My Next Audio Essay

For the past few weeks, I've been working on an audio essay for my podcast series, The Looking Glass, where I defend the character Superman from the stereotypes that have been attached to him over the years. My goal is illustrate why he is unlike any other character in comics. Here's what I have thus far.

October 2019 saw the release of Joker. Starring Joaquin Phoenix, the film explores Arthur Flecks dissent into madness, until he eventually transforms into the Clown Prince of Crime, and arch nemesis to Batman.

Thus far the film has caused quite a bit of controversy. There is a concern that by making the Joker a sympatric character, it will justify his actions, and possibly inspire real life copycats. Thankfully, this has yet to occur.

But it does bring up an interesting point. Over the past twenty years or so, our society has become infatuated with villains and anti-heroes. From shows like Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, and The Sopranos, we’ve almost made the villain cooler and more interesting than the hero. Villains are shown as complex characters that are very relatable.

But all of these explorations and almost justifications of the darkness leaves me wondering about the light. Have we as a society exhausted our desire to explore the difficulties of being in the light? And I think I have the perfect example to illustrate my point.

I love Superman! Since I was a little kid, Superman has been my favorite superhero. Currently this opinion has put me squarely in the minority in the superhero fandom community.

The most common complaints I hear after I tell people I am a fan of the character are the following:

1.     He’s so unrelatable because he’s so good.

2.     He’s too simplistic for modern storytelling

3.     He’s far too powerful

And the most common: Batman is better.

While I respect everyone’s choices for favorite characters, because after all it subjective, I do disagree. In fact, I think now, more than ever a character like Superman is exactly what our society needs, because doing the right thing can be inspiring, interesting, and compelling storytelling.