Superman Symbolism: What 10 Most Famous Villains Really Mean

What do Superman's key foes represent in relation to the Man of Steel himself?

Recently, we brought you an article describing what fifteen of Batman's most famous villains represent in relation to Batman himself. With Batman, it's fairly easy to do that with pretty much every villain in his gallery of rogues, as he's such a complex character and his villains tend to know him more personally than most villains know heroes. With Superman, it's less obvious, but if you hand-pick a select few you can certainly identify exactly what they symbolise. Superman's enemies certainly come in a wider range of shapes and sizes than Batman's - and they certainly come from further afield in a lot of cases - but they tend to be less personal to him and not as close to him on an emotional level. That said, some of them have clearly been created with more in mind than just causing the Man of Steel trouble. Some of them reflect or amplify his own traits or are specifically designed to be a particular kind of threat to him and, in those cases, we can elaborate on what they actually represent. So, with that in mind, here are ten famous Superman villains and what they actually mean in relation to Superman himself...
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Contributor

I'm a Tottenham Hotspur fan who loves comics and comic book movies.