Controversial Superman Opinions

[darkseidpwns]

My controversial opinion

If certain Super fans are fine with him not aging and not farting and not having an anus (cause he needs to move beyond bio waste) then they might as well remove his penis and sex drive as well because who needs biological procreation if you're a self sustaining immortal.

[dumbduck]

Im more interested in a Gods and Monster version of Clark Kent than a Gods and Monster's Kal-el. Seeing a non powered Clark Kent act as a foil for a young Hernan would be an interesting flashback.

A powerless Clark, if he has a bit of Morrison's 52 origins, might be still an idealist, as he doesn't need to 'settle down' as he gets older and more powerful. He'd think Hernan is a 'champion of the opressed', but would eventually discover he's actually nihilist, 'realpolitik' guy. He'd try to convince him to fight the good fight anyway.

Neither Kal nor Kara nor Krypto (nor Zod) have ever pooped nor even farted in their lives ... because they are not physically able to do so. Kryptonians evolved past producing biological waste eons ago.

I'm on board with Grant Morrison on this: no Kryptonian even has an anus or rectum (like certain species of owls IRL).

So does a natural or manufactured hybrid have 2? Do they have those body parts?

My controversial opinion

If certain Super fans are fine with him not aging and not farting and not having an anus (cause he needs to move beyond bio waste) then they might as well remove his penis and sex drive as well because who needs biological procreation if you're a self sustaining immortal.

Noticing that the Supers don't go to the bathroom is like asking how Supes' flight works as if this were a trump card against him. If we're gonna go that way, explain martian, quantum, nuclear, olympic flight, etc.

Batso is lucky that Kevin Smith wrote that story where he pees himself.

[Ascended]

Was this in DKSA? I never read it unlike DKR, only saw a few scans. If that's where it was, the problem is that it came way too late, never mind that Clark took another, 'real' beat down this time. 14 years after DKR? But it's cool that Miller retconned it to this.

Never read DKSA, but its been so long since I read DKR that I could be wrong or mis-remembering it. But I do want to say that at some point in DKR, there's a small, throwaway line about Clark trying to enact change from within the system while Bruce tackled it from the outside, and it being....maybe not a coordinated effort, but a shared understanding of goals.

If anyone's read DKR lately, maybe they can clear it up because now Im not sure if Im imagining things or not.

[Agent Z]

More often than not people just project their idea of what morality is onto Superman. It doesn't help the character at all.

[Atomic Man]

More often than not people just project their idea of what morality is onto Superman. It doesn't help the character at all.

If you're talking about killing, you're sorely mistaken. Despite the rampant moral subjectivism in our world today, killing is still accepted as a moral wrong and punished by law. As for any other moral problems you may have, Superman was a paragon of moral virtue far longer than the NotSoSuperman of Snyder has been around. Superheroes are fantasy and are intended for children and children of heart. They should be models of decency and goodness, not deconstructed and "realistic" like the rest of us. They were created to inspire, and Watchmen was meant as a deconstruction and commentary on the genre, not a treatise on how superheroes should be portrayed. Moore proves this in his work on Supreme.

[Ascended]

More often than not people just project their idea of what morality is onto Superman. It doesn't help the character at all.

This is true of all fiction though. We bring things to the table that influence our perception of the narration and how we view the characters and events.

Superman is meant to be us at our best, so we take the rough framework (what the stories tell us about Clark as a character) and fill in the rest with our own ideals. Not a fan of lethal force? Then your Superman never uses it. See it as a necessary evil and believe that some monsters need to be put down for the collective good? Then your Superman is willing to cross that line should the need arise. And there's plenty of precedence to support either viewpoint, since Superman never kills....until he does.

And given he's been around for almost a century and has been published in thousands of stories, you can find precedence for damn near anything that fits your personal morality.

This is not a phenomena unique to Superman.

[Last Son of Krypton]

My controversial opinion...

Jerry Siegel's Silver-Age Superman is the best Superman.

[Agent Z]

If you're talking about killing, you're sorely mistaken. Despite the rampant moral subjectivism in our world today, killing is still accepted as a moral wrong and punished by law. As for any other moral problems you may have, Superman was a paragon of moral virtue far longer than the NotSoSuperman of Snyder has been around. Superheroes are fantasy and are intended for children and children of heart. They should be models of decency and goodness, not deconstructed and "realistic" like the rest of us. They were created to inspire, and Watchmen was meant as a deconstruction and commentary on the genre, not a treatise on how superheroes should be portrayed. Moore proves this in his work on Supreme.

Wasn't just talking about killing. And The law recognises that not all forms of killing is morally wrong (I.e accidental killing, killing in self defence).

And the issue with writing superheroes as moral paragons is that morality is not static and very much depends on the time, place and person. Superman in his original incarnation wouldn't be seen as a moral paragon by many people today. And I'm not sure who the deadbeat dad/stalker in Superman Returns was meant to inspire. Half the time superheroes in general rely on moral luck to be seen as paragons. Simply writing them as people who try to help to the best of their ability but don't have all the right answers is enough. Anything more or less is just an defying common sense. If anything, Snyder's Superman is the first time in ages someone adapting Superman focused on what made him a hero not a power fantasy. He reconstructed Superman not deconstruct him

And your view of superheroes is incredibly narrow minded. So Batman, Deadpool, Wolverine, The Hulk, Red Hood should all be written for children and be moral paragons?

