12 Things That Ruined Superman

[TMC]

http://io9.com/5980428/12-things-that-ruined-superman?utm_campaign=io9_Facebook_socialflow&utm_source=Socialflow&utm_medium=Facebook

Charlie Jane Anders

Superman is the original superhero, and he's still one of the most
iconic heroes in any genre. But even though everybody loves Superman,
everybody also talks about how hard he is to get right. You can
practically hear the wheel-and-pulley sound of everybody lowering
their expectations for Man of Steel. That's not just the basic concept
— it's also a result of some weird decisions that have been made over
the years. As prolific Superman artist Jon Bogdanove says, "Superman
has jumped lots of sharks over the years."

Here are 12 things that have ruined Superman forever.*
* - Or at least, for a little while. Or a little bit.

1. Superman starts flying
As lots of people have pointed out, Superman started out as just a
really great athlete. He could run really fast, he was massively
strong, and he could "leap tall buildings in a single bound." But
eventually, that wasn't enough for people, and he had to start
exerting the power of anti-gravity. He had to become basically
indestructible, and able to shoot heat rays out of his eyes. And then
why not have him be able to fly through space? At faster-than-light
speed? By the time you get to The Earth Stealers, he's towing the
planet Earth around in space. WTF. Even when you try to depower
Superman slightly so he's no longer at "planet towing" levels, we all
still expect him to be basically a demigod.

2. Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane
Both the comic with that title, and the overall concept where Lois is
constantly trying to trick Superman into marrying her, and he's
constantly doing dickish things to stymie her. In fact, the whole
"super-dickery" thing kind of ruined the Man of Steel, but the Lois
Lane stuff is often where the worst of it happens. Like Superman using
his heat vision to burn the roast Lois is cooking for him, so as to
embarrass her and ruin their date. That kind of dickishness clings to
the character, making it hard to like Supes. He also had horrendously
dysfunctional relationships with his "best friend" Jimmy Olsen and the
rest of his supporting cast.

3. Random superpowers
Okay so you've got Superman flying and zooming through space and
shooting heat beams out of his eyes. Great, that all makes sense. But
over the decades, the writers saw fit to load him up with more and
more powers, including super-ventriloquism and super-hypnosis. Until
you reach the point where he's able to read an entire book on a
microdot in a few seconds, and super-memorize the whole thing. The
movies picked up on this "Superman has whatever powers we feel like
giving him" ethos, and took it to a whole new level — letting him turn
time backwards by flying around the world. And throwing his "S" shield
and having it turn into a massive cellophane trap. And kissing Lois
and giving her amnesia, otherwise known as the super-roofie-kiss.

4. Clark becomes a newscaster
In the 1970s, the comics writers decided that Clark being a newspaper
reporter was boring and old-school — didn't they watch Lou Grant? —
and decided to "promote" Clark to become a newscaster at the local TV
station, WGBS. Meaning a couple things: 1) Clark's face was being
broadcast to thousands, possibly even tens of thousands, of people
every day, making the already-ludicrous "secret identity" thing even
harder to swallow. 2) Instead of ducking out in the middle of doing
reporter stuff to change to Superman, Clark kept having to run out in
the middle of a newscast. Which might be the sort of thing people
would notice. Judging from Michael Eury's book The Krypton Companion,
tons of veteran Superman writers feel as though this is the status quo
change that came closest to wrecking the character.

5. Superman III (and IV)
Superman III is justly mocked, and has supplied many joyfully painful
screencaps over the years. In case you missed it, Richard Pryor is a
supercomputer genius, and he builds a doomsday computer — but
meanwhile Superman is too busy getting drunk and being evil. His evil
side is comically unshaven, like a cartoon hobo, and his idea of being
"evil" is straightening the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and knocking over a
kid's ice cream. He does cause an oil spill, too. It's kind of sad
that Superman's version of Star Trek's "The Enemy Within" is so weak.
And then there's the low-budget, pieced-together-from-scraps Superman
IV. The Superman films went from fantastic to pathetic in an amazingly
short time.

6. Sleez
You can quibble with lots of things about John Byrne's reboot of
Superman — like, for example, the notion that Clark was never Superboy
— but most of his choices were at least valid and in the service of
making the character more believable and grounded. But then there's
Sleez. Who's the one Darkseid minion who makes Granny Goodness and
Glorious Godfrey look well-rounded by comparison. Sleez mind-controls
Superman and Big Barda into making a porn movie together, proving that
porn actually is Superman's Kryptonite. That, in turn, means there's
an in-continuity Superman sex tape floating around in the DC Universe.

