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  1. #76
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    Quote Originally Posted by NicoElFreako View Post
    Because I need to learn more about him, and would like to start on a comic in which I don't get frustrated at his overall OP-ness. Which comic should I go to?
    As others have said, that depends on what you consider OP. The very first Superman stories in 1938 had him pretty much at Spider-Man levels of power, just with invulnerability to bullets added. Then, with the Post-Crisis reboot, his power was lowered from planet moving levels to being able to move a mountain, where it stayed for about 15 years before being ramped up again. That's the power-level for Superman I prefer. There are individual stories where he's depowered or starts at lower power levels, like Grant Morrison's Action run.

  2. #77
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bogotazo View Post
    Superman being controversial is one thing. He handles that often and keeps on being himself. The world completely rejecting the premise that heroes have to have moral boundaries and vocally rejecting his example? That's a different story. Combined with losing Lois, the world telling Superman they don't need him anymore makes sense as a reason for exile. Superman in that story was actively being told that his example was being rejected.

    I wasn't at all implying Wonder Woman told Clark to take over the world. But force is always involved in superheroics. They're vigilantes who use superhuman strength to subdue criminals and other perpetrators of injustice. Superman wasn't trying to take over the world, just bring order to a decaying violent society with reckless superhumans running about. This created a dramatic tension in the story, but he didn't become despotic.
    Superman doesn't take over the world in Kingdom Come. He deals with a very specific problem - the out of control metahumans - by building a prison in an irradiated no man's land and otherwise lets the nations of the world get on with their own business.

  3. #78
    Phantom Zone Escapee manofsteel1979's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by _Feely_ View Post
    Dunno 'bout that.

    Literally watched the first one again this morning.

    Frakin' phenomenal movie.
    The first half of the original movie is pretty great and overall it's an entertaining movie and a classic. No arguments there. However, there's a lot about it that hasn't dated well, Particularly Gene Hackman's Luthor and his Co horts ( entertaining but cheesy) and the duex ex machina of turning the Earth backwards to save Lois only works if you shut off your brain.
    When it comes to comics,one person's "fan-service" is another persons personal cannon. So by definition it's ALL fan service. Aren't we ALL fans?
    SUPERMAN is the greatest fictional character ever created.

  4. #79
    Ultimate Member Sacred Knight's Avatar
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    I've always maintained that Hackman portrayed what was written for him beautifully. Just that in a big way, what that character was wasn't really Lex Luthor.
    "They can be a great people Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you. My only son." - Jor-El

  5. #80
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    Yeah. I never understood the need to make the villains comedic relief in what is supposed to be a Shakespearean epic, especially when there's already decent comedy in the bumbling Clark Kent persona. That's the main reason I prefer Superman 2 to Superman 1. Zod and crew aren't jokes, and their comedy stems from the fact that they are completely new to earth, so it doesn't take away from their menace in the slightest.

  6. #81
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    Quote Originally Posted by dancj View Post
    I think you're being unfair to Waid her. Kingdom Come is basically Alex Ross being a cranky old man yelling about how much comics of today suck while using Superman as his mouth piece
    Ross didn't write the book. Waid did.

  7. #82
    Extraordinary Member Jokerz79's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by manofsteel1979 View Post
    The first half of the original movie is pretty great and overall it's an entertaining movie and a classic. No arguments there. However, there's a lot about it that hasn't dated well, Particularly Gene Hackman's Luthor and his Co horts ( entertaining but cheesy) and the duex ex machina of turning the Earth backwards to save Lois only works if you shut off your brain.
    Is Gene Hackman's Luthor anymore silly than the current one in the DCEU?

  8. #83
    Maintaining Status Q _Feely_'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by manofsteel1979 View Post
    The first half of the original movie is pretty great and overall it's an entertaining movie and a classic. No arguments there. However, there's a lot about it that hasn't dated well, Particularly Gene Hackman's Luthor and his Co horts ( entertaining but cheesy) and the duex ex machina of turning the Earth backwards to save Lois only works if you shut off your brain.
    I don't mind the Hackman's Luthor, myself. Every villain has to start somewhere.

    Beside's, he's super-dangerous from the offset. He commandeers two nuclear missiles and nearly kills Superman on their first encounter.

    In fairness, I'll concede - turning Earth backward is a poor (but not awful) ending to such an epic film. The reality is that we'd probably be swept away by the atmosphere at that point where the Earth stops just before going the other way. I remember raising an eyebrow to it as a kid when my Dad, who has no imagination for these things turns to me and says, "You're watching a film about a flying alien and that's what bothers you?"

    I like to use my head-cannon to view it as Superman racing faster than light to travel back in time to save Lois. It only looks like the Earth going backwards from our 4th wall perspective.

    In my defence; there's nothing in the film that says that that's not what happened. :P
    Last edited by _Feely_; 10-17-2017 at 12:11 PM.

  9. #84
    Fantastic Member TruthAndJustice's Avatar
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    I was never convinced that either Tom Welling or Dean Cain were Clark Kent/Superman. Neither ever seemed intelligent enough. Neither looked right.

