Originally posted by ((The_Anomaly))
To use a quote from Kill Bill 2:
An essential characteristic of the superhero mythology is, there's the superhero, and there's the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, SpiderMan is actually Peter Parker. When he wakes up in the morning, he's Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become SpiderMan. And it is in that characteristic that Superman stands alone. Superman did not 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 as a baby 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.😎
It's more than this. Superman's origin mirrors that of the archetypal hero found in many cultures throughout history. An explanation of this archetypal myth can be found in Joseph Campbell's "Hero With A Thousand Faces." This myth has influenced Seigel and Schuster as well as George Lucas in creating his Star Wars mythology.
That aside, the 2 things that bother me about Superman's origin are: 1) that Kryptonians and Earthlings are so damn similar as to be visually indistinguishable from one another; and 2) if they are so damn similar, how is that Kryptonians react so very, very differently to the radiation from a yellow sun (which, in itself, is strange, considering that solar radiation is solar radiation, regardless of star color: the color of a star varies with its temperature, not cuz it has a different kind of radiation).
In another thread, some months back, I offered this explanation as a means of reconciling some of the above: both Kryptonians and Earthlings initially hail from a common mother race of humanoids (kinda like Star Trek's idea of the Preservers). Neither race is indigenous to their worlds; they are the result of intervention from this much-older, starfaring mother race, Kryptonians being an "upgrade" or more advanced version of the basic humanoid-DNA matrix, which is why they react differently to radiation from a yellow star.
In any event, Jor-El--being the eminent scientist that he was--was aware of this common heritage, which is why he choose Earth as the place to send his son. (Nothing of this apparently long-gone mother race is mentioned in Kryptonian mythology because Kryptonians--being generally such a proud, indeed even arrogant people, as evidenced by refusing to believe their world was gonna go boom--regarded such discussion as taboo).