Neil Gaiman and Adam Rogers write in Wired on The Myth of Superman
Superman is different because he doesn’t really belong to the writers who’ve created his adventures over the last 68-plus years. He has evolved into a folk hero, a fable, and the public feels like it has a stake in who Superman “really” is. Schwartz quit writing Superman because his bosses were telling him to put in things that he thought were out of character. That was admirable, but really, the specific stories we tell about Superman – the what-happened and what-he-did – don’t matter that much. Superman transcends plot. We retell his tales because we wish he were here, real, to keep us safe.
BTW – did you know that Gaiman wrote a one-off comic called “Legend of the Green Flame” (cover here) starring Superman and Green Lantern?
darren
I’ve got a similar quote somewhere, probably from a review of Jesus movies that says that “Most Jesus films are Christ-figure films. Their Jesuses are not characters. Jesus is sign, not characters.” In that light then Jesus transcends plot as well, yet another similarity…