As the title of today’s service indicates, I will be talking today about comic book superheroes. So, yes, if you’re someone who watched every one of the 23 Marvel movies, culminating in this year’s Avengers Endgame, then today is your lucky day.
If, however, you can’t tell the difference between Ms. Marvel who is a captain in the air force, and Captain Marvel, who is a 13 year old boy, fear not. I aim to provide sufficient context that no one should feel too lost, and just in case, I will be available for a Q&A session in the lobby after the service, cleverly disguised as a mild-mannered coffee drinker.
Now, certainly superheroes are an unconventional topic for the pulpit, but I would argue that we can learn a lot from studying the people, even or especially the fictional people, that we hold in highest regard. Those that we believe in, that we trust in, that we endeavor to be like. And superheroes are nothing if not that.
It’s fairly obvious to see heroes are role models. When Halloween comes around, our children don star-spangled tights and ice-embellished princess dresses as often as not. But it’s not just in our whimsical youth that we idolize our heroes. It is, after all, not uncommon to see tattoos of super heroic insignias. And so it behooves us to consider what messages we are taking away from our consumption of their stories. Because those messages inform us as we grow about the people we should or at least should endeavor to be.
Unlike most role models, however, comic book heroes are long lived creatures, and several have been around for generations. The ones that persist through the years have also adapted over the years. They have become campy, or grim, or noble, or sympathetic. The iconic comic book heroes are a reflection of the times and people that have kept them alive in their imaginations. Though they are influencing us, we are influencing them as well. Examining the ideals that they exemplify can thus show us what ideals we most cherish.
So, for today, let us examine two of the greatest, most iconic, and best known of modern heroes, Batman and Superman. Batman, alter-ego of billionaire Bruce Wayne, who lost his parents in a mugging, trained all his life, and swore to fight the crime plaguing his city. And Superman, also known as Clark Kent, last member of an alien race, born with near limitless power but adopted and raised by a couple of farmers in Kansas.
Despite being published by the same publisher, being created within a year of each other, and frequently sharing the screen in a variety of movies and TV shows, Batman and Superman are fundamentally different characters. They are different enough that I have frequently encountered people who are wildly enthusiastic fans of one, but openly contemptuous of the other.
Though Superman’s home planet was destroyed, he was but a babe at the time. Upon his arrival on earth he was adopted and raised by a loving and caring family. Batman, in contrast, had his loving family taken from him in an act of brutal violence before his very eyes. Superman’s powers are simply a quirk of his genetics, while Batman has no “powers” per se. Every advantage he uses, martial arts, custom gadgets, patient detective work, is a result of his own hard work and training. And where Superman might as well be defined as literally invulnerable, Batman is at best just another guy with expensive body armor.
Because of this, Batman is relatable in a way that Superman never will be. Batman is dedicated. He understands sacrifice. Everything he has ever achieved has been at the cost of his own normal, pedestrian life. The closest he has to family is Alfred, his butler, and a handful of short-lived and ultimately dysfunctional romantic interludes. It’s even more poignant then, knowing that everything he’s working towards, every happy family he rescues or reunites, will always be someone else’s happy family.
Batman is determined. When he falls, and he does fall, he works hard to recover, to pick himself back up, and to come back for another round, however many times it takes. He has been dealt defeat, been gravely injured, and known terrible loss, but always, always returns to the cape because he knows that that is where he’s most needed.
And most crucially, Batman is vulnerable. Vulnerable to bullets, vulnerable to knives, vulnerable to poisons, or big rocks or even sharks. Batman must do his job, day in and day out, knowing that today might finally be the last day.
So we learn from Batman that the price of making the world a better place is hard work, and sacrifice, and determination. We cannot have every luxury and still know that we are doing the best we can. And we cannot change the world for the better without being willing to put ourselves out on a limb, putting our own comfort or even a bit of safety at risk.
For all that though, I would also argue that we can learn just as much from Superman. Batman must necessarily operate in the shadows, both literally and figuratively. Superman stands tall in the sun, brilliantly colored, with a smile.
Superman supposedly stands for “Truth, Justice, and the American way.” Now, let’s be honest, the real ways of America often seem to have very little to do with truth or justice. It’s a real stretch to think Superman might exemplify what America is. But perhaps it might be more reasonable to say that Superman is what America believes it could or should be. The America that we tell our children that we are. Sanctuary for the powerless. Refuge for the just. Belief in the strength of the common man and uncompromising when it comes to what is right.
Batman time and again relies on violence, coercion, and fear. He bends the rules and operates outside the law. But Superman? Superman is the ultimate boy scout, his principles as rock solid as his abs. He disarms bad guys and deescalates robberies. He protects people, all people, without exception. He does not judge. He does not leave people, even thugs, tied up in dark alleys. And where Batman is mysterious and alone, Superman stands proud, giving speeches, accepting keys to cities, encouraging others to go out and save the world in their own ways.
Throughout history, there have been people, and I’m talking about real people here to be clear, who have thought that they were smarter or stronger than everyone else. Or they saw that they were born to money, or nobility, or the best caste or gender or race. And these people, many of them, have thought, “Well of course I should be the one making the rules. I’m the best. Everyone else should serve me.”
