There is no traditional version of Superman fitting WB's goals for the character.

[Dispenser Of Truth]

Kind of springing off of my 'DC doesn't want 'weird' Superman stuff" thread, there's the idea of "why doesn't DC just go back to X take on Superman that everyone loves and would so obviously work?" And having thought a little about that, and what WB seems to want, I've come to the conclusion that, at least in broad strokes, there's literally no 'traditional' version of Superman that would be approved of as a headliner. Bits and pieces of them thrown in the mix, sure, but not the whole thing.

First, let's consider what WB actually wants. The thing is, I don't think it's to make things dark and realistic and dour. Man of Steel was the alleged poster child for that, but it spent a good chunk of the runtime having Jor-El lecture on how uplifting and inspiring Superman is and how he's gonna take us into the sun and it stands for hope and everything's gonna be okay now. Jor-El having previously ridden a dragon straight out of LOTR at the beginning (including a visual shout-out to a Silver Age Superman story with the shattered moon) before doing some space kung-fu. Heck, for all the talk of the people at the top hating Superman, by all appearances they're showing Batman as the bad guy in BvS to build up Superman, a movie that will also confirm the canonical existence of Robin and Aquaman.

So what's it want? Dramatic. Epic. Weighty. It doesn't filter everything down to borderline-gray because that's cool - Dark Knight had plenty of color in it - but because in this Very Serious Story having the red and blue and yellow overpower everything would be a distraction. Same with him smiling, or wearing his underwear on the outside, all of which would be cracks at the foundation of the take on hi they want to build. Really, this isn't a process that began with MOS. Superman Returns showed him as a figure of nostalgia and depressed God separated from the woman he loves who lays down his life for us (because what could be weighter than Jesus?), and began the process of toning down the costume. Hell, go back to Chris Reeve, you've got almost an hour of frontloading Krypton drama and farm soul-searching and Fortress declarations of purpose before it's considered safe to put Gene Hackman on the screen. They go back to the genius enemy of Superman's philosophy (Man versus God! David versus Goliath, Intellect against Power, Altruism against Hate!), the alien from his home planet (An even match! The lure of his homeworld! Familial drama!) and the other alien from his home planet with bone spikes (The Death of Superman! Laying down his life for the greater good! Rising to save us again!), rather than Metallo (a robot...with Kryptonite stuck him him? Sure.), Parasite (he...eats stuff, I guess?), Bizarro (they'll laugh us out of the theaters!), Brainiac ('Brainiac'? With bottle cities? Really, man?) or Mxyzptlk (you're fired, get out). Hence also Clark being focused on less and less, because he's not the epic part. They know what they want, but they haven't gotten to a point where it works yet, because unless they get someone brilliant on the project it never will. So why not an established, successful take? Well...

Champion of the People: This would seem to be a sure thing. He's tough, he don't take gruff, he's willing to show his stuff. Plus, down to Earth. Except the core of the thing is him standing up against the powers-that-be, and while they're willing to very slightly paddle in those waters in the comics, it's not shocking WB wouldn't do a movie about the biggest corporate icon on Earth fighting corrupt businessmen and the forces of industry for 2 hours.

Cosmic Super-God: The dude that fights weird stuff and goes on crazy adventures. But - again, as I went into in that other thread - what could less serious on the face of it and retro and undermining of everything they've been trying to do then that?

Drama/Romance Lead: Between Lois & Clark, Smallville and years of the Superman books as a soap opera, it's impossible to argue that Superman as romantic lead isn't a pretty major established way of handling him and his world, and one that's well-known and often well-received. But that's something more suited to long-form storytelling, unless they were willing to double down on those elements for the movie in a virtually unprecedented manner. Plus, between presenting Superman as an object of desire and often focusing much more on Lois, it's an approach that favors the women in the audience more than is typical with the character, and it doesn't take x-ray vision to see what your WB's and Disney's think of how much they need to care about that demographic.

