Introduction
Welcome readers!
Today’s post will cover Bill’s superman monologue from Kill Bill Vol. 2, and what Tarantino got wrong about Superman and Batman.
For those who’ve never seen the movie or its prequel, briefly the series follows Beatrix Kiddo aka The Bride, aka Black Mamba, one of the eponymous Bill’s female assassins, who finding herself pregnant with Bill’s child, changes her identity and goes in hiding.
That is until Bill finds and executes her and everyone at her wedding rehearsal.
Beatrix survives being shot in the head and falling into a years-long coma, then goes on a “rip roaring rampage of revenge” on Bill and the other female assassins.
Bill’s Superman Speech
Towards the end of vol. 2 Beatrix finds Bill, and he shoots her with a potent truth serum and asks her why she left him and gives his Superman monologue, which I’ll now quote here, formatted for better readability:
“As you may know, I’m quite keen on comic books. Especially ones about superheroes. I find the whole mythology surrounding superheroes fascinating. Take my favorite superhero, Superman. Not a great comic book, not particularly well-drawn, but the mythology. The mythology is not only great, it’s unique…
“Now a staple of the superhero mythology is, there’s the superhero and there’s the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When the character wakes up in the morning, he’s Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristics Superman stands alone.
“Superman didn’t become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he’s Superman.
“His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red “S”, that’s the blanket he was wrapped in when the Kents found him.
“Those are his clothes.
“What Kent wears—the glasses, the business suit—that’s the costume. That’s the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us.
“And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He’s weak, he’s unsure of himself, he’s a coward. Clark Kent is Superman’s critique on the whole human race.”
The problem with Bill’s monologue is it fundamentally gets both Superman and Batman wrong, which I’ll now show in the following paragraphs, beginning with Superman.
The Four Faces of Superman
As Much as I love the Superman monologue, it’s not just wrong, but incomplete. Superman has three alter egos and one core personality that informs those personas. I’ll discuss each in turn.
Smallville
First, there is Superman’s core identity, the simple farm boy from Smallville; he is the earnest, loyal, fair, and kind boy the Kents raised him to be. He is the boy scout, as Batman calls him, who does what is right without regard for harm to himself and what others may think of his actions.
In fights with Darkside and Doomsday we see Superman endure horrific trauma to protect the earth, precisely because of the values the Kents instilled with him in Smallville. And where he raised anywhere else by anyone else, he wouldn’t be the same person.
This is evidenced by Superman: Red Son, the what if comic miniseries in which his spaceship landed in the Ukraine, and he became a tool of the Soviet Union. And in a parallel universe where he lands in Sudetenland instead of Kansas, he becomes a tool of the Third Reich, allowing Hitler to conquer the world.
Moreover, in every storyline where he hangs up the cape, he always goes back to Smallville to help the Kents and live a quiet life.
And it’s because of the Kents he became Superman.
Superman
Superman is the distillation of everything good the Kents taught him as a child. He is humble, brave, kind, and selfless. While his costume may be his clothes, the man inside them is 100% human.
For Superman is Clark’s critique on humanity.
He could have used his powers for selfish reasons and become the greatest supervillain ever as he does in another what if comic where a villain kills Lois Lane, and he becomes an authoritarian despot. But he doesn’t because that’s not who he is at his core.
He may have been born a Kryptonian, but the Kents raised him to be human. Which leads me to my next point.
Kal-El
Kal-El, Superman’s Kryptonian name, is also his second persona.
Never knowing his bio parents exact from the recordings, Superman only acts as Kal-El when he’s at the Fortress of Solitude, doing experiments and reviewing the recordings Jor-El and Lara-El left him. Kal-El represents the part of Superman that longs for a life that might have been if Krypton had not exploded. It is his attempt to reconcile himself as a stranger in a strange land and the last of his kind.
As mentioned above, even the name of his headquarters evokes a melancholy.
But though he may be a lone Krypton among billion of humans, he is not alone.
Metropolis
Superman’s final persona is that of Metropolis, the bumbling, milquetoast coward who works as a reporter at The Daily Planet. Like Superman is the costume he wears to be the best version of his Smallville persona, Metropolis is the costume he wears to be Superman, as Tarantino said.
However, it isn’t a comment on humanity in the way he thinks. Metropolis is the way Superman understands how humanity views weakness, while Superman is how he understands humanity to view power.
And it’s this dichotomy of power versus weakness that is informed by his core personality, Smallville.
Superman and the Ubermensch
Superman is all the best things about humanity condensed into one being. Where he to have been born on Earth, he would have been a but another simple man from middle America, but because of his powers and upbringing, Superman is the apotheosis of what humanity should strive for: humanity devoid of its weaknesses, physical and psychological.
He is hope: The Ubermensch.
It’s no surprise Superman has many messianic qualities, as two Jewish teenagers, Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, in 1934, created him. The “S” he wears means hope, and Bryan Singer explored this connection between Superman and the Messhiah extensively in Superman: Man of Steel, in which we see a young Clark Kent struggle to control his powers but come out the other side the hero we know so well.
Superman than is a projection of the human psyche, representing not who we are but who we could be if we were to evolve past our baser instincts and prejudices. Thus, he is a critique not of humanity’s shortcomings, but its aspirations and potential.
As Clark goes from his metropolis persona to his superman person, so too can humanity transform into something greater than itself it listens its better angels.
Now that I’ve made my case for how Tarantino got Superman wrong, I’ll move on to how he also got batman wrong.
The Man Behind the Mask
For those unaware, Batman’s origin is he witnessed criminals gun down his parents outside a movie theater when he was a child, and this trauma drove him to travel the world, learning marital arts and how to solve crimes, as famously depicted in Christer Nolan’s Batman Begins.
During Bill’s monologue, he says Bruce Wayne must put on a costume to become Batman, but this is false for two reasons.
First, there are two Bruce Waynes, the playboy billionaire (Bruce 2) and the psychologically damaged boy (Bruce Prime). The latter died the night his parents died, and his mind created Batman as a defense mechanism.
He may have not known who it was or what to call this new persona yet, but the child that was Bruce Wayne ceased to exist, and in his place was an angry, wounded animal poised to lash out at the world. To aide him, he created Bruce 2.
And it’s this second Bruce Wayne that is a costume, so that he can be himself: Batman.
Second, with or without the cape and cowl, he is Batman 24/7. Even when wearing the mask of Bruce 2, he still thinks, acts, and conducts himself like Batman, because that’s who he is at his core.
Moreover, even in timelines where he gives up the hood, he still acts as Batman by training the next generation of caped crusaders, because that’s who he is. To do otherwise would mean confronting the childhood trauma that spawned the birth of Batman. But as brave as Batman is, that would be a bridge too far for him to cross. Whatever persona he inhibits, he’s still a deeply damaged person with tons of issues.
Consequently, that’s one reason I prefer him over Superman.
Conclusion
Let me close by saying I’m not hating on either Tarantino or Superman. I’ve enjoyed the former’s movies for years and will continue to watch them, so no: I’m not a hater. Second, while I prefer Batman to Superman, I’m not blind to the appeal of Superman. As I said above, he is the best of humanity and we should all try to be more like him, now more than ever.
As a new tide of fascism and war rises, remember that inside us all is the ember of a hero waiting to rise from the ashes of our fears. If only we have the courage to stand against the darkness and shine.
Call to Action
What do you think?
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