Controversial Superman Opinions

[manwhohaseverything]

The problem with clark being shitty with family is he gets away with it.There is no payoff given for the other side.His family is the one that suffers.He goes of into the sunlight with a big halo on his head.Mon el gets stuck in the phantom zone.Punishment for clark?none.Supergirl is abandoned.punishment for clark?zilch.Chris kent is forgotten..punishment for clark?don't even remember.Jon is sent of with a psychopath.. punishment for clois?they have a one night stand..Jon needs a piccolo asap.

[Ascended]

He does get away with it. And it is BS. Bendis even had Clark commenting on how people let him get away with everything because "he's Superman."

But it's also one of the more intriguing twists in his character, I think. The guy everyone thinks of as being the nicest, friendliest dude around....but he keeps (almost) everyone at arm's length and really struggles to connect with family. It's a great trait worth exploiting, not one to sweep under the rug.

[witchboy]

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I get where you're coming from and while I'm looking at things differently, we both share a passion for the character and his mythology. For a long time, I've pined for a return to a semblance of "my Superman," though "my Superman" has evolved from the character when I met him in 1992 as a teenager into something more complex. I've aged and have read a good bit of Golden, Silver, and Bronze Age Superman comics. If I had my druthers, I'd want a reboot in the comics that takes the best elements from every era (similar to what Morrison did in Action and All-Star) and would very likely want the classic love triangle restored. I'd also want an Earth where Lois and Clark are married with a pre-teen Jon that could be visited occasionally. I have a feeling none of what I want to see is coming anytime soon from DC, if at all.

My suggestion of a compromise would be to continue with the current status quo but do a series of minis - or a series like Superman Confidential- where stories from past eras are told. This could be done with rotating creative teams so you could get some big names who’d enjoy doing five issues but not commit to a long term book.
This would be a place where you could do stories with a young and single Clark, a pre teen Jon, or telling stories from the era we never saw with baby and younger Jon. There’s a whole lost era there never explored.
Also, for a young and single Superman, there is also the recent Superman movie era comic, and Mark Waif’s new World’s Finest comic.

[manwhohaseverything]

He does get away with it. And it is BS. Bendis even had Clark commenting on how people let him get away with everything because "he's Superman."

But it's also one of the more intriguing twists in his character, I think. The guy everyone thinks of as being the nicest, friendliest dude around....but he keeps (almost) everyone at arm's length and really struggles to connect with family. It's a great trait worth exploiting, not one to sweep under the rug.

That's great that clark is flawed.Here it's half baked.A character getting away with causing harm(especially for the people he is responsible for) is not a good precident.Why does alan moore think killing joke ain't great?cause it basically leaves batgirl out of the equation.If a character has a flaw it needs to lead to something for example achillies's temper leading to his doom.Clark's "keep family at arms length" thing doesn't get him any just reward.For example,nightwing punching batman.There is no catharsis with this stuff that's being served with superman for the other side, person affected or dare i say the victim .
The lost children of Krypton
For me atleast,the above link is more cathartic than what dc has ever managed to put out.
So far morrison is the only one close to it.

And i prefer jon in superman future state cause he pushed past his father big shadow.
Superman-Future-State-Clones-1.jpg
that's when the SuperSon shines.Supersons was awesome because The tension between the sons and fathers was always around(but then,it went away.the book became stale).

[Frontier]

Doing "the Kandor" to the Invisible Mafia (even if they didn't intend to leave them that way) felt kind of culturally disrespectful for Kryptonians to do along with a Coluan. I don't think Kara would've felt comfortable with that.

[marhawkman]

Not sure how controversial this is but... I kinda think CoIE ruined the Superman mythos forever. :/

[phonogram12]

Not sure how controversial this is but... I kinda think CoIE ruined the Superman mythos forever. :/

I wouldn't say forever, but it certainly is still in recovery, isn't it?

Personally, I think the only character to really benefit from COIE from the outset is Batman.

[kingaliencracker]

I wouldn't say forever, but it certainly is still in recovery, isn't it?

