Your best live action Superman?

[trappedslider]

Supes killed Doctor Light during the Trinity War.

In the 30s and early 40s he killed his enemies all the time, usually by nonchalantly throwing them off a building or something. In the fifties through the mid-eighties, he had a very strict code against killing, which would entail voluntarily giving up his powers if he ever killed someone. Ironically, during this period of ~50-85, he killed both Bizarro and a protoplasmic life-form created by Lex Luthor during his time as Superboy, explaining both times away by saying that his victims weren't truly alive. At the end of this era, in the mid eighties, he killed Mr. Mxyzptlk by tearing his fifth dimensional form in half and, no longer able to explain away his killing in his maturity, gave up his powers forever.

 

[dbolack]

Because it is preferable to thinking he does understand comics and hates them.

 

[Ryujin]

Supes killed Doctor Light during the Trinity War.

In the 30s and early 40s he killed his enemies all the time, usually by nonchalantly throwing them off a building or something. In the fifties through the mid-eighties, he had a very strict code against killing, which would entail voluntarily giving up his powers if he ever killed someone. Ironically, during this period of ~50-85, he killed both Bizarro and a protoplasmic life-form created by Lex Luthor during his time as Superboy, explaining both times away by saying that his victims weren't truly alive. At the end of this era, in the mid eighties, he killed Mr. Mxyzptlk by tearing his fifth dimensional form in half and, no longer able to explain away his killing in his maturity, gave up his powers forever.

The "no killing" thing coincides with the creation of The Comics Code; the same thing that was aimed at killing off "lurid" horror comics. There are many times when Supes allowed people to essentially die by their own hand, like that poison situation or people being injured/killed by ricocheting bullets bouncing back off his body. There were few times he actually killed. And yes they scraped by on it, many times, by saying the things he was killing were created creatures or constructs, like robots.

 

[trappedslider]

I wonder what the venn diagram of people who say superman doesn't kill and people who don't like a darker in tone star trek looks like.

 

[RangerWickett]

If Batman decided to play baseball because his poor stepmother got insulted at a baseball game once and Bruce struggles with anger, and wants to beat up the guy, but decides instead to try to dedicate his victory to her in a big baseball game in order to spite all the meanies in baseball stadiums . . . that's kinda not Batman. But it also kinda is still matching the core of his character.

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There's a fan edit of Man of Steel called "Man of Steel: A Symbol of Hope." It mostly just cuts out the stuff where Clark is a jerk (destroying a semi-truck and ruining a man's livelihood because the guy was rude to him) or where his dad is an awful teacher of morals, and trims a few scenes down where in the original cut it looks like Clark is able to intervene but just doesn't for some inexplicable reason, and broadly has less "disaster porn."

And it uses more of the heroic Hans Zimmer theme.

And yeah, it has a brighter color grading.

But it's the first things that make the big difference. It turned the movie from, like, a bummer, to a genuinely compelling study of the challenge of being optimistic, of trying to make a positive difference, but still feeling like you can't fix things. It felt more hopeful, and it became honestly my favorite Superman movie.

That's what I want out of Superman. His defining character trait - the thing you have to get right - is a solid moral core that inspires others to be good.

(And Batman's defining character trait is insisting on helping others even though he has a core of darkness, because he doesn't want others to suffer like he did.)

Anyway, I expect the thread on the best Aquaman to be a lot shorter.

 

[dbolack]

Anyway, I expect the thread on the best Aquaman to be a lot shorter.

Ted Mcginley. That's easy.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

There's a fan edit of Man of Steel called "Man of Steel: A Symbol of Hope."

I assume one has to go down internet dark alleyways to see such a thing. It sounds good, though.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Ted Mcginley. That's easy.

Aquaman, as a character, pretty much sucks, so Aquaman, as played by Jason Momoa, and as appearing in the pre-Aquaman films, starts off as a really good idea.

DC then apparently jumped in and said that Aquaman doesn't suck enough and it's important that the movie version suck more, and so we got the movies where he gradually starts turning into the dork in the orange and green uniform and everything is weightless and doesn't actually even resemble the gritty realism of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or the Little Mermaid.

In Superman's case, the core character is great and messing with it too much hurts the movies, starting with Deadbeat Dad Stalker Superman in Superman Returns.

The Aquaman character was ripe for reinvention and making him a Pacific islander instead of yet another Silver Age white guy with blond hair (I assume DC Comics got a good deal on yellow ink in the 1960s) was a really good start. Them grafting on the North Atlantic lighthouse stuff makes even less sense than it ever did. Hopefully Gunn will just give us an Aquaman-free new cinematic universe until sanity prevails at DC Comics. (And then they'll reboot the universe five years later, bringing back the dumbest parts of the Silver Age, as always.)

 

[Ryujin]

If Batman decided to play baseball because his poor stepmother got insulted at a baseball game once and Bruce struggles with anger, and wants to beat up the guy, but decides instead to try to dedicate his victory to her in a big baseball game in order to spite all the meanies in baseball stadiums . . . that's kinda not Batman. But it also kinda is still matching the core of his character.

---

There's a fan edit of Man of Steel called "Man of Steel: A Symbol of Hope." It mostly just cuts out the stuff where Clark is a jerk (destroying a semi-truck and ruining a man's livelihood because the guy was rude to him) or where his dad is an awful teacher of morals, and trims a few scenes down where in the original cut it looks like Clark is able to intervene but just doesn't for some inexplicable reason, and broadly has less "disaster porn."

And it uses more of the heroic Hans Zimmer theme.

And yeah, it has a brighter color grading.

But it's the first things that make the big difference. It turned the movie from, like, a bummer, to a genuinely compelling study of the challenge of being optimistic, of trying to make a positive difference, but still feeling like you can't fix things. It felt more hopeful, and it became honestly my favorite Superman movie.

That's what I want out of Superman. His defining character trait - the thing you have to get right - is a solid moral core that inspires others to be good.

(And Batman's defining character trait is insisting on helping others even though he has a core of darkness, because he doesn't want others to suffer like he did.)

Anyway, I expect the thread on the best Aquaman to be a lot shorter.

For me, it plays out something like this:

For Superman, Clark is the real guy and Superman is the secret identity.

For Batman, Batman is the real guy and Bruce is the secret identity.

Everything builds from that.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

For me, it plays out something like this:

For Superman, Clark is the real guy and Superman is the secret identity.

For Batman, Batman is the real guy and Bruce is the secret identity.

Everything builds from that.

Who came up with that framing? Was it Grant Morrison or Mark Waid or someone like that? It's definitely a great way to look at them.