The Big Picture: Man of Tomorrow

[Leonardo Huizar]

It wouldnt be the 1st time Supes "killed" or outright executed people. In Smallville there were always opportunity to save the enemy of the week which end up killed by their own hubris and mr. faster than a speeding bullet suddenly isnt fast enough. He also killed 3 evil Kryptonians in the main comics [pre new52] who took over another planet and killed most of its population but he did feel remorse for his actions. I remember reading about the "Other Zod" whose powers mimicked Supes but in a last moments of battle [context: Supes is powerless then regains his powers at the end of the fight] Other Zod flies straight at Supes at super speed [while Other Zod was losing his own] but Supes even with his powers doesnt hesitate to step aside, then 'SPLAT'.

Im going to be in the minority and say i was OK with Zod being snuffed out, Because:1.He brought the fight to his mother's door step, 2. Zod was already set to commit genocide and 3. In the last moments rather than keep his attention on Supes fighting him "the great warrior" felt it necessary to try REALLY HARD to kill the random family because petty reasons.

If it makes the character better that hes has to live with his mistakes and become stronger for it then im okay with that.

As for the comment above of the SvZ fight, kinda hard to save everyone when the main threat is in your face and he just got those powers. It would have gone: Supes "No, not the people!" *flies away... Zod proceeds to heat vision the area into ash AND if its going to fall on Supes, then where were the Troops? Why didnt they run into Metropolis and start rescue when Supes was dealing with Zod?

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Wait, Superman kills Zod? That's not right. Superman doesn't kill.

I was equally confused. I always found the 'do not kill' rule to be utterly stupid, but it's now so integrated into the character that removing it seems..Bizarre. I mean, heck, is BATMAN the traditional 'good guy' now of the future Justice League?

It does seem kinda silly esp. when faced with characters like Drega who actually WANT him to hill them.

EDIT: but it is part of his character so changing it seems, I don't know, wrong is the only word I can think of. Although can it really be "wrong" when talking about a fictional character?

 

[PuckFuppet]

What absolutely killed it for me wasn't the destruction of Metropolis or the over the top fight that surrounded it, it was the complete absence of any kind of proper organisation on a national level either in its wake or in the hours leading up to it. This wouldn't bother me if they hadn't spent so much time inserting military characters into the plot.

The military finds the ship, which Clark hears about through a series of very fortuitous meetings and then they're also perfectly happy to let Lois Lane to get in that action also.
The military finds <url=http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Nero>Nero's Zod's ship and just sort of sits on it for bit.
The military captures our hero, regardless of any willingness, and proceeds basically be the driving force behind the plot up until the point where Jor'El decides to tell an unversed layman how to destroy Zod's ship (which is actually another annoying point in that the instructions boiled down to "Hit Object A with Object B" and is surely something he could have explained to Kal'El) because he wants to set his son up with a hot piece of ass.
Then there is the complete lack of agency in any of the female characters, besides German Michelle Rodriguez (another great actress pigeon-holed into tough chick for the rest of her career, congrats Nolan/Snyder) who had a good showing in Pandorum and probably could have done much more... but I digress. Clark/Kal/Superman saves Lois Lane three times in one film, THREE TIMES and then is perfectly in the mood to give her a nice long kiss immediately after watching countless thousands of people die as a densely urban area is levelled by an alien gravity weapon. Good show. And Lara, who basically existed within the context of the plot to push a button (regardless of all the stuff leading up to that button, I'm discussing the actual influence of the character directly on the plot) and then accept death after she watches the love of her life and the father of her child get murdered infront of her... and doesn't particularly try to claw Zod's eyes out?

I've gone on a massive tangent here and I could go on for a while but to get back to my point, the entire US military and emergency/disaster management apparatus appeared to just sit back in the third act with the attitude "Meh, let the air force handle it."

Why, after an alien attack on the heartland of America, wasn't a state of emergency declared?
Flights grounded? Some helicopters were just hanging around between buildings in Metropolis.
National guard and reserves mobilised? I didn't see any.
First responders at full readiness? There was one scene with a cop trying to do some crowd control, but all I really needed was a 5 second panning shot of some EMT's getting injured into ambulances, some firemen dealing with the Burly Brawl induced destruction or even some police officers working to evacuate civilians from the epicentre of the destruction.
Evacuation plans for major urban centres prepared? See above.

Literally crippled my suspension of disbelief, then the third time he saves Lois finished it off with a headshot. It wasn't a bad film, it was just sufficient.

