DC Comics Multimedia General - A crisis of infinite fuck ups

[ArthuriusMartyrius]

Superman's killed less people on average than Batman has IIRC. I think both of those guys should be pretty flexible with that rule, it's Wonder Woman being a sword-swinging psychopath that I have a problem with because the retards at DC can't stop trying to force her into a warrior queen mold.

Bayman though, I'm not sure it'd be as funny as we think. 2007 Bay, sure, but 2022 Bay, ehhh.

 

[Captain Syrup]

Superman the Animated series was very strong with that vibe, despite it’s faults

Because he was written by guys who were very good at writing Batman-type things. Leaving that out is like talking about Reagan without mentioning Iran-Contra, just naked dishonesty.

And context matters. Batman gets away with this because Superman is a jock. His entire personality is basically “what if the strongest guy alive had restraint,” which is only compelling because we hate jocks!

But let’s flip the script, say Superman is the mask, Clark is the man, ok. But no matter how you slice it, it doesn't land the same. Bruce is a fake playboy and Clark is a fake clumsy reporter. Comparing them is like comparing James Bond to The Accountant. One is fun, the other is an emotionally constipated sadist.

 

[el bandito loco]

He has done that, and promptly gone crazy due to that or a related event, like the Injustice AU games. I would say throwing creeps into the Phantom Zone and forgetting about them would be a good way to avoid Supes becoming a killer.
Also, Bats early on killed people too, or at least let them die or killed them indirectly (or outright locked someone into a room to starve him to death).

My point was that the premise of Injustice is absolutely ridiculous because it wouldn't make him crazy. Batman's retarded nonsense about killing would make him become a habitual killer doesn't apply to Superman and the reason evil Superman is always retarded is because the writers are pea brained dumbshits who can't fathom the idea of a character putting someone down without them being bloodthirsty.

Superman being a killer doesn't equate to Superman being a "killer" and that's my point. the difference between him and Batman is that Batman killing intentionally and not in a manslaughter way he couldn't handle, where Superman could and would handle it in a "line of duty" type of way without it changing who he is.

Batman murdering a bad guy would continue to fuck with him and drive him nuts. If Superman did it, he'd be upset he had to do it but he'd be back to business as usual after and just hope he doesn't have to again, but if he has to, it is what it is. It's like a (good) cop or soldier who's put into an impossible situation. If they aren't brain broken by the event or already nuts it doesn't make them start randomly murdering random people.

 

[Overly Serious]

My point was that the premise of Injustice is absolutely ridiculous because it wouldn't make him crazy. Batman's retarded nonsense about killing would make him become a habitual killer doesn't apply to Superman and the reason evil Superman is always retarded is because the writers are pea brained dumbshits who can't fathom the idea of a character putting someone down without them being bloodthirsty.

Superman being a killer doesn't equate to Superman being a "killer" and that's my point. the difference between him and Batman is that Batman killing intentionally and not in a manslaughter way he couldn't handle, where Superman could and would handle it in a "line of duty" type of way without it changing who he is.

Batman murdering a bad guy would continue to fuck with him and drive him nuts. If Superman did it, he'd be upset he had to do it but he'd be back to business as usual after and just hope he doesn't have to again, but if he has to, it is what it is. It's like a (good) cop or soldier who's put into an impossible situation. If they aren't brain broken by the event or already nuts it doesn't make them start randomly murdering random people.

We're not going to agree on this and I know that at the outset. But I'm going to offer a different opinion here. The Injustice comics were very well done in taking what they were required to do - make an "evil" Superman - and pulling it off convincingly. There's more than one true take on Superman and the circumstances in the comic were more than Superman kills someone "in the line of duty". Joker sets it up not only that Lois Lane dies but that it's Superman who kills her. And he doesn't kill Joker in the line of stopping him. He kills him afterwards out of revenge. Nor does he go from that to insta-evil. It begins very small with Superman deciding he needs to be more pro-active in preventing crime and death. He doesn't leap across the line in a single bound, he takes a small step over it. And everything that follows, follows in the reverberating feedback that begins with this transgression; every extra step creating every bit more resistance. It's because of what Batman knows but Superman loses site of: It's not that you killed someone. It's that once you make the decision that's okay, there isn't any logical stopping point.



