Only Human - Why Man Of Steel Divided A Fandom

NOTICE: In case the title doesn't make it obvious, this article will contain spoilers for the movie Man of Steel as well as several classic Superman comics.  Do not read any further if you have not seen the movie.

Also, A Special Thanks To David Tai for being my sounding board.
  



It's been one week since Man of Steel was released in the United States and tempers are still burning bright.  There are many things about the movie that angered Superman purists but nothing more than the climactic final battle where Superman snaps the neck of General Zod.  The fact that this was done to save the lives of a family after Zod said he wouldn't rest until he'd killed everyone on Earth and that Superman showed immediate remorse for the action didn't matter to these Super-fans.  Superman doesn't kill.  Period.  He always finds a better way.  That's the rule, clear as crystal.

I understand that viewpoint.  Certainly there's plenty of textual evidence for that view of Superman.

* Kingdom Come - one of the greatest comics ever, in my mind - was built around an ideological war between "the man who would kill" and "the man who wouldn't".  A new hero called Magog was the former with Superman being the later.

* What's So Funny About Truth, Justice And The American Way? pits Superman against The Elite - a quartet of reckless young superheroes who have no qualms about killing.  In the end, Superman proves that his moral code does not make him weak as he wins a duel against The Elite without resorting to lethal force.

* Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow had Superman willingly exposing himself to Gold Kryptonite - the kind which permanently removes a Kryptonian's superpowers - after he was forced to kill Mr. Mxyzptlk in order to save all of reality.  Why?  The panel below says it all. 


    This point of view is so deeply entrenched in the oeuvre of DC Comics that a goodly number of twisted alternate realities and dark futures came about directly because of Superman deciding that any act - including killing - was acceptable in the name of saving lives.  To name a few examples, there's the 'Brave New Metropolis' episode of Superman: The Animated Series, the 'A Better World' episodes of Justice League and the recent hit video game Injustice: Gods Among Us.  That would seem pretty cut and dry except there are also many examples of Superman killing that are just as much a part of canon as these previous examples

* Superman killed Doomsday before his own apparent death in The Death of Superman.

* In Final Crisis, Superman destroys the essence of the god of evil, Darkseid, by singing a song of hope that counters the vibrational frequency of Darkseid's life force.

* Superman killed multiple alien invaders in Secret Origins - the three-part pilot episode that opened the Justice League animated series (Go to 6:51 on this video if you don't believe me).

* Superman also ensured the death of General Zod and two other murderous Kryptonians in the Superman comics of John Byrne.

   

Heck, depending on how you define "Life" Superman may be a killer hundreds of times over.  Do sentient machines count as life?  Superman seems to think to given his treatment of The Red Tornado in the classic Justice League of America comics and Tomorrow Woman from Grant Morrison's JLA run.  So how do you justify every time he's ripped apart Brainiac or Amazo over the years?

Ultimately, this sort of nit-picking is pointless.  This goes beyond comics to a serious philosophical and spiritual truth - is it just to take a life in order to save another?  Examples can be given to justify both sides of the argument as valid and the history of Superman is such that both sides have a good case purely on a textual level.  And any examples given will be countered by people insisting that the other examples don't count for one reason or another.  And that's fine!  There's room for both of us in the fandom!  Some people want Superman to be the perfect example for all humanity to follow.  Others prefer to allow Superman the same latitude for lethal force as a police officer.

I fall into the later group, personally.  I don't have any problem with the idea of Superman killing for the same reason I don't have a problem with a soldier killing in the line of duty.  It's unfortunate and regrettable and it should always be the last resort but sometimes it is necessary.  I also recognize that there is a world of difference between killing and murdering.  Now, if Superman had ever committed premeditated murder, I'd object to it strongly.  But in that moment, Clark is forced into the role of a soldier and sometimes a soldier must kill to save lives.

What I find fascinating is that this outcry has erupted over Superman and Man of Steel in a degree that I don't recall for any other superhero movie in recent memory.  Batman is just as well known for having a personal code against killing as Superman.  Indeed, depending on the era, Batman's code against killing may be even stricter than Superman's!  Yet I don't recall anyone making as much of a fuss over the ending of The Dark Knight, where Batman is forced to kill Harvey Dent in order to save the life of Jim Gordon's son.  And I didn't hear anyone use the phrase "disaster porn" to describe the collateral damage The Avengers caused by taking the fight to Loki's alien army in the middle of Manhattan while numerous people cried foul over Superman's battling Zod in the middle of Metropolis.

