Your DC-Only controversial opinions (part II)...

[king81992]

Bruce being a deceitful ******* to his friends and family will always be the wrong take. As a single dad, he would probably follow the trajectory of the dad in "Kramer vs Kramer;" **** at first but would get it together because he genuinely cares.


While I'm at it...

Bruce Wayne didn't "die" in the alley. He is and always has been in the driver's seat. Without the Bruce persona/identity, Alfred is just the butler. The Waynes are just a mugging gone bad. He would not be especially protective of children more than any other adult. He wouldn't be so traumatized against guns.

Literally all the hallmarks of his identity are qualities that only resonate with Bruce Wayne still being the dominant identity in his mind that requires emotional agency to actually compel him to continue his mission. If he truly let that persona abd identity die all those years ago, it wouldn't continue to influence who he is twenty years later. I cringe really hard whenever I read Wonder Woman Year One and he insists he's Batman. It just reads like he's trying too hard to buy into his own myth because he hasn't unpacked what happened to him after two decades of living with it and meditation.

Bruce was a more compelling, textured character when writers and fans weren't trying to convince everyone that he's totes badass, and he's only become the most shallow member of the Trinity because of it. He's a kiddie pool with a cavernous depth painted on the bottom to look complex but utterly disappointing in actuality.

I miss when that wasn't the case.

The whole Batman= Real Persona and Bruce Wayne= Fake narrative undermined Batman as a character and a lot of fan + writers don't realize this.

[Gaius]

The former I guess he would have to pay to afford traveling around the world, yeah, although I'm not sure how much of his training he actually paid for to go through with it. It's not like he paid Zatara to train him. That and he probably didn't want there to be a paper trail of what Bruce Wayne is doing.

This makes me wonder about the Batfamily using top of the line exercise gear and how much it costs .

Well, even if did not didn't have to pay to get the training there's also that he's financially well off enough that he could afford to take however many years of training.

Competent, yeah, but I think there's something to the criticism that the writers of Supergirl made him into too much of a cheerleader for Kara and that only really changed when he got his own show.

Well, it is a Supergirl show right?

[Agent Z]

Clark ignoring him in the comics isn't really justification for doing it in the show too, as most people who watch the show will never read those comics. Especially as I don't believe it was a source of angst for Connor in the comics the way it is for the show. Almost his entire arc in season 1 is related to being upset Clark is ignoring him.
Showing the beginnings of it and then skipping over most of the rest of it isn't very satisfying. It is the main source of conflict for Connor in season 1, and then they don't even show that changing. Connor being the POV character that the target audience is going to relate to also doesn't do Clark favors; they are naturally going to side with Connor's hurt feelings and Clark's perspective may be valid, but it doesn't get much focus. WB/DC struggles with keeping Superman relevant for the younger generation, so presenting him as a stiff adult who hurts the feelings of the kid the audience connects with is going to make him look like the bad guy

Here's the thing; when I see criticism of how Superman acted in season 1, it isn't coming from kids who watch the show or people introduced to the DC universe through the show. It seems to be coming from Superman comic fans almost if not entirely exclusively. I have yet to see any kids come away hating Superman or complaining about his portrayal past season 1 but I do see a lot of older comic fans complaining about how this take is out of character for him.

That's why I pointed out that this stuff has precedent in the comics. Because the dislike of it seems to be coming from comic fans even though they more than anyone should not be surprised by it.

[Robanker]

Preach to all of this.

I think it goes for Clark too when they do the "Clark is the real person, Superman is the job." it's like they both switched. I think the truth for both of them is somewhere in the middle and both extremes are "masks" they put on. But Clark leans closer to his superhero identity being the truth while Bruce leans the opposite. Both are less interesting as a result of them swapping these mentalities.



Clark ignoring him in the comics isn't really justification for doing it in the show too, as most people who watch the show will never read those comics. Especially as I don't believe it was a source of angst for Connor in the comics the way it is for the show. Almost his entire arc in season 1 is related to being upset Clark is ignoring him.



Showing the beginnings of it and then skipping over most of the rest of it isn't very satisfying. It is the main source of conflict for Connor in season 1, and then they don't even show that changing. Connor being the POV character that the target audience is going to relate to also doesn't do Clark favors; they are naturally going to side with Connor's hurt feelings and Clark's perspective may be valid, but it doesn't get much focus. WB/DC struggles with keeping Superman relevant for the younger generation, so presenting him as a stiff adult who hurts the feelings of the kid the audience connects with is going to make him look like the bad guy

"Superman (what I really mean is my immigrant heritage) is what I do, Clark is who I am" is some very Reagan era "throw away your customs, you either are only American or you're not" bullshit that always reads as nativist bullshit, like you're not American unless you're born here or are determined to bury anything about you from your old country unless it's useful to America. It's all just some thinly veiled nationalist garbage.

