Superman Through the Ages! Forum

How is Superman as a leader among other superheroes?

Personally, my favorite JLA chairpersons were the Atom, because the idea of that little guy banging a gigantic gavel the way Gardner Fox wrote him as doing was pretty hilarious, and Zatanna, because she was one surprisingly tough cookie; Gerry Conway and Paul Kupperberg made sure she had her head screwed on right.

While Superman is inspiring because of his nobility and supreme confidence, Superman is very different from a natural leader like, say, Captain America, in two key ways:

Superman's ability to lead and inspire others come from his confidence and innate incorruptibility, however, because he is a leader just by being who he is, because it comes naturally to him, he may not be aware that he has this effect. Thus, if anything, Superman has a greater degree of humility about it. Captain America on the other hand, is aware of this effect he has, and puts it into service to unite teams for the greater good. When Superman started giving his speech in Englehart's MILLENNIUM, he wasn't deliberately trying to change anyone's mind; he was just presenting his point of view.

Superman is supersmart, but he is not a scientific-trained tactician at least to the extent Captain America is.  In JLA/AVENGERS, it was Steve Rogers that was selected to be the leader of the combined teams because he had a little more Eisenhower in him, an instinctive sense of group dynamic and battle plans.

Hey, nice to see you back after the holiday season, Julian. Happy New Year! As it happens, I can't imagine anyone with Superman's powers wanting to lead anybody, or even understanding the concept: this fellow spends a lot of time on his own, and most of the time, he doesn't need anybody else to get by. He's good with people and has a lot of initiative, but I can't see him as the sort of guy who likes to tell people what to do. (I have to admit that, for personal reasons, I detest the whole concept of leadership and the way corporate structures are built up: I make my living as a freelancer for those very reasons.)

 I don't want Superman to think of himself as a manager, boss, or world's greatest hero. He's a very humble man, in my view. When all the other heroes assemble around him and say "Well, what do we do now?", he says "I'm sure Batman's got a plan."

Hey, right back atcha, pal.  :D



Well, this has a lot to do with the nature of Superman's super-hero club, the Justice League itself: their first instinct is to solve the problem by themselves. Contrast this with the Avengers, who have much more a team-centered dynamic. If Hawkeye or the Wasp spots trouble, their first move is tp duck behind an alley and whip out their Communicard.

Kurt Busiek explained the difference between the two teams as being the difference between the U.S. Olympic Team and the baseball team that wins the World Series.

It ought to be noted that Superman's capacity to inspire does not necessarily translate to a leadership position. Superman inspired the Legion of Super-Heroes, but except with a Deputy Leader position in Jim Shooter's run, he never went into a leader role.

This brings up an interesting point: why didn't the Legionnaires make Superboy their leader? Jim Shooter once said that "Having Superboy in the Legion is like having Abraham Lincoln in a club of contemporary politicians." Perhaps Superboy had a very different personality as a boy than he does as an adult, one less likely to assume the mantle.

(Personally, I always though Invisible Kid made for the BEST Legion leader; remember that time that Ultra Boy was to disobey him to peep on Sir Prize, and Invisible Kid socked him in the jaw, saying "I'll brook NO insubordination! When the Legion leader makes a promise, EVERYONE keeps it!")

If Superboy himself has any flaws, it may perhaps be found in a lack of ambition. What else would account for his sticking around a hick town like Smallville when he could live and fight crime somewhere big-time, like Metropolis or Paris? Perhaps achieving adulthood, something happens that fundamentally altered his character, making him gravitate to leadership positions in the JLA and leaving the city for Metropolis.

Note that this is different from Superman's humility, which leads him to adopt the nebbish Clark Kent persona when he could be rich and famous.




Batman is a pretty good tactician, although that's not the same thing as being a great leader.