I've been thinking about why this is so over the past week because I think it's something deeper than Superman being the first superhero and, as such, the one who should set the standard for all other heroes to approach.  I think it's because of the grand irony behind who Superman is as a character and all the roles he is meant to fulfill.

Simply put, Superman is meant to be simultaneously more than human and more human than human.  He has to look and act like one of us while simultaneously being an alien outsider.  To quote Batman (through the pen of Jeph Loeb in Superman/Batman #3) "It is a remarkable dichotomy. In many ways, Clark is the most human of us all. Then ... he shoots fire from the skies, and it is difficult not to think of him as a god. And how fortunate we all are that it does not occur to him."

I think that may be the key for some of Man of Steel's detractors.  I think some people want Superman to be a perfect god watching over them - not a flawed man with powers that set him above and apart the common man.  And there lies the grand irony.  We want Superman to be the most human of us all - compassionate, brave, noble, sacrificing - and yet we deny him that most human of traits. Imperfection.

How many sayings and songs are based around the idea of humanity being inherently imperfect?  "To err is human."  “To be human is to be beautifully flawed."  "I'm only human/ Of flesh and blood I'm made / Human / Born to make mistakes."  I could go on but that's ultimately one more debate that's far outside the scope of one column.  


One final thought: Man of Steel succeeds in showing us a Superman who is, in that sense, very human.  He clearly has a hard time during the battle scenes.  And why shouldn't he?  He's a farm boy with no combat training facing down an army of genetically engineered soldiers that were groomed for combat since before birth.  Even though he has a better grasp of how to use his powers, it's still a tentative thing as he never really explored the limits of what he could do.  I personally found that to be interesting and I think it addressed the repeated complaints that Superman is too perfect, too boring and that he never has to work for a victory.

I think that's why this movie was called Man of Steel instead of Last Son of Krypton.  Steel doesn't occur naturally.  It has to be forged - put to the fire and shaped.  Clark Kent can't become The Man of Steel without facing the heat and a beating, so to speak.

Some people say Superman should be perfect and perhaps they're right.  Perhaps this take on Superman has come too close to the Earth he's meant to soar over.  I do think there's one thing we can all agree on, though.  This debate - and all the little debates within that larger debate - are encouraging people to talk about Superman and comics and philosophy.  More, they're actually thinking about these characters and these questions.  And for a librarian who loves the comics medium, Superman and people using their minds, even if I disagree with what they think and what they say, that is a good thing.

Dark Knight and Hellboy 2: The Golden Army reviews

I just realized I had yet to get around to reviewing these movies, two weeks after the fact.

Let's keep it simple.

1. Dark Knight is awesome. Go see it on the big screen if you haven't already. Heath Ledger steals the show, though I don't think he's quite Oscar worthy. It's less dark than the first movie but the fight scenes still suffer from being shot far too close.

2. I honestly like Hellboy 2: The Golden Army better. Visually, it's a much more interesting film and not just because of the costuming and make-up - the cinematography is amazing, as you might expect in a DelToro picture.

Dark Knight and Hellboy 2 Reviews Are On Their Way...

I just got out of a double-feature, movie-marathon session where I saw both movies today.

I also just found out - about ten minutes ago - that one of my dearest and oldest friends, Daniel, just died.

I hope you'll forgive me if I'm not in much mood to talk movies right now. I'll write the reviews later, I promise.

For now though - because I think this would amuse Daniel given how we met through Rocky Horror Picture Show and because he loved George Carlin and any rants about people being stupid - here's a quick list of three socially unacceptable behaviors I'd like to see outlawed at movie theaters.

1. Attempting To Meet New People - There are many good reasons to go to the movie theater, but generally, making new friends is not one of them. I'm at a theater, I'm in the dark, I'm sitting on the back row in the corner, I want to be left alone to focus on the film. I do not want some frat boy with his beer pitcher plopping down next to me, trying to get my opinions on how sacrilegious it is that they are making another Terminator movie without Ah-nold.

2. Inconsiderate Parents- I'll admit this complaint is nothing new, but I found a new sub-strata in this ancient rock today. There have always been parents who refused to take their crying babies, bratty toddlers and inquisitive kindergartners into the lobby when they got noisy. Until today, though, I had never seen a parent who refused to take a child who was scared by a movie home. This one kid behind me was crying - scared, and rightly so, by the antics of The Joker. But this parent... they shhhhed the kid and told them to quit being a wimp.