There was some very good writing in that comic. You may not like the premise but the premise was done exceedingly well. (The movie adaptation not so much).

It also gave us the least annoying Harley Quinn we've seen in a very long time. Her interplay with Green Arrow is actually decent.

 

[Humble Architect]

The strongest part of Injustice’s comic is the fall arc for Superman and it being all but stated that by “present day” he just wants to die.

That He-Man crossover had no business being as good as it was and Adam doing what Bruce couldn’t and putting Clark out of his misery was great and should be the canon ending.

Even the movie did one thing better and that was a single Lois from another universe being all it took to undo the big guy and reveal what he really is, broken and sad.

 

[el bandito loco]

There was some very good writing in that comic. You may not like the premise but the premise was done exceedingly well. (The movie adaptation not so much).

I've read it, it's better than it has any right to be but the premise is inconceivably terrible. Superman is the worst written out of every character. Everything else in it (Injustice 1's prequel comic, not the Injustice adaptation itself from Harley's pov or the Injustice 2 comic they suck) is pretty good. It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't frame it as basically traditional DCU besides Lex wasn't a villian prior to the Metropolis inciting incident. If the world was already darker, that would already do a lot of the heavy lifting for the premise.

The thing of there's no logical stopping point and that being Batman's point, is insane. that's equating killing a terrorist as a slope to killing your friends, which even if it wasn't Superman, nobody who isn't already insane would think makes any sense at all. sure it's the road to hell thing, I get that. And the progression of what he's doing works, but the light switch in his brain being as quickly drastic as it is doesn't play for me at all.

It has to do these insane things just as it's nature as a game tie in which is really where the problem is, it's not the comics fault which is fine. I don't think it sucks or anything.

I don't have a problem with evil Superman really as a concept, and sometimes it's good. There's moments of it in there, the set up has to be better and the world has to be different enough to justify it. I just can't buy the normal dcu Superman besides lex is his buddy and his suit is armory would snap like that in an otherwise regular ass dc world.

I do like the way it was structured so each year he was taking out another corner of the DCU that was a nice way to do it and cover all the ground to get them to where the game is and there's hardly any opposite to his regime.

 

[Captain Syrup]

I don't have a problem with evil Superman really as a concept, and sometimes it's good. There's moments of it in there, the set up has to be better and the world has to be different enough to justify it. I just can't buy the normal dcu Superman besides lex is his buddy

Speaking of which, didn’t Lex hand Joker the nuke that levels Metropolis in this timeline? So how is Superman buddies with Lex in Injustice? Are there are two different Lex Luthors in that universe?

 

[Humble Architect]

KC Supes will always be the best “fallen” Superman, he failed hard and his inaction led to two disasters. But he’s still the same character, he doesn’t overnight become a villian, he gets a bit tyrannical and maybe crosses some lines but it makes sense and you can see Superman aging into this bitter recluse who’s in denial.

Because remove the superpowers, a guy’s wife is murdered and her last moments are begging her husband to not let himself become something he isn’t and the cause that she believed in, died for and made Clark stay true to?

The masses spit in his face and prop up a vigilante sociopath. Any man, super or not would say “fuck it” and leave, he wanted to rip Joker apart and play hopscotch with his spine, that’s human, that’s Clark, he consistently has entertained the fantasy of unleashing his wrath on his worst foes. Lois spent her last moments being his anchor, one last time.

Injustice was always KC fanfiction.

 

[Mayor Cody Travers]

t's Wonder Woman being a sword-swinging psychopath that I have a problem with because the retards at DC can't stop trying to force her into a warrior queen mold.

Someone else gets it.

Wonder Woman is, at the end of the day, a Superhero(ine). She is like Superman and Batman as someone who does not kill. Even more so than them if anything, due to her being framed as "all-loving" and her non-lethal weaponry in the Lasso of Truth. At MOST, you can have it that as a "warrior" she's like Captain America being explicitly a "soldier", but if anything that makes their no-killing rule even STRONGER for them to symbolically obey - they moved on from being one who has to kill to one who has the power NOT to. That includes her becoming a far-more-effective "warrior" than anyone else alive by being THAT GOOD A FIGHTER - IE, she became even BETTER than her "warrior" days - to disarm and take them down with just her training and Lasso without needing to kill them. Because she's no longer a warrior, she's now a superhero.

