Being to powerful is actually detrimental to a heroes storytelling potential.

[Menacer]

Exactly!

In a finite story, a writer can do that with a superhero.

Comics are not finite stories!



This is the nature of the beast.

These are serialized characters. Yes Spider-Man and Green Goblin will fight again. This will be new to someone just beginning in comics...like we all did once a long time ago. Yes, death is not permanent; so, don't waste our time with it.

New villains are the life blood of comic books; they keep the heroes interesting. Batman and Spider-Man are easier to challenge because their power levels are more 'manageable'.

Ive never understood the logic cause characters are rebooted or brought back that death lacks impact..


Thats utter bullshit.

Tim burtons films killed both joker and penguin... penguin in particular was extremely tragic and sad death in Batman Returns...

Just cause nolan rebooted joker in tdk or the batman is rebooting penguin with colin Farrell takes absolutely nothing away from the tragic deaths in previous films...

Frankly comic books are no different then movies. You read the mini or the arc in a run, characters die. It does matter. Just cause a future writer reuses the character takes nothing away imo...

Like what a silly perspective that cause xyz villian was killed in 1966, suddenly it cheapens the death in 89...

Read a book or watch a film for that experience..
Dont apply unrelated materials...

Dc reboots the comics so new stories can be told with the same characters... doesnt change the fact that 92 superman is very different then new52 superman, or 1940s superman, or modern day bendis superman.

[SiegePerilous02]

Ive never understood the logic cause characters are rebooted or brought back that death lacks impact..


Thats utter bullshit.

Tim burtons films killed both joker and penguin... penguin in particular was extremely tragic and sad death in Batman Returns...

Just cause nolan rebooted joker in tdk or the batman is rebooting penguin with colin Farrell takes absolutely nothing away from the tragic deaths in previous films...

Frankly comic books are no different then movies. You read the mini or the arc in a run, characters die. It does matter. Just cause a future writer reuses the character takes nothing away imo...

Like what a silly perspective that cause xyz villian was killed in 1966, suddenly it cheapens the death in 89...

Read a book or watch a film for that experience..
Dont apply unrelated materials...

Dc reboots the comics so new stories can be told with the same characters... doesnt change the fact that 92 superman is very different then new52 superman, or 1940s superman, or modern day bendis superman.

The key difference about the movie reboots are the fact that the different film series take place in different continuities. Death loses its impact a bit when it's not permanent in one continuity.

This doesn't bother me too much personally, but the "one serialized story designed to go on forever" stuff has its limitations or periodic slumps because there isn't a finite ending in general. It's one of several factors for why true creativity isn't a constant thing in mainstream superhero comics and why regurgitation is more the norm, regardless of what scale of power we're operating at.

I think more self contained/finite stories that don't have to be part of the main continuity would be beneficial for a lot of these IPs, not less. The mainstream continuity shared universe seems more a source of frustration than any enjoyment now.

[Menacer]

The key difference about the movie reboots are the fact that the different film series take place in different continuities. Death loses its impact a bit when it's not permanent in one continuity.

This doesn't bother me too much personally, but the "one serialized story designed to go on forever" stuff has its limitations or periodic slumps because there isn't a finite ending in general. It's one of several factors for why true creativity isn't a constant thing in mainstream superhero comics and why regurgitation is more the norm, regardless of what scale of power we're operating at.

I think more self contained/finite stories that don't have to be part of the main continuity would be beneficial for a lot of these IPs, not less. The mainstream continuity shared universe seems more a source of frustration than any enjoyment now.

I do hear what your saying... but

Batman 89, Batman Returns, Batman Forever and Batman & Robin are all technically the same continuity.

If you can't seperate creativity teams, or the various soft boots, hardboots, recons... well then you enjoy entertainment very very very very differently then me.

Once the creative team changes its a soft reboot.

I mean shit batman forever and b&r is the same director and while they have obvious comparisons.... they are also obviously very different in tone..

Seriously the movies are no different then the books... its just apparently some fans get hyper nerdist and enforce a very false view of how this stuff should be viewed and enjoyed.