I do think that in his head he refers to himself as Clark more often than Kal, and Kansas is what he thinks about when he thinks about "back home," but his alien nature is very much a part of him he embraces. He doesn't just dismiss it as a charade he puts on when it's necessary. Christ.

Every time a writer tries to split the character to make them easier to digest for themselves, they reveal that they can't handle complex notions like "your work persona and home persona aren't fake, they're both you."

Superman, Batman and pretty much any person or character are a prism that every perspective filters through and are a summation of the refractions that result. Work you is you. Home you is you. It's not hard to process, but when it comes to fictional characters we seem unable to do anything but reduce then to two dimensional so they're easy to digest and offer no depth. It's pathetic.

They're all facets of the same dude. I agree each of them defaults a little closer to different iterations (Clark for Superman, Batman for Bruce) but trying to say the others are masks is supposing that people are very simple constructs that don't adapt and grow, they're static and they affect without actually having nuance.

That's categorically false.

[TheRay]

Superman is a staple of the main DC universe, but that doesn't mean we can't get other stories that have other people in that role.

[I'm a Fish]

"Superman (what I really mean is my immigrant heritage) is what I do, Clark is who I am" is some very Reagan era "throw away your customs, you either are only American or you're not" bullshit that always reads as nativist bullshit, like you're not American unless you're born here or are determined to bury anything about you from your old country unless it's useful to America. It's all just some thinly veiled nationalist garbage.

I do think that in his head he refers to himself as Clark more often than Kal, and Kansas is what he thinks about when he thinks about "back home," but his alien nature is very much a part of him he embraces. He doesn't just dismiss it as a charade he puts on when it's necessary. Christ.

Every time a writer tries to split the character to make them easier to digest for themselves, they reveal that they can't handle complex notions like "your work persona and home persona aren't fake, they're both you."

Superman, Batman and pretty much any person or character are a prism that every perspective filters through and are a summation of the refractions that result. Work you is you. Home you is you. It's not hard to process, but when it comes to fictional characters we seem unable to do anything but reduce then to two dimensional so they're easy to digest and offer no depth. It's pathetic.

They're all facets of the same dude. I agree each of them defaults a little closer to different iterations (Clark for Superman, Batman for Bruce) but trying to say the others are masks is supposing that people are very simple constructs that don't adapt and grow, they're static and they affect without actually having nuance.

That's categorically false.

Unless you work in retail, AM-I-RIGHT!!!

[John Venus]

Here's the thing; when I see criticism of how Superman acted in season 1, it isn't coming from kids who watch the show or people introduced to the DC universe through the show. It seems to be coming from Superman comic fans almost if not entirely exclusively. I have yet to see any kids come away hating Superman or complaining about his portrayal past season 1 but I do see a lot of older comic fans complaining about how this take is out of character for him.

That's why I pointed out that this stuff has precedent in the comics. Because the dislike of it seems to be coming from comic fans even though they more than anyone should not be surprised by it.

I mean, of course, kids don't complain about it, this is their introduction to the character. This is what is going to colour their perception of the character and for most this is how they are going to see the character for the rest of their lives probably.

I accepted DCAU versions of Wonder Woman, Shade, Cheetah and Sinestro when I first watched them because I had no other reference point for those characters but now that I know more about those characters, I can see how they could have been done better and in which areas those versions fell short. I feel the same way about YJ version of Wally West.

Now fans having trouble accepting different versions of the characters...again, it largely come down to preference and first impressions.

I do think that older fans have this subconscious fear that newer fans will see what they deem as the 'wrong' versions of the character and that's how the characters will be defined forever. The fear is warranted hence why you have 'Hank Pym wife beater' or Scarlet Witch being forever defined by HoM'.

"Superman (what I really mean is my immigrant heritage) is what I do, Clark is who I am" is some very Reagan era "throw away your customs, you either are only American or you're not" bullshit that always reads as nativist bullshit, like you're not American unless you're born here or are determined to bury anything about you from your old country unless it's useful to America. It's all just some thinly veiled nationalist garbage.

I still like the 'Clark is who I am' quote. I mean, for all he knew, he was Clark Kent until whichever age Johnathan and Martha told him about the ship.

Though I guess as an adult today, it would be more like 'Clark, Kal, Superman, they're all me'.

Clark ignoring him in the comics isn't really justification for doing it in the show too, as most people who watch the show will never read those comics. Especially as I don't believe it was a source of angst for Connor in the comics the way it is for the show. Almost his entire arc in season 1 is related to being upset Clark is ignoring him.


Showing the beginnings of it and then skipping over most of the rest of it isn't very satisfying. It is the main source of conflict for Connor in season 1, and then they don't even show that changing. Connor being the POV character that the target audience is going to relate to also doesn't do Clark favors; they are naturally going to side with Connor's hurt feelings and Clark's perspective may be valid, but it doesn't get much focus. WB/DC struggles with keeping Superman relevant for the younger generation, so presenting him as a stiff adult who hurts the feelings of the kid the audience connects with is going to make him look like the bad guy

Seconding this. This pretty much sums up what I was trying to say.

