My controversial thoughts on SUPERMAN:The Movie: It's time to let it go.

[manduck37]

I largely agree with you, but I think the point some keep missing in my original post is the problem is not the movie in of itself....it's allowing the movie to guide how the character or elements of him are portrayed in other media, including the comics at one point to their detriment.

and no...SMTM is not the ONLY reason Superman has struggled over the last 30 years. There are many factors, some out of anyone's control. However, it doesn't help that a vocal part of the character's fandom, and even some creators, see SMTM as THE core of the character, the be all end all and gold standard for the character, usually forgetting the character thrived and existed 40 years before Chris Reeve ever wore the tights.

Perhaps the title of my thread should be "It's time for CREATORS to let it go"...but I can't edit the title now. If you enjoy the movie more power to you. As I said, I love the movie too. I'm not asking fans of the movie to stop enjoying it, to "let it go" in that respect....as I am a fan too! However, my point is the movie needs to be placed in it's proper perspective, that's all i'm saying. It's a great adaptation of the source material...but should only be seen as such.

Ahhhh, I get what you're saying. I initially thought that perhaps your view was that DC was trying to cater to an audience that still wants the Reeve/Donner Superman. Now that you specifically mention the creators, yeah I agree they need to let it go. I like STM for what it is and I like the comics for what they are. I don't need to mix the two together.

Oddly enough, I was checking out the facebook posting for the "Truth" story arc starting this week, on DC's Superman page, and came across a person who was complaining about Superman's portrayal. He was actually complaining that Superman in Truth wasn't like the Christopher Reeve Superman from STM (which is the odd part, not the complaining. This is the internet after all). So DC was ruining the character. Considering that we're having this discussion, I just thought it odd that a comment like that would spring up now.

[manofsteel1979]

Ahhhh, I get what you're saying. I initially thought that perhaps your view was that DC was trying to cater to an audience that still wants the Reeve/Donner Superman. Now that you specifically mention the creators, yeah I agree they need to let it go. I like STM for what it is and I like the comics for what they are. I don't need to mix the two together.

Oddly enough, I was checking out the facebook posting for the "Truth" story arc starting this week, on DC's Superman page, and came across a person who was complaining about Superman's portrayal. He was actually complaining that Superman in Truth wasn't like the Christopher Reeve Superman from STM (which is the odd part, not the complaining. This is the internet after all). So DC was ruining the character. Considering that we're having this discussion, I just thought it odd that a comment like that would spring up now.

Yeah...there are those fans out there, and that was kinda part of my original point too. However, there will always be fans that hold those movies as the gospel. Just like now there are people who hold "SMALLVILLE" as the gospel and are upset New 52 Superman is nothing like him etc.

[JBatmanFan05]

Lots of great responses here that mention points I agree with. No, I won't let it go...it's the best Superman films that will ever be made IMHO. But yes, Geoff Johns and other creators lean on it and emphasize the Donner films too much....not considering enough that the comics (and films) need not and should not totally ape Donner's Superman world. Crystals and other nods are fine, but too many are too many. Use the comic mythos more to drive things mostly, I agree there.

I think that's part of the reasons why MAN OF STEEL was so controversial, even beyond the ending and the destruction stuff. It was the first adaptation of the character in 30+ years to challenge the notion that the Donner way was the only way to interpret Superman...and it was such a shock to the system. A NEEDED shock to the system IMO. (and even then it could be argued that MOS took some nods from the Donner film, like the A.I. Jor-El, Lois naming him Superman. The widowed Martha Kent. Smallville in Kansas. Zod as the main adversary...etc)

This is where I really disagree. Superman might have needed a edgy shock to harken some to very early GA Superman, but MoS was not it, and is IMHO just an odious pandering to an audience more suited for dark Batman films. I'm sorry, but WB utterly betrayed Superman for money. They showed they were ashamed of glasses-wearing Clark Kent and whole nine yards...they couldn't even bring themselves to put "Superman" in the title. Destruction, murder, skulls, no glasses wearing Kent, the film's coloring, etc, etc....they went mindless dark actioner with Superman IMHO. It's so insidious and they (and fans) will make all these excuses to avoid admitting it, but they absolutely did it and know it.

