Warner Brothers Destroyed Superman's Brand For Their New Franchise. Will It Pay Off?

Warner Brothers Destroyed Superman's Brand For Their New Franchise. Will It Pay Off?

Yesterday my Forbes colleague Mark Hughes wrote a long and impassioned essay on the controversy roiling the Superman franchise in the wake of 2013’s Man of Steel, which promises to spill over into Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice when it premiers next week. At the climax of Man of Steel, Superman, faced with the decision to risk further destruction to his city and its inhabitants or take a single life, chooses to kill his opponent, General Zod.

This plot twist divided the fan community between those who claim that Superman never kills, and those who defend David Goyer and Zack Snyder’s creative choices as necessary to the storyline. Hughes amply documents that whatever you think about the merits of the story, Superman’s lethal decision was not without precedent in the comics.

In this he is correct. Strictly speaking, Superman the character has taken a life on occasion. But the bigger question – and one that is appropriately discussed in a business publication like Forbes rather than a fan site – is, does Superman the brand stand for killing?

The answer to that, historically, is no. Does it matter that Warner Brothers has changed the Superman brand significantly in this way? I’d argue yes.

And we are not talking about just any brand here. We are talking about one of the most powerful and positive brands in American history, one that captured the imagination of generations and is instantly recognizable to almost everyone on the planet. The question is, will their decision pay off?

Who is Superman? Superman the brand has traditionally stood for justice, not revenge; force, not violence. He is the most powerful being on Earth but feels a deep responsibility to stand up for the powerless. He is strong but never a bully, and he chooses to follow the laws when it would be simple to impose his own. He would rather die himself than kill another knowingly. In a word, his brand is “paragon.”

This was a deliberate choice by his creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who saw the character as a beacon of hope during the Depression and the rise of foreign dictators. It’s tempting to say his wholesome quality was the product of a simpler time, but that’s not quite right. During the 30s, popular culture was dominated by bloodthirsty vigilantes like the Shadow, who had no problem dusting off thugs with his .45 automatics, or gangster anti-heroes who starred in movies like Scarface. Instead of taking that road, they made him an incorruptible champion. And it paid off.

Billion-Dollar Boy Scout. Superman was an immediate success. His comics sold in the millions, launching an entire industry, and were followed almost immediately by toys, clothing, movies, radio programs and just about every kind of merchandise that licensers could put in front of the public.

The men who ran DC from the 1930s through the ’60s did not have many scruples, but they were scrupulous about protecting Superman’s honorable reputation. They recognized that they were sitting on a goldmine whose value rested on a character who was virtuous, restrained, and even a little bit stuffy. By managing their franchise shrewdly, they turned a sketchy printing and magazine distribution business into a company whose assets were eventually leveraged to purchase Warner Brothers, then merged with Time, to create the media conglomerate we know today.