Everything about Ubermensch totally explained
"
Übermensch!" is a 1991 short story by
Kim Newman, included in the collection
Famous Monsters. It features an
Elseworlds version of the popular
D.C. Comics superhero Superman (although the character is never explicitly identified as such) who, rather than 1930s America, instead lived in 1930s Nazi Germany. As well as subtle references to much of the common iconography of the Superman comic mythology (including references to
kryptonite, an alternate version of Superman's upbringing and veiled reference to key figures of the comics, such as
Lois Lane), frequent background references to film and popular culture - a common theme of Newman's work - are prominently included, including numerous references to German expressionist cinema of the 1920s and 1930s (including
Metropolis,
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and
Nosferatu), and
The Boys From Brazil.
Plot summary
1989; The wall dividing Communist Europe and Western Europe has come down, and
Metropolis is finally a whole city again. Avram, a Jewish-German scientist,
Holocaust survivor and
Simon Wiesenthal-esque
Nazi hunter, has finally returned to the land of his birth after almost fifty years of hunting Nazis across the world and bringing them to justice. Now, he's arrived to meet the last, who has been imprisoned in
Spandau Prison since the end of the war, and a childhood hero... the near-immortal
Curt Kessler, who before his imprisonment was a legendary
superhero and figurehead of the
Nazi regime.
Granted an interview with Kessler, the two men reminisce; about Kessler's harsh upbringing in
Bavaria, his joining the Nazi Party, his many battles against degeneracy and crime by personal request of the
Führer, his relationship with fanatical Nazi propagandist
Luise Lang and, eventually, his increasing disillusionment with and refusal to fight for the Nazi cause. Avram then comes to the real cause for his presence here; he's brought with him a suicide capsule containing the
green substance that's the only substance that will prove lethal to Kessler. The war is long over, and with it the memories of the horrors of Nazism are fading - and Kessler, and his heroic image, are the last lingering symbols of Nazi strength and pride. Avram has come to ask Kessler to kill himself, and thus perhaps spare the horror happening again. After a moment, Kessler agrees, and bites into the capsule... but not before apologising to Avram, for his failure to live up to Avram's idealistic impressions of his childhood hero.
Further Information
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