EDIT: Plot goal for Zod was to ensure the continuation of his species as he desired. He had enough of the codex to activate the Genesis Chamber in that outpost but then decided "I better take this extremely valuable ship, which is basically the entire goal of my invasion of this backwater rock, and use it to attack some dudes."

 

[JaredXE]

But Bob, Superman's freak-out over killing Zod wasn't BECAUSE he took a life, it's because with that one action, he completed the genocide of his entire race. Superman had already destroyed the Genesis Chamber with all the Kryptonian DNA pods, the other guys died in the singularity.....and now he is forced to physically end the life of the last Kryptonian. THAT is why he cried out afterwards.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Heh, so I'm not the only one who was shocked at that scene (no I am not siding with the whole he shouldn't killed villains, I was just shocked that he did it as I too view Superman is never a killer even when it was justify for him to do so).

Sure they never mention anywhere that Superman has a code on never killing but isn't the whole "never used violence" kind of count? I mean the flashback show he never fight bad against the bullies even til present day with that jerk trucker in that bar scene. I mean killing is violence.

Also in my view the problem that I find on the idea on making Superman sequel is finding worthy villains to pin him against him (I think Superman Return was bad cos it didn't had a proper villain for him to fight with like many superheroes films have these days. Before you mention the previous Superman films, those were in a different time).

 

[cynicalsaint1]

Wow Bob - you really decided to be THAT guy, and in the worst kind of way this time, didn't you?

Really it sounds like you're sort of missing the forest for the trees here.
Why would Superman killing one guy, at the very start of his career as Superman imply that he's going to be totally cool with it going forward?

In fact why wouldn't his regret at his actions in dealing with General Zod be the genesis of his no-killing rule going forward?

I mean wasn't the point of the movie that this was Superman's first really big fight?
Maybe the point isn't that "he had no choice" so much as being inexperienced at this whole superhero thing he failed to see other options?

It really feels like you're making a rather big leap in assumptions here - I mean when he did his whole cry of sorrow thing I took that as meaning that he just did something he really didn't want to do and immediately regretted, not that he had come to the conclusion that "Hey killing dudes is a totally awesome way to deal with the bad-guys".

 

[maximara]

Wait, Superman kills Zod? That's not right. Superman doesn't kill.

Actually if you go back to the Golden Age Superman killed via inaction a lot. There are several free podcasts that go over those comics and for several years Superman was basically Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe with the Incredible Hulk's power set.

'There is a horrible criminal about to be mowed down by a train should I... oh he's been mowed down already. Well I'm sure he deserved it.' I'm not kidding that was basically the mentality of the 1930s Superman.

Then there were all the times he was tricked into killing someone in the Silver age. Bizzaro was a prime example of that and he got killed again during the Burne Man of Steel series and _that_ time it was more intentional then it was in the Silver Age.

 

[Corvo-Attano-77]

Personally I prefer it when films take themselves seriously. But that's just me.

FWIW, Bob, I thought the final scenes more than just hinted at a lighter future for Superman. The scene where he smashed some sort of spy satellite into the ground right in front of General Matrix couldn't have been any more tongue-in-cheek.

As for Superman killing people, I don't see it as much of an issue given the exceptional circumstances. Zod is Superpowered, Lex is not. We'd just watched the two of them demolish several city blocks in a single fist fight. It's pretty obvious in Zod's final scene - despite the movie not establishing an ethical code beforehand - that killing Zod is a last resort for Superman. It's extremely difficult to imagine a villain like Lex being able to put Superman in the same position, given Lex's lack of super speed, super strength, and so on. Even if Lex were standing next to a Nuke The World button and threatening to use it, Superman could just knock him out at superspeed (barring any kryptonite which would render the question moot anyway). That wasn't an option with Zod.

Going a little deeper, the immediacy of the threat to the "random family" is just as important to this scene as the destruction that preceded it. The foundations of consequentialism become very shaky indeed as the amount of time between action and predicted consequence increases, and this is especially true for Superman who can accomplish a great deal in a very short amount of time.

And all of that is to say nothing of the extraordinary anguish displayed by Superman after killing Zod. For all we know, it may have been the defining moment for this version of the character i.e. the reason he makes the rule never (again) to take a life.

All in all, I can't really see this as much of an issue. But TBH I'm not much of a comic geek/nerd/whatever and don't revere the source material as some do.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Wait, Superman kills Zod? That's not right. Superman doesn't kill.

