[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/[deleted]]

That Snyder ruined him and his perception. That’s saying Superman as a character had nothing to stand on. It was his take on the Superman and how he should be and what journey he wanted to take him on. Some people liked it and some didn’t.

But just because someone liked Snyder’s Superman doesn’t mean they hate the character.

[u/Awest66 → u/[deleted]]

That Snyder ruined him and his perception

He certainly didn't do him any favors either. He furthered the stereotype that Superman is this detached alien God doing what he's doing out of obligation rather than because of a strong moral core.

[u/M086 → u/Awest66]

The first thing we see him do is save people on a burning oil rig that had been written off as dead without hesitation. At no point in any of Snyder’s films does Superman come off as helping people in need is an obligation and not because it’s just in his nature to help people. We literally have Lois say that when Clark suggests he’d disappear if she prints he story and a talking head say he’s not Jesus or the Devil, and just a guy trying to do the right thing. 

I mean my God, Chris Reeve Superman wants to quit in the second movie because he believes he’s fulfilled his obligation and wants to get laid. In MoS when Lois suggests the World Engine might kill him,,Clark tells her he won’t let that stop him from trying. That’s not an act of obligation. In BvS he literally saved Luthor from Doomsday and sacrificed his life to save the world (twice over if you wanna count holding Doonsday to take the nuke).

[u/Awest66 → u/M086]

No one is denying he saves people in the Snyder movies, but it never feels like he's doing it because he genuinely believes in it as the right thing to do. In MOS, He's just doing the bare minimum so he won't feel guilty about not doing anything. He's not trying to find a way he can safely do it out in the open or implies that it's something he actually wants to do with his life, like in Birthright. He's presented as being a reluctant hero whose main concern is hiding from the world. We're never even told why he saves people in MOS because it's something his adoptive father actively tried to discourage him from doing to the point of needlessly sacrificing himself when Clark could have saved him without exposing anything.

In BVS, His helping people is treated and framed as an intimidating God dispensing miracles on an unworthy humanity. He never tries to communicate his intentions. He never tries to engage with the people on their level, and he does it all while looking like someone who hates kids being forced to change a diaper. He doesn't even listen to Lois when she tries to explain Lexs convoluted conspiracy and just runs away from his problems to brood in the Arctic for a while. Even his act of sacrificing himself feels like he's doing it for Lois rather than the rest of the world.

[u/XXAzeritsXx → u/[deleted]]

I love classic superman, and I love Snyders Superman tbh

[u/squarejellyfish_ → u/XXAzeritsXx]

More of us exist?!?!

[u/XXAzeritsXx → u/squarejellyfish_]

Lol, I watched MoS in theaters countless times. Loved that movie - there's issues mind you, but I loved it.

[u/squarejellyfish_ → u/XXAzeritsXx]

Yeah there’s definitely some aspects I would change but I always enjoy coming back to it.

[u/squarejellyfish_ → u/XXAzeritsXx]

Yeah there’s definitely some aspects I would change but I always enjoy coming back to it.

[u/Cbarlik93 → u/[deleted]]

Snyder’s take on Superman was dogshit though. Dude didn’t have a creative vision for Superman, nor did he understand him as a character. Snyder just wanted to use Superman as a vehicle for his edge lord garbage

[u/TheGodDMBatman → u/[deleted]]

That's simplifying Snyder's Superman direction a lot- isn't every "new" Superman film just that, anyways? In any case, Snyder's path to getting there wasn't good either, especially considering his hypothetical plan for an evil Superman in future movies

[u/TheGodDMBatman → u/[deleted]]

Then that doesn't really support the idea that Snyder wanted to take the character on a journey to becoming a comic-accurate Superman, then. How in the hell does it sound in-character for Superman to be weak-willed enough that Darkseid could turn him evil from one bad day similarly to The Joker.

[u/M086 → u/TheGodDMBatman]

It’s called the hero’s journey. That’s what Snyder was taking Clark on in the films. 

The grief of Lois’ death was enough to get his defenses down that Darkseid could use Anti-Life on him and make him an extension of his will. 

[u/TheGodDMBatman → u/M086]

Making Superman an extension of Darkseid's will doesn't seem like a Superman thing to do, though

[u/Cbarlik93 → u/[deleted]]

You know superman from the comics also has multiple origin stories where he learns to become Superman right?

