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Stephanie Phillips compares Superman’s unwavering optimism to Ted Lasso’s, and explains why audiences might be attracted to an evil Man of Steel.
Harley Quinn scribe Stephanie Phillips spoke on Superman during a New York Comic Con 2021 panel, equating the hero’s wholesome, optimistic values to Ted Lasso‘s titular character and speculating on why audiences tend to gravitate towards a fallen Man of Steel.
“Maybe it’s because it’s what we imagine,” Phillips said, on the topic of an evil Superman. “Like, maybe this is like a super downer answer, but as humans, we imagine having that power, we would just be like, ‘Oh yeah, we would be totally evil in the world.’ There are my thoughts on humanity!”
Phillips added, however, that what made Superman special is that he technically wasn’t human but represented the best of humanity, and could handle absolute power without falling into an evil mindset.
“He’s not one of us but he’s the best of us,” Phillips said. “He’s the best that we have because he wouldn’t be that, and I kind of like that we have all these other examples of the ways that our minds imagine him becoming that, because it makes him stand out so much more. It makes him so much more special to most of the characters. I don’t know, maybe it’s for the same reasons that Ted Lasso has grabbed us all… Ted Lasso is the freaking best and Superman has that same compassion that we want to see… Maybe that’s why we gravitate towards [an evil Superman] because we identify with someone who would be so corrupted, but that’s also why we love Superman.”
Ted Lasso, the story of an American college football coach who moves to the UK to coach an English soccer team, has won acclaim for its main character, played by Jason Sudeikis. Despite meeting criticism and resistance as a fish out of water in the UK, Ted Lasso retains his good-natured charm, and deeply cares about his fellow man in a manner not unlike Superman.
Phillips was not the only creator to address the idea of an evil Superman at New York Comic Con. Action Comics writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson called the idea an “easy pitch to a studio,” pointing out that such portrayals were greenlit because Superman was a “paragon of virtue” and the idea of corrupting a paragon was an understandable fall-from-grace story. Nevertheless, Johnson stressed that he would never insert an evil Superman a la Injustice into his run on Action Comics, emphasizing that in his eyes, it was “possible to have ultimate power, and not be a monster.”
Source: New York Comic Con
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