Superman destroyed Metropolis

[Casual Shinji]

Valid point but on the other hand, he was fighting General Zod. General. Zod. A guy smart enough to just vape civvies until Superman got in close enough to deal with. Zod was going to kill ALL of the humans, so a couple thousand here and there wouldn't have been a big deal. So you could look at it like this: Superman did his best to keep Zod constantly engaged so that Zod wouldn't have time to come up with a strategy. If Superman had let the pressure off, Zod would probably have just out maneuvered him and won.

This would've been valid if, again, Superman had shown regard for human safety prior to that. That would've made Zod's final quest for destruction actually have an impact, if Superman had strained himself trying to keep everyone safe. But even before that he's body-checking Zod into a gas station that has numerous cars attending, and literally aiming for a train yard filled with gas tanks to punch that one huge guy into.

 

[Fox12]

I can't seriously believe that people blame Superman for this.

Here's the thing: Kal-El didn't care about anyone getting hurt in the fight. He didn't care at all.

Except that is completely false. During the fight (immediately after the fight moves into a populated area) Superman stops fighting to look at the damage being caused, presumably to see how he can help (or maybe because he is just plain horrified at it), and is immediately punished for his momentary lack of concentration by Zod. If he ever stops concentrating on the fight for even 1 second Zod beats the shit out of him.

Superman is not an experienced fighter in this fight. It takes all his concentration to just keep Zod from overwhelming him. This part of the fight exists exactly to establish that yes, superman is aware of the damage and cares about it but that he is unable to compromise his fighting ability to do anything about it.

Second, they took the fight into space, and supes allowed the fight to continue in metropolis. He could have taken it anywhere. A desert, for instance. Instead thousands died.

Correction: Zod took the fight into space, superman managed to throw him off for 2 seconds, after which Zod tackled him back into the city. Superman did not have control of the fight when it went to space, he did not have control of where it came back down.

Now, you might say that Superman could have tried harder to influence where they came down after Zod did his orbital tackle during the descent. And maybe that is the case. But if you go back and actually watch the fight, you will notice that no one dies after they come back down from space. This is because Superman used the descent to gain the upper hand on Zod.

You see, through the fight there are two constants: Superman is stronger and more used to his powers, but Zod is smarter and can use the battlefield better. Superman is outsmarted and out maneuvered at every point in the fight, it is only when the fight devolves into a slug it out brawl or strait up contest of strength that Superman gains the upper hand.

The tackle from space was Zods major mistake of the fight. He no doubt thought that an orbital slam down would be extremely effective, but the decent turned into a falling wrestling match in which Superman had the upper hand. Superman took that opportunity to neutralize Zod.

How much longer would the fight have dragged on (and how many thousands more would have died) if Superman had messed about trying to get the fight out of the city instead of taking advantage of Zods error? Would he have even had another chance? Would Zod make such a mistake again?

And even if Superman had managed to remove Zod from the city, what stops Zod from going back to the city, where he knows he has a massive advantage over Superman? Zod is perfectly willing to make a tactical retreat to a location in which he has the advantage, he does it several times during the fight.

They were in orbit. A few degrees to the left and they would have landed in the middle of the ocean. Do you know how hard it would be to land back in metropolis? You almost have to aim for it on purpose.

But that's not my problem. It's not that supes failed to save enough people. It's that he didn't even try. Even in smallville, where he threw people into gas stations and tossed cars around.

 

[JimB]

Way to go assuming I've read all your posts before I made my original comment.

That is the first time I have ever seen anyone try to defend himself against accusations of bad faith and negligence by admitting he's arguing in bad faith and is too negligent to read the entire thread and therefore I must be the horse's ass for expecting better. Thank you for that new experience, Chaos Isaac, but you will forgive me if I take that admission as a sign I ought to move on.

 

[Kolby Jack]

I watched the fight between Superman and Zod again yesterday, and something occurred to me. The fight began at ground zero, where the world generator was placed and blown up, which Superman had nothing to do with. Then they fight, and they LEVEL one apparently empty office building (they spend some time inside it and you don't see anyone else, makes sense considering it was very close to ground zero), one parking garage, they smash up the side of another building, destroy a building under construction, go into space, then they crash into the train station, damage a bit of the concrete, then Zod dies and it's over.

Yes, there was damage, but I'm kinda of sick of people saying the super-fight flattened the city. There was plenty of city left, as you can clearly see in the background during the fight.

Smallville was considerably more damage, since it was a smaller town, but most people only seem to care about Metropolis.

