To conclude 2025’s Superhero Week, I’m writing a set of reflections on one of the reasons I like the genre. Despite all the capes, cowls, and spandex, one of the genre’s strongest attractions for me is the important messages hidden in the action.
What’s one of the most potent and enduring metaphors? Superheroes as an allegory for migration.
Rather than publish a slice of a thought each day, I’ve saved it all up to publish at the end of the week.
Monday: The Alien at Our Door
At its heart, the superhero story is often an immigrant story. It’s about being the outsider, the newcomer, the “other.” It’s about arriving in a new, strange land and figuring out your place in it. And there is no greater example to kick us off than the big blue boy scout himself: Superman.
Kal-El is, in the most literal sense, a refugee. His parents placed him in a tiny vessel and launched him into the void to escape a dying world. He crash-landed in a foreign land – Kansas, USA – and was raised by locals who adopted him as their own. He is the ultimate migrant child, carrying the hope of his lost home while striving to find a place to belong in his new home. He looks human, mostly, but he isn’t. His power, his very essence, stems from his alien heritage’s reaction to our yellow sun.
This isn’t a subtle subtext; it’s the foundation of the character created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, both children of Jewish immigrants. They wrote what they knew: the experience of being an outsider with a hidden strength, wanting to contribute to the society that had taken them in. Superman’s struggle isn’t just with Lex Luthor; it’s with the fundamental tension of his dual identity. He is both Clark Kent, the assimilated man, and Kal-El, the powerful alien.
Tuesday: The Suspicion of Otherness
We established the superhero as a migrant figure, using Superman as our primary example. But not every newcomer is welcomed with open arms, even if they can fly. The migrant experience is often one of suspicion and fear, and the world of comic books is rife with this allegory.
Enter the X-Men. While Superman is an individual refugee, the mutants of Marvel Comics represent an entire people who are feared and hated for being born different. They are not aliens from another world, but strangers in their own land – a powerful allegory for marginalised communities, including immigrants, who are often treated as foreign despite being citizens.
The core conflict of the X-Men is not with supervillains like Magneto (himself a survivor of persecution), but with humanity’s prejudice. The Mutant Registration Act, a recurring plot device, is a thinly veiled parallel to real-world anti-immigrant legislation. It’s the demand to “show your papers,” to register and be tracked, all under the guise of public safety. The Sentinels, giant robots programmed to hunt mutants, are the ultimate embodiment of state-sanctioned xenophobia.
This “othering” forces a choice upon the super-powered individual. Do you assimilate like Clark Kent, hiding your true self to fit in? Or do you live openly and proudly, demanding acceptance like the X-Men?
Characters like Wonder Woman also fit this mould. She leaves the utopian, isolationist island of Themyscira and arrives in “Man’s World” as both a cultural ambassador and a warrior. Her ideals of peace and truth often clash with the cynical, complex realities of her new home. She is the immigrant who believes so strongly in the promise of her new country that she is willing to fight for its soul, even when its people don’t fully understand or trust her.
The arrival of the “other” is disruptive. It challenges norms and forces society to look at itself.
Wednesday: The Gift of Power
So, our super-powered migrant has arrived. They’ve faced suspicion, navigated a strange new culture, and dealt with the fear of being “other.” What comes next? Contribution. The superhero narrative overwhelmingly shows us that when society makes space for newcomers, it reaps incredible rewards.
This is the central promise of the migration allegory in comics. The outsider doesn’t just find a home; they become its protector. Their unique “talents” – be it flight, super-strength, or genius-level intellect – are put in service of their adopted community.
Think of the Asgardians. Following the destruction of their realm in Thor: Ragnarok, they become a refugee fleet, eventually settling in Tønsberg, Norway. They are literal space Vikings moving into a quiet fishing town. Yet, what do they bring? They bring a god of thunder as a defender, a king in Valkyrie, and a rich culture that, while alien, ultimately integrates and strengthens the world they now call home. Earth gained a powerful ally because it offered sanctuary.
This is where the allegory becomes a powerful argument for inclusivity. The very things that make the superhero an outsider are what make them heroic. Spider-Man’s weird spider-sense and wall-crawling abilities make him an outcast at school, but they also allow him to save hundreds of New Yorkers. His powers are a direct benefit to the city that is often scared of him.