[Frontier]

They wrote him as supportive of his young cousin. Nothing more.

Initially, yeah, but I think over time most of Hoechlin's appearances would be more about him praising Kara and putting himself down than just being generally supportive. The Superman and Lois Reddit had a full montage of it.

Clark also can't help it if he feels violated and uncomfortable around Connor because of how the latter was created. Anyone would react this way. Bruce, Lois, Jonathan and Martha aren't really in a position to judge because it wasn't their DNA that was abused. I'm fairly certain their reactions to being cloned without their consent would be very similar to Clark's.

Well, Bruce took learning about Damian pretty well in the comics. Not cloning, but a conception he was technically (per Morrison) drugged into.

I think there's a difference in how they would react to what happened and how they would treat the person the were cloned from.

I disagree. And frankly, I don't think Clark was doing the wrong thing by not treating Connor as his son. For one thing, Connor isn't Clark's son no matter how much people insist he is. And remember that for most of Connor's comic history, he and Clark wanted nothing to do with each other. YJ Clark also left Connor in the care of Red Tornado and Black Canary which certainly beats leaving a money grabbing agent in charge of Connor's car like in the comics.

I don't think the issue was not seeing him as a son but barely having anything to do with Conner (from Conner's perspective) while Conner wanted to get to know him better.

Which, again, was developed better in the tie-in comic than the show.

Well they did show the beginnings of it in the season 1 finale. Perhaps they could have shown more of it but it didn't just come out of nowhere.

Like the tie-in comic.

The whole Batman= Real Persona and Bruce Wayne= Fake narrative undermined Batman as a character and a lot of fan + writers don't realize this.

I think a lot of people forget the whole Batman = real and Bruce Wayne = Fake comes from an era where they did a whole storyline about how problematic that is (Murder/Fugitive) and it was brought on by a lot of emotional and physical trauma from Jason's death and onwards.

Well, even if did not didn't have to pay to get the training there's also that he's financially well off enough that he could afford to take however many years of training.

Well, it's not like he was running Wayne Enterprises or had a firm job at the time. Or it was something he was really thinking about, because Bruce only sees his wealth as something to use to fight crime or help people.

Well, it is a Supergirl show right?

Yeah, but I don't think they have to get egregious with using Clark to prop up Kara.

[Agent Z]

I mean, of course, kids don't complain about it, this is their introduction to the character. This is what is going to colour their perception of the character and for most this is how they are going to see the character for the rest of their lives probably.

I accepted DCAU versions of Wonder Woman, Shade, Cheetah and Sinestro when I first watched them because I had no other reference point for those characters but now that I know more about those characters, I can see how they could have been done better and in which areas those versions fell short. I feel the same way about YJ version of Wally West.

Now fans having trouble accepting different versions of the characters...again, it largely come down to preference and first impressions.

Seige's argument is that this portrayal in YJ would potentially turn people against Superman.

I do think that older fans have this subconscious fear that newer fans will see what they deem as the 'wrong' versions of the character and that's how the characters will be defined forever. The fear is warranted hence why you have 'Hank Pym wife beater' or Scarlet Witch being forever defined by HoM'.

I don't think YJ Superman is remotely as bad these.

[TheRay]

DC can do as many reboots as it wants, but with the caveat that it continues to set stories in the universe it's leaving behind. If only every so often.

[Agent Z]

Initially, yeah, but I think over time most of Hoechlin's appearances would be more about him praising Kara and putting himself down than just being generally supportive. The Superman and Lois Reddit had a full montage of it.

I would be very careful about taking reddit opinions seriously.

Well, Bruce took learning about Damian pretty well in the comics. Not cloning, but a conception he was technically (per Morrison) drugged into.

Comic Bruce did. Show Bruce may be another story.

[SiegePerilous02]

Seige's argument is that this portrayal in YJ would potentially turn people against Superman.

I didn't say it would turn people against him. More that it wouldn't do much to endear people to him in the first place.

Younger audiences aren't complaining about the portrayal, but how many of them are really excited about him in the show? He's just a recurring guest and I doubt any of them care one way or the other about Clark's perspective the way you lay it out. To them he's probably just a jerk to Superboy until he's not, and they move on.

[Frontier]

I would be very careful about taking reddit opinions seriously.

It wasn't really an opinion so much as a collage of Hoechlin scenes in Supergirl.

Comic Bruce did. Show Bruce may be another story.

Well, it sets a precedent.

[TheRay]

I don't think having time pass normally would really play out as well as some might think.

[Restingvoice]

Initially, yeah, but I think over time most of Hoechlin's appearances would be more about him praising Kara and putting himself down than just being generally supportive. The Superman and Lois Reddit had a full montage of it.

Well, Bruce took learning about Damian pretty well in the comics. Not cloning, but a conception he was technically (per Morrison) drugged into.

I think Bruce can take the reveal well because he's trained in emotional self-control while Clark is more in the physical self control