Superman
- Thread starter urbandefault
- Start date
I agree. For me, Superman should be like, "The last thing I want to do is kill you...but it's still on the list."
I agree that Superman not killing shows a higher standard. But, I also think that standard needs to shown and challenged and that Superman still chooses this way. Otherwise, Superman is an alien figure whose morality means little to us little people.
A few years ago, Brian Bendis made a big splash by having Superman reveal his secret identity to the public. Upcoming Action Comics #1050 will reverse this.
Superman as a character was not created to be Mickey Mouse, Porky Pig, Goofy, or Felix the Cat. I find the psychological gymnastics some perform in denying how Superman was created, the message of his behavior and sold to millions of eager readers at his start. He was never intended to be Daddy/Santa. He was never intended to be that den leader character from the Super Friends, either. So, to claim one is "horrified" by the real argument---that Superman killed when necessary, and how 1960s readers were ultimately fed up / rejecting the Daddy/Santa version, in favor of one more in line with the rest of his evolving published universe toward the end of the Silver Age--is again, performing psychological gymnastics.
Translated, that's handcuffing the creative avenues for a character. There will come a time when someone--or thing will not give a character like Superman the option to do anything other than kill him/it. No one here has made the argument that he's the Punisher and he must slaughter all enemies, but he's not Richie Rich, either, and--in consideration of the DC comic universe which formed out of the late 1960s--killing when necessary was not some forbidden idea handed down by anyone, as it reflected the realities of the readers' world and expectations of a maturing genre.
This is one of the reasons I find it quite self-defeating for anyone to say Captain America (comics or MCU) is a "better" Superman, when the printed and filmed Cap has a jaw-dropping body count from conflicts where he realized certain enemies had to be killed. Well, if that's the "better" Superman, then few should take no issue with comic or say, the DCEU's Superman snapping Zod's neck. One being, not some "litter the streets with the corpses of my enemies" lie often suggested by the Daddy/Santa advocates.
No, there was not, otherwise the above statement would have listed those "ton of other ways" he could have resolved a situation where Superman was struggling to stop Zod, who was seconds away from incinerating innocent people. Superman did what was necessary, and was not getting his kicks from it either, if anyone actually watched and understood the scene.
Some need him to be "ho-ho-ho-ing" not as habit, but as the core of his being, otherwise its some shattering experience for a character who did not start off that way.
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In a fair fight? She doesn't stand a chance.
Using a special weapon, or a cunning plan, that all of SHIELD put their minds together to figure out. She's the perfect weapon because they are expecting nothing, even though she tells everyone she meets that she is an assassin.
Why will this time inevitably come? You treat it as a given.
That time will only come if the writer decides to write that particular story.
You can have him not kill, and still not take him to the extreme you're talking about.
There a big middle ground between the Punisher or Jack Bauer, and Mickey Mouse, and Superman can fit pretty easily into it.
Yes it is handcuffing the creative avenues, but by doing that it forces the creators to come up with more interesting solutions than just killing his enemies. The biggest problem is that even if you try to limit it to him killing "only when necessary" is that once you start that, you end up on a slippery slope, and before you know every arc will end with the creator coming up with a situation where it's necessary.
Well I think the biggest reason people aren't as bothered by Cap killing, is that he's basically a soldier, and soldiers kill. And then there's the fact that he's a lot more limited in his options, since he's basically just a slightly enhanced normal human, without Superman's invulnerability and with a lot less powers.
He could have covered his eyes, he could have used his superspeed to block them, or he could have brought that part of roof down on Zod.
The problem with trying to take the character back to what he was like in 1938, is that it's not 1938 now, and world, the character, and the way we tell stories has changed a lot in the last 84 years. I'd hate to see any character be forced to be the exact same character they were that long ago, and not be allowed to change with the times.
Disappointing, but not surprising.
Yes. He could have done any number of things. But he didn't. That's not the story the filmmaker wanted to tell. One can be disappointed in the choice, but that was the choice made. Moreover, there is an overall context to that moment that so, so, so often seems forgotten (wilfully or otherwise). It. Is. Superman's. First. Day. On. The. Job. as a fully out in public superhero. He's had ZERO training for this level of crisis. Even the hallowed Reeve version (which I quite like, by the way, lest anyone think otherwise) had YEARS of preparation and a fair amount of experience before facing off against a force only partly as powerful as Cavill's version did. Again, like all fiction, that was a deliberate choice of the storyteller. But so are ALL stories.
As I watched the scene, I too could imagine (with the luxury of extracting the scene out of context as an audience member) other options. However, I considered the in-story fact of Superman's raw rookie status and found the moment fit the narrative. ANY of the options you propose would have been temporary setbacks to Zod, at best. Even for an experienced Superman, let alone a rookie.
Moreover, I don't buy the "slippery slope" argument (structurally, such arguments are rarely sound). I've seen no one, here or elsewhere online (or in "real life"), propose turning Superman into a Black Adam or Punisher or other character who kills repeatedly, with little to no remorse.