But hey thats just my opinion. Each to their own.

[Agent Z]

I do hear what your saying... but

Batman 89, Batman Returns, Batman Forever and Batman & Robin are all technically the same continuity.

And none of the deaths that occurred in those films (with maybe the exception of Catwoman) was reversed. They also had planned beginnings and endings unlike the comics.

[scribbleMind]

Read Dan Slott's Silver Surfer run and see how it's done.

[Menacer]

And none of the deaths that occurred in those films (with maybe the exception of Catwoman) was reversed. They also had planned beginnings and endings unlike the comics.

Comics consistantly have story breaks. Are you seriously telling me comics dont have beginning middle and ends?

You can read Darkseid War Saga and feel very satisfied...

I can open any of my comics and see storyname part 1, storyname part 2, and storyname part 3... with in a volume.

The 3 part story will end and a seperate story will continue... then the volume will end and when you pick up volume 2 sure it picks up stories from the last volume, but you still get complete stories within the trade.

Also I specifically said b89, br, bf and bnr were soft reboots...

A hard reboot would be that universe to nolans..


Dont you read the events where universes and multiverse collided and nothing is ever the same... and guess what thats when characters come back...

And frankly now we have letos joker existing while Joaquins joker exists somewhere else...

Honestly you wanna live in some nerdist facist delusion your welcome to it but 80 years of comics is gonna have loads of creative team changes, which are reboots, even if just soft... call it whatever you like but whether its a movie or a comic creative teams can loosely reference past stories....

You dont seriously read comics expecting the last 40 years to be totally congruent?

Even Tolken made big continuity changes between his 3 lord of the rings books. And thats all one writer and one series.

[Agent Z]

Comics consistantly have story breaks. Are you seriously telling me comics dont have beginning middle and ends?

Not ones by the Big 2, no. Unless, they're out of continuity anyway. Story breaks are not endings.

Dont you read the events where universes and multiverse collided and nothing is ever the same... and guess what thats when characters come back...

Was this you trying to prove my point?

And frankly now we have letos joker existing while Joaquins joker exists somewhere else...

What does this have to do with anything?

Honestly you wanna live in some nerdist facist delusion your welcome to it but 80 years of comics is gonna have loads of creative team changes, which are reboots, even if just soft... call it whatever you like but whether its a movie or a comic creative teams can loosely reference past stories....

I wasn't aware pointing out that superhero comics from DC don't have an ending was meant to be fascist. You learn so much on the Internet.

Also, "soft reboot" is a meaningless term. Either you reboot or you don't.

You dont seriously read comics expecting the last 40 years to be totally congruent?

Now I'm not sure if you're being deliberately obtuse.

[godisawesome]

I really think it comes down totally to how much the individual writer values external conflict, and how well they execute it... and that maybe the sometimes ignored secret about Superman and others isn’t about him being overpowered, but about some writers wanting to treat him almost exclusively as a power fantasy - where the external conflict would come second to simply trying to have the audience vicariously experience a thrill of being powerful through the character’s eyes.

Two moments that kind of stand out to me in regards to Superman, where one seemed to work for most audience members at the time, and the other got a mixed reception, would be Superman turning back time on Superman: The Movie, and that one issue of Scott Lobdell’s fill-in run where he had the cold open feature Superman drop asteroids on some cool-looking Rockafort designed villains because somehow Superman knew where everyone would stand from an almost mathematically impossible distance and speed.

Both are very much about feeding the power fantasy aspect - the S: TM moment is pretty clearly a kind of escalation and surpassing of the moment in the start of the film where even Superman couldn’t keep his father from dying of a heart attack - and both show why that sometimes doesn’t work for some people. If you want to see well-written external conflict, neither one of those story decisions really work with that.

I think this is also why DCAU Superman in S:TAS and other media versions of the character can sometimes have surprisingly loyal fans even when they’re decried for being underpowered or “breaking the rules” - those versions prioritize external conflict over the power fantasy aspect. I mean, it’s not so much that S:TAS Superman is super impressive in terms of power, but that his Metallo, Parasite, Lex Luthor, and Brianiac were genuinely threatening villains that allowed the conflict of each episode to be engaging.