7. The Death and Rebirth of Superman
Really, all you need to do is watch this fanvid starring Elijah Wood,
which explains the whole thing. What's really sad is when, recently,
Batman told Superman "the last time you inspired anybody was when you
died." I assume that what Bats really meant was, "the last time you
sold a bazillion comics and spawned a speculator feeding frenzy."
Because the last thing Superman's deadly punch-up with a monster was,
was inspirational. They just punch each other to death. And neither of
them actually dies. To this day, though, I'm still a bit wobbly on how
Superman comes back from the dead — I know it has to do with Pa Kent
having a heart attack and visiting him in the Kryptonian afterlife.
Also terrible: the four replacement Supermen. Also, Batman seems
really bummed about Superman's death — but where was Batman when
Doomsday was very slowly punching his way across America? Batman
probably has an anti-Doomsday plan somewhere in his utility belt.

8. The Mullet
Sure his hair looks okay now, but we can never unsee the mullet. The
mullet, of course, eventually led to Superman becoming an electric-
blue character whose powers were "electricity" and "blueness." As
Batman observes in the JLA comic, when they told Superman to lose the
terrible haircut, they didn't really want him to go that far.

9. Smallville
Many people will probably argue for The Adventures of Lois & Clark
belonging on this list — but even though Lois & Clark was frequently
awful, it didn't undermine the idea of Superman, in a lasting way, the
way Smallville arguably has. If Clark Kent never wears his famous
glasses in Zack Snyder's Man of Steel movie, it will be Smallville's
fault. Smallville started out as a Dawson's Creek-y soap about Teen
Superman, and it was okay as far as that went. If it had lasted four
or five years, it would have worked. But when you go on for ten
seasons and keep ramping up the comic-book elements, until Clark is
surrounded by people in gaudy costumes, and he still hasn't put on the
suit? You start to lose the integrity of the character a bit. The
secret identity is definitely never going to work. There's a reason
they never showed him putting on the suit in the final episode —
nobody would have believed it.

10. Superman Returns
Speaking of undermining the integrity of the character... This movie
lowered the bar to the point where Zack Snyder can slouch over it. You
should just go and read this takedown by Star Trek/Buffy/Supernatural
author Keith R.A. DeCandido in its entirety — it's short. To quote
from DeCandido:

Superman leaving Earth for five years is just one big WTF. Leaving
everything behind without saying anything to Lois or anyone just
doesn't make any sense... Superman II ended with Superman assuring the
President of the United States that he'd never let him down again, and
then we're supposed to believe that our hero then buggered off for
five years, in essence breaking his promise to the leader of the free
world. [Also], there's something seriously wrong with your Superman
movie when the character who acts creepy and unpleasant and scary and
stalker-like is Superman.

The sad thing is, Brandon Routh is pretty great.

11. Superman walks America, becomes an un-American blogger
There have been various attempts to make Superman "relevant" or
"political" in recent years, all of which seemed tone-deaf. Like,
Superman walking across America, which I still don't get the point of.
Doesn't Superman have better things to do than walk around the
country? Little kids are dying in car crashes and fires, while
Superman is walking and talking. Then there's the much-ballyhooed
thing where Superman announces he's giving up his U.S. citizenship —
which, did Superman have a Social Security Number? is Clark still a
U.S. citizen? Has this ever been referenced again? — and this caused a
firestorm on Fox News. And then, more recently, Superman quit his
newspaper job — shades of WGBS — to become a blogger. Because bloggers
are cool and hip, and they're the future, and he's the Man of
Tomorrow.

12. The Superman/Wonder Woman Romance
All of a sudden, Clark and Diana are an item, and Clark has never
dated Lois. Much like having Lucifer annul Spider-Man's marriage, this
feels like a step backwards for the character, and a pointless retcon.
Of course, it's early days and maybe the Supes/Wondy relationship will
turn out to wow us all. But for now, it seems like a mistake — not
least because of the same reason that having Superman walk across
America might have seemed like an okay idea: Superman needs to be
grounded. When you've got a character who can juggle black holes while
memorizing every book ever written, you know, it's not a bad idea for
him to have strong relationships with ordinary humans.

[Christopher M.]

I personally wasn't dissapointed that Tom Welling didn't wear the Superman
costume. Maybe it was because I got into the series during season 6, and I
wasn't waiting from the beginning for him to put on the costume.

Supermans extreme powers really put him a different league from most of the
Justice League. I don't have much interest in watching Superman fight
forgettable, alien demi-gods. Flash is a great character, but Flash can't
really compete much with Superman, unless he uses some equally extreme
powers like vibrating space or time traveling.