  10. #85
    Phantom Zone Escapee manofsteel1979's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sacred Knight View Post
    I've always maintained that Hackman portrayed what was written for him beautifully. Just that in a big way, what that character was wasn't really Lex Luthor.
    That's my take too. Hackman was great with the material , as were Ned Beatty and Valerie Perrine. It's just that Hackman wasn't in any tangible way anything resembling Lex Luthor, whether we were talking about PreCrisis Mad Scientist or Post Crisis Business mogul. Hackman was playing a real estate huckster with delusions of Grandeur. Yeah, he is dangerous in the sense of his plot, but he's a slightly less ignorant baffoon who surrounds himself with even less intelligent people to make himself feel smarter.

    Could have been worse. If Donner never got involved and brought on his writer, we'd likely had gotten Woody Allen or Dustin Hoffman eating Kleenex's and wearing a bald cap. Yes, both were considered for Lex believe it or not.
    Last edited by manofsteel1979; 10-17-2017 at 01:39 PM.
    When it comes to comics,one person's "fan-service" is another persons personal cannon. So by definition it's ALL fan service. Aren't we ALL fans?
    SUPERMAN is the greatest fictional character ever created.

  11. #86
    Phantom Zone Escapee manofsteel1979's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jokerz79 View Post
    Is Gene Hackman's Luthor anymore silly than the current one in the DCEU?
    Yes, actually. Cut through the nervous ticks and the quirks Eisenberg gave his Lex and at his core he's far closer to the Mad Scientist and master manipulator that is Lex Luthor. His Lex isn't perfect and to be frank, Eisenberg doesn't look the physical type and isn't my first choice, but the character as written on the page? Damn right that's Lex Luthor.
    Just have Eisenberg go full bald and dial down the weird a bit and you'd have a solid Lex Luthor.


    Still, both Hackman and Eisenberg pale in comparison to Michael Rosenbaum and John Shea's Lex Luthor.
    Last edited by manofsteel1979; 10-17-2017 at 01:40 PM.
    When it comes to comics,one person's "fan-service" is another persons personal cannon. So by definition it's ALL fan service. Aren't we ALL fans?
    SUPERMAN is the greatest fictional character ever created.

  12. #87
    Phantom Zone Escapee manofsteel1979's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by _Feely_ View Post
    I don't mind the Hackman's Luthor, myself. Every villain has to start somewhere.

    Beside's, he's super-dangerous from the offset. He commandeers two nuclear missiles and nearly kills Superman on their first encounter.

    In fairness, I'll concede - turning Earth backward is a poor (but not awful) ending to such an epic film. The reality is that we'd probably be swept away by the atmosphere at that point where the Earth stops just before going the other way. I remember raising an eyebrow to it as a kid when my Dad, who has no imagination for these things turns to me and says, "You're watching a film about a flying alien and that's what bothers you?"

    I like to use my head-cannon to view it as Superman racing faster than light to travel back in time to save Lois. It only looks like the Earth going backwards from our 4th wall perspective.

    In my defence; there's nothing in the film that says that that's not what happened. :P
    Well you have a point and i won't argue with it, but my problem with the turn back the earth ending is not necessarily the idea of him pulling that feat, but the fact that if Superman is that powerful that he can literally reverse time to stop his girlfriend from dying, and it seems there's no negative reprecutions physically or mentally to Superman for pulling such a feat, then why not do it again and again if things go really bad in the future. Hell, if one considers the Donner cut of II as canon ,he does exactly that! Both movies ended up ending with Superman pulling the mother of dues ex machina's out of his butt twice in two films! I know originally Superman I didn't have the time reversal ending, but it is what it is now. It pretty much undercuts any real stakes for future stories when you have that escape hatch omnipresent.
    When it comes to comics,one person's "fan-service" is another persons personal cannon. So by definition it's ALL fan service. Aren't we ALL fans?
    SUPERMAN is the greatest fictional character ever created.

  13. #88
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    Quote Originally Posted by manofsteel1979 View Post

    Still, both Hackman and Eisenberg pale in comparison to Michael Rosenbaum and John Shea's Lex Luthor.
    John Shea's Luthor was Thanatos before there was a Thanatos.

  14. #89
    Maintaining Status Q _Feely_'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by manofsteel1979 View Post
    Well you have a point and i won't argue with it, but my problem with the turn back the earth ending is not necessarily the idea of him pulling that feat, but the fact that if Superman is that powerful that he can literally reverse time to stop his girlfriend from dying, and it seems there's no negative reprecutions physically or mentally to Superman for pulling such a feat, then why not do it again and again if things go really bad in the future.
    Because it is forbidden to interfere with human history.

    We're both well over-thinking this at this point :P

  15. #90
    Phantom Zone Escapee manofsteel1979's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by _Feely_ View Post
    Because it is forbidden to interfere with human history.

    We're both well over-thinking this at this point :P
    Yeah. We're thinking more about it than the Salkinds and Donner did when they made the movie. That's part of the problem!
    Last edited by manofsteel1979; 10-18-2017 at 03:21 AM.
    When it comes to comics,one person's "fan-service" is another persons personal cannon. So by definition it's ALL fan service. Aren't we ALL fans?
    SUPERMAN is the greatest fictional character ever created.

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