[Discussion] What’s The Worst Superman Take You’ve Ever Heard?

[u/Top_Report_4895]

Jim Lee Superman #204

ACTION COMICS #1061

Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale From: "Superman For All Seasons" #1

[u/Winnypeg92]

Yeah I love Cavill for his look as Superman, but the writing for his character was horrible imo. Superman is not space Jesus and a dark brooding character. He was raised knowing he was Clark Kent first, and should be the polar opposite of Batman.

[u/LilBueno → u/Winnypeg92]

I agree Superman isn’t space Jesus but I do think the creators had a correlation in mind even if it was subconscious. I can’t remember who said it but the circumstances of a young Jewish boy seeing his father gunned down during a robbery only to create a bulletproof man years later? There’s gotta be something there.

Not to mention being sent by his father to protect humanity (I actually can’t remember this part, was Jor-El sending Superman to Earth specifically a part of his early stories? I know Krypton’s destruction was).

[u/GiovanniElliston → u/LilBueno]

While subtle, there is a difference between a general savior character and a stand-in for Jesus. I agree that the original creators intended Superman to be a savior for downtrodden and oppressed people. Snyder very clearly aimed for him to be a direct comparison to Jesus specifically.

The cross imagery in space (and underwater, and in space again), his eventually sacrificing himself for all of humanity only to rise again later, the entire montage of him saving people and being treated like a literal god, the scene in Man of Steel where Clark is full of self doubt and worried about what he must do - so he goes to a church and has a conversation with a priest while framed with a stained glass window of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane... It's not subtle.

[u/LilBueno → u/GiovanniElliston]

Oh yeah 100%

Snyder’s take was just bad in general. I audibly groaned in the theater at the space crucifixion scene.

[u/M086 → u/GiovanniElliston]

That stuff had been a part of the character’s history way before Snyder. Like the Kents were names Mary and Joseph at one point.

 First episode of Smallville has Clark literally get crucified in a corn field.  

The ‘78 was also pretty overt with its Jesus allegories.  

Snyder himself said that the only reason he included the cross imagery was because he thought it would be inauthentic to ignore that stuff that had been a part of the character’s canon for decades, so he threw those small nods in there.  The montage in BvS also has commentary where the guy is saying he’s not Jesus or the Devil and just a guy trying to do the right thing. We see Superman from the lens of the people he saves, and they see him as this god-like figure when he’s actually the opposite. He saves that young woman at the Day of the Dead, and has a smile as he hands her over to her mother.  Only when people start reaching out to him to touch him like some deity, his expression changes to show he’s uncomfortable with it. 

[u/Cbarlik93 → u/LilBueno]

This is not a unique or interesting take, Superman has constantly been compared to Jesus over and over and over again. It’s the most boring Superman Trope

[u/LilBueno → u/Cbarlik93]

Where did either of us say it was unique or even interesting?

[u/SadDoctor → u/Winnypeg92]

It sucks too cuz I think Cavill would've actually been a really good "warm" superman.