Read these comments on my Superman Returns post. I think it's interesting that Hector's thoughts hinge on whether we take Superman as an iconic character who stands for things, is a living symbol or signifier, or someone capable of having an individual, psychologically-realistic personality.
I've read a lot of Superman comics, and I think the character is at his best when both the icon and the individual operate at once. Miller's Red Son is the best recent example, although Morrison's All-Star Superman has managed to do some of the same work. When doing both, the icon and the individual, the thoughts expressed by the individual can stand in for experiences many have had (orphanhood, unrequited love, crushing responsibilities, etc.), and thus achieve at least wide-spread identification and empathy, which is a lot like being an icon. Inversely, the iconic power can come through the personality in the form of ideology and rhetoric; when Superman objects to the war in Iraq (which he did!) for personal reasons, he can't help but stand for a particular ideological and political view of the world. The character 'goes both ways'; the icon can be expressed through the individual, and vice-versa.
I agree that the movie is much more psychological than iconic. The iconic representation seems to serve to express the psychology of the character. Leaving Earth for five years stands for not seeing Lois for that time (notice how little he misses anyone else). It's time away from an old lover, basically. The God/Jesus thing that plays out between him and Jor El is a way to explode the basic father/son dynamic, make it cosmically important, so that his relationship with Jason can function as the emotional climax of the film. That's why, like I said, I don't really buy the Jesus reading, not that it's "not there," but that this is not Superman being used to tell the story of the Christian messiah; it's the Christian messiah being used to tell a story about Superman.
The Nietzschean reading is tough to deal with it. It's both unavoidable and uncalled for, at the same time. On the one hand, the 'text' doesn't ever explicitly invoke Nietzsche, other than the coincidence of the name 'superman' with the word 'ubermensch.' There are comics that invoke that double meaning on purpose; Alan Moore did it in Watchmen and Marvelman/Miracleman. But Superman comics generally steer clear of Neitzsche. So on the one hand, I want to say that critiquing Superman for 'failing' to adhere to the personality trait of Neitzsche's ubermensch is like blaming a period drama for it's lack of kung fu fighting. It's kinda your fault for expecting it when it was never promised.
On the other hand, Neitzsche's ubermensch does do something that is implicitly expected of all saviour-heroes. Joseph Campbell, The Hero with 1,000 Faces, invokes the idea of the 'solar hero,' the hero of the sun, the protector and bringing of enlightenment, and he argues (somewhat convincingly) that almost all mythic heroes, but primarily the ones who are the bases for religions (Jesus, Mohamed, Buddha, Krishna, etc.), follow the same basic path through life. The specifics of that journey aren't pertinent to this discussion, but the one thing that they all must do is come back from the void, the afterlife, the underworld, etc., and give their wisdom to the community, returning to the social sphere in the process.
Jesus has to rise from the dead and have his wisdom distributed through the New Testament. Buddha has to come back from his trip through Nirvana and teach us how to achieve that state ourselves. The ubermensch, if my limited reading of Neitzsche is at all accurate, is supposed to turn around and teach what he's learned to the rest of us, the untermenschen ('undermen').
Most superheroes can't do that. Their abilities are almost always random, in the form of either accidental superpowers, or a unique personal origin, or both (usually the superpowers come first, forming the 'hook' of the character, and then we find out that this particular person was psychologically cut out for the role, think of Spider-man or The Flash). The only option for a character like Superman is to have a child. That's as close as he can get to actually giving others, human, access to his abilities. In doing that, he becomes the solar hero, the ubermensch, or as close to it as he can get, anyway, and thereby embraces the icon again.
Posted by orion at July 13, 2006 2:57 PM