Can we stop with the "Batman is more relatable than Superman" thing?

DoPo

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Jan 30, 2012
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JimB said:
DoPo said:
If Jor-El included the MacGuffin in Kal-El, and the only way for it to be taken out is killing Kal-El, that's Jor-El dooming his son to death. Unless he did not expect the MacGuffin to ever be used, then why add it in the first place?
To empower Kal-El
No, that's not what the Codex[footnote]I finally looked up what the MacGuffin was - it's the Codex of...erm something or other. It was mostly referred to as "Codex", though, so I'm sticking to that.[/footnote] did. Kal-El is explicitly said to be getting his powers from the Yellow sun. Yes, that's the same as the comics but still bears poining out that this is the reason Kal-El is empowered, thus it is not the Codex that did it. This is further reinfoced by Zod and his followers also getting powers while on Earth - if it was the Codex that helped Kal-El, then they would have had the same reaction. Finally, Zod's group were very well aware of what the Codex was - they were surprised that they didn't find it when they searched the Kents' property (including Kal-El's spaceship) and it was only later revealed to them that the Codex had been encoded in Kal-El's cells[footnote]or DNA? whatever it was - inside Kal-El in some form or another[/footnote] and they were a bit surprised by that. This further proves that the Codex wasn't used to empower Kal-El, or Zod's group should not have been surprised by this.

JimB said:
not to save Krypton.
Yet that was the reason he sent the Codex with his son.

JimB said:
Why would Jor-El want to preserve the caste system he rebelled against by siring Kal-El in the first place, a caste system dependent on the Magic Juice in Kal-El?
In the beginning of the movie Jor-El pleads the Kryptonian government to save their race. That was a thing that happened. Yes, Jor-El did specifically ask for Kryptonian race to be saved - his plan was sending the Codex to a different world. And he wanted to do so because Krypton was doomed already he knew that. The government refused and so he stole the Codex and enacted the plan by himself using his own son.

I think that motivation works for Jor-El, given that it's actually what was shown he wanted to do. Sure, he wasn't a big fan of the caste system, however, he was even less of a fan of his people being destroyed forever.

Man, I've not seen this movie in nearly two years and yet I remember a lot more than you seem to.

...

Heck, I looked up a plot synopsis to double check if I remember it correctly

After the birth of his son, Jor-El appears before the Kryptonian Leaders, pleading with them to allow him to save the planet's Codex, and to search for a habitable world beyond Krypton. However, even with destruction imminent, the council will not abandon its ways.

The council is set upon by General Zod (Michael Shannon) and numerous followers, intending to take control of the planet. Though Jor-El does disagree with Council, he refuses to join Zod's coup. Zod orders Jor-El to be arrested, but Jor-El escapes and flees to an area nearby, wherein the planet's birthing chamber resides. Right before he leaves, he tells Lara to prepare the small spacecraft he has built to transport his son from Krypton and to find a suitable world to send him to.

Stealing the Codex from the chamber, Jor-El races back to his home where his wife Lara has found a planet to send their baby to: Earth. Though Lara is sad at the loss of their child, Jor-El claims he will live his life in a new way: free of the limitations imposed by Kryptonian society. Their son, Kal-El, will be able to choose his way in life. Lara worries about their son's ability to survive on his new planet; Jor-El assures her he will be stronger, faster, invulnerable and possess powers that will make him a super-being there because of Earth's yellow sun. Jor-El places the Codex into a device that bonds it to his son's living cells.

[...]

Back on his ship, Zod is informed what happened to the Codex. Jor-El had diffused it into Clark's cells, making him the source to create new Kryptonian life. When Zod is informed that Clark does not need to be taken alive to retrieve the Codex, he puts his plan into effect.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0770828/synopsis

And it looks like pretty much exactly what I remember happening.

So, no - the Codex didn't especially help Kal-El. It was indeed intended to save the Kryptonians. It didn't necessarily require Kal-El to die, only Zod was perfectly happy with that course of action. Yup, exactly what I've been claiming all along.
 

deadish

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JimB said:
deadish said:
He was still born with his powers.
I do not understand how someone who had no super powers when he was born can be said to be born with super powers. That seems like exactly the opposite.
He didn't earn them. He was given them.

Whether he had superpowers at the point of birth is irrelevant. He was born "genetically" superior.

deadish said:
He was never an "everyman" or a "loser."
The explicit purpose of John Byrne rebooting Superman's origin after the success of the theatrical movie wis to make him human during his formative years; to give him the frailties and experiences of being human as a child so the man he would become was shaped by an understanding of what it is to be human. If you insist on ignoring the stories that have been told in order to bolster your own point, then I think we have nothing left to say to one another.
Wasn't he able to save a bunch of school children from a bus that fell in a lake?

deadish said:
Now I don't mean this in a mean way, but Superman is "that guy." You know, the "prick" that makes everyone look bad in comparison? Yeah, not relatable.
No, I don't really know. He's someone who cares that you're okay and tries to help when you're in trouble. I get that there are people who get angry at this and need to attack him for it, but in the same breath, I don't get it.
Who is attacking him for it? He is a fictional character. One that just isn't all that relatable. That's all I'm saying.

Just explaining why he isn't relatable.

Edit: Superman is like that jock in high school who was faster than everyone, stronger than everyone, excellent grades, a squeaky clean record and is nice to everyone - i.e. the model student.

Do people hate him? Not really - occasionally annoyed when he ends up making everyone else look bad maybe.

Is he relatable? No.

With regards to Batman, not only is he more relatable than Superman, but his rogue gallery are also more relatable. Superman fights out of this world threats like Brainiac and Doomsday. Batman fights humans (or former humans) who frequently have their own tragic backstory.
 

JimB

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DoPo said:
No, that's not what the Codex did. Kal-El is explicitly said to be getting his powers from the yellow sun. Yes, that's the same as the comics but still bears poining out that this is the reason Kal-El is empowered, thus it is not the Codex that did it.
You misunderstand me. I do not mean the Magic Juice (which term I prefer) gave Kal-El his powers. I mean, as I said earlier in the thread, that it empowers him in the sense that it gives him the genetic potential of all Kryptonians.

BarryMcCociner said:
Jor-El did specifically ask for Kryptonian race to be saved: his plan was sending the Codex to a different world.
If you say so. I do not remember him saying that.

deadish said:
He didn't earn them. He was given them.
Oh, whatever. Powers and abilities are not things you earn. They are tools you use. Under your argument, Steven Hawking was a genius while he was still cross-eyed and shitting his diapies because he was born that way. And he was also wheelchair-bound when he was born because he was born that way.

deadish said:
Wasn't he able to save a bunch of school children from a bus that fell in a lake?
I do not remember an issue in which that happened. Are you confusing the comics with the latest movie?

deadish said:
Who is attacking him for it?
Whoever this apocryphal person you describe is; the one calling him "that guy" and "a prick."

deadish said:
Do people hate him? Not really. Occasionally annoyed when he makes everyone else look bad? Maybe.
I disagree as strongly as possible that the person who outperforms you when he's not even competing with you is the one who makes you look bad. I think in that instance, you're making yourself look bad all on your own.
 

deadish

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JimB said:
deadish said:
Who is attacking him for it?
Whoever this apocryphal person you describe is; the one calling him "that guy" and "a prick."
There is a reason why "prick" is in double quotes ...

deadish said:
Do people hate him? Not really. Occasionally annoyed when he makes everyone else look bad? Maybe.
I disagree as strongly as possible that the person who outperforms you when he's not even competing with you is the one who makes you look bad. I think in that instance, you're making yourself look bad all on your own.
So guy lifts heavy box easily. You struggle to lift same box. You look bad. Strength is relative.
 

