#stas

[t00thpasteface]

while liveblogging btas i got in the accidental bad habit of calling bruce "brucie baby" and now that i'm also liveblogging stas with the same friend i have inexplicably started referring to superman as an "unidentified/unauthorized fucking thing"

[sparklingpax]

before I forget, some stas clark doodles because he is so pretty and sweet 🫣😳🥹💖💞♥️💓💖✨💖✨💓

[artbyblastweave]

So I recently had the thought that Superman as depicted in the DCAU canon probably has the best-articulated-by-the-narrative and most-consistent character flaws of any Superman I’ve seen, in a way that’s enabled by the long-formedness and consistent creative vision of the series.

He’s got an Atlas complex that grinds the gears of his equally-durable, equally-capable colleagues in the Justice League. He has deep-seated fears of moving the wrong way and breaking something or someone, which is then upstream of some moderate control issues. He’s got anger problems, although it’s rare for someone to push him far enough that this takes center stage; you see this with Prof. Hamilton in the series finale of STAS, but also in a number of fights against opponents strong enough that he starts getting frustrated. When the stakes are lower, he can be cocky bordering on genuinely vindictive; there are lots of examples of him rubbing his opponents' noses in it when he finally gets them on the back foot, and it’s shown in flashbacks that he was genuinely kind of a dick when he was a teenager and hadn’t completely sorted out what proportional responses looked like. He doesn’t always think through the implications of his grand projects, be that the implicit threat-escalation posed by the expanded JLU, or the massive disarmament project he spearheaded that turned out to be part of an alien invasion scheme. There are probably more of these that I’m forgetting. The final roundup here is that he’s a good guy. He’s far and away from a perfect guy, with perfect judgement. All of this amounts to something that’s more coherent and specific than the contradictory, subject-to-eternal-revision mess you could assemble from his 60-something year publication history in the comics, but nonetheless with a substantial-enough runtime that all of these traits can be put on display again and again.

In turn, this allowed the collective DCAU continuity to get away with at least three “what if Superman went rogue” plots- four if you count the mind-control situation in Legacy- specifically because they did the legwork to establish the concrete neuroses and psychological vulnerabilities that might cause this specific version of Superman to go rogue. It was never completely insane that Luthor might figure out the exact set of words, actions, and personal losses necessary to coax this depiction of Superman into an authoritarian partnership for the supposed greater good. It’s not completely insane that this depiction of Superman, if pushed far enough, might lose faith in the collective judgement of humanity and decide to put the world and all his loved ones in a bottle. And when the Cadmus plot rolls around in JLU, it’s as effective as it is because they’ve already advanced two roads-not-taken, established what levers you need to pull to make this specific version of this guy cross the line, and that Cadmus and Luthor are pulling all of them. 

I emphasize the specificity here, because the flipside of this are Superman-gone-rogue narratives that jump right to that as the cornerstone of the continuity, with no real opportunities for juxtaposition. A major issue I eventually developed with the Injustice franchise is that despite its pretenses of being an alternate universe, there’s no established continuity that it’s deviating from, bar its own. To some extent I feel as though it’s banking on the audience transposing their gestalt-understanding of Superman and the broader DCU- hell, their understanding of the Justice Lords arc in particular- in order to elide that they’re playing extremely fast-and-loose with the specifics of what has and hasn’t happened to Superman in this continuity. The DCEU is a runner-up- jumping right to the Damocles-sword of a bad-future after two movies is jumping the gun, in the same way everything about the 2010s DCEU was jumping the gun. I think you could plausibly attack TDKR’s portrayal of Superman under this logic, although I personally wouldn’t- but that’s its own post.

Point being that you can’t sell me the upset of a paradigm if you never established it-you need to set up the pins before you can bowl worth a damn.

[hiero-green]

“superman fanboy” dick vs “oh it’s my lame dork uncle clark” tim. fight

based on a conversation with an RP partner and i couldn’t stop giggling over it 😭

[izunias-meme-hole]

Brainiac Appreciation Post

[dailydccomics]

Superman by Alex Ross

[rowan-e-ravenwood]

WHO LET HIM SAY THAT

[cooketimm]

Superman: The Animated Series: production cels featuring Volcana

[swan2swan]

Rewatching the original Livewire episode of 90s Superman last week and rewatching the premiere of My Adventures With Superman a few days later really put something into perspective...

