Controversial Superman Opinions

[Ascended]

While it would be fun to see I'm not sue I agree. It feels a bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.
Superman showing off and defeating normal humans easily sounds a bit like an intimidation tactic.

I think you could get away with it under the right conditions.

Like, during Infinite Crisis when the villains were starting to organize, I could see Superman deciding to go after the lower rung of villains. A show of force in that situation would have been warranted as it would be both a proactive attempt to weaken the Secret Society's ranks and a spectacle to remind people that Superman and the other heroes can still stand tall. It'd be part intimidation tactic and part pro-hero rally.

If Clark just wakes up on a random Tuesday and says "You know, I think I'll clean out the Fearsome Five during my lunch break" it might not work. As Pak used to say, Superman doesnt punch down.

[Kuwagaton]

It really bums me out to think how tough it is to get a character like John Henry up and running. It's a tough market.

Also, I think in many ways Doomsday was a clear argument for why we should never see Superman give his all when we comes to his powers. It'll never top the hype and where do you go from there?

There are plenty of outright evil villains in fiction. The tragic ones just stand out more so that's why they're remembered.

I'm just tired of the relentless efforts to have readers identify and sympathize. No matter how crappy my day is I'm not gonna poison the sun so it's often a moot point. Villainy is choosing to cross a line that you can't uncross, and without crossing that line I can't really relate.

I can agree that there are pure villains, but that they stand out less? You can't compare Two Face to the Joker, for one thing.

[DochaDocha]

In recent times DC has branced out on diversity with the creation of two black Supermen, Val-Zod and President Supermen. One is boring as hell and one is just okay. Maybe focus more on the best black Superman you've already created: John Henry Irons.

To be fair, John Henry Irons isn't really a Superman, even if he is more interesting than the other guys.

And since this is a thread about controversial Superman opinions, I'd say the only reason Calvin Ellis was pushed was purely to make a political statement. I have a latent distrust of our federal politicians (my hat is figuratively made of tinfoil) so I rarely get too excited about this character. But who knows. Maybe by February I'll miss Calvin Ellis...

EDIT: how possible is it for normal, law-abiding people to sympathize with super villains? We can sympathize with various criminal acts, such as revenge or lashing out in anger, but super villains are generally not the type who can reset themselves back to law-abiding. You can have a Michael Corleone-type transformations, but at some point, we recognize that these guys are willing to engage in heinous acts to feed some kind of selfish desire. So, in that sense, I see where Kuwagaton is coming from. At some point, these bad guys are just black-and-white awful, with no shades in between.

[Agent Z]

It really bums me out to think how tough it is to get a character like John Henry up and running. It's a tough market.

Also, I think in many ways Doomsday was a clear argument for why we should never see Superman give his all when we comes to his powers. It'll never top the hype and where do you go from there?



I'm just tired of the relentless efforts to have readers identify and sympathize. No matter how crappy my day is I'm not gonna poison the sun so it's often a moot point. Villainy is choosing to cross a line that you can't uncross, and without crossing that line I can't really relate.

I can agree that there are pure villains, but that they stand out less? You can't compare Two Face to the Joker, for one thing.

Two-Face is hardly a nobody and the Joker is a rare example of a pure villain being so critically acclaimed. Guys like Darth Vader, Loki, Magneto, Zuko etc get a lot of love because their backstorirs and motivations are way more memorable than a mustache twirling loon

[Superlad93]

No matter how crappy my day is I'm not gonna poison the sun so it's often a moot point. Villainy is choosing to cross a line that you can't uncross, and without crossing that line I can't really relate.

But it's a comic so it's inherently and exaggeration. You might not be able to sympathize/understand someone actually poisoning the sun, but you do understand the concept of being unnecessarily cruel to a person you're jealous of or mad at. Even if it's something as relatively small as a string unwarranted mean comments. We're not all Superman saving the world from ending, but we do save our own personal worlds from ending everyday. We go the extra mile at work to put a little extra on the table. We swallow our pride and admit when we're wrong. We pluck up the courage to let other people completely into our little worlds, and we then feel we're responsible for them. We're all Lex and Superman but on a smaller scale. The Superman world is there to paint our personal dramas on a bigger folk tale stage.

