particularly on film.
As one of DC Comics’ flagship characters, Superman has been adapted to other mediums for much of his history. These adaptations often influence the comic source material in turn, with the Fleischer cartoons giving Superman his iconic ability to fly. In many other cases, Superman’s adaptations introduce fans to the character and his mythos, which is why it’s so important for them to stay true to the character’s core meaning from his earliest comic appearances. Superman is, ultimately a force of social justice and societal progress who protects the downtrodden against corruption and humanity’s worse evils, such as bigotry and totalitarianism. Moreover, Superman’s roots as a metaphor for refugees must be preserved. The villainous Superman in the Injustice franchise and the incredibly humanized Clark Kent in the Superman Animated Series get key qualities of the character wrong, while Superman’s two most famous film versions avoid such mistakes.
Alan Moore, of Watchmen and The Killing Joke fame, wrote a notable Superman story in 1985 titled “For The Man Who Has Everything,” which unfortunately misunderstands Superman’s allegorical roots from Siegel and Shuster. The story depicts Superman under the effects of a parasitic alien plant called the Black Mercy, which paralyzes its victims with hallucinations of their deepest desires. In Superman’s case, this was a normal life on Krypton without any superhero activities, and while the story is entertaining, it fails to understand Clark Kent’s personality, values, and symbolism.
Clark Kent grew up on Earth among humans, with a loving family in Smallville and a fulfilling career in Metropolis, in addition to having a superhero career that saves lives and fixes injustices. It makes little sense for Superman to secretly wish for a life on a planet he has no memory of in a society he didn’t grow up in while living a life that doesn’t involve helping people. Superman is, among other things, a metaphor for refugees, escaping the oppression (or in Clark’s case, annihilation) of their birthplace and making a better life for themselves in the United States. Moore’s depiction of Superman, which was adapted faithfully in the DC Animated universe’s Justice League Unlimited, establishes that Clark Kent doesn’t care for his adopted home of Earth or humanity deep down, and would eschew his altruistic activities as Superman if he could.
Superman: The Animated Series, which is also set in the DCAU, went to great lengths to emphasize Superman’s relatable and naturalistic side, which became one of its greatest strengths as a Superman adaptation. This makes Justice League Unlimited using Moore’s story especially strange, as the DCAU’s Superman is normally characterized as someone who loves both the difference he makes as a hero and the planet he grew up on. Superman adaptations must adhere to his 1938 roots as a person who seeks to right the wrongs of society and improve life for the disenfranchised, so having him secretly wish to turn his back on his heroism and humanity betrays this. It distances Superman from his humanity, an intrinsic quality of the character.
The 2013 video game Injustice: Gods Among Us and its subsequent sequels and spinoff content are based on the premise of an alternate universe where The Joker murders Lois Lane and detonates a nuclear explosive in Metropolis, leading Superman to kill The Joker and gradually form an oppressive government known as the Regime, which subjugates Earth under fascist rule. While the franchise is set in a different reality than the mainstream DC continuities, it tries to establish that the normally-heroic Superman is capable of becoming a fascist dictator under the right circumstances. The notion of a grief-stricken Superman becoming an oppressive villain appears in the DCAU as well, with the Superman episode “Brave New Metropolis” and the Justice League episode “A Better World” depicting similar versions of Superman to his Injustice counterpart.
These stories fail to understand another key component of Superman’s origin. In Superman’s earliest comic appearances, his enemies weren’t mad scientists and monsters, but the all-too-real menaces of corrupt capitalists, white supremacists, and fascists. Superman would break the law if it meant battling societal injustice, as demonstrated in a Golden Age story where Superman prevents the arrest of a group of juvenile thieves and convinces the City to update their slums with affordable housing, fixing the problem rather than maintaining the harmful status quo (though Superman is wanted by the police as a result). Superman is, at his core, an anti-fascist character who fights for social justice and against bigotry. Superman, like so many other famous superheroes, was developed by two Jewish creators who worked in the comic book industry during a time when more mainstream forms of publishing were generally run by white men who denied opportunities to minorities.
Superman’s characterization, when handled correctly, makes a turn to fascism impossible, no matter what the circumstances are. Superman would be devastated by the death of Lois Lane or The Flash, but the idea of him becoming a fascist in his grief, even gradually, is a fundamental failure to understand his role as an anti-fascist who endeavors to bring about societal progress. While the DCAU and Injustice are preoccupied with making Superman into a “god who’s gone bad” at the expense of his character, Superman’s two most famous cinematic incarnations avoided these pitfalls.
Richard Donner’s Superman avoids both of these misunderstandings in one fell swoop with the film’s finale. Superman fails to save Lois Lane and, stricken with grief, unleashes his powers on an unprecedented level, turning back time and saving everyone, including Lois. Superman’s actions go against the warnings of his biological father, Jo-El, but he follows the encouraging words of his adopted human father instead. Superman not only avoids a preposterous turn to villainy, but he also chooses his devotion to humanity over Krypton.
Man of Steel makes the latter point more overt, with Superman having to choose between allowing General Zod to recreate Krypton or saving the people of Earth. Superman chooses Earth, saying that “Krypton had its chance.” The DCEU also teases an apocalyptic Knightmare Future, where Superman becomes the tyrannical fascist ruler of Earth, similar to Injustice. As revealed in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, however, this dystopian scenario can only happen if Superman falls victim to the Anti-Life Equation, which removes his free will and makes him subservient to the supervillain Darkseid. The film establishes that, in his right mind, Superman would never become a fascist, forcing Darkseid to resort to brainwashing. Richard Donner and Zack Snyder’s Superman adaptations succeed where others fail by maintaining the character’s devotion to Earth and humanity, as well as his ideals of social progress and anti-fascism.
