The most interesting issue to me in the Superman myth is always Superman's involvement with politics. Eco's comments here, while somewhat dated, still illustrates a big problem. The issue is Superman's involvement with the world. One can't help but imagine that were Superman to become involved in war that the world political situation would radically shift. But also, just given his stature, one can't help but imagine his weighing in on political issues would dramatically shift the policies of the United States. While comics and film have touched upon this at times, the results have never been terribly compelling. (The horrible film Superman IV: The Quest for Peace immediately comes to mind) Typically in the comics and other media Superman is primarily concerned only with civic matters and not political matters.
Thus for much of his career he is focused primarily upon criminals - people disrupting the social order especially through theft. Often even super-villians, despite the damage they do rivaling modern terrorist groups like Al Queda, have as their prime focus private property. While Superman will intervene when alien forces attempt to take over the political order the political order itself is strangely protected from interference.
Eco's question then is what Superman and his limits tells us about the meaning of good communicated in the stories.
Each of these heroes is gifted with such powers that he could actually take over the government, defeat the army, or alter the equilibrium of planetary politics. On the other hand, it is clear that each of these characters is profoundly kind, moral, faithful to human and natural laws, and therefore it is right (and it is nice) that he use his powers only to the end of good. In this sense the pedagogic message of these stories would be, at least on the plane of children's literature, highly acceptable, and the same episodes of violence with which the various stories are interspersed would appear directed toward this final indictment of evil and the triumph of honest people.
The ambiguity of the teaching appears when we ask ourselves, What is Good? It is enough to reexamine in depth the situation of Superman, who encompasses the others, at least in their fundamental structure. (122)
. . .Superman carries on his activity on the level of the small community where he lives (Smallville as a youth, Metropolis as an adult), and - as in the case of the medieval countryman who could have happened to visit the Sacred Land, but not the closed and separate community which flourished fifty kilometers from the center of his life - if he takes trips to other galaxies with ease, he practically ignores, not exactly the dimension of the 'world', but that of the "United States" (only once, but in one of the Imaginary Tales, he becomes president of the United States).
In the sphere of his own little town, evil, the only evil to combat, is incarnate in a species which adheres to the underworld, that of organized crime. He is busy by preference, not against blackmarket drugs, nor, obviously, against corrupt administrators or politicians, but against bank and mail-truck robbers. In other words, the only visible form that evil assumes is an attempt on private property. Outerspace evil is added spice; it is casual, and it always assumes unforeseeable and transitory forms; the underworld is an endemic evil, like some kind of impure stream that pervades the course of human history, clearly divided into zones of Manichaean incontrovertibility-where each authority is fundamentally pure and good and where each wicked man is rotten to the core without hope of redemption.
As others have said, in Superman we have a perfect example of civic consciousness, completely split from political consciousness. Superman's civic attitude is perfect, but it is exercised and structured in the sphere of a small, closed community (a 'brother' of Superman - as a model of absolute fidelity to establish values - might appear in someone such as the movie and television hero Dr. Kildare).
Now as I said clearly this is dated somewhat. Modern comics have blurred the lines somewhat and even in the movies Superman visits other nations. However clearly Metropolis is his primary concern. And while Superman could use his powers to do massive infrastructure work, especially in the third world, he instead spends his time protecting property in an extremely affluent city.
The question then becomes, is this view of evil as attack on property - especially middle class property - due to the inherent structure of the Superman myth? Or is it really a communication of some notion of good and evil? That is, does this view of evil simply arise out of keeping Superman in our world which entails Superman can't act to divide his world from our own? Or is there some essential ethics to Superman?
On the other hand, it would be inexact to say that Superman's judicious and measured virtue depends only on the structure of the plot, that is, on the need to forbid the release of excessive and irretrievable developments. The contrary is also true: the immobilizing metaphysics underlying this kind of conceptual plot is the direct, though not the desired, consequence of a total structural mechanism which seems to be the only one suited to communicate, through the themes discussed, a particular kind of teaching. The plot must be static and must evade any development, because Superman must make virtue consist of many little activities on a small scale, never achieving a total awareness. Conversely, virtue must be characterized in the accomplishment of only partial acts, so that the plot can remain static. Again, the discussion does not take on the features of the authors' preferences as much as their adaptation to a concept of 'order' which pervades the cultural model in which the authors live and where they construct on a small scale "analogous" models which mirror the larger one. (124)
I think that this is quite interesting, especially in terms of the Mormon view of the problem of evil. For the Superman stories, perhaps due to an interplay of structure and environment, the Superman myth implies that the good is tied to many little activities on a small scale - never totalizing. We thus have a myth where, quite opposed to traditional myths, the "God" is inherently a small player on a small field. The good is never the grand works one finds especially in creation myths (where the problem of evil often becomes most manifest). Rather it is in the world of the common man in terms of the types of good and evil the typical person encounters. Superman "as God" is thus not a cosmic or even national God. He is a community God and his ideals inherently tied to the ideals you or I could encounter in our day to day lives. He is the ideal of small town America.
