Connecting Superman to Scripture

Over the years, the character of Superman has been a variety of things to many people of all walks of life, but when you boil down his character traits and look at what his specific role is, not just in the DC universe, but in general, you see a very familiar pattern.

Well, familiar if you've ever paid attention in Sunday School.

Superman from his inception forward was designed to embody messianic qualities. Going back to his origin, when Sigel and Schuster, the creators of our focus today, needed a back story, they drew inspiration from the best source they could think of: the Torah. Specifically, they looked at Exodus and the story of Moses.

The stories parallel quite well, actually. You have a baby who is about to meet complete destruction at the hands of a cruel regime or exploding planet, things the parental figures are unable to stop. The parental figures place the baby in a vessel meant to carry them to a new life where they won't just survive but thrive. Here, the hand of God or fate takes them to a position of power. For Moses, he was adopted into the Egyptian royal family, ironically the very house that was initially trying to kill him. For Superman, he was adopted by a not-wealthy farmer, but landed on a planet where he would obtain powers because of its celestial placement...a position of undisputed power.

Both figures would grow up and serve as messiahs to oppressed people. For Moses, he would return to the people of his birth and deliver them from suffering, pain, and death at the abuse of the Egyptians. For Superman, he would deliver humans from the suffering, pain, and death at the abuse of bald, rich lunatics.

While Moses's story ends with his delivering the Hebrews to the Promised Land, Superman would continue on in comics, television, and movies for another 70+ years. During this time, writers would continue to pull inspiration from Holy scripture, this time the New Testament with the Gospel accounts of one Jesus Christ, elevating Superman to a higher level of messiah.

This was really first addressed in 1992 when Superman battled an engine of perfect destruction called Doomsday, and died defeating the monster in a near apocalyptic battle that devastated most of Metropolis. This was monumental in the level of attention it received in the media. That’s not to say that this was the FIRST time Superman died though. Just a quick re-cap:

In 1985-1986, we saw a shift in DC Comics because they felt their continuity had basically become a jumbled mess of rubbish. So they kicked off a major event called “Crisis on Infinite Earths” which cleared out all the excess and brought us down to one unified continuity and that meant that a lot of storylines that made absolutely no sense (ie. like 99 percent of golden age Superman) was tossed out. That took out a lot of single issue stories that had Superman die and then promptly come back to life before the end of the book. The last golden age story featuring Superman taking a temporary dirt nap was JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #145 circa 1977.

Fast forward to 1992 with the “Death of Superman” story arch and, like I said, it was hyped to unprecedented proportions, especially for a fictional character. The reason for this had several layers to it. Superman books had not been doing well with story quality steadily declining due to writers not wanting to drag back the silliness of the golden age and Superman being seen as over powered (again, people forgot the golden age when he was shoving planets and stars). Even kryptonite had lost its punch. So the idea that DC was going to call it quits on a flagship character had a startling large amount of evidence to support it. Also at this point it had been 15 years since his last death in the comics so the idea of Superman dying was pretty foreign, plus only four years earlier DC Comics killed off Robin (Jason Todd), and he stayed dead. A major character had been killed and didn’t pop back up a few months later. If you were a Superman fan, this was kind of a scary time.

So Superman faces off with Doomsday because the monster had already torn his way through the Justice League (okay, the B-Team Justice League, not exactly rife with heavy hitters) ironically not killing anyone else along the way except for some nameless extras. I won’t spoil the whole fight for you; I mean, it ends with a dead Superman, which is the point.

DC Comics rolled out with The Reign of Supermen after this, filling the void left by the big blue Boy Scout and strongly suggesting that he was dead for good. A year later, we got Superman proper back and fans of the red s-shield breathed a sigh of relief. Our hero was back from the dead…or should I say “resurrected.”

Right here…this is what kicks off the Christ comparisons, because now it started popping up everywhere. I’ll just cover the best known examples.

Superman Returns, 2006: Superman lifts an island made of kryptonite into the sky and shoves it into space, only to fall back in a very cross-like pose before slamming unceremoniously into the Earth. Everyone assumes he’s dead, or at least dying, even sustaining a wound to the lower abdomen in the process of the final battle, very similar to the spear wound Christ received on the cross. He miraculously comes back to life and goes on to fly away, smiling at the camera.

Man of Steel, 2013: Superman has battled himself by being nearly critically weakened and escape’s Zod’s ship, floating away from it in…a crosslike pose, before recovering fully and flying off for the final battle.

Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, 2016: In the final battle against Lex Luthor’s monster (ostensibly credited as Doomsday) Superman dies and is lowered from the ridge he died on by Batman and Wonder Woman in a scene very reminiscent of Christ being removed from the cross. This is driven home then by Lois Lane cradling the body in the exact same pose that depicts Mary cradling the dead Jesus of Nazareth that is very popular in Christian art depicting the crucifixion.

Justice League, 2017: Superman is resurrected from his tomb (ie the defunct Kryptonian ship) and ascends.

This tonal shift between Superman as being a Moses allegory to a Christ allegory is partially reflexive and partly deliberate on the part of the creators. Superman has always been designed to represent the very best; the ultimate hero that will sacrifice his own comfort and power to help the less fortunate. This is culminated in the depiction of a Christ-like figure willing to lay down their very life for the greater good. But what does this mean for Superman’s future…or more accurately his past?

2018 saw the SyFy channel bring to the small screen a television series based on the life of Superman’s grandfather, Seg-El in the show Krypton. It’s not a bad show, and I give a fuller review on it in another article. What I did notice, after the fact, was that it seems to be taking cues from another biblical figure, and it kind of makes sense. We see Seg-El suffer horrific losses in the first episode. He is stripped of title, family, friends, and even his last name. He is forced into a marriage with a woman he does not know, much less love, and the woman he loves is growing distant from him. Then, a mysterious stranger of celestial origins tells him that his lineage will grow strong, that his bloodline will give birth to a hero, the greatest hero in the universe.

This is Abraham’s story. Abraham started with very little, basically just faith. He had no heirs, no bloodline, but God came to him and because Abraham had faith…like Seg-El has to have faith that Adam Strange (the afore mentioned celestial stranger) is on the level…that Abraham would not just have a son, but would be the father of nations and that his bloodline would see the savior of all mankind, the Messiah, come to free God’s chosen.

It’s important to note that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all share an origin in Abraham, which combined number in the billions.

So is it a direct “point to point” link? No, but none of this has. From Superman to Moses to Christ, there have always been points of separation so that the writers can tell their own story, but the influence is very strong. Every hero has a tendency to be compared to Christ or Moses or Abraham, but with the Superman bloodline, it's very clear where they draw inspiration, and that’s okay.

Superman, despite his ups and downs in both storytelling and financial return, remains a resonating character in world culture, so they must have done something right.

Thanks for reading.

Superman is, of course, owned by DC/Warner Bros.

Krypton is owned by SyFy Channel.