In literature, mythology, and comic books, heroes often have a “kryptonite” or “Achilles’s heel”, basically a weakness that makes them vulnerable. I’m curious, what would be considered Superman’s “kryptonite”?

  • hactar42@lemmy.world
    6·
    10 days ago

    Per Glen Weldon in his book Superman: The Unauthorized Biography, kryptonite representing the destructive force of nostalgia and survivor’s guilt, reminding us that clinging to the past can undermine the present.

    Siegel and Shuster had created the Man of Steel as the ultimate immigrant, the personification of the promise America represented to them. His abilities are metaphors for limitless potential and opportunity, for new horizons stretching out before us: the American Way.
    It seems fitting, then, that the only thing capable of harming him would be a reminder of the Old World he left behind, a past that is irrevocably gone. Only the past—our past—can hurt us.
    To this day, kryptonite functions in the Superman mythos as the physical manifestation of both survivor’s guilt and a particularly toxic kind of nostalgia, a reminder that when we dwell on what we’ve lost, we can kill what we have.