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lonelywretchjervistetch · 2 years ago

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My DC Cinematic Universe: Superman (Part I)

Prologue

This post...I am scared to finally make this post. Because lemme tell ya, it's been a LONG time coming, this post. But OK, here we go, finally. With a new DC cinematic universe on the horizon under James Gunn and Peter Safran's purview, we know have a golden opportunity to actually make a series of movies based on DC Comics properties that are...y'know, actually good. And while literally nobody is ever going to read this, I really, REALLY needed to get this out somewhere. And so, Tumblr is the chosen platform to hear my feverish ramblings. Without further adieu...

Chapter One: Superman is My Favorite

I love Superman. Of all the DC comics heroes, Superman will always be my favorite. Some of you may not get this at all, because Superman is always seen as boring, too black-and-white, and having no problems. But the issue with Superman isn't his character; it's his portrayals. Superman is, perhaps, the most misunderstood character in DC Comics.

Now, I'm not denying that Superman, on first glance, is a little boring. He's got seemingly limitless power, he has a loving relationship, he doesn't seem to have any major problems in his life, and his story is...well, it's old. Really old. There doesn't seem to be much there. But the right stories use Superman as the way he should be used: a lawful good champion of hope who overcomes his problems to try and do what he thinks to be the right thing.

Look, the main thing that people forget about Superman is that he's essentially human, in every way but biologically. Superman is the costume that Clark Kent wears. And Clark Kent should always come first. He's a guy raised on a farm is the middle-of-nowhere Kansas, and he's moved to the big city to be a part of something bigger than himself. And Superman? Superman is just his way of doing the right thing in the best way he can do it. No more, no less.

See, almost every incarnation of Superman makes him unnaturally wise, unearthly good, and a bastion of peace and the ultimate right. That's fucking bullshit. Clark is Clark. He has desires like all of us do. He has fears, he was worries and anxieties, and he makes mistakes. He has opinions you don't agree with, and he has problems of his own he has to deal with. He's experienced heartbreak from a crush who rejected him. He's been bullied and picked on. He's into something that literally nobody else around him is into, but he tries to get people into it regardless just so he has somebody to talk to. Clark Kent is essentially human, trying to do what he thinks is the right thing, like everybody else is in this world. And everybody seems to goddamn forget that, just because of where he comes from, and what he can do. They see the powers above the person.

You know that speech by David Carradine in Kill Bill Vol. 2?

Superman didn’t become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he’s Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red S, that’s the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears; the glasses, the business suit… that’s the costume. That’s the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us, and what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He’s weak, he’s unsure of himself, he’s a coward. Clark Kent is Superman’s critique on the whole human race.

Frankly, it is amazing how incorrect that is, and it feels like this is what a lot of people think of Superman. Superman is not Batman. See, Bruce Wayne died the night his parents did, and is no more than the mask that Batman wears to seem normal, and so slightly honor the memory of the Waynes. Clark Kent, on the other hand, uses Superman as the mask to wear so that he can help people, and so that he can do some good. Superman is Clark's way to enact the motto of another hero. You know...

Superman is the ultimate symbol of Clark Kent's responsibility. And while that's a very morally ideal way to look at the world and one's place in it, it's still how Clark sees things. He is Clark Kent first, Superman second. And Clark Kent believes that Superman is the best way for him to do some good, and to inspire that desire to do good in others if he can.

But, of course, living in a grayscale world as we do, that idealism can have some serious flaws when faced up against reality. In fact, this is likely why Superman is seen as naive and Gary Stu-ish to many people, in and out of universe. But again, Clark grew up as a human. He lived in the real world, with real stressors, morals, and consequences for one's actions. He is fully goddamn aware that existence exists in an entire rainbow of morality. But he believes in what he believes in, and his stubbornness to let go of his belief in people's ability to be better is what makes him Superman. It doesn't make him better than anyone, and he doesn't believe he's better than anyone. It just makes him hopeful for the good in people.

