In his review of Man of Steel, Wesley Morris quips that Superman “flies for our sins.” Yet, Man of Steel does not offer a Christology based on substitutionary atonement, but rather on moral exemplarism. Superman does not sacrifice his life to save humanity, but rather his heroism is supposed to inspire humanity to live up to his example. In Superman Returns, however, Superman undergoes a symbolic death and resurrection. He sacrifices his life to save humanity, but survives his near-fatal ordeal. Each film has an implicit Christology, as each likens Superman to Jesus in different ways. A “high” Christology emphasizes Jesus’ divinity, whereas a “low” one emphasizes his humanity. Neither film has a purely high or low Christology. Superman Returns has a high Christology by emphasizing Superman’s difference from human beings, but the suggestion that he is the father of Lois’s child emphasizes his similarity to humans. Man of Steel portrays Clark’s ability to blend in with humans and the incredible powers that make him so different. Man of Steel‘s Christology focuses on Superman’s choice to identify with human beings, as the Gospels portray Jesus’ choosing to embrace his Messianic destiny.
Christology and Moral Exemplarism in Man of Steel
Man of Steel establishes numerous parallels between Superman and Jesus. The main events of the film occur when Clark is thirty-three, the same age as Jesus when he was crucified. As God the Father sends God the Son to redeem humanity, so Jor-El sends his son Kal-El to earth. Moreover, “El” is actually one of the Hebrew words for God. The filmmakers emphasize this etymology when Kal-El’s mother, Lara, tells Zod that her son is named “Kal, son of El.” While floating in space above earth, Superman stretches out his arms, resembling Jesus’ pose on the cross. As Jesus was raised by earthly parents–Joseph and Mary–who did not always understand him, so Clark’s human parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent, try their best to raise their superhuman son. Jor-El declares to his wife that their son “will be a god” to the people of earth.
Throughout his youth, Clark conceals his powers, although he does use them to save lives. This is the equivalent of the “Messianic Secret”: in the Gospels, Jesus does not reveal that he is the Son of God for the first thirty years of his life. When Zod demands that humanity turn Kal-El over to him Clark goes to a church seeking guidance. With a stained glass image of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane behind him, Clark wrestles with the decision to reveal his powers. As Jesus does not reveal his identity until the right moment, so Clark chooses to reveal his powers only when humanity is in danger.
Both Jesus and Kal-El’s births are miraculous. While Jesus was conceived by the Virgin Mary, Kal-El is “Krypton’s first natural birth in centuries.” Jor-El’s consciousness, downloaded into an ancient Kryptonian vessel that had lain dormant on earth for millennia, tells Clark that on Krypton “Every child was designed to fulfill a predetermined role in our society.” Jor-El and Lara, however, believed that this was a mistake: “What if a child dreamed of becoming something other than what society had intended for him or her? What if a child aspired to something greater?” Clark embodies Jor-El’s dream of free choice over rigidly proscribed roles achieved through genetic engineering. Jor-El urges his son to bring hope to humanity: “The symbol of the house of El means hope. Embodied within that hope is the fundamental belief in the potential of every person to be a force for good.” Jor-El hopes that his son will inspire humanity to choose good rather than evil. He knows that this will not happen instantaneously. The moral development of humanity will require a process of growth and maturation. Kal-El offers his son this mission: “You will give the people of earth an ideal to strive towards. They will race behind you. They will stumble; they will fall. But, in time, they will join you in the sun, Kal. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders.”
Superman and Medieval Christology
This closely resembles the logic of the medieval theologian Peter Abelard’s moral influence theory of atonement. Unlike his contemporary Anselm, Abelard did not believe that Jesus’ death on the cross primarily satisfied God’s wrath or redeemed humans from guilt and sin. Abelard did not conceive of the crucifixion as a legal transaction, in which Jesus paid a debt owed by sinners to God. According to Abelard, “what humanity needs is a new motive for action” (Olson 328). Jesus’ heroic self-sacrifice on the cross reveals God’s love for humanity and inspires them to love and obey him in return. For Abelard, the “real atonement takes place within us, not on the cross” (329). As Abelard argued that Jesus’ action showed people how to live in loving obedience to God, so Jor-El believes that Kal-El will become humanity’s great moral exemplar, leading them to new heights of achievement.
