Controversial Superman Opinions

[Kuwagaton]

Superman shouldn't be an immortal sun god. The strongest hero, yes, but not an immortal being. The man lost his planet, let him live and die with the ones he loves, not watch them wither while remaining unchanged.

The thing about that phrase is I don't think it fits because he would pretty much never see or describe himself like that, and when it comes up in comics it's not often someone he likes or someone being serious about it. I tend to read that phrase in Eisenberg's voice.

[Netherman14]

The thing about that phrase is I don't think it fits because he would pretty much never see or describe himself like that, and when it comes up in comics it's not often someone he likes or someone being serious about it. I tend to read that phrase in Eisenberg's voice.

Great, now I can't unhear that. thanks Kuwagaton.

[Superlad93]

He's an alien.And turning him into a just a nice guy with powers, or as Superlad put it: a nice guy with the strangest life posible, takes away some of his charm. EDIT: IMO, of course.

Being a nice guy with the strangest life possible doesn't stop him from being an alien. I think it adds to his overall charm because it puts being an alien in a pretty atypical light. When S&S created Superman, he had not the foggiest clue that he was an alien. He just assumed himself some sort of mutant, and went about using his inherent abnormality to help people. At that moment S&S illustrated that Clark as an individual with a specific outlook was what was most important. This outlook just so happens to make him a really nice guy. This doesn't undercut his alien nature, but it does put it in context. Being of Krypton is 100000% part of him, and once he finds out in does it's more than fair share to inform him. However he's not completely defined by it in the same way that a bicultrual person isn't defined completely by either culture. In the end you matter as a singular person, and your actions are what define you.

Clark Kent is Superman because he's Clark Kent, and not because he's an alien.

True. But also it opens the door for other stories. Superman in the far future, for example (without time travel involved). It's something that really hasn't been explored before (though it's been hinted at a few times in the past). What are the cons you see?

Could you not get the same effect by saying along his travels and adventures Clark picked up immortality unwittingly (if you REALLY wanted you could say that only his durable body could handle it)? I notice people always say "Superman should be immortal" and not "all of the kryptonians should be immortal." The simple fact is that Superman is the enduring idea that spawned the whole thing, and people feel that immortality in story is a great way of paying homage to him in the real world. So that's why I think it makes more sense to say that immortality is something Clark earned via being Clark, going on adventures, and helping people. Making it inherent to the race, and something that he and all of them just have pays less respect to the lighting in a bottle trial and error that gave Superman his timelessness in the real world.

This is why I think naturally Kryptonians are about as long lived as Clark in Kingdom Come (if not a bit more). So Kara, Jon, and Kon have LONG and strong lives before they pass. Their kids/decedents' lives will be longer or shorter depending on who they're mixed with and how potent their Kryptonian genes are.

[Ascended]

Except he does have limits. He does have weaknesses. He isn't perfect, he makes mistakes, he loses fights. The struggle of restraint is not unique to him. He is not the most powerful being jnthe DCU.

No he's not omnipotent, nor did I say he was.

There's a difference between exploring his lack of real limitations and him never being challenged by anything ever, including himself.

Clark makes mistakes. He loses fights. There are things out there infinitely more powerful than he is. None of that precludes the fact that a major theme in Super-history is the question of "What do you do when you can do anything?" Clark is always struggling with where he draws the line in regards to his level of involvement, not with whether or not he can reach the line in the first place.

And lots of fictional stories deal with restraint but its not often as big a core theme as it is with Clark. But in any case I never said it was unique to him in the first place.

There is a difference between a character not dying to keep them in the story and not dying due to immortality.

