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To get started for free, visit brilliant.org slash sagesrain or click the link in the description, and the first 200 of you will get 20% off Brilliant's annual premium subscription. We lie to each other. We brutalize each other. We kill each other. And here's this, this man sticking his neck out for everyone. Way, way out. He flies. He can see through walls. He can lift up cars or bounce bullets off his chest, or do just about anything he wants to. And that's the part that gets me. He can do anything he wants to. And he decides to do what? Be a hero? Why? Superman in so many stories and iterations has this burning desire to belong. Sure, he's the most powerful person on the planet, but Clark is just like you and I. He gets anxious, scared. He doesn't want to be othered. An immigrant seeking to be welcomed and accepted amongst everyone else. His greatest enemy is a man who wants nothing more than to remind him that no matter what he does, no matter how many people he helps, he will always be an alien. An immigrant. He will never belong. Clark reminds the world and the people of Metropolis that he is just like them, that his mom made his costume for him. Superman doesn't want to be worshipped. He doesn't want to be seen as a god. He longs to just be a man who understands his responsibility. A man who just does the right thing. And who can inspire others. When Superman gets deified, like in Kingdom Come, he is given this exorbitant pressure. A pressure that not even Krypton's last son can carry. More than that, it goes against what Clark Kent believes at his core. The core values of this character. Clark Kent is a man who possesses tremendous empathy for humanity. A man who possesses humanity of his own. Deifying him strips him of that humanity that makes him so great. It takes away from the very essence of Clark Kent and of Superman. And that humanity is felt most notably in the stories that he is depowered, but especially in the stories that he isn't, he is able to empathize with humanity's struggle so well. And most of all, he is in awe and inspired by humanity. While of course he inspires them, it's not nearly stated enough how they inspire him. This is not a god. Clark Kent is a farm kid out in the biggest city in the world with a whole new identity. A journalist fighting corruption, trying to fight the richest man in the world. When faced with a man who despises him, when faced with humanity's ugliest sides, he still has tremendous faith in mankind. That is Superman. To me, Superman's strongest and most moving and touching stories are the stories that test his humanity rather than his power. And that's what makes him so compelling and captivating. We already know that Superman's power is damn near limitless, but it's not about depowering the man of steel. It's about making him feel the weight of being human. The weight that we feel every single day and the sometimes mundane issues that we face added onto the pressures of being Superman. Like when Clark overhears his father questioning whether or not their son is truly like them, or if he belongs amongst them, how does that make a man who desires so badly to fit in feel? How about when the journalist Persona forces Clark Kent to be a boring shell of himself, which then gets him left out of social outings? Does that feeling of loneliness, that desire for companionship suddenly disappear because he can leave buildings in a single bound? In Superman Confidential, the story forces Clark to manage his personal life. How does he manage saving the world and a relationship with Metropolis's golden reporter? What would you do? He asks. You have a date with a woman you are madly in love with, but if you go on that date, a village of innocent people will die a horrible death. Could you live with making that choice? How does Superman handle the world's issues and not neglect the one girl who wants to take her own life? Or how about the little girl who was kidnapped and still believed, at every moment of her kidnapping, that Superman was going to save her? No matter what. How does the man of steel choose? How does he come to terms with the fact that he cannot truly save everyone? That he also has to take care of his own desires and needs. How does he not blame himself for not being able to save everyone? What about the idea of failure? One of my favorite Superman moments was in For All Seasons by Jeff Loeb and Tim Sayle, and Sayle's Superman is comically large with a rather simple face, embodying this story's depiction of a very simple, massive man with a heart that is even larger, a big blue boy scout through and through. So when he fails to save someone, when someone dies in his arms, not only is he crushed, but for a while he feels like he can't be Superman, because he failed one time. How does he deal with death? He had to go back home. He had to rediscover who Clark Kent was. He had to learn that yes, he might be the strongest man on the planet, but that did not mean that he could do anything and save everyone, and that realization was soul crushing. But it was his parents, Lana, Pete, and Chief Parker who all lifted Clark back up and inspired him to be who he wanted to be. They inspired him to use his humanity to become a better Superman. Imposter syndrome on the largest scale imaginable, right? Is this not a relatable character? Do you and I not feel like we sometimes don't belong? Like we're not good enough? And in those moments, just like Clark, we turn to the people who care about us, for advice, for help, and for the resolve to keep us going. And what about when Superman loses Lois Lane? When she dies in his arms? How does he respond? In Kingdom Come, the iconic story is riddled with Superman's failures, from losing Lois and everyone at the Daily Planet, leaving the world to fend for itself for a decade, to trying to force superhumans into rehabilitation, and finally allowing mankind to kill so many people. What happens when you force a man to decide the fate of the world? How does he respond? The man of tomorrow fails, once again. Superman isn't perfect. After losing so many people, after failing so many times, he blamed himself and he got angry for it. And the individual who saved Superman, it wasn't a hero. They didn't have to beat the man of steel into submission. It was a priest who appealed to his humanity, to Clark Kent. He asked the man of steel to forgive himself, and to make things right going forward as Clark Kent. The reason Superman is even allowed to fail, to make the wrong decisions, is again because he is not a God, just a man. And it's the same reason that he is the ideal to aspire to, the Paragon of Hope. In secret identity, at a certain point, Clark is finally afforded a break from the cape. It allows him and forces him to be present, something I think we all struggle with. When he recognizes his mortality, it forces him to make more time for Lois, for Ma and Pa Kent. He learns to not take his relationships for granted, to value them. And again in Superman's secret identity, these relationships get threatened. What happens when Clark's identity is in danger, which then endangers his loved ones? What does he do when he doesn't feel safe? When he doesn't feel private anymore? How does he respond? A common idea in these stories is that, again, Superman fails a lot, and so many times when he fails, he has to go back home. He relies on other people to keep him going, to keep him motivated, just like we do. And in that, it reinforces Superman's origins, right? It's good people that inspire Clark to become the man of steel. It's his parents who taught him and instilled him with that sense of empathy and humanity that makes him the man that he is. They tell him that it's okay to be scared, that it's okay to fail. Lana, Lois, Jimmy, they all constantly encourage Clark to be who he wants to be no matter how hard it gets. All of these people, and the Kent's in particular, they make Superman. To me, the appeal of this character lies in his humanity, in his emotions, the things that he can't punch through, the tears, the worries, the fears, the failure, the psychology of the strongest man in the world who tries to choose good every single time, even if he fails. All around the world, immigrant numbers are skyrocketing. In 2021 alone, they recorded 45 million foreign-born residents in the United States, 400,000 in Canada, children, teenagers, adults, so many people who might feel like they just don't fit in. So many good, genuine people who get slighted every day for being different. So many people who are searching for that sense of belonging. Sounds a lot like Clark Kent from Smallville, or that alien from Krypton. Superman is a relatable, compelling character, in the right hands. These stories are proof that there can be a portrayal that stays not only true to his character, but stays true while being compelling. I'm not going to tell you that you are wrong if you believe that Superman is born. It's all subjective anyways, but you should give the man of steel a chance. Let yourself be consumed by the absolute goodness that is this character. Let yourself be inspired by it. When we live in a time where dark, cynical edginess has taken center stage, Superman's stories don't need to be made relevant. They don't need to be altered to fit today's world. I think a symbol of hope, kindness, and goodness is something that will forever be relevant.