Actually Superboy tried to become Legion Leader.  Wildfire beat him by a slight majority.  Then they put a by-law in their constitution mandating that Legion Leaders must be residents of the Legion's time period, & not time travelling visitors.  Superboy operated from Smallville because that was where he was living at the time.  Humility & being humble have nothing to do with Kal not seeking wealth.  For one thing he does not need it.  For another with his power, & resources (knowledge, intelligence, etc.) building a super-fortune would be no challenge whatsoever.  Kal obviously knows about the effect he has on most other beings.  For one thing he hears about it from other people, when he is Clark Kent.  He knows that he could very easily become a defacto dictator, if he is too free about stating his opinions.  Kal wants people to do things because they choose to do them, not because he tells them to.

Superboy used Smallville as his home base, but given the fact that he has the capacity to travel at speeds fast enough to break the time barrier, there weren't many places he couldn't go.

 The bylaws are pretty clear about time-travellers not being up for Legion leadership, but I think Superboy declined a leadership role simply because he wasn't Superman. At that stage in his career he was more apt at taking orders than giving them, given the fact that he was still learning about his abilities and potential. I'd say once he was 16-18 he'd be more comfortable giving the occasional order, but up to that point he was more than willing to be a team player. The Legion faced cosmic menaces that would make the JLA put in for overtime after all.

 My hope, my secret special wish, is that in the midst of this Infinite Crisis chaos they restore the Clark/Superboy dynamic somehow. I mean, couldn't they bring him to the future, put him in the costume, have him be Superboy in the 31st century and then Clark in the 20th? Saturn Girl posthypnotic powers activate? Please, with sugar on it?  :D

 -Def.

I wasn't aware of the anti-time traveller rule in the Legion constitution; interesting, and it makes sense; who wants a "commuter" leader when you need a leader right now?

They reprinted the Legion constitution, word for word, in the TALES OF THE LEGION comic book, which I never read because it was in tiny font, and jeez, it was all so businesslike; not as cool as the back-up pieces where they explain Interlac and give layouts for things like Metropolis, the new Legion clubhouse, and so forth.

Though considering the degree of participation that Superboy had in the Legion, it felt like he spent more time over there than in the 20th Century sometimes.

One of the greatest choices that Paul Levitz ever made as Legion writer was the decision to have Dream Girl run for leader, a tenure that lasted from Great Darkness to the Omen Saga. This was a truly inspired choice, because 1) it made her out to be more interesting and complicated than a dumb blonde, 2) it did raise a very, very trippy point: WOULD she run at all if she didn't see herself winning?

I for one, will never forget that hilarious Legion panel where they induct Dream Girl into the Legion.

All the boys, with grins on their goofy pusses like shot foxes, voted YES, hitting the bright light. All the girls, with nasty expressions on their faces, voted NO.

Yeah, those issues were always pretty cool. I used to devour the later Levitz/Giffen issues of Legion, as well as the Who's Who issues with stuff like the Legion HQ (post rocketship version), the Legion of Super-Villains, and the individual entries. Really gave the world of the 30th century it's own kind of feel, a mythology if you will.

 I don't know but for some reason I always thought Superboy spent his summers in the era of the Legion. But then again, Superman himself once said of time travel 'you always arrive the instant you left', so I guess the commute wasn't too much of a strain. ;)


 -Def.

Well, being an inspiration doesn't necessarily make you a leader, nor does being "innately incorruptible."  

I can think of lots of hugely inspiring people in history: Christ, Ghandi, Martin Luther King...but if you think I'd go into combat with a squad made up of those guys, you're nuts!  :lol:

I agree Captain America and Superman tend to be inspiring in some of the same ways: they're both iconic, living symbols and so on.  But Cap is inspiring in a whole other way when it comes to battle; he's a veteran of more combat than any human is likely to see in a hundred lifetimes.  He was in "the big one." He was doing it before the other Avengers were born.  And, it must be noted, he's in the end only human.  When he goes into battle he risks his neck, and if I were a soldier...or an Avenger...I'd be reassured to know my leader has as much to lose as I do.  (And the knowledge that he's fought so many times before, in equally dangerous battles, and still lives, has got to be reassuring as well).  And a lot of Cap's experience comes not as a lone wolf but as a member of teams, whether just his partnership with Bucky, his old team the Invaders, his missions with US armed forces, SHIELD, the Avengers or whatever. That kind of resume has GOT to inspire confidence from your troops.

