In the comments for a post below about the appeal of superhero gaming, Meera asked:
How recent is the "moral grey" of superheroism, though? One of the reasons I stayed fairly far away from early Superman was because of that boy scout demeanor, the, "I've got the Great Responsibility part down," where I love the stories of his struggle with his power. Is that struggle really "superheroic"?
The struggle is certainly superheroic, although not every superhero fan may appreciate it. Look at the early Marvel comics (particularly the early Spiderman comics) for a great example of a character struggling to deal with the responsibilities and troubles that come with great power.
I think the struggle has always been there. Having more stories that focus on the moral grey areas and conflicted heroes is a new development but the fact that you have a hero struggling to do good in an often dark world has been there since the beginning. Sometimes it was just something you had to read between the lines for.
As far as Superman goes, he wasn't the black and white character that people now see him as in the beginning. He was more of the tough-guy, social crusader than the patriarchal image he developed through the fifties and sixties. However, even in the midst of the sixties camp, Superman comics dealt with Superman's survivor's guilt, his fear of being alone because he could never get close to anyone (lest they discover his secret) and many other more personal stories that most people that dismiss the "silver age" of comics overlook. I may read a lot between the lines, but when I read Superman comics from any era, I see the same kinds of stories that Smallville.
For more of an idea of how Superman has evolved over the years, read this paper I wrote last year for a Composition class. (Rereading it, I realize that it's a very rough paper and I can't believe the teacher gave me an A for it. Feel free to comment on it to me as I'd love to clean it up and some more detail to it someday, since I believe it could be a good paper but right now need a lot of work.)
[EDIT- I realized something while looking at this that explains a lot. This was my rough draft. I'm not sure what happened to the final.]
Posted by Nuadha at March 12, 2004 11:27 AM