Lots of thoughts on "deconstructing Superman"

Previously, I discovered a youtube channel called Overly Sarcastic Productions, that did a few videos on Superman and "gritty realism". I really enjoyed those, and agreed with basically everything they said.

They have since published a couple of new Superman related videos that I enjoyed just as much, and they apparently triggered a bit of an avalanche of thoughts and opinions that I just had to write down. 😅

Video 1: Satirizing Superman

"You can't write a deconstruction if you don't understand what makes the thing you're deconstructing work in the first place".  

Clark is 'human'

21:04: "...I think that a thing that gets brought up a lot in the 'what if Superman were evil' takes is, 'oh you know how could he possibly relate to humans, they're like ants to him' you know, blah blah blah"

This is one of many examples of writers just not getting Superman. Clark sees himself as a human. He's been raised human. While he's obviously very different from a human physically, mentally, he's not. Zod's like "let's remake earth as our home", and Clark's like, "This is my home!".

There's a bit in Superman/Wonder Woman #3 that I really liked, where Batman is talking to Clark about why he feels "relatively comfortable" working with him, despite his powers and the damage he could theoretically do: "It's because you were raised human, even though you aren't human. You consider us your home team. I think you see yourself as an ordinary person who just happens to be capable of some exceptional things."

This, I feel, is the core of the character.

Superman/Wonder Woman #3

I really think that Clark would never go for any "evil Superman" scenario, because it goes against this so thoroughly. It depends on who's writing him of course, but I feel like Clark at the very core just wants a normal, "boring" life. As evident by the comic/episode of JLU they're discussing in the video, "for the man who has everything". His heart's deepest desire is literally just a happy life. So he relates to humans because he wants what they're having. And a world that hates him wouldn't fit that wish? Ruling humanity is just not something he wants.

Then the guys in the video go on to talk about the same points I'm trying to make above, about him seeing himself as human:

41:16: "Superman is Clark Kent's 'customer service voice'. Superman is what Clark Kent puts on to deal with the stuff he needs to deal with. And I think that's very important because it really drives home, like, Superman doesn't think of himself as this godly higher being, he thinks of himself as Clark Kent, good old boy from Kansas, just doing his part."

"Yeah, that that's where the compassion comes from because he thinks of himself as another human"

And this reminds me of that scene in "The Death of Superman", the animated film, where Clark has just sat down with Lois and told her his secret. I've talked a bit about this before here. And she's freaking out a bit about it, and he replies, "Listen, Lois, I'm just a guy from a small town, who wants to do the right thing." ❤

1:11:47: "maybe it's okay to just have a character who's good, and the whole point is that they can do anything, and choose to be good every time no matter what"

Man, it's so nice to listen to someone who A) like the character a lot, B) share almost 100% of my opinions, and C) are way better at putting it into words than me.

As a symbol of hope

44:11: "...and Clark Kent does not believe his own hype. He does not believe he's like a god among men, he doesn't believe he's better than anybody, he doesn't believe any of that stuff. He's just a guy doing his best. I think it's very important that Clark does not actually think of himself as this ideal exemplar of hope."

Yes! I've talked about this before too, here, in the pet peeves list.

On 'how to write Superman'

1:39:07: "My main thing is, I just don't understand why people who don't like Superman keep getting forced to make movies and stuff about him, it's like you don't have to guys it's okay you can leave this to somebody who actually likes this--"

"...surely there are other characters that this would work for."

"Yeah that's the thing, making 'hey, this character is just like Superman but evil', like, I can get in a twist about that, but there's only so mad I can get. But when they take my boy, and then they mess him up?"

Earlier in the video there's a quote on screen by Zach Snyder, saying that he doesn't like normal comic books, because there's no "sex or violence in them". 

...So go write something like that then, with another character, please!

I think a huge problem with Superman is that he's one of the world's most recognisable characters, but hard to get right. DC obviously want to use this crazy valuable IP, but they either A) have no idea how to write him properly, or B) don't want to write him properly because they think it won't sell. 

...I don't even know what to suggest should be done about this though. I feel like I'm a bit in the minority who truly want a hopeful, upbeat Superman story. Just, not so optimistic that it gets unrealistic to a crazy degree? Do I even know what I want until I see it?

However – there's been a lot of talk about Henry Cavill coming back as Superman, and that this version is going to be a lot more positive. I'm cautiously optimistic about that I guess? So far, I haven't got a single version of Superman that I call a favourite. So I'm not going to get my hopes up about this one either. If I'm wrong, I'll be positively surprised when the time comes.

Video 2: Superman: Collateral Damage

Then we move over to the second video, which was actually what caught my eye originally, but I decided to watch them in order.

Risk of collateral damage makes things interesting 

5:21: "Superman is basically a boolean variable. He's either far too strong for the situation at hand, or far too weak [if kryptonite is involved]"

I like this description. Of him and his powers, and later, how they describe how a fight with a villain typically goes - "either he beats the villain or he doesn't". It's when you introduce the risk of collateral damage that it gets more interesting. Put Superman in more situations where he can't be everywhere at once etc. Where he has to think about how to save people.

(Tiny digression: May I interest you in a really cool fanfic? Avengers of Steel by Reyel. Not completed, but have yet to introduce kryptonite, after 40+ chapters, and 500K+ words!)

