Perhaps Man of Steel is more complex than I initially gave it credit for, as there is no traditional hero or villain. Sure, Superman gets the triumphant score, while Zod gets the enormous butt-ship, but I feel sorry for Zod, and I think it’s worrying when we as an audience are asked to side with Superman just because he’s on our side. Why else would Jor-El have put the codex inside of Superman if not so that he could one day resurrect the population? Is Zod not actually carrying out the wishes of Superman’s father, and what is supposed to be Superman’s destiny? Are we only siding with Superman because he sides with us?
The ultimate message of Man of Steel, and Superman overall, is that your circumstances don’t define who you are. It’s what’s inside that counts. But by allowing our own circumstances – humans, living on Earth – to define how we feel about Superman, are we actually going against the message of Superman, by siding with Superman? This bothers me. If there’s no other reason to support Superman other than that he saves humans, to the detriment of other species – even his own people – I find it difficult to approve of. He isn’t objectively good, he’s subjectively good in the narrow set of circumstances that Man of Steel provides. He’s not even that heroic there – he thinks nothing of bringing the fight to Metropolis, content to wantonly destroy buildings filled with people, yet blanches when Zod tries to kill three people in a museum. He is the living, breathing, flying embodiment of the phrase “one death is a tragedy; a million deaths are a statistic”.
My point is that Superman is no hero, he’s just the beneficiary of good editing. Don’t agree? Let me know below.
