WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Superman #1 by Brian Michael Bendis, Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, and Alex Sinclair, on sale now. 


If his body of work over the last two decades is any indication, writer Brian Michael Bendis loves putting his characters through emotional and physical turmoil about as much as he loves quips and snarky dialogue. Bendis spent a lot of his time at Marvel Comics putting various heroes through the wringer to some capacity, and not all of them made it out the other end in one piece. Bendis’ perceived "sadism" toward superheroes stems from his early crime stories, where characters are double-crossed, beat down, and given a raw deal more often than not. And while none of his stories are without their light-heartedness from time to time, it's the the darker aspects of his work that often has readers coming back for more, month after month.

The exemplary version of this pain parade could be seen in the pages of Daredevil during Bendis’ five year run on the book with artist Alex Maleev. By the time Bendis was done with Matt Murdock, the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen was unmasked, his life was in shambles, and he was carted away to prison. And instead of bailing Daredevil out at the last minute in a classic comic book Hail Mary fashion, Bendis ended his arc. The final panel of his run in issue 81 is wide shot of Matt’s new home as he awaits trial: Ryker’s Island.

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That’s it. No shot of a superhero team planning to bust him out. Just a reminder of where the ship, under Bendis’ guidance, has sailed. Now, to be fair, Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark would subsequently pick up the pieces and pull off a story arc that was basically HBO’s Oz but with superheroes, but man, what a way for Bendis to bow out of the series.

Now, it seems that Bendis is applying the Daredevil treatment to Superman -- only this time around, things aren’t unfolding at such a leisurely pace. Bendis’ barrage is coming at Clark Kent faster than a speeding bullet, and the fact the six-issue miniseries, The Man of Steel (penned by Bendis) was released weekly means the agony Superman faced (and still faces) is coming even faster. In a little over a month, Bendis (along with artists Jason Fabok, Ivan Reis, Alex Sinclair and co.) destroyed Kandor, blew up the Fortress of Solitude, sent his son and wife out into space with his father, and introduced a series of mysterious arsons plaguing Metropolis.

In short, things have been better for The Man of Steel. Way better.

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Superman #1 continues the trend of kicking Kal-El while he’s down, and just when things were looking up... kind of. Supes was dealing with the absence of his family as best he could, and he was able rebuild The Fortress of Solitude in a way that harkened back to the often over-looked, under-appreciated, and over-long 2006 film Superman Returns. Throughout it all, despite a rather awkward conversation with Martian Manhunter about potentially ruling Earth, Big Blue seemed mostly like himself, and things appeared to be getting better.

But Bendis had other plans.

In the final pages of Superman #1, Kal-El finds himself suddenly flying through an all-encompassing Phantom Zone, a place where a pantheon of villains who’d like to see the Man of Steel’s head on a pike call home. So just when things seemed like they didn’t have anywhere to go but up, Bendis found a way to spike the ball down a pit of sorrow. And here’s the thing: this is exactly what a character like Superman needs. For all intents and purposes, Superman is unbeatable. There has always been debates about why have a team when a guy like Superman is on it? What’s the point of the other members if one guy can do it all?

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But Superman’s biggest weakness isn’t Kryptonite. No, it’s his sense of empathy and love for humanity. Yes, these are both huge virtues, but when villains lack this completely or use these emotions as weapons, they make the world’s greatest defender helpless. If that gets stripped away, then no amount of punching power can combat it. Just like with Daredevil, if you strip away his resolve, you can get to the raw nerve of the character and show readers what they are really made of. Bendis knows that, and he’s already peeling away at Superman like gaudy wallpaper.

This might seem aggressively unnecessary, but for a character who has been around the better part of a century, sometimes a refresher in what made him relatable in the first place in necessary. Yes, Superman is an unstoppable alien defender, but he’s also a guy who works a job and has a family. Attacking both sides of this dichotomy could show you which version is the true face of Kal-El, for better or worse.