It deserves 1st because the way it went about was obviously contrived and so out of nowhere. The entire handling of backpedaling has been handled in such an unprofessional, misguided by bias preferences way. Throw away development actually building and being shown in an organic way to stuff happening off panel/screen and again with the, this is how it should be mentality is just tacky. And let’s not forget, even with it being successful, the idea was still to mess things up and backpedal just because can’t get too far out of the safe zone.
Bold: We’ve discussed this before and I’ve said it before. There are many factors shadowing this mindset of with all of this fear, prejudice and xenophobia. This idea of “being grounded, human” and the “American Way” thing is so far outdated with its ideals and the message it sends. We are in a time that more people are unapologetically celebrating their culture, their beliefs and having confidence within themselves not worrying about fitting in and being accepted by a society who thinks they are superior. With Superman going backwards with this idea that his “otherness” is a burden and wants to psych himself out as just “human” who happens to have powers...but not just that, it goes so far as to push the idea of privileged passing.
Superman/Kal-El/Clark is an Alien of another planet. Period. Wonder Woman/Diana is an Amazon (still of earth) but of a mythical island.
Refugee and Immigrant. Foreigners. No matter how you slice it, that’s what it is. That’s part of what makes them the complexed characters they are and should be. To water that down to be accepted by one society and believe that’s how to connect and resonate with the audience shows how out of touch some are.