This week’s issue of Action Comics was always going to be one that got people talking, but it turns out it wasn't just for the reasons people expected. While the main hook of the issue is the reveal of Mr. Oz’s identity after years of speculation and mystery, a relatively normal scene of Superman protecting a group of factory workers has got right-wing pundits up in arms.

RELATED: Mr. Oz’s Identity, Revealed: How It’s Both Expected and Surprising

Due to the assumed undocumented nature of the issue's factory workers, there are some people that would rather have seen Superman stand aside and do nothing to save them, but that fundamentally misses the point of Superman and shows us just why we need him now more than ever.

“Stop this”

The main crux of the issue revolves around Mr. Oz inflaming the prejudices and worst impulses of people all around the world, causing a chain reaction of violence and carnage. One of those individuals is a recently laid-off factory worker who blames undocumented immigrants for stealing his job. The man — who wears an American flag bandana — purchases a gun and returns to the factory to get what he sees as his revenge, but Superman intercedes, saving the immigrants and handing the attacker over to the police.

It doesn’t seem like too controversial a scene — Superman saves people all the time — but Fox News host and columnist Todd Starnes took exception to it and wrote an article for FoxNews.com lambasting DC Comics for “turning its stable of iconic heroes into political pawns.” The civilians Superman saves aren't even necessarily undocumented immigrants, not that it matters in the Man of Steel's eyes. The only time their citizenship is mentioned is by the story's racist attacker. Starnes' insistence that they are "illegal aliens" proves the issue's point, that racists and bigots will find any excuse to blame a person of color for their problems and justify violence towards them.

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The last time Superman made waves among right-wing pundits was when Action Comics #900 was released in 2011, and the hero renounced his US citizenship. The short story, by David S. Goyer and Miguel Sepulveda, shows Superman supporting protesters in Tehran, and when the Iranian government sees it as a sign of American aggression, Superman decides to renounce his honorary American citizenship so that his actions are not seen as that of US policy. GOP activist Angie Meyer criticized the story as having “a blatant lack of patriotism, and respect for our country” and “belittling the United States as a whole.” In actuality, though, the story was about Superman allowing the United States government to operate freely without worrying about what Superman was doing, who he was saving and where.

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“I’m for everyone”

Superman has many nicknames — The Man of Steel, The Man of Tomorrow, The Last Son of Krypton — but in his first appearance in Action Comics #1, by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, he had another: The Champion of the Oppressed. In that very first story, Superman investigates a corrupt politician named Senator Barrows who plans on marching America into the war with a dodgy bill that would be disastrous for the troops, but profitable for himself.

Superman has always been The Champion of the Oppressed but who the oppressed are changes decade-to-decade and right now, undocumented immigrants are among the most oppressed and in need of a hero to save them from violent racists draped in the American flag.

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Grant Morrison and Rags Morales reinvented Superman for The New 52, and while it was a rather drastic change to the character we knew, it was actually a faithful throwback to his earliest roots. Morrison and Morales presented a Superman who was one of the people, someone who fought crime in a t-shirt, jeans and boots. He battled corrupt industrialists and took a wrecking ball to the chest rather than see low-income families driven out of their homes by gentrification. In a later run, Greg Pak and Aaron Kuder embraced that spirit in their own way, having Superman side with the people of Metropolis against a corrupt police force; the team even showed Superman punching out a police officer.

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It’s a theme that Geoff Johns and Gary Frank explored in their “Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes” arc in which Earth’s history had been twisted and falsified to the point that the planet was no longer welcome to beings from other planets. In this story, Earth-Man — a one time Legion reject — had convinced the world that Superman was from Earth all along and claims otherwise were pro-alien propaganda. The Legion were forced into fugitive status, and tensions grew between Earth and the United Planets. It took the arrival of Superman to remind the people of Earth and the rest of the galaxy what he and the Legion stand for, and that Superman fights for everyone.

“I will no longer be party to any form of oppression”

Superman is an immigrant himself, having arrived as a baby from Krypton. Some incarnations have him arriving in a “birthing matrix” so that he is technically born on American soil, but it’s all semantics. Superman is Kryptonian, but he is also human. Having been raised alongside humans by human parents, he represents the very best of humanity and provides a goal to strive towards for all people, both fictional and otherwise.

In light of this controversy, some have compared Superman to the Dreamers currently fighting for their right to stay in America as the current administration seeks to repeal DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals which allows citizens brought into America as children. Currently, 91% of Dreamers are employed and 100% have no criminal record. They — like Superman — represent the American dream and provide a goal to strive towards for all people, but due to racism, hate and bigotry, many would be happy to see them kicked out to countries they’ve never known.

Any criticism of Superman based on him saving people is ultimately invalid. Superman saves people, that’s what he does. He’s also a political figure, and has been for nearly eighty years. Right-wing pundits can complain all they like, but it’s hard not to equate them to Lex Luthor when they’re railing against Superman’s alien status. Instead of being like Luthor, we should all try to be a little bit more like Superman. After all, he represents humanity’s ultimate potential.