Actually if you go back to the Golden Age Superman killed via inaction a lot. There are several free podcasts that go over those comics and for several years Superman was basically Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe with the Incredible Hulk's power set.

'There is a horrible criminal about to be mowed down by a train should I... oh he's been mowed down already. Well I'm sure he deserved it.' I'm not kidding that was basically the mentality of the 1930s Superman.

Then there were all the times he was tricked into killing someone in the Silver age. Bizzaro was a prime example of that and he got killed again during the Burne Man of Steel series and _that_ time it was more intentional then it was in the Silver Age.

Well I don't read comics, I only really know Superman through his other incarnations so I can't really account for that. Still I don't think that's quite the same thing.

 

[speccy4i]

I felt that the 3rd act was from a sequel to a Superman movie we never saw, it felt too big. Although I guess the allusion to Matrix 3 didn't help.

I would say that the next step would be to put Supes into an ethical problem with no clearly defined bad guy, where the action of punching the guy into oblivion isn't available until right at the end when it's all resolved. But the problem is that Man of Steel ended with such an explosive, clean cut fight; a more thoughtful, smaller story based on a complex moral problem is going to feel a step backwards which I don't think WB/DC are going to do, it's only going to be bigger and bigger until someone's head actually explodes at a pre-screening.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

What's with the bleeping, Bob? This isn't a TV network. If you feel that certain words are offensive, then just don't say them. Don't say them then put an annoying beep over them.

 

[Frost27]

Superman breaking down and killing someone outright and breaking his one rule was pretty much the shove down the slippery slope that you had to spend the entire playthrough of Injustice fixing, isn't it? I did not like the scene and I felt like it in some way dirtied the character. Uncle Ben told Spiderman that "With great power comes great responsibility" but Superman embodied that. That is a lot of the fun and draw of the character is that he can do anything without having to cross that line.


In regards to the colossal fight scene at the end; I kept feeling like if it had taken place in the comics, Superman would have found a way to take the fight outside the city/population area to avoid that kind of damage. If I remember correctly, wasn't he trying to stop Doomsday before he got to the city in Death of Superman? That being said, the Superman/Faora fight was pretty much my favorite part of the whole damned movie. She seemed to be the only one in the movie that was enjoying herself.

 

[Roganzar]

Bob, you say that it was wrong for Superman to kill one person and that it will open the door for Superman killing his other enemies.

But the complaints I've heard online is that he killed WAY more people when he had that DBZ fight with Zod at the end of the movie and by not even trying to save them from falling buildings and debris, it made him seem more heartless than just killing Zod.

The collateral damage he causes in the cartoons and comics will have killed people. Can't imagine that wouldn't be the case.

Why not just write it as he felt so bad about killing Zod that subsequently NEVER do it again? Seems like an easy enough out.

This would be the establishment of the "No killing" rule. It's not a out, so much as establishing the code.

 

[brazuca]

Wait, Superman kills Zod? That's not right. Superman doesn't kill.

Actually if you go back to the Golden Age Superman killed via inaction a lot. There are several free podcasts that go over those comics and for several years Superman was basically Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe with the Incredible Hulk's power set.

'There is a horrible criminal about to be mowed down by a train should I... oh he's been mowed down already. Well I'm sure he deserved it.' I'm not kidding that was basically the mentality of the 1930s Superman.

Then there were all the times he was tricked into killing someone in the Silver age. Bizzaro was a prime example of that and he got killed again during the Burne Man of Steel series and _that_ time it was more intentional then it was in the Silver Age.

Amen to that! People forget easily, but the reason super heroes are working on movie theaters is: one people want the lifeless CGI spectacle and antagonist do not keep reappering. They end up dying somehow, like The First Batman of Nolanverse or the first two SpiderMan movies. Lets face, a hero who does not end the problem is just an attention whore using destruction and super power as his stage and peform act. What bring us also to the "fake" nerd girl again. Geek culture has always looked for attention, now those demigods are going through the scrutiny of a larger audience who will say: well we celebrated the death (killing) of Osama Bin Laden, why the fuck is in this fictional America The Joker, General Zod or any other alive, if they keep coming back?
In fact Bob Kane killed the Joker. It's not something the hero should be proud of, but you got to do what you got to do.

 

[Ken_J]

Wait, Superman kills Zod? That's not right. Superman doesn't kill.

actually Zod is consistently superman's first/only kill in pretty much every medium he shows up in.

