There are a lot of similarities between Santa Claus and Superman. Both are not just nice guys, but the nicest guys. Both fly. Both have names beginning with S. Both, um, have red on their costumes… Okay, look, it’s mostly just the first one. But that’s a major connection, and being so thoroughly good despite being so powerful is not something many characters can relate to. I thought about this during the most recent episode of Your Favorite Game, TheGamer’s weekly podcast.
This week, to get in the Christmas spirit, we asked the question What’s Your Favorite Game… With Santa?, and in doing so realised that there aren’t that many games with ol’ Saint Nick at the helm. I chose Saints Row 4: How The Saints Saved Christmas, where you battle an evil beast named Clawz (who rides on headless reindeer) in order to free Santa after he has been abducted by aliens. Eric went for Hitman’s Christmas DLC, where Santa is a strange mythical figure who can teleport and leaves presents (ie murder weapons) lying around for you to use to kill people with – which you can even do while dressed as Kris Kringle. George chose Kingdom Hearts 2.
There Is Such A Thing As Too Edgy
The issue with these choices is they’re all alternative takes on Santa Claus. While Saints Row features a true Santa, most of the expansion is spent with Clawz, and even the true Santa chides you for not believing in Christmas after you save him. Meanwhile in Kingdom Hearts 2, because it’s the Santa who has been kidnapped in The Nightmare Before Christmas, he’s cranky and very un-Santa-like with his merriment.
We see a similar thing in Superman. Though heralded as an unshakable bastion of goodness, most recent adaptations of Superman (or legally-distinct Superman rip-offs) go in the opposite direction. ‘What if Superman (or Santa) was evil’ is a good idea, at least the first time. Every time after that, it’s just someone else’s idea.
Man of Steel was supposed to be Superman earning this goodness, a young man not quite there yet, but every subsequent DC movie with Henry Cavill failed to grasp that, culminating in him turning on the rest of the heroes after he’s brought back in Justice League. The fighting game Injustice is also built around this idea, with Superman having suffered a psychotic break after Joker tricked him into killing Lois Lane and his unborn child.
This trend continues across most ‘Superman-like’ heroes in other media. Invincible asks ‘what if Superman was evil?’, The Boys asks ‘what if Superman was evil and also liked 4chan memes?’, and Brightburn asks ‘what if Superman was evil and also a kid?’. The Brightburn boy probably likes 4chan memes too.
Just Let Santa Be Santa
All of these ideas can work on their own. I think the DCEU was a bit of a mess, but I like Injustice and Invincible, love The Boys when it’s not raising an eyebrow to the audience as if to ask ‘can we say that?!’, and I thought Brightburn had its moments. Going back to ol’ Pere Noel, I also clearly enjoyed Saints Row’s satirical violence and the Christmas Genki Bowl. But when you put them all together, they can seem a bit much.
It’s not like this morally squeaky clean character can’t work, either. While Hyperion and Sentry are Marvel’s two most obvious parallels to Superman as ‘really strong dude with a cape who can fly’, on a moralistic level, the do-gooder for the other team is clearly Captain America. Though not quite as showy as Iron Man, he was a lynchpin of the Avengers arc, and his solo movies (one of which, Civil War, was admittedly more of a team-up) made a grand total of $2.2 billion at the box office.
They also include, in my opinion, the best MCU movie in their ranks via political thriller The Winter Soldier.
The point is, people love a regular Superman, just like they love a regular Santa. You don’t need to make them more interesting. They are some of the most iconic characters to have ever existed. It seems a stretch to ask for a video game to do Santa Claus right when they struggle with understanding Christmas at all, but maybe we can get Superman right. The hero is being rebooted in 2025 with David Corenswet in the classic red undies. Hopefully he’s playing the real Superman, and not a morally grey badass with cool laser eyes and no reason for existing. Maybe Santa can get me a real Superman movie for Christmas.
Related
Is Evil Superman Now Officially Played Out?
There was a time when I wondered why more writers weren’t dabbling in that angle, as an all-powerful superhero is boring, but an all-powerful villain is far more compelling. But now we have had multiple versions of Evil Superman (Injustice and Red Sun) as well as Homelander and Omni-Man. Is the angle officially overdone now?