The real problem I have with Superman

And here I thought I was the only person who remembered Lord Satanus...he actually reappeared, briefly, during the Ordway run. There was also a single issue, post Crisis but pre Byrne, that introduced a character named Iago (who, it was strongly implied, worked for the Devil himself)who was slowly, steadily, insidiously trying to corrupt Superman. The ending line of the issue is pretty ominous, as he says, in giving a report to him master "I am sure of my eventual success, for Superman must succeed every time. I need only win once."

There have been any number of stories where it's been demonstrated that Superman is a physical match for Darkseid one on one, but the problem arises that Darkseid's a despot with a whole mess of followers and a completely cowed population at his disposal. There was an episode of Superman TAS that illustrated the problem of Darkseid beautifully, where Superman defeated Darkseid right in front of his people, and the picked him up and put him right back on his throne.

Personally, I can sympathise with the complaints about Darkseid being brought down to Superman's level. It's not like there's an actual shortage of people who can fight Superman evenly (despite the complaints of many) and the DCU does need an overall Big Bad. Hell, the whole reason they created Mongul I back in the Bronze Age was so Superman could face an opponent similar to Darkseid without actually having to bring Darkseid into the Superman book, or reduce his power level.

Wasn't Mongul originally a villain for one of the Starmen (Starmans?)?

Whoops, never mind. Just looked him up on Wikipedia. His creator Len Wein said he created him specifically to be able to challenge Superman, in a story that bears no small resemblance to his first appearance on Young Justice (his second appearence had him trying to conquer Throneworld, home to the Prince Gavin Starman. which teamed Starman with Superman, hence my confusion). Visually designed by Jim Starlin, which should surprise no one.

edited 7th Mar '15 10:46:20 AM by Robbery

Yep, he was designed from the ground up to be a Superman villain, and was one of his defining foes of the Bronze Age. Then the Post-Crisis universe happened, and he got killed off and his son got shuffled off into the Green Lantern rogues, and I don't even know what's going on with him in the New 52 but I bet it would annoy me.

But yeah, Pre-Crisis Mongul was one of the only characters of the day who could tank punches from an enraged Superman.

Yeah, I remember For the Man Who Has Everything very well. It's one of my favorites, and Mongul's Black Mercy fanatasies freaked me out pretty bad when I read that story for the first time when I was a little kid. Just the idea of someone ripping off Superman's head and carrying it around on a spear...brrr. I had to cover that part of the page with my hand whenever I reread the story for awhile afterwards.

For the enrichment of the thread, an alternative take on Byrne's revision of Superman.

Yeah, I missed that version of Mongul Post-Crisis.

Yes! YES!! So much yes to this!

That is exactly what I disliked about Post-Crisis Superman, and everything that I find wrong about the character since the 1980s. I hadn't thought about the whole "culture erasure" thing with Superman before, but it makes sense. In the Silver Age, Superman used to balance the way he saw things with both his Earthling and Kryptonian points of view. He used to say things like "Great Rao!" as a stand in for "Oh my God" and such. But over time, in the attempt to "humanize" Superman, they took all that away to the point that his heritage is mostly erased except when it becomes useful to him.

Man of Steel has two scenes that perfectly summarize this. First, when Superman needs guidance about what he should do about Zod's ultimatum, he goes to a priest. Not Jor-El, who knows Zod and could possibly give him a hint as to what he's after. The second time is the "Krypton had its chance!" scene where Superman destroys the last of the birthing chambers that Zod needed to save the Kryptonian race. I get that Superman was trying to stop Zod, and I get that allowing an entire generation of Kryptonians to be born on Earth could prove disastrous, but it's the pure spite of that line that gets me.

In regards to that last scene, Clark does have a brief pause before that line. It's not much I admit but it's something. I thought Man of Steel was okay, but a lot themes could have been handled better or given more time to develop.

I think Mo S had some hiccups here and there, but mostly I like what it did. A major city being flattened by aliens is not something you say "lol, let's get shawarma!" after it ends.

I can give Avengers some credit on that one, because to their credit, you actually see them making efforts to both contain the damage done to city and to get civilians out of harm's way. And considering how hard they fought and how much danger they faced, I think they're entitled to some levity.

Man of Steel instead gives us Superman sucking face with Lois and her quipping "You know they say it's all downhill after the first kiss."

...Yeah, I'll take the Shwarma Scene over that any day.

What are they gonna do? They've just faced some major stress, physical punishment and exhaustion, they have to rest and eat something, and if by doing so they can pay the owner of a surviving business who will surely need the money, all the better for it.

It's not like they were partying wildly while they ate either. They ate in an awkward complete silence, and I think that rather implies they weren't in the mood to joke or quip at that point.

