What is the appeal of a grim and realistic Superman?

Scars Unseen

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I really think they went about this whole Justice League thing the wrong way. Starting with Superman was a bad idea. He's iconic, sure, but he's also pretty much the apex of power among heroes in the DC universe. IMO, he's only really interesting when the stakes are huge, and if you are planning a Marvel Studios-esque continuity, that isn't where you want to start.

I would have done one big budget movie and a couple of lower budget movies each year leading up to the JL movie. Start with some of the less spectacularly powerful characters and work your way up. First year would maybe be Batman(non-Nolan version to better fit into a world where superpowers actually exist), Flash and Cyborg. Second year go with Wonder Woman, Aquaman(he is a founding member) and Martian Manhunter. In the third year leading up tho the JL, bring in Superman and Green Lantern, each of them dealing with different aspects of the same cosmic threat that leads to the founding of the League.

If you absolutely must cut down on members for the first League movie(it is a lot of characters to juggle), I recommend cutting Aquaman(of course) and Martian Manhunter. That leaves you with a 5 man band, which is still one less than the Avengers had.
 

fenrizz

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The appeal?

Well, this is the only Superman related media I've found even remotely interesting.
Superman is usually too super for my tastes.
 

Thompson Plyler

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I think the appeal of a "dark and gritty" Superman is an answer to every power fantasy that comics have both excelled in and been lambasted for since they first hit the streets. While Superman is a god, he has never been portrayed as able to stop all crimes at all times. While he is a paragon of virtue and the apex of strength/power in his world, his power is not infinite, which is why all the other heroes aren't just tipping back cold ones in Ko Samui.

As a walking god, he has to deal with all kinds of issues. He's alone, the last of his people. Any human rules he observes are done so by choice. To us, he is a god, both wonderful and terrible to behold.

But he can't do everything.

He can't stop organized crime without creating a power vaccum. Same to sex trafficking. He can't stop comparatively pedestrian problems like female genital mutilation or honor killings without being callous to different cultures. He can't punch campaign finance reform in the face.

People say he's boring, but in an age when American imperialism is creating more enemies than it extinguishes, in an age when American cultural hegemony is as troubling as it is axiomatic around the globe, using an omnipotent farm boy from Kansas to ask hard questions and dare to provide hard answers seems to be just the thing that fantasy and escapism were made for.

How does this work in a big budget superhero summer blockbuster? Well, maybe it can't. In that framework, things gotta go boom. Someone needs to get punched. But the original question was why a dark and gritty Superman appeals to people. The consequences of a rogue Superman or a Superman fed up with his impotence or a Superman who gives it all up EXCEPT when a global threat rears its head (sort of like MoS!) are interesting because they give a face and name and actor to ask questions about what the hell you can or should do in the face of unlimited power in a world too complicated to simply be solved with eye lasers.
 

Racecarlock

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Oh didn't you hear? Idealistic fantasies are unrealistic. We need to make everything in entertainment more relatable to appeal to people who don't understand what fiction is.

In the next mario game, instead of being in unrealistic mushroom world, you'll actually be cleaning toilets! Hooray!

The next zelda game will feature 2 different shades of grey and brown and have lots of blood and things in it because realism.

Oh, and beamng is getting an update which features virtual car insurance! (Not really)

Isn't it great how nothing provides any fantasy anymore and is just as boring and horrible as real life now? Now that nothing can ever be happy again, I guess I can go kill myself now.

Not really.
 

Thompson Plyler

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I think the issue, Racecarlock, is that Superman's main enemy isn't Lex Luthor or Brainiac. It's boring his readers or audience to tears. Usually. The reason usually cited is that his power level makes most conflicts irrelevant. The result of this is that writers struggle to make the character interesting and fresh. They introduced kryptonite on the radio show to give him physical vulnerability, then they introduced different KINDS of kryptonite to exploit him in different ways, from making him evil to robbing him of his powers. Sometimes they put Lois in danger or kill her, and sometimes they get super-duper lazy and have him slug it out with some brutish villain or monster who can put up similar numbers on the squat rack. To make it more complicated for writers, the character doesn't lie, cheat, or steal. He fights with honor, believes in the best case scenario, and he's devoted to truth and justice. I'm not saying any of those make him a weaker character, but they definitely make it harder to make him interesting. The essence of effective drama is conflict, and when there is no meaningful external or internal conflict, it's very easy to lose your audience. We need conflict because without it we can't identify with characters. We all have feet of clay, and while a paragon of ultimate virtue and ability can be interesting a *foil* for a more complicated (i.e. flawed) character, they rarely make for interesting viewing or reading on their own.