[The World]

I'm just tired of the relentless efforts to have readers identify and sympathize. No matter how crappy my day is I'm not gonna poison the sun so it's often a moot point. Villainy is choosing to cross a line that you can't uncross, and without crossing that line I can't really relate.

I can agree that there are pure villains, but that they stand out less? You can't compare Two Face to the Joker, for one thing.

Yeah, can't agree enough. Doesn't help that it feels like authors have a habit of cribbing of each other when creating these so called sympathetic villains. They've become souless and manufactured without much care though into their existence.

Two-Face is hardly a nobody and the Joker is a rare example of a pure villain being so critically acclaimed. Guys like Darth Vader, Loki, Magneto, Zuko etc get a lot of love because their backstorirs and motivations are way more memorable than a mustache twirling loon

I'm not so sure.

Frieza, Light Yagami, Dio and Kira from JOJO, Anton Chigurh from NCFOM, plenty of Bond villains, the creature from Stephen King's IT, Micheal Myers, and Griffith from Berserk are all pretty out and out evil yet very memorable and most of them have very little in the ways of backstories at all but have been pretty critically acclaimed all together. I'd rank presence over sympathetic backstories when it comes to memorable villains. Zuko basically became part of the scenery once he made the trip to the good side and completed his character arc and and the attempts to show Anakin as a good man in his past weren't well received with most people skipping him for the firmly lightside established Obi-Wan Kenobi.

[Kuwagaton]

Man I freaking love Dio, Kira, Light, Chigurh, and Griffith. So I definitely have a bias to what I enjoy, but I didn't intend to make a point that there was a such thing as "better." People will simply enjoy whatever they enjoy, and I only brought up the Joker because it's pretty hard to argue that he's not the most popular villain to spring from the pages of a comic book. So to me, if depth can only come from not being blatant villain, a "mustache twirler," then apparently people generally don't see depth as a necessity.

I don't think making Lex to be a despicable guy steps on the toes of others, because distinction is left to whatever we deem good writing. Lex to me would be the truly bad one because Superman is the truly good one. And yet through the years, he's been dealt all these "unfair hands" in his expanding origins.

But it's a comic so it's inherently and exaggeration. You might not be able to sympathize/understand someone actually poisoning the sun, but you do understand the concept of being unnecessarily cruel to a person you're jealous of or mad at. Even if it's something as relatively small as a string unwarranted mean comments. We're not all Superman saving the world from ending, but we do save our own personal worlds from ending everyday. We go the extra mile at work to put a little extra on the table. We swallow our pride and admit when we're wrong. We pluck up the courage to let other people completely into our little worlds, and we then feel we're responsible for them. We're all Lex and Superman but on a smaller scale. The Superman world is there to paint our personal dramas on a bigger folk tale stage.

Yeah the exaggeration thing is totally true. I just use actual comic examples because I find them extremely convenient. If I say poison the sun, you get it immediately because just about everyone knows All-Star (speaking of which, I did just pull out a copy and have to admit that Superman was drawn better than I remembered). But when we scale it down, the lines stay as they are pretty much. We all feel slighted, but so few of us ever make the choice to seek a definitive revenge. Luthor is the guy who got humiliated by a cop, and then goes out to either hurt that cop, the cop's family, or a different cop, and makes good on it. Superman is the cop who gets spit on and then takes a bullet for the spitter. We tend to be a mix and fall somewhere in between. Maybe we get humiliated and write a nasty letter, or forget about it. Maybe we're a cop who takes a bribe or sits in the car praying that no one makes us get out and do stuff. But we're (hopefully) more likely to do the heroic thing which is why I think a majority will take a Superman ongoing over a Lex ongoing.

All of this I say though, as someone whose brain is tuned to the previous comics. A new comic book Lex would be entirely capable of not being homicidal and I'm sure one can argue for a less dangerous Lex in all of those other forms of media out there.