And I think I love Superman so much because of that belief. He is optimism made flesh, in a world where pessimism too often reigns. And no matter what he does, he can't hide that behind a cape and suit. Anybody who meets Clark in person would agree that he's one of the most positive people they know. Maybe to a fault sometimes, but still positive regardless. And that is something we've been missing in DC Comics films in general: positivity and light. For God's sakes, not everything has to be gritty and grimdark. Lighten up, for Chrissakes!

It could be argued, and argued well, that the last good Superman film was Richard Donner's 1978 classic Superman: The Movie, as well as Richard Lester's superior sequel, Superman II. Both movies, well dated as fuck, are still modern masterpieces, and should be recognized as such. We truly did believe a man could fly, only to watch him crash-land over and OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN since.

More importantly, Reeves' Superman is compassionate and strong simultaneously, able to light up the screen with a wink and a smile, but also provide faith that things will be OK. However...he's a little too perfect in some ways, and that's mostly just because he's from a VERY different time period. The Metropolis of the Donner-Lester films is a place where crime lives, but also a place that's far more black-and-white than it is grey. And it is true that Superman flourishes in a black-and-white world, where good is good and bad is bad. However...is that particularly interesting? Not really. As I said, he comes from a different time.

Bryan Singer's Superman Returns brings back this Superman, now played by Brandon Routh. And while this Metropolis is also very morally black-and-white in some ways, it also takes in some of the grayscale of our modern media. And this turns out to be a huge problem, because Superman comes off as...well, a combination of boringly superior and somehow also a deadbeat dad? Which is so crazy in terms of contradiction, honestly. There may be something interesting in there, but it's not a great move on Singer's part. Plus, he adds another tick to the James Marsden cuck counter, because dude is typecast into that role somehow.

And then...and then...

I rewatched Snyder's Man of Steel for this, and understand...I also saw this movie twice in theaters when it came out. And lemme tell ya, it's only gotten worse in my eyes since that point. I realize that this is a divisive movie if there ever was one, but I'm very comfortable on the hatred side of that fence. Why? Where do I start?

First things first, I live Henry Cavill, to be completely clear. I think, even in this slog of a movie, he has his moments. In the ending scenes, when he's talking to the general, and when he shows up at the Daily Planet, he really does feel like Superman to me, at least a little bit. The problem lies in everything that happens before. THis film is the epitome of treating Superman as the superpowered alien before treating him as the Kansas farmboy. God, let's see if I can hold it together long enough to talk about this coherently.

Cavill's Superman is just Jesus without the beard. He's set up to be this perfect paragon of good and right, despite doing some of the most heinous things that Superman's ever done on screen. The actions that Clark takes in this movie are so un-Superman-like, I can barely stand it. And I'm not talking about the killing Zod thing, because that wasn't his fault. No, he does so much more shit Superman wouldn't do, from the beginning.

Remember that scene with the bully in the bar, and how Superman takes his truck and destroys it utterly? Yeah, um, he just almost certainly destroyed that man's livelihood, all because he got upset? Clark has a MUCH thicker skin than that, literally and figuratively, so he'd swallow any bruised pride and just move on. Because not only is that an example of using his powers irresponsibly, but it's also just genuinely wrong. Maybe that was Snyder's way of showing that Clark is flawed, but it doesn't read that way. That isn't just a character flaw, it's a violent and destructive temper. Plus, that action was taken for the audience's sake, not Clark's. We saw our hero getting bullied, and now Zack Snyder shows up the karmic retribution for those actions. But it's so out of character for Clark, that it immediately took me out of this interpretation of the character. And that's a mild example.

The TV series Justice League Unlimited, whose version of Superman is fantastic and should be appreciated FAR more than it is by most people, has a pretty famous quote and scene.

I feel like I live in a world made of cardboard, always taking constant care not to break something, to break someone. Never allowing myself to lose control even for a moment, or someone could die.

