Has Superman ever been portrayed properly on screen?

[Venomous Mask]

You must lead an exciting life.

You wouldn't even know, brah.

[t hedge coke]

Lois has a large role in Superman's story, but the story doesn't revolve around her.

Do you feel that stories in the Lois solo title also didn't portray Superman properly?

Or, when he doesn't put on the cape for a story? Teams up with Batman or Bibbo or whoever?

[Jon Clark]

Do you feel that stories in the Lois solo title also didn't portray Superman properly?

Or, when he doesn't put on the cape for a story? Teams up with Batman or Bibbo or whoever?

Superman in Lois' solo title is a major part of the Superdickery concept (not that there weren't examples in dozens of other Silver-Age stories/titles). Since Superdickery and my idea of a proper Superman are total opposites ....

Also depending on how Superman is worked into the plot of the team-up he may or may not be accurate. Superman and Batman, for example, each handle major threats each month without each other's help. So a team-up that shows a "regular" adventure where Batman requires Superman to rescue him constantly or where Superman is intellectually stymied every few minutes until Batman explains things are probably not presenting accurate versions of the two. That's not to say that Batman can't be aided by Superman's powers or that Batman might not be a bit faster seeing the pattern of a crime spree (especially if a Bat-foe is the criminal). The basic question for a team-up is "if the same scenario happened in the character's solo stories would they be any less effective".

[UltraWoman]

Surprisingly, if compared to the comics of the time is a factor at all, L&C might be the most faithful Superman adaptation of all-time. Think about it:

• Both had an emphasis of Clark-first.
• Both had Clark as suave & successful.
• Both had the Kents alive, with weekly trips home for pie & advice.
• Both had Lois who was on top (with a chip on her shoulder) in a world usually dominated by men.
• Both had Superman's first appearance saving a "space plane" (with Lois on board!)
• Both featured a depowered Superman.
• Both had billionaire Lex Luthor.
• Both had a huge 'S' & huge cape.
• Both had Lois falling in love with Clark before discovering he's Superman (after getting over Superman himself).
• Both had an emphasis on "no Kryptonians but Superman" (until season 3, when the show was already out of ideas)
• Both had a wedding between the two (same week, in fact)
• Both had subplots of clones (frog clones on tv, Lex clone in thd comics)
• And if we're being picky, both shared the same ultimate fate of not getting a proper conclusion.
• I'm sure there are more.

Of course, not of that means it was good, or that it was bad, and nobody has to like or dislike it; but it was pretty damn faithful at the time. I'd say the biggest difference came in the villains, but that can probably be chalked up to lack of budget & an emphasis on bad guys that Lois & Clark could mostly put away with reporting, and minimal help from Superman.


Edit: There were differences, too, lots of them. But when comparing live action Superman to the comics of that time, I think L&C wins. This is in no way meant to devalue other interpretations, as I've enjoyed them all (I haven't seen Alyn's serial, though).

I think that's a pretty fair argument in favor of a live action Clark/Superman (of that time) best representing that Superman (of that time). I kind of thought the Fleischer shorts were pretty close to the version of the time, as well.

[t hedge coke]

Superman in Lois' solo title is a major part of the Superdickery concept (not that there weren't examples in dozens of other Silver-Age stories/titles). Since Superdickery and my idea of a proper Superman are total opposites ....

Other than the very early years, that's not really true. It's much more a product of straight up Superman stories, not really something Cary Bates, Dorothy Woolfolk, or the other Lois regulars indulged in. You were more likely to see Superman wishing he could give Lois permanent super powers so he could comfortably marry her, or feeling slighted that she was considering another man, than you were a prank to avoid marrying her. Or, they'd team up and pretend to marry to catch a ring of assassins.

Superman's solo adventures from the Weisinger Era always seemed much more frequently misogynistic and paranoid to me.

Very agreed on superdickery, though, for the most part.

[Jim Kelly]

You young people and your modern lingo.

I can't write in your idiom (my mother would wash my mouth out with soap), so I'm not gonna even try. The characters in the classic stories were all working for the machinery of the plot. Makes me think of this classic comedy sequence from YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS.



I haven't gone through every classic Superman story (including all the Superman family comics) to count how many times Superman/Superboy was manipulated by others vs Superman/Superboy manipulating others. I'd guess it's an even split between the two options.

Lois in her own book could be manipulated by others (including Superman), but she was just as likely to pull her own scheme to get others to do what she wanted.

As for LOIS AND CLARK: THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, I agree that was in the spirit of the comics at the time. It got me more interested in reading the new comics than I had been prior to the TV show. The two main actors were both good. I also liked the supporting cast on the show. It went off the rails primarily because of bad writing, especially in what turned out to be the final season.