[Atomic Man]

Wasn't just talking about killing. And The law recognises that not all forms of killing is morally wrong (I.e accidental killing, killing in self defence).

And the issue with writing superheroes as moral paragons is that morality is not static and very much depends on the time, place and person. Superman in his original incarnation wouldn't be seen as a moral paragon by many people today. And I'm not sure who the deadbeat dad/stalker in Superman Returns was meant to inspire. Half the time superheroes in general rely on moral luck to be seen as paragons. Simply writing them as people who try to help to the best of their ability but don't have all the right answers is enough. Anything more or less is just an defying common sense. If anything, Snyder's Superman is the first time in ages someone adapting Superman focused on what made him a hero not a power fantasy. He reconstructed Superman not deconstruct him

And your view of superheroes is incredibly narrow minded. So Batman, Deadpool, Wolverine, The Hulk, Red Hood should all be written for children and be moral paragons?

Batman is a superhero, so yes, while his milieu is darker, he should indeed be written as a moral paragon. He is, after all, the Dark KNIGHT. As for the others you list, you betray either your ignorance of archetypes or desperation in attempting to make your point. Deadpool, Wolverine, Hulk, and Red Hood are anti-heroes; they are not, therefore, held to the same standards as an inspirational and aspirational hero.

If you like those characters, that's fine, but don't require other characters to be portrayed as they are. Superman should share NOTHING in common with Wolverine or Deadpool, but like The Batman, he is a hero. There was a time that The Batman wasn't portrayed as an uber-violent, constantly angry and vicious thug. Look to the O'Neil/Adams run, the Englehart/Rogers runs, the late 80s/early 90s runs of Alan Grant, Chuck Dixon, and Dough Moench, as well as Batman: The Animated Series for examples.

Finally, if you want Superman to be an violent and murdering anti-hero, go read Injustice.

[Agent Z]

Batman is a superhero, so yes, while his milieu is darker, he should indeed be written as a moral paragon. He is, after all, the Dark KNIGHT. As for the others you list, you betray either your ignorance of archetypes or desperation in attempting to make your point. Deadpool, Wolverine, Hulk, and Red Hood are anti-heroes; they are not, therefore, held to the same standards as an inspirational and aspirational hero.

They are still superheroes regardless of their differing morality. Superheroes are not just characters like classic Superman.

If you like those characters, that's fine, but don't require other characters to be portrayed as they are.

Please do not put words in my mouth. I made no such requirement.

Superman should share NOTHING in common with Wolverine or Deadpool, but like The Batman, he is a hero.

Funny how the guys who created Batman and Superman didn’t mind giving them traits not dissimilar from Deadpool or Wolverine.

There was a time that The Batman wasn't portrayed as an uber-violent, constantly angry and vicious thug. Look to the O'Neil/Adams run, the Englehart/Rogers runs, the late 80s/early 90s runs of Alan Grant, Chuck Dixon, and Dough Moench, as well as Batman: The Animated Series for examples.

Last I checked the 80s and 90s were over and those periods still largely portrayed him as violent and angry.

Finally, if you want Superman to be an violent and murdering anti-hero, go read Injustice.

A) Nice straw man
B) Injustice Superman is not an anti hero. He's a villain.

[Atomic Man]

Funny how the guys who created Batman and Superman didn’t mind giving them traits not dissimilar from Deadpool or Wolverine.

Here we go, the tired old argument used to justify Murderer of Steel: "Superman killed in the Golden Age, so it's okay if he does so now." Said instances were very few and occurred in the first year/year and a half of Superman's existence. The other 77 have shown Superman as a person who respects life and always finds a way to stop his enemies without resorting to lethal force. Superman #22 was the misfire of a pissed-off writer (Byrne admits to this) leaving his final mark on the character.

[Kuwagaton]

Although the thread is designed to invoke arguable opinions, I don't see why anyone has to be associated with ignorance or narrow mindedness. Let's not get aggro.

My controversial opinion...

Jerry Siegel's Silver-Age Superman is the best Superman.

Honestly, I think Siegel doing the newspaper adaptions was pretty much the best DC material put out before the 70s. Earth N was always really cool to me in a way that actual golden and silver age material was dull.

[Jim Kelly]

But a lot of the newspaper strips either adapted stories from the comics or the other way around the comics would use stories from the newspapers. And you had the same talent working for both. Although it seemed like getting the comic strip gig was a plumb--the writers and artists that got it probably made more money.

[Kuwagaton]

Oh I have no idea how it worked out for the creators, but yeah, that adaptation thing is what I was talking about. Although the stories were largely the same when Siegel and Swan did them, I think the format massively improved the pacing so that the material read better than many comic books made in the same years.

I also think they made Boring's art look a lot better.

[Sacred Knight]

The bigger the Super family (i.e, other superheroes and Metropolis denizens) the better. Just follow the early nineties formula as opposed to the later nineties formula, when they began overshadowing Superman himself. Just remember, cycle everyone except Superman. You never cycle him, outside the very occasional interlude type issue.