JimB

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deadish said:
There is a reason why "prick" is in double quotes...
And there is a reason I chose the word "apocryphal." Have we both firmly established that we have reasons for the things we write, now? Are we done telling one another we meant to say what we said the way we said it?

deadish said:
So guy lifts heavy box easily. You struggle to lift same box. You look bad. Strength is relative.
I would argue that anyone who thinks I look bad is someone who needs to get out of the high school mindset. I am not interested in comparing the size of my dick to anyone's, even via the medium of box-lifting; and if I choose to get into that contest anyway, then I deserve to appear small-dicked to the rest of the world, not because I can't lift the box as easily but because someone who needs to get into that kind of contest probably is small-dicked.
 

deadish

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JimB said:
deadish said:
There is a reason why "prick" is in double quotes...
And there is a reason I chose the word "apocryphal." Have we both firmly established that we have reasons for the things we write, now? Are we done telling one another we meant to say what we said the way we said it?

deadish said:
So guy lifts heavy box easily. You struggle to lift same box. You look bad. Strength is relative.
I would argue that anyone who thinks I look bad is someone who needs to get out of the high school mindset. I am not interested in comparing the size of my dick to anyone's, even via the medium of box-lifting; and if I choose to get into that contest anyway, then I deserve to appear small-dicked to the rest of the world, not because I can't lift the box as easily but because someone who needs to get into that kind of contest probably is small-dicked.
You were the one who misinterpreting it as an attack. Just correcting your misconception.

Whatever. You can pretend like it doesn't affect you. People judge. People want to be judged well by others. As I said, whatever.

Superman is still not relatable. :)
 

JimB

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deadish said:
You were the one who misinterpreting it as an attack. Just correcting your misconception.
You and I have very different understandings of the definition of the word "prick."

deadish said:
You can pretend like it doesn't affect you.
Thank you for giving me your permission to do a thing you can't stop me from doing. In return, I shall give you my permission to pretend that everyone is insecure.
 

omega 616

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May 1, 2009
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Silentpony said:
Nah, Batman is totally more relatable than Superman because Batman doesn't have any powers, he's human like us. Superman is just a Mary-Sue God.
He is anything but human, I've said this a few times but he does have the super human ability to learn! He is how old? (I am sure there are multiple universe's and stuff) but lets say he is 40? And he has "mastered" over 127 different types of various martial arts, most people take a life time to master one! Shit, you read his "abilities" section and while it says "he has no super powers" but it also lists just about everything you can think of and says "he is a master at it" (I am getting this info off WIKI, which also says he has a "intimidating and frightening appearance", so I am inclined to take it with a heap of salt)

I am just not sure how many of you can relate to a billionaire orphan, who is master of all.

What really makes me chuckle when people use this "relatable" argument is, they think he can beat every single villain and every single member of the justice league 'cos he plans. I know, I know he stopped them all in a comic this one time but that's 'cos he had the strongest super power of all, plot protection! If fans love a character he can't be stopped (except for Bane breaking him in two like a twiglet)!
 

Proto Taco

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Happyninja42 said:
Proto Taco said:
Just imagine what would happen if Superman had Batman's wallet. Ohhh the possibilities...
What would he need the money for? I mean, Batman basically uses his bottomless account to compensate for his lack of superpowers. Superman doesn't really need to compensate for anything. I mean, Batman could fund a massive relief effort in some war torn area, or to construct some new...hell I don't know, orphaned puppy shelter. Superman could just...build the freaking shelter, probably at superspeed too. So I'm curious what you think Superman would need the funds to accomplish that he couldn't do anyway? Please elaborate. xD
He could be friends with Lex Luthor.
 

Squanchy

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undeadsuitor said:
Squanchy said:
He was raised as a human, but he was never human. You can raise a cat with dogs, and there are some interesting results, but it's never a dog.
Humanity isn't defined by how much we can lift, or fly though. Clark Kent never lived on Krypton, he may not be a homosapien, but he's an earthling all the same.
Humanity is defined by being part of the human race, also known as Homo Sapiens Sapiens, yes. He's not an Earthling, he's a Kryptonian, that's why he can fly and shit.

undeadsuitor said:
Batman, on the other hand, has embezzled billions of dollars from his own company, gotten multiple children killed and crippled, has inadvertently created several super villains, and to when end? to make either a negative, or zero difference in one city.

Our hero everyone.
The negative aspects of Batman aren't really the issue here, and embezzling billions, getting people killed, and engaging in actions with unintended consequences is... pretty human. The issue isn't that he's a good human, or a normal human either, just that he's a human. That's not a value judgement either, but in terms of reliability I'll take the person who shares my biology (not to mention mortality) every time.

McMarbles said:
Squanchy said:
Samtemdo8 said:
So can we now finally stop with the whole "Batman is more relatable than Superman because Batman has no powers, he is human like us, Superman is too OP."

Can we finally stop with that excuse now since THIS just recently happened and to comic book readers that are reading the new 52 Spoilers:

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/d0z51jpofjkbb9bkbm3v.jpg

(Yes yes I know Gawker Media is the devil, I just linked a Jpeg so you will just see the image and I do not know how to show a whole image in a post)
I'm sorry, you really think it's so odd that people find a human being more repeatable than a literal alien? Putting aside all of the good points made by other people over two pages here, and the many more to come I'm sure, that alone should be enough.

I relate more to batman because we share a species.
I am neither a lesbian, nor a rock, nor from space, but I find lesbian space rocks more relatable than Batman.
I mean... that sounds like a "you" problem.
 

Squanchy

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Lupine said:
Squanchy said:
Lupine said:
Squanchy said:
Samtemdo8 said:
So can we now finally stop with the whole "Batman is more relatable than Superman because Batman has no powers, he is human like us, Superman is too OP."

Can we finally stop with that excuse now since THIS just recently happened and to comic book readers that are reading the new 52 Spoilers:

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/d0z51jpofjkbb9bkbm3v.jpg

(Yes yes I know Gawker Media is the devil, I just linked a Jpeg so you will just see the image and I do not know how to show a whole image in a post)
I'm sorry, you really think it's so odd that people find a human being more repeatable than a literal alien? Putting aside all of the good points made by other people over two pages here, and the many more to come I'm sure, that alone should be enough.

I relate more to batman because we share a species.
Um...yeah. Because the human in said situation might as well be a robot usually for all the emotion he displays and the life he leads and lends to the proceedings. While the alien is pretty much just a regular joe with super powers that he kinda wishes he could get rid of. So literal alien or no, the fact that he looks exactly like a human being, lives as a human, works, and even identifies as a human most of the time...basically it is like trying to argue Star Trek aliens vs terminators. One is obviously more human even if not literally human than the other dressed in human tissue.
Bruce Wayne is no more alien than John Wayne Gacy, John F. Kennedy, Gandhi, Carlos Hathcock, or any of the other notable human outliers. People can be very cold, and training can do amazing things to people. I can't imagine what goes on in the mind of someone who doesn't even share my physiology though, someone who can keep up with The Flash can think like a supercomputer after all. I know how Superman ACTS, but he's truly alien.