[Mr. Mastermind]

Most of Superman's villains should be just as powerful if not more powerful than him. Luthor is the obvious exception.

When Superman is more powerful than most of his rogues gallery, it leads to stories about villains only being able to put up a fight because of how much smarter they are than him. Which makes Superman look pretty bad. Having Superman fight more powerful villains and win makes him a better hero because writers then have to write him outsmarting them as a solution, instead of just punching.

[Superlad93]

Man I freaking love Dio, Kira, Light, Chigurh, and Griffith. So I definitely have a bias to what I enjoy, but I didn't intend to make a point that there was a such thing as "better." People will simply enjoy whatever they enjoy, and I only brought up the Joker because it's pretty hard to argue that he's not the most popular villain to spring from the pages of a comic book. So to me, if depth can only come from not being blatant villain, a "mustache twirler," then apparently people generally don't see depth as a necessity.

I don't think making Lex to be a despicable guy steps on the toes of others, because distinction is left to whatever we deem good writing. Lex to me would be the truly bad one because Superman is the truly good one. And yet through the years, he's been dealt all these "unfair hands" in his expanding origins.



Yeah the exaggeration thing is totally true. I just use actual comic examples because I find them extremely convenient. If I say poison the sun, you get it immediately because just about everyone knows All-Star (speaking of which, I did just pull out a copy and have to admit that Superman was drawn better than I remembered). But when we scale it down, the lines stay as they are pretty much. We all feel slighted, but so few of us ever make the choice to seek a definitive revenge. Luthor is the guy who got humiliated by a cop, and then goes out to either hurt that cop, the cop's family, or a different cop, and makes good on it. Superman is the cop who gets spit on and then takes a bullet for the spitter. We tend to be a mix and fall somewhere in between. Maybe we get humiliated and write a nasty letter, or forget about it. Maybe we're a cop who takes a bribe or sits in the car praying that no one makes us get out and do stuff. But we're (hopefully) more likely to do the heroic thing which is why I think a majority will take a Superman ongoing over a Lex ongoing

I think you still might be thinking too literal/big. You also might be underestimating the scale of what our little "Lex moment" can be. You don't have to actively get "revenge" on a person. You can spread a nasty rumor, make a mean spirited remark, go on social media and become an anonymous bully, or even something as insignificant as wishing ill on another. That's all Lex no matter how small it is in comparison. I'd say the cop compression is just fine but it doesn't need to even go to that scale.

The flip is true too. We're all Superman when we hold the door open for a extra second for that person holding a bunch of bags. We're him when we hunker down and get through our day to day grind (school, work, whatever) and work towards a better personal future. Just going a little out of your way to make someone's day for even just a fraction of a second is being Superman. Or just staying a positive person.

This is why I don't think Lex works as well as a person who is just straight up evil. I know it makes things inherently evil if Superman can just put his hands on his hips and call Lex an lying evil snake, but it's far less fun too me. You can get the same fun almost cartoon-like bad Lex stories out of a Lex who's just an exaggeration of our weaker aspects. You also get the addition of a character with some range to him. I like a staggeringly smart and seemingly put together Lex.....who can still get a pie in his face.

I think "smooth operator" Lex is just the posturing of an incredibly insecure man, and, for me, that has to show from time to time.

[Kuwagaton]

I think that analogy is the foundation of a really interesting future Lex story, but the character I see destroys and murders. I think a Superman who doesn't treat him like a murderer then looks like a fool, even if the concept of ending his tantrum with confident kindness is a pretty sweet idea. At some point with the lines crossed in story there's a difference between hopeful and ignorant.

Two ironic things: I'm fine with Jurgens ignoring all that with Lex of Apokolips, he's not really sympathetic but he's also not a psycho. And also, Morrison bringing Magneto back to his roots was seriously terrible. Again I don't think there is no "better" approach to all villains.

Most of Superman's villains should be just as powerful if not more powerful than him. Luthor is the obvious exception.

