Controversial Superman Opinions

[Agent Z]

Honestly I felt the "no remorse" thing was Clark being a judgemental prick as well. Diana wasn't exactly dancing with joy over Max's body and I'd rather her expression remain neutral than have anything even remotely imply she like killing Max. Not every person has a visible, melodramatic response to killing.

[superduperman]

I think that there should be an ongoing anthology series like Adventures of Superman that is just individual creators being allowed to do whatever they want for one issue. Maybe give them three issue story arcs to tell a larger story and then pass it off to someone else. No continuity involved. If a creator wants a story to take place in the GA, they can. If they want one that takes place in the SA, they can. If they want to just do their own thing, they can.

[stephens2177]

I want kara,linda,karen,and cir-el to all be on the DC roster at present time.linda and cir can get new updated origins,but there should be no stupid rule.saying there can be only 1,when they all can be different.

Same for Jon and kon,they would go in entirely different directions story wise,so why cant they both be around at the same time

[adkal]

I like Superman having different romantic partners. Silver Age Superman was pretty much a ladies man. Sure Superman could end up with Lois, but wait if he had a child with Maxima or one of the female furies and decides to raise him or her with Lois? That was the plan in the original JLU ending episodes. It was going to be revealed that one of the female furies gave birth to Superman's offspring. I think it was the one with the bandages.

Yup. He supposedly knocked up, Lashina. They had a relationship (more like she took advantage of him) when he was mind controlled by Granny Goodness and at the service of Darkseid. If Superman was to have a son with another woman instead of Lois I rather he was in complete use of his mental capabilities at the time.

He also had a 'relationship' with Amazing Grace way back during Legends.


Speaking of kids, they should do a continuation of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman like they did Smallville.

How's that for controversial?

[L.R Johansson]

Superman won't go crazy and become a tyrant if Lois dies/gets killed
Superman won't quit the mission for Lois or if Lois dies or if Lois asks him to quit. Lois wouldn't ever want him to quit or ask him to quit
Any story involved any of the scenarios before mentioned is automatically c.r.a.p. imo

WHOLEheartedly agree!

Seriously, this is why I just can't get into the main story of Injustice - it's just not plausible to me, that Superman would BREAK! In my mind, he'd be beaten down, but eventually he'd get back up from the abyssal hole which Injustice Joker left him in, and continue the battle for Truth, Justice and Responsibility!

SO BE IT!!

[spirit2011]

Honestly I felt the "no remorse" thing was Clark being a judgemental prick as well. Diana wasn't exactly dancing with joy over Max's body and I'd rather her expression remain neutral than have anything even remotely imply she like killing Max. Not every person has a visible, melodramatic response to killing.

Wonder Woman wasn't smiling, but she also wasn't remorseful. She herself said that she didn't feel sorry and did what was right

[Francisco]

That is exactly what he did, which is why I mentioned Imperiex with the "worse than death" thing. Imperiex gets atomized, blown across the universe, and trapped in a time loop doomed to be blown up over and over again. That's beyond harsh.

But he's not "dead" so its cool.

The "trapped in a time loop" part escaped me completely. I thought he experimented an epiphany and was finally released from the cycle of destroying a recreating universe. I think it was B13 the one that got trapped in the very fabric of the universe as an echo of some sort.

[Francisco]

Wonder Woman wasn't smiling, but she also wasn't remorseful. She herself said that she didn't feel sorry and did what was right

And she shouldn't and yes I believe that what she did was right. Both Superman and Batman were written like a couple of tools.

[TheCape]

Honestly I felt the "no remorse" thing was Clark being a judgemental prick as well. Diana wasn't exactly dancing with joy over Max's body and I'd rather her expression remain neutral than have anything even remotely imply she like killing Max. Not every person has a visible, melodramatic response to killing.

To be fair, almost everyone in the DC universe had some similar thoughts about the idea, not just Superman, Batman wasn't much better either. But yeah, it was written badly and is definetly one of the low points of Infinite Crisis

[TheCape]

And in instances like Diana and Max, its just stupid regardless. He doesn't come across as idealistic here, he just comes across as naïve and dumb. He was killing Bruce with his bare hands. Diana stopped it the only possible way. That he never seemed to understand that just always made him look like the biggest turd

Actually he was trying to kill Diana when the whole thing went down, Maxwell make him believe that he was fighthing Doomsday But yeah, i didn't make any favors to his image, same with Batman.

[Francisco]

He also had a 'relationship' with Amazing Grace way back during Legends.

The Fourth World is part of the Super Myth in my book. I love it when Superman gets involved in the affairs of the New Gods. May it be willingly, by accident or due to the machination of either Darkseid/Desaad or High Father

Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman[/I] like they did Smallville.

How's that for controversial?

I liked that show. Would've being great if they have had at least a couple of seasons more.

[misslane]

Three points:

1) You can have a personal code which is not something that you apply universally. Pre-Crisis there was a Legion tale where Superboy argued in favor of a fellow Legionnaire killing. He allowed that under those circumstances killing was justified, but still held that for himself it would not have been. The same tale also hung on someone showing how the hero in question could have resolved the conflict without killing. Which to me is Superman's reason for the code- he feels that if he can't come up with non-lethal responses to ALL situations then he is not up to the responsibilities of his powers.