I always maintain Wonder Woman's default persona should be "serene" to Superman's "confident" and Batman's "stoic" and it would really aid in re-routing her back to the no-kill aspect. Can't have a hardcore barbarian queen if she's in complete understanding and control of herself and the situation.

 

[Humble Architect]

Agreed, Wondy should be compassion to Clark’s Hope and Bruce’s Justice (Batman is not vengeance, that’s the Punisher) and her best depictions keep her in the middle between the extremes her teammates embody. Which her power should reflect as well, tough and strong but not the one-man last line of defence for a whole planet that Superman is.

She’s not the “heart” though, that’s cliche and it’s fundamentally not Wonder Woman, the heart of the team is Flash. She’s not the “team mom” either, that’s the Martian.

It’s my KC bias but I like the idea of Wondy and Supes getting together after their mortal love interests are gone and time has passed, it makes the eternity awaiting Supes all the less lonely if Jon and Diana are going to be there with him.

 

[Captain Syrup]

It’s my KC bias but I like the idea of Wondy and Supes getting together after their mortal love interests are gone and time has passed,

Now that you bring it up, I never had a big problem with Clark moving on from Lois. My issue was that Diana’s an insufferable asshole, so my brain short-circuited at the idea. Also, aside from Steve, Wonder Woman’s love life has been nonexistent, so her randomly hooking up with a grieving Superman is suspect; neither fish nor fowl.

 

[Humble Architect]

Now that you bring it up, I never had a big problem with Clark moving on from Lois. My issue was that Diana’s an insufferable asshole, so my brain short-circuited at the idea. Also, aside from Steve, Wonder Woman’s love life has been nonexistent, so her randomly hooking up with a grieving Superman is suspect; neither fish nor fowl.

Well Lois is usually pretty insufferable but that’s Clark’s type, he likes them brunette, fiesty, honest and alliterative names are a turn-on.

My grandpa is one of those, he outlived his wife and the girlfriend afterwards, a widow herself, ended up pulling him back into the world and was a more compatible partner. So seeing that actually work, I prefer that over the Morrison “IMMA ENTER THE SUN AND WAIT 50,000 YEARS TO MAKE SMEXY CHROME LOIS.”

Superman Beyond wasn’t all that good a series but it approached Superman aging and inevitably having to retire Clark Kent as an identity really well.

When me and a friend were talking about “What I’d do if I was writing a run,” for the hundredth time, I threw out Golden Age (active in the 40s) Superman in modern day, outlived his cast, going to a support group for spousal loss and getting a new LI but the catch is the old guy is more scared of opening up, than facing a new Brainiac incarnation. It’d be one issue in the run but it’d jump between Supes fighting a crazy Mass Effect Reaper-style Brainiac and his support group and genuinely being more fucked up getting coffee with a widow in her 50s than fighting a cybernetic horror with fifth dimension tech.

 

[Captain Syrup]

Well Lois is usually pretty insufferable but that’s Clark’s type,

Yeah I dunno man. Unlike Wonder Woman, Lois doesn’t routinely solve problems by stabbing them and doesn’t seem to hate men just for existing. She yells at people and smokes.

IMMA ENTER THE SUN AND WAIT 50,000 YEARS TO MAKE SMEXY CHROME LOIS.

 

[el bandito loco]

It’s my KC bias but I like the idea of Wondy and Supes getting together after their mortal love interests are gone and time has passed, it makes the eternity awaiting Supes all the less lonely if Jon and Diana are going to be there with him.

I've always felt the same about this too. Although I will say I also have no problem with them dating when they're young like N52 did. It's the cheerleader quarterback thing, they never stay together. Clark is also like 23 in new 52. He's young as fuck. Of course Wonder Woman and him are drawn to each other and it makes sense, but unlike what ended up happening there I'd rather they just realize it's not working out and they care about each other too much to fuck it up dating and just be friends.

Lois Lane is Clark's soulmate or whatever but it doesn't mean they have to instantly get together and he's some sort of sexless incel until she gets together with him. In the CW Superman and Lois show in the last season or two there's a part where they reveal he lost his virginity to Lois on their wedding day or something, and it honestly offended me. I was like what the fuck? Who is this nigga superman? Idubbz? let's the first crumb of pussy he ever encounters walk all over him like a doormat.

