Let me say up front that I loved Man of Steel. Unabashedly. I didn’t realize how much I missed a well-done Superman, someone who is just genuinely a good person, not all broody and conflicted like Batman, nor snarky like Iron Man, but someone who wants to do the right thing, until I was watching the movie and I loved it.
But even in the middle of my love for it, I felt like something wasn’t quite right. The movie was so good, but it wasn’t great. The movie seemed both to love Superman and not quite understand him. Take the ending, where so much of Metropolis is destroyed, so many lives lost, but without any emotional consequences for Superman. I didn’t buy that Superman wouldn’t have at least attempted to move the battle out of town and I surely didn’t buy that Superman wouldn’t have been devastated by those deaths.
But the biggest indication I found that the movie didn’t get Superman had to be when we saw Superman in the church, his head right next to Jesus. This wasn’t the only Jesus reference. Richard Corliss in Time points out the obvious others:
Man of Steel takes its cue from Bryan Singer’s 2006 Superman Returns, which posited our hero as the Christian God come to Earth to save humankind: Jesus Christ Superman. [Script-writer, David] Goyer goes further, giving the character a backstory reminiscent of the Gospels: the all-seeing father from afar (plus a mother); the Earth parents; an important portent at age 12 (Jesus talks with the temple elders; Kal-El saves children in a bus crash); the ascetic wandering in his early maturity (40 days in the desert for Jesus; a dozen years in odd jobs for Kal-El); his public life, in which he performs a series of miracles; and then, at age 33, the ultimate test of his divinity and humanity. “The fate of your planet rests in your hands,” says the holy-ghostly Jor-El to his only begotten son, who goes off to face down Zod the anti-God in a Calvary stampede. You could call Man of Steel the psychoanalytical case study of god-man with a two-father complex.
All these New Testament allusions — plus the image of Superman sitting in a church pew framed by a stained-glass panel of Jesus in his final days — don’t necessarily make Man of Steel any richer, except for students of comparative religion. And as Goyer has noted, “We didn’t come up with these allusions of Superman being Christ-like. That’s something that’s been embedded in the character from the beginning.
Whoa, doggy. That’s just flat out wrong. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster weren’t patterning Superman after Jesus. They were patterning him after Moses. A woman has a baby she cannot keep or he’ll die. She puts him in a small ship, of sorts, and sends him off, hoping some other woman will take him in, raise him, and keep him safe. He grows up to save people.
It’s not a perfect match. Moses’ mom lives. He has a sister and a brother who he hooks back up with later. His culture of origin isn’t lost.
But losing sight of Superman’s origins in a basket in the bulrushes means the filmmakers miss the importance of some of the very things they’re depicting. And they miss opportunities to make Man of Steel into a richer story, because they’re drawing on the wrong archetype.
Let’s be frank. Jesus makes a bad Superman. There are a lot of reasons why, starting with the fact that no one wants to watch Superman standing around lecturing people, being tortured to death, and then scaring the shit out of his friends by appearing to them after he’s dead (okay, maybe I would want to watch that Superman movie, but it doesn’t scream summer blockbuster) and ending with the fact that Jesus, though a really compelling figure, is compelling for his ideas, not his action adventures.
But the most important reason Jesus makes a bad Superman is that, unlike the other men in the “hidden special child” genre, Jesus’ story has a specific arc and a definite end. And I’m not talking about his crucifixion. What I mean is that Jesus has one battle with his arch-enemy, he wins, and the world is over, the end.
Jesus’ story can be retold and reimagined—a crucial component for a good superhero story. But there is no “Tune in next time for another exciting adventure.” Jesus is a one-and-done hero. When Jesus accomplishes his mission, the world is at its end. If Superman is Jesus and we saw his huge fight with his dad’s nemesis, what’s the plot of the next movie?
But, as luck would have it, even if the filmmakers thought they were making a Christ-allegory, there’s enough of the Moses tale still present to suggest some possibilities for further storytelling. We saw Lara, like Jocabed, entrusting her son to a woman she could not know. There’s not a lot about the Pharaoh’s daughter in the Christian Bible, but both Jewish and Muslim lore flesh her out a whole lot more and, though the lore differs somewhat, both traditions show her radically changed by raising Moses, to the point where she throws her lot in with the Jewish people trapped in her country and forsakes the Egyptians.