3. People Who Try To Teach Narrative Awareness To Their Kids At The Theater- For those of you who don't know, Narrative Awareness is the technical term for knowing how a story works. It's knowing cause and effect, how actions lead to reactions and basically being able to have an attention span greater than that of your average summer blockbuster audience. It is one of the six key skills that make up literacy. It is also something that can be easily taught by asking a child questions as you read them a story or watch a show together. It is a very good and wonderful thing to teach your children as early as possible. However, I would venture to say - as a trained professional librarian, mind you - that there are certain places it should probably not be attempted. One of them is a movie theater on opening weekend at a PG-13 movie! And it definitely should not be a movie where you describe the action with the words "So Joker blows up the police station because he's naughty..."

Looking To The Stars - Heroes On Screens, Large and Small

Has Hollywood learned nothing from what comic-book adaptations have worked well and which ones haven’t? I ask this because there’s been a spattering of stories in the news lately that have me wondering.

First up, the latest rumors on the casting of Joss Whedon’s Wonder Woman movie.

Rachel Bilson In The Running For Wonder Woman
Mischa Barton on Wonder Woman wish-list
McPhee Addresses Wonder Woman Rumors


Okay. Three headlines there. Just for the sake of photographic reference, let’s review.

Rachel Bilson – Some woman from The OC

Mischa Barton – Some other woman from The OC

Katharine McPhee – some woman from American Idol

Now, thankfully two of these three rumors have already been defused. In a recent interview, Billson confessed that she hadn’t heard of Joss Whedon and certainly hadn’t been approached about Wonder Woman. And Katharine McPhee said in the above-linked article that she wouldn’t seriously consider such a big part for her first movie. And given those two are the only women of the three who come close to looking ANYTHING like what Wonder Woman should look like, I think we can handily dismiss the mention of Mischa Barton as “Well, actress A from this show is getting press so we need to give Actress B some press too” studio scuttlebutt.

Which is a good thing because NONE of these women should even be in the running. Nobody who is a singer trying to land her first acting role needs to be playing Wonder Woman. Nobody who brings up more hits for her nearly-nude paparazzi pictures than pictures of her acting work on a Google search needs to be playing Wonder Woman. And as cute as Bilson is in the costume, the ability to do a sexy seduction scene should not EVER be a consideration for playing Wonder Woman no matter how good you look.

Additionally, I have to give Bilson negative points for being on an IGN list of Who Should Play Wonder Woman? Anybody who can be mentioned in the same breath with the likes of Jessica Simpson and Lindsay Lohan as a serious by anyone, EVEN the horny half-twits running IGN, should be dismissed without a second glance.

Thankfully, this is all a non-issue. Of much greater concern in this little tidbit of news…

Heath Ledger HATES Comic Book Movies

Now, understand this. I’m not of the opinion that only a brazen fanboy can play a comic book character on the big screen. If that were the case, the idea of having Nicholas Cage play damn near every superhero who had a movie deal in the last ten years might make sense. Most of the best portrayals we’ve had came from actors who WEREN’T big comic fans but did come to know and like the character they were portraying. Tobey Maguire, for instance, had never read a Spider-Man book before Sam Rami came to him about playing Peter Parker.

By contrast, everyone who has ever gone into a comic book movie HATING the concept has, in turn, given a horrible performance. Case in point – Halle Berry as Storm and The Pretend Catwoman. Berry made it no secret that she considered X-Men beneath her and it showed that she didn’t want to be there in every single sequel. And I never saw Catwoman but given what I heard from those who were foolish enough to see it, it was much the same problem – they removed everything about the core of the concept that was likeable and just made something that was…. Bad.

So when I hear Heath Ledger saying things like “"I actually hate comic book movies, like ****ing hate them, they just bore me ****less and they're just dumb.“ or that he’s looking forward to playing Joker “really sinister and it's going to be less about his laugh and his pranks and more about just him being a just a ****ing sinister guy” - well, even with Chris Nolan directing, it’s a worrying sign.

Why? Because Joker, as a character, is the epitome of everything a comic book villain that works. He is over the top. He is colorful. He is unrealistic. And yes, he IS a ****ing sinister guy. But the humor, dark as it is, comes before the death. And Joker without the laugh and the pranks isn’t the Joker.