Regular Ol' Superhero: The dude who goes to work with Lois and Jimmy and Perry, leaps out to change to Superman to stop Metallo or Prankster, maybe palls around with Krypto sometimes. The animated series take that Marvel Studios would probably do well with. But if you're WB, what's the in? He's just a generic super-dude. To make him work like that takes some serious nuance of character, and baby, WB don't got time for that, we got us some $$$ to make.

So there you go. Obviously they're less strict with the TV shows and the comics (though it's certainly still there), but the movies are big enough they're going to take control. And what's left when you take away the broad strokes of those approaches? Well, you've got a strange man in a strange land who's really hopeful, who'd lay down his life for humanity and is an icon and can hit stuff real good. You've got a guy without nuance who nevertheless lends himself to Hollywood-model capital-d Drama to go with the action. You get space-Jesus, a story that's worked out to some degree of success in Western civilization, you may have heard. And since there isn't an 'acceptable' other option, WB will keep hammering on that round peg until the square hole cracks, one way or another.

[Superlad93]

Great write up as usual!

Honestly I've been thinking a lot about this very subject. I've been trying to wrap my mind around how this Superman thing can work for WB. In fact I've been wondering how this can for new fans looking for a way in. I'm come to one conclusion.......

Clark Kent as Walter White (Breaking Bad)

Easy now. I know what that sounds like. I want to make some things clear. No I don't want them to make him a crime boss sociopath. No I don't want him to suffer from any mental illnesses. No to whatever other bad thoughts some may have.

What I'm suggesting is that Clark Kent be presented as a person with simple and good intentions that spiral into more than he could have ever imagined. So lets say Clark moves to the big city and starts out not by fight crime and injustice but instead doing small good deeds around his neighbor (maybe not even in a costume). Nothing major, just things like fixing the car of a single mother without her knowing, or finding lost cats and what have you. Very Huck (the comic)-like, but it's not done because of some pure of heart Americana like Huck. Instead it's more of a "well why not? I can probably help out". Where Walter White comes in is the idea that you have this person with particularly great talents who has previously lived normal life and is now spiraling into something much larger with each choice he makes. Eventually I think it'd be interesting if Clark woke up one day and he realized that his philosophy of "well why not? I can probably help out" has him seriously contemplating overthrowing dictators and really changing the world.

I think it'd be a fascinating character study and all of the ingredients are there but they're never pressed on in favor of a vague cast mold that they treat as gospel one moment and a relic of a bygone era the next. Man of Steel and BVS touched/will touch on these ideas, but it'll only be in service of how Superman wants to convince the world that he doesn't want to do this, and they don't quite believe him just yet. The interesting Miracle Man-like question is thus glossed over and given an answer while the question is simultaneously being asked. I think this is a waste of story (it goes back to what you were talking about in another thread with Myskin).

What happens when you don't look at it from the perspective of Übermensch or Jesus with a cape. Instead it's through the perspective and experiences of Clark Kent. If you wanted to you could even inject the idea that he starts out at golden age powers and as his capability increases so do his ambitions. One of my favorite aspects of Breaking Bad was the idea that at the end of the series or even the middle of it I'd sit there and ask myself "how did it come to this?" As it stands Superman's progression is rather nonexistent in the majority of incarnations. So I think progression and escalation being the crux might be a nice change.

Yes this shares similarities with Champion of the People but I think were it deviates is all in Clark Kent. He's not the gruff crusader of justice who came to the big city with a chip on his sholder ready to change everything. But instead he's a guy who's just willing to help and he has to work through what that means.

I don't think WB would be too opposed to this idea since it's not a character who's just simply an anti authoritarian. But honestly I don't know--I can't know. I've just been thinking of the idea of a more accessible and interesting to watch/read take on Superman. I think this idea of escalation/spiraling is part of the reason Injustice Superman is so (surprisingly!) widely enjoyed and looked forward to. That idea of "what's he going to do next" is why we enjoy the majority of the TV we watch (back to Breaking Bad).

To be clear: no I don't want him to mirror Injustice Superman in becoming a super dic(k)tator. No. I'm talking about a real sense of escalation that doesn't just mean there's something bigger to punch. A character study on the peculiar life of Clark Kent is what I think might be interesting.