 

[Zontar]

I watched the fight between Superman and Zod again yesterday, and something occurred to me. The fight began at ground zero, where the world generator was placed and blown up, which Superman had nothing to do with. Then they fight, and they LEVEL one apparently empty office building (they spend some time inside it and you don't see anyone else, makes sense considering it was very close to ground zero), one parking garage, they smash up the side of another building, destroy a building under construction, go into space, then they crash into the train station, damage a bit of the concrete, then Zod dies and it's over.

Yes, there was damage, but I'm kinda of sick of people saying the super-fight flattened the city. There was plenty of city left, as you can clearly see in the background during the fight.

Smallville was considerably more damage, since it was a smaller town, but most people only seem to care about Metropolis.

There have been estimates done [http://comicsalliance.com/man-of-steel-destruction-estimate-750-billion-dollars-humor/] on the damage and loose of life in the battle, with direct economic damage being 750 billion while the economic impact would be 2 trillion. Causality estimates are at 129,000 people confirmed dead, another 250,000 missing and likely dead, and another million people injured.

I don't care how much fault Superman actually had in the fight, or if the movie makers will make the toll be only 1/10th of what it realistically would be, a massive number of people would blame him for it for years to come no matter what happened.

 

[J Tyran]

That's the problem with the movie; Clark's morality as opposed to how he acts. He's obviously the good guy and he never comes across as mean spirited in his speech and how he acts around others. But then he does things for the sake of the movie's destruction porn quota. Like the guy with the truck. Clark knows he can't get in a tussle with this guy, because the slightest struggle would kill him, so he takes his licks and lets the guy humiliate him. Turning the other cheek. This shows he cares more about the well being of others than getting even. But then he goes and wrecks the dude's truck so the movie can show a cool shot of a truck impaled by tree trunks.

Thats the thing though, his motivation here is totally believable. Have you never had a blazing row with someone and completely lost your spaghetti over it and just walked away and punched something like a wall or door? You didn't want to punch or hurt the person but you had to do something immediately cathartic to work the anger out?

Of course when someone is as powerful as Superman both the anger and the catharsis probably scale up too.

 

[Kolby Jack]

I watched the fight between Superman and Zod again yesterday, and something occurred to me. The fight began at ground zero, where the world generator was placed and blown up, which Superman had nothing to do with. Then they fight, and they LEVEL one apparently empty office building (they spend some time inside it and you don't see anyone else, makes sense considering it was very close to ground zero), one parking garage, they smash up the side of another building, destroy a building under construction, go into space, then they crash into the train station, damage a bit of the concrete, then Zod dies and it's over.

Yes, there was damage, but I'm kinda of sick of people saying the super-fight flattened the city. There was plenty of city left, as you can clearly see in the background during the fight.

Smallville was considerably more damage, since it was a smaller town, but most people only seem to care about Metropolis.

There have been estimates done [http://comicsalliance.com/man-of-steel-destruction-estimate-750-billion-dollars-humor/] on the damage and loose of life in the battle, with direct economic damage being 750 billion while the economic impact would be 2 trillion. Causality estimates are at 129,000 people confirmed dead, another 250,000 missing and likely dead, and another million people injured.

I don't care how much fault Superman actually had in the fight, or if the movie makers will make the toll be only 1/10th of what it realistically would be, a massive number of people would blame him for it for years to come no matter what happened.

The vast majority of that damage was from the world generator, and I ain't even concerned with how people in the movie universe would react. I'm just saying real people who claim Superman callously flattened Metropolis in his fight with Zod are wrong.

 

[Nimzabaat]

Valid point but on the other hand, he was fighting General Zod. General. Zod. A guy smart enough to just vape civvies until Superman got in close enough to deal with. Zod was going to kill ALL of the humans, so a couple thousand here and there wouldn't have been a big deal. So you could look at it like this: Superman did his best to keep Zod constantly engaged so that Zod wouldn't have time to come up with a strategy. If Superman had let the pressure off, Zod would probably have just out maneuvered him and won.

This would've been valid if, again, Superman had shown regard for human safety prior to that. That would've made Zod's final quest for destruction actually have an impact, if Superman had strained himself trying to keep everyone safe. But even before that he's body-checking Zod into a gas station that has numerous cars attending, and literally aiming for a train yard filled with gas tanks to punch that one huge guy into.

Well he did save a bunch of people before that. A school bus full of kids, oil workers etc. They did establish Superman as being a good guy and having humanity's best interest at heart. He did also risk his life to save a planet with about 7 billion humans. I mean, most people missed that part, but he didn't know he would survive the World Engine and it was pretty clear that if he spent his time trying to pluck individuals out of building the whole race would die. As for chucking the guy into the train yard, you might have noticed that it didn't kill the guy. Superman was grasping at straws as to what could kill a Kryptonian. For his first outing as a super hero it wasn't perfect, but he did the best he could keeping in mind that he had no idea what his or his opponents limits were.