It would be interesting to see how Martha Kent might throw her lot in with the superheroes, even though she’s not one, in order to keep supporting her son and his cause. Superman stories tend to leave Martha at home, but the Moses archetype suggests bigger possibilities for her.
I think we unintentionally saw the destruction of the Golden Calf when Superman destroyed the drone. And we saw, constantly, Superman surrounded by people who didn’t quite trust him. All this just serves to remind us that Moses has continuing adventures. He does have a good arch-nemesis in the Pharaoh, with a great backstory that ties them both together in a compelling way that adds to their encounters. Is Moses rejecting the culture, and thus the Pharaoh that saved him? How can the Pharaoh retain his power and authority in his own community and deal with a community with God on their side? Moses has a murder for a righteous cause hanging over his head (and really, the death of Zod in Man of Steel is alarming because the movie has spent so much time arguing for Jesus-Superman. And Jesus doesn’t kill people. But there’s no such problem with Moses.). And then there’s the 40 years in the wilderness. There’s a lot of ground to cover, stories to be told. Things you could add or take away or retell in countless ways. The fact that at least three religions already do so proves it’s a rich story that stands up to the type of reuse our superhero stories get.
The biggest difference between Moses and Jesus, one with important implications for the Superman story is that, while Jesus can go anywhere people are—earth, Heaven, Hell—Moses never entirely fits in with the people he’s leading. He wasn’t raised with them, he wasn’t an adult among them at first (remember, he runs off and lives in Midian for forty years), and he can’t go with them into the Promised Land. It’d be interesting if these were the people of Earth. But imagine the story you could tell if these were the Justice League. What would it mean if Superman were leading them toward a goal he could never meet?
I saw referenced multiple places that Man of Steel was yet another movie that attempts to tell 9/11 with a happy ending. Okay, so if Superman can be used to talk about big tragedies people are still trying to grapple with, why not more explicitly let Superman grapple with the unimaginable tragedy of the destruction of his people in ways that mirror how Jewish people have wrestled with the Holocaust?
I’m not arguing for a one-to-one mapping. Obviously that wouldn’t work. But there are writers who could pen a compelling story—because they know that story—about a guy who, as far as he knows, is the only person in his culture left, who must wonder if he resembles his grandfather or whether he got his love of science from his aunt, who must wish he knew old folk songs or what the people in his family’s neighborhood ate at holiday meals, and who can’t ever get complete answers to those questions.
And then, what happens when Kara shows up? Do you rejoice in the found family member? Do you find her presence a sharp reminder of the rest of your loved ones’ absences? Of their ultimate fates?
Superman can have hope because he’s corny Jesus-dude made of hope or he can have hope because the alternative is to give into despair. The second choice makes for a more real movie, and one that, I’d argue, is truer to Superman’s roots, both mythically and in the lived realities of his original creators.
But the thing I find most fascinating and appalling about taking something with its roots in Moses and declaring that its roots were in Jesus all along is that this is such a common approach—not to superheroes, but to theology—that there’s a word for it: Supersessionism.
The belief that the new covenant between Jesus and his followers supersedes the old covenant between God and the Jewish people is fundamental to most forms of Christianity. Even if Christians don’t know the term, it’s the reason we eat cheeseburgers. And it’s an incredibly tender sore spot among Jewish people, who aren’t that excited to hear all about how, when God said he was keeping a perpetual covenant with the children of Israel, he meant “perpetual until some better people come along.” Jewish scholars and theologians have argued—and rightly so, I think—that the Christian belief that Christians now have the special relationship with God that supersedes the Jewish relationship is an important part of the foundations of anti-Semitism (because, in part, it implies that God’s fine with whatever terrible things Christians want to do to Jews, because God doesn’t love them best, or at all, any more).
Superman isn’t a Jewish myth, but he’s a cultural figure with strong Jewish roots—created by two Jewish guys, given an origin story that draws heavily from one of Judaism’s central figures. Neglecting those roots and grafting on Christian ones instead is problematic. It makes for a less compelling story (like I said, if Jesus/Superman has defeated Satan/Zod, what can happen in the next movie that still keeps Superman a Christ-figure?), it neglects the rich mythology Superman’s creators drew from, and it perpetuates a troubling theological stance.
