So James Gunn's next movie is "Superman as a horror story"

[DochaDocha]

Dude, nobody accept for some atom bomb fallout victims and relatives to the victim on the planet has suffered, what clark has suffered. It only took dead parents to make Bruce into batman. There is a huge gap in the what kind of trauma they suffered.

I made this argument either in this thread or another, but I think in comic book settings, what Superman underwent is not the most extreme mental anguish a person went through. But more to the point, not being able to overcome is a non-Superman trait, unless you don't like Superman and don't care how the character is portrayed (like apparently NRS feels). IMO, of course. But to NRS' credit, they certainly weren't the ones who started this. Superman in the animated series needed far less to become a totalitarian jerk; he just needed Lois to die, and when he saw her again, he was redeemed/redeemable.

[manwhohaseverything]

I made this argument either in this thread or another, but I think in comic book settings, what Superman underwent is not the most extreme mental anguish a person went through. But more to the point, not being able to overcome is a non-Superman trait, unless you don't like Superman and don't care how the character is portrayed (like apparently NRS feels). IMO, of course. But to NRS' credit, they certainly weren't the ones who started this. Superman in the animated series needed far less to become a totalitarian jerk; he just needed Lois to die, and when he saw her again, he was redeemed/redeemable.

What is maximum a man like Clark has to suffer in a comic book setting to undergo a breakdown ?

That is different and bad characterisation since tas superman is supposed to be a hero of the story.and the objective of storyteller is to make tassuperman admirable, likeable and relatable .

The overcoming adversity and dilemma thing is a typical hero attribute not exclusive to Superman. Unless ofcourse you are writing a tragedy.And villains are supposed to not overcome by definition. They are failed products become obstacles for a hero.
I don't care how Clark is portrayed as long as it is good.
If he is villain, he is needs to be a good villain.
If he is hero, he needs to be Good hero.
If he is an anti hero, he need to be good at that too.
But I get the need to Superman the symbol of heroics, heroic.

[DochaDocha]

I think one commonality of these heroes is that they are down, but not out. Joker starts Injustice Superman in a downward spiral that gains more and more momentum and never slows down. I think that's unfortunate.

Bend, not break.

[manwhohaseverything]

Bend, not break.

So heroic Clark can't have mental breakdowns. Well that would be to restricting for a writer.aftermaths of Mental breakdowns can be written in a way that seems heroic too. Look at batman.
I think you are mixing mental strength with moral fortitude. But mental health of a person can affect his moral decision. So it is natural I guess.Clark in the Injustice is a victim of this. And he was mostly alone to help deal with it. His moral agency is severely constricted that makes him a good villain and ofcourse the power and relation with the hero.
I believe The only difference would be that heroic Clark and villainess Clark should be moral fortitude even with breakdown. I believe A heroic clark would surround himself with people that can help before his health creeps into his moral decision.and even if it does, Heroic clark should be written in a way that he seeks redemption, restarts doing " the right thing" after realising his mistakes.

[JAK]

Joss Whedon added to Superman vs Justice League fight with "Do you bleed?". Me and some other people figured out that Lois' "You smell good" was dubbed over Amy Adams, because what her lips actually say in that moment after Clark says "This is home" she responds with "You spoke" and he asks "Did I not before?". Meaning that until they arrived to Kent farm Superman wasn't talking at all in Snyder Cut.

As for Knightmare sequence there are two important things:
1. That was the future that had to be prevented. So the actual timeline of DCEU wouldn't come to dark Superman.
2. Superman wasn't dark on his own will and choices like in Injustass, he was manipulated by Anti-Life Equation that Darkseid used on him as Zack Snyder explained in the comments of Vero. Superman that is forced to be evil against his own will is a much better concept that Brightburn or anything else that twists the concept.