Bruce Wayne is just a highly trained operator with a typically traumatic past, lots of money and luck. Superman can turn back time if he's motivated enough, or enslave humanity on a bad day. These are not things a human can ever imagine, and the ability to do things like destroy a planet and all of its life, on a whim, is very alien. No human has ever had that power, never mind that power available in a moment of rage, sorrow, or desperation.

undeadsuitor said:
Happyninja42 said:
For you Clark is the relatable thing for the character, but for me, it's an act. Clark Kent is his perception of what a human is. It's his facade, not his true self. His true self is a demigod alien who could stomp the planet if he basically wanted to, but doesn't because he's not a dick. Bruce is 100% human, and is basically just a guy with a guilt complex, trying to make the world a better place, the only way he knows how. You seem to be against Bruce because he's basically a 1%'er, and thus is unrelatable, but every representation of him is pretty down to earth, that's why people like him so much.
But Clark Kent was Clark way before his powers emerged and he became superman. He was raised as a human and he still retains the human morality. The idea that superman is some uncomprehending alien God is probably one of the most inaccurate summaries I've ever seen. Even man of Steel had him as a human first (both in history and mindset. He still sacrificed his people to save the earth) you can say that his Clark Kent identity is underused in media, which it is, but for all his power he's still Clark Kent first.
He was raised as a human, but he was never human. You can raise a cat with dogs, and there are some interesting results, but it's never a dog.
You mentioned The Flash in your post. Superman can't turn back time, it is one of those things that the movie came up with for some reason, but The Flash literally can go into the past. He could conquer the world on a bad day, literally tons of beings in the DCU could. So I'm not getting your argument here, powers aren't instantly inhuman in the DCU. There are tons of very human characters in Superman's league and possessing similarly extraordinary gifts; so because Superman was born with them, he's less human than the guys who got them in accidents? Is The Flash not human because of his abilities? Wonder Woman? Wondie was even crafted from clay and imbued with life from the Greek gods and we don't see anyone arguing her humanity.
Not being human though, that's something. The Flash is a guy named Barry Allen, not a Kryptonian named Kal-El. You can raise a cat with dogs, it's going to act a lot like a dog, but it's not a dog. I realize that this sounds like a racist rant, but keep in mind that I'm not associating a value judgement either way, and Superman is literally an alien. He's not superficially different, while being fundamentally the same; he's superficially similar, but fundamentally alien.

Still, The Flash can go back in time, but it doesn't go well. Superman could just steer a comet into Earth on a bad day, if he didn't feel like taking it over Injustice style. I would argue for the record, that Wonder Woman isn't human either, but she's not alien either. Something that's part of the mythological history of humanity, takes human form and has human physiology strikes me as more relateble than an alien. Have you ever stopped to think that maybe Clark Kent's all or nothing morality is actually a result of his alien nature? Maybe he's more fundamentally different than you're giving him credit for, just different in a way that makes him a paragon of virtue.

Lupine said:
Similarly, Clark doesn't ACT human, he is human (If you're arguing biology, that's sort of silly because we don't know much of anything about kyrptonian biology and I mean nothing, beyond they physically look human).
We don't, but obviously there are some pretty big differences, or he wouldn't fly around like that.

Lupine said:
He's lived all his life on planet Earth, he's been exposed to nothing but human culture for the majority of his life and physically he's similar enough to us that there has never been an issue with his physiology and we're talking a guy that is married and has a sex life.
Again, no matter how much you try to make a cat a dog, it's still a cat acting like a dog. His upbringing is presumably why he's a lot less jarringly alien than he could be. Then again, I find his personality to be pretty odd. He's other a perfectly good guy, or a monster. People tend to a have more variation.

Lupine said:
His origin is alien yes, he feels an outsider because he knows that he's an alien and that his people are gone, but just as easily if he'd never known there would probably be very little difference in him as a person or as a character. Clark Kent is Superman, not the other way around. Bruce tried to make himself less human, to run away from his humanity after a fashion because the pain of losing his parents traumatizes him and makes him wary of ever letting anyone so close to him again. You're right that he's as human as the rest of us, but you're wrong in saying that he isn't trying to be inhuman, because he is. He wants to be something strong enough to keep what happened to his parents from ever happening again, and so he's given himself over to that goal, to being more than human because that's what it takes in his mind to reshape the world into something better. By comparison though Superman has always believed in humanity. He believes that people are better than they think they are, he believes that if he's a symbol of hope and stands up, that other people will too. They are both human. The issue however is that only one of them wants to be, and that isn't Batman.
They're not both human, unless you just want "human" to mean whatever you like.
 

springheeljack

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Batman will always be more relatable than Superman because for all of Batman's skills and vast wealth is still human at the end of the day and eventually has to deal with the fact that he will get old and eventually die. Superman on the other hand will not age and he will always be Superman even if he is dressed as Clark Kent. He will also invoke comparisons to God or Jesus.
 

Samtemdo8_v1legacy

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springheeljack said:
Batman will always be more relatable than Superman because for all of Batman's skills and vast wealth is still human at the end of the day and eventually has to deal with the fact that he will get old and eventually die. Superman on the other hand will not age and he will always be Superman even if he is dressed as Clark Kent. He will also invoke comparisons to God or Jesus.
Then explain how Superman lasted this long at all?

Did you even read any relevent Superman comic book?

Or you just don't like inspirational, heroic, "lawful good" characters?
 

Lupine

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Squanchy said:
Lupine said:
Squanchy said:
Lupine said:
Squanchy said:
Samtemdo8 said:
So can we now finally stop with the whole "Batman is more relatable than Superman because Batman has no powers, he is human like us, Superman is too OP."

Can we finally stop with that excuse now since THIS just recently happened and to comic book readers that are reading the new 52 Spoilers:

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/d0z51jpofjkbb9bkbm3v.jpg

(Yes yes I know Gawker Media is the devil, I just linked a Jpeg so you will just see the image and I do not know how to show a whole image in a post)
I'm sorry, you really think it's so odd that people find a human being more repeatable than a literal alien? Putting aside all of the good points made by other people over two pages here, and the many more to come I'm sure, that alone should be enough.

I relate more to batman because we share a species.
Um...yeah. Because the human in said situation might as well be a robot usually for all the emotion he displays and the life he leads and lends to the proceedings. While the alien is pretty much just a regular joe with super powers that he kinda wishes he could get rid of. So literal alien or no, the fact that he looks exactly like a human being, lives as a human, works, and even identifies as a human most of the time...basically it is like trying to argue Star Trek aliens vs terminators. One is obviously more human even if not literally human than the other dressed in human tissue.
Bruce Wayne is no more alien than John Wayne Gacy, John F. Kennedy, Gandhi, Carlos Hathcock, or any of the other notable human outliers. People can be very cold, and training can do amazing things to people. I can't imagine what goes on in the mind of someone who doesn't even share my physiology though, someone who can keep up with The Flash can think like a supercomputer after all. I know how Superman ACTS, but he's truly alien.