It's a bit of a different situation. Namely, Clark is alone and completely outmatched. He's not going up against video game enemies here.
Would that singular "quip" in Mo S be equally forgivable, in your eyes? And if not, why?

edited 9th Mar '15 8:03:40 AM by Bonerfart

... 'video game enemies'?

As for the question, I haven't watched that movie yet, and without any context I'm not going to judge that line one way or another.

Let's just drop this before it turns into insults.

I get what you're saying. The Chitauri were almost cartoonishly easy to defeat (They're vulnerable to bullets and arrows, but the police and army can't handle them? What?) while the Kryptonians were basically physical gods.

But still, that scene feels completely out-of-place for Superman. Regardless of anything else, you still had frightened and scared people hiding amongst that ruined city. And if 9/11 is any indication, each one of them is going to have health problems for years to come. Considering that he can see and hear each of these people, and his senses can pick up minor oddities in their overall health, Superman's work had by all accounts just started.

Again, I can forgive the Avengers for grabbing a bite to eat. If nothing else, it's a good team-building and camaraderie exercise.

Also, Clark couldn't help the civvies at the moment Metropolis was getting its shit pushed in because he was busy dealing with a doomsday machine on the other side of the world. Also also, did they ever explain why blowing up the base made the Chitauri and their space sea serpents drop dead?

edited 9th Mar '15 9:08:22 AM by Bonerfart

Neither of those things have anything to do with what I'm talking about.

For my part I'll defend a lot of Silver Age and Bronze Age stories, but I prefer the Post-Crisis version of Superman, complete with a badly flawed Krypton. I'd rather have a Superman who considers himself human, and whose society was less than utopian.

I also see nothing wrong with the "Krypton had its chance" line, because he's within the context of the film, he's right. It did have a chance, and it blew itself up. Now Zod's out to resurrect it atop a culture that already exists, destroying said culture in the process. For Superman to decide that no, it doesn't get a second chance, and certainly not a second chance that will end his home, is fine by me.

If I might I ask, Ambar, what some of your favorite Superman storyarcs?

I don't agree with the Krypton assessment completely, though. Personally, I find that such a scene provides an element of "providence" (or divine destiny/judgment). Krypton "had its chance" proclaims that an entire civilization is now unfit to live for whatever reasons the person making the proclamation decides. I mean, to put this into perspective, if Russia were to have some sort of plague or disaster unleashed by its own government, do we decide that "Russia had its chance"? Who decides when someone's "chance" has ended?

Just pointing it out/was curious.

The bold parts are the parts that clinched it for me in the theater. A Krypton ruled by a xenocidal nutter like Zod is a Krypton that everyone's better off without

edited 9th Mar '15 11:31:40 AM by Bonerfart

For The Man Who Has Everything (I make no claims to originality there), Death & Return, Godfall, Last Son, New Krypton (which surprises no one who has talked to me about Superman), The Black Ring/Reign of Doomsday. Though honestly, that's just picking some off the top of my head. I'm a big enough Superman fan and am forgiving enough of his writers that it might honestly shorten things a bit if you were to ask me which arcs I didn't like. Because I also have massive collection of Silver Age Superboy/Legion of Superheroes stories that I love to death.

Where your analogy goes wrong is that we have the chance to meet Russians who aren't reflective of their society's problems. Superman, at least in that film, has not been given that chance. The only Kryptonians he's met, other than himself, are Zod and his army, who want to rebuild Krypton on their terms. In that context, I have no issue with the line, or the sentiment I think it's trying to express.

edited 9th Mar '15 11:37:00 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Wait, are both of you forgetting Jor-El? Who flat out said he wanted Kal-El to be the "bridge between two worlds" and constantly mentioned the many mistakes Krypton made?

And even if Jor-El didn't exist, I'm forced to ask: so what? If all I've ever met are Nazis, does that mean I shouldn't give a damn about Germans?

Yes, but if the people attempting to rebuild their society atop the ruin they hope to make of yours happen to be Nazis, telling them they had their shot and can go to Hell is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

Jor-El also tells Zod that Krypton's time is over, and that the entire way their society was run was a disaster.

edited 9th Mar '15 12:28:46 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Again, so was Germany. So, again, it would have been fine to tell the Germans they blew it just because your impression of their society has been soured by the Nazi Party?

"Yeah, get rid of every German donation at the sperm/egg bank. The Nazis gave me the impression they don't have the right to exist anymore."

The reason I asked what your favorite stories were is because I'm trying to figure out which one of those requires him to have little or no interest in his Kryptonian heritage. Why does he have to completely "go native" for most of them to work?

Hell, "For the Man who Has Everything" actually relies on Superman's "perfect world" being one in which Krypton never blew up. Which is odd if he's Earthling through and through.

edited 9th Mar '15 2:27:33 PM by KingZeal