Superman General

I may not fully believe in this myself, but I still believe it deserves to be quoted here anyway:

'Everything that exists has a specific nature. Each entity exists as something in particular and has characteristics that are part of what it is. 'A' is 'A'. And no matter what reality he calls home, Luthor is Luthor.'

edited 13th Jun '16 6:24:24 AM by kkhohoho

How about the good name of the dead New 52 Superman, whose legacy and image would be tarnished once Luthor starts misusing his insignia?

I get the sense you're always looking for the worst in Superman. :)

So why not just put him in a bottle, then? Why bother with laws at all, when fanatical Calvinist predestination is all one needs to build morality on?

And quite the contrary, I look for Superman acting at his best. See, this is why All-Star Superman was great - because he treated even Luthor with some level of compassion, never overstepping the boundaries of decency, even when it came to his enemies. The kind of compassion that would have him pray for the soul of a killer. If there was one guy on Earth to believe that even Luthor can change his ways, it would be Superman. Not to the point of being naive, but certainly a far cry from the paranoid aggression he's stuck with nowadays. With that sort of attitude, he may as well just don a bat symbol, because it certainly isn't worthy of the shield.

I'm just saying that there's no such thing as an absolutely unstoppable force. It's impossible in physics.

As opposed to everything Superman does?

edited 13th Jun '16 7:06:24 AM by windleopard

No, I can definitely think of reasons for how Superman's powers work. Gravity manipulation and all that.

The fact that he can even do that is already a violation of physics. I can also add stuff like not killing whoever he's carrying when he takes off at superspeed or not causing an earthquake each time he walsk down the street.

It's a violation of physics, but it's not impossible in physics. Again, there are ways around that. An absolutely unstoppable object, however, is impossible in physics.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/comic-previews/superman-1-dc-comics-2016

"Sleep well... brother." "The colors will fly."

Interesting that his hand was glowing like Manhattan

edited 13th Jun '16 8:24:15 AM by Zarius

In all seriousness, I wonder if there's some connection between the almost all blue Superman costume post-Crisis Superman is wearing, and Dr. Manhattan (who is, after all, almost all blue). Why wouldn't Superman put his old costume back on? He wore it for years, why would he change? There was no explanation given in Action Comics, so I'm waiting to see if Superman offers one.

edited 13th Jun '16 8:21:14 AM by andersonh1

RE: Superman killing Zod

If I see that called "murder" one more time, I think I'm going to scream. I get you didn't like the plot line, alliterator. You don't have to like the plotline. But it was not, under any circumstances, murder. It meets no definition of murder. Even if there were "other options" it isn't murder.

Complain about the story all you want. Hate it all you want. It was not murder.

RE: Superman and Luthor

And another word is being misused. Touching a guy is not assault Indiana. Insulting him is not assault. Superman touched Luthor. The suit's auto defenses blasted him. Luthor then continued the attack after the fact. That's not on Superman, that's on Luthor.

If you want to continue to rant about Superman having no justification to accuse Luthor of anything, that's fine. Continue to do so. But stop calling it "assault". It wasn't.

I think the "I was flying at half-mast, not anymore" explanation is as good as we're getting, but interesting to point out all the same

Trying to rip a guy's suit off is assault - feel free to test that on a stranger sometime, see how the court decides. Not only was the auto-defense warranted, but so was Luthor responding to the attack by a likely Superman imposter, because let's face it - in this universe, that Superman is an imposter, with nobody having a reason to take his word for anything. Like I said, if he actually wanted to prove himself a real Superman, he'd be going off saving the day on his own, instead of barging in on the spotlight like he owns it.

edited 13th Jun '16 9:02:21 AM by indiana404

Once again, he didn't rip off the shield, he touched the shield. Touching someone isn't considered assault. Perhaps if Luthor had waited until Superman had tried to rip off the shield, but he didn't. He started firing the instant Superman touched him.

edited 13th Jun '16 9:04:12 AM by alliterator

Actually he does try to rip off the symbol. Luthor even says "careful" as he attempts to do it.

He doesn't. He touches the shield, Luthor says "Careful," the automated defenses start firing, and Luthor says, "Nobody touches me." Here is the actual sequence. You can see that all Superman does is touch the shield before the defenses activate and that's it.

edited 13th Jun '16 9:18:02 AM by alliterator

He isn't just touching it. Before he reaches for it, he orders Luthor to take off the symbol. Luthor says no and that's when Superman tries to take it off.

Hell, why would he be touching it if he didn't want to take it off?

The scene basically plays as "take off the shield and give me the cape", "never", "you had your chance", and Superman reaching for the shield with unambiguous intent. And then Superman punches Luthor once the auto-defense sparks up, screaming "I knew it", because clearly, when a guy resists you trying to take his clothes off, this definitely shows that he's a villain needing to be beaten up. And again, Luthor had just finished dealing with armed robbers - it's not like he just put automated defenses in his Armani to fry random strangers on the street.

edited 13th Jun '16 9:21:22 AM by indiana404

To be fair, if someone you hate shows up wearing your family's symbol, you'd be pretty pissed, too. Superman's reaction was pretty reasonable. He wasn't telling Luthor to take off the armor, just the symbol.

Yet again, this was an alternate universe Superman, with no claim to the symbol other than coincidence.

But enlighten me, even if he did take the shield and cape, what would he accomplish? He wasn't there to foil the robbery, but instead attacked the guy who did. Innocents weren't in peril. Luthor wouldn't have been arrested; he'd committed no crime altogether. The only "evidence" to go around was the paranoia of some guy who looks like an older version of the Superman.people knew. It was simply an act of anger and petty resentment over the spotlight, instead of Superman trying to earn it on his own terms. In short, he was acting exactly as Luthor would, only even Luthor is rarely that blunt.

He dun goofed. Deal with it.

(And yes, he does have claim to the symbol, since it's still his family's symbol, no matter the universe. If you go to another universe, your family history doesn't change.)

This Luthor doesn't know that. Even then he offered to talk somewhere private before Superman jumped the gun.

And why should Superman trust Luthor at all? Again: Superman has seen over and over again how Luthor betrays people. (And before you say "Not this Luthor," yes, this Luthor - again, this is the same Luthor as before, only with ten years missing.)

edited 13th Jun '16 9:49:32 AM by alliterator

He wasn't doing anything bad now. Why not wait til after he does something villainous. From the public's perspective this Superman assaulted an innocent man.