I’m no devotee of the comics, so forgive me if this has already been addressed there. But I got to thinking about what it would be like to be Superman in today’s social media obsessed world. I mean, talk about an influencer!
I don’t see why he’d need to be a reporter. He could just slap a Nike swoosh on his cape for a couple hundred million dollars easy. If he’s willing to do commercials - say, be the pitchman for some underwear brand - there’s no reason he’d ever have to work a day in his life.
But what about cancel culture? Naturally, reporters are going to want his opinion on things. Who does Superman think won the 2020 election? Can you imagine how disappointed some people would be if he had political opinions like Scott Baio?
At some point, even a paragon of “Truth, Justice, and the American Way” is going to run into some talk of “cancel culture”. My guess is that it’s the hypocritical kind - a bunch of Trump supporters refusing to forgive him for planting a flag at Biden’s inauguration, leading to some stupid meme or bumper sticker everywhere: “Kryptonite for Congress” or some shit like that.
I just don’t see Superman navigating it all successfully. The US tells him not to go to Ukraine because they don’t want Putin to deploy nukes, but then Fox News starts questioning why Superman can’t just stop those nukes, and now there’s an internet rumor that he can’t actually fly anymore, and anytime you see him in the sky he’s using a jet pack hidden under his cape.
I mean, who needs the hassle, really? He used to go on Letterman and play the game of “let’s throw this onto the top of a skyscraper”, and he’d always have those uncredited cameos (as just some regular dude) in Judd Apatow movies, but in this day and age, if I were him, I’d forget about doing good deeds and just chill in my fortress of solitude, with just my tweeting (@notbirdorplane) to keep me engaged with my fans.
Would he be able to work at all? How would he be granted a Green Card without any I-94 record of having arrived in the country? And, if he had one, how would he be able to provide his tax returns and other day to day documents to get citizenship? They will all be lodged under another name.
Both the comic and the show “The Boys” are basically all about this, as well as Watchman to an extent (though it predated any and all internet media).
Basically Superheros would be all government/corporate sponsored and the most media friendly people you could imagine. Anyone who doesn’t fit into that mold or fall into line would be quietly either shunned or eliminated.
There are no phone booths to change identitites anymore, Superman is no longer possible.
I would like to know his opinion on the 2nd amendment and on abortion though. His concept of good and bad always seemed quite shallow to me, give him a metaphysical problem and see how he does.
We’re talking about a guy who can take a bag of charcoal briquettes and turn it into a Tiffany’s. He doesn’t need the money, he works because he likes the human connection.
As for politics? Original flavor Superman was hard core into social justice. He didn’t just catch bank robbers - he threatened bankers into giving loans to destitute farmers. He’d go to a used car lot, where the owner was selling lemons, and wreck his inventory. He smacked the shit out of a wife beater. They’ve done the “What does Superman do when the President is obviously corrupt and evil?” story by having Lex Luthor become President - three separate times! Fox News? He’s got a super villain for that.
Now, I’m no big-city lawyer, but it’s my understanding that “foundlings” of unknown origin or parentage can acquire birthright citizenship if their place of origin cannot be determined by the time they become an adult.
Iirc in one of the “If Superman ruled the world” stories Superman got rid of all firearms from everyone all over the world “for their own good”. Of course the upside to this for him was that it also meant humans couldn’t just shoot the non-superheroes he had enforcing his laws either.
Superman would be a good spokesman for Spanx, those form fitting underwear that hides your flab. He could even get them to make his suits.
But I can see him getting tied up in litigation all the time. Not just those who claim that they had some sort of shock or trauma seeing him swoop in and save the day (surely a money grab), but at least one rescued person will probably come forward and say that he copped a feel when he was catching them jumping out of that burning building.
And then there’d the big and novel stuff that ends up on appeal and results in significant case law. I can see that law students would study up on the precedent that “no, you can’t sue Superman for failing to save you from serious bodily injury. Absent a contract to provide services, he owes no general duty of care to everyday citizens. Of course , if he does choose to intervene, he’d he held to the standard of a reasonably prudent person who has the ability to defy the laws of physics.”
He’s a nosy, gossiping busybody—same as every other journalist.
If he found himself in need of money, I think his abilities would be most lucrative in the field of demolition or construction. Or use his heat vision to power a blast furnace in a steel refinery. Or use his X-ray vision to help a mining company find rich veins of ore.