As a side note, unlike in Superman 2, he didn't chuckle like a psychotic when he killed Zod. I didn't mind that scene the first time I watched it, but watching it again it's far worse than anything that appeared in Man of Steel.

 

[JimB]

As a side note, unlike in Superman 2, he didn't chuckle like a psychotic when he killed Zod. I didn't mind that scene the first time I watched it, but watching it again it's far worse than anything that appeared in Man of Steel.

I blame that on editing. They filmed scenes that showed the Kryptonians getting arrested, but cut them; I don't know why, but will assume it's because they came off the coke high and realized how fucking weird it was for police to be at the North Pole. You can find the scene on YouTube if you go looking.

That's not to say that what's on the screen isn't what's on the screen. It is, and you're within your rights to criticize it.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Thats the thing though, his motivation here is totally believable. Have you never had a blazing row with someone and completely lost your spaghetti over it and just walked away and punched something like a wall or door? You didn't want to punch or hurt the person but you had to do something immediately cathartic to work the anger out?

Of course when someone is as powerful as Superman both the anger and the catharsis probably scale up too.

Yeah, but I'm not Superman. That scene where the trucker humilates him is supposed to show that Clark just needs to walk away, because he knows he can't let his powers run rampant, and then he goes outside and does exactly that. If it was there to show Supes has some demons to take care of it could've worked, but it's mostly played for laughs. It never even shows the consequences of his actions.

Well he did save a bunch of people before that. A school bus full of kids, oil workers etc. They did establish Superman as being a good guy and having humanity's best interest at heart. He did also risk his life to save a planet with about 7 billion humans. I mean, most people missed that part, but he didn't know he would survive the World Engine and it was pretty clear that if he spent his time trying to pluck individuals out of building the whole race would die. As for chucking the guy into the train yard, you might have noticed that it didn't kill the guy. Superman was grasping at straws as to what could kill a Kryptonian. For his first outing as a super hero it wasn't perfect, but he did the best he could keeping in mind that he had no idea what his or his opponents limits were.

As a side note, unlike in Superman 2, he didn't chuckle like a psychotic when he killed Zod. I didn't mind that scene the first time I watched it, but watching it again it's far worse than anything that appeared in Man of Steel.

It's the way it's portrayed. The movie wants to have its cake and eat it (a staple of Zack Snyder). It wants to be a Superman movie, but doesn't want to show him being a big boyscout, eventhough that's what he is. It wants to finally just show Superman break shit with his mighty strength. They finally have the technology to show Supes level buildings and smash through mountains, so by God they're gonna do it.

Again, it's not so much a problem with Superman as a character, but with the filmmakers going 'Whoa yeah, and then he SMASHES through the building, and whoa yeah, then it EXPLODES!'

 

[Nimzabaat]

It's the way it's portrayed. The movie wants to have its cake and eat it (a staple of Zack Snyder). It wants to be a Superman movie, but doesn't want to show him being a big boyscout, eventhough that's what he is. It wants to finally just show Superman break shit with his mighty strength. They finally have the technology to show Supes level buildings and smash through mountains, so by God they're gonna do it.

Again, it's not so much a problem with Superman as a character, but with the filmmakers going 'Whoa yeah, and then he SMASHES through the building, and whoa yeah, then it EXPLODES!'

Well Lois Lane tracked him down by following a trail of good deeds as it were.

My issue is that there are plenty of valid criticisms about Man of Steel. Huge plot holes like Superman soaking up thirty years of sunshine to become as powerful as he is and the other Kryptonians only needing minutes. The desaturated colors and ugly overall aesthetic. The fight scene with Zod being the same thing against different green screen backgrounds over and over. The pacing needed a lot of work. The portrayal of Jonathan Kent as being a bit of an idiot was off base. Some people complained about product placement like Sears and IHOP (though that could just be wanting to show Superman fighting on behalf of middle America) But when people say "he didn't save anyone" it just sounds like they didn't watch the movie but want to criticize it anyway.

I think a lot of people wanted to see a throwback to the Christopher Reeve movies. Superman has evolved since then in the comics and animated films, which Man of Steel is in line with, but some people didn't want him to evolve. I find that a little weird, since Superman Returns was closer to the early Superman films and it was awful. It could also be that people wanted a "child friendly" movie which the early Superman films were but Man of Steel wasn't.

