I never lie. I have always been a Batman guy.
I can’t help but think, “If I had all that money and the proper motivation,” — meaning if my parents were shot to death in a filthy alley before my 8-year-old eyes — “I could be him.”
Superman, on the other hand, I can’t be. I can’t leap tall buildings in a single bound, and I never will.
I’ve long had a love/tolerate relationship with Superman, who’s celebrating his 75th anniversary this year with not only a rebooted movie franchise but with a new comic book from DC Comics’ top talent.
PHOTOS: SUPERMAN THROUGH THE YEARS
SECRET OF SUPERMAN’S SUCCESS: HE’S HUMAN
Because on the one hand, he can be the best friend you never had, and on the other, he can be cripplingly dull.
Superman’s masters at DC and Warner Bros. know this last part well. His comics sales have been soft for years and the last film installment, 2006’s “Superman Returns,” was, relatively speaking, a financial disappointment.
The solution? Superman needs to be “relevant” — read: brasher, angrier and angstier. Like Batman, in other words.
But trying to make Superman edgier always ends up accomplishing something Lex Luthor, General Zod and Brainiac never could — laying low the Man of Steel.
LOOK! DOWN IN THE DUMPS!
It’s absolutely no accident that Dark Knight trilogy director Christopher Nolan is producing June 14’s “Man of Steel,” which it also has to be noted, doesn’t have the word “Superman” in the title.
Unsurprisingly, the whole “relevance” issue was forefront in the filmmakers’ minds when they first got the project off the ground.
“They were working on the story for ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ and [screenwriter] David [Goyer] had this exact conversation with Chris,” producer Charles Roven said in an interview. “And they just figured that there was a way to do it . . . by giving him some issues, which Superman’s never really had in the past.”
Issues.
The Man of Tomorrow set squarely in the world of today — probing what it would be like to be alien and alienated, to wonder why you’re here. Whether you should do good and whether people even want you to. Superman by Kierkegaard.
Henry Cavill’s rubbery unitard — no spandex here — is a darker, grayish blue with a darker, grayish red chest emblem. In the comics, Superman now wears — gasp! — armor.
I’ve been reading comics since I was 5 years old. Superman has been with me for more than 40 years. I’ve gone into the past for the original, Depression-era stories. I’ve yawned through the ’50s and ’60s tales of super-dogs, super-cats and super-monkeys. (Wait, scratch that: Super-monkeys are fantastic.)
I’ve watched Superman TV shows and Superman serials. I own all the Superman movies. I’ve watched Superman cartoons, played with Superman action figures, worn Superman T-shirts.
And after taking all that in, I find that the last thing in the world I want is a Superman who thinks being Superman is a burden. I don’t want a Superman who mopes.
Because that is actually the least realistic portrayal I can think of.
UP, UP AND AWAY
Amid all the hand-ringing about Superman’s relevance, there’s this:
If anyone had Superman’s powers — if you could fly, bend steel in your bare hands, see through walls, hear through mountains and burn stuff with your eyes — It. Would. Be. Awesome.
No more waiting in the rain trying to find a cab to take you across town! No more endless hours at the gym! Plus, you’re pretty much the best-looking person on the planet. Combine that with X-ray vision, and your ticket is punched!
Before you accuse me of being unable to get past the Christopher Reeve years, you’re wrong. This goes back to the character’s very beginning.
Superman was the ultimate immigrant: A refugee who made really, really good — fathered by two American Jewish kids in the depths of the Depression.
His entire existence owes itself to the power fantasies of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. They didn’t create Superman because they wanted a hero like them. They created Superman because he was a hero who was the opposite of them. Opposite, as it happens, to so many of us.
That Superman was angry, to be sure, but he was angry at the world’s injustices, not upset because he was endowed with these freakish powers. Siegel and Shuster wrapped Superman in red and blue, and he transcended his times. People loved Superman precisely because he wasn’t the same as we are.
The various iterations that followed in the comics, on radio, on TV and in the theaters underscored that very basic concept, even as Superman evolved from social crusader to father figure.
There’s a comic book artist/writer who, I think, understood this better than anyone. His name is John Byrne, and he was a big deal back in the ’80s. DC hired him to, guess what, “modernize” Superman.
And you know what? His Superman was happy. Superman flew upside down because he could. He was confident and seemed to really enjoy who he was. Because if you were Superman, wouldn’t you think you’d hit the jackpot?
That version didn’t last. Comics got darker over the next 25 years and publishers — and the filmmakers who followed them — became convinced, for a number of reasons, that grim and gritty was the way to go, regardless of whether it fit the character. That’s not always the case now but that residual glumness still resides within the Man of Steel.
THE NEVER-ENDING BATTLE
We live in the age of antiheroes. We think Wolverine, even though he’ll kill his opponent without hesitation, is cool. We secretly relish the life of Don Draper. We even admire, despite ourselves, Walter White.
I count myself among those fans. Like I said, I’m a Batman guy through and through. But as I get older, I appreciate the unabashed heroism of Superman more and more. What I love about the Caped Crusader is his sheer force of will — his ability to overcome great tragedy and protect those who need protecting. He’s the ultimate striver.
Superman is a hero simply because it’s the right thing to do. Because Ma and Pa Kent taught him to be a mensch, as Siegel and Shuster might have put it.
At the risk of sounding like I’m a defender of the Church of Richard Donner, a friend recently pointed out a marvelous scene in “Superman: The Movie,” which, it’s important to emphasize, was released in 1978, after we blew it in Vietnam, Nixon disgraced himself, we had an ineffectual President Carter and it felt like the Russians were winning.
Reeve’s Superman is being interviewed by Margot Kidder’s Lois Lane. It’s a romantic scene filled with sexual tension and double entendres.
But the core of the scene, the core of the movie — the core of the character and his meaning — is revealed when Lois asks Superman why he’s here. His answer, of course, is the hokiest of Superman aphorisms, written decades earlier.
“I’m here,” he says, without a hint of irony, “to fight for truth, and justice and the American way.”
And Lois, ever the skeptic, laughs and replies, “You’re gonna end up fighting every elected official in this country.”
I remember the first time I saw that scene, as an 11-year-old kid in the theater. The grown-ups laughed.
But they got quiet again, when Superman replied with a chuckle, “I’m sure you don’t really mean that, Lois.”
And then, as she mutters in wonder with her back to him, this brightly clad visitor from another world, this Superman who has chosen to help merely because he can, adds, with gentle earnestness, “I never lie.”
And that is, and always will be — and always should be — what Superman is: a hero. A good man for bad times.
Yeah, I believe that the ultimate square-jawed square has a place in the 21st century.
Because when you get down to it, Superman isn’t about who we are.
He’s about who we should be.
Dan Greenfield is deputy metro editor at The Post. Coming this Wednesday, look for our new blog, Parallel Worlds, focusing on comics, sci-fi and gaming
E-mail us at parallelworlds@nypost.com