Cove West brought this up in his comment to yesterday's post, and it was something that also occurred to me while making said post. Has Superman redeemed any of his foes? Offhand I couldn't think of any, but I'm not well-versed when it comes to Superman's history. I have a hard time considering Hiro - the teenage Toyman - as evil, more just irresponsible, plus I don't know whether he counts as a "foe" or not, since I've never actually seen him battle Superman. Bizarro's been helping some heroes in that Rann-Thanagar thing recently, but I'm not sure his current personality (meaning, childlike) really counts as evil, either. Maybe one of his earlier depictions, but then there's the question of whether that version tried to redeem itself, and whether or not I could tell if it did*. I'm sure there's someone, but I don't know of them. So I wanted to point out that everything here flows from me currently not knowing of any
To me, it seems Superman mostly serves to inspire other heroes to be better heroes. Steel (John Henry Irons version, at least) was inspired by Supeman. I think Matrix Supergirl was trying to honor him during his death, and busted Superboy's chops about decisions she felt didn't meet what the S-shield stands for. Jaime Reyes is impressed by him, I think Power Girl looks up to him, and so on. Which is fine. Anything that inspires the heroes to try and be better at what they do is good, right?
Still, it's odd his villains don't turn over new leaves, isn't it? I've seen Superman described as representing the best of humanity, so shouldn't that include redemption? The idea that even if you've made horrible decisions or mistakes in the past, there's always a chance to make amends, change your ways, and that other people will give you that chance? Is it that, if you have the best qualities of humanity, you wouldn't require redemption, and so it doesn't really fit into the story? I can't claim to be a big Superman fan, but I'm pretty sure that if one of his regular foes, say Metallo came to Superman and said he wanted to try and help people, Superman would encourage that and support him, because that's who he is, always trying to encourage the better qualities in those around him, right?
Perhaps since Superman symbolizes the best of humanity, his enemies have to symbolize the worst, and that several traits that block their redemption. Jealousy or envy of Superman, so that the idea of following his example would be abhorrent to them. Or an ego so great as to preclude them from seeing the error of their ways. Luthor doesn't seeing anything wrong about expending all this energy on trying to destroy Superman, or discredit him, or whatever his plan of the month is. He sees it as a useful occupation, because Superman's presence blocks him from something*. If you can call him an enemy, Manchester Black chose to try and drag Superman to his level, rather than the reverse, then killed himself when he failed.
Of course, if Superman has hordes of enemies that have redeemed themselves, this probably all goes up in smoke, but it was the answer I came up with, so I thought I might run it past all of you.
* I just find Bizarro kind of confusing. He's Superman's opposite, so he's evil. Or he's stupid. But he has Superman's powers. Plus some extras. Sometimes. I don't think I've read enough with him to keep track.
** In the past I think Luthor's felt accolades her deserved were given to Superman, or he's been wary of Earthling dependence on this alien for protection, or he wants to commit crimes and naturally Superman is a roadblock to that. I don't know which it is these days. The second one, I think, given the New Krypton arc.
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Well, you can argue that during the current New Krypton arc (which I am way behind on), Superman is trying to redeem the denizens of Argo City by turning them away from their poor view on humanity and Superman's strict morality.
However, I do see your point, it seems like it would be a slam-dunk story for Superman to been shepherding one of his villains towards using their gifts to benefit humanity ad being either disappointed by their failure r delighted by their success.
Perhaps writers haven't seized on this idea since they believe that if you are going to go up against Superman, the paragon of "right", you must simply be irredeemable.
Ever since you made me think of this, Calvin, the only Superman-redeemed villain I can come up with is Solaris the Tyrant Sun from DC ONE MILLION, of all things. Solaris was supposedly "the greatest foe of the Superman dynasty" until he got reprogrammed and became the guardian of the Solar System or something. But IIRC, it was one of the Starman dynasy who did the reprogramming. That, and I wouldn't really consider "reprogramming" the same as reforming, anyway. Besides Solaris, I really am coming up blank.
And now that you mention them, Superman really doesn't have that long a list of inspired heroes, either. John Henry Irons is one of the great inspired-heroes of all time, but Matrix-Supergirl was a Luthor-construct and Superboy was a Cadmus clone, and the now the current Supergirl gains the S by relation (and Power Girl too, though more convolutedly) -- none exactly "wow, I saw Superman on TV and decided to fight for truth and justice" origins, howevermuch he may have guided them afterwards. IMO, the next most Superman-inspired hero besides Steel would be Dick Grayson (you heard me right), who was inspired by Superman to step out of Batman's shadow and become Nightwing -- which, to let my Nightwing-flag fly, is probably the most important event in the hero community not named "Crisis" since the original Teen Titans formed, because it allowed Dick to assume the role of Vice-Superman (only slightly more important than Barbara Gordon becoming Oracle, allowing her to assume the role of Vice-Batman). But Superman doesn't really get a lot of credit for that.
Most of this problem can be laid at CoIE's doorstep, since the incorporation of Earth-2 and the post-Crisis timeline supplanted Superman and Batman as the first heroes. Nowadays, as many heroes pick Alan Scott as their inspiration (including Bruce Wayne) as pick Superman. And with Superman, it's the Jaime Reyes-style inspiration, the honor and impression you mentioned, sort of like how someone would say they were inspired by their grandparents. There's also some of that Donner-movie influence (though not nearly as much as Singer found) that makes Superman a little Jesus-y, and for all that Jesus has inspired people to be good, it's not like there's a bunch of people out there picking up his cape and going out on poverty patrol and beating up moneylenders (yeah, there are religious devotees, but notice that they tend to single out GOD as the inspirer).
Maybe it's the power thing? People love Superman and even worship him, but they don't consider following his example because what he does is just so far above them? They say, "I can't punch a bank robber to Oa, so I'm just going to stay home and maybe donate a few more bucks to UNICEF this Easter." As opposed to Batman, who all sorts of people can sorta-do what he does (or so they think), so you've got angry schooteachers and punk kids and librarians and pregnant teenagers all swinging around Gotham like a deranged episode of "21 Jump Street." Seriously, shouldn't it be SUPERMAN who's taking in an army of orphans and teaching them a better life of sunshine and justice, and not the guy who spends prime bedtime-story time breaking the fingers of pimps and getting roughed up by a giant alligator-man and a guy with half his face burned off? Or maybe Dick's a trailblazer: sooner or later, all the people inspired by Batman will get so effed up that they need Superman to re-inspire them before they get a nasty deathwish and seek some quality time with the Joker. Clark's like the Supernanny who fixes the kids that Batman screwed up.
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