Okay, but we are talking about Superman's personal code, and it's unbelievable to me, especially in light of the page quoted in this thread of Superman's reaction to Wonder Woman killing Max Lord, that someone who believes something is wrong wouldn't struggle with their friends and allies behaving immorally in their eyes. It also makes me wonder if Superman can be an aspirational and inspirational figure whom we join in the sun, if we can't ever measure up morally because of our deficiencies physically. Would Superman really be a figure who cops and others with great responsibility who might read his comics or see his movies look up to and enjoy and without feeling judged if the message to them, if they'd ever had to kill in the line of duty, is that they are professional and moral failures?

Furthermore, if Superman can be written to give up entirely on himself -- his mission which helps many and his sense of his own moral virtue -- because he has to kill some villain in a rare circumstance in which there are no alternatives and not acting would unquestionably lead to the deaths of innocent people, then I don't know if that's a Superman I can respect. Not even the Doctor from Doctor Who gave up entirely after he destroyed two races (the Time Lords who were his people and the Daleks who were his enemy) to save the universe. I would understand him feeling remorseful and would want him to feel the weight of the act, and the Doctor most definitely felt that way. I also wouldn't want him to lose faith in his commitment to a no-kill code unless absolutely necessary just because he had to break it because of one unfortunate circumstance. That said, part of having powers is taking responsibility for using them: the good and the bad. It's not responsible, I feel, to be so arrogant as to believe that fortune will always favor you and that you will always have all the power and all the answers, and the one time it doesn't you abandon everything. How is that finding another way?

2) The "mother's life is in jeopardy and the baby is deformed" type situations aren't commonplace. They occur but I don't think they are something every doctor faces at some point in their career. So is the doctor who makes it to retirement without performing an abortion holding to a moral code or just deluding himself? And I'm only using abortion because of the example in the quote so I'm not trying to open a debate on every possible pregnancy situation imaginable and it's morality. It could just as easily be asked if a cop who manages to never pull his gun in an entire career is so implausible that there can't be a superhero equivalent. Or in the case of Man Of Steel whether having that cop even get through his first day on the job is possible?

In a sense, yes, it's a delusion. There are two different types of statements a person can make about themselves: (1) I never kill or I would never kill; (2) I have never killed. Morality is both belief and action. It's a belief until one has to act, and actions are about choices. If one is never faced with a situation in which one has to make a choice that tests a certain moral code, then you can be said to believe in that code in the abstract and have faith in yourself that you would uphold it no matter what, but it's not possible to say you practice what you preach, or are a true believer whose code doesn't waver even in the face of its greatest test. Only a belief that is challenged and a choice that is made can allow one to judge someone's code in concrete and real terms.

3)Technically everything that happens in a story is a story-telling preference. You could put the exact same Zod scene in any Batman movie set in the DCEU - and point out that the people die because Batman at that point lacks the physical strength to snap Zod's neck. You could have the Zoners all adopt Zod's tactics from the start and have over a dozen simultaneous "Kill me, Kal-El, or I'll kill these people" to show that Superman simply can't win. You could have BVS where kryptonite is never found and Batman doesn't get to level the playing field. The fact that we don't get these stories is purely the choice of the writer(s)- just like the choice to remove all other options for Superman and Zod.

Of course it's all storytelling preference or in the hands of creators. The discussion is about whether or not, and how often, stories should be told in which Superman does have to kill. People such as myself don't wish for Superman killing stories to become the norm and to be so frequent that one can experience a story of that nature once a year or more, and I don't have some sort of blood lust in my own life that I need validated in my fiction as someone rudely implied elsewhere in this thread recently. No, my preference would be for it to be an extremely rare and exceptional occurrence, because I do think it's important to show that Superman mostly does find another way. That said, what I would prefer is that once a continuity -- whether it's comics or live action -- Superman should have to make such a hard choice. Whichever way he goes -- he doesn't kill and innocents die or he does kill and he breaks his code -- would be something that can create opportunities for storytelling that explores character and consequences in meaningful ways. And that way I, and other members of the comic book or film/TV audience, can support, forgive, or condemn Superman according to the truth of who he is and not according to the untested hypotheses or assumptions made about who he is.

[spirit2011]

And she shouldn't and yes I believe that what she did was right. Both Superman and Batman were written like a couple of tools.

I don't think so, there was space for criticizing the execution

[manofsteel1979]

I don't think so, there was space for criticizing the execution

Yeah,but given the circumstances,what else could Diana do? She had a judgement call to make and she made the right one. Now should she have shown more distaste? Yeah. However objectively she made the right call and it made Bruce and Clark look like arrogant self righteous assholes given the way it was all framed.

[Sacred Knight]

I don't think you can criticize it, honestly. I mean, it can't even be argued that maybe, had she tried harder, she could have found another way. Why? Because she has what other heroes don't: a tool to find the truth. The lasso. And she used it. So she did try, and found out the one way, and there was only one way or else the lasso would have compelled Max to tell her more than one option. So the narrative tells the reader, as the lasso told Diana, that there was only one way. So she did it. So Superman's whining of there always being another way, in this instance, falls flat. I don't see any room to question her judgement in the scenes as they played out.