In the end, all we are left with is the option to like or dislike (to whatever degree of intensity one wishes) any work of art--commercial, non-commercial, film, music, sculpture, painting, literature, etc. We can debate the merits of artistic choices made by people in any of the arts. But what we cannot do, at least not with any degree of fairness, is a priori dismiss a particular storytelling choice by declaring "rules" about The Way Things Ought To Be (patent pending). Let the storyteller/artist present the work and pass judgement AFTER it is out for public consumption.
This whole "Heroes who kill are now inevitably going to be evil" thing is nonsense, especially when you consider that the Marvel heroes are frigging killing machines and it never affect their morality.
I will admit, if Superman had clapped his hands over Zod's eyes and this caused the heat vision to backfire and THIS is what killed Zod....I would have enjoyed it simply for the great visual it would've been on screen.
I will admit, if Superman had clapped his hands over Zod's eyes and this caused the heat vision to backfire and THIS is what killed Zod....I would have enjoyed it simply for the great visual it would've been on screen.
Yep. I've long maintained that the biggest problems with fandoms in general is people take a prescriptive approach to the work. They have an expectation of how it's "supposed" to be and judge it by how much it matches those expectations, instead of treating the work on its own terms. I've heard some people rebut this with "But if I ordered a burger and I get a salad, it doesn't matter how good the salad is. It's not what I ordered!" Me, I think comparing a food order (something custom-made for you) to a film or book (made for a mass audience) speaks of entitlement. Unless you commissioned the work with your own money, it's not your friggin' burger.
A Superman story can be light, dark, all-ages, adult, whatever. The only thing it *needs* to be is good. That said, of course it's fine and normal to express one's preference and why. You prefer a Superman who kills? Cool. You insist a Superman who kills is the only way to do a successful modern take on the character and anything else couldn't work? Get over yourself.
I was referencing the movies.
Pretending there are situations where a villain had to be killed do not exist is handcuffing the creative avenues, for no other reason than to revert the character back to that infantile Daddy/Santa period, which is not in line with the way comics and audiences have evolved over the decades. No one is going to accept a superhero who conveniently finds himself only in situations where he can simply pluck an equally convenient easy-to-defeat villain out of the air and drop him off in The City Jail. That kind of villain and conflict gives no feeling of risk or danger not only to regular humans, but in the grand scheme of things, no threat to the hero, either. In other words, it is an episode of the Super Friends.
Really? How often is this happening? You speak as if the very idea of a hero killing is all writers want to push in every story, when the history of the genre paints a very different picture--like the oft-referenced early Superman, who killed not as a routine function of his crime-fighting, but when the situation necessitated it.
Incorrect. Captain America is not a "slightly enhanced normal human", not in the comics, and certainly not in the MCU. No "slightly enhanced normal human" is preventing a helicopter from taking off. No "slightly enhanced normal human" can survive several, direct punches to the face--intended to kill--from another enhanced man using a powerful mechanical arm. No "slightly enhanced normal human" can kick vehicles aside. By the way, this same super soldier had no issue using that power and hyper-physical resilience to repeatedly kill regular people, yet no one argues that the "better Superman" should "find another way" as if he had options, but Superman's logical choice when facing a Kryptonian warrior more experienced with his power than Kal-El--in the textbook example of a no-option, life-and-death situation (re: Zod's intended victims) is some shocking aberration to the character.
No sale.
One, Superman was trying to subdue Zod in the heat of a life-and-death situation.
Two, taking your hypothetical options into consideration, they do not work in an in-universe or creative sense: the second he released his grip on Zod would have been astoundingly stupid and irresponsible, as Zod--yes, that Zod--would kill any other humans in the area, and there's no evidence that Superman's speed would have outpaced Zod's heat vision.
Three--linked to two--"brought that part of roof down on Zod" means Zod is free to continue his attacks, with no guarantee he would not burn down any humans on that level, or even in a nearby building. He was that powerful. This all boils down to a markedly unrealistic idea of Superman never killing as if that was never a part of the character and any evidence of the act destroys a monument based on conscious self-deception.
Oh? Its not the Weisinger period (or the Salkind's approach either), yet the Daddy/Santa advocates want Superman to be forever shaped by that saccharine-infused version, while rejecting his origins.
Moreover, if your "...is that it's not 1938 now" had merit, Frank Robbins/Irv Novick and Neal Adams/Denny O'Neill's conscious decision to return Batman back to his dark, mysterious (and yes, more violent) roots from the early years of the Golden Age, would have failed and not--in actuality-been the historic, fan-celebrated reinvigoration of the Bat-world.
Those times--in relation to Superman--are not that which hosted the Weisinger era, or whatever non, period-relevant comic influences which guided the Super Friends or the Salkinds films, either.
I hope it involves flying really fast around the earth.
It will involve magic. Because, a wizard did it is fun.
Works for Black Adam.
Thing is, almost all superhero powers are pretty much magic, you've mentioned Jim Butcher, having never read his works what exactly do you think they should be doing differently with that?
Are there really masses of people who see the super-strong flying due with laser eyes and go, "Plausible," but upon seeing him knock out a villain without killing him decide, "Nope, now this is just ridiculous"? Maybe that's how it works for you, but given how popular the Batman films are, clearly the general audience doesn't share your inability to buy into a hero who does not have to kill. I don't see many people saying those movies are just like Super Friends.