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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Felon" data-source="post: 1525032" data-attributes="member: 8158">Oh, the JL toon version of Supes is much weaker than Byrne's. In Byrne's own words, his version of Superman could "easily lift the combined weight of the great pyramids". He just wasn't infinitely powerful, like the pre-Crisis Superman.The reason the toon version is a wimp goes back to the Warner Brothers cartoon that Superman starred in solo back in the mid-nineties. The writers decided to emulate the power level that Superman had back in the Max Fleischer cartoons of the 1940's. At that time, crimefighters were mostly just acrobatic boxers, so a guy who could shrug off bullets and knives and run at 70mph was plenty powerful. Basically, they couldn't devise a way to crank out 60 or so episodes about such a phenomenally-powerful character, so they made him more vulnerable. Hence him getting knocked on his butt by machine guns and grunting with severe strain any time he lifts anything heavier than a toaster.I hated those WB Superman cartoons for that very reason. The way I see it, you want a vulnerable hero that you can empathize with as he gets smacked around, well go work on the Spider-Man cartoon. Superman is the guy you call in when a meteor about to come down on your head, or when an army from Apokolips is about to storm the planet. And sure enough, when the Apokolips army showed up towards the end of the series' run, Supes was easily subdued and the forces of New Genesis had to come save the earth's bacon.Now, since they made that bad decision for the solo Supes series, they had to carry it over to the JL toon. And that also meant watering down all of the other characters. You think Supes is weak? The Martian Manhunter's abilities are tremendously subdued. The first three-part storyline with the invading martians had them clomping around in big tripod mechs (a la War of the Worlds). In the comics, the invaders sure as heck didn't need any vehicles. Then again, they get beaten by cigarette lighters in the comics, and it's unclear if the Manhunter still has that weakness in the toon. Maybe he caught a break.It's not so much that she's a writer's favorite, it's that the writers are trying to get the viewers invested in her as a cool character, and that is definitely an uphill battle (the mega-mace helps a lot). When I was growing up in the early 80's, everyone thought Hawkman and Hawkgirl were a joke, and they had no business being in the league. My Marvel-phile friends would watch the SuperFriends and say "So all they can do is fly? Why doesn't someone just shoot them?" Of course, it's all perspective: nobody says that about Batman, who can't even fly and his only weapons are his fists and the occasional batarang. But yeah, they are overdoing it. For what its worth, the version in the comics is not an alien, and is much cooler.</blockquote>

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