With that said, WB can't do this take in the movies anyway so it's pretty moot.

[Frontino]

Yes, absolutely. Much of Superman's library of stories is useless for a contemporary movie adaptation, because for the major part of his fictional life he's being either a dikk, a tool or a defender of the status quo.
That's why for Man of Steel they actually took inspiration from the character Superman was based on: Hugo Danner from Gladiator. That 1930 novel is more grounded than 99% of Superman stories out there.
A Superman in real life would most probably not ignore famine, pollution, wars, corporatism, etc. and he'd end up creating a life long crescendo of tension and global upheaval that would ultimately culminate in a World War with half mankind against him, which IMO would look spectacular on screen.

[Auguste Dupin]

Great write up as usual!

Honestly I've been thinking a lot about this very subject. I've been trying to wrap my mind around how this Superman thing can work for WB. In fact I've been wondering how this can for new fans looking for a way in. I'm come to one conclusion.......

Clark Kent as Walter White (Breaking Bad)

Easy now. I know what that sounds like. I want to make some things clear. No I don't want them to make him a crime boss sociopath. No I don't want him to suffer from any mental illnesses. No to whatever other bad thoughts some may have.

What I'm suggesting is that Clark Kent be presented as a person with simple and good intentions that spiral into more than he could have ever imagined. So lets say Clark moves to the big city and starts out not by fight crime and injustice but instead doing small good deeds around his neighbor (maybe not even in a costume). Nothing major, just things like fixing the car of a single mother without her knowing, or finding lost cats and what have you. Very Huck (the comic)-like, but it's not done because of some pure of heart Americana like Huck. Instead it's more of a "well why not? I can probably help out". Where Walter White comes in is the idea that you have this person with particularly great talents who has previously lived normal life and is now spiraling into something much larger with each choice he makes. Eventually I think it'd be interesting if Clark woke up one day and he realized that his philosophy of "well why not? I can probably help out" has him seriously contemplating overthrowing dictators and really changing the world.

I think it'd be a fascinating character study and all of the ingredients are there but they're never pressed on in favor of a vague cast mold that they treat as gospel one moment and a relic of a bygone era the next. Man of Steel and BVS touched/will touch on these ideas, but it'll only be in service of how Superman wants to convince the world that he doesn't want to do this, and they don't quite believe him just yet. The interesting Miracle Man-like question is thus glossed over and given an answer while the question is simultaneously being asked. I think this is a waste of story (it goes back to what you were talking about in another thread with Myskin).

What happens when you don't look at it from the perspective of Übermensch or Jesus with a cape. Instead it's through the perspective and experiences of Clark Kent. If you wanted to you could even inject the idea that he starts out at golden age powers and as his capability increases so do his ambitions. One of my favorite aspects of Breaking Bad was the idea that at the end of the series or even the middle of it I'd sit there and ask myself "how did it come to this?" As it stands Superman's progression is rather nonexistent in the majority of incarnations. So I think progression and escalation being the crux might be a nice change.

Yes this shares similarities with Champion of the People but I think were it deviates is all in Clark Kent. He's not the gruff crusader of justice who came to the big city with a chip on his sholder ready to change everything. But instead he's a guy who's just willing to help and he has to work through what that means.

I don't think WB would be too opposed to this idea since it's not a character who's just simply an anti authoritarian. But honestly I don't know--I can't know. I've just been thinking of the idea of a more accessible and interesting to watch/read take on Superman. I think this idea of escalation/spiraling is part of the reason Injustice Superman is so (surprisingly!) widely enjoyed and looked forward to. That idea of "what's he going to do next" is why we enjoy the majority of the TV we watch (back to Breaking Bad).

To be clear: no I don't want him to mirror Injustice Superman in becoming a super dic(k)tator. No. I'm talking about a real sense of escalation that doesn't just mean there's something bigger to punch. A character study on the peculiar life of Clark Kent is what I think might be interesting.

With that said, WB can't do this take in the movies anyway so it's pretty moot.

