Stupid

I’m a fan of the Superman character, more importantly his character origin the way it was introduced since the 30s. Truth, justice, and the American way type stuff… always making the harder decision for the good of everything involved. It would even seem that his fight against criminals and their imminent defeat seemed to be something that Superman felt was the right, or good thing to do not just for mankind’s sake, but also for the sake of his villains. Superman and Batman share qualities of non-lethal handling of their problems, in spite of their abilities to do so with extreme effectiveness. With Superman however, the character is so overpowered it makes writing for him difficult and so for many purists this makes him a bit annoying. I understand, and this is why Superman 2 was so freaking amazing, and why Superman Returns albeit visually nice, was ultimately disappointing.

Taken from a nerd board I frequent:

I never got on the bandwagon of Supes. I mean he just doesn’t make sense. I never have and will never believe that fiction means you can’t analyze it. Superman has all these unrelated powers, Super Strength, Super Speed, Heat vison, X-ray vision, Infrared vision, Telescopic vision, super hearing, Precise muscle control, flight, ice breath, and Super hypnotism! And what gives him his powers, yellow sunlight. Well to be fair, yellow sunlight and the higher gravity of Kyrpton. Couple this eclectic array of powers, the fact that he is unstoppable besides from a rock, and he can be hurt by magic, and his boy scout personality just doesn’t add up. I’ve heard the arguments that he also has Super goodness or it was his upbringing that made him the way he is, but that just doesn’t cut it for my suspension of disbelief. I mean if I had just one of his powers in teenagerdom I would have started some trouble. Not saying I would go right to crime or ruling the world, but I’m not being Super goody either. His attitude, powers, and just him are too unbelievable. It makes me despise him as a person and character. Superman is flawed character, that never got out of the “Wouldn’t it be cool?” phase. Like Wouldn’t it be cool if he could fly? Wouldn’t it be cool if he could freeze stuff with his breath? Granted I will admit, The Kill Bill Superman speech was awesome, his World of Cardboard speech in Justice League Unlimited was also pretty cool, but I just can’t stand him.

If you have any thoughts, please feel free to share them.

I mean if I had just one of his powers in teenagerdom I would have started some trouble. Not saying I would go right to crime or ruling the world, but I’m not being Super goody either. His attitude, powers, and just him are too unbelievable. It makes me despise him as a person and character.

If “I” this, if “I” that…

The thing about comic books and other fantasy stories/characters that get created is how people apply themselves to the role. The thing that makes me disagree with this guy/girl (you never know) is that they apply the character to them as a person and make judgments on the character and their characteristics based on themselves as the person.

The truth is, you can’t do that. The creators of Superman, Batman, Spiderman, the Hulk, etc… made the comic book characters as intended. Like them or hate them for what they are, and not because you can’t project yourself to your liking on how you would be the one wearing the cape, the cowl, the suit, or the purple shorts.

Superman has all these unrelated powers, Super Strength, Super Speed, Heat vison, X-ray vision, Infrared vision, Telescopic vision, super hearing, Precise muscle control, flight, ice breath, and Super hypnotism! And what gives him his powers, yellow sunlight. Well to be fair, yellow sunlight and the higher gravity of Kyrpton. Couple this eclectic array of powers, the fact that he is unstoppable besides from a rock, and he can be hurt by magic, and his boy scout personality just doesn’t add up.

There is a reason he is called “Superman”. For the exception of his powers of vision, I’m not sure where the rest of them are unrelated. Humans have measures of strength, speed, vision too for that matter, athletic conditioning, leaping, blowing on something to cool it off, or to warm your hands. We also draw a certain amount of nourishment from the light of our yellow sun. Superman has all of these things, just exponentially more. We have the ability to discern right from wrong and make decisions based on those perceptions. Super. Man. Superman.

So the character of Superman does all these things better than we do. He makes the right decision all the time it seems, he believes in something greater than himself which is humanity (he’s Kryptonian after all) and by golly he’s really good at it! Better than us humans. I’m starting to think that people who dislike Superman because of their inability to relate to him and his near perfection is because of subliminal jealousy and a lack of hope in humans. How do you stand there and observe something you can never achieve, and not feel bad about it?