Personally, I think the only character to really benefit from COIE from the outset is Batman.

Wonder Woman was substantially better post-Crisis.

[phonogram12]

Wonder Woman was substantially better post-Crisis.

I love Perez in general, but I wasn't really a fan of his take.

[Guy_McNichts]

I'm going to preface this by saying I'm not the biggest Superman guy. This observation is more of an outsider looking in, so I don't know how controversial it will be, but...

Metropolis needs to be a crummier and more corrupt city, and this is a reason why Superman is seen as "boring" by some fans.

I think one of the problems with Metropolis as a setting is it's become caught up in Superman's contrast with Batman. We all know how DC loves to yammer on about how Supes and Bats are opposite, but the same, two sides of the coin...light and dark, day and night, salvation and justice...blah-blah-blah.

And this has extended to their respective cities. If Gotham is this rotting cesspool of corruption and crime, Metropolis therefore becomes this shining City of Tomorrow. Crime, yes. A need for Superman, sure. But aside from killer robots and evil aliens, lacking a sense the city is fundamentally broken the way Gotham is.

So what's really the point of Superman if his chosen city is "just fine" with or without him?

Think about this on the purely visceral, wish-fulfillment level--what's the appeal of a character who's effectively invincible? They can do what they want without fear of real consequence.
But that's only heroic if the world they're doing it in is a world of corruption, bullies, injustice, and tyranny. Otherwise, they are the bully imposing their power on an unsuspecting world. A Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers steamrolling innocent people. Every tiresome evil Superman story we've already seen.

A beacon of hope only works if the world surrounding them is dark. If Metropolis is "just fine," then Superman is merely a glorified janitor keeping it tidy.
This is why DC's efforts to present him as a symbol of hope often just amount to meaningless platitudes or (worse) every other hero made to look incompetent and useless without him.

I'm not saying Metropolis needs to become a carbon copy of Gotham City, but it does need to be equally broken and corrupt in its own way. If Gotham is a urban hell of crime-lords paying off corrupt cops and government officials, maybe Metropolis needs to be a place of greedy corporate executives using their vast wealth to work the system in their favor?
And hey, who's Superman's greatest enemy? A corrupt business executive who only cares about his ego.


Maybe I'm way off the mark here. Or maybe I'm saying something fans already know. As said, I'm not a Superman guy. I'm only offering an outsider's perception of Metropolis and how it relates to Superman.

Writers are constantly trying to figure out how to make Superman more relatable and interesting. But I think maybe the problem isn't him, it's his setting.
Metropolis needs to be a s**t-hole.

[Gaius]

I'm going to preface this by saying I'm not the biggest Superman guy. This observation is more of an outsider looking in, so I don't know how controversial it will be, but...

Metropolis needs to be a crummier and more corrupt city, and this is a reason why Superman is seen as "boring" by some fans.

I think one of the problems with Metropolis as a setting is it's become caught up in Superman's contrast with Batman. We all know how DC loves to yammer on about how Supes and Bats are opposite, but the same, two sides of the coin...light and dark, day and night, salvation and justice...blah-blah-blah.

And this has extended to their respective cities. If Gotham is this rotting cesspool of corruption and crime, Metropolis therefore becomes this shining City of Tomorrow. Crime, yes. A need for Superman, sure. But aside from killer robots and evil aliens, lacking a sense the city is fundamentally broken the way Gotham is.

So what's really the point of Superman if his chosen city is "just fine" with or without him?

Think about this on the purely visceral, wish-fulfillment level--what's the appeal of a character who's effectively invincible? They can do what they want without fear of real consequence.
But that's only heroic if the world they're doing it in is a world of corruption, bullies, injustice, and tyranny. Otherwise, they are the bully imposing their power on an unsuspecting world. A Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers steamrolling innocent people. Every tiresome evil Superman story we've already seen.

A beacon of hope only works if the world surrounding them is dark. If Metropolis is "just fine," then Superman is merely a glorified janitor keeping it tidy.
This is why DC's efforts to present him as a symbol of hope often just amount to meaningless platitudes or (worse) every other hero made to look incompetent and useless without him.

