DC Movies

I feel that's more evil gender-flipped Shazam.

You have to define "evil Superman."

"Good" Supermen outnumber evil if you just define "Superman" by his powerset and being the strongest hero. If you take in his full-on The Cape, The Paragon, shining beacon of hope part of the character then I'd say there are more deconstructions of him than straight expies at this point.

Edited by Larkmarn on Apr 17th 2021 at 1:57:16 PM

> You have to define "evil Superman."

Bizzaro obviously

"Evil Superman" has simply become a catch-all term for a Superman who isn't as pure, innocent and old-fashioned as Christopher Reeve's Superman. Cavil's Superman is far from an evil Superman, it was just that the violence and destruction is rendered very dramatically rather than playful and fun. And even still the last 25 years or so has ramped up the Beware the Superman angle of his existence more than before, where even if Superman is light and funny many characters are terrified of what he could become. "It is a remarkable dichotomy. In many ways, Clark is the most human of us all. Then...he shoots fire from the skies, and it is difficult not to think of him as a god. And how fortunate we all are that it does not occur to him."

The DCAU had plenty of its own "Evil Superman" moments as well, in fact the Justice Lord Superman is uncomfortable because he was not a reflection of Zod but spoke and generally acted like the main Superman except with a Knight Templar attitude.

Superman definitely get the most evil versions/expies though, and gets deconstructions or darker and edgier versions a lot. Apparently people think it's more interesting or adds spice, because a lot of people have zero clue how an immigrant whose home was destroyed by arrogance and denial of the leaders about an impending disaster who users the gifts of their unique heritage to inspire and protect their new home could possibly be relevant or presented as a straight hero these days.

hire me DC, I'd make Lois Lane Native American to increase thematic resonance.

Injustice had Evil Wonder Woman, and the comics had more evil versions of other heroes, along with CW's Crisis having an evil Batman. But those are very much less common than Evil Superman.

@Blueace TBF to Superman, you try taking care of your cousin when you have Batman and Wonder Woman constantly breathing down your neck over how “potentially dangerous” she is.

Sadly he has to agree with them or else they’ll never drop it.

Also yes we have more Evil Superman now than just regular Superman. Injustice, The Boys, Invincible, all we need is an adaption of Irredeemable now.

I do like how the God and Monsters film presented a different version of Superman who was raised by migrant immigrant workers, who despite being more brutal was ultimately still just a good man at heart who wants to help people.

Edited by slimcoder on Apr 17th 2021 at 12:16:56 PM

Gods and Monsters was great. The heroes were more brutal, but still cared.

As for Wonder Woman ambushing Kara- yeah that moment super sucked and made Wonder Woman and Batman look like major jerks who didn't trust Superman's ability to look after a relative at all.

Yeah in God's and monsters is a Decon-Recon Switch of a Beware The Batman. Their more brutal and fine with killing then the trinity we know but are still genuinely decent guys who want to help the world. And end decide to take more normally heroic measures to do it.

It’s especially relevant in Superman’s case as while Hernan experienced a good amount of human cruelty due to being raised by Mexican immigrants, he still ultimately turned out a decent man.

Because at the end of the day what makes Superman is that he’s raised by good people who teach him right. Doesn’t matter where he comes from, because there is good people everywhere.

Is not much evil superman the issue really, is mostly that in general narratives are focusing more in taking about superman that having story about superman, meaning they move around his goodness or explore it and so own rather than having his element play stright.

Another issue is that superman as chararter feel very grandfather clause in many way, he have vastly power that at times feel dwarft the rest and yet he is goodier than most and now he is the super paragon of goodness make hi dificult to not see him as space jesus, I mean grant morrison pretty much go there "yeah he is a good and that is a good thing".

I will said superman strike diferent because he feel more of a confort fic chararter, he is JUST that good and JUST that powerfull, he is a ether take or leave it.

There has also long been a belief that the Christopher Reeve-style pure Superman is "boring". But these days, considering how often heroes are made into violet jerks, the traditional good-hearted Superman would actually be something of an outlier. I might be biased though because I recently looked back at the 1978 movie and, to me, Reeve is the version of that character that all others should strive to be. There are enough Batmen.

I have a different opinion in that the Reeves superman movie is pretty quaint and in some ways doesn't reflect what Superman has been in comics and animation for a long time. It implies Clark Kent is the mask and not the other way around and its focus on Jor-El being the main figure who shapes his superman identity (to the point of having clark stay in simulation for years???) is at odds with modern interpretations of the character. I also confess I'm not really a fan of Gene Hackman's Luthor either, as I find him not very threatening and overly campy.

On the whole I don't mind the optimism of the film, but I think it's mostly a campy silver-age relic and not something that should be a blueprint for the character.

I agree that there is an over-emphasis on Jor-El's influence (probably because they wanted to use Brando as much as they could). And there is a big difference between Clark and Supes in Reeve's performance, but I'd much rather have that than Cavill's, where both personas seem like emotionless aliens. Admittedly, I'm not an avid comic reader so I'm just going by my own reactions to the films.

Honestly, a Superman versus The Elite version of Superman is excellent for modern media. Superman is someone who does the right thing even when it's hard and the public is against him, and that could easily make an interesting story. It has for decades, after all.

Good Guy Superman doesn't have to copy Reeves exactly, but honestly a Superman who sticks up for Truth and Justice and earns his Champion of the Oppressed epitaph would be awesome on the silver screen.

Superman is just the kind of character that most people (from what I've seen at least), including me, don't wish to see deconstructed or made "edgy".

He is supposed to be inspiring, he is supposed to be larger-than-life, in spite of all the hardships he might endure.

He is pure escapism, especially in times as trying as these.

Same guy whose most iconic scene is preventing a girl from commuting suicide in All-Star Superman.

Actually an All-Star adaptation would be a great film to showcase the best qualities of the character.

All star is legitimately brilliant.

Superman talking to the suicidal girl is the single greatest moment in a Superman comic ever. Truly.

All Star has some great moments, mixed in with stuff that's only there because Morrison wouldn't put down the drugs for five seconds.

Imagine how the 2000s superhero movies would have been if someone decided to bring the crack.

The animated movie managed to distill it almost perfectly and even make the ending better by having Luther simply give up and accept defeat.

About the only issue is that it cuts out 2 pivotal moments from the comic, the Smallville chapter which showcases an important moment of failure in Superman’s life and the aforementioned prevention of the girls suicide.

Hopefully a live-action movie with longer runtime would keep this.

Edited by slimcoder on Apr 18th 2021 at 11:42:09 AM

How long would that be? Think the usual two hours would do it?

If anything they should have cut the pissing contest with Atlas and Samson.

I agree with you that I personally don't like edgy Superman. I will say that say that I personally feel like Man of Steel wasn't edgy. It was depressing and had a lot of problems, but being edgy was not one of them. The closets it comes to being edgy is the Zod snap and that scene with the skulls. This mostly why it's my favorite of the Snyder directed films, because it's not just trying to be edgy.

That said I feel like the best live action version of Clark is Smallville. Credit that may be nostalgia, but I feel that it was one of the few live action ones to focus on Clark and not Superman.

Granted solving the Ultra-Sphinx’s question and beating those 2 in arm-wrestling both at once were pretty great moments.