> 2. Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane
> Both the comic with that title, and the overall concept where Lois is
> constantly trying to trick Superman into marrying her, and he's
> constantly doing dickish things to stymie her. In fact, the whole
> "super-dickery" thing kind of ruined the Man of Steel, but the Lois
> Lane stuff is often where the worst of it happens. Like Superman using
> his heat vision to burn the roast Lois is cooking for him, so as to
> embarrass her and ruin their date. That kind of dickishness clings to
> the character, making it hard to like Supes. He also had horrendously
> dysfunctional relationships with his "best friend" Jimmy Olsen and the
> rest of his supporting cast.

I wasn't a big fan of Lois and Clark, but I enjoyed the first three movies.

> 3. Random superpowers
> Okay so you've got Superman flying and zooming through space and
> shooting heat beams out of his eyes. Great, that all makes sense. But
> over the decades, the writers saw fit to load him up with more and
> more powers, including super-ventriloquism and super-hypnosis. Until
> you reach the point where he's able to read an entire book on a
> microdot in a few seconds, and super-memorize the whole thing. The
> movies picked up on this "Superman has whatever powers we feel like
> giving him" ethos, and took it to a whole new level � letting him turn
> time backwards by flying around the world. And throwing his "S" shield
> and having it turn into a massive cellophane trap. And kissing Lois
> and giving her amnesia, otherwise known as the super-roofie-kiss.

I think the 'turning back time' was kind of a once in a lifetime thing,
where he saved Lois in Superman I. Superman just freaked out.

> 4. Clark becomes a newscaster
> In the 1970s, the comics writers decided that Clark being a newspaper
> reporter was boring and old-school � didn't they watch Lou Grant? �
> and decided to "promote" Clark to become a newscaster at the local TV
> station, WGBS. Meaning a couple things: 1) Clark's face was being
> broadcast to thousands, possibly even tens of thousands, of people
> every day, making the already-ludicrous "secret identity" thing even
> harder to swallow. 2) Instead of ducking out in the middle of doing
> reporter stuff to change to Superman, Clark kept having to run out in
> the middle of a newscast. Which might be the sort of thing people
> would notice. Judging from Michael Eury's book The Krypton Companion,
> tons of veteran Superman writers feel as though this is the status quo
> change that came closest to wrecking the character.

Journalism is a respectable job. But I bet a lot of great journalists
wouldn't make great newscasters. Newscasting seems more like acting.

> 5. Superman III (and IV)
> Superman III is justly mocked, and has supplied many joyfully painful
> screencaps over the years. In case you missed it, Richard Pryor is a
> supercomputer genius, and he builds a doomsday computer � but
> meanwhile Superman is too busy getting drunk and being evil. His evil
> side is comically unshaven, like a cartoon hobo, and his idea of being
> "evil" is straightening the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and knocking over a
> kid's ice cream. He does cause an oil spill, too. It's kind of sad
> that Superman's version of Star Trek's "The Enemy Within" is so weak.
> And then there's the low-budget, pieced-together-from-scraps Superman
> IV. The Superman films went from fantastic to pathetic in an amazingly
> short time.

I mostly enjoyed Superman III. There were some scenes I didn't like, like
when the computer took over that woman's body at the end. That was horrific.
A lot of people weren't happy with Richard Pryor, but I wasn't one of them.

> 6. Sleez
> You can quibble with lots of things about John Byrne's reboot of
> Superman � like, for example, the notion that Clark was never Superboy
> � but most of his choices were at least valid and in the service of
> making the character more believable and grounded. But then there's
> Sleez. Who's the one Darkseid minion who makes Granny Goodness and
> Glorious Godfrey look well-rounded by comparison. Sleez mind-controls
> Superman and Big Barda into making a porn movie together, proving that
> porn actually is Superman's Kryptonite. That, in turn, means there's
> an in-continuity Superman sex tape floating around in the DC Universe.

Superman isn't a sex symbol. He's not Flash Gordon or Captain Kirk. He
symbolizes truth, justice, and the American way.