Awww, now you're ruining my fantasy about Superman selling crack, you monster.
Seriously though....I can totally see how your idea could work. Like, I can see it from here.
It's night. Clark just moved in to Metropolis. He has no plan for anything superhero related. Suddenly, he hears a scream far away. He looks with his X ray vision and sees someone about to be attacked by muggers. Now, Clark is a good man at heart so he can't bring himself to watch that guy get himself killed right before his very eyes, so he jumps in, no costume, no plan, nothing. Just the equivalent of a guy trying to stop a mugging in front of him, except "in front of him is 10 streets away. Things get more awry than expected, and he gets shot. Of course, bullets bounce off him, and he stops the mugging, but then he realizes. That guy he just saved saw him jump/fly, and get shot at point blank without so much as a bruise. So he flies/jumps away and is like "ho cr.p, ho cr.p, he saw my face, he saw my face and now he's going to give my description to the cops and tells every one about that man who no selled a bullet". Next day in the morning: "Hello, my name is Clark Kent, I wear glasses, and I most certainly wouldn't get involved in mugging business, because of my asthma".
Of course, a few more similar incidents involving Clark being noticed helping out in similar fashion, and the story about that super man who can stop bullets and save people starts to get out, even though most people think it's basically a modern day Bigfoot type of deal. So, after a while, he thinks: "Okay,I need something to get people to focus on something other than my face when they're describing me doing incredible stuff. Well, they call me "Superman", so maybe if I had, like, a T shirt with an "S" on it, with bright colors to get people to focus on it.Mmmm, probably not gonna cut it. Well, there's that blanket thingy Ma and Pa found on my rocket, I guess I could wear it like a cape, that would certainly be noticable." And of course, with his "I can't just let people get themselves killed in front of my very eyes", he gets involved in bigger and bigger stuff ("I can't just let those people I saw on TV have their home destroyed by a tornado without at least trying to help"), he becomes more and more famous, his Superman routine is perfected (proper costume and all) and everything he does is over analyzed by every one. That one time he tried to help out that single mother that lives next door from being evicted, and he ended up threatening the shark loan because things got out of control? Now, he's the "Champion of the Oppressed", a defender of the little guy who takes the fight to the establishment. That other time he managed to make a twister change his course and saved a village? Now, he's a Godlike saviour, who came from the stars to redeem mankind. A hero. A rebel. A God. An alien threat. An inspiration.
But the thing is: he's none of these things (unless he's all of them). He has no agenda, no great missio.He doesn't plan ahead . Hell, most of the time, he barely knows what he's doing.
He's just a guy who doesn't have it in him to watch bad things happen in front of him when he can stop it. It's just that, for Superman, "in front of him" is a pretty big distance. And so, things escalate
....Well, that would be unique at the very least. Sounds more like TV shows/comic run material than movie if you ask me, but heh.

[Carabas]

Kind of springing off of my 'DC doesn't want 'weird' Superman stuff" thread, there's the idea of "why doesn't DC just go back to X take on Superman that everyone loves and would so obviously work?"

There is no such thing as a version of Superman that everyone loves.
There is also no single version of Superman that would obviously work for everyone.

As far as what WB wants? I think they don't care in the slightest what Superman is like as long as he's in succesful movies (which they seem to be getting), and don't really care at all about what happens to the comicbook side of things.

[chamber-music]

Kevin Tucker

I think people love Superman the way they love religion. They don’t know him as a character, like people don’t love Jesus as a character. They love him as a concept, what he represents, which is an all-powerful, kind, pure, salt-of-the-earth icon. But as a character, as a flesh and blood, living, breathing person with a personality… they don’t really get that from him. He’s always more of an icon – he represents an ideal rather than an individual. That means people put on him their own aspirations, their own wishes. Much like religion, they twist Superman to be what they want him to be. So if they want him to be all-powerful and able to push planets out of the way, if you don’t show that they feel cheated. And if he’s not perfect in every way, if you show him vulnerable… We had this problem on Justice League where every time something happened to Superman, there was a complaint. But he has to be vulnerable to something or there’s no story, there’s nothing to overcome. We didn’t do as well as we could have, but we got better at it.