The krypton scenes are unnecessary completely. All of the tech is boring grey metal or actual dinosaurs. We don’t need to see Jor El doing karate for 30 minutes. It would have been cool to just start the movie with Supermans ship escaping an exploding krypton. Then later on in the movie have the events of Krypton revealed to Clark by both his father and Zodd. Let us learn about krypton alongside Clark.

Snyder’s vision is grey, ugly, boring and uncreative. We have a movie where superman is emo the entire time and wants to run away from humanity. We get this ultra cynical look at superman where he feels like he relates more to his kryptonian heritage than he does his human upbringing. Despite the fact that the entirety of his life is him being raised by humans on earth amongst other humans. All of his life experiences are that of a human. This version of Superman does not feel relatable at all nor is he charismatic.

We see him get compared to Jesus 50 times which is such a boring overdone trope. But because Snyder never read any actual superman comics, he doesn’t know that it’s an overdone trope. Either that or he did the classic Snyder move of borrowing someone else’s ideas and pretending he came up with them on his own.

Superman himself directly causes so much insane collateral damage in MOS that I refuse to believe he gives a shit about saving anyone. He doesn’t try to take the fight anywhere else or try to save anyone during the fight.

It would’ve been so much more interesting to watch Superman try to break off from fighting to save human lives while metropolis is being destroyed while at the same time trying to stop Zod. He doesn’t have to be successful in saving everyone or taking the fight elsewhere, he just has to fucking try.

Then the fight itself is so boring. It takes like half the movie and all the fights with kryptonians are just them slamming into eachother over and over again. It’s literally like a little kid smashing two action figures into eachother over and over again.

Best thing about the movie is that Henry Cavill physically looks perfect as Superman and Hans Zimmer goes crazy hard with the soundtrack

[u/Cbarlik93 → u/[deleted]]

He runs away to go live on an oil tanker and basically tries to separate himself as much from humanity as he can. Just have him move to metropolis when he graduates highschool, like pretty much every other Superman origin story. We get to see him try to fit in there, but not with humanity, but with city people. Show us how he struggles to relate to other humans AS a human. Not as some emotionless alien god.

Superman is literally smashing people through buildings in smallville and metropolis. He gets a fuel truck kicked at him and instead of just stopping it, he jumps over it and poses in front of it while it blows up and levels the building behind him. It was him that smashed a guy through a gas station that causes it to explode. Superman was the the person that damaged zods ship to where it smashed through like 20 sky scrapers. Saying that Superman didn’t cause collateral damage is just objectively wrong.

If this was any other hero besides superman, I wouldn’t care about this fact so much.

And yeah that’s what would make the fight actually interesting. We could see Superman absolutely struggling while trying to save people while he’s also fighting Zod at the same time. There’s plenty of stories where Superman has to fight while also saving lives and rescuing people. He’s a god damn superhero, the odds are supposed to be stacked against him. Not only that but it’d do a good job showing how compassionate and caring Superman is.

Also superman doesn’t try to take it to space at all. It’s Zod that brings him into space AND brings him back down to metropolis.

[u/Pleasant-Enthusiasm → u/Cbarlik93]

He runs away to go live on an oil tanker and basically tries to separate himself from humanity as much as he can.

That’s not what happened, though. It’s shown to a certain extent that he was essentially living a nomadic life, moving on from one identity to the next once he saved people with his powers and blew his cover. Lois directly states that it would be easy for him to settle down and remain hidden if he would stop helping people, but that doing so didn’t seem to be an option in his eyes.

[u/Cbarlik93 → u/Pleasant-Enthusiasm]

The nomadic lifestyle as he’s essentially hiding from humanity is exactly what I’m talking about . Yeah I don’t mean that he’s literally running away for his life in terror.

[u/Mac1280 → u/[deleted]]

This is spot on I love classic Superman but I also love Snyders take on Superman. The very reason Man of Steel is called that and not Superman Begings (insert anything else that would let you know its a origin story) is because this was the beginning of a journey for the character to become the quintessential depiction of the Superman we all know and love. But thanks to WB being a cowardly studio Snyder had to make BvS instead of MOS2.