Show your character's motivations

13:43: "...the MCU has almost no focus on saving innocent people. And the more fantastical and large scale the conflicts got, the more sort of distant the concept of saving people became."

Huh. Now, this makes me think of a topic that has been bothering me a bit with various superhero media, and not just Superman. So many stories with superpowered people totally forget to give characters motivations. 

I swear I've seen movies or shows where you're just expected to become a "hero" if you get superpowers. Why? Powers doesn't automatically equal "needs to help people". There's no rule, no law? Superman is a "hero" (in the definition of helping out and saving people) because he cares. Iron Man becomes a hero because he wants to make up for his past mistakes. The last OSP video that I commented on covered this as well. They just completely forgot to show why Clark does what he does in Man of Steel and the following films. Why is he Superman? Those movies don't show Clark caring properly. Sure, there's that bus scene as a kid, but mostly he's just a superhero because he's got superpowers and he's in a movie called Man of Steel, so he just needs to be a "hero" because the plot calls for it. Or Jor-El tells him he's supposed to. Wut.

I feel like, if you must write a "Superman in the real world" type story, I guess I would have liked to see the conflict of a "damned if I do, damned if I don't" kind of thing, just as long as it's just to set him up as a character, and not the whole plot of the story. MoS and BvS was just purely "damned if I do". Why do you do? 

I bet Clark would find himself in trouble for his want to help out fairly often. Fear of being found out. Fear of being discovered as a potential threat. It messing up his personal life. "Where were you? Why are you gone so much?" The reason I don't want this to go on for a long time is because the "being a hero fucks up my personal life" trope gets tiresome really fast. But exploring what the alternative would be is interesting, particularly for someone like Clark. If he tried to just live as a human, he'd have to do it with the knowledge that there's stuff happening around him, lives lost, that he could have saved and choose not to for selfish reasons? You could show why doing what he does is a personal choice, nothing that's expected of him. Truly the thing that he wants to do, and that the alternative is just not an option. Something like that.

Then, a consequence of him helping out is that of course there might be some animosity towards him from the general public. Someone that strong is going to have some distrust against him I guess. But don't make that the whole focus of the movie. Have Superman prove he can be trusted. Early on. Again and again. 

I'd absolutely love to see something like the scene at the end of Earth One #3, where some of the supposed "good guys" have been trying to stop him, kind of like in BvS. But the difference here is, after it's all over and Superman has saved the day, he gets to shout at them about sabotaging him, and tell them what idiots they have been. ... :D ... Yes? A Superman that actually gets to speak his mind? This. I want this. That moment was everything I didn't know I wanted from BvS. "What were you thinking", indeed.

"I'm speaking to your sense of enlightened self-interest. I'm not the problem. The problem will be whoever is standing behind me when and if I fall".

Superheroes creating their own problems

15:40: "The super villains always arise in response to the superheroes. They're never there first."

Good point. This is actually way too common, and I don't like it. So much conflict that's caused by bad decisions by Tony Stark for example. At what point does having the hero around become more of a problem than it's worth? 

Miscellaneous (while I go for a walk)

I decided to stretch my legs while I listened to the majority of the rest of the video, so I couldn't make as detailed notes and go on long tangents. But as the nerd I am, I made a few on my phone while walking:

• Smallville: It was nice to hear some positive commentary about Smallville. About how that version of Clark actually has motivations. The comment, “there he is, the big blue boyscout” when talking about Clark's guilt after Chloe gets hurt in one episode.
• Invincible: “I’m glad they’re not doing this to actual Superman.” Yeah, me too.
• Injustice: I haven't read or watched Injustice. I really do not care for that take on the character at all. In the video they point out that "Basically Lois is the only human he cares about" (which is also kind of an issue I have with MoS), which is a rubbish characterisation of Superman. I have talked about this before in detail in the pet peeves post.
• Justice Lords: They talk about how this is an interesting take in the video. That made me think, "What gives them the right to decide?" kind of? If they have taken that first step, where do they draw the line afterwards I guess? Depends on his outlook on his actions. Like with Zod in MoS. He is heavily affected by this, and will probably go to great lengths to never do anything like it again. But. It was necessary here. And I’m glad it was done. Zod would not be a character to put in jail.
  
  

Wrecking things

48:19: "the latter part of [Man of Steel] doesn't concern itself with collateral damage and as a result neither does Clark. And this really comes to a head in the climactic battle where Superman takes the fight with Zod out of Metropolis, and then they go back to Metropolis before he kills him! It's so stupid because the movie's desire for set-piece explosions overrides any sense of of Clark's agency and choice to avoid collateral damage."

Aah, "not the buildings", my number one pet peeve. See my thoughts on this under "Wrecking public property". 

Clark's motivations

54:45: "Superman says 'saving a life is never a mistake' and that's like, boom – that's the crux of the character, that no matter what happens, Superman is like 'I saved you, even if that gets me killed. I saved you, and that's what matters, because the first time that, you know, I don't, that i make the choice not to save someone – it's not even the first time i make the choice to kill someone, the first time i make the choice not to save someone because it might inconvenience me – I've lost. I'm toast.'"

"Yeah. He can't Batman Begins anyone."

Kinda goes with my thoughts on "what would a Clark that decides not to help be like". And I don't think he'd be able to.