But I think the worst thing is that it indulges its majority Christian audience in this country in a lie we often tell ourselves without realizing—that Jesus is the center of all things and we, being close enough to the center, should be the people around which the whole country revolves; all stories are our stories or can be taken and made to be. In the end, using Superman to reinforce Christian supremacy in the United States probably isn’t going to ruin Superman. But it is a lie that comes from and leads to ugly places. And it’s a shame to see it at the heart of Man of Steel.
______
Betsy Phillips writes for The Nashville Scene‘s political blog, “Pith in the Wind.” In her spare time, she makes up spooky stories. Her fiction has appeared in Apex Magazine and Qarrtsiluni.
First illustration unknown artist; 2nd from Grant Morrison/Frank Quitely All Star Superman”
I’m going to push back on the idea that Superman has his roots in Moses.
In an earlier draft of the story, it was a single father from the future, sending him child back in a time machine.
http://blog.newsarama.com/2008/08/20/russell-keaton-supermans-fifth-beatle/
Before that, Siegal had written a story based on Friedrich Nietzsche’s idea of an Übermensch, given powers crafted by science.
He had also read and reviewed the story Gladiator, which featured a superhuman given powers by science.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_Superman#cite_note-8
Wikipedia says ‘Siegel has cited the John Carter of Mars stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs as an influence on the source of Superman’s strength and leaping ability being the lesser gravity of a smaller planet.[6]”
Wikipedia claims the creators never cited Moses as an influence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_Superman#cite_note-8
“Because Siegel and Shuster were both Jewish, some religious commentators and pop-culture scholars such as Rabbi Simcha Weinstein and British novelist Howard Jacobson suggest that Superman’s creation was partly influenced by Moses[11][12] and other Jewish elements. However, Siegel and Shuster claim that having Superman drop out of the sky just seemed like a good idea.[6]”
I mean… authors definitely draw upon life experiences when crafting a story, but the Moses connection strikes me as a sort of wishful thinking among Jewish commentators. (Who I’m assuming originally posited this theory).
By the way Action Comics #1 doesn’t mention a mother, here’s the first page:
“http://www.popgunchaos.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/page1.jpg”
Did Siegel have a mother put Superman in the ship in a later version?
I mean… I can definitely see the immigrant connection with Superman, but y’now, maybe those Jewish kids were just crafting a story that played to their interests in science fiction, drawing from some life experiences trying to integrate with American society?
Just because Superman isn’t Jesus- why does he have to be Moses?
“But I think the worst thing is that it indulges its majority Christian audience in this country in a lie we often tell ourselves without realizing—that Jesus is the center of all things and we, being close enough to the center, should be the people around which the whole country revolves; all stories are our stories or can be taken and made to be.”
Great piece, and thank you for articulating this. I haven’t seen the movie, but the things I’ve heard made me really uncomfortable. You’re the first person to put it into words.
I don’t think it’s quite as easy to dismiss as that. Superman as immigrant seems pretty obvious, and once you’ve got Jewish creators telling an immigrant story about a swaddled infant placed into a vessel, Moses is hard to ignore.
Their statements about it are interesting…but I wouldn’t say that Siegel and Shuster were especially on top of what they were doing. Superman is not a well-crafted thoughtful story. The idea that maybe things were in there that they didn’t completely think through seems more likely than not.
“Moses is hard to ignore.”
Aside from the many, many, differences with Moses?
Well, of course it’s not a retelling of the Moses story. But there are elements which seem to point that direction fairly convincingly to me. Not that Superman is Moses (obviously he’s not) but that the one story seems to inform the other.
I think the only real similarity is the leaving the baby in the river. (Although if we’re playing that game why he’s allegedly informed by Moses instead of the Jewish Messiah is not clear to me-nor do I know what sort of religious training the Superman creators had- or whether they could have been thinking of the Jewish messiah.)
But I’m not really seeing the point of this exercise, I’ll quote Alan Moore:
” That’s not to say that there haven’t been some wonderful creations in the course of the history of the superhero comic, but to compare them with gods is fairly pointless. Yes, you can make obvious comparisons by saying the golden-age Flash looks a bit like Hermes, as he’s got wings on his helmet, or the golden-age Hawkman looks a bit like Horus because he’s got a hawk head. But this is just to say that comics creators through the decades have taken their inspiration where they can find it. ”
http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2013/06/comics-a-m-heroescon-doubles-exhibition-space/
It’s not clear to me that Superman has a greater connection to Moses than Hawkman does to Horus, even if we grant certain similarities.