True, but the differences are merely philosophical and it is neither in Clark's character nor in the best interests of the authors to dwell too long on the ramifications of Clark's lifespan. Therefore its a non-issue. We certainly can, should, and have, had a story here and there where Clark questions what his tomorrow will bring, but that's a single story or scene rarely used across nearly eighty years of history. Its an undercurrent and should stay that way. In the back of his mind Clark might worry about what he'll do when everyone else ages to death, but its rarely at the forefront of his thoughts or plots. So it doesnt really matter very much, just like it doesnt really matter how Clark breaks the laws of physics to lift a building without it breaking under its own weight. Is he bending gravity around him? Is he lifting from the perfect stress point? The "how" of it doesnt matter as much as the fact that he does it.

[Mr. Mastermind]

The stupid bit was having them complain about not being loved for their true selves, as if Clark Kent and Diana Prince were their true selves. It looks extra stupid when Diana says it while not in disguise at all during the date. Even worse is these characters whining about being overlooked in their civilian disguises all while the show never tells stories with them in those disguises; in other words, Clark and Diana are invisible to the show, too. And why, of all things to use as inspiration, would one use the relationship dynamics of the Silver Age? Altogether, it's illogical and regressive garbage.

I think this level analysis for a kid's cartoon is overboard. It's a show for little kids and is concerned with having fun rather than analysing the true meanings of the characters.

[TheCape]

I don't know how controversial is this opinion, but here we go, i think that most of us agreed that Mongul is kind of lame and without much of a personality. He’s a rip-off of Thanos, who himself is a rip-off of Darkseid, making Mongul essentially Not Not Darkseid. Yeah he is the bad guy in "For The Man Who Has Everything" and "Exile". But reading the 90s Superman comics, I think the whole Superman Team is in the know that he’s just a glorified jobber. After those 2 storylines he ends up as a henchman to Brainiac in the Panic In The Sky arc, then to Cyborg Superman in the Death of Superman arc. The dude is not a power player. He exists to have the real bad guys cow him into submission to show how bad they are, and for the good guys to use as a punching bag.

Does that make him useless as a character? I’d argue no. having a Not Darkseid, with his own Not Apokolips even, is a handy thing. Are you writing a story where Darkseid gets handed a defeat without a truly epic amount of build-up? Give it to Mongul. No one’s gonna complain about Mongul getting his ass handed to him. Honestly, power level wise, Darkseid should be the Ivan Drago to Superman’s Rocky. And that’s Part 1 Rocky, when he wasn’t eating thunder and crapping lightning. Superman should be the underdog to him. The entire Justice League should be an underdog when it comes to him.

True, he’s supposed to end up in a one-on-one with Orion that could go Orion’s way, so he’s not omnipotent, and there’s only so much you can do when powerhouses like Superman and Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel and Green Lantern and the Flash and Supergirl and four other Green Lanterns, etc etc, are hitting you before you and the planet you’re standing on should be kaput, but that’s why Darkseid generally doesn’t throw himself into a fight with even odds. Mongul will, Mongul’s an idiot, but Darkseid will at least brainwash someone into being a servant of chaos first.

[TheCape]

Toyman is a decent villain usually. His soft spot for children makes him an interesting wildcard, in that he isn’t necessarily a bad guy, he might come out against other villains to protect children. That gives him a more interesting motivation than just “I want to rob banks” or “I want to get revenge on Spider-Man!” So, used properly, you can do more interesting stories with him than just “a bank gets robbed, Superman doesn’t like it.”

Unless it’s the 90s. Now the Super-books mainly avoid a lot of the try-hard edginess of the decade… sure, Superman died, but that was about as dark as it got. For the most part, and there’s one exception who does make the list, it was still Superman fighting aliens, macking on Lois Lane, getting hated on by Lex Luthor. You know, Superman stuff. But for some reason, they decided they definitely had to reinvent Toyman, because there’s a guy with hidden potential. So Toyman is reinvented as a child murderer based on the flimsy premise that he’s cra-azy, so when kids don’t buy his action figure, he decides child murder is on the board and kills Cat Grant’s son.

At least that was retconed eventually.

[Jim Kelly]

I don't know why the guys in the '90s decided to make Mongul into a second banana villain. Maybe they don't like Jim Starlin.