Granted I will admit, The Kill Bill Superman speech was awesome, his World of Cardboard speech in Justice League Unlimited was also pretty cool, but I just can’t stand him.

Here’s the Kill Bill Speech (if you are offended by any amount of language I apologize) the Superman speech point stops at 2:15, anything beyond that is up to you and your curiosity:

Here’s the Superman “world of cardboard” speech:

“That man won’t quit as long as he can still draw a breath. None of my teammates will. Me? I’ve got a different problem. I feel like I live in a world made of… cardboard, always taking constant care not to break something, to break someone. Never allowing myself to lose control even for a moment, or someone could die. But you can take it, can’t you, big man? What we have here is a rare opportunity for me to cut loose and show you just how powerful I really am.”
— Superman, Justice League Unlimited

Here’s the video… you might enjoy it.

It makes me despise him as a person and character.

Character not being liked for aforementioned reasons, understandable. Person/ality not being liked for aforementioned reasons, not understandable. I’m having a hard time wondering why some people see Superman’s moral staunchness as some kind of imperfection. I don’t mean to be psychological about this, but it’s rather disconcerting that our literary heroes are required to have some kind of flaw that brings them down to our level instead of being a standard for what is good. I really do hope that someone with that much power and responsibility has the consistency of character to be self-less. It’s like a few people would rather live vicariously through their heroes humanity and wishfully imagine their lives as that hero just as long as they can relate to them, which I don’t find any measurable fault in, except their logic which would seek to look down on Superman and his boy scout reputation as some kind of flaw. To me, that doesn’t make sense in that the idea of Superman is supposed to be one that is hopeful, some type of deviation from life’s real moments of hopelessness that our suspension of disbelief can take some time to think of better things and perhaps push people to be straight up and honest with what they know to be right, and to be an adversary for the things they know are wrong and be that ideological definition in a world that’s bent on living in the gray. Again, not meaning to be psychological about it, but ideologies of good vs. evil are important because that’s what measures our superheroes vs. their villains and gives us that separation to see what good and evil is in the world of comics. Someone mentioned earlier that they hate Superman because they hate extremely ideological people… that in itself is an ideology that will get the human race to a real quick sterilization of everything from culture to morals… and that’ll be the end of all things comic and entertaining.

So we finally get to the point of why I’m even taking the time to argue for Superman. Good vs. Evil, or Right vs. Wrong is no longer a driving force in socio-cultural growth, instead it has been relegated to a fight between two ideologies each with extremes. This sterilization, and in some cases, neutering, has come into the land of politics, entertainment, etc. We no longer praise good works, instead we mock it as a goody two shoe. We glorify the flaws in the name of good storytelling to the point of creating within ourselves flaws that don’t exist for the sake being validated in flaw-glorifying culture, and would instead spoof the good works as if they are a self-righteous projection of judgment and intolerance. The Passion of the Christ is a great movie, but the subject matter was not without controversy, accusations of bigotry, claims of anti-semitism, etc. Jesus, the son of God, the Messiah, the greatest being, whether human or god, to ever walk through world literature or into the beliefs of millions everywhere. People aren’t capable of respecting the belief that God came down to us, but instead we’d rather make it about ourselves and how we can reach transcendence, or how we can make things better, or how we are all that matters… and we take offense at a belief in a deity that requires us to acknowledge our shortcomings and to instead go against our natural inclinations into choosing to live a true life of selflessness and harmony by uniting under one common belief in the work and person of Jesus Christ.

So, even in the land of comics and superheroes, especially something that is without debate a fantasy… we can see the human rejection (with or without the story-telling device shortcomings Superman has been) of a flawless super being, who has been written as the accepting, responsibility taking, adopted son of Earth who chooses to be Earth’s sworn protector from bad guys worldly or alien, even to the possibility of protecting the Earth from himself by having given Batman kryptonite “just in case”. Somehow we get this:

It makes me despise him as a person and character.

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