This is part of a series of Umberto Eco and the "Myth of Superman." That essay can be found in Eco book The Role of the Reader. It's a bit dated having been written in the early 60's but has some interesting issues dealt with. This all was inspired by a discussion of the recent film Superman Returns.
Superman Returns: a review and discussion of the movie.
Eco and Superman: a brief overview of the Superman myth and Eco's work.
Time: Eco and Superman: a discussion of the structure of time in Superman.
Redundancy: Eco and Superman: a discussion of the issue of informational redundancy in Superman narratives.
Political Consciousness: Eco and Superman: a discussion of the bifurcation of the political good from the civil good in Superman narratives.
To add, the most interesting story that in effect takes the Superman myth (albeit with different characters) and then breaks that civil/political divide is Alan Moore's The Watchmen. There in effect the entire story is a very subtle engagement with the problem of evil and how superheros deal with it on a world wide scale.
Clark: I am in total agreement that the pull of the Superman mythos and its fascination is precisely that Superman is a demi-god. His problem is not that of Spiderman, how to be an ordinary guy and a hero. It is how to be a god and yet walk among normal guys and gals. Bryan Singer understood that perfectly (and Roger Ebert in his review of the movie shows how shallow and limited his views are by failing to get it in his review) in the new Superman movie. Superman takes Lois to heaven and listens to prayers of people praying for a savior, someone who really can save them in their quotidian life, there everyday life here and now. In fact, he must sacrifice his own life to save the world (in the most recent movie) and then he is inexplicably resurrected.
It is also interesting that given all that he could go, he spends time getting cats out of trees and and saving the equivalent of New York -- the only place that realy exists. I saw a map of the USA as it was seen by New Yorkers that made me chuckle. The map looked from east to west and showed the skyscrapers of New York, a blip for Philadelphia and nothing at all until one got to Los Angeles. It was kind of the world from a Democrat's perspective. Superman comes from small town -- indeed, it is Smallville. So the story is that one cannot get the moral commitment to good and steadfast power to fight evil in a big city but only in the rural USA. However, the only thing really worth saving is the big city. Go figure.
However, Superman constantly faces the issue whether he should solve all the problems or leave it up to humans to accomplish something on their own by solving their own problems -- the problem of evil in a nutshell. Superman is the mythos of the best in us -- what we would do if we only could. He is the representation of what is good and wholesome. The boy scout analogy is apropos because he is dedicated to saving a people who are not really his poeple, to giving hope to a flawed world that can only look at his goodness in wonder. That is what Superman is about -- and that is why it will always speak to the best in us.
This is one reason that DC comics, after the Crisis on Infinite Earths (COIE), de-powered Superman. Before 1985, he could move planets, fly into suns, etc. Now he is nowhere near that powerful.
Interesting that one of the villains in the recent Infinite Crisis series (a sequel to COIE) was Superboy Prime - an alternate version of Superman who was that powerful. It almost seemed to imply no one could be that powerful without going crazy.
Recent writers have also broken down the political barrier with Superman by having Lex Luthor become president (he stole the election from Al Gore don'tchaknow) and then Lex had the military invade a middle eastern country to enrich himself. Superman did nothing as Superman (becuase he respects political boundaries) but as Clark Kent, investigative reporter, he did some hard hitting stories that revealed corruption in the government (including secret government programs designed to take away civil liberites) that managed to bring Lex Luthor down. Superman may not take sides, but comic writers sure do.
What no one seems to touch on with Superman is how Clark Kent got his job: That seems to be a serious violation of journalistic ethics. He creates a story, and then essentially interviews himself about it.
Yes, although this now makes things more difficult for DC since the DC universe is more and more unlike our own. But I agree that Eco's comments are a tad dated.
I don't mind authors injecting politics into these things. But it seems to me DC used to do this in "What If" comics. Graphic novels not "canonical" did this frequently as well. By injecting this into the main "canon" things become, in my opinion, more problematic.
I do agree that comic book authors in general appear much, much more liberal that the population at large. I don't mind that, although admittedly I don't really read comic books. But, for instance, I like The Dark Night Returns even though I think Reagan was one of the best presidents of the last century. (Which is not to say he's without flaws) My complaint is that often the political sensibilities often lead authors to undermine the characters. Think of say Captain America for Marvel or Superman for DC. Say what you will about Frank Miller, but I think he captured Superman's character rather well. (Acknowledging that "character" is something in which the history of the character is often divorced from the present use of the character)
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