Bruce Wayne is just a highly trained operator with a typically traumatic past, lots of money and luck. Superman can turn back time if he's motivated enough, or enslave humanity on a bad day. These are not things a human can ever imagine, and the ability to do things like destroy a planet and all of its life, on a whim, is very alien. No human has ever had that power, never mind that power available in a moment of rage, sorrow, or desperation.

undeadsuitor said:
Happyninja42 said:
For you Clark is the relatable thing for the character, but for me, it's an act. Clark Kent is his perception of what a human is. It's his facade, not his true self. His true self is a demigod alien who could stomp the planet if he basically wanted to, but doesn't because he's not a dick. Bruce is 100% human, and is basically just a guy with a guilt complex, trying to make the world a better place, the only way he knows how. You seem to be against Bruce because he's basically a 1%'er, and thus is unrelatable, but every representation of him is pretty down to earth, that's why people like him so much.
But Clark Kent was Clark way before his powers emerged and he became superman. He was raised as a human and he still retains the human morality. The idea that superman is some uncomprehending alien God is probably one of the most inaccurate summaries I've ever seen. Even man of Steel had him as a human first (both in history and mindset. He still sacrificed his people to save the earth) you can say that his Clark Kent identity is underused in media, which it is, but for all his power he's still Clark Kent first.
He was raised as a human, but he was never human. You can raise a cat with dogs, and there are some interesting results, but it's never a dog.
You mentioned The Flash in your post. Superman can't turn back time, it is one of those things that the movie came up with for some reason, but The Flash literally can go into the past. He could conquer the world on a bad day, literally tons of beings in the DCU could. So I'm not getting your argument here, powers aren't instantly inhuman in the DCU. There are tons of very human characters in Superman's league and possessing similarly extraordinary gifts; so because Superman was born with them, he's less human than the guys who got them in accidents? Is The Flash not human because of his abilities? Wonder Woman? Wondie was even crafted from clay and imbued with life from the Greek gods and we don't see anyone arguing her humanity.
Not being human though, that's something. The Flash is a guy named Barry Allen, not a Kryptonian named Kal-El. You can raise a cat with dogs, it's going to act a lot like a dog, but it's not a dog. I realize that this sounds like a racist rant, but keep in mind that I'm not associating a value judgement either way, and Superman is literally an alien. He's not superficially different, while being fundamentally the same; he's superficially similar, but fundamentally alien.

Still, The Flash can go back in time, but it doesn't go well. Superman could just steer a comet into Earth on a bad day, if he didn't feel like taking it over Injustice style. I would argue for the record, that Wonder Woman isn't human either, but she's not alien either. Something that's part of the mythological history of humanity, takes human form and has human physiology strikes me as more relateble than an alien. Have you ever stopped to think that maybe Clark Kent's all or nothing morality is actually a result of his alien nature? Maybe he's more fundamentally different than you're giving him credit for, just different in a way that makes him a paragon of virtue.

Lupine said:
Similarly, Clark doesn't ACT human, he is human (If you're arguing biology, that's sort of silly because we don't know much of anything about kyrptonian biology and I mean nothing, beyond they physically look human).
We don't, but obviously there are some pretty big differences, or he wouldn't fly around like that.

Lupine said:
He's lived all his life on planet Earth, he's been exposed to nothing but human culture for the majority of his life and physically he's similar enough to us that there has never been an issue with his physiology and we're talking a guy that is married and has a sex life.
Again, no matter how much you try to make a cat a dog, it's still a cat acting like a dog. His upbringing is presumably why he's a lot less jarringly alien than he could be. Then again, I find his personality to be pretty odd. He's other a perfectly good guy, or a monster. People tend to a have more variation.

Lupine said:
His origin is alien yes, he feels an outsider because he knows that he's an alien and that his people are gone, but just as easily if he'd never known there would probably be very little difference in him as a person or as a character. Clark Kent is Superman, not the other way around. Bruce tried to make himself less human, to run away from his humanity after a fashion because the pain of losing his parents traumatizes him and makes him wary of ever letting anyone so close to him again. You're right that he's as human as the rest of us, but you're wrong in saying that he isn't trying to be inhuman, because he is. He wants to be something strong enough to keep what happened to his parents from ever happening again, and so he's given himself over to that goal, to being more than human because that's what it takes in his mind to reshape the world into something better. By comparison though Superman has always believed in humanity. He believes that people are better than they think they are, he believes that if he's a symbol of hope and stands up, that other people will too. They are both human. The issue however is that only one of them wants to be, and that isn't Batman.
They're not both human, unless you just want "human" to mean whatever you like.
So I read all of that as, biology is all I care about in regards to the character and don't know how to separate the idea of humanity as a species from humanity as an ideal. Besides I brought The Flash up for the same reason you thought to point out that Superman can steer a comet to Earth. Guess what, The Flash isn't likely to go back and change the past this is true, but likewise it is less about it not going well for him and more to do with Flash's morality and his responsibility with his powers. Just like Barry Allen has that, Clark Kent also has it. But my point is that Flash is easily as powerful or more powerful and that doesn't make him less dangerous because of what planet he's from.

As for have I stopped to think, have you? First off, Clark Kent doesn't have all or nothing morality. That's a pretty big assumption that is demonstrably false. We've seen Superman in morally ambiguous positions before, he's not fond of them but we've seen him there still and while he holds himself to a pretty strict moral threshold, he doesn't really do the same to others. Be they criminals, or even allies. Remember the Tower of Babel storyline? Most of the League are pissed at Batman post event, Superman kind of agrees with him and he has even gone out of his way to give Batman Kryptonite...because quite literally he has no idea what might happen in the future but he trusts a good friend of his to have everyone else's best interests in mind first. Superman isn't just good or evil, those are just the stories that people are always harping about. The stories you hear less about are about the time Superman walked across the country because someone made him feel like he'd gotten too high and mighty and he decided to see if they were right by simply doing everything on foot and meeting and talking to people as he went. A few times he was a dick, but we also have things like him talking a suicidal woman down from a building and promising to her that if she jumped he would not save her unless she wanted him to.

Now do I think Superman is psychologically different from humans...I'd reply to that, that most humans are psychologically different from one another. Sure we share certain experiences and some of us even react similarly to similar stimuli, but in the end it becomes a matter of both nature and nurture for us humans so I'd ask why would you assume it to be different for him when so far we've not seen a lot that speaks of divergent/inhuman behavior in him or any other kryptonian for that matter.

Again, you don't read a lot of Superman if you think he's the perfect guy. He's a good guy yes. He's a guy that feels for others, he wants to help them and feels that he should because all the gifts he has. That's Clark Kent, but at the same time he isn't perfect. He can be pigheaded, he can be a bit arrogant or too sure of his own power or cultural outlook. Some of the best Superman stories are simply Superman having to deal with another culture and consider if maybe his own ideals are wrong or at the very least incompatible with lives that people are living. You called his morality all or nothing, and this is the guy that was willing to stop a war with his bare hands but left without doing anything when a warlord made a pretty good argument about war and human nature that Supes felt that maybe he was trying to force his values on a segment of humanity that he isn't equipped to understand, let alone make judgements about.

And yet he and other Superheroes are all vigilantes and thus up holding their own interpretations of justice and morality already. So yeah, him being a little introspective about the whole thing seemed pretty in character, especially seeing as I mentioned him being a little naive before and we know where he grew up wasn't exactly war torn Bosnia.
 

Squanchy

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Lupine said:
Squanchy said:
Lupine said:
Squanchy said:
Lupine said:
Squanchy said:
Samtemdo8 said:
So can we now finally stop with the whole "Batman is more relatable than Superman because Batman has no powers, he is human like us, Superman is too OP."

Can we finally stop with that excuse now since THIS just recently happened and to comic book readers that are reading the new 52 Spoilers:

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/d0z51jpofjkbb9bkbm3v.jpg

(Yes yes I know Gawker Media is the devil, I just linked a Jpeg so you will just see the image and I do not know how to show a whole image in a post)
I'm sorry, you really think it's so odd that people find a human being more repeatable than a literal alien? Putting aside all of the good points made by other people over two pages here, and the many more to come I'm sure, that alone should be enough.