Right. It’s not a retelling of Moses. Moses is one of the foundational myths at the base of Superman. The things Superman seems to have in common with Jesus are, I would argue, because Jesus was Jewish, so it’s not surprising that many of the “Look, it’s about Jesus!” touchstones fit. A Jewish kid does a lot of talking with his/her elders about religious matters when s/he’s twelve. That’s not unique to Jesus. Jewish prophets go out in the wilderness, again, not unique to Jesus.
In other words, the reason Jesus almost fits is because Jesus draws a lot on a foundational myth of Moses, too. They’re both, as I said, “hidden special babies.” (As is Hercules, which ALL STAR SUPERMAN makes good use of by giving Superman Herculean labors to perform.)
I’m just saying that, when you’re arguing that Jesus is the foundational “hidden special baby” that informs Superman, you are gravely mistaking which “hidden special baby” is Superman’s mythological ancestor, to the story’s own detriment.
I don’t know how there can be any argument that Moses isn’t Superman’s “hidden special baby” direct ancestor. What I find interesting is that this is still obvious, even in MAN OF STEEL, and yet remains invisible to the scriptwriter.
Pallas, I think you’re missing my point. I’m not arguing that Superman has more of a connection to Moses than Hawkman does to Horus. I’m arguing that Superman has more of a connection to Moses than he does to Jesus, that the scriptwriter has mistaken a mythological older brother for the mythological ancestor.
Family resemblances all around, but mistaking Superman for Jesus is wrong.
Pallas: “Aside from the many, many, differences with Moses?”
Now this is why HU needs a “like” button!!
Seriously, I get the Jewish Superman thing. The “El” family name; being the representative of a lost race. Clark Kent is a Krypto-Jew (TM). But I think pallas’s comments — long and short versions — should serve as a reminder for how self-selecting such arguments can be, especially when you start asserting that the Superman=Moses connection is being made without the authors or filmmakers even realizing it.
Pallas points out all the things about the Siegel-Shuster Superman that do not fit the equation, including perhaps the most salient fact that Superman never does the kinds of things for which Moses is most revered (heck, Superman *loves* being Pharaoh’s adopted kid!). Noah answers that one only needs two points to draw a line.
Of course, making big claims from limited pieces of evidence is just part of how literary analytical arguments work. But its helpful when people like pallas remind us of this fact.
What evidence is there that Moses doesn’t love being Pharoah’s kid?
Let me ask another question–do you think Superman is a Christ-figure?
I would say you only need a couple of points to make a couple of points.
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“What evidence is there that Moses doesn’t love being Pharoah’s kid?”
“11 One day, when Moshe was a grown man, he went out to visit his kinsmen; and he watched them struggling at forced labor. He saw an Egyptian strike a Hebrew, one of his kinsmen. 12 He looked this way and that; and when he saw that no one was around, he killed the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand. ”
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%202&version=CJB
My point was simply that Moses became “Moses” (literally) when he left his position of power and status and, after forty years living as a shepherd, became the representative of his “real” people — a fact that compelled him to confront Pharaoh and leave his adopted folk completely.
Clark Kent (or Kal-El) becomes “Superman” to the extent that he comes to represent the law, the power, and the people of his adopted nation. Moses’s tale is not the story of the heroic immigrant; Superman’s is.
Regarding question #2, Nah.
Betsy: “Let me ask another question–do you think Superman is a Christ-figure?”
An interesting question. One answer which takes your article into account is that it is Jesus who is like Moses (of some importance to Messianic Jews presumably). Hence the confusion among present day writers who don’t know much OT.
Deuteronomy 18: 17-19
17 The Lord said to me: “What they say is good. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. 19 I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name.
So the progression is Moses > expected Jewish Messiah (who happens to be a bit like Jesus) > Superman
Right, keeping in mind that, as we make that progression, we’re leaving the religio-mythic realm and entering the realm of superheros. It’s not the same genre, that two lands don’t map onto each other one hundred percent, but there are similarities in the landscapes.
Oh, hey, that’s a useful metaphor for what I’m trying to get at. Goyer says he was able to use the map of Superman to end up in Jesus, because it was always secretly a map of Jesus.
