Perfectly fine? Zack Snyder's Superman is a whiny, emo, self-appointed martyr! Nothing about his personality says "hero."
He wasn't "whiny" or "emo". Unless you've never hung out with anyone other than loud mouthed assholes. I grew up in a relatively rural area and Clark in MoS has the same soft spoken manner and bearing of plenty of kids, not to mention farm kids, I knew. Certainly more in line with my experience of actual soft spoken people than pretty much every other iteration.
His "personality"? Um....what? Because he wasn't rattling off safety statistics or saying "And remember kids.......(fill in the blank with "eat your vegetables"...or..."take your vitamins"?) I used to be on a volunteer fire department out in the sticks as a teenager. Most of these guys showed up, did the job, and left. To the people in this community, these people were heroes. Like this Superman, that they did this of their own free will, on their own free time, with no thought of thanks or reward spoke enough of what their "personality" was. That's a heroes "personality" to me. YMMV
As for emo whining....some posters have spent literal YEARS engaged in emo / edgelord whining about these films on this board. So I can't take any complaints of "whining" in these films seriously.
Now I understand that for all its faults, the Whedon cut at least has humor, which is a damn sight better than watching Zack Snyders Manic Depression (with SFX) for four hours.
Joss Whedon has never crafted a joke or humorous moment that didn't scream "see how clever, witty and funny I am!!!1!!one!"
Jonathan is the one who talks about how the world can't handle someone so superior as Clark
At literally no point does Jonathan talk about how the world can't handle someone as "superior" as Clark. His fear was how the world would react to something as *different* as Clark, an actual alien. Because people are largely fearful creatures and plenty are hateful to boot. The last four years of Trump showed that whatever delusions of progress and enlightened thinking we may have had about this country have been shown to be bullshit. Hate crimes at an all time high, a resurgence in White Nationalism, attempts to restrict voting in minority areas...fear mongering by Trump and his propagandists about immigrants and people who were seeking asylum from actual tyranny.
And it worked.
On half the goddamn country.
That's the world you live in right now. A country where half the population engaged in mass fear and hate induced pants shitting over immigrants, black lives, Asians, etc. Bought into so much bullshit that they led an insurrection against the lawful government of this country. So Jonathan Kents belief that people (and not just people here in the States) might freak the fuck out over a godlike alien were perfectly believable.
and urges him to let innocent people die to protect himself.
He literally didn't do that either as evidenced by the fact that he didn't say "yes". He said "maybe" as in "maybe...I don't know." Like any honest person who knows they don't have the answer to a tough question. He also goes on to essentially say "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" by saying "there's more at stake here than just our lives". Proof of actual alien life would be revolutionary in so many ways and would effect massive social upheaval. Go watch "Contact" for just a taste of how humanity would react. It's not going to be like it was in Superman: The Movie where "I'm from an alien world" is no different than if he'd said "I'm from Fresno".
he's angry and isolated and resentful of having to help people,
Feels isolated? Probably.
Angry? No. Sounds like projection, as does "resentful of having to help people."
And who said he "had" to help people? No one. He did it anyway.
This Superman has been helping people since he was a child. "I just wanted to help" is what he tells Jonathan after defying his lessons of not revealing himself. We then see him helping people multiple times. Never looking for glory, never looking for adulation. But since he didn't deliver a public service announcement about airline safety, or spout off useless platitudes, you may have mistaken that as being "resentful", but it's not.
The fact is, unlike the Christopher Reeve Superman, this one was helping people since he was a kid. Meanwhile Reeve Superman doesn't do jack shit to help a single person until he goes to the Fortress and gets his marching orders from his Space Daddy. Who tells him who and what he's "supposed" to be. While Cavil Superman, with the exception of once, is shown defying those who tell him or caution him not to help people. Even Lois Lane tells him, in one of the most pivotal scenes in MoS, that she could sense that not helping was NOT an option for him. It wasn't a bombastic moment, no long winded speeches, no swelling music, but it summed up who Superman is better than any filmed iteration.
"I sense not helping people is NOT an option for you"
THAT is Superman.
Angry, resentful people don't waste time helping people. They spend years on websites complaining about movies they didn't like.
which makes it hard to credit how Clark goes from that outlook, to an actual hero.
Again.....he was helping people since he was a kid. Lois Lane said that she sensed that not helping people was NOT an option for him. He was an actual hero the moment he saved those kids lives and everyone afterwards...from the waitress, to the oil rig workers to the entire planet by the end of the movie.
It's in Beavis. "Be their hero, Clark. Be their monument, be their angel, be anything they need you to be ... or be none of it. You don't owe this world anything."
Essentially "choose the path you feel is right, I'll support it" which is what any non-asshole parent tells their kid. They don't railroad them into being something they don't want to be. But she knew, based on the fact that he helped people, non-stop, even before he was Superman that he was going to continue to help people until the day he died, even if it killed him, and it did. Before Zod came to Earth, she could live with the belief that nothing could hurt him and he would die of natural causes. Now she saw that he could be hurt. That he could be killed. That, because he's operating in public, he could be smeared and torn down, relentlessly by either fearful people or those with an agenda. As a mother, she didn't want him getting dragged into the mud by hateful or fearful people, but she supported his decision even though as a mother, she probably didn't like it. He's doing this on his own free time, of his own free will with no thought of thanks or reward. So no, he doesn't owe the world a thing. But he still does it anyway.
That's what makes him a hero.
That's what makes him Superman.