When Superman is more powerful than most of his rogues gallery, it leads to stories about villains only being able to put up a fight because of how much smarter they are than him. Which makes Superman look pretty bad. Having Superman fight more powerful villains and win makes him a better hero because writers then have to write him outsmarting them as a solution, instead of just punching.

Actually, I like to think the opposite for the same reason. I think if Superman is really stronger than most, he probably would be less interested in punching them and they would probably try other methods more frequently. Of course the mother of all "other methods" is taking his powers away to punch him better.

[Superlad93]

I think that analogy is the foundation of a really interesting future Lex story, but the character I see destroys and murders. I think a Superman who doesn't treat him like a murderer then looks like a fool, even if the concept of ending his tantrum with confident kindness is a pretty sweet idea. At some point with the lines crossed in story there's a difference between hopeful and ignorant.

I agree, but that's also why I toe the line on Lex killing or not. I don't know if I'm 100% against it or not.

I appericate and understand the concerns of Superman looking ignorant, but I also think he looks like a big bluff when he snarls and yokes Lex up. It's like, yeah big man, you got him by the neck.....now what? Oh nothing? Nothing at all? If you ain't bout sh!t then do go round acting like it. That's posturing that I think a more seasoned Superman would have less need of on the regular.

[Flash Gordon]

Most of Superman's villains should be just as powerful if not more powerful than him. Luthor is the obvious exception.

When Superman is more powerful than most of his rogues gallery, it leads to stories about villains only being able to put up a fight because of how much smarter they are than him. Which makes Superman look pretty bad. Having Superman fight more powerful villains and win makes him a better hero because writers then have to write him outsmarting them as a solution, instead of just punching.

I agree, I do think a lot of Superman stories should involve big existence-ending threats. A job for Superman.

One book should always stick around Metropolis more and involve his Clark Kent ID, and the other should tell larger Superman stories. Superman up against the grind, where his limits are extremely tested and he has to solely rely on his wisdom and street smarts to save the day.

It's important for Superman to "punch things", it's kinda his thing. He's a man of action. He's the guy who goes in head first, fist out.

[Ascended]

It really bums me out to think how tough it is to get a character like John Henry up and running. It's a tough market.

Also, I think in many ways Doomsday was a clear argument for why we should never see Superman give his all when we comes to his powers. It'll never top the hype and where do you go from there?

No man, that was all in the execution.

Superman pushing his powers to the limit? In a fight that didn't even leave the city? That sort of low-end stuff you only see in two places; early Golden Age, and early post-Crisis. Every other era would have taken that fight into space, the moon, Mars, the center of the earth, and if you've got someone writing who really gets off on the scope and potential of Clark's powers at their highest concept, then higher dimensions and/or time.

Hell man, even Nuperman's fight with the Collector went into low orbit, and that Superman couldn't fly!

His fight with Imperiex saw him sun-dipping and pushing a sentient planet and cosmic manifestation into the Big Bang itself.

The fight with Doomsday was underwhelming because it was written that way, not because there's anything wrong with Clark pushing his limits.

[Ascended]

I agree, but that's also why I toe the line on Lex killing or not. I don't know if I'm 100% against it or not.

I appericate and understand the concerns of Superman looking ignorant, but I also think he looks like a big bluff when he snarls and yokes Lex up. It's like, yeah big man, you got him by the neck.....now what? Oh nothing? Nothing at all? If you ain't bout sh!t then do go round acting like it. That's posturing that I think a more seasoned Superman would have less need of on the regular.

What's your take on the New52 five year gap, and the idea that at some point Clark actively tried, and failed, to kill Lex?

[gwangung]

Most of Superman's villains should be just as powerful if not more powerful than him. Luthor is the obvious exception.

When Superman is more powerful than most of his rogues gallery, it leads to stories about villains only being able to put up a fight because of how much smarter they are than him. Which makes Superman look pretty bad. Having Superman fight more powerful villains and win makes him a better hero because writers then have to write him outsmarting them as a solution, instead of just punching.

Ah, that's why I miss the days of Super being able to travel space like you or I going round the block for some milk. Makes A good reason for Earth being a galactic crossroads, and easy to bring in some real challenges for him.