I have made another response on another thread but decided to make a new one. Hello everyone, I am a new poster although I have been around for some time. I decided to react concerning my favorite character: Superman.
I am an avid Superman Reader and I believe that today Superman no longer exists as a character, but only as a symbol. I think, it is necessary to re-discover him as a human but first of all, as a Kryptonian. Part of the problem, is because there is too much focus of his powers as part of his identity. Superman, should be primarily about saving.
His tragic moral flaw is this: he wants to save the world, save humanity and prevent it from repeating the tragedy of Krypton, which was blown to pieces in the tragedy of natural disasters. Superman should be an evolving character, one who is proactive and able to handle situations as they come. Too often, he charges into battle head-on without preparation. This should not happen since he has super-intellect. Most importantly, he should evolve into an understanding of his greatest weakness: Kryptonite.
Superman feels responsible for the fate of humanity and I think that, in his place, I would seek to be at the optimum level of my abilities. He knows, that in the wrong hands, Kryptonite can cause great damage. As such, I think one of Superman's additional motivations should be to uncover the cure to his weaknesses and master and improve on his own intellect. To this end, he should have a truly genius-like intellect, higher than that of Batman and on par with the likes of Dr Doom or Reed Richards. However, he shouldn't be a scientist per se, but more of an engineer, one who understands science and concerns himself more with its real world application: curing disease, eradication poverty.
Compassion is VERY important and almost central to the character and I feel that his moral considerations should partly be built around that characteristic. Instead of fighting crime and superheroes, he should be a moral force, that stops natural disasters, militates for world peace and helps solve global hunger.
Ultimately, Superman should not be seen as a cosmic being, in the likes of Thor (who should be able to beat on him quite easily, as well as Silver Surfer, and to some extent Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, Green Lantern, the Flash and Martian Manhunter) but more as a Force of Nature, whose power can augment as needed and is dynamic.
At his all-out levels, he should be able to trounce Wonder Woman due to his superior strength, overwhelming durability and fantastic energy projection.
To this end, Superman needs to be given additional powers. He should be more dynamic as a character. Kryptonians were an advanced alien race, that mastered their own hostile elements and attempted to create a Utopia. Superman should be concerned with the understanding of natural forces and of their mastery. In fact, he should be given control over matter, perfect control over his physiology as well as the ability to expand force fields to protect people. Finally, his heat vision should be far more potent, like the heat of the sun's core and he should be able to radiate his energy through his body, like a sort of atomic bomb; like Thor's God Blast.
As far as the movie is concerned, I believe more emphasis should be put on Superman's home planet. I read a bit about Krypton from forum to forum and I am convinced that Superman's heritage has a lot of potential. There is so much to explore whether in designing Superman's extinct race as a technocratic culture, as a religious civilization, as a race of barbarians that used its superior science and knowledge to conquer other planets or perhaps all of these elements put together.
I believe the public deserves a Superman who is grand, big, epic and most of all CAPABLE. Too often, Superman is limited by his powers and not enough emphasis is placed on his high-level intellect. After all, he is the son of a Kryptonian scientist, Jor El, who predicted the planet's own doom.
I think that his power level should be comparable to the one in Superman Returns. Brandon Routh should be given another chance as the Man of the Steel, in an effort to maintain and carry on the new franchise.
Superman's secret identity could be easily explained by his bio-electric aura or even his psychic aura that somehow influences people's perception of him when he dons his costume. The true Superman, the true Clark, is the one of Smallville, the same one who goes to the Fortress of Solitude to device weapons or to find solutions to global or metahuman problems.
The Metropolis Superman is the one who is concerned with the pursuit of Truth, Justice and the American Way. He chooses to be a journalist in order to influence popular opinion, shed light on crime (eg: Lex Luthor) and raise important social issues such as poverty or nuclear proliferation. Clark Kent, is thus, a full blown person who simply incarnates Superman's desire for Justice as he uses human means to achieve his ends. To this effect, he should use his superpowers at a minimum. Realistically, there should be some mobility in Clark's life.
Nevertheless, I still see Kal-el as Clark's matured persona who is fully in control and in understanding of his destiny. Kal-el represents Superman's aspirations for a better world and his yearnings for Krypton. Kal-el, is Superman without the cape, and Clark Kent without the pen. He is Lois' fiance or husband, the man she fell in love with when he saved her from a helicopter accident.
Kal-el yearns for Justice, for Truth, for Knowledge and for acceptance and greater assimilation into the human race. I found an interesting element (on Starnetdatabase.com, a site now closed) of Superman's physiology that can be exploited. If Superman is to be seen as different from his early years, his Kryptonian skin should be much tougher and denser compared to his human counterparts. This is due to Krypton's much greater gravitational pull and stronger magnetic field, which endows the race with greater endurance, strength and agility than humans. In addition, since he was rocketed from Krypton, he should have dreams, peaceful and intriguing in nature, concerning his biological parents and his home planet, which would be a cause for conflict.