 

[elvor0]

Another thing: Superman punched Darkseid through several buildings in the animated series, and he also leveled some buildings while fighting Shazam in Justice League Unlimited, yet no one seems to blame him for those who may have died there. Why is the animated, experienced Superman allowed to get away with being a borderline dictator at times and have moments of anger (such as suggesting going to war against Cadmus), yet the live-action inexperienced Superman isn't allowed to make mistakes?

Captain Marvel you mean

Also, I don't think Supes really does "get away with it" in the cartoons. The episode with Captain Marvel actually makes him look like a jerk and is the breaking point from a buildup, with Captain Marvel representing what Superman /should/ be. Captain Marvel even throws his JL membership in the face of the founding 7 on the basis that they no longer uphold the heroic ideal. Even CADMUS, while being a government control effort still has roots of "Well what if they do turn?" "Who watches the watchmen?" and not just as a front, Amander Waller isn't petty, her methods may be a bit crass, but she does have humanities best interests at heart, even as a government agent. Even Green Arrow has doubts about whether the JL are doing the right thing, as does Flash.

The DCAU addressed Supes god complex quite a bit actually. They never really addressed the aftermath of Supes fight with Darkseid, but that was another all or nothing deal and the series also ended there. Metropolis was either evacuated or anyone still stuck was likely dead by that point.

Personally I still go with Supes wasn't really at fault in MoS in that specific fight, and that had he tried to lure Zod away, Zod would've just ignored him or started punching out buildings. He's not stupid, he's a highly skilled warrior and general, he has no reason to follow Superman away from his strong point, hubris be damned.

My issue is that there are plenty of valid criticisms about Man of Steel. Huge plot holes like Superman soaking up thirty years of sunshine to become as powerful as he is and the other Kryptonians only needing minutes.

It was only Zod that managed to fly wasn't it? I don't believe the other Kryptonians were actually physically as powerful as Supes, just they were all trained and master hand to hand combatants. Superman doesn't really know how to fight (especially in MoS), he just punches shit. The Kryptonians only need enough strength to physically manipulate him in order to fight on equal ground because they actually know how to fight and superman isn't really willing to super speed punch people through the guts.

 

[LetalisK]

Perhaps I'm giving the creators too much credit, but I figured Superman doing shit tons of damage in MoS and killing an enemy was the point. Everyone knows who Superman is supposed to be...except for Superman. This is a reboot and Superman shouldn't come out of the plastic as a brand new Super Boy Scout. Show us how he screws up, learns, and becomes the Superman everyone knows. I think if there is anything wrong with how MoS played out, it's that at the end they didn't blatantly telegraph that this was what they were going for, though that could be construed as condescending hand holding.

 

[JimB]

Perhaps I'm giving the creators too much credit, but I figured Superman doing shit-tons of damage in Man of Steel and killing an enemy was the point. Everyone knows who Superman is supposed to be...except for Superman. This is a reboot and Superman shouldn't come out of the plastic as a brand new Super Boy Scout. Show us how he screws up, learns, and becomes the Superman everyone knows.

You are not the first person I have heard advance this theory, and all I can say is, I am horrified by anyone who needs to kill someone in order to figure out killing is bad, whether that person be a fictional character or the writer advancing the idea.

 

[briankoontz]

I see a lot of people compare the fight in Man of Steel to the ones in Dragon Ball Z and I'm here to say that those comparisons are completely unfair. Goku and his crew at least tried to pull their fights away from civilians.

The problem I have is that there seemed to be plenty of times Supes could have avoided destroying a building full of people but instead he just said fuck it and flew through it anyway. That isn't Superman to me.

Superman goes out of his way to make sure everyone is safe even if it leaves him open to attack from his enemies, that's probably one of his biggest weaknesses next to Krytonite. That's what makes him Superman, not just that he has powers but because he cares about the well-being of others to an almost naive level.

But that's just my interpretation of the character so this could all be wrong.

He *has to* care about the well-being of others to an almost naive level in order to exist at all. It's precisely his Savior-esque selflessness that allows humanity to accept that a superpowered being has such an intimate relationship to them (up to and including saving their lives at a moment's notice).

What the modern Superman movies shows is what would happen if Superman was "LESS" than this. What happens if he's closer to what an actual human being is. Everything falls apart. Humanity will never accept a superpowered being having such control over their lives if he's just a human being with lots of extra power.

The critical reception to the modern Superman movies especially and Nolan's take on modern Batman to some extent is misguided and anemic. It's a *different variation* of Superman and Batman - a version where they are more human and less demi-god.

We don't need only one version of a superhero. By creating a different version of a superhero one can explore the difference in effect between the two versions.