 

[TwiZtah]

YES! FUCKING FINALLY!

I absolutely loathe the whole high horse bullshit in comics of not killing the supervillains. Hell, think of how many people that would not have died if say Batman killed The Joker with a bullet through the eyes. I actually think that heroes that does not kill the supervillain is a villain in themself, they have the power to end pain and suffering caused by these lunatics. But no, it's against their "moral code", making their acts not selfless like a heroes act should be, but selfish.

Therefore I love The Punisher, quick and efficient killing, the goal is to stop the bad man.

 

[contla]

Small thing. Thank you for using "Champing at the bit" Correctly. That means a lot to me. More than it should.

 

[Falseprophet]

This was the best summary of why Superman killing Zod breaks the movie [http://www.comicsalliance.com/2013/06/17/man-of-steel-on-my-planet-the-s-is-for-sucks-spoilers-review/]:

For me, the worst thing about Superman killing Zod at the end of Man of Steel isn't the neck-snapping itself, but that a few minutes before it happens, during an interminable fight scene through the damn near post-apocalyptic landscape of a ruined Metropolis, Zod tells him something along the lines of "this doesn't end until one of us dies." And he's right. That's what kills me about it. The bad guy tells Superman that he'll only stop if Superman kills him, and Superman proves him right. Superman proves that the bad guy is right. There's no other way. It's just violence and death as the only solution.

Superman proves that the bad guy is right.

There is nothing you can tell me that will make me think that's not a completely insane, monumentally wrongheaded way to end a Superman movie. From a character standpoint, it is the worst possible thing they could do, undermining every bit of rancid dialogue about how Superman's going to Show Us The Way and how It Stands For Hope. It doesn't. It's just dudes punching each other until one of them punches harder, the end.

 

[Pat Hulse]

Actually, Bob, Snyder has gone on the record saying that he wanted the Superman-killing-Zod thing in there specifically to give Superman a reason to have a code against killing. He killed once, he hated it, so never again. I personally think it works. Yeah, I know Superman is supposed to be against killing for more lofty ethical reasons, but that's a privilege he gets simply through lazy writing. Once Zod is exposed to Earth's atmosphere and he gets used to it, he's just as powerful as Superman, plus he has a lifetime of training in combat and absolutely nothing to lose. He has far more leverage in that situation, so it makes sense that he could be able to force Superman into the choice he forces him to make.

This means that Superman down the road will probably fight smarter than he did here. He'll put more focus on getting people to safety, making sure villains can't use them to force him to use lethal force. He now knows the consequences of carelessness. He knows that it's not just about punching bad guys, it's about keeping others out of harm's way.

For me, it's like Spider-Man's Uncle Ben moment. He had to have a moment of irresponsibility and experience the consequences of it in order to make his dedication to it more understandable.

Let's put it this way. There's a slight possibility that this movie could share the same universe as "Arrow". In that TV series, Ollie is willing to kill and does it frequently. Imagine a scenario where Ollie is rolling his eyes at Superman's code against killing. Knowing that Superman has had to take a life and knows what it means gives additional credibility to his stance because he knows what it's like to be forced to make that decision, but he's still ashamed of it. However, if he's never had to kill anybody, it's easy to dismiss his stance as a sign of his privilege. How can he know the desperation of needing to kill if he's always been able to get out of that situation with his limitless power?

 

[Dastardly]

Man of Tomorrow

MovieBob gives us a spoiler laden look into the latest Superman movie Man of Steel.

Watch Video

I would like to see this set up a greater, long-range conflict. See, at first, Superman doesn't kill because "Superman doesn't kill." Then, when he felt like there was no other option, he does it... and he wins!

From here, we could see Superman begin to question the "Superman doesn't kill" that he'd been given. It wasn't a conviction, it was an instruction, and he's seen that instruction "proven false," to his mind. This opens the opportunity for Superman to really screw up -- an extreme rarity, in the comic world -- and actually have to earn the conviction behind the "Superman doesn't kill."

Or maybe we'll find that we've seen just that -- he has a hard time dealing with the fact that he "had" to kill Zod, even wrestling with the question of whether or not he really had to, and he begins to give real shape to his convictions.

See, in the past, Superman was just good because. It's like he was born superhumanly compassionate and morally upright. And modern audiences are just too cynical to really buy that anymore. So, it's not that we're getting a darker Superman overall. I think we're getting a "darker before the dawn" Superman, so that we can actually believe in the brighter "boy scout" Superman.