Controversial Superman Opinions

[Kuwagaton]

I've never read a proper Authority comic, but I recently saw a panel of Apollo where he drunkenly blew someone's head up and yeah, pretty fair to say Superman would hate that and its place in the genre he built.

I thought that was punch to the lower back or something..must be why i don't remember it.

Lol, I'm sure that's what Jurgens intended, it's just a strange sort of scene to work out.

Attachment 134357

This is one of my favourite Superman pages of the last decade. More of this type of nonsense, please.

I feel like there was a pedigree from Maggin to Loeb to Bendis. I should get around to finishing his run

[The World]

Action Comics 775 is a strawman storyline with villains created to conveniently play into a storyline to remind people why Superman is "relevant" and to whine about contemporary hero trends. Looking for badguys that are convenient to beat is beneath Superman and should be handed off to the jr Heroes to handle like Supergirl. Hell we already saw the even handed version of AC 775 playout with Wonder Woman and Maxwell Lord, the general opinion has everyone firmly behind Diana because her actions were actually measured. The irony of Action Comics 775 is how much angrier Clark is about the Elite than he is about the problems the Elite than the problems they try to solve.

AC 775 is the sort of pity storyline you see get handed to wrestler that get heavy pushes from the execs but don't go over well with the public. It's beneath the franchise to look for easy ways out this is the guy that dealt with the KKK, chain gangs, Nazi's, etc.

It's a pity party of a storyline and Superman is a grown man.

It was specifically a commentary on the highly-popular-at-the-time The Authority.

Man there is a good reason everybody is panicking about the actual Authority potentially replacing the Elite in the Superman vs the Elite because the answer won't be so convenient or easy for Clark to solve.


Also the Evil Superman storyline is more popular than it's ever been which is another irony of AC 775.

[Tuck]

I mean, Kelly said he was a fan of The Authority.

He was more answering the segment of readers who get upset at heroes who don't kill.

[Kuwagaton]

Yeah ultimately I'm a pretty big Punisher fan, of all characters. I think we can all understand lethal force as a compelling idea. But the Elite in general were a different breed and even then they turned it around for the JLE. we've come all the way to a point where Black teamed up with both Superman AND the Authority, then evoked sympathy in #1050

[The Frog Bros]

Attachment 134357

This is one of my favourite Superman pages of the last decade. More of this type of nonsense, please.

Bendis sure did have a pretty full stable of top notch artists during his run, that's for sure.

(and yeah, the Invisible Mafia seems to be among the more memorable and most well received of his plot points.)

[Agent Z]

It's the premise of the genre. Superman lampshades that this lack of a perfect alternative is a problem but that this flawed alternative is almost universally preferred when people are really presented with the two options.

Frankly, I'd rather they not talk about it at all because they just make themselves look stupid almost every time they do.

And this is Superman, who has used lethal force in and out of this continuity, in several landmark instances and later touches on it again through Joe Kelly with Pok Zod and the return of Manchester. You can read the issue in a vacuum and the problem will appear worse, but there are 774 numbered issues before this one so I really don't see why one would.

Considering how this Superman acts at the mere thought of killing in this issue, to say nothing of his reaction to Diana killing Max Lord, this Superman just comes across as a massive hypocrite.

The DEO agents hadn't murdered anyone, Superman explicitly mentions stopping them with zero casualties. Enslaving a giant creature is certainly a problem, but is it worse than killing?

Yes. Unlike killing which can happen under varying contexts (i.e. self-defense), slavery has no justification.

Hard to say there's a single line to follow with the idea of a moral priority there.

I'd think Superman of all people would have an issue enslaving a sentient being.

We wouldn't be reading thousands of issues about Clark Kent of the DP across 85 years. And to the point about him imposing, the thing is that they are the ones who challenged him and their presentation of "might makes right" is one that involved force without mercy. Superman did pretty much a bare minimum of stopping them with force considering that the violence he portrayed was part of an act.

We know he can stop them without killing them. It's the people who don't have his powers that can't. Those are the ones he's preaching to, even though they don't have any of his options.

I have personally never thought that about Coldcast, although I can see it now that someone else says they see it. I certainly don't think that's what Kelly or Mahnke had in mind based on what I know of them and the bits of interactions I've had with Mahnke.

To be clear, I'm not saying Kelly is some card-carrying member of the KKK. I'm sure this wasn't done with malicious intent. But it doesn't really change what the results were.

"The American way" like the dream and so on is a fine premise that is much too easily conflated with things that aren't fine, unfortunately. I remember, 30 years ago last month, how so many of us from all walks of life cheered when Lex Luger slammed Yokozuna, lol. That's an obviously silly and dated reference but there was a point where so many of us were happy to see the best in all of this.

There is some dark irony that this comic came out six months before 9/11, an event which lead to many seeing just what "the American Way" can mean for those who aren't American or aren't considered "American enough".

All in all, stories like #775 and Kingdom Come just reek of insecurity from Superman writers and it seems fans only really like them because they make them feel good about being Superman fans.

[Kuwagaton]

Frankly, I'd rather they not talk about it at all because they just make themselves look stupid almost every time they do.

It's why as much as I enjoy Batman, through the amazing creative staffs, I can never really love him.