There hasn’t been a Superman story written or movie made where someone didn’t say, ‘Yeah, but he’s Superman, so he should have been able to blah, blah, blah.’

[bat39]

Great write up as usual!

Honestly I've been thinking a lot about this very subject. I've been trying to wrap my mind around how this Superman thing can work for WB. In fact I've been wondering how this can for new fans looking for a way in. I'm come to one conclusion.......

Clark Kent as Walter White (Breaking Bad)

Easy now. I know what that sounds like. I want to make some things clear. No I don't want them to make him a crime boss sociopath. No I don't want him to suffer from any mental illnesses. No to whatever other bad thoughts some may have.

What I'm suggesting is that Clark Kent be presented as a person with simple and good intentions that spiral into more than he could have ever imagined. So lets say Clark moves to the big city and starts out not by fight crime and injustice but instead doing small good deeds around his neighbor (maybe not even in a costume). Nothing major, just things like fixing the car of a single mother without her knowing, or finding lost cats and what have you. Very Huck (the comic)-like, but it's not done because of some pure of heart Americana like Huck. Instead it's more of a "well why not? I can probably help out". Where Walter White comes in is the idea that you have this person with particularly great talents who has previously lived normal life and is now spiraling into something much larger with each choice he makes. Eventually I think it'd be interesting if Clark woke up one day and he realized that his philosophy of "well why not? I can probably help out" has him seriously contemplating overthrowing dictators and really changing the world.

I think it'd be a fascinating character study and all of the ingredients are there but they're never pressed on in favor of a vague cast mold that they treat as gospel one moment and a relic of a bygone era the next. Man of Steel and BVS touched/will touch on these ideas, but it'll only be in service of how Superman wants to convince the world that he doesn't want to do this, and they don't quite believe him just yet. The interesting Miracle Man-like question is thus glossed over and given an answer while the question is simultaneously being asked. I think this is a waste of story (it goes back to what you were talking about in another thread with Myskin).

What happens when you don't look at it from the perspective of Übermensch or Jesus with a cape. Instead it's through the perspective and experiences of Clark Kent. If you wanted to you could even inject the idea that he starts out at golden age powers and as his capability increases so do his ambitions. One of my favorite aspects of Breaking Bad was the idea that at the end of the series or even the middle of it I'd sit there and ask myself "how did it come to this?" As it stands Superman's progression is rather nonexistent in the majority of incarnations. So I think progression and escalation being the crux might be a nice change.

Yes this shares similarities with Champion of the People but I think were it deviates is all in Clark Kent. He's not the gruff crusader of justice who came to the big city with a chip on his sholder ready to change everything. But instead he's a guy who's just willing to help and he has to work through what that means.

I don't think WB would be too opposed to this idea since it's not a character who's just simply an anti authoritarian. But honestly I don't know--I can't know. I've just been thinking of the idea of a more accessible and interesting to watch/read take on Superman. I think this idea of escalation/spiraling is part of the reason Injustice Superman is so (surprisingly!) widely enjoyed and looked forward to. That idea of "what's he going to do next" is why we enjoy the majority of the TV we watch (back to Breaking Bad).

To be clear: no I don't want him to mirror Injustice Superman in becoming a super dic(k)tator. No. I'm talking about a real sense of escalation that doesn't just mean there's something bigger to punch. A character study on the peculiar life of Clark Kent is what I think might be interesting.

With that said, WB can't do this take in the movies anyway so it's pretty moot.

Well, to a limited extent, this IS what they did in MOS and what they'll be carrying forward in DoJ to some extent. The ordinary man who wanders the world (or at least, North America) using his powers to help out where he can until the day when he's forced to do so on a global scale, against an alien threat from his homeworld. And now that the world knows about him, and he has a suit and more power than he did before, he's doing what he always did for most of his adult life, albeit on a global scale. So where he once trashed a would-be rapist's truck, he's now probably prepared to crush a dictator's regime. Except of course that now that he's operating at such a large scale, publicaly, and is viewed alternatively as a God, a Messiah, a dangerous extraterrestrial terrorist threat and a potential enemy of humanity...things get more complicated. Which is where DoJ begins...