Is there a grain of truth in the fictional Superman?

Question

It has been said that behind all fiction is a basis of fact. If this is so, What did the original creator of this comic strip and movie character have in mind when he first conceived the idea? Did he intuitively believe that man may someday evolve into a super-human creature with "out-of-this-world" powers?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Have a great day to all!

Answer 1

No.

Answer 2

We all deserve the right to dream but some of us are more imaginative at it than others. Superman fills that role and at the same time he inspires us to the ideals of the triumph of good over evil. Surely that is a necessary thing in this age of corruption and wrong-doing.

Answer 3

no

Answer 4

I make no secret of the fact that I had great difficulty growing up. It was hard for me, for instance, to fully appreciate the maturity of my age beyond the age of twelve. I often felt vulnerable and alone, but never weak or idle. This might sound like the beginning of a mind that would be attracted to concepts of superhuman might and strength, but due to some natural recourses most dominant in my mind I never fully subscribed to the concept of a superhero, or power figure of other some kind. I instead sought my nourishment and company within the havens of nature, in its peaceful presence all around, in the steadiness of its growth, and the predictability of its seasonal change. I took great delight in observing natural phenomenon. My interest then turned into my fascination for natural sciences, literature, religion, and then in human affairs.

I think this is natural for all people to have their ideals. We all have our super heroes to idealise and look up to for help and guidance in the hours of our need. There is no great surprise in the way you phrased your question, perhaps quite unwittingly, as the concept of a superman, I believe, stayed ingrained in our psyche right from the time we first seek to come to terms with matter of life. In the beginning our father figure is our superman by nature, a concept that then further develops into more sophisticated and fitting forms as our imagination widens and as we meet our social and personal challenges, and as we become aware of idealistic needs of our religion and politics.

The concept of Superman is far more important in life than it might appear in the movies or on comic strips, where we find it in its lightened version. We can relate to the Superhuman when we find him in the movies as an orphan dispatched to the earth by his old folks out of a distant world at the brink of destruction in some far fetched part of the universe. He soon becomes both the worthy of our sympathy and our admiration, as we find him to good, strong but also vulnerable just like us. We however never forget that he is an alien among us.

Then the concept has also been interpreted for the modern times to say that the Superman gained its popularity in America a fantasy hero of good against evil because he seems to be an idealised embodiment of the strength and goodness of early American immigrants, who came to America from far off lands, who build America, who like Superman were good and strong, and who now have responsibility to defend what they built.

The darkest of the insight into this human concept comes from our study of political philosophy where the roots of the concept can be traced back to the Republic by Plato, as some leader of people beyond any public reproach, incrimination, and judgement by the virtues of his overwhelming strength and overall goodness. The same concept then we find later in certain modern philosophical traditions, as for instance, in Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, the influence of whose famous book Thus Spoke Zarathustra is said have the world see two world wars.

In the future, however, things might not stay very much the same, as all thing change and progress into their better or worse forms and expressions. Things might change all too much for us to have any accurate guess as what they might look like in the future. I think, the concept of superman will stay with us even in the distant future, but it might become all too realistic. It might become possible to project Superman into a realistic form of our then much developed and expanded sense of reality – a concept to reality transformation might take place.

I say this as I have in my view the progress that we have made since the dawn of industrial age some few hundred years ago. I think this in a way is the beginning of the projection of the concept of the Superman into reality. Human beings today have acquired such powers and abilities through scientific and technological advancements that they were quite unimaginable a century or two ago. Just like our super hero we now can fly through air, travel through space, drive, lift and control heavy structures, manipulate and manage most things that we find on the surface of the earth.

We see that the mightiest of all of our brainchildren is the supper mind of computer, and the coming together of minds the Internet. Who can deny the reach and the power that computers can yield into the hands of man? If it is possible for us now to create a simple profiles in a virtual world of our liking then, if it is possible for brain potential to run as software, then in the future, this might also be possible to upload not only personal data, information, and computer programming, but also people and their concepts, the culture sets, or even the entire collective conciseness of human race. Then one day we might be living in a virtual world with all our heroes.

Sorry about the long answer!

Answer 5

As has already been so expertly put, all such characters are based on a combination of representations of aspects of our society (take the recently deceased and totally great Solzenhitsyn, and other Russian writers who parodied real people in their characters).

I think it gets more interesting if you consider whether or not Superman REALLY exists, coz I'm a big fan of the concept of multiple parallel universes and infinite possibilities - if you can imagine sthg, however weird and unlikely it is, then it is really there somewhere. So there really IS a guy flying around saving the planet in blue nylons with his underpants on the outside! Cool eh :)

Answer 6

As much grain as a piece of Kryptonite

Answer 7

It's just a fantasy wish fulfilment.  I'm sure everyone at some point has wished they were stronger, faster and generally better than everyone else.

And who hasn't dreamt that they could fly?

Answer 8

The concept of Superman, or Beyond-Man was taken from Neitchzer, who envisioned a developed form of humanity so morally and intellectually superior they transcended existing humanity and could arbitrate their own justice.

It's quite a scary concept, and even extrapolated into a comic strip, the idea of might is right is not comforting!

Answer 9

Originally superman was conceived and written as an alien from a planet with far more gravity.  This is the reason he was so strong (like lifting a boulder on the moon, less gravity means things are lighter) and he could jump so high (he couldn't fly, but rather was able to leap over tall buildings due to his strength).  This concept evolved as the writers gave superman more and more powers (flying, heat vision, etc.) which then needed some reasoning (the yellow sun gives him power).

There is no truth in superman in that their are no super men.  However, creating a character that is apart from (and above) humanity allows the writer to reflect a mirror on our species and show a subjective picture of us.  As Bill from Kill Bill said, "Clark Kent is supermans critique of mankind."  Through superman a writer can show humanities intrinsic weekness, as well as its capacity for both good and evil.  We can also see a reflection of the best parts of humanity in the superman character.  Brave, caring, self-sacrificing..... all uniquely human traits reflected in our desire to be like him.