As Clark looks down on Lois’s escape pod hurtling toward earth, the holographic projection of Jor-El’s consciousness tells Clark “You can save them all.” Yet, the salvation that Jor-El imagines is not salvation from sin in the traditional sense. This salvation is moral, rather than metaphysical. Jor-El wants Kal-El to save humanity from the mistakes that destroyed Krypton–the squelching of individuality and callous disregard of the environment. The Kryptonians destroyed their planet by recklessly harvesting natural resources, a fate which the film suggests might befall earth if people do not turn toward more sustainable modes of life. Moreover, Zod’s genocidal xenophobia represents an exaggerated version of the racism and ethnic conflict plaguing our world. Zod wants to terra form earth into a new Krypton, sacrificing the human population to recreate his homeworld. Superman can teach humanity to avoid the Kryptonians’ decadence on the one hand and Zod’s fanaticism on the other. He does not offer eternal life, but rather can lead humans to build the perfect society on earth.
Despite these varied ways in which the film highlights the similarities between Jesus and Superman, Jor-El’s vision for his son is not that he sacrifice his life for humanity per se, but that he teach humans how to be better. Man of Steel portrays Superman, not as the Jesus who must die on the cross and be raised from the dead, but as humanity’s ultimate example of goodness. Superman does save the planet from destruction at the hands of the fanatical General Zod, yet the true salvation is the example he sets with his heroism.
Christology in Superman Returns
The implicit Christology of Superman Returns treats Superman as both a moral exemplar and a sacrificial figure. Evoking the Second Coming, the title of Superman Returns sets up the parallel between Jesus and Superman from the beginning. Superman has been absent from earth while traveling to the ruins of Krypton. Irritated with Superman for leaving earth without even saying goodbye, Lois insists that “The world doesn’t need a savior.” Superman counters “You wrote that the world doesn’t need a savior, but every day I hear people crying for one.”
Even Lex Luthor characterizes Superman as a god, albeit a selfish one. Luthor compares himself to Prometheus, who stole fire from Zeus, casting Superman as a selfish Zeus hoarding power instead of sharing it with humanity. Speaking implicitly about Superman, Luthor says, “Gods are selfish beings who fly around in little red capes and don’t share their power with mankind.”
While it does not develop it to the extent that Man of Steel does, Superman Returns includes the idea of moral exemplarism. Jor-El’s disembodied voice intones, “Even though you have been raised as a human being, you are not one of them. They can be a great people, Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you, my only son.” Jor-El’s word’s reiterate the parallel between him and God the Father, each sending their sons to save humanity. Jor-El speaks of Kal-El as bringing light to show people the way, giving them a moral example.
Unlike in Man of Steel, however, in Superman Returns Superman experiences a symbolic death and resurrection. Superman’s confrontation with Lex Luthor evokes Jesus’ crucifixion. Using crystals stolen from Superman’s Fortress of Solitude, Luthor creates a huge and rapidly growing island off the coast of Metropolis. The island is embedded with kryptonite, and when Superman arrives his power begins to wane. As Jesus was beaten and mocked by Roman soldiers before his crucifixion, so Luthor and his henchmen assault the powerless Superman with impunity. As a centurion pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, so Luthor stabs Superman with a kryptonite shard. Unable to remove the kryptonite lodged in his back, Superman sinks into the water until he is rescued by Lois and her fiancé Richard. Superman then flies into the sky, above the clouds. He basks in the sun, recharging his power.
Superman lifts the massive crystalline rock into the air. He carries it through the atmosphere, even though it is laced with kryptonite and draining his powers, eventually launching it into space. Exhausted by the effort, Superman plummets back to earth with his arms outstretched in the pose of Jesus on the cross. He crashes into the planet’s surface, apparently having sacrificed his life to save humanity. Superman is rushed to a hospital where doctors attempt to revive him. Lois visits the unconscious Superman in the hospital. Superman does not revive, like Sleeping Beauty, with Lois’s kiss, but rather disappears later when no one is watching. His empty hospital bed is like the empty tomb Jesus left behind when he was raised from the dead. As Jesus remained dead for three days, so Superman remains unconscious for a period of time before rising.
Superman Returns characterizes its hero as the earth’s badly needed savior, whereas Man of Steel portrays him as a moral exemplar whose mission goes beyond saving the world from danger to leading humanity into a new era of virtue.
Sources:
Olson, Roger E. The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition and Reform. InterVarsity Press, 1999.