That forces the question of what IS interesting about the character. The cynical answer is, well, nothing. Fuck Superman. But if we accept that there is never going to be a DC Universe without Superman, it begs the writers to come up with what is worth reading about: how do we identify with this god who looks like us? Well, he's alone except for the human trappings he chooses to attach himself to. He will never age while those attachments fade away. He must be terribly bored some of the time since he's always holding back in some way. He has to be the ONLY person living up to his own ideals while everyone else around him falls short. For most of us, once we get our basic needs on the Maslow pyramid handled, our tragedies spring from the moments when our expectations collide with the way the world actually works. Superman has that by the dumpster load. Managing expectations is probably more difficult for Superman than handling kryptonite.

That's a lot of heady stuff, though. Not much fun. At some point, we want to see the guy who can throw an oil tanker THROW AN OIL TANKER. The trick for writers is not to make things dark and gritty for their own sake but to give a context for Superman to use his godlike abilities that springs from the sources of conflict above. Everything else smacks of lazy writing-- hence why virtually most plots that hinge on kryptonite are pretty dumb.

So it's less about "dark and gritty" than it is about necessity. Superman has to deal with some heady stuff to remain interesting for long. What's more, I like to think escapist media (comics, video games, genre novels and movies, etc.) are capable of delivering more than just hyperkinetic fun for its own sake. There's a reason that the best Superman stories (I'm thinking of stories like Kingdom Come, Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, For the Man Who Has Everything, Red Son, All-Star Superman, Secret Identity... and, if I may be so bold as to include a non-Superman Superman, Supreme Power 1-18) tend to ask harder questions of the character and his place in the world. If there was a way to make the character readable while prancing through Metropolis saving kittens all day long, writers would run to it. It'd be a lot easier than writing stories around all the stuff I mentioned above.
 

Anachronism

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Zombie Badger said:
zarguhl said:
I AM GENIUS!

The logical next move is to make a really happy, cheerful Batman movie! Like Batman is a cool, casual, nice guy who has a family, with kids and stuff. But then the evil Grinch comes to steal Christmas and Batman fights him off in a rap battle of compliments!
They did. It was called Batman: The Movie and it was hilarious.
I'm still hoping that Batfleck is going to turn out to be Brave and the Bold Batman. How great would that be?
 

Izanagi009_v1legacy

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Casual Shinji said:
Because Superman is generally criticized for being a goody two-shoes. By making him grim and realistic people probably feel this makes him better/cooler, or something in that nature.
I could see a comic that does an exploration of what happens when a person of extreme power has had realistic life: some happiness, some pain and some stupidity. Index's Accelerator had some elements of this in his story arc.

At the same time though, I do think we need to find a balance between the grim and the optimistic. Perhaps have superman talking to a person of similar strength but who has seen the dark side of humanity: the cruelty, hatred, greed and the like. It could be an interesting dialogue on how power is to be used and the possiblities of humanity.
 

Jonny49

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I still wouldn't class Man of Steel as gritty or dark, just more naturalistic.
 

Izanagi009_v1legacy

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M0rp43vs said:
I had written a long post that was massive even by my verbose standards, that explained why people enjoy grimdark and a character study of superman and why grim doesn't work with it but I'll cut it down.

People think dark=mature, immature people write stories in this vein resulting in immature dark stories.

The more optimistic and happy a work is, the more people want to darken it to justify them liking something so "immature" (See My little pony fanfics... or don't and not take a hit to SAN)

DC's live movies are getting it's ass kicked by it's marvel counterpart. Dark knight closed the huge gap so they tried it's dark formula with the next movie, Superman. This tone works with Batman because he is the dark that shuns the light, does what he needs to win, even if it isn't nice, because his foes aren't nicer, but not for his foil, Superman, the nice guy, the god on earth who brings himself down to our level because he wants to bring us to his.

I don't mind the fact that one's CHARACTER makes one more RELATABLE, but a good STORY can make a character more SYMPATHETIC. And I've always thought that supe's story is one of trying to be good so you can be an example of greatness in all trials. Its almost a religious allegory(regardless of your opinion of faith) rather more subtly done that the blatant Jesus imagery in MoS.

The appeal of a grimdark superman rather ironically speaks to one of the themes of superman itself:The tall poppy syndrome, rather more than the mega rich Batman who spends money on toys for himself How dare one man have all that power, and how dare he not abuse it to all hell like I would. He can't be good all the time and he must be secretly evil, his optimism a facade See my line about optimistic works above.

