Comics great Grant Morrison thinks the Man of Steel can teach American politicians a thing or two about successful governance and leadership.
“He was the first American hero to solve problems without killing,” Morrison said Thursday on The Dylan Ratigan Show. “Prior to that, the great American heroes had been gangsters or cowboys or frontiersmen of some kind. Superman is a very different, science-fiction idea of what power in the progressive world would be like. Superman is about humility. He doesn’t hang around to be thanked. He does the job, he moves on and he loves everyone.”
It’s an optimistic angle the writer has been taking in response to what he sees as a mounting wave of nihilism that has hypnotized the American public. From the widening gap between the rich and the poor to increasing environmental stresses, the world seems hungry for a champion that has something to offer besides existential doom and gloom.
Morrison, who’s rebooting Superman as a champion of the oppressed in September’s highly anticipated Action Comics No. 1, thinks Clark Kent and the rest of geekdom’s invented paragons can help us straighten out and fly right.
“Characters that once belonged to nerds or to geeks or to outsiders are now common currency,” said Morrison, stumping for Supergods , his stellar new cultural history of comics. “These superheroes offer images of our human future, where we might actually pull through.”
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