The "Honest Trailer" for Man of Steel: It's funny, but it's no joke. That video really sums up my ideas on the film.

[Jim Kelly]

It's probably just me, but when I read the Johns and Frank SECRET ORIGIN, it was those bits that echoed the movie that I liked the best. When I read those pages, I thought FINALLY a Superman comic I can give to my sister and she'll actually understand it.

But the ship has sailed on that. The comics have gone back to being for a select group of people and don't want to deliver the crowd-pleasing Superman.

However, I don't think the dark and gritty Superman is the same Superman as Siegel and Shuster. Yes, the stories--set in the dirty '30s--were sort of about social justice, because that's the kind of stories you saw in everything from LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE to the THE DEAD END KIDS. But the tone was light. Many stories by Siegel and Shuster are written for the laughs. You're not supposed to take everything so seriously.

People who pick up these comics (and the same with early Batman) and see them in muted hues with leaden dialogue must have a screw loose. These are funny books--meant to bring a smile to people's faces in desperate times. They're not supposed to leave you feeling morose and like the whole world is going to hell in a handcart. You're supposed to feel hope, awe and happiness.

That's what Superman is about.

[Tra-EL]

I grew up on the Reeve movies and the Fleischer cartoons. Wore every single VHS tape out that I had. Rinse; repeat. Superman Returns was the time where I thought the impossible would happen: that I would actually crave a new Superman era that wasn't stuck in the Reeve-verse and it unexpectedly hit me hard.

When 2006 hit, we went SO long without a Superman movie and when the news emerged that Singer would be going back to the Donner-timeline and THEN hearing that John Williams iconic theme in the trailers, the nostalgia and childhood in me made the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stand up.

While I was anticipating Superman Returns while I sat in the theater, I started to get worried because I soon found out that nostalgia exists for a reason. Nostalgia is meant to get the juices of yesterday going and bring back a certain memory or memories and then dissipate.

Sadly, once the John Williams theme faded into the background with Superman Returns and the thrill of seeing the Donner-verse play out on screen through Routh, I was immediately over-run with emotion of how jaded Superman fans (like myself) have become and how I was stuck in a 'Back to the Future' scenario with my all-time favorite character. I couldn't help but feel the nostalgia wearing off and feeling almost letdown, as a fan, that there was never going to be anywhere left to go with Superman and that he would be stuck in a nostalgia act forever and ever. In many ways, as Routh looked at the camera at SR's end credits, I felt a little bit of sadness that I was NOT expecting. It was right then and there where I started to lie to myself and started convincing myself that Superman WAS the Donner-verse and always will be and if I was disappointed in that, then I wasn't a true Superman fan.

As time went by, I learned a LOT about myself as a Superman fan and I started getting angry. Sure we had the comic books and every other level of genre out there with the Superman character but we all know there was only one common denominator and that was seeing a creator's imagination being shackled to the 1978 Superman: The Movie time period.

Slowly but surely as time went on, the comic books followed suit with Gary Frank's interpretation with Superman and as much as I LOVE Gary Frank, it only convinced me how big of a nostalgia-act Superman had become and that was slowly tearing me apart as a fan who wanted to see FRESH, EXCITING and NEW ADVENTURES.

The day I heard WB was going to reboot Superman in cinema was the day I felt SAVED as a Superman fan. The craving inside of me was pure EXCITEMENT. I instantly felt the DRASTIC change in my heart compared to when I first heard of Superman Returns continuing on with the Donner-verse.

Sure, I felt rejuvenated with Superman being back on the big screen in 2006, but that faded once the nostalgia faded. The announcement to Man of Steel left me FLOORED with natural EXCITEMENT again. When WB hired Zack Snyder, I KNEW it was going to be so distanced and different from Superman: The Movie that the thought of the unknown and direction of a fresh take on Superman pumped me up in ways I never thought was possible walking out of the movie theater in 2006.