My point is that, if you’re using the map of Superman as “hidden special baby” to get anywhere, you are going to end up in Moses, don’t mistake it for Jesus.
The Richard Donner movie is usually the version of Superman credited with introducing the Jesus references. I’m not sure if there’s any precedent in the comics at all before that film?
It’s clear by then we’re decades away from the original Jewish creators having any control of the property, though it may have been Jewish editors controlling the books at DC Comics, maybe?
One thing I think is interesting in the piece is that Betsy presents the difference between Moses and Christ as a change in people’s; that is, Moses is the prophet of the Jewish people, Christ of the Christian people (in some sense.)
This is actually really not how Christianity is supposed to work…or at least there’s resistance in the tradition to it working that way. Judaism is the religion of a people (avowedly); Christianity is supposed to be accessible to everyone, and not tied to a nationality. So the New Testament isn’t a new covenant with a new people; it’s good news for everyone.
You could argue that the fact that Superman’s ethnic identity is what gives him power makes him an especially bad Christ figure, since the power or truth he has is, in Christian terms, supposed to be accessible to everyone, not just to folks from a red sun.
Of course, in practice, Christians have been as tribal as anyone…
Not exactly right. Since Jesus’ “ethnic identity” is actually “Son of God”. And it’s actually pretty important that the Messiah fulfills all the OT prophecies (esp. those from Isaiah but also others) both to Christians and toJews. It’s pretty important that Jesus is Jewish even to those who hold to Replacement Theology.
Well, you’re certainly more versed in theology than me. But…isn’t part of the reason that it’s important for Jesus to be a Jew that you can then say, “neither Jew nor Gentile in Christ”. That is, the importance of Judaism is in no small part to frame a binary which you can then escape. It’s the ethnic identity which opens the door to the end of ethnic identity.
Which is why Jesus isn’t an assimilation narrative; Jesus doesn’t become gentile and then return to his roots. He just makes those distinctions irrelevant. Whereas Moses has a much more Superman trajectory; assimilation, then discovery of his roots and destiny (more or less.)
By saying he’s like Moses, are we saying he was sent as a scourge on the people who adopted him by conspiring with his God to commit revenge genocide on them or what?
(Sorry. Please just skip that last comment, I was only trying to be funny.)
Isaac, I laughed, but I do also think that this is the point at which Superman as Moses breaks down (and Superman as Jesus, for that matter). Both Moses and Jesus are migrants at various points in their lives, but neither experience the complete loss of home culture the way Superman does. I think that’s a much fresher immigrant experience being drawn on there.
1. Really didn’t care for Man of Steel, but I suppose that’s beside the point.
2. Wow, that Richard Corliss excerpt is reeeaally reaching. 40 days in the dessert and doing odd jobs? Jesus’s twelve apostles and…kids on a school bus? I don’t even know what to say to these things. Then again, I think we unintentionally saw the destruction of the Golden Calf when Superman destroyed the drone. And we saw, constantly, Superman surrounded by people who didn’t quite trust him.” – I don’t know what to make of this, either.
3.”We didn’t come up with these allusions of Superman being Christ-like. That’s something that’s been embedded in the character from the beginning.” — Good lord! I knew the Christ imagery was exceedingly obvious and lacking subtlety, but somehow it’s something else entirely to see a writer actually cop to it. Did he not get the memo that it’s supposed to be a badly kept secret?
I hold to the view that Superman is as Jewish as Siegel and Shuster and Hanukkah. But I’m really not fond of hoisting major religious figures on superheroes (read: Superman) as, among other things, I find them to be pretty tenuous. It’s especially annoying when committed to writing, where it comes across as self-important wankery that somehow doesn’t make these characters’ stories any better. But of all the allusions, I’ve always found the Superman-Jesus comparisons to be easily the most absurd. I have no problem, however, believing that elements of Superman’s origins are informed by the Moses story, like Superman himself is (much more strongly) informed by the mythic figure of Heracles. That said, I’ve always gotten the impression that Superman’s origins had more to do in those early issues with convenient sci-fi explanation of his powers than looking to allude to Old Testament stories.
I myself like the conspiracy theory facetiously postulated by Kevin Smith and others of the deliberateness of the co-option of Superman’s Moses iconography into Jesus iconography as the character got taken over by Christian managers, writers, and audiences. There might lie a kernel of truth in there.