In the original Mongul story, he was a worthy adversary for the Man of Steel. He's a warlord of space with his own Warworld. He was well on his way to becoming one of the best Superman rogues, prior to Crisis.

[TheCape]

I don't know why the guys in the '90s decided to make Mongul into a second banana villain. Maybe they don't like Jim Starlin.

Because when you had Darkseid in the same universe that Mongul (who is esentialy a rip-off of a rip-of), someby needs to be powered down.

Another controversial opinion. Superman has one of the weaker rogue’s gallery in comics, as you might imagine from someone who’s been in six movies, yet only fought Lex Luthor, General Zod, and, uh, Richard Pryor. But most of them aren’t actually bad, they’re just unmemorable.

Conduit in concept is exagerated, it’s plausible enough that Superman was born and raised in some backwater American town, but that this grand supervillain was friends with him before joining the CIA and starting a black ops intelligence organization? That just beggars belief. And even if you want to go that far, the precedent is that Lex and Clark were boyhood friends. So which is a more compelling story, Clark’s greatest enemy once being a childhood friend, or his, like, sixth or seventh greatest enemy once being a childhood friend?. Seriously, he has this whole terrorist COBRA/HYDRA organization doing **** and it’s just to get revenge on, as far as he knows, a mild-mannered reporter. That’s just silly.

But I think that with a few refinements and some streamlining of his arc, he could be a pretty great rogue.

[Francisco]

Is not that the rogue's gallery is weak is that the creators lack imagination and are unwilling to take the right kind of risks.

[Jim Kelly]

Starlin didn't make Mongul a god. Darkseid is a god. Mongul is a belligerent alien warlord. He's powerful but not so powerful that Superman can't beat him.

Darkseid's god status gets in the way of doing certain things with him as a villain. Granted being a god gives him other advantages, but he's not really available for a lot of stories--unless the writer is willing to demote Darkseid. Mongul was the kind of space villain that had the resources to challenge Superman--and he was a deeply emotional sort of villain--which made for some good space opera drama. He's more like a cross between Ming the Merciless and Bluto the Terrible.

Maybe the limits that were put on Superman after Crisis--that meant he couldn't have the kinds of adventures in DC COMICS PRESENTS Nos 27 - 29--made the chances for encounters with Mongul much more rare. And since Superman was less powerful, Mongul also had to be brought down several pegs--or else he'd wipe the floor with the Man of Steel.

[Osiris-Rex]

Because when you had Darkseid in the same universe that Mongul (who is esentialy a rip-off of a rip-of), someby needs to be powered down.
Another controversial opinion. Superman has one of the weaker rogue’s gallery in comics, as you might imagine from someone who’s been in six movies, yet only fought Lex Luthor, General Zod, and, uh, Richard Pryor. But most of them aren’t actually bad, they’re just unmemorable.

Is not that the rogue's gallery is weak is that the creators lack imagination and are unwilling to take the right kind of risks.

And yet when TV Supergirl uses these character a certain group of fans have a fit that a show about Superman characters is using Superman villains on a show about Superman characters.
Somehow all these villains are exclusive to Superman and no other writer has the right to give a different take or origin of the character. I say use it or lose it. Just glad to see them show
up in live action.

Speaking of which,

http://tvline.com/2016/12/27/supergi...llo-returning/

[Ascended]

I don't know how controversial is this opinion, but here we go, i think that most of us agreed that Mongul is kind of lame and without much of a personality. He’s a rip-off of Thanos, who himself is a rip-off of Darkseid, making Mongul essentially Not Not Darkseid. Yeah he is the bad guy in "For The Man Who Has Everything" and "Exile". But reading the 90s Superman comics, I think the whole Superman Team is in the know that he’s just a glorified jobber. After those 2 storylines he ends up as a henchman to Brainiac in the Panic In The Sky arc, then to Cyborg Superman in the Death of Superman arc. The dude is not a power player. He exists to have the real bad guys cow him into submission to show how bad they are, and for the good guys to use as a punching bag.