And on that note, let me just say on a personal level, THIS is not Oliver Queen.

I’ve watched maybe one episode of Smallville all the way through - working night-shift you get to miss a lot of bad TV. But even I know that they said, off the bat, that they were not going to have it become a show full of costumes and that any other superheroes showing up would be very rare, if it happened.

Having now seen these pictures, I wish they had stuck to their guns on that – even if superheroes are suddenly becoming more and more in vogue in the popular media. Because this... this just looks ridiculous.

First of all, sunglasses AND a hood? What’s the point aside from the extra added coolness factor? And as for the rest of it – I’d say that it makes him look like a metrosexual boy-band member but I don’t think any self-respecting gay man or even Lance Bass would ever dream of wearing this monstrosity.

But even bad fashion sense isn’t the biggest crime being committed here. He’s using a compound bow. A freaking compound bow, for crying out loud! And, no I am not complaining about this because in the comics, Oliver Queen has said numerous times that he HATES compound bows and he that would never use a compound bow.

A longbow, certainly. A short recurve bow, absolutely. But stylistically and practically it goes against everything the character stands for to be using something as modern and amateurish as a compound bow.

As an archer, I can attest that recurves offer greater power, smoother draws and a good deal more control to an experienced archer. Compound and composite bows are only used by good-old boys who can’t be bothered to use a real man’s weapon that requires practice and skill. It’s like going duck hunting with an M-16.

Hmmm... been rather a depressing and angry column so far, hasn’t it? And I do so hate to end things on a negative note. Sure wish there was some good news about something comic-book related on the small screen that I could talk about. Something coming out in the week after I’m writing this. Maybe something that would be on TV the night of the day that you’ll likely be reading this.

Oh wait! There IS something like that I can write about.

I know. I know. It’s a pathetic rip-off of Lost and all the big TV critics are saying good things about it, which means that it HAS to suck. It’s going to be the popular, pretty people playing with our toys and screwing things up – just like every other attempt to do a serious drama about people with super powers. It’s either going to be pretentious as hell or hokey as all get out, right?

Don’t you believe it!

Seriously, the first episode (which has been available for those in the know on the Internet for the last week), is not that bad. I think it would have been preferable to air the pilot as the two-hour movie that it was apparently premiered as at ComicCon but... the first hour is not bad and I’m definitely going to check out the second episode. I haven’t decided if it is tape-worthy yet – but it does not suck coming right out of the gate.

The one thing I can say is that, so far, it appears that this show will have a little something for everyone, regardless of what type of comic book hero you like.

Do you like your heroes idealistic in an Elliot S. Maggin style? There’s Peter – a nurse who has dreams of flying and something bigger in life.

Do you like heroes who see their powers as more of a curse than a blessing in the Stan Lee style? There’s Claire – a suicidal cheerleader who cannot die.

How about Frank Miller grim-and-gritty style characters? There’s Isaac – a heroin-addicted artist who paints vivid images of approaching disasters weeks before they happen.

Or maybe you like heroes that aren’t too serious and are even a little silly, like those in a Keith Giffen comic. There’s Hiro – a Japanese cubicle jockey and Trekkie who bores his best friend with crazy stories of his being able to stop time and teleport.

I won’t spoil anything else for you all. There’s spoilers aplenty elsewhere on the web if you want to read about the plot of the pilot beforehand. And if you missed the first episode by the time you do read this, you can watch the first episode here.

All you need to know is that around the world, people are starting to develop abilities that make them more than human. They are being sought, at the moment, by two people – the son of an Indian geneticist whose father predicted an event that would cause a jump in the evolutionary chain and a shadowy man in a suit who apparently has darker designs on what super powers can do for the world.

Honestly, this show has got a pretty high artistic pedigree what with Jim Lee just signed on to do a web-comic based on the show and Tim Sale being the one doing all of Isaac’s paintings. And the buzz from those who have seen the pilot is nothing but positive so far. Heck, the Sci-Fi channel has even picked up the rights to rerun episodes later in the week on Friday nights, which is good if only to prevent further endless reruns of Stargate.

And to elevate the one big fear I’ve been hearing from everyone who is concerned about the quality of the show? It isn’t a Lost rip-off. Stuff actually happens in this first episode and they’re getting to the point of things right away, by all indications. There’s also no mystery just for the sake of being mysterious though there is one plot twist I did not see coming. Mum’s the word on that one though.

Tune in next week. Same Matt time. Same Matt website.