Why Bond makes a better superhero than Superman

"Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

- Ulysses, Lord Alfred Tennyson (Also the poem quoted by M in Skyfall)

Like all teenagers of the late '80s and '90s, I grew up reading Superman comics and watching the James Bond flicks. While Superman embodied the ultimate hero for us at that time, James Bond, played by the inimitable Sean Connery, was a man to admire and emulate in certain situations. No, his cool swagger didn't work with the girls back home, but yes, it taught us to maintain a cool attitude and not to lose our temper. The only thing we wanted from Superman was his x-ray vision and his ability to fly, the rest was from Bond. I even got my mom to make me a red cape so that I could play Superman.

Then things changed. I grew up and began looking for a superhero who would be closer to a mortal human than a man who flew around in red tights with a billowing cape behind him saving the world from a devious villain. After Superman came a barrage of heroes with different abilities and alter egos who saved the world with a different assortment of villains. None of the superheroes displayed any semblance of a human emotion.

For them, it was a job to be done. True, some of them had wit as part of their repertoire, but Superman, that ultimate hero was as stiff as a board. He would always arrive on time, pick up the upside down car with the woman in it or catch some falling masonry and the world would be a happier place again. Not much of a character there, is it? As time passed, I expected the Hollywood directors to realise this and bring him closer to a normal human than the superhero that he is. At least Christopher Reeves had a twinkle in his eye, the latest Superman, Henry Cavill, has nothing but a deadpan expression throughout the entire movie and yes, his dimples. Personally, I think Robocop had more expression than Cavill did in the movie.

James Bond, on the other hand, has gone from his suave, well-dressed gentleman with a penchant for martinis and women and the occasional, necessary, gratuitous violence to a man who has grown rougher and ever ready for a fight, and yet has maintained the suaveness of Bond as defined by Sean Connery with one minor difference: Daniel Craig's Bond doesn't really give a shit about the world. He has his own demons to fight, his own haunted castles to sift through and his own shades of grey. For him, defeating the villain is his job and he will do it no matter what.

A recent news article spoke about how Bond should have died in the first seven minutes of his last outing in Skyfall. He'd been shot, had fallen off a train, had carried out a DIY surgery to remove the splinters of a Uranium shell from his shoulder and yet survived to ensure that the world had one less villain to deal with. Heck, Rambo's suffered more injuries than that and survived. Jason Bourne has suffered more and is still trying to get back his memories. Bond's injuries weren't that bad as compared to Rambo or Bourne and yes, he did survive.

In a parallel universe, Superman with his powers granted by the sun, is invincible, except when brought face-to-face with Kryptonite, that's when, despite his rippling muscles (ironic, since there's no weight on earth that can offer him a resistance training to build muscles, he should ideally be a stick-thin fellow) and years and years of exposure to the sun, the hero fails, falters and almost gets killed by his nemesis, usually Lex Luthor or some other fantastic creature from his mother planet Krypton or one of the many villains that he's faced off against in the numerous comic books and movies so far. But the man in the blue suit and red tights is never defeated. He can't die, you see. He is doomed to live forever. He'll grow old, yes, but he won't die in a fight. No chance.

James Bond, on the other hand, has a higher chance of being pushed over the edge and into the cold, dark abyss of the next world, simply because he's a mere mortal, albeit a mortal with an attitude. Battered and bruised, deceived and betrayed, poisoned and tortured, the man simply doesn't give up. He keeps coming back for more and more and yet, at the end of each movie, you realise that he's closer to some of the men and women whose stories of bravery and fortitude have been told so many times in history and in folk lore.

Where Superman is driven by the desire to save Earth, his adopted planet, and its citizens, James Bond is driven by a variety of emotions - duty, revenge, anger among others. Why does Bond keep coming back? There is a reason for that. And that reason lies somewhere in the past. And he doesn't like raking up his past, a fact which was on plain display in Skyfall when he willingly set ablaze his family home. Like any normal human, Bond gets drunk. When was the last time you saw Superman get drunk? He can't get drunk, because he's Superman. James Bond is an agent with a 007 tag, he has no alter ego. Superman is the alter ego for Clark Kent, a bumbling buffoon who's got the hots for fellow journalist Lois Lane, who in turn has the hots for Superman. What is this? A love triangle involving two people! Bond on the other hand, has no dearth of women, a minor fact in the larger picture.

Bond, like any other human, gets bruised and battered when he gets into a fight. When Superman gets in a fight, the trademark curl of hair on his forehead doesn't move a single millimetre, no matter whether he's been shot or pounded with a bus. It's there. It'll always be there. Superman has no weakness except Kryptonite and Lois Lane and the humanity at large. Bond doesn't care, yet he does the job that is required of him, in his peculiar fashion and with the typical dry British humour.

Bond for all practical purposes is a man who, despite being the rogue that he is, is a man who can be depended on. He doesn't really care about the consequences or show any conscience towards what he's done. But he gets the job done. Perhaps that is why M decides to send Bond after the villain in Skyfall even though he'd failed all the tests that were thrown at him. Superman is, well, Superman; Mr Goody Two Shoes. Got a world in need of saving? Superman's there. Got a cat stuck on a tree that needs saving? Superman is there. And so on. Superman is like a fire tender sent out to douse a whole block of houses that are on fire and is rushing from one place to another. Maybe a shade of grey to the blue would help make him more believable. On the other hand, Bond doesn't give a f*ck. The only time it gets to him is if and when M lands herself in danger or if one of his ladies dies. And then, well, as happens in most Bond movies towards the denouement, the villain finds himself at the receiving end of Bond's wrath. And it's not pretty, at least from the villain's perspective.

When Superman was launched, he arrived on the scene as a symbol of hope for all those jobless people who were suffering during America's Great Depression and drought. James Bond was created in post-war Britain at a time when the sun was setting on the British Empire. Bond was that one character who provided the inflated, yet punctured British sensibilities the idea that Britannia could still hold its ground in any confrontation. Superman did what he was meant to do. Now, any new movie that comes out is likely to be as bland as Man of Steel was. Bond is still doing his job and along the way he has taken on a darker, more human demeanour. Actually speaking, over the last few movies, Batman's character has developed and his conflicting psyche has been vividly presented. Superman, well, he's still stuck in his red tights.

The way things are going and the movie franchises are being made, chances are that it won't be James Bond who needs saving, it will be Superman who needs to be saved from the half-baked movies that are being made around the character that could have defined the superhero genre. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice comes out in March 2016, James Bond will come visiting in October this year.