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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
At one point, I believe Superman even flies Zod through a gas station or building, which causes more stuff to explode (and more people to die).
Compare that with Age of Ultron, where Iron Man was specifically trying to get Hulk out of the city and when that didn't work, dropped him into a building he knew was completely empty.
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And Iron Man can believably have a climactic battle with a guy who just suited up in a shitty Mk.I knock-off that has never been tested and that he barely knows how to pilot as a result.
It's generally good form in storytelling to have the villain be more powerful than the hero. Superheroes tend to skew the opposite direction; the hero tends to become the established power base, with villains acting as challengers to the hero's title. One of the tricks for balancing the scales is playing up the fact that the hero's job is a defensive one; sure, Thor can break Loki in half pretty effortlessly, but just beating Loki isn't good enough; he has to beat Loki while also minimizing the number of people who die in the wake of their battle.
The villain can get away with being weaker than the hero because the hero has to be heroic; the villain just has to win the fight. Man of Steel had every opportunity to play this same tactic, as Zod had just discovered his powerset five seconds ago and should not have been even remotely a match for the much more experienced Superman. But it decided to conveniently ignore how thoroughly outmatched Zod should be in favor of massive destruction pieces, all under the cynical pretense of being "a more realistic battle".
edited 4th May '15 2:21:01 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.(Clark actually also tries to take the fight away from the "already pretty devastated before he got there city" and into space but Zod has the same powers as Clark so he forces the fight back into the city since he doesn't care about civilians and wants Clark to suffer for ruining his plan. Unlike Ao U it's a battle between a experienced soldier who wants to kill as many as he can vs a man who had never really fought for real before this day and doesn't want to kill to end the conflict)
edited 4th May '15 2:23:26 PM by LordofLore
We never actually see or hear Clark's thought process when going to space, so I'm skeptical as to whether it's him actually trying to pull the fight farther away, if Zod himself dragged him there, or the writers were just going "and then let's have him go to space because it'll look cool and we can have a Batman reference!"
edited 4th May '15 2:23:03 PM by Tuckerscreator
An experienced soldier who has never used these powers before and has no idea what he's doing, and whose battle plan at this point has been reduced to "lash out menacingly until someone kills me." His experience means approximately jack and shit here, just like how being an experienced swordsman has zero applicability to hitting a target from a mile and a half away with a sniper rifle.
And Clark has fought for real before this day: the Battle of Smallville.
There is no reason for Zod to be the insurmountable force here. He's a broken shell of a man lashing out with weapons he's never fired in his life. The movie just decided to have him be infinitely proficient with all the powers in five seconds because it couldn't have a climax without that.
edited 4th May '15 2:31:09 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.There's a point that maybe Superman tried to get the fight away from the city. I mean, I've never seen the movie.
But its a directorial choice to have this fail and have it not be a priority so we can have big setpieces explode.
Its a directorial choice to have a tone for the MCU where the heroes do try and try again to save people.
And there are people that prefer that tone. That prefer that to a 'realistic' tone. shrug. (I am one of these people though)
Actually the true crime of the Man of Steel movie is that you just know Clark isn't going to have a nervous breakdown and start thinking he's Gangbuster in the sequel. Like, geez. Way to drop the ball.
edited 4th May '15 2:32:06 PM by Bocaj
Forever liveblogging the AvengersI'm neutral on Twitter in general, but at least Whedon just quietly bowed out rather than Rage Quitting.
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.I totally get being upset about Whedon's treatment of Widow, I know I kind of am, but frankly a lot of these complaints reek of Real Women Never Wear Dresses, especially the Indiewire article in the links. Whedon really deserves that break, especially when he's also got to deal with grabbing the attention of a gazillion misogynistic trolls.
edited 4th May '15 2:43:26 PM by AlleyOop
I'm wondering that too. His account didn't mention anything about Black Widow backlash prior to this day or the over the past week either.
Here's something nicer from Twitter today: sorta-Marvel 1602
.
edited 4th May '15 2:47:57 PM by Tuckerscreator
His "final" tweet sounds depressed, but as noted, Joss announced his departure from the MCU due to burn-out a long time ago. I see no evidence that the Black Widow backlash has anything to do with his current emotional state. It hasn't even been that much of a backlash. This is his "final" tweet that all the fuss is over:
and I put "final" in quotation marks because that was actually his second to last tweet. Eleven hours later, he tweeted
and only deleted his Twitter a few hours after that.
edited 4th May '15 2:52:15 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Sorry to break away from the discussion of AOU, but I re-watched the first Iron Man movie. hadn't seen it in a long time.
Anyone else find it odd how Coulson just completely buggers off as soon as Stane activates his Iron Man suit, leaving his fellow agents to get killed off?
edited 4th May '15 2:56:29 PM by Brandon
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I think it was Early-Installment Weirdness. At the time it sounded like SHIELD was supposed to be a new organization.

The problem isn't that Superman personally destroyed Metropolis. The problem is that he was more focused on fighting the bad guy than saving people.
"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."