Not Really Off-Topic: Batman & Superman

In so many ways these two are vastly different characters. One is dark, and gritty, and refuses to see the world for anything other than what it is now. The other is the light, a child of the Sun. He sees the world not for what it is, but for what it could be. One works at the boundaries of the law, and is willing to step over those boundaries if necessary, the other works strictly within them, and never even tests them, choosing to let himself be limited by those walls humanity puts up for him.

But in other ways the two men are very much alike. Bruce and Clark are both orphans, and in both cases their entire families died. The loss of their blood relations turned them into strangers in the world. Neither really fully 'fits in' and both have reached out to other people to help create new families to replace the ones they lost. Both are in positions of power, and they choose to descend from those positions to help the common man. In many ways, both people idealize the common folk, seeing humanity as a community that is worth saving. Finally, both men have an intractable sense of right and wrong...of justice!

It is for these reasons that these characters almost always find a way to be more than friends. Indeed, in many ways each looks at the other as a brother. True friendship is often found by shared hardship and shared pain. We each exist in our own Batcave, and our own Fortress of Solitude, but from within that place of loneliness a sharing can be found. Empathy is possible between two lost souls that isn't possible between the broken and the supposedly 'complete'. Second only to shared pain is shared values. By having a common sense of the good and a common commitment to it, even the worst of enemies can find common ground. If two people oppose each other ideologically, they can yet find kinship if each knows the other is truly doing what they believe to be right.

Isn't this an important part of the Gospel message? Perhaps the only way God could relate to a finite being was through a shared brokenness. God becomes the solitary soul so that all solitary souls could find oneness with Him. Further, we know now, after the cross, that God indeed seeks the best for us. God and humanity share a common struggle for the right, and that also binds us together.

It should be remembered, however, that Batman and Superman did not like each other at first. They fought before they became friends. Is it because of their similarities or their differences that they struggled at first? I am apt to think more the former. We often have problems looking in a mirror. Is there a religious lesson in that as well? Does one first struggle with God before discovering kinship with Him? After all, Jacob was renamed Israel, which means roughly, 'struggles with God'.