What Would Happen If Superman Really Arrived On Earth?

We’ve been seeing him walk amongst us on the big screen since 1948, but with the release of ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ we wanted to ask: what if Kal-El, son of Krypton, showed up for real?

He would prove there’s extra-terrestrial life in the universe

Because he looks like us, people sometimes forget that Superman is an alien from another planet. In other words, him arriving on Earth is no different to a Martian or the Predator or Howard the Duck.

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So what government protocols are actually in place if that happens? For that you need to turn to the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, headed currently by Simonetta Di Pippo, who would likely be in charge of establishing contact.

They would probably use the post-detection policy drawn up by the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute. This consists of nine edicts which includes telling the Secretary General of the UN, disseminating the confirmed detection “promptly, openly and widely through scientific channels and public media” and not embarking on a response “until appropriate international consultations have taken place”.

He would spark a new religion

It’s no secret that the character of Superman is often said to have allusions to Christ and if a seemingly invulnerable man who could ‘save the world’ showed up, it’s not a stretch that either a religion would be built around him, or certain established religions would re-assemble themselves around his persona.

Interestingly, the comic books have actually shown Superman to be a part of a religion known as Raoism. Rao is generally considered to be the personification of the Kryptonian sun, a red giant around which the planet orbits.

It’s unknown whether Raoists believe in Father Christmas or have their own Bible, but no doubt there’d be someone ready to write it.

He would crash the internet

“I think the first four to six months would largely be disbelief,” says Justin Korthof, co-host of the Nerds Who Wait podcast and self-styled superhero philosopher. “Lots of Youtube, Vine and Snapchat videos of people claiming to have seen him or encountered him. Arguments all over social media as everyone tries to figure out what it is and lots of cynicism, because nobody on the Internet wants to be the guy who believed the hoax.”

In other words, the human race would be obsessed – A-list celebrity-style – with finding out who Kal-El really is. And of course finding out who he’s dating.

“Ultimately I think he’d end up like any other celebrity,” adds Korthof. “There would be the raving super-fans who follow his every move, but he really doesn’t occur to most people in the course of a day.”

He wouldn’t necessarily be interested in Truth, Justice and the American Way

The traditional view of Superman is that he crash-landed in small-town Kansas. But why should he? Is Jor-El just a really big fan of American football and Twinkies?

In reality, Superman could land anywhere. Comic book scribe Mark Millar wrote a 2003 story called ‘Red Son’ in which Supes was raised in Russia.

What’s more: why should he be good? If you were superhuman, essentially immortal and stronger than anyone on the planet, would you definitely use those powers to help anyone but yourself? You’ve got to hope a real-life Superman would, but as Garth Ennis explored in comedy comic ‘The Boys’, men of steel don’t always abide by the rule of law.

Or he could just be a straight-up scumbag. As the series ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ explained, we may exist in a multiverse (a story concept ‘Batman v Superman’ is adhering to) where there are endless versions of Superman. What if the one we got was actually Overman, aka the Nazi Superman? Or Bizarro, his twisted, evil ‘opposite’.

He’d spend all his time dealing with international bureaucracy

If he was a goodie however, then as the Alien Hunter Derrel Sims explains, “he would likely rescue folks and finally start to realise there is no end to that work. So what is the next level? Clean up more pressing issues, i.e. corrupt governments…and that might create some problems for others.”

In other words, once you start dealing with nuclear disarmament, or removing despots or trying to fix climate change, you’ve got to get embroiled with the mundanity of official bureaucracy.

As Sims says, “he would have to come to terms with governments, intelligence folks and money people, which means it is Krytonite time for him.”

We’d also get visited by a whole load of super-villains

General Zod had no interest in coming to Earth until he finds out that the son of his jailer lives there.

And once he gets here, he smashes up the place, kills a whole load of people and makes the American president kneel before him.

Thanks a lot, Superman.

We’d just kill him

Hey, it’s not like we’re a super-tolerant species as it is. Some new guy arrives that has more power in his little finger than all the leaders of the world combined? Let’s just say it’s likely he’d get a Kryptonite nap pretty quickly. And poor Jimmy Olsen would be the unwitting patsy.

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Image credits: Rex_Shutterstock