I relate more to batman because we share a species.
Um...yeah. Because the human in said situation might as well be a robot usually for all the emotion he displays and the life he leads and lends to the proceedings. While the alien is pretty much just a regular joe with super powers that he kinda wishes he could get rid of. So literal alien or no, the fact that he looks exactly like a human being, lives as a human, works, and even identifies as a human most of the time...basically it is like trying to argue Star Trek aliens vs terminators. One is obviously more human even if not literally human than the other dressed in human tissue.
Bruce Wayne is no more alien than John Wayne Gacy, John F. Kennedy, Gandhi, Carlos Hathcock, or any of the other notable human outliers. People can be very cold, and training can do amazing things to people. I can't imagine what goes on in the mind of someone who doesn't even share my physiology though, someone who can keep up with The Flash can think like a supercomputer after all. I know how Superman ACTS, but he's truly alien.

Bruce Wayne is just a highly trained operator with a typically traumatic past, lots of money and luck. Superman can turn back time if he's motivated enough, or enslave humanity on a bad day. These are not things a human can ever imagine, and the ability to do things like destroy a planet and all of its life, on a whim, is very alien. No human has ever had that power, never mind that power available in a moment of rage, sorrow, or desperation.

undeadsuitor said:
Happyninja42 said:
For you Clark is the relatable thing for the character, but for me, it's an act. Clark Kent is his perception of what a human is. It's his facade, not his true self. His true self is a demigod alien who could stomp the planet if he basically wanted to, but doesn't because he's not a dick. Bruce is 100% human, and is basically just a guy with a guilt complex, trying to make the world a better place, the only way he knows how. You seem to be against Bruce because he's basically a 1%'er, and thus is unrelatable, but every representation of him is pretty down to earth, that's why people like him so much.
But Clark Kent was Clark way before his powers emerged and he became superman. He was raised as a human and he still retains the human morality. The idea that superman is some uncomprehending alien God is probably one of the most inaccurate summaries I've ever seen. Even man of Steel had him as a human first (both in history and mindset. He still sacrificed his people to save the earth) you can say that his Clark Kent identity is underused in media, which it is, but for all his power he's still Clark Kent first.
He was raised as a human, but he was never human. You can raise a cat with dogs, and there are some interesting results, but it's never a dog.
You mentioned The Flash in your post. Superman can't turn back time, it is one of those things that the movie came up with for some reason, but The Flash literally can go into the past. He could conquer the world on a bad day, literally tons of beings in the DCU could. So I'm not getting your argument here, powers aren't instantly inhuman in the DCU. There are tons of very human characters in Superman's league and possessing similarly extraordinary gifts; so because Superman was born with them, he's less human than the guys who got them in accidents? Is The Flash not human because of his abilities? Wonder Woman? Wondie was even crafted from clay and imbued with life from the Greek gods and we don't see anyone arguing her humanity.
Not being human though, that's something. The Flash is a guy named Barry Allen, not a Kryptonian named Kal-El. You can raise a cat with dogs, it's going to act a lot like a dog, but it's not a dog. I realize that this sounds like a racist rant, but keep in mind that I'm not associating a value judgement either way, and Superman is literally an alien. He's not superficially different, while being fundamentally the same; he's superficially similar, but fundamentally alien.

Still, The Flash can go back in time, but it doesn't go well. Superman could just steer a comet into Earth on a bad day, if he didn't feel like taking it over Injustice style. I would argue for the record, that Wonder Woman isn't human either, but she's not alien either. Something that's part of the mythological history of humanity, takes human form and has human physiology strikes me as more relateble than an alien. Have you ever stopped to think that maybe Clark Kent's all or nothing morality is actually a result of his alien nature? Maybe he's more fundamentally different than you're giving him credit for, just different in a way that makes him a paragon of virtue.

Lupine said:
Similarly, Clark doesn't ACT human, he is human (If you're arguing biology, that's sort of silly because we don't know much of anything about kyrptonian biology and I mean nothing, beyond they physically look human).
We don't, but obviously there are some pretty big differences, or he wouldn't fly around like that.

Lupine said:
He's lived all his life on planet Earth, he's been exposed to nothing but human culture for the majority of his life and physically he's similar enough to us that there has never been an issue with his physiology and we're talking a guy that is married and has a sex life.
Again, no matter how much you try to make a cat a dog, it's still a cat acting like a dog. His upbringing is presumably why he's a lot less jarringly alien than he could be. Then again, I find his personality to be pretty odd. He's other a perfectly good guy, or a monster. People tend to a have more variation.

Lupine said:
His origin is alien yes, he feels an outsider because he knows that he's an alien and that his people are gone, but just as easily if he'd never known there would probably be very little difference in him as a person or as a character. Clark Kent is Superman, not the other way around. Bruce tried to make himself less human, to run away from his humanity after a fashion because the pain of losing his parents traumatizes him and makes him wary of ever letting anyone so close to him again. You're right that he's as human as the rest of us, but you're wrong in saying that he isn't trying to be inhuman, because he is. He wants to be something strong enough to keep what happened to his parents from ever happening again, and so he's given himself over to that goal, to being more than human because that's what it takes in his mind to reshape the world into something better. By comparison though Superman has always believed in humanity. He believes that people are better than they think they are, he believes that if he's a symbol of hope and stands up, that other people will too. They are both human. The issue however is that only one of them wants to be, and that isn't Batman.
They're not both human, unless you just want "human" to mean whatever you like.
So I read all of that as, biology is all I care about in regards to the character and don't know how to separate the idea of humanity as a species from humanity as an ideal.
Do you know why that is? It's NEVER BEEN AN ISSUE. As humans, we have no real experience with humanity that isn't human. We pretend, imagine, and fantasize about it, but as far as anyone can tell, only humans experience or demonstrate humanity. It would be hubris, anthropocentric hubris to assume that our most prized characteristics (called "Humanity") are universal. They're not even universal for humans living on the same planet, in the same countries, and even less so for humans living in different times.

Like "Goodness" or "Evil", "Humanity" is a vague thing that is a matter of perspective, and context.

Lupine said:
Besides I brought The Flash up for the same reason you thought to point out that Superman can steer a comet to Earth. Guess what, The Flash isn't likely to go back and change the past this is true, but likewise it is less about it not going well for him and more to do with Flash's morality and his responsibility with his powers. Just like Barry Allen has that, Clark Kent also has it. But my point is that Flash is easily as powerful or more powerful and that doesn't make him less dangerous because of what planet he's from.
Maybe he is, that's a fun debate to have, but the point is that Flash's time traveling powers don't work like, "Go back in time, Kill Zoom, Profit." If he tries, it goes wrong, he gets temporally bitchslapped. Superman by contrast has no essential limit keeping him from going all Rods From God on us on any given bad day. He is just casually omnipotent, for all intents and purposes. He didn't have to try for it, didn't have to work for it, it's just his biology.