When you look at Man of Steel, people say it's divisive. People say it got mixed reactions. Some people didn't like it. But then, you MUST go back and look at the decisions the creator's and director made. The choices were meant to be divisive. They knew long-time fans were not going to take a keen liking to many of choices that were made and the studio KNEW it was always going to go against that specific grain. But you know what? They drew their line in the sand and no matter the negative feedback, there was also a plethora, if not more, POSITIVE reactions to Man of Steel as well and the studio supported their decision in allowing us to grow with this new Superman for the modern world we live in. Above ALL else, as a fan, I appreciated that the most.

Today, I couldn't be more STOKED being a Superman fan. It truly is a great time and I'm counting down the days to Batman V Superman and the DCCinamaticUniverse because it's simply what is deserved at this point.

Consider me ALL IN. I bleed blue baby!

[William300]

I'm still on the fence on MoS (I'll probably never be able to get down). Some things I liked (I loved the opening on Krypton), but there are many things I didn't like.

[jimishim12]

It's probably just me, but when I read the Johns and Frank SECRET ORIGIN, it was those bits that echoed the movie that I liked the best. When I read those pages, I thought FINALLY a Superman comic I can give to my sister and she'll actually understand it.

But the ship has sailed on that. The comics have gone back to being for a select group of people and don't want to deliver the crowd-pleasing Superman.

However, I don't think the dark and gritty Superman is the same Superman as Siegel and Shuster. Yes, the stories--set in the dirty '30s--were sort of about social justice, because that's the kind of stories you saw in everything from LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE to the THE DEAD END KIDS. But the tone was light. Many stories by Siegel and Shuster are written for the laughs. You're not supposed to take everything so seriously.

People who pick up these comics (and the same with early Batman) and see them in muted hues with leaden dialogue must have a screw loose. These are funny books--meant to bring a smile to people's faces in desperate times. They're not supposed to leave you feeling morose and like the whole world is going to hell in a handcart. You're supposed to feel hope, awe and happiness.

That's what Superman is about.

People also want to be impressed by the character's actions and the style he carries himself in. Aka coolness. Superman from my experience has never had a consistent image that promotes him as a cool character or even a cool hero, you think the original superhero could pull this off every retool of his story but he's always comes of as stuck up and a out of modern times tool by every conventional fan there is.

He can have so many moments of true moral foundations but he's the one who fans wants Batman or Flash to beat up.

[Jim Kelly]

People also want to be impressed by the character's actions and the style he carries himself in. Aka coolness. Superman from my experience has never had a consistent image that promotes him as a cool character or even a cool hero, you think the original superhero could pull this off every retool of his story but he's always comes of as stuck up and a out of modern times tool by every conventional fan there is.

He can have so many moments of true moral foundations but he's the one who fans wants Batman or Flash to beat up.

I guess I mustn't be a real fan. I don't get any of that.

I'd like to see Batman beat up. Not the real Batman I grew up reading, but the one they publish now. He's such a horrible jerk-face. The downcast looks are what really make him so insufferable. If there was some humour to the guy, I wouldn't mind him so much. But it's all such ponderous gravity. If Batman had been like this when I was a kid, I would've never gotten into these comics in the first place.

[Agent Z]

People also want to be impressed by the character's actions and the style he carries himself in. Aka coolness. Superman from my experience has never had a consistent image that promotes him as a cool character or even a cool hero, you think the original superhero could pull this off every retool of his story but he's always comes of as stuck up and a out of modern times tool by every conventional fan there is.

He can have so many moments of true moral foundations but he's the one who fans wants Batman or Flash to beat up.

Why do I get the feeling that half the time you want Superman to turn into a Chuck Norris meme?

[manofsteel1979]

Why do I get the feeling that half the time you want Superman to turn into a Chuck Norris meme?

"Superman once time traveled to the age of the dinosaurs whilst eating some of Jonathan Kent's world famous Chili, and once getting there, let off a tremendous explusion of Gas,

Scientists call this our first ice age."

