This is a remarkable little mini-series; that's why I'm remarking on it.
Azzarello has said that the challenge of the book was making Lex the 'good guy,' not just the protagonist. The way the book does that is actually quite ingenious. It sets up a tragedy with Lex as the tragic hero.
You see, we can pity a tragic hero. We can empathise and sympathise. We can feel his pain. And we do all of this not in spite of the fact that that hero has made bad choice, selfish choices, destructive choices, but because of it.
The book's content reiterates its structure, too. Lex believes that Superman cannot feel fear, therefore he cannot ever empathise with humanity. He cannot understand their fear, that turns to hatred, of a villain, a murderer, a monster. Therefore, they cannot understand his mercy, because only someone with nothing to fear would save the life of such a monster.
The book succeeds in making us feel bad for Lex because it invokes our very human fear of being ruled, dominated, by an 'alien' force, which Superman does not, and in this text cannot, understand because he thinks he's human, despite being that alien force.
I've heard the argument over and over again. Villains, in comics, in spy movies, in action/adventure stories of all kinds, always claim that the heroes are forces of oppression, that they will not allow real freedom. Funboy, in James O'Barr's The Crow says, "I never let anything define or limit me." That's the ideology of the villain in popular culture. My reaction has always been to call that attitude arrogance, to say that anyone who claims that limits are shackles just doesn't want the rules to apply to him, wants to act without conscience or responsibility.
But in this case, in this one case, I'm convinced. LL:MOS has convinced me that, at least in its portrayal of these now iconic characters, that Superman is limited by his invulnerability, that there is something to human experience that he does not have because he has so little to fear.
This lack in his character is exactly the same as the feeling of indestructibility exhibited by the teenager who's simply never been in danger, and therefore doesn't understand what it is. It's reflected in the man who doesn't understand the need for a women's centre, because he's accustomed to a world where there are no doors close to him. We can see it in the rich who are so accustomed to luxury that they do not percieve that there are those who don't have it.
Superman is, undeniably, a member of an élite class of people, and though that might not be inherently bad, it limits him. It leaves him unable to understand what it's like to be the rest of us.
Posted by orion at August 20, 2005 5:59 PM | TrackBack