[Jon Clark]

Other than the very early years, that's not really true. It's much more a product of straight up Superman stories, not really something Cary Bates, Dorothy Woolfolk, or the other Lois regulars indulged in. You were more likely to see Superman wishing he could give Lois permanent super powers so he could comfortably marry her, or feeling slighted that she was considering another man, than you were a prank to avoid marrying her. Or, they'd team up and pretend to marry to catch a ring of assassins.

Superman's solo adventures from the Weisinger Era always seemed much more frequently misogynistic and paranoid to me.

Very agreed on superdickery, though, for the most part.

Well, most of my exposure to Lois' solo comic were reprints of the early stories. New Hero X appears and Lois falls for him until a plot twist sends her back to Superman. Jimmy/Superman pretends to reveal Superman's Secret ID to Lois as a way to show Superman how trustworthy Lois could be, it backfires. Few of these stories show Superman as a complete character and the few that make him more than a supporting character to Lois make Superman seem less than noble. It's likely I just haven't run across the type of stories you describe (or that if I did we somehow took away different impressions of the characters).

[The Darknight Detective]

Well, most of my exposure to Lois' solo comic were reprints of the early stories. New Hero X appears and Lois falls for him until a plot twist sends her back to Superman. Jimmy/Superman pretends to reveal Superman's Secret ID to Lois as a way to show Superman how trustworthy Lois could be, it backfires. Few of these stories show Superman as a complete character and the few that make him more than a supporting character to Lois make Superman seem less than noble. It's likely I just haven't run across the type of stories you describe (or that if I did we somehow took away different impressions of the characters).

That's Silver Age Lois, though. Bronze Age Lois was different.

[Jim Kelly]

Superman did seem a little different when he appeared in other people's stories than when he starred in his own--back when I was reading comics in the '60s. At the time, I explained this to myself as the BONANZA effect. On BONANZA, the point of view of the show could change from week to week depending which character was the lead and who were the supporting cast.

That's actually an interesting effect (a similar thing happens in the movie ROSHOMON). I thought it curious that Clark Kent or Superman could be almost invisible in a Lois Lane story. If I had ever got to write comic books, I would have done more of that kind of thing. There have been a few ASTRO CITY stories like that from Kurt Busiek.

I like that Superman isn't always a "complete character." I think from the '70s onward DC's comics are over-explained in terms of character. That started when I was a teen and I thought all this dialogue and character development a good thing. But now I see it as bad writing. I now consider better to show just the surface details and let the reader find the depths for themselves--as Hemingway was apt to do in his writing.

Classic comics never pretended to be literature, but I think there's enough detail in that Superman for the reader, like Jerry Thomsson (the reporter in CITIZEN KANE), to construct a picture of the Man of Steel from all the disparate details.

[jimmy]

IMHO - "The Adventures of Superman" - George Reeves is the one who nails it and is the first person I think about when I hear the word "Superman"! I love that show (especially the earlier eps. - which had that "film noir" crime drama feel) and, I love the way he portrayed the role(s) of; Superman, doing what needed to done and, the mild mannered Clark Kent who was cool and had a "no nonsense" approach towards the criminal element which I liked. Overall, George was perfect (in and for) the role(s) - as he really brought "both sides" of the character to life, therefore, he will always be Superman to me!


Special notation to Clayton "Bud" Collyer who I grew up listing to on Radio as the definitive voice of "Superman" at the time - he was also a personal inspiration for allot of "us broadcasters" who followed in his footsteps. Later, Bud would reprise the role of the "Man of Steel" on the "New Adventures of Superman" animated version in the mid 60's, as most of you may well know - and there was that "familiar voice" once again on that "familiar character", where is should be. Vocally, Bud was the "Master" simply put, his voice inflection(s) were amazing - he truly was the voice of "Superman" to span the ages! - "This! Looks like a job for...."

[Vic Vega]

Nobody has pulled off the Clark/Superman dual id better than Reeve.

He made you believe that he could fool his closest friends with his disguise.

[Powerboy]

Do you feel Superman has ever been portrayed on the big screen properly?

Reeves certainly had the look going for him and the build. But I always felt his characterization of Superman was as having this naivete, being too...nice. I get that Superman is a good guy and I wouldn't want him going all Dark Knight on us but...Reeves' Superman always felt a tad meek. A little too much Clark bleeding over into his Superman.

Superman Returns was basically the guy trying to ape Reeves' portrayal.

Cavill portrays a brooding, dark Superman....I've never seen that side of Supes.

I see Superman as a confidant, self assured guy with a masculine voice and a confidant air about him, bordering on cocky. My take on Superman is of a dual personality sort of thing: The nerdy, shy Clark and a cocky, masculine, almost macho Superman with a strong sense of justice, but Clark is the real guy and Superman is just a mask Clark wears. Maybe that's cause I was brought up on 90s mullet era Superman and that's what they tried to portray him as.

What do you guys think?

