The Two Supermans
My parents tell me that the very first movie I went to see was the 1978 classic, Superman, starring Christopher Reeve. Being that I was only five months old at the time I don’t remember that, but I do remember excitedly playing the Superman III soundtrack on my record player as a kid. My favorite pajamas were Superman pajamas, complete with a red cape that velcroed on the shoulders, and, yes, I wore Superman underoos from time to time.
Growing up in Kansas usually meant that people from out of state would mention the Wizard of Oz, especially if we happened to not be in Kansas anymore at the time of the conversation. But I always liked that Superman was one of us. Sure, he grew up in a fictional small town, while I grew up in the suburbs of a big city. But, still, we were both from Kansas. And we were both adopted as infants.
The Reeve Superman movies played up how Superman is Superman; the opposite of every other hero because he has to put on a façade to become his alter ego, the bumbling Clark Kent. His real identity is Kalel from the planet Krypton and that’s simply who he is. On the other hand, Clark Kent is clumsy, unlucky, and a sort of lovable loser. Behold the power of eyeglasses in the 1980s.
The setup worked well for the older movies, especially as Superman, you know, the real hero, has to clash with Lex Luthor and General Zod. Clark Kent, the schmuck, could never live up to such a challenge. Kent's upbringing in Kansas and his adopted parents aren’t much of a part of the Superman story in those movies, other than some flashbacks early on where a young Clark flexes his powers…secretly.
The James Gunn Superman movie inverts what the Reeve movies did. In this year’s movie Clark Kent is neither bumbling nor clumsy. In lot’s of ways he is the main identity of the person who is Superman. When Lois Lane decides to take him to Kansas to recover, meets his adoptive parents, and visits his childhood bedroom, she realizes that this all shaped and molded the man she fell in love with in the big city. No, not the hero who puts on a façade for everyone else, but the Clark that she knows intimately. The same one his parents know too.
And as the movie unfolds it becomes clear that Superman is Clark Kent: An adoptee from infancy who knows no other life than the one he was thrown into, parents, musical tastes, super powers and all. And he’s as human as he can be because of it.
Our Mediator
As a Christian the heart of our faith is the doctrine of the Incarnation - that God the Son took on our human nature with its blood and bones in order to unite humanity to divinity. There are and have been all sorts of ways of understanding how this is possible, and the church decided long ago that the only explanation is to keep mystery intact at the center of this holy union, while affirming that the union itself did not alter either the humanity or the divinity of the one person, Jesus Christ.
The mystery is how these two natures of the one person Jesus interact, and historically the church has embraced two postures: one that favors the divinity of Jesus to the point where he could not even really be tempted to sin because he is God and God cannot ever sin, and another that favors the humanity of Jesus to the point where he really did grow in wisdom and stature, learned obedience through suffering, and was truly tempted to sin, even if he wouldn’t have chosen to do so. These postures show up along a spectrum of views, so people on both sides can emphasize one aspect or the other to a greater or lesser degree.
In some ways the Reeve model reminds me of the first posture, albeit a distorted version, where Clark Kent does exist and his story is a formal part of the one person who is Superman’s story, but it’s just there in the background and, if anything, just part of the backstory to the real action. Superman chooses to live up to his calling to promote truth and justice on earth, but his experience growing up in Smallville, Kansas doesn’t seem to enter very much into that equation.
On the other hand, the Gunn model reminds me of the second posture, where Clark Kent is not exactly like the rest of us, but he’s also very much one of us, and his upbringing in Kansas molded his identity and being, which alongside his identity as a Kryptonian can also lead to anguish and confusion that he may never shake. His mission from Krypton, and his special powers on earth are but one influence on his greater identity and actions. For another just as powerful influence was his upbringing by his parents here on earth as he grew in wisdom and stature.
We often treat Jesus like the Christopher Reeve version of Superman - too otherworldly to be our example. And that’s what I like about the Gunn version - Clark Kent is one of us.
Now, before I get in trouble with my fellow theologians, I must note that the story of Superman and Clark Kent is not the same as Jesus, who is 100% divine and 100% human. Jesus is one of us in ways Kalel from Krypton never could be. Jesus is fully human, but not merely human. And as our fully human and fully divine mediator between God and humanity he has opened up God’s own family, of which he is a son by nature, to bring in many sons and daughters of God by grace. This is beyond the pay grade of mere super heroes.
And this is something all of us Christians should like because we are all adoptees brought into the family of God by our big human brother Jesus Christ. United to him our identity can be renewed and reshaped by our new family, new community, and new hope - one that welcomed who we were, but also shapes and molds us over the years to become who we are called to be.
The Gunn movie ends with Superman being soothed with visions of his upbringing: a beautiful story of adoption, and in some ways my story twice over. I have been molded and shaped by two adoptive families - my parents who raised me - and the family of God. That is a soothing thought, especially amid a fallen world that yearns for better heroes.