A couple years in the past, I was admitted twice into an institution for suicidal thoughts and actions. I was just in a very awful place in my mind and, at the time, I thought that I couldn't overcome my darkness and I wanted to end the pain. But while I was in this institution the second time around, my parents bought me the omnibus of the entirety of Final Crisis for me to read while I was getting better even though at the time I wasn't really a comic fan that much. I start to read the entire comic, and something about the story and the themes just....left me in awe, with inspiration, and with the belief that the darkness isn't as overwhelming as I thought it would be, and it also made me see the beauty of Superman as an idea and as a character.
Final Crisis, in my eyes, was a story about the time evil and darkness had nearly triumphed over life. The tale of the world fighting against the very essence of tyranny, the embodiment of evil which sought to strip everyone of their dreams, their wills, their love, and their hopes as a whole in a bid to control and impose such cruelty upon life. And on the other spectrum of things there was a nihilistic vampire god, a corrupted and broken entity that hated and saw life as a sickness to be feasted upon, and thus attempted to drain the multiverse of its blood and plunge creation into an abyss of darkness and nothing where only death reigned supreme. But even in the face of tyranny itself, in the eyes of overwhelming nihilism and evil...stood Superman, the opposite of tyranny and nihilism, a symbol of freedom, compassion, and hope to all. Superman faced against Darkseid with defiance, even when the god was the face of all of existence, and acted as the killing blow to this dying god which tried to take everything with it. And then he stood before Mandrakk when the universe was bleeding, wounded, and on the verge of death as Mandrakk feasted on the servants of God and was ready to bring forth the end, yet Superman once again stood firmly against this monster and heralded an army to help slay this cosmic vampire and using a machine that can grant literal wishes not to wish for something selfish...but to wish for a happy ending for everyone, and allow the light and hope to shine through once again.
So, overall, such a meaningful story that showed a man and others standing defiantly against the darkness and evil for the sake of hope and happiness inspired me a lot in my own darkest time. It taught me that, if the world could overcome such darkness, then I could as well. And Final Crisis taught me that Superman's appeal as a character wasn't his godlike status or ability to seemingly solve every problem, but rather the endless of hope and compassion that he exudes and one which helped me in my darkest hour. That, after such a long essay, is my personal reason as to why I love Superman as a character.