My problem with them teasing this at all is that audiences will see that and it'll feed into this growing narrative that "mainstream" Clark would go off the rails without Lois. Snyder can have all the nuance he wants/thinks he's properly adding, just as Miller did in TDK, and neither WB/DC nor half the public will even pay attention beyond "Superman one step from bad, Batman good" and their brains will shut off from there. That's a trope that didn't need helping along (technically two tropes, now that I think about it...).

[DochaDocha]

So heroic Clark can't have mental breakdowns. Well that would be to restricting for a writer.aftermaths of Mental breakdowns can be written in a way that seems heroic too. Look at batman.
I think you are mixing mental strength with moral fortitude. But mental health of a person can affect his moral decision. So it is natural I guess.Clark in the Injustice is a victim of this. And he was mostly alone to help deal with it. His moral agency is severely constricted that makes him a good villain and ofcourse the power and relation with the hero.
I believe The only difference would be that heroic Clark and villainess Clark should be moral fortitude even with breakdown. I believe A heroic clark would surround himself with people that can help before his health creeps into his moral decision.and even if it does, Heroic clark should be written in a way that he seeks redemption, restarts doing " the right thing" after realising his mistakes.

It's clear we don't agree what "bend but not break" means. To me, it means the hero can struggle, can come close to hitting rock bottom, but in the end he rebounds and overcomes his troubles. "Injustice," or at least the story I've been exposed to in reading some of the comics, playing the first game, and watching the sequel's story mode, is clearly a story about a Superman who breaks. He stops being a heroic guy. He is clearly the villain of the story. Perhaps the comics are better about this, but the games have almost no nuance to it. It is clearly Superman = bad. Sorry to invoke "not my Superman," but they make him such an irredeemable and emotionally fragile, the Joker-esque hero of the Justice League who's really one bad day away from becoming the villain. You ask me, it says Superman has just as much potential to be a bad person as he does to be good. There's a huge chasm of a difference separating Superman as a guy who can have a "mental breakdown," as you call it, and a guy who can completely lose his s**t. "Injustice" is not an exploration of the character, it's changing the character to suit a premise, and I reject it. To each his own.

[Agent Z]

My problem with them teasing this at all is that audiences will see that and it'll feed into this growing narrative that "mainstream" Clark would go off the rails without Lois. Snyder can have all the nuance he wants/thinks he's properly adding, just as Miller did in TDK, and neither WB/DC nor half the public will even pay attention beyond "Superman one step from bad, Batman good" and their brains will shut off from there. That's a trope that didn't need helping along (technically two tropes, now that I think about it...).

I'd say that's the fault of the audience and execs not the directors and writers.

Especially when there is other stuff to point out it is no way near that simplistic.

[manwhohaseverything]

It's clear we don't agree what "bend but not break" means. To me, it means the hero can struggle, can come close to hitting rock bottom, but in the end he rebounds and overcomes his troubles. "Injustice," or at least the story I've been exposed to in reading some of the comics, playing the first game, and watching the sequel's story mode, is clearly a story about a Superman who breaks. He stops being a heroic guy. He is clearly the villain of the story. Perhaps the comics are better about this, but the games have almost no nuance to it. It is clearly Superman = bad. Sorry to invoke "not my Superman," but they make him such an irredeemable and emotionally fragile, the Joker-esque hero of the Justice League who's really one bad day away from becoming the villain. You ask me, it says Superman has just as much potential to be a bad person as he does to be good. There's a huge chasm of a difference separating Superman as a guy who can have a "mental breakdown," as you call it, and a guy who can completely lose his s**t. "Injustice" is not an exploration of the character, it's changing the character to suit a premise, and I reject it. To each his own.

