Man of Steel. Wits of Lead.

The Silver Age Superman is, to my mind, the greatest of all superheroes, but I must admit that he doesn't always employ the wisest strategy in the Never-ending Battle for Truth, Justice and the American Way. Specifically, he is far from the best secret-keeper in the world.

Any military or police strategist would agree that it's best to keep the bad guys in the dark about your capabilities, as far as possible. Superman himself clearly accepts this premise when he decides to keep the existence of Supergirl hidden for years after her arrival on Earth, in part so that she can be his "secret weapon" against crime.

On his own behalf, though, he sometimes drops the ball. For example, he would be wise to keep the extent of both his powers and his weaknesses as secret as possible, to avoid giving away any advantages to either super-criminals like Lex Luthor and Brainiac or common criminals like bank robbers and racketeers. Clearly, some of his powers are too obvious to hide, like flying, super-strength and super-speed, but why let people know he has super-hearing? It's much easier to overhear evil plotting if the plotters have no reason to believe you can hear them. Similarly, why let people know he has x-ray vision, or heat vision, or any of his other "stealth" powers?

Even assuming that Superman is so confident in his powers that he doesn't care if his foes know about them, we must wonder why he goes to the extreme of revealing his weaknesses, both physical and psychological. Superman's vulnerability to the various types of kryptonite is so-well known as to be the subject of Sunday Supplements in the Daily Planet. It seems that no criminal, whether mastermind or petty thief, sets up shop in Metropolis or its suburbs without first procuring at least one piece of kryptonite. A wiser man than Our Hero would never let anyone know kryptonite exists, much less reveal its effect on him.

Superman even reveals his smaller weaknesses. Knowing that neither his x-ray vision nor his heat vision can penetrate lead, Lex Luthor and others have lined their hideouts with thin sheets of lead. One assumes they regard the poisonous nature of lead to be a worthwhile price to pay for some measure of protection against their arch-enemy.

Perhaps the most stunning example of poor secret-keeping is the fact that it is fairly common knowledge that Superman has a secret identity---someone he is, when he's not being Superman. Consider that Superman, unlike most of his fellow superheroes, wears no mask. This would suggest to the public that he is not hiding who he is, because he's always Superman. People would not assume he has any identity other than Superman, but, somehow, he has let that secret out. Keeping the secret of his dual identity is psychologically important because Clark Kent provides him a way of interacting with ordinary humans as peers, as well as giving him some measure of privacy, away from constant demands on Superman. Thus, the fact that people know he has a secret identity, even though very few know who that secret identity is, needlessly lessens its usefulness.

Superman, you know I love you like a brother, but maybe you should talk strategy with the Batman.

The Irony of Kryptonite

People are using the term "kryptonite" with increasing frequency these days, in the sense of "weakness" or "thing which is harmful or deadly or terrifying to me", as in, "I'm claustrophobic, so elevators are my kryptonite." This is understandable, given the general public's notion of kryptonite as the substance that can weaken and kill Superman, but it is incomplete and misses what I call the irony of kryptonite.

To understand this irony, we must first understand what kryptonite is, in the world of Superman. The child, Kal-El, who would grow up to become the Man of Steel, was sent to Earth in a spaceship by his parents to escape the destruction of his planet, much as Moses was set adrift on the Nile to escape the destruction decreed by Pharaoh. The planet Krypton was transformed by its nuclear death into the substance kryptonite, a green, glowing, radioactive death-dealing horror to Superman.

Here is the irony. The very ground of his home planet, which, in the natural course of events would literally support him and grow the food which would sustain him, has become toxic to him. Even worse, the explosion of Krypton resulted in the transformation of everything on the planet into this deadly matter. Books, trees, houses, sporting equipment, the very stuff of daily life, all became kryptonite. Not only has the ground which would have physically supported him on his homeworld become his deadly enemy, so have the things which would have supported him psychologically and emotionally. Imagine, for example, that Superman were to find his parents' wedding picture, or his favorite stuffed toy from childhood, somehow fallen to Earth. He might at first feel a wave of sentimental nostalgia as he remembered, if he could, the brief but happy time in the bosom of his now-gone family. Almost simultaneously, though, this would be overwhelmed by horrified realization of the threat to his survival.

Perhaps fate, or the universe, strives for balance. Superman has lost his biological parents, but he gained adoptive parents, the Kents. He lost his people and his planet, but he gained the people of Earth, his new home. He is arguably the most powerful being on Earth and beyond. Balance requires a weakness, and perhaps not simply a physical weakness, but an emotional one, as well. Not only can he not go home again, any significant exposure to his “home” will drain his strength and turn him into a green-skinned corpse. Finally, there is one last interesting piece of the puzzle. While it is generally known that kryptonite is deadly to Superman, but harmless to Earth-humans, what is sometimes not so well-known is that kryptonite is also harmless to a Kryptonian without super powers. That is, if Superman were to find himself on a re-constituted Krypton under its red sun, kryptonite would simply be an interesting green, glowing rock. Thus, kryptonite is a threat to the hero Superman, not the person Kal-El. The creation of a great hero requires a correspondingly great weakness.

The life of an ordinary person has more ordinary weaknesses. Fortunately, we have the inspiration of our fictional heroes, like the Man of Steel. As great a weakness, physically, psychologically and emotionally, as kryptonite is to him, he has never failed to overcome it, either on his own or with the help of others. Let this be our goal, too, in facing our own weaknesses.