> 7. The Death and Rebirth of Superman
> Really, all you need to do is watch this fanvid starring Elijah Wood,
> which explains the whole thing. What's really sad is when, recently,
> Batman told Superman "the last time you inspired anybody was when you
> died." I assume that what Bats really meant was, "the last time you
> sold a bazillion comics and spawned a speculator feeding frenzy."
> Because the last thing Superman's deadly punch-up with a monster was,
> was inspirational. They just punch each other to death. And neither of
> them actually dies. To this day, though, I'm still a bit wobbly on how
> Superman comes back from the dead � I know it has to do with Pa Kent
> having a heart attack and visiting him in the Kryptonian afterlife.
> Also terrible: the four replacement Supermen. Also, Batman seems
> really bummed about Superman's death � but where was Batman when
> Doomsday was very slowly punching his way across America? Batman
> probably has an anti-Doomsday plan somewhere in his utility belt.

If there's on thing Batman isn't, it's a douchebag. Sounds like some really
bad writers.

> 8. The Mullet
> Sure his hair looks okay now, but we can never unsee the mullet. The
> mullet, of course, eventually led to Superman becoming an electric-
> blue character whose powers were "electricity" and "blueness." As
> Batman observes in the JLA comic, when they told Superman to lose the
> terrible haircut, they didn't really want him to go that far.

I think the mullet was a bad idea. Some women like long hair as a symbol of
virility, but not really into mullets I think. Maybe they could have made
him look like a Greek god with longer, curly hair. I don't know.

> 9. Smallville
> Many people will probably argue for The Adventures of Lois & Clark
> belonging on this list � but even though Lois & Clark was frequently
> awful, it didn't undermine the idea of Superman, in a lasting way, the
> way Smallville arguably has. If Clark Kent never wears his famous
> glasses in Zack Snyder's Man of Steel movie, it will be Smallville's
> fault. Smallville started out as a Dawson's Creek-y soap about Teen
> Superman, and it was okay as far as that went. If it had lasted four
> or five years, it would have worked. But when you go on for ten
> seasons and keep ramping up the comic-book elements, until Clark is
> surrounded by people in gaudy costumes, and he still hasn't put on the
> suit? You start to lose the integrity of the character a bit. The
> secret identity is definitely never going to work. There's a reason
> they never showed him putting on the suit in the final episode �
> nobody would have believed it.

Smallville had some great episodes, mostly in the early seasons. Maybe you'd
enjoy the episode Wrath. Wrath was a good episode, but it was also critical
of Clark.

> 10. Superman Returns

I walked out after about 10 minutes. I didn't like the cinematography.

> 11. Superman walks America, becomes an un-American blogger
> There have been various attempts to make Superman "relevant" or
> "political" in recent years, all of which seemed tone-deaf. Like,
> Superman walking across America, which I still don't get the point of.
> Doesn't Superman have better things to do than walk around the
> country? Little kids are dying in car crashes and fires, while
> Superman is walking and talking. Then there's the much-ballyhooed
> thing where Superman announces he's giving up his U.S. citizenship �
> which, did Superman have a Social Security Number? is Clark still a
> U.S. citizen? Has this ever been referenced again? � and this caused a
> firestorm on Fox News. And then, more recently, Superman quit his
> newspaper job � shades of WGBS � to become a blogger. Because bloggers
> are cool and hip, and they're the future, and he's the Man of
> Tomorrow.

Superman is kind of like Captain America. I think we should consider
ourselves lucky to have any Superman movies at all, with Hollywood being so
liberal.

> 12. The Superman/Wonder Woman Romance
> All of a sudden, Clark and Diana are an item, and Clark has never
> dated Lois. Much like having Lucifer annul Spider-Man's marriage, this
> feels like a step backwards for the character, and a pointless retcon.
> Of course, it's early days and maybe the Supes/Wondy relationship will
> turn out to wow us all. But for now, it seems like a mistake � not
> least because of the same reason that having Superman walk across
> America might have seemed like an okay idea: Superman needs to be
> grounded. When you've got a character who can juggle black holes while
> memorizing every book ever written, you know, it's not a bad idea for
> him to have strong relationships with ordinary humans.

I think the relationship between Batman and Wonder Woman is much more
intersting.


W. Pooh (AKA Winnie P.)

[Stone me]

"Christopher M." <nospam_...@loo.com> wrote in message
news:kep4qa$6bh$1...@dont-email.me...
> TMC wrote:
>> http://io9.com/5980428/12-things-that-ruined-superman?utm_campaign=io9_Facebook_socialflow&utm_source=Socialflow&utm_medium=Facebook

>>
to have strong relationships with ordinary humans.
>
> I think the relationship between Batman and Wonder Woman is much more
> intersting.
>
>
> W. Pooh (AKA Winnie P.)

Another thing about Comic Super Heroes is that their fans usually
grow out of their interests.

Stone me.

