Posted on 03/20/2016 3:48:47 PM PDT by Bratch
Superman should be invincible. Since his car-smashing debut in 1938, he’s starred in at least one regular monthly comic, three blockbuster films, and four television shows. His crest is recognized across the globe, his supporting cast is legendary, and anybody even vaguely familiar with comics can recount the broad strokes of his origin.
[...]
And yet, for a character who gains his power from the light of the sun, Superman is curiously eclipsed by other heroes. According to numbers provided by Diamond Distributors, the long-running Superman comic sold only 55,000 copies a month in 2015, down from around 70,000 in 2010—a mediocre showing even for the famously anemic comic-book market. That’s significantly less than his colleague Batman, who last year moved issues at a comparatively brisk 150,000 a month. Mass media hasn’t been much kinder: The longest-running Superman television show, 2001’sSmallville, kept him out of his iconic suit for a decade. Superman Returns recouped its budget at the box office, but proved mostly forgettable. 2013’s Man of Steeldrew sharp criticism from critics and audiences alike for its bleak tone and rampaging finale. Trailers for the sequel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, have shifted the focus (and top billing) to the Dark Knight. Worst of all, conventional wisdom puts the blame on Superman himself. He’s boring, people say; he’s unrelatable, nothing like the Marvel characters dominating the sales charts and the box office. More than anything, he seems embarrassing. Look at him. Truth? Justice? He wears his underwear on the outside.
Behold! I give you the problem of Superman. It’s a problem that has less to do with the character himself and more to with DC Comics, which found itself stuck with a flagship character it thought needed fixing. In trying, it broke him nearly beyond repair.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
They prefer characters that live in grey areas, with no set sense of good or evil.
Superman causes their internal pinball machine to perpetually tilt.
I don’t follow this stuff at all.
but how can there be a superman vs. batman?
how could batman POSSIBLY put up a fight against superman?
The funny thing is people said the same things before Christopher Reeve’s Superman came out. They thought the character was too naive for the sophisticated and cynical 1970s. They played it straight with the character, and won over the audience. Now everyone considers Reeve’s version to be the standard everyone should follow.
A question - Superman has superhuman strength and so on, but spends all his time on earth, where he never needs to use a fraction of his incredible muscle power. So why is it, especially in recent years, he’s incredibly ripped and muscle bound? Shouldn’t he actually be paunchy, with pipestem arms and legs?
Think of when Superman began, the '30s.
Who wouldn't find that all-American superhero appealing?
But a guy who never loses, who has only token "opponents" gets old.
That's why they made Supes less "Super".
It made him more interesting.
Not sure it was "enough" though.
Hence the rise of very flawed superheroes.
I'll not go so far as to applaud gay Green Lantern, or a Captain America that is some kind of UN ambassador.
I don't care for it at all.
But I understand *why* that has appeal in 2016.
We're a society of wusses.
Superman’s stories are well written when they are written from him deciding when to save somebody and not to save somebody or between two disasters, why he picks one over the other.
More social justice. Yeah, that’s the ticket!
Jimmie Johnson drives for him and I am not a fan of Jimmie Johnson.
Kryptonite and power armor.
For me, the only Superman is George Reeves, just like the only Bond is Connery.
Also, TV was much better when it was B+W.
And get off my lawn.
:)
Here is an analysis of the movie by one of my favorite youtube channels.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8dDb39MtpI
seriously? why the heck would the two of them have a beef?
or is that something that I would have to read like 200 comics to find out?
Easy. Batman is the world's greatest detective and inventor (In fact, D.C. used to stand for Detective Comics, in tribute to Batman). He can create kryptonite that can kill Superman.
Also, Superman is a liberal. Superman fights evil on behalf of everywhere and doesn't have moral clarification. Batman, on the other hand, is a conservative. He sees the flaws in the system and protects the powerless from the powerful.
When I was a kid, one of my friends pointed out that unless Superman has some kind of rocket-level thrust, how on earth can he "stop" a falling airplane?
He could catch it just fine.
But he'd have to be like someone catching an egg in the egg toss.
Otherwise the plane would be smashed to bits.
Don't get me started on turning the earth backwards.
I personally appreciate a well-done story with a character who has to deal with some of the ambiguities of life...
of course, I would like to see some signs of morality being brought to bear in the story
ambiguities are only ambiguous because they straddle or challenge our received moral values in some manner, or test them out in new and difficult situations
the moral values should be in the story, to make it a really GREAT story, imho!
sometimes nowadays, there are no moral values in the stories. This leaves the stories empty, meaningless. If I want to read about meaninglessness, I will go back and read the existential authors we had in high school philosophy class. They were very interesting and challenging in some ways, but I soon saw that they offered us NO useful answers
I don’t know what to say.
Good drama could come from the challenges a moral person faces in today’s post-modern world.
For instance, what would Superman do after seeing videos of what really goes on in an abortion clinic?
How would Wonder Woman react the first time she’s exposed to Sharia law?
There’s a multitude of stories available but modern writers wouldn’t touch most of them with a ten-foot pole.
They’re too busy lampooning Donald Trump.
I’m in the same boat. Growing up with Christopher Reeve as Superman was my exposure and that was pretty much it. Maybe the occasional Batman & Robin re-run from the 60’s.
I never read comic books so I never got into the Marvel vs. DC ‘war’ and have no allegiance to either. It’s like when people go into the weeds with PC vs. Mac, Ford vs. Chevy, .45ACP vs. 9mm.
But that’s the thing, to make Superman vs. Batman plausible you have to be the type to buy into the mythology. You have to go into the weeds. As far as I’m concerned Superman can only be stopped with Kryptonite. So unless Batman has that then it’s no contest. But you see what I did there? I have to get all involved in the story to make it plausible.
lol.
I feel like i’m siting on a bar stool at Cheers.
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