Besides, if one must make these comparisons, let Superman be Moses. It’s obvious in that case that the true Messiah figure should be Wonder Woman – a woman of divinely influenced parthenogenetic birth sent to our world with a preach her message of love and peace (while hitting people)? No-brainer. And if I were to employ some of the stretching I’ve read here, Jesus once made a whip of cords to cleanse a temple; Wonder Woman fights with a cord – coincidence?
“I saw referenced multiple places that Man of Steel was yet another movie that attempts to tell 9/11 with a happy ending. Okay, so if Superman can be used to talk about big tragedies people are still trying to grapple with…”
…But MOS and all those other blockbusters aren’t talking about 9/11, just showing it, because it adds to the level of spectacle, I guess. This is what a lot of people complain about with these movies. I personally don’t know how much it is the case that these films are referring to 9/11 versus how much they just want to upstage one another and blow shit up like Independence Day. To say that these movies have anything to say about the disasters they portray let alone 9/11 is to credit them far too much, I think, and I question how serious a treatment or discussion of these issues can be had in these movies.
William Marston, the creator of Wonder Woman, is pretty self-conscious about her mythological connotations. He’s kind of got his own spiritual/philosophical ideas — but they center on peace and the god(dess) of love, so Christian analogies work pretty well.
Maybe the sequel will feature Superman v. Braniac fighting over Kandor, and Superman can break into “Let my People Go.”
Betsy you are right. Pallas you’re not.
Of course Superman is like Moses.
First off Seigel explicitly stated he did not draw from Gladiator’s Hugo Danner, and even if he was familiar with the story by Wylie his Superman is more a counterpoint – a diametric opposite to the kind of Superman Danner is – who isn’t a hero. We can labour over the comparisons in terms of feats of strength but really much like if a “man was a flea” comparison these ideas were already out there.
Fundamentally Siegel was drawing from lots of sources, and unlike Wylie he acknowledges his debt to Burroughs John Carter and Tarzan stories. But lets not get distracted by the red herring of what is a McGuffin ie Krypton, since the origin story details eg High G world, – or the highly evolved man of tomorrow physiology – is just a means to explain how Superman is Super. Great got that, now Action!
I’ve read the surviving Seigel Keaton Strips that use the Time Travel origin, and while in some ways C21 it’s a better origin than the one we got, it doesn’t change the central trope, which is Kal/Moses get’s put in a basket on the river, which arguably is all part of a wider trope of abandoned child. ( Romulus/Remus Tarzan etc. )
Whether that river is space, or the time stream is just fluff, the central idea of parents casting adrift their child to fate – the hand of God, remains.
That said Superman isn’t just Moses. He is what theologians would call a ‘type of Christ’, this applies to any of the great Israelite heroes, Moses, Joshua, Samson, David etc. The difference between these Priest Kings and Jesus is important, their kingdoms were of this world, like Superman they dealt with the problems hands on and with their fists.
So while their is messianic quality to Superman, it is the Messianic quality of Christ.
Which is the central point of Betsy article, that Christ’s story is as the Jesus said on the Cross – Finished.
Whereas Superman fights a never ending battle.
Which is where Moore’s observation is relevant, it is Super-man and not God, and Clark Kent remains the nerd’s Gary Sue, emerging from behind a weak persona, strongly, as greatness. He remains a flawed human being, whereas Jesus is a human being without flaws.
The Jewish heritage of Siegel and Shuster is irrelevant. They didn’t create Superman, he created himself — hasn’t anyone here read All-Star Superman?
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I think that, as others have stated, the original authors did not intend a direct religious allegory. However, writing this fantasy in the beginning and midst of WWII, it’s easy to see that perhaps Superman came out of the wish for a savior.
I also think that Superman has similarities to both Moses and Jesus. The Moses connection is the baby-in-a-basket trope and his attempts to lead us through the proverbial wilderness, defending Earth from attackers. There’s also a Jesus connection in the earthly adoptive family vs otherworldly parentage, the miraculous powers (admittedly more dramatic), the super-hearing that allows him to hear you asking him for help, the seeming invincibility, and in the recruitment for the Justice League, some Come-and-follow-me moments.
Superman DOES “die” (apparently to his friends and family, but his heart just super slowed down) and “comes back to life” in a different Super suit (and with a mullet!) after fighting DOOMSDAY.
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