The Iron Giant Analysis

Gifted with incredible endurance and super strength, the ability of flight, and an impeccable moral compass, Superman is the quintessential superhero that Americans of all ages have admired and looked up to since his conception in 1938. In Brad Bird’s 1999 feature animation The Iron Giant, the fifty-foot metal protagonist is no exception. Hiding out in a barn, he peers at an issue of the Superman comic book like an amused child with his eyes wide and mouth agape. His closest human companion, nine-year old Hogarth, sits before the giant and explains to him, “Sure, he’s famous now, but he started off just like you! Crash landed on Earth…he only uses his powers for good, never for evil.” As Hogarth places the comic book down among the others spread across the ground, the Iron Giant’s eyes dart to the cover of Atomo—a giant “metal menace. The cover depicts a fifty-foot tall metal monster with lasers beaming from its eyes, vaporizing an entire village and killing all its people. The Iron Giant looks at the cover with horror, recognizing his physical resemblance to Atomo as if he were looking into a broken mirror. Hogarth tries to

The original textual telling of the The Iron Giant differs significantly from the filmic adaption as the story commences with a catastrophic crash landing, introducing from the very first page of the novel the giant’s vulnerability and fragility. The giant’s internal structure collapses, exploding on impact and scattering his body parts around the crash site. Hughes illustrates, “His iron legs fell off. His iron arms broke off, and the hands broke off his arms. His great iron ears fell off and his eyes fell out. His great iron head fell off.” In an attempt to recover himself, he only proves himself more incapable as finds himself playing a game of hide and seek with his environment, trying to find his parts: “Hop, hop, hop, they went, peering among the