I think you can see this is Batman as well, especially when reviewing something like Tom King’s Batman run - while Morrison and Snyder shared King’s love for the power fantasy and internal conflict aspects of Batman, they both also liked good external conflict as well, and thus had more memorable and less aggravating usages of their villains and battle scenes. I mean, a lot of King’s work was suggesting that Batman was so far beyond everyone else that only his internal hang-ups caused him problems, and that the only way to really fight him was with soap opera drama, while Morrison introduced Dr. Hurt and Snyder the Court of Owls as villains who were supposed to be so dangerous they forced extraordinary tactics and strategies on Batman’s part - as both authors also did with their versions of Joker, as compared to King’ more philosophically aimed version.

I think this is also part of the reason why about a quarter the Silver Age seemed to have stories fixated on Superman coming up with some ultra-elaborate ruse to fool people who had figured out who he was; it wasn’t really about the drama of him losing his identity as much as giving some of the audience the buzz of imagining themselves as someone so clever and powerful that even their lies are bulletproof. But that’s also probably why the Silver Age saw so many Phantom Zone escapees and Kryptonite stories - other writers knew they had readers wanting external conflict-focused stories.

[Menacer]

Not ones by the Big 2, no. Unless, they're out of continuity anyway. Story breaks are not endings.

Sorry thats ludicrous... I have hundreds of trades. Any one of them can be read and you can get a fulfilled story with a beginning middle and end... just cause a book came before it or a writer is continuing the line doesn't mean a complete story doesn't exist.

You can read Teen Titans by Geoff Johns Book One and have never read any other teen titans books and get a satisfying story... the fact book two exists has no bearing on the complete story thats in book one...

Even a heavily historically laced story like new52 superman doomed can be read and a complete story can be told within the trade... doesn't matter that loads of stories came before it that influenced it.. or stories are written after...

Bvs builds enormously from mos... but enough information is in bvs. NO ONE has to watch mos to understand it... and no one has to watch jl to see that bvs is self contained... aren't those story breaks... and now joss jl will be retconned by Snyder jl... sounds same as comic world to me...

[Agent Z]

Sorry thats ludicrous... I have hundreds of trades. Any one of them can be read and you can get a fulfilled story with a beginning middle and end... just cause a book came before it or a writer is continuing the line doesn't mean a complete story doesn't exist.

You're just plain making up your own rules for what qualifies as a complete story to excuse comics. The stories by the Big 2 are not meant to end and in many, many cases do require having to read a previous one to understand what is going. Some of these require reading stories from decades ago. You're trying to act as if these are all small isolated stories instead of part of an ongoing continuity that has no sign of ending.

[Menacer]

You're just plain making up your own rules for what qualifies as a complete story to excuse comics. The stories by the Big 2 are not meant to end and in many, many cases do require having to read a previous one to understand what is going. Some of these require reading stories from decades ago. You're trying to act as if these are all small isolated stories instead of part of an ongoing continuity that has no sign of ending.

Ive never once read a book... and ive been reading steady for 5 years now....

Ive randomly bought books... in any line. And I've never once felt I didnt get a more or less complete story.... does the story want me to investigate past stories... yah of course... but your making it out to be way to complicated...

Many many many of the runs require no previous stories to enjoy, and even if a reference is made, its not a requirement to read. Your being way way way to complicationist..

Frankly many of the runs have little bearing on what happened ... sure some are more connected... but most cass some basic summory is mentioned...

I never read the story where superman was actually infected by doomsday... superman doomed only mentions that superman was infected in smallville... beyond that i know nothing... doesnt change that a complete satisfying story was told...


Your making it out that new readers are totally fucked and could never enter the continuity and if they did itll be 40 years before it can be said they completed a beginning middle and end story...

Sorry thats the dumbest thing ive ever heard...

The first book i bought 4ish or 5 years ago was Superman Wonder Womab Power Couple... i felt a great satisfying story was told... its actually because I felt a satisfying story was told that i even thought to buy more books
...