[Bill Steele]

In article <kep4qa$6bh$1...@dont-email.me>,

"Christopher M." <nospam_...@loo.com> wrote:

> > 1. Superman starts flying
> > As lots of people have pointed out, Superman started out as just a
> > really great athlete. He could run really fast, he was massively
> > strong, and he could "leap tall buildings in a single bound." But
> > eventually, that wasn't enough for people, and he had to start
> > exerting the power of anti-gravity. He had to become basically
> > indestructible, and able to shoot heat rays out of his eyes. And then
> > why not have him be able to fly through space? At faster-than-light
> > speed? By the time you get to The Earth Stealers, he's towing the
> > planet Earth around in space. WTF. Even when you try to depower
> > Superman slightly so he's no longer at "planet towing" levels, we all
> > still expect him to be basically a demigod.

The real complain here is that Superman is a commercial property, and
the owners have to keep it fresh. Superman started flying about when
Captain Marvel came along. And the writers needed it so he could deal
with stuff anywhere in the world. Having him just bound around
Metropolis was getting old. (This is also why Wonder Woman has a plane.)

My complaint about all this is that it moved from plausible science
fiction - a guy from a high-gravity planet -- to silly pseudoscience
about red and yellow suns. And that in turn opened the door for
inventing new powers as needed.

Time travel by flying, BTW, also originated with Captain Marvel.

[Halmyre]

On Feb 5, 7:19 pm, Bill Steele <w...@cornell.edu> wrote:
> In article <kep4qa$6b...@dont-email.me>,

If he's from a high gravity planet he's got the wrong physique surely?

--
Halmyre

[Your Name]

In article <ws21-A2EBDE.1...@70-3-168-216.pools.spcsdns.net>,

The incredibly silly "Galactica 1980" show also used used time travel
(both forwards and backwards) by flying around the planet really fast.

[Super-Menace]

In article <ws21-A2EBDE.1...@70-3-168-216.pools.spcsdns.net>,
Bill Steele <ws...@cornell.edu> wrote:

> My complaint about all this is that it moved from plausible science
> fiction - a guy from a high-gravity planet -- to silly pseudoscience
> about red and yellow suns. And that in turn opened the door for
> inventing new powers as needed.

A human adapted to life on a high-gravity planet wouldn't look much
like a standard human, so it's still pseudoscience. At minimum, the
business about the red and yellow suns established rules that required
consistency while allowing Superman to look like a standard human.

Over the years, Superman has lost powers as well as gained them. I
have in mind that business where he could manipulate the muscles of his
face to look like anyone or anything. For instance, there's a Golden
Age story in which Superman turned his face into a Mayan death mask of
some sort, complete with scary coloring.

> Time travel by flying, BTW, also originated with Captain Marvel.

They stole like crazy from Captain Marvel, and they stole even more
from Doc Savage. Ex: The Fortress of Solitude.

[Howard Brazee]

On Tue, 5 Feb 2013 11:24:55 -0800 (PST), Halmyre
<flashgord...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>
>If he's from a high gravity planet he's got the wrong physique surely?

And if his strength is so magically more than the high gravity planet
strength, he wouldn't be buff. Lifting locomotives just doesn't
give his muscles the strain necessary.

I suppose he could do isometrics. Does he?

--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."

- James Madison

[Super-Menace]

In article <s6i3h8t54328m0l6o...@4ax.com>, Howard Brazee

<how...@brazee.net> wrote:

> On Tue, 5 Feb 2013 11:24:55 -0800 (PST), Halmyre
> <flashgord...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >If he's from a high gravity planet he's got the wrong physique surely?
>
> And if his strength is so magically more than the high gravity planet
> strength, he wouldn't be buff. Lifting locomotives just doesn't
> give his muscles the strain necessary.
>
> I suppose he could do isometrics. Does he?

He's been shown exercising with outsized equipment from time to time.
However, I recall an episode on Lois & Clark in which Lois asked
Superman if he worked out to look like that. He said no; he just
naturally looked that way.

Superman's physique may be natural, a result of his super-efficient
system.

[Howard Brazee]

On Tue, 05 Feb 2013 23:49:02 -0500, Super-Menace
<fort...@arctic.com.invalid> wrote:

>He's been shown exercising with outsized equipment from time to time.
>However, I recall an episode on Lois & Clark in which Lois asked
>Superman if he worked out to look like that. He said no; he just
>naturally looked that way.
>
>Superman's physique may be natural, a result of his super-efficient
>system.

Super efficiency wouldn't build up muscles. It would use fewer
muscles for more results.