(this isn't nearly as in depth as your post, but the Brightburn discussion reminded me of this, and it is sort of connected) The first time I saw Brightburn, it was only a small bit on TV, but I had to leave and didn't see it all; it was the scene when the dad is kinda trying to give his kid "the talk", saying something along the lines of "You're going through all these changes, having urges, and it is totally natural" (paraphrasing). I thought to myself- Oh, this is the "evil Superman movie", so this scene is probably an example of how his parents give him "advice" that's actually really enabling with his bad habits and eventual super powers, like a metaphor about parents who teach their kids "what WE do is always right" without actually learning what the RIGHT thing is, and using privilege (status/money/literal powers) to get whatever you want, and then when their kid hurts somebody they just make excuses and cover it up.
I eventually watched the movie from the beginning, and it was... not that! It was also just a really weird choice that when the kid starts to understand where he came from, he gets even more stoic and off-putting. It kinda just implies (like you said) the outside source is MAKING him evil, instead of a reflection of all these "good people" in real life who do horrible things but wrap themselves up in excuses (before I saw the whole movie, I genuinely expected the ending would be, like... the kid finally kills somebody, cops show up, and the parents lie to protect him. because "he's got a bright future, we can't let something like this ruin his life! besides, the other person was probably bad and deserved it somehow!"). Anyway, insightful and interesting analysis as always~
Waah that's a really interesting interpretation and now I wish we actually got that movie because it would've shown a lot more complexity compared to "alien whispers made me evil to the point of callous murder". We really only got to see the Ma Kent stand in act defensive about her son whereas all the other characters including her husband see her as protecting an "inhuman" thing. Like wow this silly woman is too overwhelmed by her maternal instincts to see something so obvious.
Brightburn followed so closely to The Omen's story structure right down to its ending where everyone except the Evil Kid survives. But as a Superboy Era Superman story, it doesn't even try to go into how Brandon would take such an extreme path into villainy. It's content to leave the explanation at "Foreigner Bad".