Then whoa I discovered what new 52 meant. Then whoa there was this flashpoint thing, then this, then that...

Yah these stories are all loosely connected... but if i cant pick up Justice League Darkseid War Saga, and feel like I read a complete story, then fuck reading...

Ive never read any of the other jl runs... and it doenst matter.

I got an awesome beginning middle and end story in Darkseid war. It doesnt matter that there is 30 years before kr 10 years after.

I got a full story in darkseid war...


#608–619 is the Hush storyline... sure 600 books come before and many come after... no one can say that isnt a beginning and ending storyline...

The whole idea of the trade is to offer a reader beginning and ending... this is at least in part why new dc books arent numbered. Reenforce that each book is its own self contained story... no need to worry that its book 7 of the 15th reboot by x writer...

if you cant wrap your brain around that then there is nothing i can say.

[Agent Z]

To the OP, I'd say that, with very few exceptions, what is or isn't an overpowered character can be very complicated. Even a scaled down Superman who hasn't been bumped down to Golden Age levels is extremely powerful. It probably doesn't help that superhero comics, compared to anime and manga, often throw an inconsistent mish-mash of villains at the heroes so a character will feel overpowered in one story and then feel like they forgot how their own powers work in another.

[Lee Stone]

I think it depends on the writer, the setting and the types of stories.

Sure, if it's a Superman character facing bank robbers every month. But then, the writer may not even be focusing on the WWE type conflicts. He/she may be focusing on the character's relationships or personal conflicts, which no powers could ever really solve.

And simply moving a character to a different setting makes a difference. Sherlock Holmes in the present would be totally different than in the Victorian Era where they didn't have computers, dna tests, facial recognition, internet and mobile phones.
His stories would lose a lot of their tension and mystery if done today. He would be something of a superhero today with modern technology available to him.
One of the reasons I liked Sandman Mystery Theatre wasn't really that Wesley was less powerful, it was that his setting was less technologically advanced. He had to work within a restrictive setting that to him didn't really seem restrictive because it was what was normal at the time.

Also consider Stan Lee's Silver Surfer, Doctor Strange and Thor, Jim Starlin's Warlock and Captain Marvel, George Perez's Wonder Woman, Alan Moore's Swamp Thing and Promethea, and Neil Gaiman's Sandman.
If these were all pitted against common bank robbers or had Super Friends type 'villain of the week' stories, that would've been something of a waste, considering what their writers did with them.

Also consider Firestorm, who was a very powerful character. He could transmute any non-organic object into another.
Conway made it work by layering that over a Peter Parker template where Ronnie's personal problems were just as important to him as saving the world. The supporting cast were just as crucial to the book as any villain.

So, I guess it would depend on the writer.
If a writer could take a powerful character and write them in a way that's entertaining, then maybe they did a really good job.

[SiegePerilous02]

I think this is also why DCAU Superman in S:TAS and other media versions of the character can sometimes have surprisingly loyal fans even when they’re decried for being underpowered or “breaking the rules” - those versions prioritize external conflict over the power fantasy aspect. I mean, it’s not so much that S:TAS Superman is super impressive in terms of power, but that his Metallo, Parasite, Lex Luthor, and Brianiac were genuinely threatening villains that allowed the conflict of each episode to be engaging..

I think the problem is that characters like Superman (or Supergirl, Wonder Woman or Captain Marvel) rely on a balance of genuine external conflict and power fantasy wish fulfillment to truly work. STAS being skewed more towards external conflict at the expense of other elements can lead to some solid stories with genuine threats, but it at times comes at the expense of making Superman cool and exciting. If he's just doing generic superhero things without the unique weird flavor that only characters like him can bring, what exactly is the point? it doesn't help that we have Bruce Timm describing him as being intrinsically less interesting than Batman and more old fashioned, to the point where we have kids in the show saying he's kind of corny and that Batman is cooler. The lack of a lot of internal conflict isn't helping either, as he's modeled after the post-Crisis version who dropped a lot of the character's quirks. It leaned into some harmful tropes at times that people think is good for Superman ("he's so charmingly old fashioned, and at times an endearing naive farm boy at heart!") but are actually bringing him down. So it's all (rather generic) external conflict, not much internal conflict and muted wish fulfillment to create something that is just "pretty good."