I thought Superman the Movie did a good job. There were things in Superman II that started bringing it down. Crushing Zod's hand after he knew Zod no longer had powers. No, he didn't kill them. There are scenes that showed up in the first television showing that verify that and, before that, it was ambiguous. Spinning the guy on the stool who had beaten him up. The only believable motive for these things was revenge.

But, honestly, as far as humility, when you are invincible except for rare green rocks and a one-time appearance of fellow Kryptonians, being a little bit humble makes you far more likable.

I didn't dislike Routh's portrayal as it was striving for a believable Superman. That whole thing of using his powers to listen in on Lois's conversation at home was disliked by a lot of Silver Age enthusiasts (not that I'm not one) but as one friend said to me, one of the problems she always had with Superman is that he's too perfect to be believable. Now, whether you agree with that, it is a very common perception of the character. She found that, given those sorts of powers, even the greatest guy in the world would sooner or later use them to do something like that and what he did was mild compared to what a slightly lesser man would use them for. For her, it made him more like a real person. The whole thing was too much of a convoluted mess but I didn't dislike that they were striving for something real.

I think Henry Cavill could be sent back to the 1950's and get the role of Superman then. He has the look. I think he was a good Superman for what they were striving for which was a Superman who is in a world that is very close to reality when it comes to how human beings react. While I have liked and even loved previous live action versions, none of them ever really made me feel like the guy was a symbol to be looked up to. The problem with the Reeve movies in retrospect is that it's a four color world to begin with and it's no struggle at all to be the symbol people need. By the end of MoS, I genuinely felt inspired by the character. Here's a guy striving to be what the world needs, give them the symbol they need, but the world isn't going to bend over for him and become a four color world where people don't react realistically. He has to work his butt off for it and it will still never be what it would be in Silver Age land.

To me, Superman is the reality and Clark is the disguise because that's how it was for the first 48 years. Clark is real and Superman is the disguise is a creation of the Post-Crisis era starting in 1986. It lasted 25 years and now the portrayal has gone very much back to what it was for the lion's share of Superman's career. I realize that, if you started reading Superman during that 1986-2011 era, to you, that seems to be what he always was. But it's not. In fact, if you look at your own description, Superman is obviously the real guy. The underconfident, nerdy Clark is just something he is pretending to be so that nobody will ever suspect that he is Superman.

However, my favorite live action Superman was George Reeves. I know the stories were incredibly corny by today's standards but I liked his Superman which I think was everything you list (and they did do a Superman theatrical movie just prior to the series so he meets the standard that it was a movie in theaters). "I see Superman as a confidant, self assured guy with a masculine voice and a confidant air about him, bordering on cocky."

[Jim Kelly]

Even though I think there are a few things wrong in Bill's monologue--in KILL BILL VOLUME 2--and we're probably not meant to believe everything he says anyway (after all he's just trying to justify his own evil actions)--I think he gets a few things right.

Kal-El, Clark, Superbaby--whatever you want to call him--starts out as the alien from another world. John Byrne tried to quash that with the whole birthing matrix, but even there the Kid from Krypton is an embryo from another world. And that marks his character from the beginning.

Whatever Jonathan and Martha did, that was subsequential to his native state. Whether Clark Kent is meant to be a disguise or not--that identity develops out of Kal-El's existence. In Bill's terms, when Superman wakes up, he's Superman. He puts on the clothes of Clark Kent and acts like a Clark Kent. At the very least--even in John Byrne terms--Clark Kent is pretending not to have super-powers--Clark Kent is making up excuses for why he has to leave Lois in the lurch, he's lying about how he always gets the scoop. But that's okay, because we don't expect Clark Kent to act like a Superman. But we expect Superman to act like a Superman--because that's what he is.

[Darrell D.]

Lois has a large role in Superman's story, but the story doesn't revolve around her. Lois & Clark was designed to showcase surprisingly enough Lois and Clark as partners and equals. And it worked if you were looking for a story about that, But in the show Superman was window dressing.

Yeah, that was the whole point of the show. It was designed to appeal to women as well as men, and it did that (at least in the beginning).
It was made to be 'Moonlighting' with Clark as the Bruce Willis character.

[Agent Z]

My point was that Clark on Smallville lacked the traits I see as inherent to Superman.

The biggest ones being self-confidence and self-acceptance. To me every version of Superman who pines after being "normal" has gotten the character wrong on a basic level from Alan Moore's Imaginary Tale, to Lois & Clark, to Smallville ... especially Smallville. Superman isn't like the X-men who view their differences as a curse needing to be cured. Superman might reluctantly surrender his powers for a greater cause or possibly even give them up if he feels he isn't fit to wield them. But to twist a Lois & Clark line "Superman isn't what I can do, Superman is who I am".

Actually, the X-Men don't view their powers as a curse. They just don't like being hated and mistrusted because of them.