There's a good issue in Joe Kelly's (I think) Supes run from the early 2000s where Wonder Woman comes and asks Clark to help her fight a war in Valhalla or something and he goes with her and time operates differently so they're gone like 200 or 2000 years or some shit but it's like a couple days or maybe even hours on earth. It's basically about how they both love each other, but aren't IN LOVE with each other.

New 52 Superman I went back and reread the entirety of a month or two ago and it overall gets a bad rap. the problem is the stories suck. Clark himself is great in most of it. It does have a problem where I think between books nobody is reading each other's work so he feels like a different guy between them sometimes.

 

[Mayor Cody Travers]

I'm not a fan of the Supes/Wondy romance as a general concept since it accidentally chains them together where one inevitably (usually Wondy) becomes a supporting character to the other (as it DEFINITELY does if it's Bats/Wondy), and then what's the point of Lois and Steve... but both of them together, when their original loves have passed on gracefully, is definitely a Future Timeline Development I could live with.

(damn, this didn't post when I thought it did)

 

[Humble Architect]

Wait? Is that true about CW Supes being a virgin up until his wedding night?

Kek, that show was so fucking gay. I remember S1 had Steel show up, it couldn’t just be normal John, no, it was a Steel from an alternate universe where him and his Lois sired a half-breed, that he brought with him.

The virgin CW Supes crumbles before the chad Post-Crisis Supes.


It will never not be funny that Clark invaded a party yacht, accidentally impersonating Bruce Wayne, lived the good life for a few days, then just walked away. Faggot nepo though Landis is, credit where credit is due, this is good comedy.

I'm not a fan of the Supes/Wondy romance as a general concept since it accidentally chains them together where one inevitably (usually Wondy) becomes a supporting character to the other (as it DEFINITELY does if it's Bats/Wondy), and then what's the point of Lois and Steve... but both of them together, when their original loves have passed on gracefully, is definitely a Future Timeline Development I could live with.

(damn, this didn't post when I thought it did)

Yeah, I prefer it in the future, it’s why KC is the ending I prefer for these characters, it’s not perfect and not everyone gets their happy ending but for the Post-Crisis gang, it feels right, especially Bruce and Clark aging into their Golden Age characterizations and it ending with Bruce being the Pa Kent/Alfred to the Super-Wonder children. The extended ending from Thy Kingdon Come still gets a stupid smile from me everytime I read it.

 

[Overly Serious]

I've read it, it's better than it has any right to be but the premise is inconceivably terrible.

It's okay, I have more respect for you than to think you'd criticise something you hadn't actually read. I pretty much know your views on this. We can debate it if you want to but as you know where I stand, I know where you stand, it wont only actually go anywhere after a few back and forth points.

The thing of there's no logical stopping point and that being Batman's point, is insane. that's equating killing a terrorist as a slope to killing your friends,

That's not actually what I meant. I'm not saying there's a "slippery slope" from killing terrorists (aka people who resist American hegemony) to killing your friends. The principle is this: All systems of morality and law are arbitrary. One could make a case that there's an objective basis for morality rooted in evolved instincts but it would be a quite woolly one. So once you make the decision that it's okay to reject morality, especially in a fundamental way such as murder, then I mean this just as I wrote: there's no logical point at which morality suddenly reasserts itself and becomes your governor again. If it's okay to kill one murderer, what is the logical argument that says it's not okay to kill another? If it's okay to kill, what makes it logically not okay to imprison someone? If cigarettes kill (Flash's example) why is it not okay to stop people from smoking? Morality is an arbitrary construct, if you are not bound by it, you may choose to stop at some point, but there's nothing that is a natural break where morality suddenly becomes non-arbitrary again. That's what Batman knows - that he's the sort of person who wouldn't stop. And that's what Superman becomes after the death of Lois - someone who will no longer stop.

When morality becomes arbitrary and set below what you know best, the only thing left to stop you is the consequences from the rest of society. And Superman, even more than Batman, is able to disregard those consequences.

 

[el bandito loco]

I'm not a fan of the Supes/Wondy romance as a general concept since it accidentally chains them together where one inevitably (usually Wondy) becomes a supporting character to the other (as it DEFINITELY does if it's Bats/Wondy), and then what's the point of Lois and Steve... but both of them together, when their original loves have passed on gracefully, is definitely a Future Timeline Development I could live with.

