Superman, Dreams and Solarpunk

There is a line from Action Comics #775, spoken by Superman after being told he is living in a dream world, that I think about more than any piece of dialogue has a right to occupy my mind. He responds: “Good. Dreams save us. Dreams lift us up and transform us into something better. And on my soul, I swear that until my dream of a world where dignity, honour and justice are the reality we all share, I’ll never stop fighting. Ever.”

Superman matters because he chooses to be good when he could just as easily not. He is not interesting because he can punch through walls, fly and shoot lasers. He is interesting because he could rule the world and instead decides to help. That is not a childish fantasy. It is a moral proposition, and one that gets more radical the darker things get.

He is also, and this gets overlooked, a character defined by loss. His entire planet is gone. His birth parents are dead. He is, in the most literal sense, an orphan of a destroyed world. His response to that is not bitterness or withdrawal. It is showing up, every day, for a world that does not always return the favour.

Responding to loss with love rather than retreat is the hardest thing a person can do. I know that now.

Superman would be a solarpunk. A man powered literally by the sun, who uses that power for others, who believes that the world can be better and acts on it. Solarpunk and Superman share the same conviction. Hope is not passive. It is a choice and a discipline, and it asks more of you than despair ever does.

Superman does not protect himself from disappointment. He puts on the cape knowing he will be mocked, knowing the world will let him down, knowing that the dream of dignity, honour and justice is perpetually unfinished. He does it anyway, because giving up is worse.

The future is not guaranteed. But it is worth the fight. And the people who imagine something better, who refuse to let cynicism close the book, will be the ones who build it.

Dreams save us. I believe that. Not because I have not been paying attention. But because I have.