Considering how this Superman acts at the mere thought of killing in this issue, to say nothing of his reaction to Diana killing Max Lord, this Superman just comes across as a massive hypocrite.

So, I never actually read that Max Lord story or the WW stuff related. I actually haven't even read KC. I avoid Superman in non Superman comics, even WF when there's nothing particularly attractive, because it's too rare for writers to make other characters look good without taking him down a peg.


As for the "mere thought of killing," I think that's disingenuous. The story opens like this:



And if you have to explicitly ignore the story to not like the story, to this extent, I am more than okay with just letting people not like this story

[Agent Z]

It's why as much as I enjoy Batman, through the amazing creative staffs, I can never really love him.


So, I never actually read that Max Lord story or the WW stuff related. I actually haven't even read KC. I avoid Superman in non Superman comics, even WF when there's nothing particularly attractive, because it's too rare for writers to make other characters look good without taking him down a peg.


As for the "mere thought of killing," I think that's disingenuous. The story opens like this:



And if you have to explicitly ignore the story to not like the story, to this extent, I am more than okay with just letting people not like this story

The Wonder Woman story wasn't about taking Superman down a peg. If anything, it treated him with far more dignity than Infinite Crisis.

[Kuwagaton]

Frankly, I despise how CoIE depicted Earth 1 Superman slightly more than I despise what IC did with the Supermen in general. Wolfman is good so I don't understand arriving at the idea that the finale of (imo) the best take on the greatest hero should be... listen, you can't kill his cousin in front of him, and then let him go out like that. I think that's my least favorite Superman arc ever, but props to Mark Russell.

[Stanlos]

Frankly, I despise how CoIE depicted Earth 1 Superman slightly more than I despise what IC did with the Supermen in general. Wolfman is good so I don't understand arriving at the idea that the finale of (imo) the best take on the greatest hero should be... listen, you can't kill his cousin in front of him, and then let him go out like that. I think that's my least favorite Superman arc ever, but props to Mark Russell.

This is new. How did Wolfman let Big Blue down?

[Kuwagaton]

This is new. How did Wolfman let Big Blue down?

We've talked a lot here about lethal force, but one of the other big things is how people see him due to the luxury of being powerful. They think he's less heroic, a "must be nice" sort of thing because he can always just overpower his obstacles. But personally, I like that the most powerful man in the world in turn has to be the most gentle. I mean the Robin of 1940 would beat up his archenemy in a fight. It's harder to not be a bull in a China shop, and he spends all of his time in a world of Kleenex. These Kleenex beings often believe that he's even more fragile than some of them, to boot.

So in contrast to CoIE is one of my favorite scenes from the same time: in Whatever Happened, when he finds out about Jimmy and Lana. It's not powerful because he looks angry and badass, it's powerful because the one instance shines a light on every other instance where that isn't his response. How all of those writers knew the importance of keeping him away from that well, how Moore decided to go there and really show us how much despair and loss it really takes to express that.

In Crisis, Superman just gets his ass beat and moves to the background. We're told how he's the best, but he does nothing to contribute to the resolution. This guy who holds back 99.9% of the time doesn't have that fifth gear the only time he ever needs it. Kal-L upstages him as yet another sacrifice but it's weird because as Wolfman wrote the (great) first year of Post Crisis, you'd think it would be recognized that this doesn't even matter as "Earth 1" was gone anyway. There's an L with no W in his "last" arc.

[Stanlos]

My COIE trade should be delivered tomorrow or Saturday, Ku!! I remember Supergirl "getting beat up" and dying, but I thought both of the Supermen survived. Everyone was outmatched by the AntiMoney guy because it was a matter of him unleashing antimatter and consuming verses (I thought). When you say there was no W, do you mean to suggest that one or both should have been able to repell that guy before the Green cloak Spectral guy came? How do you envision the W being implemented there?

[Kuwagaton]

We're told that "he's the best." How, why? I wouldn't have really cared if he wasn't fast as Flash, smart as Lex, more experienced than Light, or tougher than Kal L... but he was, and some guy killed Kara right in front of him. He didn't have to beat up Anti Monitor but there had to be something.

That Superman went around at maybe 10% and when it came time to do what about half a dozen other characters in the story did, with all of his resources and infinite capabilities, there was nothing. Some other hero just knocks him out and he wakes up with the job finished. All of that burning conviction to step up was found in... Wally.

[Stanlos]

We're told that "he's the best." How, why? I wouldn't have really cared if he wasn't fast as Flash, smart as Lex, more experienced than Light, or tougher than Kal L... but he was, and some guy killed Kara right in front of him. He didn't have to beat up Anti Monitor but there had to be something.

That Superman went around at maybe 10% and when it came time to do what about half a dozen other characters in the story did, with all of his resources and infinite capabilities, there was nothing. Some other hero just knocks him out and he wakes up with the job finished. All of that burning conviction to step up was found in... Wally.

Whooooooooaaaaaaaaaaa!! I never saw this take before!!!! Wally West?!!!

[Agent Z]

If you can't think of a good reason for why Lois and Diana would dislike each other that has nothing to do with Clark, either write them as friends or don't put them in the same story.