ping
As far as I am concerned, there is only one superman. Played by George Reeves in black and white, in the afternoons after school. And the mole men were the coolest ever.
In fact, in the very early stages of the character’s development, he wasn’t a hero at all, but a villain …The titular character in The Reign of the Superman is a completely different character from Kal-El.
True, the golden age stories showed a Superman who was a little rough on the bad guys. But as years went on, and his backstory was expanded, that fell away.
And it made sense. A person raised from infancy by a decent, hardworking Kansas farm couple would not in all likelihood turn out to be a brute. He would be a guy with normal values who would use his gifts to serve others and to protect his adopted country. Yeah, he’s Kryptonian, but he’d assimilated.
But that’s not very Hollywood, is it.
I'd say they're way behind the curve on this. Batman's been brooding for at least thirty years (longer if you ignore the Adam West years), Spiderman for fifty. It would have been more interesting to stick with what they had and try to do something new with it, rather than follow the rest of the herd.
Nope. George Reeves or Christopher Reeve. When it comes to Superman, all other arguments are invalid! :)
“Superman’s forever-long fight with Zod and his violent death at the hands of the Man of Steel, along with the destruction of Metropolis, and Superman’s utter lack of effort to try to save people.”
Did this idiot even watch the movie?! Superman reluctantly killed Zod TO SAVE PEOPLE ZOD WAS GOING TO KILL.
/Slate sucks
I think we've reached a point in which Hollywood is too cynical to make a squeaky-clean patriotic hero like Superman. When the first Christopher Reeve movie was made, they could have taken a cynical approach in the post-Vietnam late 70s. Instead, they embraced Superman's squareness. Some could view it as a little campy, others as a true representation of a hero. Either way, everybody liked it. When Reeve's Superman says he is here "to fight for truth, justice and the American Way", it may have been meant as a laugh line, but theater audiences when I saw it always broke out in cheers.
This new Snyder film will suck, as did his previous one. The Batman movies have likewise gotten too dark. I prefer the freewheeling style of Marvel's cinematic comics universe to the dark dystopian DC movies. Comic book heroes are supposed to be uplifting, a form of escapism; not a reminder of how broken our world is.
The whole juxtaposition of Superman and Batman is that Superman is a rule follower with extraordinary abilities, while Batman is a guy out for justice with world-class normal abilities he had to earn. Batman being the justice guy and having experienced the darker side is worried that someone with Sup’s abilities could go astray. Superman being the rule follower looks askance at Batman’s stepping into a lot of gray areas. It’s nearly always been that way and it’s why the team-ups were great. It’s the dichotomy that makes it work. They both admit they’re way isn’t the only way, but they both try to make the other better by seeing their side. AND YES the character mentioned in the article had little to do with the Kal-el superman we know.
Beating up bad guys IS saving people.
Friggin liberals...
“But what many fans don’t realize is that Superman hasn’t always been the Big, Blue Boy Scout they’ve come to know and love. “
True. Nietzsche had a much more morally ambivalent version of the super man.
BTW, calling someone a boy scout may come to have different implications going forward.
The contemporary, post-modern individual is someone who has absolutely no idea what the concept of freedom means or what the Fifties were like.
No, Superman never had a “dark side” or a “brooding” side. I’ve read all those early stories from “Action Comics” in the Archives reprint book. The only difference perhaps is that he was a bit harsher in scaring/threatening the villains, and wasn’t quite so beholden to the “rule of law.” But that wasn’t unusual at all for the 1930s-era, where from b-western heroes to pulp magazine heroes, there was almost always a kind of a pro-vigilante bent. By the 1950s, all these kinds of heroes (with “Superman” being a perfect example) became very “law-and-order” and more civic-minded, instead of just meting out justice as a law unto themselves. The latter become culturally much more frowned upon, in the post-war years.
What’s appealing to me about both the 1930s and the 1950s heroes is that they tend to be relatively free of angst, self-doubt, or psychological demons. They don’t wallow in pointless or self-absorbed emotionalism, but just simply and instinctively act like men, living up to the age-old ideals duty, honor and character.
Send this back to Krypton.
I don’t care anymore. They are hell bent on destroying these characters and thinks that reboots are original thought worthy of praise and worship. Libtards and their ideology sre going to ruin comics juxt like everthing else they ruin when applied.