Stop making Superman Evil!

So DC recently had their big Fan Dome event which was basically just a bunch of Comic-con panels but done via a livestream. There were some decent announcements. Gotham Knights looks ok though the RPG elements will likely ruin the experience as they have to many other games in the past. Wonder Women 84 continues to look decent despite the horrendous CG on Cheetah, also fuck the eighties, I'm sick to death of the eighties. The Batman, looks really sick actually, legit looking forward to this and Black Adam despite that only being a teaser. There were many things shown but the one I want to highlight is the newest game by Rocksteady, Suicide Squad kills The Justice League.

We didn't get any gameplay, just a cinematic trailer, but it already looks more promising than the Suicide Squad movies. At least it has a small cast so we can get to know them better rather than trying to cram a dozen characters into one movie leaving them badly developed as a result. The trailer was pretty good, until you got to the ending. At the very end of the trailer Superman shows up to save a helicopter pilot as Superman is want to do, only to then turn on said pilot and blast him with a heat beam to his frontal lobe. Folks, Sonic the Hedgehog couldn't roll as fast as my eyes did when that scene happened. Because I am sick to death of “Superman is eeeeeeeeeeeevil” stories.

Not that I don't understand why they keep doing this. Superman more than any other hero in comic books has struggled with the perception that they are a boring character. That he's nothing more than a big blue boy scout who's totally overpowered and that Batman is more interesting character because he's more human. Now most of the people who think this have likely never actually read a Superman comic because if they had, they would realise that Superman is actually far more human than they give him credit for.

Superman is overpowered because, that's kind of the point. Superman's story is about a god trying to live amongst mortal men. He has these fantastic powers and yet he uses them selflessly to help those who can't help themselves, to fight for truth, justice and the American way. Whenever I see people refer to him as Kal-El I die a little inside. Because he isn't Kal-El, he's Clark Kent. He was born Kal-El but was raised as Clark Kent, he's not some visitor from a far off world he's a dude from Kansas. It's why whenever he's given a choice he chooses Earth over Krypton, because Earth is his home.

Look at the ending of the first Superman movie where he saves Lois by turning back time. If you actually pay attention to the scene and not just mock it because “LOLZ!!!!! that's not how physics work you silly” you'd realise it's an important scene that establishes Superman's priorities. Superman hears two voices during this scene, one of Jor-El telling him that interfering with human destiny is forbidden and one of Jonathan Kent telling him he was sent here for a reason. By saving Lois' life he is rejecting his Kryptonian father in favour of his Earth one, because he's Clark Kent before he's Superman. And can I just say that I vastly prefer Superman being with Lois Lane over Wonder Woman. The relationship with Lois has thematic and dramatic weight to it because it's a god falling in love with a human and therefore he attempts to be more human to be with her. Superman being with Wonder Woman is a god falling in love with another god, where's the story in that?

Look I could go on and on about this but it won't actually help anything. No matter how much I try to defend Superman the fact of the matter is that people have this perception that Superman is a boring character. Thus DC have tried to make him more “interesting” and “relatable” over the years. Most of the time this simply means depowering him so he isn't so ridiculously OP. So I guess making Superman evil is just an attempt to make him more “interesting” because, being evil is better than being a boy scout? I guess.

The problem is that it very rarely is interesting. I love a good redemption arc. Seeing a character struggle with what they've become and trying to better themselves is a great story to tell. Good redemption arcs though are slow, it takes time to fully redeem a character which is why most of the best redemption arcs take place over an entire series. A character turning evil is basically a reverse version of a redemption arc but it requires just as deft a hand. Obviously such stories happen much faster, after all falling off a mountain is quicker than climbing it, but it still requires showing a characters inner struggle before succumbing to their darkness. But almost every “Superman is eeeeeevil” storyline doesn't do this. Most of the time it's either, “Superman was always evil” or “Superman has one bad day and suddenly he's now evil”. It's boring. For as botched as it was, Anakin Skywalker's fall to the dark side in the prequel trilogy was better than most “Superman is eeeeeeeevil” stories. At least that had actual fucking build up.

Now, when I call it a “Superman is eeeeeeevil” story I'm not just referring to Superman himself. Because even Superman parodies follow the same mould. The most well known at this point is probably The Boys character Homelander. This doesn't bother me too much since it's meant to be a parody, it makes sense, the problem is that it's not clever anymore.

