Editor: Tef Poe is an artist from St. Louis City. Through powerful imagery and complicated honesty, he has earned a reputation as one of the best rappers telling the story of St. Louis, which is about much more than one place. Poe has been featured in music publications such as XXL and Urb Magazine. His next project War Machine 2 is slated to be released June 5th and followed up by a full-length with DJ Burn One entitled Cheer For The Villain. Follow him on twitter @tefpoe
Every week in I'm Just A Rapper, Tef discusses modern life, hip-hop, and the deep connection between them.
Batman versus Superman is the epic superhero battle of the ages. My inner nerd has pondered for many moons what would actually take place if these two men squared off in a celebrity death match. Batman: The world's greatest psycho turned super-vigilante. And Superman: The cartoon, metaphorical version of a god. I stand on the side of the fence that says Batman is insane enough to kill the one and only Superman.
My belief in Batman comes from my faith in human willpower. You add a billion dollar budget and genius mind to that willpower and suddenly anything is possible. Superman is not human, so my loyalty to him is limited. Batman is solely driven by his human desire to win in this match up. If Batman loses, then we have no other choice but to acknowledge the prime weaknesses of the human race.
I dig Batman as a superhero because of the reality behind the concept of him as a dark hero. He is simply a guy who hates evil so much he has allowed it to turn him into a menace against it. The Batman's real name is Bruce Wayne and he is a genius, bachelor and billionaire with a psychotic split personality. Dealing with depression as a child has made it easy for me to relate his story. I emerged from the dark to rise above my personal demons and taunt my foes. I can relate to the darkness that seems to follow him. Though he is actually an agent of light. For some reason, I think I hold a similar position in the hip-hop universe. The guy Superman is a little too shiny and squeaky clean for me to fully embrace as my superhero of preference. I prefer for my heroes to have a little bit of dirt under their nails. Batman has skeletons in his closet, and at any moment he could easily snap and take things too far. The smallest dose of morality still remains buried deep inside his soul somewhere. This keeps him from dropping some evil creep over a bridge and into a river.
As a fan of Batman I do believe he will kill if he is eventually pushed to the brink of murder. He has the intellect of a mad scientist and the maniacal wit of Norman Bates. Superman is somewhat too true to the principles of old fashioned justice for me. If I were a villain, I imagine Batman would turn me into a murder victim while Superman on the other hand would just arrest me. Logically, I assume Batman is a man of morality so he would never take it this far. Even if Batman refuses to spill blood the bad guys are somewhat fearful he will possibly go too far into the dark side. Superman, on the other hand, is mild tempered. He believes in shaking hands and kissing babies. If a woman is having a horrible day, Superman has no problem with hand picking her a fresh batch of flowers and delivering them to her doorstep. He has the greatest unnatural power and superhuman ability ever known to mankind. At his core he believes in giving everyone a fair chance, and this just doesn't work well with super villains. The goal of a true super villain is to destroy everything and kill everyone. The greatest villains of our time do not play fair. Lex Luger Superman's greatest rival has made it his life mission to prove this theory to Superman. Lex is a creep extortionist and high-end criminal with nothing but scandalous intentions.
I am often annoyed by Superman's desire to plea bargain with this guy, as if he's some type of boy scout. Sometimes he's just too good of a guy for the superhero business. I've seen him arrest Luger and fly him to jail while holding a enormous smile on his face. He dips into the prison and leaves the super criminals with some sort of poetical proverb about justice before he floats back into the clouds. Everything about Superman annoys me for some reason.
However I do hold respect for the background story of true blue. The alien child of a super race from a distant planet sent to Earth in a last minute attempt to save his life. He was adopted and raised by a group of regular folks in a regular town yet he lived an irregular life. He grew older and became our planet's greatest super powered hero. One day as a child I realized I disliked Superman because his fight scenes often give villains the illusion of hope. I sat in my bedroom on a boring Saturday morning watching Superman get the life beat out of him and I just couldn't take it anymore. I was infuriated. It was at this very moment I decided I could no longer take the suspense of watching the strongest man in the world get thrown around like a balloon.