 

[Beetlebum]

I suppose the problem is less about the destruction as the failure of story telling.
If they had shown Supes trying to save a few people only to have Zod smack him down. Have Zod monologue about Supes having to choose between being a warrior or a savior. (This would work even better if they started out in the middle of nowhere, with Supes getting the upper hand because the time he spend under our sun, only to end up in a city as part of Zod's strategy.) You can even have Zod say "Do you really think they'll still welcome you after we did this? Do you think they'll ever trust you?" or something similar.
Just something to lampshade it, acknowledge it and it could shine a proper light on the destruction porn we crave and that maybe we are hypocrites for loving it.

But instead Supes knocks a satelite out of the sky and goes "Deal with it" while a female soldier goes soppy over him.

 

[Loonyyy]

Perhaps I'm giving the creators too much credit, but I figured Superman doing shit-tons of damage in Man of Steel and killing an enemy was the point. Everyone knows who Superman is supposed to be...except for Superman. This is a reboot and Superman shouldn't come out of the plastic as a brand new Super Boy Scout. Show us how he screws up, learns, and becomes the Superman everyone knows.

You are not the first person I have heard advance this theory, and all I can say is, I am horrified by anyone who needs to kill someone in order to figure out killing is bad, whether that person be a fictional character or the writer advancing the idea.

I think it's more that he's being thrown in the deep end. I had essentially that take away, and thought it might be the reason why Supes "doesn't kill", having being horrified by killing someone with his bare hands, and making himself alone in the universe. And from there he's set up to become Superman in the followup.

It presupposes that killing Zod was necessary however, but I didn't really have a problem with that.

Unfortunately, the movie doesn't really follow on with that. I just rewatched it, and following that, we have Clark getting a job at the Daily Planet, and being told that he's hot by the military. Which less sets up journey of exploration and redemption, and more, some fanservice to indicate that the origin story part is done. What I've seen of the follow up doesn't look like it's going to bother with that either.

 

[Nimzabaat]

I suppose the problem is less about the destruction as the failure of story telling.
If they had shown Supes trying to save a few people only to have Zod smack him down. Have Zod monologue about Supes having to choose between being a warrior or a savior. (This would work even better if they started out in the middle of nowhere, with Supes getting the upper hand because the time he spend under our sun, only to end up in a city as part of Zod's strategy.) You can even have Zod say "Do you really think they'll still welcome you after we did this? Do you think they'll ever trust you?" or something similar.
Just something to lampshade it, acknowledge it and it could shine a proper light on the destruction porn we crave and that maybe we are hypocrites for loving it.

But instead Supes knocks a satelite out of the sky and goes "Deal with it" while a female soldier goes soppy over him.

Well they did a few "show don't tell" moments that cover those points. Superman saves one guy out of a helicopter and the helicopter crashes killing the rest of the other guys showing him that he has to look at the big picture instead of saving people on a case by case basis. Superman willingly gives himself up to Zod on the condition that Zod would spare humanity but... Zod went total crazy so it became a battle for humanity. Not to mention that the world engine did most of the actual destruction and they showed Superman ramming Zod through deserted buildings.

I'm starting to wonder if Man of Steel was just too long? It seems that a lot of complaints are answered by watching the movie.

That being said, what are some fun ways they could diffuse the conflict in Batman vs Superman? I'd like to see Superman fly out into space, grab an asteroid that's mostly gold or diamond (they exist), drop it on earth and go "there, fucking bill me you ungrateful little shits".

Off-topic (maybe): Christopher Nolan told Zack Snyder that there couldn't be any levity in Man of Steel. When you think about it, the moments that made Dark Knight stand out were Heath Ledger going off script and making the Joker just a little bit funny. It seems that that little bit of lightness was what made Dark Knight the best of the DC movies and will probably still be for a while.

 

[LetalisK]

Perhaps I'm giving the creators too much credit, but I figured Superman doing shit-tons of damage in Man of Steel and killing an enemy was the point. Everyone knows who Superman is supposed to be...except for Superman. This is a reboot and Superman shouldn't come out of the plastic as a brand new Super Boy Scout. Show us how he screws up, learns, and becomes the Superman everyone knows.

You are not the first person I have heard advance this theory, and all I can say is, I am horrified by anyone who needs to kill someone in order to figure out killing is bad, whether that person be a fictional character or the writer advancing the idea.

Fear not, citizen![/superherovoice] because "killing is bad" is already understood by Superman and by most people. "Never kill" is a different philosophy and the one Superman will learn and what puts him on that moral plane higher than humans (arguably even higher than hardcore pacifists since they don't have to handle the trials and temptations Superman does).