Brians Superman Post
 

With respect, I don't think that the trailer depicts Dickhead Superman at all. It seems to me that Superman is drained from constant battles with Luthor but has become aware of Braniacs approach and the threat is represents. So, while the rest of the League holds off Luthor and the gang Superman tries deperately to recharge his powers via the Suns radiation (hence his ragged state). He seems aware of what's going on on Earth, but also knows Braniac is the bigger threat. Finally though, when he hears Diana's death scream he simply snaps and returns to confront Luthor. Hence the exile in space (why should Luthor know what he was up to) and the "you've lost everything" speech.

Ten Thousand Bears.

Hi and welcome to NPF! I think this post would probably be more appropriate for the "Brian's Projects" subforum (discussions about the front-page posts usually go there), so I'm gonna move it.

I'mstill trying to work out- I think Flash is supposed to die in that explosion- fucking no way Flash can't outrun an explosion.

I'm more with Brian here, a rare occurence. Superman just wouldn't let people die- no matter if he thought he could go up, recharge and save more people. That's not Superman. He doesn't play numbers games- I have to choose between saving 100 people and 1 person so I'll save the 100- he saves EVERYONE. That is so very much a part of Superman's character that he would try to save everyone.
And also he's rocking it in space, he must have seen Braniac's spaceships that arrived at the end of the video. He's at full power in space, getting max radiation, why doesn't he just fly over and smash them up?

I too must jump the Bandwagon here. Actually, the whole "grimdark" take here doesn't rub right with me... maybe that's because i'm way more familiar with the Cartoon DC heroes than the comic ones, but i don't know... every hero on that Trailer seemed a bit out of Character or with power Below what you would expect.

and as far as superman goes, i always come back to this scene when i refer to what the guy really is all about

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywo6F...eature=related

I'm actually siding with Ten Thousand Bears here- I got the same vibe when I was watching the video. Now, I'm more a Marvel Fan (Excepting Green Lantern) but it fit more then well enough in my eyes.

Ought to have just used the Kingdom Come explanation.

Well, that's rather my point. Superman may "need" to recharge, but he wouldn't. He'd keep on fighting to the point of sacrificing himself if need be, but it probably wouldn't come to that because he's also super smart. He'd find a way to use his weakness to trick Luthor and/or Brainiac into making some stupid arrogant flub.

Basically, the problem is that the video shows a Superman who has clearly given up hope. That does not happen.

Having Superman dead before the trailer ever begins accomplishes everything they want for the narrative, but more efficiently, more intensely, and more consistently with respect to the larger legacy of the characters.

Actually that would also go along to validate the fact that the other heroes ended up dead too. I mean, Superman always plays out as a leader figure, and usually in any medium when he goes out things tend to fall apart...

There is no way Batman would have been ambushed by Deathstroke like that and not been able to get out. And Joker would never have Killed batman in such a lameass way as a rocket launcher. And if they know Luther has a freak shield, why wouldn't he artilery the damn unshielded building he's standing on instead causing it to crumble?

Man, that sorta pissed me off now and not just about Lazy Superman, thoughwhy does he always fall for Kryptonite tricks?

From what I can tell, DCUO takes place on one of those crisis-prone infinite Earths where I guess everybody's a shitty version of the characters we know from whatever the regular DC continuity typically is on any given day.

Me too but only because I don't want to know what happens if I don't agree with Ten Thousand Bears.

CRAZY FAN THEORY:

Luthor's lying his ass off. Hear me out.

The better part of the trailer is from his perspective right? So he's telling everyone "Yeah I totally killed Superman with my badass kryptonite spear after I lured from his emo corner into a blind, retard rage. Then everyone dies, but not me. Also, I was able to avoid capture from Brainiac and travel back in time, cause I'm a super genius."

So... standard, current, Earth-1 DC comics continuity?

I dunno about the story but the game looks kinda interesting.

I mean I hate Superman because he's a terrible character and his morality, like every other major DC superhero except like, Wonder Woman, is stupid as hell so I could care less. But he is a plot device because he's explicitly as strong or nearly as strong as the best of everybody (as fast or almost as Flash, stronger than pretty much anybody, durable against everything but kryptonite and magic, incredible fighting skills, eye lasers, etc) and has to be dumb to lose a fight at all.

REGARDLESS it gives you a decent reason why your C-list hero actually matters so, woo hoo.

Also, i don't think Batman would backlash on Luthor like he did in the end there. Wonder Woman would be way more likely to go that way....

Doesn't explain why he looks like and Hybrid between Starcraft 2 and Warhammer

Okay, fine, shittier.

This Superman hasn't quoted Henry fucking Thoreau at anybody while telling them to go get themselves shot, he's pretty much an improvement.

If only Superman would just KILL Lex Luthor... he'd come back in a few years anyway, just like that guy who Wonder Woman decapitated a few years ago who just came back.

I've got a question...why does the future always have to be dark and gloomy? >_> My biggest issue is that.

Your argument is that Superman should win regardless of what he's facing or what state he's in? With respect, that's not Superman, that's Crime Fighting Jesus, and it would make for a really boring character. Superman is interesting because his moral code is the definition of his character but is also completely unrealistic. At some point he'll either have to break it or be defeated and that's why he's compelling and tragic, and worth reading.

Anyhow, the trailer wasn't about him. Luthor was the real star and the point the trailer was making was that left unchecked his desire for revenge would destroy everything. Superman was an (awesome) sideshow to that.

HE/SHE IS ALL TEN THOUSAND AT ONCE!
 

No, his point was that if Superman were to lose, he wouldn't run away to spend who knows how long floating about in space basking in sunlight while billions of people die and the combined forces of the Legion of Doom or whatever tear apart all his friends before coming back after they'd all died in order to lose.

He'd have to be the among the first to die in such a war because he'd expend every ounce of will he had trying to make sure no one else did. Because he's Superman.

"Crime Fighting Jesus" is pretty much the exact definition of Superman.

Agreed. Here, have one of my old avatars to go along with the theme:

POS beat me to it but....
 

http://i28.tinypic.com/23w8u9e.gif

Thanks for the Avatar, I'll wear it with pride. All Ten Thousand of me. :)

NonCon, the image itself is funnye nough, but now when you just do the thumbnail version and let us fill in the blanks it's even funnier.

No, my argument is that he wouldn't give up hope. That he usually wins is often connected to that though that's what happens when you're the main character of a series that's been going on for 80 years.

Also, this superman apparently had no issue with apparently killing or at least lobotomizing Black Adam, why didn't he do the same thing to Lex right away.

Basically this. Superman is like "Killing is wrong ever" and he constantly keeps saying that despite, you know, being wrong. When Wonder Woman (ha 3 Ws in a roW) barely survived fighting him when Lord had him mentally controlled, and discovered there was no way to stop Lord if he was alive, she snapped his neck and BAM everyone was better off. Then he and Batman yelled at her for doing so when it was pretty much the only way.

I mean I'll excuse Batman that behavior towards the Joker because Batman is quite literally insane and manipulates even those around him, those he cares about, as pawns in his plots and lives to punish street level criminals because he never moved on from his parents' death turning him into like, the most emotionally stunted man alive, but Superman is supposed to be idealistic. And the type of idealism he is, is naive idealism- there's always a GOOD way of doing things and there's no questioning of it that's valid.

Additionally he's a really dumb fighter. He can move as fast as the Flash but rarely does, and really whenever there's a Doomsday-esque threat, unless it also has near light speed movement, should be defeated within seconds because Superman could punch 1000000000 times a second. Because he can move at lightspeed and punch that fast. He has laser eyes and can use them all the time- and should!- but rarely does. He has all that power and he can't even use it right.

He's got a pretty stellar track record. It's hard to argue with a guy who has saved reality multiple times and saved babies while doing it. I would say he isp pretty much contiually proven correct.

Hey let's kill the Joker.

HEY LOOK THE JOKER ISN'T KILLING PEOPLE ANYMORE.

Hey look Maxwell Lord turned like, the most powerful superhuman into his telepathic slave? Let's kill him.

WOOP WORLD SAVED.

Also a great deal of the things his morality solves are contrived anyway so that he can solve it without killing or doing anything morally dubious.

World ruled by alien tyrant who is unstoppable! That's a good plan!
Hey look the Joker is killing people anymore but Superman is!

Wow look at the hundreds of people who didn't die because the mass murderer who always escapes prison and kills people is dead.

World's a better place!

Go superman! You did the right thing.

I'm glad you agree with me.

Yeah killing the Joker is by far the sensible thing to do.

Here's the thing: The only reason that preventative retributive justices works in comics is because we can divide people in good and evil people. What's the difference? Evil people kill people. Goodpeople don't.
If good people can kill people, hoshit you are in the real world- good people aren't universally good, evil people aren't universally evil, and thus villains can be cured.

That would be bad for the villains, they have no incentive to be cured right now. They have a pretty cushy life. Kill and rob people, get thrown in a weak jail for a few weeks, escape and do the same thing over again. It's an awesome life.

Well technically there's all kinds of evil doods who never killed anyone and then gotten beaten up so yeah. Oh and it's worse to be in comics land because then you're saying Well, it's ok for me to send this guy to the same jail he just broke out of after killing forty people and now that I've done that I better help clean up this fifty people. That's incompetence.

Also also. Villains can't be 'cured.' People can choose to change but they're not cured because that would imply they're forced to be good. Superman lobotomizing them in the Justice Lord dimension is a cure.

Superman doesn't kill all the bad guys because then the writers would have to keep coming up with lame-ass new villains for him to fight every week and then you'd be bitching about that.

I think the point you're really looking to make "is the comic book medium is broken" or some such.

You missed like, the entire point of that thing I said that you quoted.

That guy that Wonder Woman killed, isn't dead.

The world is, thanks to Wonder Woman's act of murder, in no way whatsoever safer from Maxwell Lord. Who is alive, and like, out there endangering the world.

I could make some sort of argument about how cool Superman can be, here. But honestly everything I could possibly say about the character, All-Star Superman already said better.

All-Star is probably as good as Superman is ever going to get. And that trailer is a grave disappointment in comparison.

Anyway All-Star Superman is pretty sweetthe last Superman comic anyone should even need and I think everyone should read it. Especially anyone feeling that Superman is lacking as a character.

Heck, I used to think most of the ongoing comics were done to death about thirty years ago. But now it's hard to argue that since All-Star Superman makes every last Superman comic published before it into build-up, and it's the payoff. And it's worth every one of those, at a guess, 15-20 000 pages to have reached this pinnacle.

A bit tangential perhaps but it's hard to pass up a chance to gush about All-Star Superman.

I mean we already did this on the fartzorarium but that never happened so I'll resay it here.

You're making an argument against contrivance which relies entirely on contrivance, because the biggest, dumbest, most relentless contrivance of superhero comics is that you put people in a high security prison, and then of the people in that prison, any of them can just walk out of it any time he wants, because ~lolz~.

There's nothing wrong with Superman's morality because in 'non-contrived' comics he just puts people in jail and they stay there, and in 'contrived' comics people escape death as easily as jail, because characters coming back has nothing to do with Superman's (or Batman's) morality and everything to do with the fact that writers want to write comics about Lex Luthor and the Joker.

If everything in comics is contrived - which it is - then the only differences is whether your contrivances serve the characters or break them, and contrivances which contrive to have Superman adhere to his perfectly reasonable morality do the former, and contrivances which throw that out in order to accomplish, ultimately, nothing different than if he did adhere to his morality, don't.

EDIT It's worth noting that every version of "Superman except he also murders" has not-incidentally been terrible, except for Apollo and that was only because of the heartwarming lulzy assfucking.

This is complete nonsense. You reducing morality to a simple math equation of how many people live and how many die- not even utilitarians do this (and if they did the utility loss of letting a few individuals adminster justice and death should easily outwiegh the benefits), not even comic books do this.
As discussed above, superman doesn't say "Oh I'll let this person die to save a 100 people" he tries to save everybody and generally does because that's what he does. Superman is pretty good at saving everyone.
I'm saying this in relation to a comic book world where there is "evil" and "good" as definite concepts and one of them is inherentely bad and liek a disease. Comic book people don't work like real people, villains generally can't choose to change because they are cast as archetypal villains. You are trying to hodge-podge comic book morality with real people- it doesn't work.

That's what Black Adam is and we love him for it.

Joker kills people because he likes doing so and will never stop killing people, with the possible exception of Batman dying sometimes (but not the actual Bat death.)

So yes, I will, because he is a grade A evil guy and it's either he dies or every one he continues to kill dies and it's up to you which happens. The answer is, kill his dumb ass dead because if the legal system doesn't do it, someone should. There's no reason NOT to kill the joker- he always gets out and always kills more people and no shrink can cure him. He's less of a man and more of a beast/force of nature. And yeah, he's 'come back from the dead' a lot, but I don't seem to recall someone shooting him in the head and burning the corpse so someone should give that a try.


No, some comic books treat it like that and some don't.

Good comics do treat good/evil as vague, good fictional characters aren't how real people act but are reasonable replicas, and good fiction can present the illusion of choice which makes quite a lot of villains more compelling.

Superman is not anyone's paid police force or military, last I checked. He's a free agent and has no particular moral or legal responsibility to kill The Joker for you.

Last time I checked he was explicitly working for/obeying the law. And that's ok if he isn't, we'll shoot the Joker on our own and he can bugger off to space.

At that point you're railing less against Superman and the other Capes and more against the law enforcement system in the comics for failing to adequately dispose of him. Which is a whole other can of worms.

The problem with Superman... is that he's "F'ing Superman" (tm).

What you have in Superman is both the literal and the figurative ubermensch. He is stronger than all the strong heroes, faster than all the fast heroes, smarter than all the smart heroes, "good-er" than all the good heroes. He's nearly indestructible, unflinchingly moral, and revered without exception by all of his superpowered peers. (except Batman and you could argue Guy Gardner).

So what do you do with a guy like that? The idea of an invincible good guy stopping bank robbers is noble, but that's not even a light workout for someone like that. So you cook up some superpowered bad guys. And of course he's always more powerful than all of them also, or when they have a physical edge he thwarts them tactically. He's literally unstoppable.

So again, what do you do with a guy like that? You contrive limitations for him. Kryptonite and magic are all right but how many time is one guy going to fall for the same gag? (according to the trailer, I guess one too many) Same with human shields. So you come up with other reasons: worn down from constant fighting, memory loss, suddenly less strong than you thought, self-imposed exile... You're stuck trying to imagine reasons he is NOT invincible because you have to find a way to make the story interesting when technically he should defeat every nemesis in like five seconds. But then the instant you make him something less than he is, you're being unfaithful to his character.

The Superman in the trailer was interesting, but to make him so, you had to make him not care about the lives of billions of innocents and all of his comrades (except Wonder Woman... makes you curious). You had to make him absent from the battle until the right dramatic moment to step in and be all Supermanny. You had to make him mortally violent against Black Adam and Luthor ("you don't deserve to live"? Seriously?). Essentially, you had to make him not-Superman. And that is the problem with being Superman.

On a different note, is it just me, or did everyone including Superman, Batman, Luthor, Adam... basically, every male character except Joker, sound like Kratos? Did they all take their gravelly baritone pills with their breakfast? I kept expecting to hear "And so, Kal-El cast himself from the highest mountain in all of Krypton..."

You do All-Star Superman, or Superman For All Seasons, or Superman: Red Son.

Probably for the same reason they made every male character including Joker look like Kratos.

As I said, too dark...too gritty...to gloomy...to God Of Warsee...

I will stick to Dante from DMC. He at least doesn't have these issues for me.

Superman just isn't meant to be dark and he can't kill people cause that's not what he does. He's supposed to be the beacon of hope for the whole world even though it may be hard for him. If you can't trust Superman to put away criminals without killing anyone than you can't trust any other hero. As almost everyone has already said, All-Star Superman is probably the greatest thing to happen to the character. Ever.It gave us one moment that summed up all their is about the character that we hold dear.Attachment 7470

I love this character and I hate how wrong that trailer got him. It's like the people who made it weren't even aware of Christopher Reeve's performance as him.

See the reason these are all great is because they're one shots and thus they don't get sloppy. I wish all Superman everywhere was one shots.

I tend to agree, but there's good stuff in continuity too. It's just few and far removed because it's hard as hell to do it right.

I think the one thing we agree upon in comics is that ongoing comics focused on characters are generally bad because they cut out an essential component of stories, the ending.

In-continuity Superman comics were great for a bunch of years, which are also the same years that a lot of the out of continuity comics people rave about were published, because DC at that time was publishing good comics. Their in-continuity Superman comics are dogshit now because their comics in general are dogshit now. There's no continuity / out of continuity magic that makes stories good, there's mostly just good comics and shitty comics.

PS Red SonBasically every Mark Millar comic was a great comic if you like comics where the premise is "WHAT IF we replaced every character in this comic with a smug, douchey android."

Being allowed to ignore the monthly grind of fillers, tie-ins and spin-offs to mega events, and fickle editorial whims may not be magic but it sure helps.

Brian I can't find any of your old essay's atm - you had some sort of suggested 'solution' to the constant compression of the continuious timeline and endless cycle of mega-events but I cannot for the life of me remember what it was.

As far as this trailer? I agree but I think it's less 'corrupting the legacy' and more 'hot damn this is some bad writing'. The end effect is only different enough to not really matter at all.

explain.

Comics author Mark Millar's style of writing characters and dialogue is, in my judgment, akin to taking the characters he is ostensibly writing, removing them from the story, and then replacing them with smug, douchey androids.

So... I have to agree with Brian's post whole-heartedly. Superman wouldn't just leave...

But.. IF superman left, WHY would he? There's gotta be something that makes a guy like that snap. I think that's a major story issue right there. Superman is the strongest, fastest, "best" superhero that defines the ultimate warrior... and he's got the blue boyscout code of conduct up to his nerts and beyond. This guy doesn't quit, ever, and he doesn't give up on the American Dream.

My major problem with Superman is... ok, he wins, he doesn't give up, saves everyone, overcomes everything because he's the star of a series for 80 years and all powerful....

Uh...

So what if he snaps? What if he FAILS? Not get himself killed, he could deal with that... I mean, what if he fails and someone else got killed because he screwed up? Say Lois Lane got killed because of Lex's plot and Superman nearly went over the brink... almost killing.... and had to leave because of it... worn wragged, burnt out, totally what Bane and Hush did to Batman before. War of Attrition, break his spirit... Superman leaves Earth to recharge... hating that people are dying but feeling responsible.

Lex just has to piss him off

And what about everyone else? well something serious happened to piss these guys off. Notice they all are wearing armor? Even the Flash? They're warriors... no... they're soldiers now. That's something without Superman, something superman wouldn't condone... and supes is shredded (cape... eyes...) So Something happened big that wasn't shown that could drive the Man of Steel to the brink.... something that had to be his own fault... then this story would make sense, and it'd be cool if it was a mission in the game, that could determine the fate of the Heroes and Villains.

Or Lex is lying.

Lex lying is the only way the story as presented makes sense, but I'm not sure I'm confident enough in your average video game developer to think any further than "And so Superman is all grimdark and we show Lex killing him and it's bad ass."

Having just read Final Crisis, I can say with confidence that the trailer was made by people who have skimmed through the comic, seen a couple of impressive images and tried to cobble together a context for them. Probably with the mission statement of getting the heroes dead.

Some highlights:
*A mysterious dude called Libra kills the Martian Manhunter with a spear of fire while Luthor watches. You can see how they took the dynamics and perspectives of the scene and replaced the characters with more familiar ones.
*Superman at one point possesses a Superman robot some ten million light years tall and made of dark, gritty materials that looks suspiciously like the Superman of the trailer.
*Superman returns to Earth from a mysterious exile, scorching everything in desperate rage as he learns Batman just died.

The trailer just makes all this seem furiously wrong by putting it in the wrong context, lacking about 400 pages of plot. I mention this just in case anyone thinks it's an awful grimdark sort of book. It runs on one fifth humor, three fifths trademark Grant Morrison brainbending fun, seven fifths pure awesome, and there is a miracle machine. It makes all your dreams come true. And Superman uses it.