Superman knows exactly how powerful he is. Because power and responsibility are tied together, he is and always has been aware that his prime responsibility is to protect others from his own power. As all people on this planet do, he must take responsibility for his own actions, especially when his actions should be very dangerous. And to a certain extent, Cavill's Superman knows this. After all, he turns himself into the military, so he's aware of this idea to a certain degree. So why...why on God's green fucking Earth...does he do this?

This stupid...STUPID...IDIOT...destroys Metropolis.

And NO! No, this is NOT all Zod's fault! Clark should know better. For somebody who's wary enough of his surroundings to control his own immense strength on a 24-hour basis, how does he not think about the COST OF HUMAN LIVES he's about to allow by letting Zod remain within the city? He's obviously focused on you, so GET HIM THE FUCK OUT OF THERE. And actually...come to think of it, HE ALSO DESTROYS SMALLVILLE! During his fight with Faora and Non! He actively throws and tackles people through buildings, buildings with people that he knows! Superman would not be this thoughtless and irresponsible. In other words, Bruce was right.

Oh, and the whole "killing Zod" thing? Yeah, that's not Clark's fault. It's also no Zod's fault. It's the fault of these people.

JUST RUN YOU IDIOTS, YOU HAVE SO MUCH SPACE AND TIME

Seriously, they just stand there! I would've immediately taken off through any open space I could find! And they just stand there and wait to get lasered while Cavill screams for the 10,000th time in this movie? YOU MADE SUPERMAN KILL ZOD, DUMDUMS.

Anyway. Yeah, this is not Superman. Plus, the Jesus allegory is so overtired, guys, come on. He's extremely powerful, we get it, that doesn't make him a literal god. Doing that completely removes any form of humanity from him, and that's super-damaging to the character. If you write him that way to exacerbate his alien, holier-than-thou nature, it just detaches him from our perspective, and makes us care less about the character. Poorly written, and poorly plotted. It's immensely frustrating.

Now that said, there are some excellent live-action versions of Superman. Tyler Hoechlin is perhaps the most balanced version of the character, allowing us to know him as a human, while also appreciating that he's a man of great power, and one who's aware of what that power means for himself and those around him.

Tom Welling, for what it's worth, is also a very good Clark Kent...but not a great Superman. To be fair, that's a consequence of the CW itself, which only Hoechlin's Superman has really broken away from in the end. Smallville's Superman also suffered from not being able or willing to fully lean into Clark being Superman, which led to some odd choices throughout the series. On the contrary, Dean Cain, despite being an inveterate douche-nozzle, did a good job playing Clark Kent and Superman, but definitely leant more into the Superman-as-Kent angle most of the time.

But you want a really, really good Superman? Well...

Animation has been very good to Superman, especially the incarnation seen in the official DC Animated Universe, as played by Tim Daly in Superman: The Animated Series and George Newbern in Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. The former is allowed to flex his muscle as both Kent and Kal, and does brilliantly in the role. Newbern's Superman is usually seen in costume, but is also very down-to-Earth as the flying superhero, to the extent that you can see Clark Kent coming through the red, yellow-and-blue.

Personally, I like Daly's version just a little bit more. He doesn't think he's better than anybody else or always right, but he always does his best to what he thinks is right. He makes mistakes, and his personal life is a goddamn shambles, but he's still trying his best. And that's all I ask of Superman: he should always be trying to do his best, and we should know that. He's not automatically perfect. And he's trying to navigate his idealistic, optimistic values in a multichromatic and complicated world which should be so disappointing so often.

But the question now, for me at least, is this: What would I do with a Superman film? Like, if I had full license to write and make my own Superman movie, how exactly would I do it? Here's the thing, this is a question that comes in several parts for me, so I'm gonna break this up into multiple posts. Plus, it's obviously just theoretical. Gunn isn't going to make an origin movie again, and he's already planning on putting Henry Cavill back as Superman, so this is all academ-