It was impossible to foresee the impact of that first issue of DC’s Action Comics, published on April 18, 1938, with Superman’s arrival. He was not among the earliest heroes of comic books—Doc Savage or John Carter of Mars precede him, for example—but he was the first endowed with supernatural powers, the first super. On that cover he was already smashing a car against a rock while the villains fled in terror. It was a cataclysmic moment that gave birth to an entirely unprecedented cultural modality, one that would weigh as heavily as few others on the collective imagination: the concept of the superhero.

Over time, contradictions arising from his dual nature would only multiply. Because this character embodies, like no other, the paradox of possessing superhuman abilities while deliberately adopting a mask of modesty, clumsiness, and restraint. He is not defined by what he can do, but by what he chooses not to do. As an ideal—formulated time and again as truth, justice, and a vague notion of the common good—he stands on a delicate frontier between universal morality and the specific historical context that shapes him. This is why he has always functioned as a mirror of his time. When social trust in institutions is strong, he is taken as a guarantee. When that trust erodes or collapses, he reveals cracks, contradictions, and suspicions.

This intermittence can be considered essential, because it continually tests his nature. His identity does not depend on a specific territory but on an ethical compass. His coherence resides in adherence to it; once it is lost, all that remains is gratuitous violence and loss of control. He acts with the morality of an earthquake. His relevance does not lie in the accumulation of power, but in a fragile combination of decency, responsibility, and uprootedness. What makes him relevant—and permanently implausible—is that he chooses not to crush a world he could easily dominate.

That is what one of the many Americas that coexist believes to be its moral foundation. There are others that see him as a force to be feared, before which one must kneel—on one knee or both. A broad-shouldered white man, sky-colored eyes, wrapped in a blue-and-red maillot stamped with a logo: an entirely local production for domestic consumption, and from there, for the rest of the planet.

Over time, the cultural ecosystem may have redistributed other superpowers among second- or third-tier heroes. One might even say it is embarrassing that the rest of the communities that make up this ecosystem are underrepresented—yes, for a long time they have been—and that they sprout like mushrooms, overlap, and constantly steal attention that the burly pioneer does not require.

One page of The Definitive History depicts, in its panels, two encounters with President John F. Kennedy, published after his assassination. In one of them, JFK—through the public figure of Superman—learns his secret identity, discovering that he and Clark Kent are one and the same; he gains access to the structural datum of the myth. This does not trouble the superhero in the least: “If I can’t trust the President of the United States,” he smiles, “who can I trust?”

Can you imagine that panel today? Quite possibly another president would rush straight to social media to rant about that Clark Kent—terrible character, purveyor of fake news. And do not rule out a reminder that he is an illegal immigrant who came from a shithole planet, in a disgusting solar system with a dying, pathetic star.