[dumbduck]

I'm sorry to say this, manofsteel1979, it seems that most folks got the meaning of your 1st post by now, but... For a while it was very funny to read your thread.



edit: source - http://kerrycallen.blogspot.com.es/s...allen%20parody

[manofsteel1979]

It's probably just me, but when I read the Johns and Frank SECRET ORIGIN, it was those bits that echoed the movie that I liked the best. When I read those pages, I thought FINALLY a Superman comic I can give to my sister and she'll actually understand it.

But the ship has sailed on that. The comics have gone back to being for a select group of people and don't want to deliver the crowd-pleasing Superman.

Look I sorta see where you are coming from...but wouldn't tieing the Donner verse so closely to the comics version ALSO be for a select group of people? I.E. People like us who grew up with the movies and started to see them as gospel?

Also, I don't see how making Superman in the comics strongly reflect the Donner version would be giving everyone a "crowd pleasing" Superman. If so, Johns secret origin would have been the best selling of all Superman origins, sales on Superman comics would have dramatically improved, and I can bet that the New 52 , if it had happened still, would have left Superman largely alone in the same way the Green Lantern and (to a lesser extent) Batman were mostly left with their Pre-Flashpoint status quos intact, and likely would have just used the reboot to finally exise the last remaining elements of the Pre-Crisis and Byrne continuity from the equation and gone full Donner.


I think it' s folly anyway to try and do a "crowd pleasing" Superman...because every single fan sees Superman differently. That was forever cemented when DC rebooted the character in 1986 to try and appeal to the generation who discovered the character via the Donner movie 8 years earlier. While I enjoyed the stories that came from 1986 forward, it was a grave mistake to reboot in the manner he was then. However, what's done is done and it can't be taken back. There's no way to please everyone or even a majority of the fanbase....and I'm doubtful using a 40 year old film ADAPTATION as the base for the current character, no matter how much it may appeal to the nostalgia in us older fans (defined as over the age of 30) is going to do that. I may not approve of all that DC did with the New 52, and I don't approve of all they did with MAN OF STEEL, and I'm still not sure what this current DC YOU direction means for the character,but what else can DC/ Warners do? SOMEONE is always not going to be happy "their" Superman is being ignored. Their primary concern is a new generation finding "their" Superman. They can't really lose sleep that some of us are losing "our" Superman in the process. If they do, Superman will truly become what Tra-El above rightfully called him as he was around 2006. A Nostalgia act.

[Jim Kelly]

I said that those parts of SECRET ORIGIN were the ones I liked best. I never said I liked the whole thing. Although as origins go, it was better than some. But I really didn't like how Luthor took over the story and it was all about him and all the villains were connected to him. The problem with the book was timing. It came out too late. The writing was already on the wall for that Superman, so nothing Johns and Frank established mattered. If it had come out in 2005 then it would have set the table for the Superman to come. It read like an epitaph rather than a prologue.

[manofsteel1979]

I'm sorry to say this, manofsteel1979, it seems that most folks got the meaning of your 1st post by now, but... For a while it was very funny to read your thread.

Love that cartoon!

[manofsteel1979]

I said that those parts of SECRET ORIGIN were the ones I liked best. I never said I liked the whole thing. Although as origins go, it was better than some. But I really didn't like how Luthor took over the story and it was all about him and all the villains were connected to him. The problem with the book was timing. It came out too late. The writing was already on the wall for that Superman, so nothing Johns and Frank established mattered. If it had come out in 2005 then it would have set the table for the Superman to come. It read like an epitaph rather than a prologue.

I misunderstood you. My mistake.

Oh and I do like the same parts of SECRET ORIGIN that you did (mainly because of nostalgia). The first issue was well done (for the most part) and I liked the last issue for the most part. Everything in between just felt undercooked and lazy. I hated that version of Luthor's origin though and the Parasite stuff was laughable.

BIRTHRIGHT (at least up until the last three issues) is still my favorite modern Superman origin. The best parts of the silver/bronze age, the best parts of the Post-Crisis era, with a hint of Smallville and a touch of the Golden Age Supes for good measure. It was largely devoid of any reference or Aping from the Donner version and drew mostly from the comics mythology. Same with Morrison's origin (the sunstone Fortress the only exception, and even then I have a feeling that was something mandated from DC/Warners.)