However, this contribution is rarely met with universal gratitude. The conflict doesn’t end. Public opinion, often stoked by figures like J. Jonah Jameson, can turn on a dime. This reflects a real-world anxiety: the fear that the newcomer’s power might be turned against the host society. The entire Civil War storyline in Marvel Comics is a debate about this. Should we control and regulate these powerful individuals “for our own good,” or should we trust them?
Ultimately, the comics argue for trust. Time and time again, it is the outsider, the migrant, the refugee, who makes the ultimate sacrifice for a world that has not always been kind to them.
Thursday: Forging a New Community
No one, not even a superhero, is an island. A crucial part of any migration story is the formation of a new community. When you’re far from your original home, you build a new one. In the world of superheroes, these new homes are called The Avengers, the Justice League, or the Fantastic Four.
These teams are, in essence, found families. They are collections of individuals from wildly different backgrounds—gods, aliens, super-soldiers, reformed spies, and rich geniuses—who come together for a common purpose. They are a microcosm of a successful, pluralistic society.
The Avengers are perhaps the best example. Their original line-up included a Norse god (Thor, the immigrant), a man out of time (Captain America, the internal migrant), a scientist with a monster inside him (Hulk, the outcast), and a billionaire arms dealer (Iron Man, the establishment). They have nothing in common except a desire to protect their home. Their strength comes not from uniformity, but from their diversity. Each member brings a unique skill set and perspective, allowing them to face threats that no single one of them could handle alone.
This is the allegory at its most optimistic. It suggests that when we bring together people of different origins, experiences, and “powers,” the result is not chaos, but a stronger, more resilient whole. The Justice League’s Watchtower, orbiting the Earth, is a perfect symbol: a place for the world’s most powerful beings, from Krypton to Themyscira to Atlantis, to look down and protect the planet they have all adopted as their own.
These teams provide more than just tactical advantages. They provide belonging. For a character like Martian Manhunter, the last of his kind, the Justice League is the only family he has left. They are his connection to a world he is not from, but has sworn to protect. This sense of community is what transforms a powerful individual into a true hero.
Friday: Our Super-Powered Future
I’ve been exploring superheroes through the lens of migration. We’ve seen them as refugees (Superman), as a feared minority (the X-Men), as powerful contributors (The Avengers), and as founders of new communities (The Justice League). So, what’s the big takeaway?
The allegory teaches us a simple but profound lesson: society benefits when new and talented people arrive.
The world of superheroes is a world made better by immigration. Imagine a DC Universe without Superman’s hope, Wonder Woman’s compassion, or Martian Manhunter’s wisdom. Imagine a Marvel Universe without Thor’s strength, the X-Men’s fight for equality, or Captain Marvel’s cosmic perspective. It would be a smaller, poorer, and far more vulnerable world.
These stories endure not just because of the spectacular fights, but because they tap into this fundamental human experience of movement, discovery, and the search for belonging. They are power fantasies, yes, but they are also fantasies of acceptance. They model a world where the things that make you different are the things that make you essential.
In our real, non-comic-book world, we don’t have aliens arriving in rocket ships. But we do have people arriving in boats and planes, seeking refuge, opportunity, and a better life. They bring with them not super-strength or heat vision, but different skills, new perspectives, diverse cuisines, and vibrant cultures. They are doctors, engineers, artists, and carers. They, too, are often met with suspicion and fear. They, too, have to build new communities and find their place.
The superhero migration allegory challenges us to look past the “otherness” of newcomers and see the potential. It encourages us to be more like the Kents, who saw a child in a crashed spaceship, not a threat. It asks us to build a society that is less like the world that fears the X-Men and more like the one that assembles the Avengers.
Ultimately, the message is one of radical optimism. It tells us that embracing the stranger at our door won’t just make our society more compassionate; it will make it stronger, more interesting, and infinitely more heroic. It’s a reminder that you don’t need a cape to be super—sometimes, just offering a welcome is the most heroic act of all.
Every Superhero Week article ends with a teleport link that you can use to jump randomly to another. It’s a brave move.