(damn, this didn't post when I thought it did)

I actually think in new 52 they did this really well, but the problem was it didn't get to any sort of organic conclusion because the DCYOU and Rebirth eras came and hit like a truck and threw Superman in the garbage and replaced him with himself from 5 years prior.

If it had stayed Superman/Wonder Woman for like a decade I'd have wanted it done and over with, but they had good chemistry, a believable relationship, it made sense, and was never going to last forever and that's what worked about it. Steve and Lois should be their respective "THE ONES", but I have no problem with them particularly as young/early career heroes branching out and dating around before they get with their intended people. it's what actual people do. and definitely when they're older I like it a lot because I don't like the idea of them never being happy and lonely forever at all, Lois and Steve wouldn't want that for either of them.

In general I will say New 52 Superman as a whole despite the inconsistency of the character is more "my" Superman in characterization then I ever realized at the time or the last time I read through it. He's Clark Kent reporter, first and foremost. He does stories nobody else gives a shit about trying to raise awareness of stuff fuck what the editors and other reporters say, as Superman he does NOT fuck around, he knows he's the heavy, and doesn't shy from that. He listens to the other heroes, but stands his ground on basically anything and everything when it's an issue of right and wrong, but his position is to protect life and the greater good, make the big decisions. Grek Pak's run on Action is good with this.

It's a shame people look back on it so badly because a lot of the actual material is pretty good, they just didn't do anything interesting with him and only like half of the writers who handled him got it. He does also have two of my all time favorite big badass action moments I've ever seen Superman do in mainline comics and that's these

 

[Overly Serious]

Faggot nepo though Landis is, credit where credit is due, this is good comedy.

Landis is neither. His dad is a famous director too, but Jr. inherited the talent. He's got an excellent track record of writing. The comic you mention is one of the best Clark Kents. Bits of the Snyder "real man with real anger" but without the lack of humour or one note way of doing it. And outside of comics, Landis did the way underrated Dirk Gently series for Netflix. Bright with Will Smith wasn't really my sort of thing but it was very well done.

And all of this got cancelled because it was the height of the Me Too era and an actress who in interview said that she fantastised about raping people and that if there were some Purge-like suspension of law that's what she'd like to do, accused him on Twitter and he got dropped. And we lost a bunch of good media because of it. Never any prosecution or even established evidence. Guy is genuinely talented.

 

[el bandito loco]

It's okay, I have more respect for you than to think you'd criticise something you hadn't actually read. I pretty much know your views on this. We can debate it if you want to but as you know where I stand, I know where you stand, it wont only actually go anywhere after a few back and forth points.

yeah, and I will say I don't think the comic is bad or anything, I do actually like that first Injustice prequel comic a lot. It's sequels, not so much and I never read the He-Man crossover because I was under the impression there was probably a DC Masters of the Universe run prior to it I hadn't read (which I still don't know if there is) and forgot about it lol.

And I know what you were getting at with the morality thing and in the context of the comic I think it works okay, I just will never buy that Superman from that world after what happened would end up like that, really just because the revenge killing of the Joker is my real issue because despite the cause of it, the world being just the normal DCU imo makes that reaction out of character. It works better in the game, where we have no idea what that world was like beforehand and I can just assume everything was darker or more fucked up from the jump, but in the comic you see it was business as usual before. But again that's the fault of the game's set up and the comic has to do the same thing.

I work nights and was phone posting and barely awake when I responded to you earlier so I didn't really get into the weeds on the context of what you were saying but my serious problem comes down to having him revenge kill Joker and it's all boiled down to the world around him not justifying that domino fall as it's presented as a typical DCU.

On the subject of that comic though, I never understood why with the popularity of Injustice they didn't just animate it verbatim as an adult animated series and instead shit out that movie that tried to condense the comics and the game and failed at both. Retarded. I would have loved just that as a cartoon show. Not in 80 minutes or whatever.

and on Max Landis, I agree. I like pretty much everything he's ever done I just think he as a person is annoying as fuck. he's gotten Clark Kent as a character better than anyone else who's worked at DC in the last 15 years for the most part.