Alan Moore had a couple of interesting takes on him, I think.

And then there's Homelander from The Boys. That's a fun character...

Final episode of S2 tomorrow...

Unlikely wrote:

Ah, forgot S2 was going up.  Will give that a go once I've got through the rest of Shitt's Creek.

Absolutely finished Schitt first.

Out of interest, why is this thread in this area of the forks? Just wondering.

Superman is an unbelievably shit name/title. Yet somehow we al got inured to it early enough and now it just sounds normal

I think I've said much of this before, so apologies if I'm repeating myself.

When I was a kid I thought Superman was dumb. I was firmly in the "he's massively overpowered, and so he's pointless" camp - a position emboldened by the increasingly ridiculous schemes writers would cook up to try and introduce some level of peril for him. Worse still, I thought he was a metaphor for brawn over brains.  The big strong guy who repeatedly defeats nerdy old genius Lex Luther.

As I've got older though I've come to the view that the core character is brilliant - but that he's rarely well written.

What I really enjoy about Superman is that, yes, he's insanely powerful, but that he has one fundamental weakness - namely his morality.  It's why Lex, a man with no superpowers, but absolutely no morals either, is his perfect (and most enduring) foe.

Lex knows all you have to do to defeat Superman is push an old lady in front of a bus at just the right moment and he'll feel compelled to save her. You don't need kryptonite, lack of sunlight, or planet destroying aliens from another dimension.  You just need to present him with the trolley problem, and watch him go mad trying to save everyone.

For me, Superman is about how, even with insane power, trying to be a "good person" is an ongoing battle - one you have to keep setting out to win on a daily basis.  Lots of people talk about him being a symbol of hope, and I guess he is, but in my head its the hope of being a slightly better person, rather than that someone else is going to swoop in and save us all.

I wonder if the public, particularly the American cinema goer would accept a heavily conflicted Superman.
He has become a bit of an Uncle Sam style icon for patriots.

hahaha

LivDiv wrote:

I wonder if the public, particularly the American cinema goer would accept a heavily conflicted Superman.
He has become a bit of an Uncle Sam style icon for patriots.

Is that not what man of steel tried for?

I think my favourite aspect of superman is that donnie darko “why are you wearing that stupid human suit” thing.

Most super heroes are shown as needing to wear a disguise to protect something because they aren’t infininite enough. But super man wears a human costume (note the face covering - that’s the disguise) even though he’s powerful enough to protect the whole world (even reverse time!). Maybe he sees being Clark Kent as one of those people who beat dark souls using the guitar hero kit. Can he make super noodles using a kettle even though he could boil the water just looking at it and so on.

I never really got into the DC side of things as a kid. It was on the Marvel side for me; Fantastic Four and Spiderman being the bulk of the super-hero comics by bro and I read. Most Marvel comic reading was hit and miss and nothing seemed to be regular but we did get a "proper" UK Spiderman comic in the late 80s-early 80s my brother got every week when I moved to 2000AD.

MattyJ wrote:

Was there a superman story where people just stopped giving a shit about their personal safety because they knew superman would save them? Or am I making that up?

No, thats the world we live in. Except Trump is the Superman

davyK wrote:

I never really got into the DC side of things as a kid. It was on the Marvel side for me; Fantastic Four and Spiderman being the bulk of the super-hero comics by bro and I read. Most Marvel comic reading was hit and miss and nothing seemed to be regular but we did get a "proper" UK Spiderman comic in the late 80s-early 80s my brother got every week when I moved to 2000AD.

Much the same Davy. You're maybe a bit out with your dates though. The UK comic The Mighty World of Marvel featuring The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and The Hulk, debuted in 1972.


Spider-Man proved wildly popular, and was given his own comic, Spider-Man Comics Weekly, a year later in 1973, and also featured Thor and Iron Man.


I read that from issue no.2. Issue no.1 was sold out everywhere, following a tv advert featuring a live action Spider-Man advertising the launch, and that 1st issue came with a free Spider-Man mask.
Commercial is impossible to find, but it was very much in this vein...


I remember being gutted that me and my dad couldn't find a copy anywhere (I must have been driving him nuts), but there were amazing scenes when a week later he came through the door from work with a copy of issue 2

Where it all gets murky of course is the myriad re-brandings the UK Marvel comics had as the years went by, so there's a strong chance you maybe started reading on a re-brand launch.

Like you, I moved to 2000AD when it launched in 1977, but I was already on the path to that via the hyper-violent and short-lived Action comic.



Anyhoo, Superman. Never read much of DC Comics. They were the sort of thing you'd pick up to read when on your summer holidays, as they were just random U.S. issues at the time. I did used to enjoy the cartoons on the telly when I was wee though...


and later, his dog Krypto proved to be a favourite...

When I was a kid, superman went through a wild change where he went blue and became a cool electric guy. I loved it.

I also have The Wedding Album which is a deluxe package where he finally gets married to Lois. It is a garbage issue.

I remember seeing that on newsround.