(Prime reason for using the Routh pic is I like it and haven't used it in a while and felt like change would benefit the article)
First off, I'm letting you guys know this will retread some of my earlier arguments found in "Editorial: Superman or Clark Kent which is the True Face"
It's fairly necessary to read even if it's recovering some arguments so if you guys don't mind: http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/robertgarlenoncmb/news/?a=25403
Article here:
Now that you've read the Editorial mentioned, or if you've already read it, it's time to get to the meat of this Subject. Like stated Superman is often seen as Godlike and invulnerable (even though he has quite a few weaknesses). To be honest I'm tired of this interpretation, Donner Did it, Singer did it, but neither really sit right with me. Don't get me Wrong, i love Both Director's Take of the Character, but they both over focused on the Godlike perspective, which doesn't really fit in the time of open atheism and agnostic religions. What Superman needs showcased via film and comics is the relatable side to him. To break it down, Superman is a Career, Clark is who he is, Clark has his hobby being a reporter, and his full time Job is being Superman, so basically what I'm saying is Superman is like an Person with 2 jobs instead of being Super-powered and worshiped both just work really hard to do what's right. I've always found the Clark Kent side of The Superman Paradigm relatable, and I've at times even felt quite like Clark showcases himself in Metropolis and how he is at home in Smallville. The reason why Earth one was enjoyable was it was one of the first times i read a Superman story and could tell Superman was being written as a relatable figure were it's self exploratory about figuring out life.
Where he is relatable is that he has human emotions, he gets hurt when he battles the great Super Villains (Where the villains represent our problems emotional and physical) and as Superman battles these problems we as a society battle similar instances. Doomsday vs Superman could stand as a way of saying how some will react at 2012, Which is considered Doomsday, and it shows that some of us would not take the end of the world lightly where we would try to fight through it. Superman is in a great way a representation for Humanity his powers is our faith(strength)[Faith isn't always stuck in Religion] Anger(Heat Vision) Personality(Flying, we keep a positive personality/attitude which gives us a means of flight) Hatred (Freeze Breath, which is basically connecting to the old Klingon Proverb we all know first hand by now.) and Love (Love is forever type idea causing his supposed 'Immortality' or 'Increased Life Span') Superman's powers are in all of us, in different forms and how he uses them at times mirrors ourselves. Many people are always in love, even if the one they love doesn't know it. But Superman's powers are in a way very emotional and i bet if we had superpowers we'd all let it stem from our emotions.
Superman is a character the world loves, but has blindly kept to the idea that he is a god of comics. But in the truth of matters, Superman is as Human as we are, he faces the same economic turmoils that we do, he argues with Lois like any married couple does, he has lust, love, hunger, anger. He is Human in sense, and his superpowers are just a way of making everything we see in our selves look more extraordinary, Many could argue that Superman is supposed to represent the good in our selves. But only his public image in the comics do that, his image in the privacy that we see in his stories echo that of a 3-dimensional character in a world representing our own, where we get to see a person stand up for whats right, in a way Superman is our fantasy of ourselves. We all would like to be Superman, we have the emotional stand point and if we ever had got to where we had the powers, we know that our emotions would fuel them as much as our Yellow sun. In the world of Reality, knowing i have similarities with Superman makes me feel more human, and makes me want to help people more, and in truth anyone who helps his fellow man is just as Super as Superman, because we're all super in our own way, all we need to do is showcase it.
Sorry if i trailed off topic, my point is that a lot of superman stems out from human traits just expanded, but he still faces the same problems we do, and DC has always been good about bringing similar problems into the economy of New Earth and it's variants as well as our Earth has those problems, Superman faces his problems, we face ours, how we see them maybe different, but we're all relatable to some extent.