See I'm not against the idea of a “Superman is eeeeeevil” story because there is potential in it. There are even some I actually enjoy. The Injustice games are great but it made sense to do the story there because it's a fighting game and they need a reason why the DC universe is beating each other senseless. Then there's the Justice Lords storyline in the Justice League cartoon series. There are good stories where Superman is evil, the problem is there's too many of them. here's just a few off the top of my head, Irredeemable, Injustice, Superman Red Son, the Justice Lords episode in Justice League cartoon (and the various multiverse stories it was based on), Brightburn, The Boys, Superman 3 and the Marvel character Hyperion. It's been done so often it's become passé. I remember when Brightburn came out and everyone was shocked, “omg, it's like an evil Superman” and I just shook my head and went “And?”

The idea of doing this kind of story is to explore what would happen if all that power was in the hands of an insane lunatic or a deeply flawed human. Not a bad question to ask, once. But by the second and third times you ask it the point has already been made. They keep doing it to “deconstruct” Superman but at this point there's nothing left to deconstruct. We get it, people are assholes. I can learn that just by browsing Twitter. It's a well so dry at this point it makes the Sahara look moist. It isn't fresh, new or interesting anymore. So why do they keep doing it?

Honestly I blame the increasing cynicism in society. Not that I blame anyone for doing so. In a day and age where the news media runs a 24 hour service designed to show how fucked up the world is I can't blame people for becoming increasingly pessimistic. At this point the news media is less a provider of information than a daily provider of black-pills. You don't even have to look far to see the cynicism either. Look at how people are acting in just this year alone, this horrible fucking year that keeps kicking us when we're down.

Point is, with people becoming more and cynical they don't want a hero like Superman. They want something darker. They want a hero with flaws, someone they can relate too. Why do you think Marvel movies are so popular right now? But I would argue it's because of the cynical times we live in that Superman is more important now than he ever was. We need some optimism lest we all become complete assholes.

This isn't a new phenomenon either. In the 1990's comic books were all about grim a gritty heroes. This was the decade that gave us Spawn after all. We were all about heroes that were more than willing too kill people, heroes with a grey morality. We ate that shit up. This was also the decade where the whole “Superman is boring” trope began to crop up, or at least where it started to pick up steam. People didn't want Superman, they wanted dark anti-heroes like Venom, Spawn and, god help us all, Young Blood. There's actually a couple of good stories that directly dealt with this like Kingdom Come but there's one in particular I want to talk about.

The story is called “What's so funny about Truth, Justice and the American Way” which was published in Action Comics #775 but I recommend checking out the movie adaptation called Superman vs The Elite. The story was written as a response to the rising popularity of a comic book series called The Authority, which was about a bunch of “heroes” who were more than willing to do morally questionable if not outright villainous acts to achieve their goals. Superman vs The Elite features our big blue boy scout going up against one such group that pushes him to the absolute limit. Questioning his beliefs, trying to push him into thinking their ways are superior and no matter what they do he doesn't budge an inch. It's a great story that reaffirms why Superman is important and I recommend you check it out.

But let's bring this back to the start. I do not think Suicide Squad kills The Justice will be a bad game. I am hoping it doesn't fall into the whole online co-op/games as service crap like the upcoming Avengers game and is more focused on being a good single-player experience but for now it looks alright. The characters look fun and I'm glad Rocksteady have moved away from the dark aesthetic of the Arkham games and are trying something new. I'm just tired, really tired of Superman being evil. It's boring and played out.

And as an extra aside, can I add that grimdark Superman needs to die as well. I don't want a dark Superman, if I wanted a dark superhero I can always go read Batman. Superman should be bright and colourful because he's supposed to be a symbol of optimism. Let him be that symbol. Superman should be the ultimate beacon of all that's good and wholesome. Stop trying to shoehorn his ass into a villain role because “ZOMG deconstruction!” We're tired of deconstruction! It would be more avant-garde to just do a straight up superhero story at this point. Let's stop trying to deconstruct everything, write some decent stories for a change and for the love of all that is holy, let Superman be fucking Superman!! Until next time, remember to stay safe and have fun.