On Evil Superman

It’s Slurpee Day! 7-11!

Hello! I am back on Assassin’s Creed with Revelations (I should have done AC3 for the Fourth, but I’m a stickler for being in order). I am re-reading Thud!; after that is a book about writing, I think. Or maybe I finally get to annotating Battle of the Labyrinth? 

And! I have been watching My Adventures with Superman! It’s a delightful series, and it inspired this week’s Saturday Note.

Also! Yes! We have some tomatoes.

On Evil Superman

Evil Superman is overrated.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the notion of, “What if Superman was evil?” has become absurdly popular in fiction lately. The Injustice video games (and tie-in comics) were about this, the foreshadowing of this happening were throughout two of Zack Snyder’s DC movies, It’s the basis of the comic serieses Invincible and The Boys–themselves not exactly new–which were both adapted by Amazon in the last few years, though in those cases they use alternate stand-ins for Superman, as they’re not DC properties.

I suppose the game Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League also has a brainwashed Superman as an antagonist, but it’s difficult to talk about the writing choices there, because they’re all incredibly stupid.

The thing is though that this isn’t, in and of itself, a good premise. As TV Tropes points out, Homelander on The Boys isn’t really a good deconstruction for Superman, as while he has the powerset and is leader of a Justice League-like team, his backstory and motivations don’t really have anything to do with Clark Kent. His character flaws are not, “Clark Kent, but gone wrong,” as much as just an original one who is eventually meant to stand in for a real-world political figure.

Injustice actually does the work of having a good reason for Superman turning evil: Lois is killed, and he feels it’s his fault. He’s tricked into being part of it by the Joker, which leads to him going off the deep end–not helped because Batman doesn’t really take the following developments in a healthy way, either. It’s not just, “Oh no! He lost his love interest!” It’s a chain of events that lead to it.

Which makes the version that Zack Snyder was going to build up to frustrating (and also relieving, as it never came to pass). The plan, as near as we can tell right now, is that Lois would have been killed by Darkseid, while under Batman’s protection as the catalyst for Superman’s turn to evil. This is… weaksauce, really, which I think Snyder knew, because there would also be Supes being corrupted by the Anti-Life Equation. Which is also weaksauce, because if you need mind control to make a character shift, it’s usually not great writing.

Superman: The Animated Series did do the mind control thing, but did it much better as the drama is less about, “Oh no! Superman is evil!” but the repercussions of that happening on his reputation, something that carries over onto Justice League. I expect Snyder would have tried to do something like that but botched it for lack of time to develop it in the movie (if not also other reasons).

But what I like about Justice League and My Adventures of Superman is that while we, the audience, probably don’t believe that Superman is ever going to turn evil… the people in-universe don’t know that. Project Cadmus is built on the notion that if metahumans turned on the public, we’d be screwed. And it’s not a completely unreasonable assumption to make! But it’s also giving them reasons to do so by needlessly antagonizing them.

So many of the anti-Superman characters, including outright villains, in My Adventures with Superman, aren’t against him because of anything he did as much as because of what he might do. And I like that idea. I mean, it’s not exactly new to portray Superman as an outsider struggling to find his place in the world, but it resonates especially now, when we live in a time of people being unsure of each other, expecting someone of the Other Side to break out into violence at any moment, regardless of whether or not that’s in character.

An evil Superman isn’t a bad idea in and of itself, but I, and quite a few other people, are tired of it becoming dominant in the superhero genre. But a good Superman, who people think may turn evil? That feels right because that is something people do: assume the worst of the Other without solid evidence because that person is different. He can be the most wholesome person, maybe even with the best public image, but the second something goes wrong? Welp, looks like he was always trash, must be a threat, go post online about it! And then public opinion gets frighteningly fickle, and before you know it officials are dictating policy based on it.

That is a good drama! And a good way to build drama around Superman, who many people complain can’t carry a story because of how powerful he is. Not so! It’s there, if you know how to apply it.

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