Does that make him useless as a character? I’d argue no. having a Not Darkseid, with his own Not Apokolips even, is a handy thing. Are you writing a story where Darkseid gets handed a defeat without a truly epic amount of build-up? Give it to Mongul. No one’s gonna complain about Mongul getting his ass handed to him. Honestly, power level wise, Darkseid should be the Ivan Drago to Superman’s Rocky. And that’s Part 1 Rocky, when he wasn’t eating thunder and crapping lightning. Superman should be the underdog to him. The entire Justice League should be an underdog when it comes to him.

True, he’s supposed to end up in a one-on-one with Orion that could go Orion’s way, so he’s not omnipotent, and there’s only so much you can do when powerhouses like Superman and Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel and Green Lantern and the Flash and Supergirl and four other Green Lanterns, etc etc, are hitting you before you and the planet you’re standing on should be kaput, but that’s why Darkseid generally doesn’t throw himself into a fight with even odds. Mongul will, Mongul’s an idiot, but Darkseid will at least brainwash someone into being a servant of chaos first.

I dont think this is controversial at all, actually. Im pretty sure the vast majority of us agree with you.

What is controversial is that I loved 90's era child-killer Toyman. Superman largely has three types of villains; super rich evil guys like Lex and Morgan Edge, or high-concept beings that are well beyond anything the real world has to offer, like Brainiac and Darkseid and Myx. And then you can sprinkle a handful of mid-level villains in there who are, honestly, fairly standard superhero fare, like Metallo and Parasite.

Clark's rogues gallery isnt all that weak, but I do think it lacks variety. It's largely just three flavors of evil; cosmic, regular, and corporate. I also think writers focus too heavily on the same handful of villains (in part because of the lack of variety) but that's another topic.....

What Superman lacks completely is a truly horrible, crazy, Arkham-worthy foe who vexes Superman with his low-end yet unpredictable and bloody methods. 90's Toyman filled that gap and earned major bad guy points for killing Cat's son.

This was the only version of Toyman who I ever thought was threatening on any level. Most of the time the guy is just so laughable I can't see him as a threat. Even the "toy" version from the animated series is only marginally creepy. About the only danger Toyman usually poses is making Clark a few minutes late for work, you know? 90's Toyman wasn't any more of a physical threat to Clark but he hit Superman in different ways, which is far worse than scars and broken bones.

That's the appeal I see in 90's Toyman. He's a type of villain Superman almost never fights. He's so low-end he's almost impossible to hunt down (Imagine Superman trying to track explosives made with common household items. All the powers in the world wont help him there) and he's utterly, scarily insane. He was a great villain because he gave us Super-readers a taste of something different.

[Ascended]

Because when you had Darkseid in the same universe that Mongul (who is esentialy a rip-off of a rip-of), someby needs to be powered down.

Another controversial opinion. Superman has one of the weaker rogue’s gallery in comics, as you might imagine from someone who’s been in six movies, yet only fought Lex Luthor, General Zod, and, uh, Richard Pryor.

He also fought a giant rock in Superman Returns!

[Kuwagaton]

Is not that the rogue's gallery is weak is that the creators lack imagination and are unwilling to take the right kind of risks.

Yeah. Not only do I think his rogues are perfectly fine, but they get more interesting when you consider the different renditions and the fact that they're not a common crutch. Batman and Spider-Man rogues are kinda boring to me because I've seen so much of them. The Flash rogues aren't worthy of the conversation imo.

The Mongul/ Darkseid thing is weird. Despite his goofy look Mongul was a clever, malicious guy strong enough to clobber Superman, and there wasn't another really like him. When he was brought back, he was less of a threat and never rose above. He died without dignity and his son was even less memorable.

Darkseid never should have become an enemy to Superman, he does just fine with his own cast of characters. They had a little tug of war post crisis that soon turned to a dynamic almost as bad as what Mongul received. I think getting beaten up twice in one story is some kind of achievement.