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Superman is the epitome of a hero, but being so welcomes a lot of unfair comparisons. I’m not talking about Spider-man and Batman, I’m talking about other comparisons, sometimes in marketing and advertisements, sometimes in our minds. Does being super hurt Superman?

Do you recognize a hero who flies around a blue spandex outfit and a red cape with a big ‘S’ on his chest?  It’s Superman. He is the super hero most commonly recognized by the most people. We’ve all heard the descriptions of his powers and all the good that he has done. With that, there is some basis to consider him the epitome of a super human and a super hero. Being one of most recognizable heroes and being seen as the epitome of a hero give Superman a reputation of being the best. Being the best has some unfortunate consequences, in Superman’s case he’s always being used as gauge for comparison.

Does anyone remember the national credit card commercials with Superman in the late 90’s? He was placed in a situation where his powers were of no use while his traveling companion saved the day with his credit card. Not even Superman, with all his powers, could save the day. An ordinary person with this specific brand of credit card could do what Superman could not. If you had the credit card you could be better than Superman, and who doesn’t want to be better than Superman? It’s not only credit cards, I was at a local grocery store that was advertising a local brand of vitamins as better than the other. It used a picture of Superman with his arms crossed and a look of disappointment to represent the regular vitamins but used other, happier looking, heroes to show off a local brand. Superman was being used but he was being portrayed as less super and less powerful than the other heroes, in other words the local brand vitamins were better than the regular vitamins. Superman, who is suppose to be the best, wasn’t good enough.

This is not just limited to commercials or marketing either. Who hasn’t seen people wearing a Superman t-shirt with an ‘S’ across the chest of the shirt? Who hasn’t had the inclination of testing out that person’s abilities? In other words, you want to see if they really are made of steel or can lift heavy objects. There is a small part of you that wants to see them fail at these tasks just so you can be smug about how that person is not Superman. You may not want to test their abilities but you may just want to compare the person’s lack of ability to that of Superman’s. You want to see them sweat, gasp for air, and admit they’re not Superman, all because they’re wearing a shirt with an ‘S’ across the chest. You have this inner desire to compare them to Superman and you don’t even know why?

Superman is just like us except that he’s super. In other words he’s like you and me, but with extraordinary powers added into the mix. He’s the epitome of who we want to be, super strong, heat vision, x-ray vision, and he saves the day. If we say Superman is a gauge for perfection than we would always want to compare to perfection to see how close, or how far, we are from it. Hence, that’s why he’s always used as a comparison. Whether it is credit cards, vitamins, or t-shirts, everyone is always trying to measure up to him.

Is there a problem with creating all these comparisons to Superman? If we consider Superman to be the greatest hero of them all then we shouldn’t have to fear credit card commercials, t-shirts, or vitamins exposing Superman as weak. Superman is such a strong character that he can accept comparisons, even the ones in which he fails. He is a hero and in the minds of those who see him as super, there isn’t much that will take him down from that mantle. Let the comparisons come along, Superman is strong enough to handle them.