Anonymous #2 3d

well yeah when they do a story where it’s Evil Superman then he’s prolly evil, but those are all alternate universe/elseworld stories, if you argued that mainline Superman is fascist that would still be silly

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Anonymous #1 3d

Idk if he’s definitionally good in absolution and perpetuity so much as choosing to be that way given his circumstances. Alt storylines like injustice show what he could do when pushed past the breaking point

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Anonymous #2 3d

Yeah sure, in alt storylines where he acts completely out of character to set up a fight between himself and Batman, he’s evil. But if you just say “Superman is Fascist” then my mind doesn’t jump to Injustice or some shit, it jumps to the main Superman who is most certainly not. If you said “Injustice Superman is fascist” then yeah sure but that’s a whole different character. Who also literally gets beaten by bringing main Superman to his dimension to beat him up.

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Anonymous #1 3d

The point isn’t that Superman is fascist, the point is that given the circumstances, he is capable of totalitarianism and or fascism. The Superman that comes in to beat injustice Superman never went through the same things

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Anonymous #2 3d

Yeah it’s really just the implication that being a superior human gives him a pass for authoritarianism. I know we’ve got plenty of content that acknowledges this now but it’s crazy to me how emotional people get when you just remind them the concept of Superman is fascist. He was crested as a response to the Third Reich and yet no one seems to realize “Superman” is literally who the Nazis thought they were.

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Anonymous OP 3d

That’s the joke, Superman is making fun of the Nazis’ idea of the Übermensch specifically by being extraordinarily powerful without being about domination or control of others. That is in fact part of the rhetoric of Superman’s inception. That’s why he punched Hitler in the mouth. Also, Superman is not an authoritarian in the vast majority of his depictions, he’s pretty fundamentally about the Harm Principle of coercion, which is “coercion is only okay to prevent direct harm to others”

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Anonymous #1 3d

Literally the least authoritarian principle of state coercion, the one even the most libertarian people except for maybe anarchists believe in. And I’d say even anarchists still believe in coercion against harm, just not a state to do it with.

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Anonymous OP 3d

I would actually disagree with that. It’s an homage to Nietzsche’s Ubermensch or overman/superman, which predated fascism. Just bc the nazis thought they were powerful or borrowed Nietzschean ideas doesn’t make all powerful people or said ideas fascist by relation

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Anonymous #2 3d

It’s not homage it’s parody, Superman is the opposite of the Nietzschean Ubermensch, Nietzsche’s Ubermensch is defined as someone who has lost the constraints of caring about other people or societal ethics to become fully self-actualized. Superman runs on pure empathy and cares way more about other people than himself. He’s a direct refutation of the Nietzschean ideal.

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Anonymous #1 3d

Well there’s actually an interesting story here when it comes to the history of Superman and its creators: before making Superman, Siegel and Shuster published a story called “The Reign of the Superman” where a bald guy chose to be evil after he was given powers from an experiment (kind reminds me of luthor actually). Sales kinda sucked for that though so they decided to go in a diff direction eventually leading to what we know as Superman

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Anonymous #1 3d

Homage was perhaps the wrong word there, I meant reference. I would say someone trying to go toward that nietzschean ideal you are painting would be luthor tbh

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Anonymous #1 3d

But I’d also clarify that Nietzsche’s idea is not that the ubermensch must be without empathy or altruism, but that these qualities must arise from strength, self-overcoming, and creative abundance; not from conformity, guilt, or weakness. The ubermensch can be altruistic if it is a self-created value expressed freely, rather than a moral obligation imposed by society

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