Man of Steel. Nolan Superman Reboot.

Burton's Batman was basically the BTAS Batmobile but with more limited mobility, and BTAS Batmobile is Best Batmobile, so Burton's kinda ranks second in my opinion.

And Michael Gough was a great Alfred.

Oh, yes, Bruce Wayne's best friend and confidant, basically his FATHER, who just LETS A WOMAN INTO THE BATCAVE WITHOUT BRUCE'S CONSENT BECAUSE SHE'S HOT.

You may drop the allcaps: this isn't a Linkara review, it's a forum for civil discussion.

So if Cartoon Network put out an animated special where one of The Powerpuff Girls has to decide whether to get an abortion after being raped and impregnated, that wouldn't be at all inappropriate?

I don't know, some Powerpuff Girls episodes could get really out there.

But that is ultimately not the point of the argument. Of course you can find examples of specific stories that probably shouldn't be tackled but it doesn't mean it won't be tackled anyway, that's basically the definition of a Crack Fic. But this is about the integrity of a story and those who write them. Its a balancing act of remaining true to the story, true to the expectations of the audience (not merely fanboys but the people watching the movie as it is unfolding) and true to your own writing convictions.

What we are discussing is a perfectly plausible scenario, Superman versus superpowered enemy, that has been done in a variety of ways all across Superman's history, except this story decided to challenge the ideals of the character (and the view the audience has on him) by going down a different path. The writers felt strongly that this was the best possible resolution to the conflict presented, so what purpose does it serve to say the resolution is flawed because the conflict should never have been considered to begin with? That's sort of like saying Spock's Heroic Sacrifice in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is flawed storytelling because the writers could have made it so there wasn't radiation in the warp core room.

Now of course you can debate the quality of the conflict or the quality of the resolution, but for the sake of writing integrity if you're going to start a story you had better be ready to take it in ways you may not have wanted to go in the first place.

edited 16th Jul '14 9:20:25 PM by KJMackley

The point I was getting at was that Superman is a character originally created for children's entertainment, so having him snap someone's neck might not be appropriate. Take, for instance, Muppet Treasure Island: that movie was unusually dark for The Muppets and had many violent encounters, but even so, if the climactic sword fight between Kermit and Long John Silver had ended with Kermit stabbing Long John through the heart, I think people would have quite rightly complained that that's not how a Muppet movie should end.

edited 16th Jul '14 9:41:38 PM by RavenWilder

Because that's not how Treasure Island ended.

Dude, lotta things happened in that movie that didn't happen in Treasure Island.

I should take a moment to point out, I'm not personally objecting to the ending of Man of Steel; I just think people who do object have valid points.

edited 16th Jul '14 9:47:50 PM by RavenWilder

One of the big things that occur when writing characters is the sense that they have their own agency - their own logical decisions, their own. Without getting too much into this argument, when a scene becomes evident that it only happens a certain way because the writers wrote it that way - that is, because it was forced into that resolution - it runs the risk of breaking the consistency of a work at large. That's why concepts like character derailment exist (not that I'm necessarily saying that the scene was character derailment - for reasons I point out in a bit, just making the point).

More to the point, in a general sense characters - because in part of that agency, but also because of the kinds of settings that certain characters are built to interact with - do sometimes have situations that they shouldn't be forced into. Batman shouldn't be The Punisher, for instance - they arguably superficially similar, but very different in concept. True, a writer can if they so choose write Batman as if he were the Punisher, as easily as anything else, but the dissonance of that sort of thing tends to be noticeable. Tintin isn't Indiana Jones, Alien isn't Predator, and Billy Budd isn't Ishmael.

True, superhero comics thrive on throwing characters into new and different situations, as well as twisting characters every so once in a while for the sake of appearances (which are often criticized precisely for the reasons I've stated) but at the center of those is the rule that a character - in approaching situations and dealing with problems - should retain that agency and thus be distinguishable as themselves.

But that's all in a general sense.

In this specific situation, I'd argue that this movie probably doesn't run into that problem anyway, since it's an adaptation with a very different Superman with a very different persona, and they never really establish this Superman as having a problem with killing anyway, but meh.

Also, those are two different kinds of situations (settings/premises vs in-plot decisions).

It's a bit of a leap to assert that the killing itself is an inherent part of the situation as a whole (the resolution, as it is, is not inherent to the conflict itself - for better or for worse, the writers chose to end it the way it did, that moment is significant on its own, and that needs to be acknowledged), but otherwise I agree.

edited 16th Jul '14 9:59:47 PM by KnownUnknown

I'm aware a lot didn't happen in Treasure Island. They still stuck closely to the overall story, that Long John Silver getting run through would have been too far.

This is also a PG-13 movie that features thousands of people dying because of a genocidal villain, and Superman as a character is constantly being challenged for his Thou Shalt Not Kill attitude like Superman vs. the Elite. Created for kids or not, he's appreciated by people of all ages and many of his stories have complex and dark undertones to it.

Overall my point is that there is a huge difference between "It could have been written better" and "It should never have been considered to begin with." The first is respectable criticism, the second tends to fall into the "If I were in charge..." fallacy.

