Have you seen this summer’s new
Superman movie? I haven’t. I’ve been waiting for the kids to be back in school
again before heading into the movie theater.
In the meanwhile, I have enjoyed the hype and the PR around the film. I particularly enjoyed an interview on CBS
Sunday Morning (6/29/2025) that TCM’s Ben Mankiewicz did with David
Corenswet who plays the Man of Steel. Throughout
the interview, I wanted to hear what Mankiewicz would do with Superman’s tagline—and
at the end of the interview, Mankiewicz finally said that the Superman would
“fight for Truth, Justice and … well, you know the rest.”
DC Comics created Superman in 1938—and
then coined Truth, Justice and the American Way as Superman’s tagline during
World War II to build morale in America’s fight against fascism abroad and at
home. Later, Truth, Justice and the
American Way became engraved on America’s cultural consciousness with Adventures
of Superman, the TV series that aired from 1952 until 1958 in the early
days of the Cold War. Since I was only
three years old when the series ended in 1958, my childhood memories of the
show must be from when it was later syndicated to local channels. In any event Truth, Justice and the
American Way has endured through the many iterations of Superman and his
compatriots since. Well, at least until
recently.
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| George Reeves as Superman |
In 2021, DC Comics changed Superman’s tagline. Going forward, the Man of Steel would fight for Truth, Justice and A Better Tomorrow rather than for the American Way.
Superman’s
new motto of “Truth, Justice and a Better Tomorrow” will better reflect the
global storylines that we are telling across DC and to honor the character’s
incredible legacy of over 80 years of building a better world. … Superman has long been a symbol of hope who
inspires people from around the world, and it is that optimism and hope that
powers him forward with this new mission statement.
Jim Lee, President,
Publisher, and Chief Creative Officer of DC Comics
Superman’s New Motto Revealed at DC FanDome
October 16, 2021
Despite Lee’s
positive spin on the change from the American Way to a Better
Tomorrow, I wonder if the people at DC Comics were aware that the United
States was moving to a place where the American Way would lose some of its
cachet in the international market. Were
they aware of the irony of using a tagline with anti-fascist origins when
Americans were about to go all in on our own fascist dictatorship?
I became
aware of the change to Superman’s motto earlier this year when I was exploring ideas
for a new lecture series in the lifelong learning program that I occasionally
teach in. Although I eventually decided
on Pilgrims and Puritans:
A Theocracy in Colonial New England, I considered a series on various philosophical approaches to truth
and justice, using the Superman’s new tagline Truth, Justice and a Better
Tomorrow as the title of the series.
I ran the idea by a long-time Jesuit friend, and he suggested an edit to
the title: Truth, Justice and the
Hope of a Better Tomorrow.
I didn’t
initially like Joe’s suggestion. Hope
has always struck me as a tremendously passive virtue in the style of Little
Orphan Annie cockeyed optimism:
Oh!
The sun'll come out
Tomorrow
So ya gotta hang on
'Til tomorrow
Come what may!
I tend to
think that most of us are already passive enough without people telling us we
should just hang in there, grin and bear it, and eventually everything will get
better—that someday, somehow, someone will fix whatever mess we find ourselves
in.
I am not an
optimist by nature. I do not spontaneously
anticipate positive outcomes. As the gloomy
Wednesday Addams tells her perky friend Enid Sinclair in the Netflix series Wednesday,
I can be the dark cloud for your silver lining.
I am likely thinking that the odds are that the sun will not come out
tomorrow and that we are headed to hell in a handbasket—and increasingly so as
I watch the current blitzkrieg against our democratic principles, norms,
and values: the growing abuse of power,
the increasing censorship, the demonization of minorities and the vulnerable, and
the transfer of wealth to the ultra-rich.
No, Candide, this is not the best of all possible worlds.
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| Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams (with Victor Dorobantu as Thing) |
Wednesday Addams is my new role model. She embraces her innate pessimism and yet is
actively and courageously hopeful. She
speaks truth to power. She defends the
weak against their oppressors. And she
fights for her community against those who oppose its principles and values and would
destroy it. Wednesday fights for truth,
justice, and a better tomorrow! And that
is the real essence of hope. Not
expecting things to work themselves out. Not anticipating that someone else will
do something. But believing we can do
something ourselves to create some good—and then doing it.
Hope is actualized only in action. Hope does not allow us to sit on the sidelines. As Maria von Trapp sings in the Sound of Music, “nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could.” And that means that courage is an essential element of hope. Fighting for truth, justice and a better tomorrow involves taking risks and persevering through doubts and difficulties. Fighting for truth, justice and a better tomorrow requires us to act against powerful forces and with uncertain outcomes.
Our political institutions with their system of checks and balances have become impotent against the overwhelming assault on constitutional republic. Our hope lives in our own actions. In resistance and dissent. In protest. Perhaps even in civil disobedience. Ask yourself what you are willing to commit to hope for. And then do it. Wage hope!