Lupine said:
As for have I stopped to think, have you? First off, Clark Kent doesn't have all or nothing morality. That's a pretty big assumption that is demonstrably false. We've seen Superman in morally ambiguous positions before, he's not fond of them but we've seen him there still and while he holds himself to a pretty strict moral threshold, he doesn't really do the same to others. Be they criminals, or even allies. Remember the Tower of Babel storyline? Most of the League are pissed at Batman post event, Superman kind of agrees with him and he has even gone out of his way to give Batman Kryptonite...because quite literally he has no idea what might happen in the future but he trusts a good friend of his to have everyone else's best interests in mind first. Superman isn't just good or evil, those are just the stories that people are always harping about. The stories you hear less about are about the time Superman walked across the country because someone made him feel like he'd gotten too high and mighty and he decided to see if they were right by simply doing everything on foot and meeting and talking to people as he went. A few times he was a dick, but we also have things like him talking a suicidal woman down from a building and promising to her that if she jumped he would not save her unless she wanted him to.

Now do I think Superman is psychologically different from humans...I'd reply to that, that most humans are psychologically different from one another. Sure we share certain experiences and some of us even react similarly to similar stimuli, but in the end it becomes a matter of both nature and nurture for us humans so I'd ask why would you assume it to be different for him when so far we've not seen a lot that speaks of divergent/inhuman behavior in him or any other kryptonian for that matter.
He's different, but again you're comparing the variation between humans and then inserting an alien. Maybe he's a somewhat typical human, but a totally batshit alien? One thing I can't argue against though, is that Superman and every other alien in virtually all fiction is written like a human. In the same way that 1000 year old vampires still act like teenagers, aliens act like humans (most of the time). It actually takes a powerful imagination, and good writing to do otherwise, and there isn't a lot of either to be found.

Lupine said:
Again, you don't read a lot of Superman if you think he's the perfect guy. He's a good guy yes.
I think he's a fanatical, all-or-nothing kind of guy. As I've said before, he's never shown living his life in anything other than extremes. He's dictator, or a savior, a commie or capitalist. As Injustice shows, he's just one personal tragedy away from flipping extremes.

Lupine said:
He's a guy that feels for others, he wants to help them and feels that he should because all the gifts he has. That's Clark Kent, but at the same time he isn't perfect. He can be pigheaded, he can be a bit arrogant or too sure of his own power or cultural outlook. Some of the best Superman stories are simply Superman having to deal with another culture and consider if maybe his own ideals are wrong or at the very least incompatible with lives that people are living. You called his morality all or nothing, and this is the guy that was willing to stop a war with his bare hands but left without doing anything when a warlord made a pretty good argument about war and human nature that Supes felt that maybe he was trying to force his values on a segment of humanity that he isn't equipped to understand, let alone make judgements about.

And yet he and other Superheroes are all vigilantes and thus up holding their own interpretations of justice and morality already. So yeah, him being a little introspective about the whole thing seemed pretty in character, especially seeing as I mentioned him being a little naive before and we know where he grew up wasn't exactly war torn Bosnia.
None of which makes him more relateable than someone who is human, who has to train and work for strength and speed, and who is naturally vulnerable, not invulnerable. In other words, a mortal human, however weird or rich or criminal.
 

SeventhSigil

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I will say that I find Batman more relatable when he is strictly in Gotham City and dealing with his own Rogues Gallery and universe, even more exotic ones like Poison Ivy or Killer Croc. In his own element, all opponents and challenges are tailored from a narrative stand-point to his strengths and weaknesses, allowing him to be pushed to his breaking point believably, whether the challenge is on his intellect, his fighting skills, or even just his endurance. Knightfall was a FANTASTIC example of this, as Batman found himself pushed to his very human limitations by a gauntlet of disasters and challenges, and was driven into such a state of exhaustion that Bane was able to basically stroll right on in and kick his ass.

That being said, I find any real chance of relating to the character greatly breaks down whenever Batman is involved with any Justice League or other heroic team-ups, unless it happens to be very well-handled. Whenever he's in a situation where he is expected to work alongside characters of almost obscene power, (or, for that matter, combat them,) the expectation becomes finding a way for him to 'keep up.' Suddenly the peril has to be challenging enough to test the combined power of a collection of individuals whose power border on Godlike (for God's sake, Shazam's power comes FROM GODS. SEVERAL.) And yet Batman still has to be able to more than hold his own without being reduced to a wet smear on the nearest wall, which will often mean pushing him to feats that start to make him less and less relatable as a supposedly vulnerable human being.

When thousands upon thousands of Parademons are flooding the streets and villains capable of throwing Savings and Loans buildings are running amok, he should nooooot be there swinging with the rest of them. o_o He should be sealed in a Bat Bunker monitoring the situation, coordinating his allies, and maybe lobbing some Orbital Bat Missiles at targets of particular interest.
 

Squanchy

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SeventhSigil said:
I will say that I find Batman more relatable when he is strictly in Gotham City and dealing with his own Rogues Gallery and universe, even more exotic ones like Poison Ivy or Killer Croc. In his own element, all opponents and challenges are tailored from a narrative stand-point to his strengths and weaknesses, allowing him to be pushed to his breaking point believably, whether the challenge is on his intellect, his fighting skills, or even just his endurance. Knightfall was a FANTASTIC example of this, as Batman found himself pushed to his very human limitations by a gauntlet of disasters and challenges, and was driven into such a state of exhaustion that Bane was able to basically stroll right on in and kick his ass.

That being said, I find any real chance of relating to the character greatly breaks down whenever Batman is involved with any Justice League or other heroic team-ups, unless it happens to be very well-handled. Whenever he's in a situation where he is expected to work alongside characters of almost obscene power, (or, for that matter, combat them,) the expectation becomes finding a way for him to 'keep up.' Suddenly the peril has to be challenging enough to test the combined power of a collection of individuals whose power border on Godlike (for God's sake, Shazam's power comes FROM GODS. SEVERAL.) And yet Batman still has to be able to more than hold his own without being reduced to a wet smear on the nearest wall, which will often mean pushing him to feats that start to make him less and less relatable as a supposedly vulnerable human being.

When thousands upon thousands of Parademons are flooding the streets and villains capable of throwing Savings and Loans buildings are running amok, he should nooooot be there swinging with the rest of them. o_o He should be sealed in a Bat Bunker monitoring the situation, coordinating his allies, and maybe lobbing some Orbital Bat Missiles at targets of particular interest.
A lot of fictional logic, from comics to movies, exists because without it, we wouldn't have a comic or a movie at all. The answer to questions like, "Why didn't Mrs. Wayne just let the necklace go?" or "Why not just kill the fucking Joker already?" come down to, "Because then there wouldn't be a story to tell." Beyond that, you have, "Because It's Cool" (BIC)It's the reason that people in comics, anime, and the like fight from the weakest technique to the strongest, in order, and why all such techniques are named loudly during the technique.

It's why 99% of martial arts, gunplay, and everything else in movies and television is incredibly unrealistic, even within in-fiction universes, and therefore somewhat hard to identify with. It's also at least partly why it's entertaining. At the end of the day though, who can really relate to any comic book character? They're all totally out of their minds by any normal measure.
 

Sarge034

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Agent_Z said:
Yes and I'm sure a story about a rich white guy beating the crap out of the poor and mentally ill is totally not devoid of dated beliefs itself.
Actually that is still a relevant topic in and of itself. Look at your descriptors, it wasn't criminals and criminally insane but poor and mentally ill. Does Batman beat every poor person he sees? Hell, like 90% of Gotham is poor, Batman goes after the scum that tries to hurt people. I support that and it appears you do not. We are both living in this time so it would appear that these are current ideological quandaries.