If you ask me, anyone can "lose his s××t" after what Clark went through.becoming the cause of the explosion of your world a 2nd time, is a pretty damn good motivation. Joker's "one bad day" thing has some truth to it.you can't just throw the whole concept into a trashcan. And it was outright stated multiple times in the game that Clark is ill and needs time to atleast grieve. So, expecting rational let alone a moral action from him would be unwise .you can reject it, that is your wish. But, I am just sick people trivialising the characters loss and just shitting on the character. I feel like the character is good enough villain with great motivation. People don't make the same amount of fuss for ultraman. And as villain I don't care for ultraman.
"Your superman" did showup to kick injusticeman's ass. Superman is still symbol of heroism. It is just that, Injustice man is not that hero.
I like or want supermen of different shades. So I like Injusticeman.

[DochaDocha]

How much time passes between the Metropolis tragedy and the end of the first game? The second game? Another area where I lose any sort of sympathy to Injustice Superman is that his descent into villainy is pure escalation. I got the feeling that time passed, and the whole "time heals all wounds" has no application to the character. I get that the comic probably tried to make you feel a bit for Superman (I never felt it succeeded at this...), but the game pretty much treats him as a lost cause after the trailer. Compare that to something like Batman's situation in Mask of the Phantasm. We all know he's super driven to fight crime and injustice, but at some point he confesses at the grave at it "doesn't hurt so bad anymore." Animated Batman gets to have conflicting emotions at times. Injustice Superman is one-track, all the time.

As for "our" Superman saving the day in the first game, of course there's something gratifying about it, but "our" Superman feels a bit more like a plot device than a fully-fledged character. Whereas the Justice Lords story from the cartoon (I think this story arc is pretty overrated, but that's neither here nor there...) juxtaposes the POV's of the two Supermen, Injustice really just has "our" Supes as a the deus ex machina at the end. So, it loses a bit of the satisfactory feel of seeing him save the day, because he really is a 2D character whose motivations are mostly defined through all the other heroic characters' struggles.

[manwhohaseverything]

How much time passes between the Metropolis tragedy and the end of the first game? The second game? Another area where I lose any sort of sympathy to Injustice Superman is that his descent into villainy is pure escalation. I got the feeling that time passed, and the whole "time heals all wounds" has no application to the character. I get that the comic probably tried to make you feel a bit for Superman (I never felt it succeeded at this...), but the game pretty much treats him as a lost cause after the trailer. Compare that to something like Batman's situation in Mask of the Phantasm. We all know he's super driven to fight crime and injustice, but at some point he confesses at the grave at it "doesn't hurt so bad anymore." Animated Batman gets to have conflicting emotions at times. Injustice Superman is one-track, all the time.

That is because batman is the protagonist in the phantasm movie. Here, Injustice man is not Bruce is. Story is there to accentuate Bruce not Clark.the Injusticeman feels like a lost cause because Bruce himself thinks that on some level. Injustice Bruce did not want to bring the heroic Clark. And time has no bearing on someone's mental health. Some issues go away with time, some gets worse especially without proper care.
Anyways, I feel the only reason people are mad at injustice man existence is because they feel it affects superman 's reputation. Sort of like, f**King up timeline has been for Barry. I think people, maybe even you would have been okay, if he was introduced not in a game but a comic maybe as the ultraman.

[DochaDocha]

That is because batman is the protagonist in the phantasm movie. Here, Injustice man is not Bruce is. Story is there to accentuate Bruce not Clark.the Injusticeman feels like a lost cause because Bruce himself thinks that on some level. Injustice Bruce did not want to bring the heroic Clark. And time has no bearing on someone's mental health. Some issues go away with time, some gets worse especially without proper care.
Anyways, I feel the only reason people are mad at injustice man existence is because they feel it affects superman 's reputation. Sort of like, f**King up timeline has been for Barry. I think people, maybe even you would have been okay, if he was introduced not in a game but a comic maybe as the ultraman.

"Time has no bearing on someone's mental health"? I severely question that. And you just said in your previous post that part of the issue was that Superman needed time to grieve.

And just because Superman isn't the main character of Injustice doesn't mean you can just skimp on character development. Doing so makes him an MCU villain, who largely are unpopular among fans.