In contrast, Superman is...well, Superman.  I don't know I'd be inclined to take orders from a guy who's a lot less likely to get hurt than I am and whose experience is primarily from solo work. Not to mention a guy who tends to pull his punches and has a real pacifist streak to him (he can afford to, but some people have too much on the line to adopt "turn the other cheek" as a first response).

But the real issue is Superman's mental make-up.  I just don't feel he'd be comfortable leading humans (even meta-humans) into dangerous situations when every fiber of his being has been devoted to protecting them.  I think he'd tend to save all the riskiest jobs for himself and not put his teammates where they might do the most good, if that also meant endangering them.  In fact if anything I think it's harder to accept Superman joining a team than Batman.  Batman has something to gain; additional muscle for the big jobs.  Superman has nothing to gain other than a little fraternizing time with his colleagues.

Bottom line: whereas I think other heroes would find inspiration in Kal's virtue, his moral character and his dedication, I think they'd be smart enough to know none of that necessarily translates to leadership ability.  Maybe if your group is some kind of Ethics board, but not if you're a band of fighters.

Perhaps "leading people into battle" is a different skill than getting people to listen to you - and Superman, just because he is who he is, gets people to listen to him. And according to Tony Robbins, isn't getting people to listen to you 90% of leadership?

Stainless Steve Englehart, in his MILLENIUM mini, played this up with Superman when he gave his speech in defense of the Guardians and their plot. Superman was just presenting his point of view, showing how he felt about the issue.

And the effect it had...! Superman was just trying to have his say, but when he walked away everyone walked with him.

Makes one hunger to know how Englehart would have written Superman if he ever got the chance.




You know who I think might be a good Justice League leader?

Wonder Woman.

The willingness to do violence may not be a virtue in battle in every situation, particularly with a team that has as much power as the League, which gives them options.



Hmmm, interesting point.

This was the theme of one of the Batman-Superman issues by Dick Sprang, where Superman created a robot, using it instead of allowing Batman to risk his life for him.



Yeah, we've all heard the Seinfeld stand up bit about Superman needing the other members of the League when he can do everything himself, but really, this is a rather unfair perspective to how in practice the JLA and Legion of Super-Heroes really work - everybody on those teams brings something to the table.

If we're talking pre-Crisis, I think every member of the JLA had this kind of gravitas.  With the possible exception of Ollie, there wasn't one of them who couldn't speak up and have his/her views listened to and considered seriously.  Maybe it's just me, but I always saw the League as pretty flexible and adaptable to whatever situation arose.  They didn't need a "leader" per se because any grouping of two or three members, or the whole group, fell pretty much into sync once the fur started flying.  In contrast, the Avengers had to have a strong leader or they'd have flown off in ten different directions and tripped all over each other.  Remember this is Marvel we're talking about, where the first thing any "hero" does on meeting another person in costume is to attack.  Just spending an hour together without an internal brawl is a major achievement for any Marvel team.




I agree it depends on the mission. If you're going out to do battle with Amazo or Mongul you want a fighter in the lead.  If you're out to solve some cosmic mystery or other it'd be nice to have someone slower on the draw, and with some brainpower.

Again, you run into trouble comparing Superman to Cap because they live in different universes. As Kurt Busiek suggested in JLA/Avengers, the DCU and the Marvel Universe have very different outlooks.  A Marvel team needs to be ready to fight, first and foremost, because if they're called to action it's usually to take on someone like Galactus or Kang, and if they see another team coming down the street, say the X-Men or the Defenders, they're going to want to start a fight with them just to pass the time.  The Marvel Universe is a place of constant strife and menace where muscle is valued over intellect and even the "geniuses" are only appreciated for their ability to build a bigger gun.