If the special is written well, addresses the issues in a mature fashion, and is appropriately rated and time-slotted for an older demographic, I don't see why not.

Funnily enough, despite dealing with the issue (though I'm suspicious at how much Man of Steel really meant to deal with the issue) in the complete opposite way Superman Vs The Elite does bring up with an idea I wish Man of Steel had been more conscious of - and which I hope Dawn of Justice brings up in some way: if he started killing people, Superman would be absolutely terrifying - or (like the Cadmus arc points out in JLU) maybe that it would make how absolutely terrifying Superman has the potential to be a lot more obvious to the average person, no matter what his justifications are. There's little means of stopping him, and if he decides you have to go you're gone. Of course, we know that Clark would never (intentionally) do that to the average person, but upon seeing something like - say - the destruction of a major metropolitan area in his wake, what's to stop the people from starting to see Clark as something monstrous?

Man of Steel wraps up its carnage surprisingly neatly, but then Supes is the messiah so who cares. But maybe that'll be part of the justification for the obligatory hostility between Supes and Batsy. That there's this level of suspicion, amplified by a thousand by someone like Bruce, that Superman needs to deal with, and maybe there's an image he needs to start projecting off of himself before he makes enemies of people who could otherwise of have been friends. Not that Batman's obsessive paranoia should be presented as right or anything, but he should still have a point - if that's the direction they're going with it, that is.

edited 16th Jul '14 10:22:24 PM by KnownUnknown

I can't remember which comic, but it came up once that Bruce is terrified that Clark is basically a living god and he's thankful that Clark doesn't act on it.

It's Superman Batman Public Enemies. Since it's all inner monologues, it doesn't show up in the movie - which is a shame because the inner monologues in that book are the best parts of the whole thing.

That line is one of my favorites. The idea that Clark is basically a living god, but that what makes him Superman is how he never even considers the idea of exerting his powers like one, is one of the things that made me start to really understand and like Superman - even if it did come from good ol' Batsy.

It's one of those character defining lines for me, like "I don't like bullies, I don't care where they're from," "Superman is what I can do, Clark is who I am," or "I'm Batman."

edited 16th Jul '14 10:48:30 PM by KnownUnknown

That line could work if it were changed to be a quiet scene between Bruce and Alfred.

It was something like "He makes us forget that he's a god, and then he rains down fire from the sky."

Here's my problem with that:

If you're a North Korean, and the government decides to kill you, you're just as gone. If a mass-kiling supervillain shows up and you just happen to be nearby, you're just as gone.

Why should I be more afraid of the possibility that someone who is at least mostly benevolent may decide to kill me for some reason than the much more immediate and likely possibility that somebody who Superman isn't using his power to meaningfully stop might kill me?

The tendency when trying to prove Superman right is circumvent the question by having things spin completely out of control. But what if they didn't? What would the argument be if a superhero only killed supervillains with body counts and oppressive dictators, and maybe made some mistakes and went too far a few times, but never got to the point of doing anything truly indefensible?

(Of course, I can understand why you wouldn't write a story like that. It doesn't have anywhere to go. But it is a weakness in something like Superman vs. The Elite).

It's more for the comics, but they could send the superpowered villains into the Phantom Zone. Wait a sec... how are we sure that the phantom zone isn't the DCU Hell?

I figured the Phantom Zone was like Sing Sing.

You know, I also have a problem with the "As long as Superman isn't killing anyone, we don't have to be afraid of him!"

Spending life in prison is also pretty bad. If Superman is helping a corrupt government enforce oppressive laws how much less scary is he, really?

I don't think we would want to live in the DCU...

Of course we wouldn't. Why would we? Even without Superman abusing his powers, it's just a plain crap place to be for normals. How many times to aliens attack Earth a week?

Hell, I wouldn't want to live in freaking Shibuya which, all things considered, is actually a pretty safe world, so long as you don't get involved in the Reaper's Game. Imagine in a place as dangerous, unpredictable, and horrifying as the DC Universe.

Freaking ninja.

Also, freaking spelling mistakes

edited 17th Jul '14 11:53:06 AM by SaintDeltora

I think that's a false dichotomy. There's little reason why a person shouldn't/couldn't be both afraid of the villains that threaten them and the physical gods who challenge said villains with power far above them. Superhero comics do tend to gloss over the idea that someone with godlike powers who decides on their own what's right and wrong can be unsettling - it's a staple of the genre, but acknowledging it isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's one of the driving issues behind Marvel's Civil War storyline, for example - at least before the political writer infighting kicked in.

In any case, the reasons why a person would fear a dictator or a supervillain don't naturally cancel out the reasons why a person would fear someone like Superman at all. Nor does having one fear make having another unjustified in a general sense.

As I said, Superman killing doesn't so much make him suddenly scary as much as make it more obvious to people how scary he has the potential to be. The things that bother people (that he can do anything he wants and nobody has the power to stop him) don't just pop into existence, but the act of killing makes people notice it.

edited 17th Jul '14 2:44:13 PM by KnownUnknown