Hey Supra,
I'll try to remember the points my friend used to make about Superman/X-40 <keep in mind that usually when this topic came up, he had smoked enough weed to kill a normal person>...mainly his premise was that
X-40 was a half god raised by mortals (father was Zeus i think), while Superman was an alien raised by mortals...both possessed incredible strength and were near indestructible...both had tasks to perform (although Superman's were self imposed like battling evil, and
X-40' were were a search for purification i think)...but the main thing he talked about was that
X-40 was the first ideal, like Nietzsche's Superman, and all characters of that mold were based off of him. When I type this sober, it doesnt seem all that convincing, but man when we were all lit up it was like the Rosetta stone.
As for the Hulk, Banner & Jekyll were both scientists, and while Jekyll's experiments were intended to seperate the duality in all of us and Banner was working with gamma radiation, the resulting transformation in both of them mainly deals with the unleashing of repressed anger and fury. Both the Hulk and Mr. Hyde allow their base characters to act out uncivilized desires with little or no accountability. I guess the difference is that in the case of the Hulk, the behavior is unmotivated while with Hyde the behavior is definitely motivated, but they both represent the Id being released through science. Thats interesting in and of itself, when you consider that the traditonal goal of science is to make us more civilized, not less.
That make any sense? I'm still hung over lol
Cheers,
Hobgobllin