In contrast, the DC Universe (or rather the Multiverse) was a place where odd things happened that needed superhero intervention.  Now maybe it was some crazy bending of the rules of time and space, or maybe a natural disaster, or a rescue mission to another dimension, or just the arrival of some mysterious being or other.  But it wasn't guaranteed to end in a fight; not every situation boiled down to: hey look, someone new showed up, how can we kick his butt?

Thus, in my opinion, a Marvel team always needs a leader who can fight, and so the Avengers are unstoppable with Cap in the hot seat.  But at DC, it may very well be that Superman would be a great leader.  He's got more experience than anyone with alien races, he's got a super-brain, and he's not so quick on the draw that he'd escalate situations that need not get violent.  

But if he lived on Marvel-Earth, he'd take orders from Cap like everyone else.

Sorry Defender, Superboy did not decline the post of Legion Leader.  When wildfire beat him by a slim majority, Kal was not happy.  Most of Kal's colleagues in the pre-crisis Justice League had no idea how truly powerful he really was.  When he worked with them he seemed to downplay how vast his powers really were.

This is true. All of those 50s white male patriarchs were all confident and resourceful types; any of them could fill a Superman-esque niche if there was no Superman.

Although it is difficult to imagine someone with a subtle, quiet personality as Red Tornado assuming the limelight; there is as yet, nothing in Elongated Man's characterization that indicates any predilection for leadership. And the only way "Snapper" Carr would ever win a chairperson election would be by computer error.



What was that line from Terry Gilliam's TIME BANDITS?

"Now, we agreed there wasn't going to be a leader. So now get back to doing what I say."  

TRIVIA FACT: The first JLA chairperson was the Flash, according to the issue where they battle Starro.



While Marvel teams DO tend to be composed of volatile personalities, the supposed harmony and cooperation of the Silver Age DC superteams made of mature adults that always get along, is not an entirely accurate perception. When Hal Jordan and Barry Allen first met one another in GL #13 (1962), they fought one another. The authoritarian Hawkman and the rebel Green Arrow were always scrapping. In fact, nearly half of the JLA/JSA team-ups ended in one team fighting the other somehow; who could forget JUSTICE LEAGUE #74 (1969) where Earth-2 Superman and Earth-1 Superman duke it out?



Heh heh heh. This is probably true.

You use an interesting word here that I meant to bring up before, and that word is "chairperson."  This is a word we see applied to the JSA and JLA that would seem out of place in the Avengers.  It's a word that implies a level of civility, of protocol and decorum.  For me it suggests practical things like regular meetings with agendas...a JLA chairperson would logically be in charge of ensuring all members sign up for regular monitor duty, or that everyone knows what covered dish to bring to the annual JLA/JSA satellite supper.  But it's not a word I associate with battle tactics in the field.  ("Amazo's coming...what should we do, Mr. Chairman?")

Unless I'm forgetting something, the JLA was never (pre-Crisis anyway) the type of group to have a leader that said, "Okay, Tornado and Aquaman will tackle this guy head on.  Flash and Wonder Woman, you sneak around those hills there and try to flank him..."

I really don't see why Ralph or Reddy or even Snapper couldn't be a chairman.  A squad leader, no...but bang a gavel and take votes on who sweeps out the teleporter this week, yes.



I haven't re-read that GL issue yet, but it's coming up soon in my Showcase.  If memory serves, however, GL was under some sort of mind-control.  Which, I grant you, is a typical excuse for a hero-on-hero slugfest, but at Marvel it was standard practice to whip up on each other even when both parties were "in their right minds."  There seem to have been an awful lot of misunderstandings between Marvel heroes that could have quickly been resolved with a bit of conversation.  ("Ummm...Spidey, this'll sound silly, but are you working for Dr Doom?  You're NOT? Great, let's go grab a brew").

As for Katar and Ollie, I always considered that one of DC's first clumsy efforts to remake themselves in the Marvel image.  Although I grant you it was more fun to see Katar give Ollie what fer than to watch Hal meekly submit to another sanctimonious liberal tongue-lashing from Ollie in the thinly veiled political pamphlets known as O'Neil and Adams' GL/GA.  In that mag, Ollie was clearly the "voice of wisdom" and his liberal views were always proved right, whereas in JLA...for my money, anyway...he often came off as just an opinionated loudmouth the other Leaguers dismissed as a crank.  

