Negotiating Fantasy and Reality in Superman Annual #11

In “For the Man Who Has Everything…” Alan Moore’s narrative explores the relationship between fantasy and reality to advance Superman beyond a defining attribute of the character: his fixation on what might have been had Krypton not been destroyed. #Superman 1/11

According to Moore himself, “It was a story for the people I’ve encountered who are fixated upon some point in the past where things could have gone differently or who are equally obsessed with some hypothetical point in the future.” 2/11

In this case the fixated person is actually Superman, a character whose tragedy has often been defined through his relationship to a fantasy life on Krypton that was taken from him as a result of a cataclysmic event. What if that event never happened, however? 3/11

Moore further recounts how the progressive unraveling of the fantasy world (which gets less desirable as Jor-El’s growing extremism comes to light) represents Superman actively fighting the fantasy in the interest of returning to reality. Kal poisons his own dream to escape. 4/11

Yet even as Superman commits to rejecting the fantasy, he finds himself affected by it, as seen most clearly when he begs Van to embrace him one last time after telling the child he doesn’t think Van is real. And his rage upon awakening reflects the enduring affectation. 5/11

Moore’s writings historically favor irresolution and unsettling endings and we get that here as well. The superfriends defeat Mongul and Superman is restored to reality – enough for the average reader to intrinsically presume victory. 6/11

But the story ends with Mongul trapped in fantasy and “he is content.” Superman isn’t. He accepts that the fantasy of Krypton must be let go (he says as much to Batman through the metaphor of the dead Krypton rose) and the obvious question, then, is who really won here? 7/11

This duality is even manifest in the name of the organism creating the fantasy: the black mercy, a term conjuring the longstanding fantasy tradition of associating black with darkness/evil and the religious/cultural tradition of associating mercy with a sort of divine grace. 8/11

These questions of fantasy are apt for a character approaching the end of his original continuous story arc. Superman’s world is, of course, a fantasy in itself, one providing contentment to a variety of people, including, famously, as morale support for soldiers in WWII. 9/11

Letting Superman give up the fantasy of the life not lived is thus a deeply poignant bit of character growth for a hero who has always been intrinsically defined by the haunting legacy of said fantasy and the tragedy surrounding him as a result. 10/11

In short, it’s a big moment for Kal-El, one that asks hard questions about the delicate balance between fantasy and reality and the role that Superman can play (as both a character and as a fantasy property) in reflecting that same balance in the lives of all individuals. 11/11