There's a reason why STAS is well regarded but not nearly as much as BTAS, and while Superman himself is considered "fine" but the real popular takeaways from the show are Lois, Lex, Brainic, Mxy and even Kara over him. or the Fourth World stuff, which isn't even part of his franchise.

[godisawesome]

I think the problem is that characters like Superman (or Supergirl, Wonder Woman or Captain Marvel) rely on a balance of genuine external conflict and power fantasy wish fulfillment to truly work. STAS being skewed more towards external conflict at the expense of other elements can lead to some solid stories with genuine threats, but it at times comes at the expense of making Superman cool and exciting. If he's just doing generic superhero things without the unique weird flavor that only characters like him can bring, what exactly is the point? it doesn't help that we have Bruce Timm describing him as being intrinsically less interesting than Batman and more old fashioned, to the point where we have kids in the show saying he's kind of corny and that Batman is cooler. The lack of a lot of internal conflict isn't helping either, as he's modeled after the post-Crisis version who dropped a lot of the character's quirks. It leaned into some harmful tropes at times that people think is good for Superman ("he's so charmingly old fashioned, and at times an endearing naive farm boy at heart!") but are actually bringing him down. So it's all (rather generic) external conflict, not much internal conflict and muted wish fulfillment to create something that is just "pretty good."

There's a reason why STAS is well regarded but not nearly as much as BTAS, and while Superman himself is considered "fine" but the real popular takeaways from the show are Lois, Lex, Brainic, Mxy and even Kara over him. or the Fourth World stuff, which isn't even part of his franchise.

Agreed.

...Though this might also explain why a bunch of the S:TAS and Post-Crisis-style Superman fans are also found among the “Clark Kent is the real personality” arguments; they, like me, want to have the Clark Kent side be the more complicated and complex one, and let the Superman side have to deal with the zany adventures that go beyond “generic super-heroing.”

But part of that, I’d say is how rarely any creator has managed to successfully make the Clark side both grounded and complex, so that the power fantasy element of the Superman story has you engaged with the character as a human being (character-wise, I mean.)

One of the best S:TAS episodes had Clark figure out an innocent man was wrongfully sentenced to die, but mouth off at Lois enough to alert the corrupt cop and have to play dead when his car blew up... and part of its secret was the fact that letting Tim Daly narrate a more fallible Clark’s POV of the story and deal with the stress of losing his life actually made it a very good human story that was still a power fantasy, given how easily Superman wins the day when Lois gets the necessary evidence. But that was maybe the best use they made of the character across the entire DCAU.

What do you think about my theory the same “power fantasy vs external conflict” argument applies to something like Tom King’s run on Batman, though?

I think you can pinpoint two moments as really just striking early blows to the book’s readership, well before the City of Bane and Thomas Wayne’s return: the reveal in The War of Jokes and Riddles” that Batman big dark secret was having one of his homicidal rage moments and Joker preventing it from killing Riddler, and how the Wedding story ended with the very soap opera-style ending of someone saying the wrong thing to Selina to break Bruce’s heart as part of Bane’s “master plan.”

Both, I think, occur in stories where the external conflict is weaker, the character of Batman is more casually accepted as unbeatable in most situations, and where the dramatic tension is largely located somewhere else... and I think that’s a bit like some of the more power fantasy storylines for Superman.

...Though ma6be a better way to out it is this - the more you focus on power fantasy stories for the external conflict, the more you’re going to depend on writing a personal story about the main character, and sometimes the more personal POVs of Superman, Batman, and others can alienate people if they aren’t necessarily the best? I mean... I found the personality of Lobdell’s Superman rubbed me the wrong way, and felt similarly about the more “charlatan” version of Clark from the Silver Age and Reeves movies, as well as King’s Batman.