Jonathan and Martha Kent should be aware of Superman's origins, nevertheless they should reveal them to him, gradually, as he matures and understands himself and powers better.
Thus, the gracefulness and beauty of Superman is that although he is different, he is more human than most of us. As said earlier, his COMPASSION is his greatest strength and his COURAGE his greatest moral weakness (since he can feel invulnerable), and his desire to SAVE should be his true tragic flaw (as seen in For Tomorrow).
As far as potential villains, I highly favor the eradicator for both his potential as a memory and guardian of Kryptonian culture and his potential as a humanoid. Imagine, a machine-made-man from an alien culture that attempts to learn human ways and in the process ends up wrecking havoc or threatening his protectee and pupil, to create a new Krypton, or rather, to stall humanity's development in order not to let civilization destroy itself. I think the eradicator has a lot of potential.
Also, I like Metallo both for his loose connection to Lex Luthor, thus playing a minor role, and the tragic reality that he is a bionical-man, a man who was made a promise to which was realized in a twisted manner; thus showing Luthor's cunning and cruelty.
And of course, I am of the opinion that Brainiac could be a good villain for the second installment, in combination with Doomsday who actually KILLS Superman.
In the third or fourth installment, I think Darkseid should enter the scene through a Bizarro plague that brings darkness to the whole world. The purpose of the darkness? To find the one light that contains the Anti-life equation. It turns out being Superman himself, or maybe even his pal, Jimmy Olsen. Mostly Superman because he is an alien that has formed a connection with a human and has attempted to turn back history by saving Lois' life after she died (thus incorporating elements from Donner's movies).
Darkseid in the movie and in the comics, should be a true GOD, untouchable, invulnerable, as strong as Superman and even more if needed, technologically advanced, a master strategist, cunning, with matter manipulation and psychic powers. His Omega beams, should eradicate its target, except the one that possesses the Anti-Life equation.
The purpose of Darkseid: to enslave the WILLS of millions of sentient life, not through his godly powers (through which he could achieve this) but through the GODLY equation that allows him to become GOD and be worshipped as such.
The third or fourth movie in which Darkseid comes, should be intergalactic, involving some races of the DC Universe. In this movie, Superman should achieve godhood by entering and surviving the Source wall. Nevertheless, the movie ends with all life in the universe being eradicated after Darkseid has bested Superman and himself gone to his death due to his being GOD.
Superman is left standing on Earth, deserted, and he realizes his tragic flaw: In his desire to SAVE, he tried to be someone, something he is not: A GOD.
Finally, there is a supernatural intervention, Superman is given a second chance at life in another dimension (good paraller with the infinite earths) but he has to be a baby. In the end, he ends up being the baby that was given to Dean Cain and Terri Hatcher at the end of the Adventures of Lois and Clark series.
I think that about wraps up all of my thoughts.
You are free to comment on them and give me your input.
Did you not read Superman Beyond? Or even hear about it?
Yes, because the fandom loved when they did that the first time.
They've had stories and arcs where Clark Kent is supposedly dead and Superman is thus without a public life, some of them are good some of them are crap.
This we can agree on. After reading For Tomorrow it's difficult to appreciate a Superman drawn by anyone but Jim Lee.
I don't see him having multiple titles as a problem provided all the writers are good.
I really don't see how that would "revive" the character.
Why? Other than the obvious crass reasons?
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“Where the longleaf pines are whispering
to him who loved them so.
Where the faint murmurs now dwindling
echo o’er tide and shore."
-A Grave Epitaph in Santa Rosa County, Florida; I wish I could remember the man's name.
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Humans are afraid of the dark.
And yet… At the same time, we’re fascinated and bewitched by it.
Maybe that’s why humans drink the darkness that is coffee.
Superman appeared only once, I believe, but the cameo was so well written that over a decade later they did a JLA/Hitman crossover that expanded on their encounter. It was equally awesome. Yeah, as much as Ennis hates superheroes, he respects Superman.
Superman is an icon, not a character. What they should do is put Superman, Kal, in differrent continuities at once like it back before the First Crisis, simply because this icon is big enough to be beyond just Lois, the Planet and Luthor; he's much more than they are, he's more than Batman. Kal deserves fair and square to interact with different universes and describe his influence in depth and not just in two issues.
Agreed, I am tired of movie Supes always on earth, Lois and Lex. Hes the most iconic character. I want him in space for a while and fighting non Earth villains. Then in the 3rd film have him on Earth. I want something new and refreshing.
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Apr 14th, 2010 12:07 AM