There is no other fictional character that is more a direct answer to that sentiment than Superman. He is a character born with every bit of power that any mad fascist could hope to wield, and yet has found his great calling in life as a servant of others. Make no mistake, Superman is a leader, but a leader through example, and example only.
Even without abusing his power, Superman could live a life of extraordinary wealth and comfort by simply leasing his might to the highest bidding government. Or maybe just take corporate sponsorships. But no, Clark Kent, the food-buying, rent-paying half of Superman, works as a salaryman, and a journalist at that. Superman pays his bills with a hard day’s work, and everything that makes him exceptional? That’s reserved strictly for volunteer work.
People that don’t like Superman stories tend to say that there’s no suspense. He’s too powerful. And even if he wasn’t, he’s too… goody-two-shoes. And it’s true. We can’t be Superman. It’s not even the powers. Superman always does the right thing. Says the right thing. Has the wise insight and the caring heart. At some point, it begins to defy our suspension of disbelief. Anyone who’s ever raised a toddler can tell you that no matter how good you and your intentions are, no matter how much you love, there’s only so much patience any one person can have before they get frustrated or grumpy, or yell, or cry.
Superman is not the goal we think we can achieve. Superman is the shining beacon on the horizon, that we can never quite reach. But in times of darkness, we can always look at that shining light and know that that’s at least the direction we should be pointed towards. In a sense, Superman is perhaps the secular, “What would Jesus do?” bumper sticker, for those of us that aspire to be our best, even on the hard days.
Now you might wonder, how can these characters, seemingly polar opposites, have endured for so long side by side, the two best known and best selling superheroes of all time. And the answer to that just might be, that despite all the aforementioned differences, the two actually also have a lot in common. Yes, they’re both fabulously handsome. Yes they both have secret caves to retreat to. Yes, they were both incredibly corny in the 1970s era “Superfriends” cartoon. But those are just the trappings. Those can’t explain what sets these two apart from The Shadow, or The Phantom, who are now all but forgotten. Or from Iron Man, who may be front and center in the latest marvel movies, but will not likely be anyone’s favorite tattoo 20 years from now.
What makes these two really special is that they have, embedded deeply and fundamentally in their character, the true essence of a Hero. To help illustrate this, I’ve picked out two of my most favorite moments from all of the Batman and Superman canon.
In 2005, the animated TV show Justice League Unlimited aired an episode called “Epilogue”. In this episode Ace, a young girl and former villain, whose psychic powers have been manipulated and enhanced by a shadowy government research team, loses control of her powers. Her thoughts literally warp reality, reshaping it to match her imagination. But the strain is killing her and in a few hours, when her brain finally gives out, the uncontrolled psychic energy of her last moments would kill hundreds of thousands of people in the surrounding city. In a desperate move, Batman is given a device that should eliminate Ace’s powers, protecting the city, but killing her in the process. Batman accepts the device, knowing he might be the only one Ace would trust to get close enough.
And so Batman enters the castle that Ace has imagined up to hide away in, to find her alone on a swing set. However, it’s soon revealed that he never planned to use the device. Instead he sits with this troubled teenager, who is terrified of her looming death, and grieving for her lost childhood. She is comforted now by a soul who’d lost his childhood too. He sits with her, and holds her hand, and she undoes her changes, so that when she dies it will be her alone that passes. And then she does.
And before I cry in a service, I will share, also, what I believe to be the single best moment of Superman.
In 2010, a run of Superman comics called Grounded tells the story of a Superman who has, for various reasons, come to feel that he has become disconnected from the people he has sworn to protect. And his somewhat obvious solution to this is to simply walk across the United States, interacting with its people along the way.
In Philadelphia, he comes across a cluster of police officers trying to talk a woman named Felicity down from a ledge. In a lesser story line, perhaps she would have jumped, or slipped, and the hero would swoop down and catch her in the nick of time. But instead, Superman flies up and talks to her. She screams at him to stay out of this, to let her die. It is only after he pledges, at Felicity’s request, that he will not stop her that she begins to listen. And they say their parts, and then they wait. Superman floats there, quietly, for hours. And then, sometime after nightfall, when Felicity is ready to talk, he says some pretty beautiful things, and she agrees to hold onto hope that someday might be better than today, might be worth staying around for, one more happy day. And then she steps into the safety of his arms, crying and holding on.
In this moment, I want you to reflect on what these stories have in common.
<pause>
For me, what struck me completely, was that at no point in either of these stories did either hero use any super powers to save the day. No Batmobile. No super-strong punches. Batman could have used the device to kill Ace, assuming that as a mind reader she would even have let him, and it would have cost both of them their humanities. Superman could have grabbed Felicity by force, but it would just have robbed her of her own agency, and only delayed a tragedy.
No, they saved the day, saved people, by being people. By talking. By caring. By being patient. By listening.
Their powers, the gadgets, the heat vision, those just set the stage for what sort of villains they might fight. It is their character that makes each of them true heroes.
And so we return to the first question, of what we can learn from superheroes. What good does it do to compare and contrast them? It teaches us about being the people we strive to be. It shows us the best of who we wish we were. It teaches us what it takes to be the best we can be. And it reminds us, that at our best, we’re all still always people, looking out, with compassion, for other people.