I'm not saying Metropolis needs to become a carbon copy of Gotham City, but it does need to be equally broken and corrupt in its own way. If Gotham is a urban hell of crime-lords paying off corrupt cops and government officials, maybe Metropolis needs to be a place of greedy corporate executives using their vast wealth to work the system in their favor?
And hey, who's Superman's greatest enemy? A corrupt business executive who only cares about his ego.


Maybe I'm way off the mark here. Or maybe I'm saying something fans already know. As said, I'm not a Superman guy. I'm only offering an outsider's perception of Metropolis and how it relates to Superman.

Writers are constantly trying to figure out how to make Superman more relatable and interesting. But I think maybe the problem isn't him, it's his setting.
Metropolis needs to be a s**t-hole.

Recent news like Beezos going to space and Elon Musk buying Twitter makes me think turning Metropolis into an overly gentrified city run by tech entrepreneurs would be a good way to differentiate it from Gotham.

[DochaDocha]

I think Metropolis can have its own sort of problems and be distinct from Gotham. Like one would be petty crooks and gangs are more afraid of Superman than Batman. That flies in the face of "Ooh, Batman = Scary and Superman = boyscout," but if one's a godlike creature who shows up during day and night, can sense you like he's Santa Claus, and can't be physically stopped by any human means, why would you bother trying to rob a bank?

On the other hand, it can have similar problems, such as two-faced politicians who take bribes. They just wouldn't be so obvious and galavant with mobsters like the do in the Batman movies. I do like the idea that the uber-elite of Metropolis bought their way into even more power, and that Metropolis' corruption is buried much deeper. Gotham is an exaggerated portrayal of how old-school organized crime had undue power over local government and businesses. Metropolis can be an exaggeration of how corporate leaders are always pushing the boundaries of their sphere of influence and control, and how we turn blind eyes to this because we're always getting some consumer good or service out of it.

[godisawesome]

Metropolis has frequently dipped into almost-cyberpunk dystopia depictions at various points, as well as being a more "Crime-invested" place; we've had stuff like Suicide Slum, the 100, Intergang, and in the 90's LexCorp and Project Cadmus were frequently up to no good or at least creating as many problems as they solved. And the B-13 period wasn't above getting a little dirty. In fact, I'd argue that Metropolis was more a cyberpunk playground throughout both the Bronze Age and the Post-Crisis period

Maybe Metropolis's thing should be that it's always waffling between Cyberpunk hellhole and City of Tomorrow, with ALL of that stuff happening ALL AT ONCE?

Imagine if Morrison's Blue Jeans Superman was having to deal with Intergang preying on Suicide Slum while Westfield's version of Project Cadmus uses it as testing ground and Lex Luthor is the overlord of it all...

[Agent Z]

The problem with clark being shitty with family is he gets away with it.There is no payoff given for the other side.His family is the one that suffers.He goes of into the sunlight with a big halo on his head.Mon el gets stuck in the phantom zone.Punishment for clark?none.Supergirl is abandoned.punishment for clark?zilch.Chris kent is forgotten..punishment for clark?don't even remember.Jon is sent of with a psychopath.. punishment for clois?they have a one night stand..Jon needs a piccolo asap.

Why should Clark be punished for DC forgetting Chris's existence? Supergirl wasn't abandoned and sending Mon to the Phantom Zone was to save his life. Also, I could've been sworn you defended him letting Jon go with Jor-El.

[manwhohaseverything]

Why should Clark be punished for DC forgetting Chris's existence? Supergirl wasn't abandoned and sending Mon to the Phantom Zone was to save his life. Also, I could've been sworn you defended him letting Jon go with Jor-El.

Cause superman represents the fans,dc..etc(If he didn't his morality won't have been a big deal.).well,getting thrown into an orphanage might be just bad writing but that's what happened.Save his life after he got him in trouble in the first place.Nope!always thought these guys where shitty parents and deserved to be kicked to the moon.