And quite frankly your idea that writing Superman as less than perfect is "not really Superman" is pretty narrow minded and ignores how characters change and evolve over time. Batman started out as using a gun and today hates them as much as Indiana Jones hates snakes. By your logic, modern Batman isn't really Batman.
I think it comes down to what is the character most notably recognized as. Today's Batman is the "true" Batman and the old Superman is the "true" Superman. If Superman started off bland and then was quickly retconed to be flawed that would be the "true" Superman, but alas he was not so boring superhuman flawless Superman is the one we have.
 

Lupine

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Squanchy said:
Lupine said:
Squanchy said:
Lupine said:
Squanchy said:
Lupine said:
Squanchy said:
Samtemdo8 said:
So can we now finally stop with the whole "Batman is more relatable than Superman because Batman has no powers, he is human like us, Superman is too OP."

Can we finally stop with that excuse now since THIS just recently happened and to comic book readers that are reading the new 52 Spoilers:

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/d0z51jpofjkbb9bkbm3v.jpg

(Yes yes I know Gawker Media is the devil, I just linked a Jpeg so you will just see the image and I do not know how to show a whole image in a post)
I'm sorry, you really think it's so odd that people find a human being more repeatable than a literal alien? Putting aside all of the good points made by other people over two pages here, and the many more to come I'm sure, that alone should be enough.

I relate more to batman because we share a species.
Um...yeah. Because the human in said situation might as well be a robot usually for all the emotion he displays and the life he leads and lends to the proceedings. While the alien is pretty much just a regular joe with super powers that he kinda wishes he could get rid of. So literal alien or no, the fact that he looks exactly like a human being, lives as a human, works, and even identifies as a human most of the time...basically it is like trying to argue Star Trek aliens vs terminators. One is obviously more human even if not literally human than the other dressed in human tissue.
Bruce Wayne is no more alien than John Wayne Gacy, John F. Kennedy, Gandhi, Carlos Hathcock, or any of the other notable human outliers. People can be very cold, and training can do amazing things to people. I can't imagine what goes on in the mind of someone who doesn't even share my physiology though, someone who can keep up with The Flash can think like a supercomputer after all. I know how Superman ACTS, but he's truly alien.

Bruce Wayne is just a highly trained operator with a typically traumatic past, lots of money and luck. Superman can turn back time if he's motivated enough, or enslave humanity on a bad day. These are not things a human can ever imagine, and the ability to do things like destroy a planet and all of its life, on a whim, is very alien. No human has ever had that power, never mind that power available in a moment of rage, sorrow, or desperation.

undeadsuitor said:
Happyninja42 said:
For you Clark is the relatable thing for the character, but for me, it's an act. Clark Kent is his perception of what a human is. It's his facade, not his true self. His true self is a demigod alien who could stomp the planet if he basically wanted to, but doesn't because he's not a dick. Bruce is 100% human, and is basically just a guy with a guilt complex, trying to make the world a better place, the only way he knows how. You seem to be against Bruce because he's basically a 1%'er, and thus is unrelatable, but every representation of him is pretty down to earth, that's why people like him so much.
But Clark Kent was Clark way before his powers emerged and he became superman. He was raised as a human and he still retains the human morality. The idea that superman is some uncomprehending alien God is probably one of the most inaccurate summaries I've ever seen. Even man of Steel had him as a human first (both in history and mindset. He still sacrificed his people to save the earth) you can say that his Clark Kent identity is underused in media, which it is, but for all his power he's still Clark Kent first.
He was raised as a human, but he was never human. You can raise a cat with dogs, and there are some interesting results, but it's never a dog.
You mentioned The Flash in your post. Superman can't turn back time, it is one of those things that the movie came up with for some reason, but The Flash literally can go into the past. He could conquer the world on a bad day, literally tons of beings in the DCU could. So I'm not getting your argument here, powers aren't instantly inhuman in the DCU. There are tons of very human characters in Superman's league and possessing similarly extraordinary gifts; so because Superman was born with them, he's less human than the guys who got them in accidents? Is The Flash not human because of his abilities? Wonder Woman? Wondie was even crafted from clay and imbued with life from the Greek gods and we don't see anyone arguing her humanity.
Not being human though, that's something. The Flash is a guy named Barry Allen, not a Kryptonian named Kal-El. You can raise a cat with dogs, it's going to act a lot like a dog, but it's not a dog. I realize that this sounds like a racist rant, but keep in mind that I'm not associating a value judgement either way, and Superman is literally an alien. He's not superficially different, while being fundamentally the same; he's superficially similar, but fundamentally alien.

Still, The Flash can go back in time, but it doesn't go well. Superman could just steer a comet into Earth on a bad day, if he didn't feel like taking it over Injustice style. I would argue for the record, that Wonder Woman isn't human either, but she's not alien either. Something that's part of the mythological history of humanity, takes human form and has human physiology strikes me as more relateble than an alien. Have you ever stopped to think that maybe Clark Kent's all or nothing morality is actually a result of his alien nature? Maybe he's more fundamentally different than you're giving him credit for, just different in a way that makes him a paragon of virtue.

Lupine said:
Similarly, Clark doesn't ACT human, he is human (If you're arguing biology, that's sort of silly because we don't know much of anything about kyrptonian biology and I mean nothing, beyond they physically look human).
We don't, but obviously there are some pretty big differences, or he wouldn't fly around like that.

Lupine said:
He's lived all his life on planet Earth, he's been exposed to nothing but human culture for the majority of his life and physically he's similar enough to us that there has never been an issue with his physiology and we're talking a guy that is married and has a sex life.
Again, no matter how much you try to make a cat a dog, it's still a cat acting like a dog. His upbringing is presumably why he's a lot less jarringly alien than he could be. Then again, I find his personality to be pretty odd. He's other a perfectly good guy, or a monster. People tend to a have more variation.

Lupine said:
His origin is alien yes, he feels an outsider because he knows that he's an alien and that his people are gone, but just as easily if he'd never known there would probably be very little difference in him as a person or as a character. Clark Kent is Superman, not the other way around. Bruce tried to make himself less human, to run away from his humanity after a fashion because the pain of losing his parents traumatizes him and makes him wary of ever letting anyone so close to him again. You're right that he's as human as the rest of us, but you're wrong in saying that he isn't trying to be inhuman, because he is. He wants to be something strong enough to keep what happened to his parents from ever happening again, and so he's given himself over to that goal, to being more than human because that's what it takes in his mind to reshape the world into something better. By comparison though Superman has always believed in humanity. He believes that people are better than they think they are, he believes that if he's a symbol of hope and stands up, that other people will too. They are both human. The issue however is that only one of them wants to be, and that isn't Batman.
They're not both human, unless you just want "human" to mean whatever you like.
So I read all of that as, biology is all I care about in regards to the character and don't know how to separate the idea of humanity as a species from humanity as an ideal.
Do you know why that is? It's NEVER BEEN AN ISSUE. As humans, we have no real experience with humanity that isn't human. We pretend, imagine, and fantasize about it, but as far as anyone can tell, only humans experience or demonstrate humanity. It would be hubris, anthropocentric hubris to assume that our most prized characteristics (called "Humanity") are universal. They're not even universal for humans living on the same planet, in the same countries, and even less so for humans living in different times.

Like "Goodness" or "Evil", "Humanity" is a vague thing that is a matter of perspective, and context.

