Superheroes — A Secular Messiah

"You wrote that the world doesn't need a savior, but every day I hear people crying for one." — Superman, "Superman Returns"

We come to the last of this exploration of superheroes today and tomorrow with the most iconic — Superman and Batman. It's no wonder, this summer, when "Entertainment Weekly" had a nationwide bracket vote to determine the greatest comic book hero, these two made it to the final round.

Superman and Batman are probably the oldest, most famous comic book heroes. They also represent two distinctly different ideologies for Americans, which is what makes it fascinating. Superman plays to the idea that we need a savior. But the savior offered in Superman, particularly in the 2005 Bryan Singer incarnation, isn't the one we see in the Bible.

To really understand the theology underlying Superman, you have to go back to his roots. Superman is one of the oldest superhero characters in our cultural history. The “Man of Steel” made his debut in June 1938. The character was created six years earlier, in 1932, by writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born artist Joe Shuster in Cleveland, Ohio. Superman also tends to be one of the most deistic of all superheroes. Where as D.C. Comics contemporary Batman was more reflective of the desire within us all to rise up against oppression, Superman satisfied another need — that of a supernatural savior. In some ways that iconography makes sense. Superman was created on the tails of the Great Depression, a time of unrest and hopelessness in the country. Superman really gained steam around the outbreak of World War II, and was popular in the Cold War era that followed, a time when people were looking for hope, salvation, and to believe in a hero bigger than themselves. The fact that Superman stood for truth, justice and the American way was certainly comforting. The fact he was powerful, fast, and nearly invincible didn’t hurt either.

But I think there’s another interesting aspect to this. Siegel and Shuster were both the children of Jewish immigrants. In considering the aspect of their Jewish heritage, there is an interesting parallel to be drawn. One of the reasons many didn’t recognize Jesus as our Savior during his own time, and the reason Jewish people don’t recognize him as our Savior to this day is that they expected something different. They expected the savior to be a powerful, conquering king who would overthrow the wicked rulers of Earth and bring peace and salvation to believers. That’s one of the reasons the crowd was thrown off when Jesus turned toward the temple during the Triumphal entry. They expected him to march on Herod’s palace and put him in his place, instead Jesus went and cleared the temple.

Throughout his history in print and on screen, Superman has been a sort of messiah to the masses. He frequently has battled for social issues — including gender and racial equality — and political issues — including 1987's "Superman IV," which saw the Man of Steel ending the nuclear arms race to create a lasting peace.

It's undeniable that Superman is the most deistic of all superheroes, and that plays a lot into the mythology and lesson he provides. But few have drawn as strong a correlation between Superman and Jesus as Singer, who wove the Jesus narrative into "Superman Returns." It's subtle, but it's there. The thing is, he twisted the message along the way.

During one beautiful sequence, Superman floats above the Earth as his father, Jor-El, can be heard describing his son's mission. He says, "“Live as one of them, Kal-El, to discover where your strength and your power are needed. Always hold in your heart the pride of your special heritage. They can be a great people, Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you... my only son.” Live among them, but set apart. Interesting.

If that phrasing sounds familiar to you, you're not alone. In the Bible, John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Pretty similar, no?

I think that sequence is probably the most obvious way the film sets Superman up to be something greater than a superhero, but Singer continues that theme throughout the film. In case it wasn’t clear, he makes sure that people see Superman as a savior. But what kind of savior?

The emphasis in John 3:16, and in other places in the Bible, is that God loved us so much He sent His son to save us. We weren't worthy of that salvation on our own merit, but God's grace and Jesus' sacrifice provided it for us anyway.

Now consider the description in "Superman Returns." What stands out is this — "They can be a great people, Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show they way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you... my only son." The script is flipped. It's no longer that our savior loved us so much he sacrificed for us, it's that humanity is great and worthy of being saved. We deserve salvation. To some it may seem a subtle nuance, but it's one that fundamentally changes the heart of the Gospel and the idea of salvation.

And, of course, it makes sense given our society. We have become very humanistic, very humanity-centric in our thinking. He is a savior that exists to help us, but we don't owe him anything. We don't have to do anything to get that salvation, it's our right as noble members of humanity.

One thing I agree with is when Superman says to Lois Lane, “You say the world doesn’t need a savior but every day I hear people crying out for one.” It’s just that he’s not our savior. Our world is broken and there are many people searching for hope, crying out for salvation. The beauty is that all we have to do to receive it is put our trust in Jesus, the real Savior of the world; the one who came, bled and died on our behalf.