And as for E-1 and E-2 Supes duking it out, I do remember the cover, but even though I just read that story last year that's all I can remember, except that the story didn't live up to the expectations set by the cover. (So what else is new?)

I liked Maggin's take on Superman as leader from the novelization of Kingdom Come:



I tend to think that Superman's effect on world leadership would be similar to Einstein's dealings with Israel and India.  

Of course, this doesn't have much to do with "leadership of supers", but to me, that's not terribly interesting unless you have someone unlikely to be a team leader stepping in (e.g. Plastic Man in charge of the JLA).

I think the big 3 would make great leaders and the rest will have to be ranked in diminishing order, from atom (high leadership potential) and GL (basically a big 4) down to red tornado. Martian Manhunter has that Spock-like coolness and telepathy.  Scrappers like Black Canary and Ollie would be very effective, but the Earth-1 Hawkman I feel for some reason would be less so, maybe because of his antagonism with GA.  Flash had self-esteem problems, didn't he?  And Elongated Man was comic relief.  Red Tornado as a robot with very little personality.

I like the way Clark Kent is often portrayed as being a leader in some crisis situations, not only in the 70s, but earlier, sometimes simply by virtue of being a man in a suit with a job (ie, respected reporter).  Some of the old radio scripts show him to be pretty bossy.  In the Silver Age, whenever Lois or other threats are absent, he is quite assured.

Perhaps I mentioned this before, but my personal favorite JLA chairperson was the Gerry Conway pet character, Zatanna. She bossed around valuable characters, showing a suprising degree of battle ability and grit. She bossed Superman around on several occasions.

Red Tornado has an intriguing child-like personality; he had a subtle personality that was subsumed into the group and unfortunately, except for a few goodies like Denny O'Neil (one of the few cases of him writing a powered character effectively) and Steve Englehart, Reddy was allowed to fade into the background.

Unlike the Vision, his closest Marvel equivalent, he had no Scarlet Witch poignant love story, no battle with prejudiced Human Bombs, nobody like Englehart or Thomas to affirm his humanity, which is unfortunate.

One of the things more that anything that I personally looked forward to was Busiek writing JUSTICE LEAGUE, because it meant that he would probably tell a good Red Tornado story that would ever after, leave him unable to be dismissed as "boring." After all, some of Busiek's earliest work in the 1980s was a CRISIS-era Red Tornado miniseries where Tornado battles the Construct, and Mr. Silver Age's JLA run was going to involve both Tornado and his foe, the Construct.

It is a real tragedy that we may never know.

I forgot about Zatanna --maybe because I hated that costume.  

Chairperson in JLA.  Chair in Avengers too, no?  Or is it a generic "team leader"?

Is that when she was wearing that silly white costume? 'Cause I loved the fishnets and hotpants.

Avengers leaders are called "team leaders." The term "chairperson" is also used, but inconsistently. Like the Legion of Super-Heroes, the Avengers vote for their leaders.

The position is given a higher degree of elevation in that team because, as a result of the more volatile personalities in that group, there is some jockeying for leadership position. The most famous of this was Hawkeye, who wanted Captain America's job during the early days of Stan Lee's run, until the two of them reached a mutual understanding.

"She looks at that over-aged square like he's the only joe in the room. Chicks only go after the guy that's top dog - just my luck it hadda be HIM!"

Other great Avengers leaders besides the famous Captain America include the Wasp (who was surprisingly competent despite a ditzy reputation - perhaps inspired by Zatanna's assumption of leadership position?), Hawkeye (whose acquisition of dignity and mellowing out is one of the great gradual alterations to characters in comics). Iron Man was chairperson on several occasions, as was Thor.



That's the white costume she wore in her Gerry Conway years, the white one. It was a good costume, but perhaps not "Zatanna."

Though the giant earrings with the "Zs" in them were pretty neat.