Lupine said:
Besides I brought The Flash up for the same reason you thought to point out that Superman can steer a comet to Earth. Guess what, The Flash isn't likely to go back and change the past this is true, but likewise it is less about it not going well for him and more to do with Flash's morality and his responsibility with his powers. Just like Barry Allen has that, Clark Kent also has it. But my point is that Flash is easily as powerful or more powerful and that doesn't make him less dangerous because of what planet he's from.
Maybe he is, that's a fun debate to have, but the point is that Flash's time traveling powers don't work like, "Go back in time, Kill Zoom, Profit." If he tries, it goes wrong, he gets temporally bitchslapped. Superman by contrast has no essential limit keeping him from going all Rods From God on us on any given bad day. He is just casually omnipotent, for all intents and purposes. He didn't have to try for it, didn't have to work for it, it's just his biology.

Lupine said:
As for have I stopped to think, have you? First off, Clark Kent doesn't have all or nothing morality. That's a pretty big assumption that is demonstrably false. We've seen Superman in morally ambiguous positions before, he's not fond of them but we've seen him there still and while he holds himself to a pretty strict moral threshold, he doesn't really do the same to others. Be they criminals, or even allies. Remember the Tower of Babel storyline? Most of the League are pissed at Batman post event, Superman kind of agrees with him and he has even gone out of his way to give Batman Kryptonite...because quite literally he has no idea what might happen in the future but he trusts a good friend of his to have everyone else's best interests in mind first. Superman isn't just good or evil, those are just the stories that people are always harping about. The stories you hear less about are about the time Superman walked across the country because someone made him feel like he'd gotten too high and mighty and he decided to see if they were right by simply doing everything on foot and meeting and talking to people as he went. A few times he was a dick, but we also have things like him talking a suicidal woman down from a building and promising to her that if she jumped he would not save her unless she wanted him to.

Now do I think Superman is psychologically different from humans...I'd reply to that, that most humans are psychologically different from one another. Sure we share certain experiences and some of us even react similarly to similar stimuli, but in the end it becomes a matter of both nature and nurture for us humans so I'd ask why would you assume it to be different for him when so far we've not seen a lot that speaks of divergent/inhuman behavior in him or any other kryptonian for that matter.
He's different, but again you're comparing the variation between humans and then inserting an alien. Maybe he's a somewhat typical human, but a totally batshit alien? One thing I can't argue against though, is that Superman and every other alien in virtually all fiction is written like a human. In the same way that 1000 year old vampires still act like teenagers, aliens act like humans (most of the time). It actually takes a powerful imagination, and good writing to do otherwise, and there isn't a lot of either to be found.

Lupine said:
Again, you don't read a lot of Superman if you think he's the perfect guy. He's a good guy yes.
I think he's a fanatical, all-or-nothing kind of guy. As I've said before, he's never shown living his life in anything other than extremes. He's dictator, or a savior, a commie or capitalist. As Injustice shows, he's just one personal tragedy away from flipping extremes.

Lupine said:
He's a guy that feels for others, he wants to help them and feels that he should because all the gifts he has. That's Clark Kent, but at the same time he isn't perfect. He can be pigheaded, he can be a bit arrogant or too sure of his own power or cultural outlook. Some of the best Superman stories are simply Superman having to deal with another culture and consider if maybe his own ideals are wrong or at the very least incompatible with lives that people are living. You called his morality all or nothing, and this is the guy that was willing to stop a war with his bare hands but left without doing anything when a warlord made a pretty good argument about war and human nature that Supes felt that maybe he was trying to force his values on a segment of humanity that he isn't equipped to understand, let alone make judgements about.

And yet he and other Superheroes are all vigilantes and thus up holding their own interpretations of justice and morality already. So yeah, him being a little introspective about the whole thing seemed pretty in character, especially seeing as I mentioned him being a little naive before and we know where he grew up wasn't exactly war torn Bosnia.
None of which makes him more relateable than someone who is human, who has to train and work for strength and speed, and who is naturally vulnerable, not invulnerable. In other words, a mortal human, however weird or rich or criminal.
B.S. If we as humans have looked at other human beings and thought of them as less than human...and we have...then we aren't imagining anything. If you can say that something lacks certain traits then how would it be impossible to say that something else possesses said traits? Heck, we've been capable of anthropomorphism since our ancestors first looked up at the sky and considered what the sun might be.

You keep talking about Flash and time travel, are you trying to say that time travel is the only thing that could possibly make Flash dangerous? We're talking a guy that is fast enough to evacuate a city in the middle of a atomic explosion and get away without a bit of damage and saving thousands of thousands of lives in the process. In fact we're talking a guy that is so fast that he won a race against a guy that could instantly teleport from one side of the universe to the other, The Flash ran across the entire universe faster than a teleporter could teleport. In short he could murder every human being on the Earth before a single person could blink if he felt the urge...so what limits does he have that Superman lacks exactly? Oh and this is all Barry, Wally is actually faster than him. Think about that for a second, Wally is faster than all of that I just mentioned...on top of that Flashes can steal speed, so if he didn't feel like murder he could turn the entire world into a collection of paralyzed statues. Again, I don't know if you read a lot of DC comics, but casually omnipotent is kinda common there.

Everything about Superman you mentioned is all elseworld stories. They are stories that take a premise and run it against canon to be as drastically different as possible. So why wouldn't you expect those to be extremes? That is literally the point of elseworld stories. Also if Superman was going to flip out over personal tragedy he'd probably have done it before. You know, like every time a good friend of his dies or when Lois dies, you know like she has a couple of times now. Again...elseworld stories...there is a reason they aren't canon and most of the time is because they don't stay within characterization of the character in question. You know sort of like how Dark Knight Returns Batman isn't even remotely similar to current Batman or even whom Batman has been for the better part of a decade now.

So knowing every martial art in existence and not only knowing, but being a utter master of. Being a tactical, scientific, investigative, and engineering genius. Being able to create technology casually that is more impressive than the most bleeding of edge tech. Being capable of bench pressing a literal ton. To punch through steel. Dodge or even block bullets, and to be a billionaire with a B. All of that is relatable...good to know I guess... In short Superman's powers take a lot less suspension of disbelief if we're being honest. Batman owns more than one space station, he has freaking robot suits. If at any time he's vulnerable, it is only because he wants to be.
 

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Sarge034 said:
Agent_Z said:
Yes and I'm sure a story about a rich white guy beating the crap out of the poor and mentally ill is totally not devoid of dated beliefs itself.
Actually that is still a relevant topic in and of itself. Look at your descriptors, it wasn't criminals and criminally insane but poor and mentally ill. Does Batman beat every poor person he sees? Hell, like 90% of Gotham is poor, Batman goes after the scum that tries to hurt people. I support that and it appears you do not. We are both living in this time so it would appear that these are current ideological quandaries.

And quite frankly your idea that writing Superman as less than perfect is "not really Superman" is pretty narrow minded and ignores how characters change and evolve over time. Batman started out as using a gun and today hates them as much as Indiana Jones hates snakes. By your logic, modern Batman isn't really Batman.
I think it comes down to what is the character most notably recognized as. Today's Batman is the "true" Batman and the old Superman is the "true" Superman. If Superman started off bland and then was quickly retconed to be flawed that would be the "true" Superman, but alas he was not so boring superhuman flawless Superman is the one we have.

A rich, white beating on people of lower status than him has a lot of negative connotations attached to it.

So you're basing your views on Superman on outdated portrayals and refuse to even read recent depictions just so your views on hi aren't contradicted?