Day 14: Powerful Characters

I was reading another of James Scott Bell's books on writing, this one being 'Writing Unforgettable Characters' (WUC from now on) and it got me thinking about a certain mainstay in the world of comic books, Superman. The key point of chapter two in WUC is that characters need a certain strength of will to pull a reader in, and without it, they'll come off as a wet noodle, somebody the story happens to, instead of playing a role in events themselves. I'm sure you've read a novel or seen a movie where this is the case, but I'm also pretty sure you won't remember it off the top of your head. They're just too forgettable. On the other hand, we have the opposite sort of character that interests me a lot more than the wet noodle. A character whose strength of will is so powerful that it causes its own host of problems. In other words, Superman. Today I want to go over the well known Superman problem and discuss why its my favorite problem to solve. I'll also tease how it relates to my work in progress Oneiromancer. I'll try to avoid spoilers, I promise!

So what is the Superman problem exactly? Well, it boils down to same concept Bell covered, which is a lack of any strength of will. Not for Superman, but for everybody else, and even the world around him. Yes, Superman is so powerful that by comparison everybody else in the world should come off as a wet noodle. He can even defeat natural disasters with little effort, blowing up asteroids heading for Earth, or simply swooping in to pick everybody up and carry them away before the storm can hit. So the question is, how do you pose an interesting problem for Superman? How do you create conflict that involves a character who appears to be completely immune to the stuff that normally causes conflict?

The most boring solution (in my opinion) is also the easiest, Kryptonite. Just give your character a special item that they absolutely cannot stand. Why is this boring though? We watch action movies and read thriller novels where the main character can be brought down by fists, knives, bullets, all sorts of things, so what's the issue with Superman having just one thing that can take him down? I think the issue is that it reduces Superman to the exact same as those other action characters. If some bad guy gets their hands on enough kryptonite, then they can just make brass knuckles, a knife, or bullets, (or an entire continent), and suddenly Superman is just a guy who can fly until he gets hit. Just like everybody else in every other comic book. The fact that he is invincible is the most interesting part of his character, which is why the next solution is a lot more interesting to me than simple kryptonite. Just to be clear, I avoid the kryptonite solution at all costs. I think its a total cop out because it takes away Superman's strength of will and turns him into a wet noodle where everything just happens around him. This can be interesting, but overall I think it's just plain played out by now.

Solution number two is to create a scenario where all of Superman's power is either meaningless or working against him. I'm going to call this the Lex Luthor solution, because he's constantly finding ways to pull this off. But wait, you might be thinking, isn't that what kryptonite does? Make all of Superman's power meaningless? The answer is yes, but the key difference here is that kryptonite takes away Superman's powers while Lex Luthor's stratagems do not. In other words, Superman gets to retain his strength of will. Not only that, but now he has a worthy opponent to test his strength against, or maybe a moral conundrum to solve at the same time. It leads to much greater conflict and juicier character development than the kryptonite solution, and it also allows for the writer to flex some real creative powers of their own.

So how do you challenge Superman? Lex has done it a few times (more than a few really).

*Spoilers!*

The most interesting to me is in 'All-Star Superman' when Lex sabotages a space station and Superman ends up getting a lethal dose of solar radiation while saving the day. He's poisoned by the very thing that gives him strength to begin with.

*Spoilers over*

By forcing Superman into a position where he must sacrifice his moral code (and let people die) or sacrifice himself, Lex is able to prey on Superman's strength of will. Superman is an uncompromising symbol of justice, and has no way out other than to sacrifice himself. Superman's power is so great that the only way for Lex to triumph is to have him use his power against himself. Lining up a scenario like this is no mean feat, and so Lex Luthor's strength of will is equal to Superman's despite their massive difference in absolute strength. This leads to some great conflict where neither side has to take a handicap in order for the story to resolve. Having Superman be killed by the very thing that gives him power is just the poetic cherry on top, making this my favorite solution to killing Superman.

But what if Superman has already lost his moral code? In the Injustice series, a tortured version of Superman kills the Joker after he sets off a nuclear explosion in the middle of Metropolis. With no love left in his heart, he establishes a ruthless dictatorship and turns just about every hero into a villain, or into a corpse. Clearly, Lex Luthor's ability to prey on Superman's moral code won't work here. So what happens? Is there a scenario where Superman's power can work against him when Superman doesn't actually care about anything?

*Spoilers!*

Though the story is still pretty good, they took the cop out of using the kryptonite solution. They just decided to use Superman's other kryptonite, magic. With no other choice, Shazam uses his power to delete Superman from existence. EDIT: this is incorrect, He-Man uses Shazam's power to defeat Superman, my bad.

*Spoilers over*

If you skipped the spoilers, the answer is: not really. So Superman is really rather difficult to challenge isn't he? Either he has a moral code and you can exploit that, or he doesn't and you have to use kryptonite or some other weakness.

This is a bigger cop out than kryptonite, but the real solution is to simply write a character other than Superman. I know, it defeats the whole point, but if you can work an interesting weakness into a character who is otherwise undefeatable, a weakness that someone else would need great strength of will and a creative mind to exploit, isn't that a whole lot more interesting than a character that simply can't lose as long as they have their powers and nobody can do magic? This has been my approach to all the powerful characters in Oneiromancer. To create a chink in the armor that someone else needs to be strong, smart, and quick to exploit, but not necessarily special in some unfathomable way. Maybe in concept this is the same as letting Superman lose to a magic word, Shazam!, but I try not to let it become so simplistic as that. Opportunity cost, moral hazard, and over/under confidence play much stronger roles in who wins and who loses in the stories I like to write than the small weaknesses I have to work in for things to be balanced. I'm still working on it of course, but tackling the Superman problem in interesting ways is what I think makes my work unique and it's also what keeps me working on Oneiromancer day after day.

What makes your stories unique? How do you tackle the Superman problem, if at all? Let me know in the comments.

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley