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bookishfeylin · 2 years

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Racebending vs Whitewashing 101

In this essay we’re going to be answering two questions: Why is it ok, from a race perspective, to make white characters POC but not the other way around? And why don’t you make original characters that are POC instead?

There are quite a few reasons, and I’ll be discussing them all below the cut for anyone who's genuinely curious about this and wants to educate themselves :)

⭕️ Firstly: most white characters have no plot relevant reason to be white. White people are considered the default human being, so their race or culture *usually* does not affect or contribute to the plot or story or game in any way. Like, pick your average piece of media with white characters in it and see if they actually *have* to be white for the story to work/make sense. Unless being WHITE plays some important role in the story, then in most cases, characters do not need to be white. This is especially true for non human characters depicted as white (mermaids, faeries, aliens, etc.). Unless being a *white* non human is important to the story for a specific reason and then they can be almost ANY race. For example: In Gremlins do Billy and his family have to be white for the story to still work? Does making the Skywalker family POC impact the plot in any way, shape or form in Star Wars? Is being white relevant to Iron Man's, Batman's, or Superman's stories at all? Why do the main characters of Jaws have to be white? Do Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler, and Claire Dearing and Owen Grady, from Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, respectively, need to be white in order for the movies to make sense? Does being white play an important role in Indiana Jones' character, or would the movies still work if he was another race? Does it impact the story if I were to change the Russels (Maddie, Emma, and Mark) in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, from white to black?

⭕️ Conversely, people aren’t as used to seeing POC in media, so often their existence is “justified” with some form of racism. It would not make sense to make a character facing racism (say, antiblackness) white (for example, in Disney's The Princess and the Frog, Tiana lives in a segregated Black community that is decidedly poorer than the wealthy white community Lottie lives in, and is denied the ability to buy the mill to make into a restaurant because it would’ve been too hard for a woman of her “background” to run a business)

⭕️ Another way POC are “justified” in western media is making something specifically about their culture. Unlike most white people in media, we cannot simply *exist* and, say, survive an alien invasion, or steal the Declaration of Independence, or get sucked into portal to a magical land, or survive a natural disaster, or have a very very very bad day, or solve a mystery about a haunted house, or worry about prom. No, our culture almost always has to play some SIGNIFICANT role to “explain” to the audience why that character is not white. Not that that’s a bad thing. For example, Mulan is about a Chinese woman overcoming the deeply ingrained sexism in China and becoming a soldier. The movie is all about China and Chinese culture, so it makes no sense to make her white.

⭕️ Making a POC white plays into whitewashing and colorism (the basic idea that paler skin is better/more beautiful/less “savage”). For example, in slavery lighter skinned ppl were “better,” and were allowed to serve in the house because, being lighter, they were viewed as closer to white and as being “more human.” Changing or “improving” a POC by making them white is just feeding into that nasty idea that people with darker skin tones are “less than” or aren’t real humans. Conversely, there is no relevant history of white people being considered “less-than”, or, you know, NOT HUMAN for having lighter skin, in fact lighter skin tones have been promoted as desirable for centuries. White people by and large aren't harmed psychologically from seeing a character being redesigned with darker skin/being racebent, because society has never told them that their lighter skin makes them nonhuman or undesirable, unlike I, a Black woman, who’s been told all my life that darker skin is masculine and ugly on a girl and that I would be pretty if I only had lighter skin :)

⭕️ All those reasons are important, but there is one MAIN reason why racebending works but whitewashing does not: representation. Representation is very important and very powerful, impacting our own self esteem as well as impacting how we perceive groups of people who are different than us (x, x, x, x, x). Representation can help you develop empathy for a certain group, or it can perpetuate harmful stereotypes about them. White people are represented literally everywhere in Western media--books, movies, TV shows. Even most toys. It’s not taking representation away from them if we make a white character a POC--they have tons of other characters to make up for it! Even if we NEVER had a white main character in any movie or TV show ever again, white people still have the past century's worth of media with themselves as the main characters for them to watch. Conversely, we have comparatively few prominent characters that are POC in Western media, and even fewer that aren't just side characters or walking stereotypes. Making them white takes away the limited representation POC have in the west. Racebending (either in fan art or in reboots of a series/movie) is typically done by people who lack representation and want more.

Why don’t you make original characters that are POC?

⭕️ Most of us would prefer original characters. I WANT original characters of color. But when we do make new characters that are POC, or new stories with POC leads (especially if they are dark skinned POC) they are usually ignored or overlooked by consumers in favor of white characters or white-led stories (Finn and Rose vs Kylo Ren and Hux from Star Wars; and Black Lightning being wayyyyyy less popular than white-led DC shows; Still Star Crossed being, like, forgotten?). This often happens on movies and on television shows, and usually the end result is that the new characters of color are written off or are minimized in the show/following movies because they are not profitable (once again, what happened to Finn and Rose in Star Wars) or the shows are canceled (Black Lightning, Still Star Crossed). Or the story is labeled “woke” and “political” and is boycotted by the same people who said we should make original characters in the first place.

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I'm not saying you have to *like* racebending white characters. I am merely EXPLAINING why one way is racist and the other way around is not. But the sad thing is, all these reasons are common sense. Most people know we have a racist history, they know it’s wrong to make Tiana or Black Panther white even if they have problems articulating *exactly* why: because the point of these characters existing in the first place is to show that we’re human too. That we can be heroes and princesses and role models too, despite centuries of being told we were nothing. We still live in a world where being white is considered the default human, and nonwhite people have to be *justified* in their existence, because most of us weren't viewed as human for centuries. If it truly bothers you that much, then support original characters of color and diverse franchises instead of white characters and predominately white franchises. That way you will send a message—we all will—that we want more original characters of color. In the meantime? I, a Black woman living in a white-centric world, am going to enjoy all the characters of color I can get.

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popculturebuffet · 4 months

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Supermay! What's So Funny About Truth, Justice and the American Way? (Patreon Review for Brotoman.EXE)

Hello all you happy kryptonains and welcome back to supermay, a month long tribute to all things man of steel. This week is a two parter as we look at one of the best superman comics of all time, one of the best one shot issues of all time and one of the best deconstructions of "Why don't heroes do whatever they want and kill whoever they want" of all time. I'm not softballing it: this issue is fantastic. We'll also be looking at it's adaptation later this week, the DTV film Superman Vs the Elite.

For now though we're focusing on the original story. What's So Funny... was originally published in 2001 in Action Comics 775, written by Joe Kelly and drawn by Doug Mankhe and Lee Bermejo.

For those not familiar with him Kelly is a comics legend, having helped define deadpool with his first solo book and coming back to the character quite a bit without the dimnishing returns creators sometimes have. He also founded animation studio Man of Action and is one of the co-creators of both Ben 10 and Generator Rex.

Kelly wrote superman for a 5 year run, a nice stretch all things considered and one I wish, like most of 90's and 2000's superman would get recollected. Or at the very least hopefully is on dc universe infinite. It's not AS good as having collections out there, but it's something. But if his stories are anywhere near this good, i'd love to see more of them.

Kelly wrote What's So Funny as a direct response to another book DC was publishing at the time: The Authority. The Authority were created by emotinally abusive grooming coersive dickhead Warren Ellis and entirely good dude Bryan Hitch. I bring up the latter because Hitch seems genuinely kind and deserves his flowers... and the former because it shouldn't be forgotten. Ellis hasn't genuinely atoned, deserved to loose everything he did, and while his talent shouldn't be forgotten, it's only because his talent is WHY he was able to do this. If we suddenly go "Oh he always sucked", it undercuts HOW he was able to do this. Most people he abused were fans of his and it's worth remembering he was talented.. and must ALWAYS be remembered what he choose to use said talent to do to people. I won't go into details as to avoid triggering those of you who have been simiarly abused, but if your curious go to somanyofus.com. What testimonals I have read are heartbreaking.

As for the Authority itself, it was a followup to Ellis' run on storm watch, a book created by Jim Lee about a UN Sanctioned super team that Ellis helped transform, adding in some new creations of his own to revitalize the team. The book was a critical hit and loved at the offices of Wildstorm, the company that published stormwatch and would soon be bought by DC. The problem was it wasn't selling, and Ellis, both feeling bad they were keeping the book around just because of him and wanting to take things up a notch, reconfigured the team into the authority.

The Authority was a massively powerful team, assembled to face massive threats like an army of supermen dispatched by a mad dictator, a colonliast alien-italian empire that wanted to take earth, and God itself who turned out to be an elder god wanting to restore earth to factory settings. Hitch's art made things feel BIG and cinematic, his specality, and helped show just how big comics could be alongside other works before it (JLA) and after it (New X-Men).

The team had swagger, cool powers.. and most important to this story.. no problem with killing. The team carved their way through armies of enemies, killing whoever they had to and in the first two arcs comitted mass murder: Midnighter, the team's batman and biggest asshole, drove their ship through a country just to get at the first arc's big bad, while the Doctor, their magic man and only able to get away with the name because Doctor Who hadn't been revivied just yet, killed all of alternate italy to destroy an alien empire. These steps weren't taken lightly and were only taken because otherwise more death would follow, but it was clear the team weren't meant to be good guys: simply the only ones who COULD do the job.

This changed with the following run, and I read both Ellis' run and the first two arcs of it's followup for proper context. I ddin't necessarily half to and Brotoman didn't ask and was honestly shocked I put in this much extra effort... but I realized if your going to disect a work calling out the other work, you need to have a fresh understanding of what it's fighting against.

So Ellis' run was followed up by comics legend Mark Millar. Millar seems to be a nice guy nowadays, fun to be around, lvoes the buisness, keeps going simply because he can and with one of the largest creator owned rosters of characters around.

In the 2000's though and for most of his career.. Millar was the king of the edgelords. he was the threw it on the ground guy as an actual tangible person. Millar's idea of adult storytelling was some genuine political comentary idaes.. mixed with a lot of sex and violence for the sake of sex and violence, using senstive topics like sexual assault simply to seem "edgy". So naturally the Authority went from "assholes to a point but with limits" to every last one of them saying edgelord shit, mowing down everyone in their path and LOVING it, and fucking everyone they could because Mark Millar likes ot scream

In your ear while doing nothing to prove he's not a 13 year old boy in a grown up's body. And please note I would gladly review Millar's shit as much as it frustrates me, but will never cover anything by Ellis as long as he lives, as I do not want to give that fucker any more attention than I have to, despite my reactoin to reading the first arc of the authority under him being a resounding

To give you an idea of what I had to put up with dialouge wise, here's a samping from the first four issues of Millar's run.

There's more and the bad guys are even worse, but i'd rather not throw that in here on the grounds that I LIKE you guys and I don't want to throw unecessary edgelord bollocks in here that might trigger some of you who've geninely gone through things Millar brings up just to seem more "adult".

So that's where the authority were at, and it's impressive that things escalated so much in four issues less than a YEAR before What's So Funny was published> It's why I read what I did: It's what would've been out there and while Ellis' run had likely bothered kelly, given how the Elitie are depicted and how their leader acts, it's clear a LOT of it came from Millar's work. I mean you have to be a specail brand of douchebag to get a response to your characters being the worst less than a YEAR in.

The bigger reason for this response was how fans reacted: Fans.. LOVED the authority and as tends to happen when you get a shiny new "edgy" team, some asked: "Why doe we need those other guys? If we have heroes willing to kill, topple governments and swagger all the while, why do we need some guy in tights telling us not to?" Superman was seen by some as outdated and as a result was the target of one of the oldest arguments in all of comics: should superheroes keep doing what they do, or should they take the world and force it to be better or else? It's an argument that NEVER seems to go away.

Proving this, DC had just done a story like this 5 years ago with Kingdom Come, which explored both heroes who are worse than the villians and what happens when the heroes take over. And before THAT marvel did Squadron Supreme in 1985, showing what would genuinely happen if a justice league equilvent took over the world. It'll always be a questoin to be had because readers will cycle out and the next batch will ask the same questions. So join me as we look at the answers, see WHY Superman needs to stand against this and why his methods, despite being questioned every couple of years, stand the test of time and the test of someone who had a dream he didn't like.

We open with Superman flying to Libya as superman flies to stop a superterror attack.. in this case a giant gorilla wielding a giant gun and I will pay adam wingard 5 dollary doos if the next Godzilla X Kong Film involves Kong pistol wipping a giant monster with a shot gun. Just saying.

At any rate clark arrives.. to find something truly horrific.

I give artist Doug Manhke a LOT of credit... despite having only a spread to work with he shows just how horrific this is.. and that's WITHOUT giving anything away about who did it. All we know is suddenly a group with a lot of power saved the day.. but also dropped a giant monster corpse on a city, left said city in ruins, and massacred what was , in all likelyhood an animal who had no say in being made into a giant cybernetic monstrosity. I mean this IS the dc universe with an entire ape city. I could buy Grodd or someone like him growing giant and giving themselves some cable armor to go do some murders, it just comes off more like someone super sized an ape afte rloading it up with hardware and relseaed it on a city and instead of rocgnizing the beast was simply a wild animal, those responsible brutalyl murdered it.

We soon find out who as Clark hears back from the rest of the Daily Planet crew as competing paper the Star, based on the paper Clark worked at in the earlier stories and that grant morrison would bring back for their action comics run, published a gushing story about the four monsters responsible: The Elitie, a super powerful superteam whose leader, Manchester Black even gave a statement "Trust me the old ways are dead in a year you'll love me for this".. then he cut the general he gave the statment too's legs off. It's a great intro: without meeting the guy we instantly know the deep level of prick we're dealing with, and how he'll do a casual violence simply becaues he wants to. Two thousand soldiers died in this attack along with the actual target. Also Jimmy gives a VERY poorly aged joke about watning to shoot the staff of the daily star, which is in character but still feels entirley messed up especially since Columbine had happened at this point. Jesus Jim.

As for who wrote this puff piece that would be Jack Ryder.

For those not familiar with him, Jack Ryder is a "Journalist" and I say so in the loosest terms as in most apperances he's just trying to get attention, being eerly similar to the wave of reactionary assholes we'd see in that decade. He's also the superhero the creeper, a split personality of his who wears a giant boa, cackles and is both awesome and criminally underused by dc. Seriously why they don't use this guy more I don't know. Jack gets more apperances and they can find another strawman or make one.

At any rate Jack's not here to be creepy but to praise terroists while his other self facepalms on the inside. He and clark have debate that is less than civil... and it's telling that clark , who does try to be calma nd kind even when he's pissed off, is absolutely FURIOUS at jack propping these assholes up

Now what I really like about this scene is Jack is an asshole. He make sa mocking joke before maknig an actual pointa nd dowplays all the innocent people who died. And the ape. Seriously someone feel bad an ape died. Why is it just me.

But he raises one valid point while talking directly out of his ass: "And three months later it would happen all over again"> Jack is wrong about..e verything else. Entirely. Seriously creeper needs to get a body seperator machine asap.. but he's right this shit is cyclical and people want a fix. Even 23 years later.. the world still feels broken. Kelly doesn't like the authority.. but he gets WHY people like them: Their a power fantasy, a group of people killing all the big bad dictators, putting corrupt presidents in check and trying to fix a broken world. Their methods are horrible.. but in a time that' scomplciated, unfair and frightening.. it's so easy to cling to someone who seemingly has the answers. It's why so many people flock to the right: turning to hate is sometimes the easiest solution.

We get a brief interlude with president luthor where we find out just HOW powerful these guys are. one of them, coldcast blinked and it shorted out satilites. As Amanda waller put it superman would need a jetpack and a space shuttle to even come close to their power

Naturally Lex's position.. is to let it lie. He plans to turn them into cat food, his exact words, if they so much as touch the US.. but for now their fighting other metas for respect.. and given their clearly gunning for superman and badly outclass him.. well Luthor can't resisit seeing how it plays out, letting the leitie have their fun for now.. and seeing if he can get a dead superman out of the deal. He dosen't say that directly.. but he's sure as hell thinking it as hard as he can.

The Elitie aren't resting on their laurels either, releasing a manefsto that amounts to "do bad shit and we'll fucking kill you". Superman talks this over with Steel.. but it's clear their getting to clark.. and the one thing he says makes it clear why "Do you think the world's moved on?". IT's a powerful statment: Clark himself is wondering if this is what people WANT now, if he's outmoded and if he' sreally making a diffrence.

He dosen't have time to answer as a crisis in Tokyo happens .. and Clark gets to be front and center to meet the Elite this time. Sadly.. Clark can't do anything. His body start's slowing down and we later find out it was coldcast of the elite, having done so to stop an army of geneticly engeneered samurai from massacring toykyo... so the elite massacre them instead. And after a good 15 or so pages of setup.. we finally get a look at the future.

They clockwise from the center; Manchester Black, the groups leader and mouthpiece and powerful Telekenetic, Coldcast, electric man whose deisgn was really not thorught through whatsoever and looks racist as hell, Menagre, a woman combind witha colony of deady creature and the hate, a japanese man merged with a demon that give hims a bunch of magical powers

What's intresting is rather than go 1:1, the elite compress the members of the auhority down from seven people to four so before we move on here's who they represent on the Authority

Manchester Black: Manchester is a combination of the authorities leaders: Founder Jenny Sparks and her successor Jonathan Hawksmore. Sparks is the spirit of the 20th century, had no real fliter and was never all tha tpolite, while Hawksmor was modified by aliens to become one with cities, able to travel between them effortlessly, and was also a jackass in a leather jacket who was dismissive to everyone> both gave grandose speeches and had no respect for anyone else who wasn't on their team. His powers are all him, likely because the electric poewrs were already livewires thing (and thus ported over to another member) and jack's powers were creatively specitic and somethign that might not work on superman, able to have cities eath people alive.. and given Superman's a good dude they likely woudln't.

Coldcast: Electric dynamo. Again that design what the fuck .Seems to be a combo of Jack and Jenny power wise, able to manipuate the ground in addition to electricity... I say seems as I had to look pu their power sets as the story isn't very speciic about them and Manchesters is only known to me because being a telepath and telekenetic are key to later stories starring the guy.

Menagere: Seems to be a comination of the team's two other female members; the Engineeer, a scientest with nanites in her blood that can shape into anything and swift, a woman who can grow claws and has wings, simply combingin the living hive nature of the engineer and making it more biological like swift.

The Hat: The only one that's honestly.. pretty much the same person from the authority just with a diffrent name. The Hat is based on the doctor, an ex drug addict and voice of the earth itself, latest in a long line of doctors who can do whatever he feels like really. That's not hyperbole: the doctor can bend reality and the rest of the authority all had weaknesses: Swift is fast but not super strong, the Engineer can only make things up to the the point her body has enough blood to still function, Hawksmoor's powers only work in a city, Apollo has to have a solar charge built up, something their dimension traveling spaceship dosen't provide, etc. The Doctor's only issue is if someone can cut him off and when that was done in Millar's first arc it still made no sense. It's also why I gather while the rest of the authority keeps coming back now their a full part of the dc universe, Jenny, who was dead, is even getting a mini series in august, the Doctor is just too powerful to bring back without finding some new check and ballance for him that isn't just "he's an ex addict", as we're more senstive to addiction these days, as we should be.

There's two notable omissions: Apollo and Midnighter. Apollo and Midnighter are the book's breakout stars by a wide margin, having been the first to be succesfully integrated into the dcu and being fan faviorites from the word go. The two are stand in's for superman and batman, but still distinct enough to work: Both are a bit darker given their background being raised by manipulative bastard among all manipulative bastards Henrey Bendix and both have unique power diffrences that set them apart: Apollo , as established, charges up his powers with the sun and what he can do is dependant on how much charge he has... but to compesnate for having a bigger reliance on the sun, he can shoot energy and thus wipe out an entire crowd of enemies with one shot and keep going. Midnighter meanwhile has a combat computer in his brain, is a few steps ahead like batman and has regenerating nanite blood, being essentially what happens if batman and wolverine became the same person.. again, and had less restraint.

The two are also married. Yeah, in the 90's, edgelord as they could be... we had two openly queer characters. Not only that the rest of the team accepted them: they'd crack jokes about the two's relationship, but no one genuinely cared the two were gay and given this was the late 90's, that's a HUGE statement. And i'll give credit where it's due: I may not like MIllar's run and only read what I absolutely had to... but he DID end said run with the two getting married and thankfully even with ellis being the worst. if your curious about the two I highly recommend Steve Orlando's run on Midnighter and it's followup Apollo and Midnighter, integrating the two into the dc universe.

So why would they leave out the two biggest characters on the roster? Simple.. their based on Superman and Batman. Having a golden god around kinda undermines the Elite's whole "Take a seat grandpa the new kids are here", gimmick, and if you throw in a batman type guy... it begs the question why Clark dosen't bring in Batman. And while pitting the elitie versus the justice league WOULD'VE been intresting, it wasn't something they had time for: Kelly wasn't writing JLA yet, and while having them appear in superman's book isn't out of bounds.. they had one issue. And my guess is they were squeezing said issue in before they had to start the build up to the big "Our Worlds at War" crossover that year, which started in august. The fact this story happened before that with Kelly presumibly already having stories planned, in less than a year, is a miracle in itself, so I get Kelly didn't really have time to loop in the rest of everyone and thus he trimmed the authority down to four elities for time's sake

And even with a small group... none of them are really fleshed out here aside from Manchester. I had to look up their powers because they got filled in in later stories. Here their just vauge and powerful. It's one of the stories few weakpoints: the rest of the elitie are just jackasses on a power high and that's all their personality is. It dosen't hurt the story a lot as that's all the story really needs and Manchester Black is such an engaging and despicable shithead that you only really need the one ring master for this circus, but it is something I look forward to in the movie, which has the time to flesh this out Kelly simply didn't have here.

Like I said though.. Black is engagin. He's thorughly vile here... but in a way where you get WHY people are trusting this asshole: he gives cleverly worded speeches, takes out bigger bad guys, and generally has a swagger to him. He still has the charm that Sparks and Hawksmoor genuinely had.. but he also has the asshole turned up a notch, again whY I feel that this story is a response to millar: Jenny and Jack were dicks under Ellis.. but Millar just has this very specific brand of dickishness in his characters , especially his mouth pieces, that Kelly captures REALLY well with Manchester. He's a swaggering asshole who answers to no one else and would stop a man from saving lives simply to try and prove he's outdated.

He also gives supes a tour: like the authority, the elite have a ship that's sentient. Unlike the Authority's ship, which is at best a lost child the team basically adopts when they realize it's alive and spend time gently coaxing when they need it to leave earth orbit and face it's abandonment issues, Bunny, the Elitie's hq.. is enslaved by them. They found out it was sapient, found out she didn't like what they were doing.. and cut out her heart to make her more compliant.

Superman understandably isn't here for a tour, he's here to stop them.

Manchester isn't wrong: some villians don't play fair, the world itself dosen't, and so he raises the question of "why shoudlnt' we". The brilliant thing is while he has a point that the world is in rough shape... it's HOW he phrases it that points out the flaws in his philosphy: "Any normal person could do this if they had the chance".. but SHOULD they. Is it really okay to be a bad person simply because your going after worse people? And superman's answer is a very clear "No". More on that as we go but for now Superman gets sent to a superman themed car dealership for his trouble.

We cut to the Kent Farm, where we get pa revealing he decked a guy insulting clark for the incident. I like that it dosen't shy away from the fact that no, Small Town America is not immune to this kind of thought, giving into hate because it seems like the easy solution. But once again Kelly, rather than be super condescinding, gets into why people might buy into what the elitie are selling: the world is a scary place, and it's easy to buy into someone offering a quick solution, a band aid to the world's problems. To become the evil to stop the evil.

This story, while deconstructing him slightly, does get ot hte heart of WHY Superman is needed, in his worlds and in ours: He's an inspiration. As Pa points out.. clark shows them theirs a better way. That we can be better. Clark himself madea speech like this in JLA a few years before this, a speech I feel gets to the heart of the character and superheroes in general

That's what a superhero is. not a babysitter in spandex, not the cure to a wounded world... simply someone there to help humanity at it's lowest, when it needs them.. and to inspire the average person to be better. To try and make a bette rowrld even if it seems impossible. And note this dosen't mean ignoring rough shit in the world, both Supermana nd Wonder Woman have gone into dictatorships and saved civliians. It's not letting that consume you. It's hard, so very hard, to not let the world swallow you up hole.. but fighting that every day is heroic. To simply be and to be good to others. It's what makes these guys heoric: they may stumble from time to time.. but they get back up, and do good despite the world shitting on them, or people like Black telling them "your irrelvant". You fight because it's the right thing to do, because it's what you can do to help the world.

Pa is also sure clark can just.. kick the elitie's asses if it goes south.. but Clark isn't. It's not helped by the tide turning against him: while several citizens do doubt the leitie... many support them. An easy fix to hard issues. But the most chilling.. is the children

That idea that being able to kill somehow makes you better.

Supes still tries to take the high road, stopping the men in black, who in the dc universe apparently traffic aliens. He stops the aliens witht hem with water. no loss of life, no muss no fuss. The Elitie have been watching, and Manchester is utterly bored with this lecture, not taking it seriously and calling supes an idiot when he plans to have the league and the DEO haul these guys in. Black lets supes know these are super black ops people and will just be given cushy job training other guys to do the same. And superman.. just says he'll keep putting them away till they get the point.

Yeah while i'm on clark's side, and do think the elitei's solution of just.. killing them solves nothing, after all if these guys can be replaced, how does killing a few to send a message do anything? They'll just find more guys willing to do it despite the risk. But at the same time... Superman is smarter than this. We'll see that shortly. He knows better than to just "lock them up again". He'd have Batman look into it, then use the league to make sure these guys got the justice they deserved. He has on his team a telepath with global connections, a recognized ambassador, a king and a billionare and that's just people on the team currently. He can make sure these guys ar eheld acoutnable and find out and bust up who they worked for. Just.. phrase it tha tway instead.

Black isn't impressed.. but his repsonse shows he's somehow worse at this than just "keep beating them and hopefully they'll stop which has worked never times but i'll do it anyway": Have the hat Kill them all.. and their families. Superman naturally punches the hat before he can do this.. and Black decides this is more than enough justifacation to formally go after superman.

Honestly the more I think about this scene, the more I see it as a ploy: Dont get me wrong, given his actions I do think Black would slaughter someone's family as a message... but he does so right after superman genuinely tried to show them a better way, making it clear he hates the lecture and ONLY listned to try and prove some kind of point. He KNEW these gyuys existed, they created menagre.. but didn't do anything about them or give Superman actual advice. He just wanted to strut in and then try and undo everything clark did, all the live she didn't take, just so he'd have the thinest justifcation to pick a fight with superman one on four. As for why not just do this from the outset that's simple: Manchester Black CLEARLY wannted the smug satisfaction of breaking superman, of getting him to see his way, wether it was by sitting out or by being humbled. He wanted this fight from the second he swaggered up, and simply dragged it out this long to humilate superman. He knows this isn't just a battle of two blokes punching each other, it's a battle for the world's soul, a battle of ideals: Black's "kill ema ll and let god sort it out" pessimist versus superman "We have to let them be better on thier own and they can be" optimist.

Lois.. is less pleased, mostly because she's sure her husband is going to die. And I like how the art convey's this too: Lois has more faith than clark in anybody but you can tell by her eyes she's worried about her husband picking a fight with a team on the league's level just to prove a point, to possibly die for it. It's chilling to see lois, of all people, scared. But clark has to go: even if he dies for this, it's, like I said, a battle of ideals. If he backs down more people like those kids find killing fun, the easy way the only way, and the world gets even worse. He has to show the world there's a better way.. because if he dosen't everything he's fought for, everything he stands for slowly slides away and more good people fight and die to preserve his ideals.

Clark confronts them. Naturally they choose metropolis for this final battle.. and naturally Clark says "hell no" to that as he isn't going to put innocents in danger. Black agrees, though he has their ship broadcast it worldwide: he wants the world to know this was a fair fight.

Our fighters head for the moon. Unsuprisingly Clark tries one last time to talk them down. I'd call this suicidal... but it's also Supes. He'll try talking, try reforming people if he can. And it'd be weird if he didn't. The Elitie take this as you'd expect.. Manchester tk's him then they take turns beating himn while he speechifies again.

Superman is seemingly curbstomped, with Coldcast delivering some electricity to his brain , seemingly blwoing superman up real good.. but as the Elitie brag... a voice is heard

We then get one of the most bonechilling scenes in comics.. as Superman finally decides to play by The elitie's rules..

In only two pages for us and two minutes for the elitie.. the team is down, semeingly dead. IT's a terrifying display of just what superman CAN do: take the air away, rip your powers away, or just hurl you into space. We've seen plenty of evil superman stand ins do things like this, the viltrumites from invincible are essentially one long look at that, but seeing CLARK do it.. is something else. Something far worse.

Superman finishes the fight by seemingly lobotmizing black, taking out the section of the brain that give shim his powers.. and as black cries and breaks down.. Superman.. lifts the curtain

It's a brilliant twist that also puts all the pieces in place: Clark went alone.. because he had to make it beliviable, and the others were always on standbye. He likely told Bruce and the others what he had planned simply because otherwise.. they would've come to stop him. It's what Clark would want if he really crossed that line.

He simply disabled their powers for now: he gave Chester a concussion: he'll get his powers back.. but will be under tons of psy dampeners befor ehe can.

I love this display: it both shows WHY superman could be dangerous.. and why he isn't. It's easy to be vengeful... it's harder to try and inspire people not to, to keep dreaming ot keep trying to be better. It' sthe hard road but the better one: sure he could kill or take over the world.. but humanity isn't his to take. It's his to help inspire, to make us better by showing what the best of us can do with the gifts they were born with. Chester, like any villian vows he'll be back this isn't over... and clark's response to being told he's dreaming?

A simple powerful closure: superman is living for some lofty ideals .. but their ones worth aspiring towards, to neve rstop fighting for.. ever.

What's So Funny is an excellent story. It suffers here and there from it's short run time, but still serves as an excellent response to critics of superman while not trying to be patronizing. The grungy art fits the tone of the story and the climax is a thing of beauty. check this one out if you can find it

Next Time: It's Superman Vs teh Elitie. Yes again. This time on the medium sized screen as Kelly expands his story into a full blown animated film.

#what's so funny about truth justice and the american way #superman #manchester black #the authority #lois lane #lex luthor #jimmy olseon #comics #dc comics #supermay

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dairy-farmer · 1 year

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what do you think about clarktim? tim cheating on conner with his daddy for example or tim cheating on bruce with his own best friend… after sleeping with tim once when he was just a child, clark can never resist tim’s little cunnie. the size difference between clark’s 12 inch kryptonian cock vs tim’s extremely underaged pussy drives him crazy… i love tim getting groomed 💙

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ahhhhhh!!!!!!!!! clarktim is so good!!!! i've only vaguely written about it once in a fic and a little bit here on tumblr but it is soo good!!!!!1 i love the idea of clark having fucked tim when he was a kid. he was freshly robin and trying to prove to bruce he could trust him!! somehow "alien tech" ends up in gotham and superman is also tracing it and he's recently had a fight with bruce and he's not looking for another argument so he's being discrete and well technically the shipment was just outside gotham borders in a warehouse so it's not really batman's jurisdiction- but that warehouse is where tim also ends up. the two of them after spotting each other and doing the whole 'mouths "what are you doing here?" from across the room' find out its not alien tech that was being bought and sold. it was alien drugs. aphrodisiacs. they end up getting drugged while investigating the hidden storage cache containing it and its like ivy's pollen but dialed up to a million and capable of affecting even superman.

the two of them recall the night with startling clarity despite the haziness of what happened. clark especially recalls it, as much as he tries to shove the thoughts and memories away. he can remember his monstrous cock resting on tim's abdomen reaching all the way to a little above his belly button and staring down at tim as his little hands jacked him off, getting him to hardness while clark's fingers fucked and spread apart into a 'V' in tim's little hole. the opening was barely the size of a quarter. it must've been the drugs because tim was so wet he coated clarks entire hand in wetness. the drugs also must've had some muscle relaxant and numbing effect because clark was able to sink in the head of his cock with barely a sound from tim who arched up his naked chest to clark who scattered kisses all across his little breasts, gently sucking on a pink little nipple as he rocked his cock in deeper and deeper into a hot, tight little hole. clark was just too big for tim, if he tried bottoming out he might actually kill him so he contents himself with the sight of being able to fuck a third of his cock in before it got to be too much and tim's forehead cutely scrunched up.

tim's sweet pink mouth fell open and he gasped at each press in of clark's cock, the spongey head kissed the opening to tim's womb. clark groaned at the sight, using his x-ray vision to look down at where he was fucking tim's pretty baby cunt. clark moaned as he watched the fat head of his cock drooling white precum and smeared it against the hot pink of tim's cervix. the lips of tim's cunt were a distressed red flush, a result from the painful stretch of clark's girth and the burning friction of every harsh thrust into him. tim's hands were spread helplessly at his side, his head rolling back and forth as his sweet mouth let out the prettiest sounds at clark fucking him.

the memories of what occurred in that warehouse haunt clark for years to come.

they never tell anyone.

clark out of shame and tim out of the desire for bruce to not know how badly he'd screwed up. sometimes clark will wake up from a dream and be hard and he'll do his best to imagine anyone but tim. his wife, a model he had a crush on as a teenager, old classmates, other capes.

but in the end all he can think about is pulling tim's green robin leggings off and being greeted by a little pink naked pussy that he promptly leaves gaping open and dripping with his heavy, white cum.

when they both came back to their senses on that concrete floor clark immediatly broke into near tears with how hard he started breathing and apologizing and self-flagellating. tim assured him it was alright. he said it hadn't been clark's fault. but clark hadn't believed him. he'd wanted to take responsibility, make up for it.

and tim had gotten this...this odd look in his eye that reminded clark uncomfortably of the look on bruce's face when something went right according to plan. somehow...tim made him promise to not tell batman, he told clark that batman could never know how badly tim screwed up.

maybe it was the drugs still in his system but clark agreed and shakily helped them both clean up and get dressed.

clark flew tim to gotham and dropped him off behind a convenience store where clark bought him a chocolate bar, a soda, and... a morning-after pill on tim's insistence. only that when clark gets up to the register to pay he doesn't have enough money. thankfully tim lent him the remaining amount.

clark felt like the ground could swallow him up with the shame he felt standing in line as tim put down a handfull of twenties but its the shame that stops the indignance from bleeding through when he realized the cashier wasn't even blinking at clark, a grown man, buying a morning after pill for tim, who was clearly a child.

gotham was a horrifying place.

tim swears him to secrecy in that parking lot and clark, in his shame, swears to never tell, believing he's doing the right thing.

but a few years later and clark still never forgets. neither does tim. maybe that's how they wind up fucking everytime they cross paths.

in the watchtower when batman brings him or when red robin is meant to lend a hand they inevitably seek each other out like two homing missiles. clark has superspeed and superhearing and its not hard for him to find them somewhere private both on the watchtower or off. even when tim and superboy, clark's pseudo son begin dating it continues.

bruce has made his displeasure at his son and clark's "son's" relationship known many times and clark is certain he would be even more displeased to know what clark was doing. so he stays quiet about regularly fucking tim's little pussy and asking him if his cock feels as good as conner's.

clark keeps quiet because he never loses the shame he feels at his and tim's affair. he's friends with tim's father, he's conner's father-

if ma or pa ever knew they'd be so disappointed. dick, bruce, and so many others would be so disappointed and conner- he'd be so hurt to know clark was fucking the boyfriend he loved so much, the one he talked to clark about marrying, about having a baby with.

it would ruin too much. destroy too much.

so clark, like the first time it happened in that remote warehouse, says nothing.

#anonymous #asks #answered asks #clarktim #kontim

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soyouareandrewdobson · 1 year

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Dawn of Justice: A pointless comic to a rather pointless movie

I really don’t have much of an idea for an introduction here, so let me just hand you the comic and then explain why it is rather dumb.

The comic in question came out sometime in late 2015 or early 2016, certainly BEFORE the movie “Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice” had come out in March of 2016.

Now let me just say this: I am not a fan of that movie really. Frankly, Warner’s approach of creating a cinematic universe/franchise for DC akin to the MCU, has in my opinion always been a bit of a tonal trainwreck, starting with Man of Steel itself. Mind you, I have nothing against the actors involved in it, but I thought for a first “outing” for Superman it was a bit too heavy on the last act level of destruction and trying to emulate overall a tone more akin to “Batman Begins”. As for “Dawn of Justice”, I hated the way Lex Luthor was portrayed in it more like a knock off ginger version of Joker and it was silly in my opinion, how they already, in their second major outing for the DCEU, made a vs crossover movie with Batman and Superman, even though not really anything was much established of the cinematic world it was set in. To me it was already just in concept the equivalent of jumping from “Iron Man” in 2008, to “Age of Ultron” without the movies inbetween narratively.

That said, I do not hate the movie and if you find enjoyment in it, fine with me. I am at best indifferent, at worst I think we should look at it, see what worked and what didn’t, and learn from it for a future take on the idea, once the superhero boom and fatigue has ceased.

Somehow, that makes me however already more stable in mind than others, who hate the movie with a passion that’s ridiculous. At least moviebob should reevaluate his life, when he thinks his greatest achievement (or one of them) is to talk for over 4 hours how much the movie sucks, believing by doing so he has shown Warner Bros how much of a smarty pants he is. Even though by doing so, he spend more time talking about it than the movie runs, even in the director's cut.

As for this comic… it is to me just reactional garbage like a lot of stuff Dobson did once he heard something “awful” in regard of entertainment he didn’t even care much for. Like how he thought the Mario movie will be a disaster, cause Illumination was animating it

Now to be fair, he wasn’t entirely wrong to react worried, as the movie was not that good. However, his very first reaction to the trailer alone (which he posted on twitter) is telling you already more about how he really feels and is just utterly dismissive of it, without outright saying it.

Yeah Dobson, Dark Knight Returns is not necessarily my favorite Batman comic of all time either, but even with Miller turning out not quite right in the last 15+ years, you have no right to really treat it like it has no value at all in the field of comics, as even your beloved Batman: The Animated Series took in part inspiration from it.

It is however his second tweet I could find about it, that kinda makes me chuckle

After all, it is essentially the very same thing/opinion he lets say the older man in the picture state about Superman and Batman, and how preposterous the idea of them fighting against each other would be, seeing how they are SUPERFRIENDS.

Which brings me back to the comic in itself and me actually wanting to explain, why it is kinda dumb in proper detail.

First, as stated before, it came out way before the movie even got released. So aside of some poster design that he could copy paste into it and some trailer material he had seen to make up his mind, Dobson had nothing to judge the product by. And I genuinely doubt he ever even bothered to look into it and judge it then based on the actual merit of quality or lack thereof. As long as he could rage about Zack Snyder and Snyderbros being neo nazis or whatever years later, why bother as a cartoonist and critic of nerd culture, to actually talk about a superhero movie. After all, he also never played a Metal Gear game, and that makes him still an expert on Kojima.

Second, the “generational gap” Dobson tries to show here is ridiculous. The “young” comic book fan -likely to be in his twenties, even though he looks older- actually being hyped for it, seemingly because he craves the violence of such a movie. As indicated by making a claw with his hand, having a facial expression that indicates less geek out and more “bloodthirst” as well as how he emphasizes the “Dawn of Justice” in a format that is normally saved for slasher movie titles like “Friday the 13: The Bloodbath at Menarche Lake”.

For fucks sake, Dobson comes off like some old geezer shouting at the clouds how the “younger” generation is craving for blood instead of a decent plot, even though many people younger than him at the time (quick reminder: Dobson was only around 33 to 34 years old when that comic came out) also had a problem with how that movie looked as well as its tone.

Also, the second person who is actually opposed of the idea of them fighting/ is confused about it, trying to portray the other age group, supposedly opposed to the concept of the movie? That character looks like he is in his late 50s. And I can tell you of actual experience, not many people in that age group would even care for superhero movies anyway. They have other things to worry about, like actually being responsible adults and getting their kids through college.

Okay, I apologize if that was rather insulting to some, but let us be real here: Most people at that age are not necessarily into comics anymore as an age group of 20-30 somethings in the 2010s would be And those that still are, would likely not act this confused at the idea, because with all the stuff that has been going on in DC comics within the last 30-40 years, this would likely just make them roll their eyes and think “aww shit, we go the vs route first” or be slightly intrigued if they can pull it off or not. After all, Superman and Batman/ Clark and Bruce may be friends, but that hasn't stopped people from writing stories where the two had to fight against each other. Just ask the people familiar with Injustice.

Really, the only reason we have that early retirement citizen look at the poster in confusion, is because Dobson needed someone to represent him and his opinion. And to be honest, the fact that Dobson, someone in his late 30s at this point identifies more with someone 15+ years his senior, is kinda weird. Like, is Dobson that old fashioned? Or did the years already have a bad effect at his looks and in real life he looked more to that, then he would ever admit?

Anyway, it just stinks of creating some sort of schism between generations, by insinuating that the younger generation is essentially bloodthirsty, while an older one would love something more positive. Which frankly, is dumb to assume, as age does not necessarily account for taste in some cases.

Honestly though, the funniest aspect of the comic for me however, is the way it is structured. Cause it reminds me of that pile of trash

And yeah, I know that Stan Kelly is meant to be a joke by the Onion about political comic artists in newspapers, but I honestly think those joke comics are to a degree so accurate to the mindset of some people on either side of the political spectrum, it hurts. And in regard of Dobson… well, Kelly is a joke. Dobson is the real deal.

Finally, like with many of his comics, Dobson likes to complain, but he does not really “offer” an alternative. Neither did he in comments or on twitter. And what alternative am I talking about?

Well, simple: If he thinks Dawn of Justice will suck cause he wants something more child friendly and comic like…

youtube

Why doesn’t he just recommend for others the animated movie “The Batman/Superman Movie: Worlds Finest” from 1997, based on the Superman and the Batman Animated Series of the 90s, on which later the JLA cartoon based its design and style?

Oh right! Because a Dobson only wants to complain but never help improve the status quo

#adobsonartwork #superman #batman #syac #so you are a cartoonist #tom preston #andrew dobson #review #dawn of justice #dceu #Youtube

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themollyjay · 1 year

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How I’m spending my depressive episode

Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham Verdict: Sucked.

Batman: Gotham by Gaslight Verdict: Okay, but not great.

Catwoman: Hunted Verdict: Terrible, but in a fun way.

Batman: The Long Halloween Verdict: Legit awful. I want my 3 hours back.

The Legion of Superheroes Verdict: This is bullshit. Straight up Character assassination. The disrespect to Supergirl, Brainiac 5, and Lar Gand is fucking unreal.

League of Superpets Verdict: This movie fucking rocked.

My Adventutes with Superman Episodes 1 & 2 Fucking awesome. They gave Clark a Magic Girl Transformation sequence.

The Batman (2007 TV Series) Verdict: Sucked so much I couldn't make it past episode 3.

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Verdict: Sucked so much I couldn't make it past the first episode.

Good Omens Season 1 Verdict: It rocks. I regret watching it because the wait for season 2 is fucking killing me.

Batman Superman: Public Enemies Verdict: Surprisingly Good

Son of Batman Verdict: Okay, except for the disrespect to Tim, Jason, Cassandra, Stephanie. Stupid movie acts like they don't exist.

Batman vs. Robin Verdict: DC's on some bullshit here. Acts like Bruce doesn't consider Dick his son. Biological Family is the only true family bullshit dripping from everywhere. Fucking whoever wrote this shit.

#dc #dc animated movies #good omens

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girlfoxcock · 2 years

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Every time I listen to the batman vs superman soundtrack a better movie plays in my head than what we got

I can’t explain it. This original soundtrack fucking rules. How can a movie that sucks of this magnitude have music that goes this hard

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 2 years

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Psycho Analysis: The 25 Worst Comic Book Superhero Movie Villains

Hey, remember when I talked about good superhero movie villains? Remember how I said there were a lot less shit ones than I thought? Well, I didn’t say there were no shit ones, so here they are.

Bad comic book superhero movies are, contrary to popular belief, not super common. I only barely managed to scrape together 25, and that’s mostly because they take aspects of mediocre villains up to eleven. But there are people out there who say someone like, I don’t know, Yellowjacket from Ant-Man is a bad villain, and I just have to ask: Why? Sure, he’s generic, he’s not super memorable, but he’s not really offensive and he gets the job done. Or how about Ronan the Accuser! He’s pretty bland, he’s not the best use of a talented actor, but he’s also not unbearably awful to watch and he serves his purpose in the narrative even if he’s not utilized to his fullest extent. Average and mediocre does not equal bad; what I’m looking for are villains who do something truly offensive, who truly disrespect the character they’re playing at best, and who are insulting to the audience at worst.

Here’s some dishonorable mentions, villains who suck a lot of ass but who I left off the list so as not to clog it with filler: Cull Obsidian (Avengers: Infinity War), Tyler Hayward (WandaVision), Incubus (Suicide Squad), and Victor Zsasz (Birds of Prey). Shout out to General Dreykov AKA The Smelly Man (Black Widow), KGBeast (Batman v Superman), and Batroc the Leaper (Captain America: The Winter Soldier and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) for being hilariously stupid villains, with Batroc actually almost making it onto the best list as the “So bad it’s good villain.” And finally, a nod to Black Manta (Aquaman) and John Walker AKA USAgent (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier), who don’t come out of their respective works looking great due to being an absolute jobber and a character mishandled by the writing respectively, but who I think could easily be fine tuned in sequels to become genuinely great antagonists.

Alright, let’s get this over with. Here are the most miserable excuses for antagonists you could ever hope to see.

25. Cheetah

Wonder Woman 1984

Wonder Woman’s most iconic nemesis finally made it to the big screen, but in a moment of life imitating one of the movie’s themes, we should have been careful what we wished for. Kristen Wiig was a great choice and she is trying so hard to salvage the wonky writing, but no one can really come back from being turned into a CGI cat girl that would make the cast of Cats 2019 feel better about themselves. At least she can take solace in knowing she’s the least of the film’s problems, hence her low spot on the list.

24. Riot

Venom

Venom is a camp masterpiece, but he unfortunately doesn’t have a villain who lives up to that prestigious honor. Riot is the epitome of the Big Grey CGI Villain trend that should have died off years ago, existing with only the barest personality solely so the hero can have a fight at the end. And the fight isn’t even that great! The sequel gave a far better goopy symbiote smack down, so it’s not like it’s impossible to make a cool symbiote vs symbiote fight, but I think the distinction is that they gave Carnage unique powers and a personality to make the battle more engaging. Riot is just boring, and when the rest of the movie decidedly isn’t it makes him stand out in the worst way.

23. Parralax

Green Lantern

Green Lantern may not be the worst superhero movie ever, but you wouldn’t know that by looking at its villain, a generic doomsday villain for the ages. A lot of bad villains are generic doomsday villains, just nonsensical CGI spectacle for the hero to fight in a big final battle, but this case is especially weird for turning a being important to wider GL lore into a Galactus ripoff for Hal to fight in his first adventure. Considering we already have Mark Strong killing it as Sinestro in the film, did we really need some universe-ending fear being as the villain when we could have seen Sinestro’s fall to darkness instead? Much like the other bad things in the movie, though, Parralax isn’t egregiously bad; bad enough to make the list, sure, but putting him any higher would be a gross exaggeration.

22. Whiplash

Iron Man 2

The early days of the MCU were plagued by some of the most boring villains imaginable, and Whiplash is a shining example of that. Mickey Rourke wanted to add more depth and humanity to the character, but he was shot down by executive meddling, resulting in a character as compelling as wet cardboard. He especially stands out as awful since he’s in the same movie as the hilarious moron Justin Hammer. It makes you wonder why they even felt the need to cram in another villain at all.

21. Yon-Rogg

Captain Marvel

Much like a lot of the feminist posturing in Captain Marvel, Yon-Rogg falls incredibly flat in his role as an antagonist. He feels like he’s supposed to represent the patriarchal power structures that have held Carol back before, but he’s just so weak and unimpressive that he’s dealt with in a single blast. The dude with a motorcycle who puts Carol through microagressions is a better antagonist in this regard, and even he was clunky and executed sloppiy. And even disregarding any sort of feminist reading, he has bland, generic motivations (grrr he hates Skrulls!) and is not even close to being a match for Carol. If you want to establish Carol as the strongest Avenger, go ahead, but at least give her someone who can actually put up a fight to battle with.

20. Apocalypse

X-Men: Apocalypse

They got one of the greatest actors of our time (Oscar Isaac) playing one of the coolest and most badass X-Men villains of all time. How could they fuck it up? By letting him do just about jack shit aside from monologue, for starters. Apocalypse does little else but stand around and talk, with his one fight at the end of the movie leading to him getting curbstomped by Jean Grey. It’s a piss poor showing for a villain of this caliber, and a disgraceful waste of Isaac’s talent.

19. Paris Franz

The Killing Joke

Paris Franz is a weird, stupid stalker for Batgirl made up for this movie, and he is one of the big aspects dragging the first half of the movie down. The only reason he isn’t higher is because there’s something else in that first half that tanks the movie completely, but the fact there’s anything stupider than Franz in the film should really tip you off to the overall quality.

18. Enchantress

Suicide Squad

A really cool and creepy initial design really doesn’t salvage this character’s status as a generic doomsday villain. I think this one in particular stings because Enchantress does have a cool design, cool powers, and story potential to actually be an interesting villain… but not when going up against a bunch of black ops mercenaries. It’s no wonder neither she nor her alter ego June Moon were mentioned at all in James Gunn’s soft reboot.

17. Bane

Batman & Robin

I am a quite vocal defender of Joel Schumacher’s final Batman film, but even I can’t muster up anything nice to say about its take on Bane. He is everything that the character isn’t, and everything he would come to be seen by bad adaptations for years until Nolan managed to somewhat salvage his reputation: Dumb muscle. I get this was pretty early into Bane’s life in comics, with his big debut being only a few years behind, but you’d think they could have made him a bit more interesting for his live action debut.

16. Harry Osborn

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

I really don’t know how they ever expected this chump to lead the Sinister Six in their own movie. His relationship with Peter is sudden and underbaked, the makeup on him makes him look more like Warwick Davis as the Leprechaun, and even his killing of Gwen Stacy is only impressive because it has to be. In a movie that already has a villain in the much goofier but more enjoyable Electro, the Harry Goblin just feels dull and uninspired. We’ve already seen Green Goblin twice before, and once as Harry; if they really wanted to have another big villain, why not just let Rhino have more screentime?

15. Stephen Wolf

Josstice League

In the Snyder Cut, Steppenwolf is a tragic villain, motivated by a desire to appease his master so he can finally return home from exile. It’s not the most complicated thing in the world, but it works wonders considering the mustache-twirling supervillainy of the version from Josstice League. In a vacuum, he’s honestly fun in a cheesy sort of way, especially with how the movie expects you to take a guy who’s C-list among Darkseid’s lackeys at best is the ultimate threat to assemble the Justice League against instead of going with a more impressive threat like Starro or Darkseid himself. But then you look at Joss Whedon in real life, and that implied threat of sexual assault against the Amazons starts to stand out more. And once you see the Snyder Cut and you learn Whedon liked a tweet disparaging Steppenwolf, it becomes clear he picked the worst and stupidest takes for the villain. It’s disrespectful not only to the vision of the man he came on to fill in god, but it’s disrespectful to Ciaran Hinds as well, who put effort into the character just to have it tossed aside out of spite and apathy.

14. Kro

Eternals

Kro pisses me off. He had an incredibly sympathetic backstory that gives him understandable motivation in killing the Eternals… which is explained once and then never brought up again. He shows up to the final battle, and his skills seemingly imply that he could form an enemy mine situation to stop Ikaris… but he just attacks everyone and then dies. He’s played by the always-awesome Bill Skarsgard… and he gets next to nothing to do. As is typical of Eternals, it’s a bunch of really cool and interesting ideas that are never really built upon in a meaningful way.

13. Sharon Carter

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier really couldn’t stop itself from fucking up everything at the last possible second. The reveal that the greater scope villain of the show, the Power Broker, is actually a disgraced and angry Sharon Carter is just mind-bogglingly stupid. It feels so disrespectful to a character who already got a ton of shit just for being a potential love interest for Cap. It doesn’t gel well with her previous characterization and honestly feels a little spiteful, like something out of a bad fanficI. t all just reeks of the treatment Rose Tico got in the last Star Wars movie. Here’s this female character who gets in the way of all the gay shipping and is perceived as annoying and pointless by fans, so she is essentially written out of future installments. But unlike Rose, when they bring her back, they make her into some evil, manipulative mastermind all because she didn’t get to fuck Steve Rogers? Like I guess that’s not the most unrelatable villain origin story ever, but boy, this just feels like a needlessly mean direction to have this character go. And it really makes less and less sense the more you think about it. Maybe they can salvage this in future installments, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

12. Dweller-in-Darkness

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

I’m not mad they changed the design from a Cthulhu homage to a giant soul-sucking dragon bat; that’s Metal as fuck and it honestly kind of rules. No, I’m mad because Dweller gets to be the final boss in a film that already had a villain. And not just any villain, mind you, but genuinely one of the best comic book movie villains of all time. But instead of an emotionally satisfying martial arts showdown between Shang-Chi and his father, this bastard unceremoniously kills Wenwu to usher in one of the most needless CGI monster battles in the MCU. It doesn’t ruin the film despite how pointless and forced it feels, as the final battle still manages to maintain the film’s core emotional weight, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hold the movie back a bit.

11. Talia al-Ghul

The Dark Knight Rises

You’ve already got the awesome, meme-tactic Bane in the movie, and he’s establishing himself as Batman’s fiercest foe yet. If you’re genius filmmaker Christopher Nolan, do you:

A. Have Bane continue being the big bad, serving as the ultimate enemy and final obstacle of Batman’s career, or

B. Reveal Bane was a simp for a hidden twist villain so bad it makes Prince Hans look competent as a twist villain in comparison?

If you chose option B, congratulations! You are apparently as smart as a critically-acclaimed filmmaker who seems to like comic books as much as he likes people not dying of Covid to see his mediocre Tenet in theaters.

10. Doomsday

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

This isn’t just any old generic doomsday villain—it’s THE generic doomsday villain. As cool as he looks in the comics, Doomsday is a boring villain who has one single claim to fame, and that’s killing Superman. Once you know he’s in this movie, there’s really no surprises as to what he’s going to do, and this version doesn’t even look cool! He’s the absolute pinnacle of Big Grey CGI Monster villains on top of being an interpretation of the original generic doomsday villain. He pops in at the final act, delivers a lackluster fight with no surprises, and then dies. BVS is already a slog to sit through, and Doomsday only compounds that.

9. Lex Luthor

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

You’d think the guy who was able to play real life ultra-rich tech supervillain Mark Zuckerberg would be able to play the iconic comic book superhero who is literally that, but I guess they sent him the wrong script because he is absolutely nothing like what Luthor should be. I think what’s most frustrating is that there are moments where you can see that he could pull the character off with better direction… and then he sends Elasti-Girl a jar of his piss and all goodwill evaporates. He’s a lot more tolerable in his cameo at the end of ZSJL, but whether they’ll ever follow that up who can say.

8. Ares

Wonder Woman

The worst villains are the ones who just trip up the whole movie with how bad they are. For most of Wonder Woman, it seems like the point of the story is to show that there’s no Ares, no one true boogeyman behind mankind’s desire for war, and that killing one bad guy won’t change everything. A pretty interesting and bold message t—Oh wait! Here comes Ares, real after all, and he’s the one behind it all! What follows is a big, stupid battle filled with awkward CGI and David Thewlis’s big honking mustache poking out from under the helmet. Very rarely does a movie trip at the finish line this hard, but most movies don’t feature a villain that shoots the message of the film stone cold dead at the last second either.

7. Joker

Suicide Squad

At this point, it almost feels unfair to say anything about Jared Leto’s attempt at playing Joker. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel, y’know? There is just so much glaringly wrong with this character, be it the design, the writing, or his use in the story that it’s quite frankly not even fun to make fun of it anymore. It’s honestly sad. They thought this shit was a good idea, and there are people who genuinely think an Ayer Cut of Suicide Squad, which would no doubt feature even more Leto, would be a great film. It’s just embarrassing.

6. Malekith

Thor: The Dark World

If you asked me a few years ago, I probably would have said Malekith is the very worst comic book villain, but really? He’s pretty par for the course as far as bad villains go. He’s an obscure villain with a talented actor wasted in the role who is given nothing to do and ends up being—you guessed it!--a generic doomsday villain. Still, I think Malekith sucks harder than most for the fact they turned a character who is a chaotic shapeshifting wizard into this just because they didn’t want to do Loki again. Because, you know, there’s no interesting stories you could do with a character like that, definitely couldn’t have Thor enlist his brother’s help to try and outwit someone just like him or anything cool like that, definitely can’t let Christopher Eccleston actually act. I think if nothing else, Malekith is a prime showcase of the lack of imagination some of these filmmakers have when it comes to utilizing villains.

5. Karli Morgenthau

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

As you can see, the villains I think are the worst are the ones who really go out of their way to represent serious problems with superhero cinema. “In Name Only” adaptations, bungled characterization, undermining positive messages with stupidity… imagine if a villain managed to combine all of those things and more into one character. I’m obviously not opposed that they turned the obscure Cap villain Flag-Smasher into a terrorist organization, nor am I mad that the specific Flag-Smasher I’m talking about was gender swapped; these are interesting choices, as was the decision to give the group sympathetic motives to contrast with one of the heroes, John Walker, ultimately becoming violent and unsympathetic. But much like how the finale dropped the ball there, it dropped the ball with Flag-Smasher by turning her into a card-carrying supervillain who was willing to execute civilians if it meant pulling off her plan. It’s such a jarring shift in characterization done at the last minute, and it serves to undermine the whole point. Sam gives a big speech about how she had a point at the end, but it rings so much more hollow when this nuanced character devolved into a phase 1 villain for the finale. It’s frankly insulting, and considering she does have a genuine point and is literally fighting for the well-being of refugees, this has the unfortunate effect of demonizing her viewpoints, something a lot of superhero media is accused of doing but which seems to be blatantly the case here. We almost had another Killmonger on our hands here, but they refused to commit and instead gave us an inconsistent mess of a character. The only reason Karli doesn’t take the number one spot is because the finale does stress that, on some level, Sam pretty much agrees with her point and that the only reason she ever went mad with power is because of the idiotic governments who refuse to help. It reeks of having their cake and eating it too, but at least they literally have Captain America say she wasn’t wrong. If only the writing backed him up a little better, she wouldn’t be so high on this list.

4. Taskmaster

Black Widow

Taskmaster is a beloved villain from Marvel comics, known for his ability to perfectly mimic the cool non-superpowered moves of his enemies as well as for having a kickass sword and shield and a badass skull mask. He’s popped up in video games such as Insomniac’s Spider-Man and Marvel vs. Capcom 3, where he was welcomed with open arms, so going into this movie people had high expectations. Those expectations were not even close to being met. Maybe I could forgive them for not having this Taskmaster be Tony Masters; there’s some vague hints that leave it open for good old Tony to swing in for potential sequels, and the idea they went with here at least somewhat works with the story. But the filmmakers go with the bold choice to have this Taskmaster be a silent antagonist, like a Terminator ripoff from a movie you’d find at the bottom of the bargain bin at Wal-Mart. Taskmaster honestly shows the danger of needing to rely on a recognizable villain for a story even when one isn’t needed. They could have easily just made this an original character, but to put asses in seats they gave them a recognizable name that has nothing to do with the new character. It’s honestly dishonest and scummy, not to mention unfair to a character who could have been far more interesting without the baggage of being saddled with a name that isn’t theirs.

3. Galactus

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

This is one of the single most frustrating villains on this list. They had concept art of a full, true to the source Galactus ready to go, but they decided audiences didn’t want to see that. Instead, audiences want to see big sentient fart clouds! Galactus is the epitome of how studios and filmmakers alike rejected the weird, fun side of comics and instead opted to reimagine weirder elements as gritty and realistic alternatives. A big space man in pink and purple who eats planets couldn’t possibly be cool, right? Fuck off. As time passes and we get characters like Ego, Starro, Polka-Dot Man, and Howard the Duck brought into superhero’s cinematic universes, this take on Galactus just seems all the more braindead.

2. Dudepeel

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

It’s almost incomprehensible just how bad this was. Like on a conceptual level, the idea here is taking a character known for cracking jokes and never shutting up (he’s literally called “The Merc with the Mouth”) and sewing his mouth shut and removing his personality. It’s the sort of thing that’s only possible from someone with extreme hate for a character. While the fact we now have a genuinely good Deadpool and now that Deadpool literally time traveled to the moment this guy appeared and shot him dead, I think Dudepeel still manages to take a high place on this list due to being emblematic of everything wrong with the “In Name Only” style of adaptation as well as a shining example of the worst aspects of the X-Men movie franchise amalgamated into one piss-poor villain.

1. Crash Test Doomy

Fant4stic

It’s really not possible to craft a version of a character that’s as singularly insulting as this one. There is absolutely nothing nice that can be said about this take on Doom. He’s a Cronenbergian nightmare so utterly divorced from the source material that it’s baffling they thought to slap the name “Doom” on it. But that alone wouldn’t be enough to give him the top spot; Dudepeel is just as much a disrespectful “In Name Only” take on a beloved Marvel character, one so disgraceful that fans refer to him by mocking nicknames rather than his actual name. No, this guy takes the top spot by not only being Doom In Name Only, but for literally only doing anything in the last ten or twenty minutes of the film, and in that short amount of time he is nothing but a generic doomsday villain with literally no motivation. Much as Fant4stic is everything wrong with Fox’s superhero movies cranked to the extreme, this living mannequin is everything a bad comic book movie villain could possibly be distilled into the absolute nadir of character design. When you’re making the chump from the Story duology look classy and dignified in comparison, you know you’re doing something really, really wrong.

#psycho analysis #list #villains #DC #Marvel #superhero movies

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