EDIT: I'd be lying if I said I wasn't annoyed that the story drags Superman through the mud, but as many have already stated,

1) There've been quite a few of these Evil Superman stories in Superman's relatively recent history
2) It contains a lot of themes in common with other stories
3) I think those common themes were done better in other stories
4) I think it's overly simplistic of an Evil Superman story that wasn't really written by guys who like or care about Superman, and doesn't really go into an interesting character path other than bad thing happens > Superman now bad. If you're going to make Superman a villain, at least make it more interesting like Breaking Bad or The Godfather. YMMV
5) I make no apology for wanting new, exciting Superman stories in other media that capture the best qualities of the character, instead of the many times they focus on making him flawed or being incapable

[JAK]

I'd say that's the fault of the audience and execs not the directors and writers.

Especially when there is other stuff to point out it is no way near that simplistic.

We can point fingers and shift blame all we want, but we're *still* feeling the damage that TDK did as a fan community. Hell, a story about Superman renouncing his citizenship made national headlines and he *still* gets crap about being a "yes man" to the US government. I don't want Superman anywhere within sniffing distance of another problem like that, and this has all the potential earmarkings of it. The next movie writer/director that wants to tease an idea about Superman turning evil should be barred from the entire studio, imo.

Not to mention that Superman's own parent company (through the superficial way they often publicize or talk about TDK) have proven themselves to possess the same nuance retention as the average YouTube commenter. That's scary.

[manwhohaseverything]

"Time has no bearing on someone's mental health"? I severely question that. And you just said in your previous post that part of the issue was that Superman needed time to grieve.

I mean that some mental issues don't go away, just because huge amount of time has gone by.some need to taken care of actively, in order for any change and result to happen. You can't just wait it out. Some issue get worse, especially when u have added stress of being an important person. I said "atleast grieve" that is the minimum and a start. His issues won't go away by that(atleast realistically). He has been portrayed as this guy on the mission. Maybe to avoid grieving and push back the feelings.
I know there are other if not evil maybe grey portrayals of supermen his archetype like overman, red son, irredeemable.. Etc I have read some of them.i like some of them. But injusticeman hit a lot closer to home,atleast to me. But there are worse portrayals of evil supermen than injusticeman. So ripping into a potentially decent to great villain character is not warranted. I don't think the injustice franchise is over. So injusticeman has time to develop.
Injusticeman hit a lot closer to me than others. Because his drive felt a lot more personal to clark, than the others.

ON 5) We can agree on.i want that too. But superman has' nt had an outstanding outside media representation in a long time before injustice man.injusticeman is not to be blamed for that. Even anime's are using superman archetype in a better ways, so that the characters based on the same becomes more popular.

[Flash Gordon]

Superman can be tested, be put through the ringer, but he's still Superman.

That's kinda the entire point of him, he overcomes. No matter how long it takes or what he needs to do, he will overcome or die in the conquest. There is no other path for him.

As for the movie, not a fan of James Gunn.

[Lokimaru]

Technically, it looks good. Judged on it's own merits, it may be very good. But I cannot deny my visceral reaction which was: J***s H C****t, we've had grey leather suit with lousy father depressing Superman and even more depressing Superman with Batman. Here's a crazy idea. Do a Superman movie that actually embraces what Superman is. Then do depressing versions and horror versions but first give us an actual Superman movie.

Considering that Superman is just a guy trying to do the right thing HOW is Man of Steel not that? Jor-El wanted Clark to experience what it was like to be Human first right? Well being Human Sucks, especially if your different. And being a Superhero would Suck too.
Be nothing but this all the time


But Superman does it cause He chooses to do it not cause it's some bullshit calling or something. He doesn't have to help people but he does. And people still give him ****. That's the reality of Snyder's Superman. He gave you a Superman and YOU said Not good enough. And that's what it would be like for Superman IF he were real. No matter HOW good he was he would never be good enough because people SUCK.