Superman: For The Man Who Has Everything
No life is complete. People want what they cannot have. The grass is always going to be greener on the other side of the fence. It’s true for ordinary people. But what might a being like Superman dream of? What might be lacking for the world’s most powerful champion to miss and regret? What life did Superman put aside for his crusade against evil? This is the question that the 1985 comic strip “For The Man That Has Everything,” answers.
The prologue: a normal man returning home from work. All he wants is to tuck the kids into bed, maybe share a private moment with his wife, take a hot shower and get some sleep for tomorrow’s shift. Instead he walks into his very own birthday party. Only this man isn’t normal. He’s Superman.
What’s going on?
February 29th, 1985: Batman, Robin, and Wonder Woman travel to the Fortress Of Solitude for Superman’s birthday, only to find him under the thrall of a strange alien plant. Before they can even speculate on what happened, the supervillain Mongul steps in and reveals his master plan. The alien plant is a Black Mercy, a telepathic symbiont that bonds with a host and fabricates a false reality according to the host’s fondest wish. The mundane family man is what Superman would have been had Krypton didn’t explode. In this illusion, there’s no superpowers, no people to save or monsters to battle. For an outcast on an alien planet, Superman just wants to be normal.
Eventually, Superman breaks free of the Mercy’s influence in time to save his friends from Mongul, but at the cost of giving up his “perfect” world. Now we see a new Man Of Steel: angry. Vengeful. Hurting. A hate so intense that lashing out is the only way of appeasing it. To have one’s fondest desire, the desire so secret that no one else knows, given form and then taken away? To have a taste of one’s ideal existence, however briefly, only to be forced into giving that up in the name of moral responsibility and duty? I’d be pissed. Superman certainly is. This is the closest he comes to killing someone. Fortunately, Mongul falls victim to the Mercy’s sway, and life – such as it is for superheroes – returns to normal.
No life is complete. People want what they cannot have. The grass’s always going to be greener on the other side of the fence. It’s true for ordinary people, and it’s true for Superman. It’s rather clever: How do you hurt someone impervious to physical pain? Hurt him emotionally. Expose his deepest secret. Make his fondest wish come true and then watch him throw it all away. It reminds people that underneath the superpowers and colorful costume, Superman is just like us. He yearns for a dream that’s forever beyond his reach. Even now, three decades after publication, I’m impressed. Trust me, that’s saying something.
Worldwalker 