The new one is much, much better.

Granted, Lori Petty's voice is iconic, and her character has a ton of charisma...but boy, is she wasted in that. Her character's just mean and arrogant and selfish...which isn't terrible, it's very relevant, especially today, but it wears off pretty quickly. And I know they never gave her a character arc later on in the show; I think the most she does is team up with Parasite once and then cross over to fight Batgirl and Supergirl. Comparing her to other villains like Volcanica and Metallo really puts a stamp on just how much of a Monster of the Week she was.

But that's not even the problem.

The problem is that she's created when lightning strikes a pole and Superman pulls her out of the way to save her...inadvertently channeling the lightning through him and giving her lightning powers. I don't know if anyone realizes that Superman created Livewire, but they certainly don't acknowledge it or make it a plot point. Clark drops her off at the hospital and washes his hands of the matter. The rest of the episode is just him working to take her in.

There's no anger from Leslie that he's turned her into something (but she's excited for it, anyway, so that's also not an issue), or resolution from Clark to fix her. There are several story options, but...no. They just fight. And I get it. It was the nineties. You needed weekly villains, something the kids could come home from school, tune in, and just see some colorful, flashy action going on.

My Adventures With Superman has Leslie bring the lightning powers on herself. Superman saves her from exploding as the alien tech goes out of control, and when he frees her, he gently lays her down on a step....and then, when his back is turned, she's spirited away and kidnapped to a holding facility. He doesn't ignore her: she's taken from him.

Then she breaks out, joins the Kill-Superman squad, breaks out of prison, becomes a mercenary...she's not exactly going through Major Character Arcs, but she's Living.

Or. Trying to.

The point is, the new Livewire brings more to both her own character and Superman's character. Clark isn't callously abandoning her to the prison system; he keeps trying to keep her in line when she shows up, and just keeps focusing on protecting people.

IT'S HEALTHIER FOR BOTH OF THEM.

[goldenvulpine]

no comment

[dcau-incorrect-quotes]

Lois Lane: God, give me patience

Lex Luther: I think you mean ‘give me strength’

Lois Lane: If god gave me strength, you’d be dead.

[t00thpasteface]

i am obsessed with the insane look of the art deco timewarp computers in stas. so 90s yet so 40s. easily recognizable as a desktop but i can totally see ernest hemingway cranking out a memoir on one of these bad boys. no notes, A+

[forthegothicheroine]

“The Late Mr. Kent” from Superman the Animated Series is a serious contender for the Superman story of all time.

Clark Kent is the only one to believe that a man condemned to the chair was innocent. Everyone else was eager to assume his guilt because he had a criminal record.

Clark Kent assembles evidence but the real killer sets a bomb in his car, and now Superman has to pretend Clark Kent is dead until he can think of an excuse for him to be alive again.

He complains to his parents “I need to be Clark! I can’t just be Superman all the time, it would drive me nuts!”

Lois cries because she genuinely cared a lot about her colleague.

Lois baits the real killer- a corrupt cop- into attacking her so that Superman can swoop in and catch him.

Superman flies to the jail and physically breaks out the innocent man from the electric chair.

Superman becomes Clark Kent again by claiming to have been injured and lost his memory from the bomb, but thankfully his ex-girlfriend Lana saved him! Lois is relieved but mad that he didn’t call her sooner.

The corrupt cop goes to the chair while still wondering how Kent survived the bomb. In an incredibly dark joke, he thinks in voiceover “Clark Kent is Superman!” and then the switch is pulled. End of episode!

[howlingday]

Lisa: Let's look at the facts. Jaune Arc is never there when you need him.

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Jaune: (Catches man as he's falling)

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Lisa: Everything comes easy to him! He never struggles!

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Jaune: (Struggles to hold fall machinery)

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Lisa: There's only one person Jaune Arc cares about, and that's Jaune Arc.

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Jaune: (Shields civilian from debris)

[sethnorth]

Big Alpha & Stas v. some lucky jobber

[martyrbat]

superman adventures: superman vs lobo

[ID: a panel focusing on Superman taking a super-nap. He's laying on the ground as stars fill the background. He has his cape wrapped around him and his gently clasped hands under his head. END ID]