That said, I can see how a dark superman CAN work, I just don't think Man Of Steel did it well or did it to it's fullest. A dark superman would focus on his story of learning morality. Have him wonder WHY he can't just break loose and abuse his powers, have him doubt if he can save everyone all of the time, whether he would have the energy to and whether he would want to, with all the ingratitude he gets and all the evil he sees all the time.

But he knows that if it does, it would feel wrong because he had been taught that it is wrong, and through his growth he would be guided by his moral adopted family who will show him why he feels it feels wrong and why it is, even if they don't have all of the answers, they will try to teach him goodness rather than "Let the kids on the bus die" and "let me stupidly sacrifice myself even though you could do it without loss". A God on earth being cared for and under the power of two old but caring humans. It still keeps the Concept of superman, A powerful being trying to be good, but a dark superman story would focus on his doubts and whether it is all worth it.

And if you want to do a grimdark superman movie, honestly, I say adapt Irredeemable to the big screen. Because I'm sure that if Hollywood tries to make another darker superman movie, it'll end up like the story mode of Injustice... with more batman.

God, I cut it down and its still massive....
The whole thing with Grimdark seems so much like Chuniibyou that it's vomit inducing. A lot of people make dark characters because it's gives them license to make a self-insert character that exacts revenge and doesn't have to take others into consideration (see Film Critic Hulk's comments on Batman [http://badassdigest.com/2011/12/21/film-crit-hulk-smash-what-the-f-is-it-about-batman/])

If you want to make a dark story, you should make him crushed by despair and pain instead of just making it a cheap power fantasy. Maybe have the character try to be superman and have him endlessly attacked by the greed of some, the sociopathy of others and break his morals and ideals one by one. That is a true dark story, not the self-empowerment crap some make
 

Hero in a half shell

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Thompson Plyler said:
writers struggle to make the character interesting and fresh. They introduced kryptonite on the radio show to give him physical vulnerability, then they introduced different KINDS of kryptonite to exploit him in different ways, from making him evil to robbing him of his powers. Sometimes they put Lois in danger or kill her, and sometimes they get super-duper lazy and have him slug it out with some brutish villain or monster who can put up similar numbers on the squat rack. To make it more complicated for writers, the character doesn't lie, cheat, or steal. He fights with honor, believes in the best case scenario, and he's devoted to truth and justice. I'm not saying any of those make him a weaker character, but they definitely make it harder to make him interesting.
I think this has a lot to do with it: Superman is a very difficult character to write because he is so much more powerful than regular humans, so most of the standard Superhero actions are no challenge for him (e.g. the classic foil a bank robbery, or having an exciting chase sequence with regular thieves)
Because of this, while Batman, Flash, Iron Man etc. find fighting crime challenging, Superman generally only finds apocalypse level threats challenging, yet a large part of his character involves him getting involved in these crime situations that are beneath him, because he wants to help out and he does not want to see regular people suffer - these tend to come across as boring or incredibly cheesy on the big screen - although done right they can be awesome:

Thompson Plyler said:
I think the issue, Racecarlock, is that Superman's main enemy isn't Lex Luthor
I wouldn't agree with this. In fact I would argue that Lex Luthor is Superman's ultimate foil - his absolute nemesis through what Superman represents and Lex Luthor represents.

To understand Superman's motivation you first must realise that Superman is mortal. Although he may live a long time, he will sooner or later die, either from a cataclysmic event, or just old age (his lifespan in various media ranges from a few hundred years to tens of thousands, but it is heavily implied he does have a limited life), but it is certain that he will not live forever, and crucially Superman himself is aware of this.

He knows that he cannot protect the earth forever. He knows that some day he will not be able to fly in and arbitrate peace talks between nations, 'convince' dictators to clean up their act, remind people of all backgrounds to be kinder and more considerate - because everything that Superman has achieved so far - any peace, wars avoided, criminals rehabilitated, dictators reigned in - has all been achieved despite human nature, not because of it.

Like any good Miss America Beauty Pageant winner Superman wants World Peace, but the difference is that he has the abilities and reputation to help force humanity towards that goal. Superman does not want to see the worst criminals beaten, or locked up, or detained, but rehabilitated because that is the only indication that humanity can actually change from the crapsack, disgusting, selfish, brutal assholes human society is full of at the moment - and Lex Luthor proves that this is a war Superman is losing.

Lex has everything, but still insists on being a petty criminal full of hatred. He has never felt remorse, guilt or sympathy. His unnecessary greed and thirst for power is everything Superman is trying to weed out of humanity, yet his position of popularity and authority, and how revered he is and loved by other humans display the biggest struggle of Superman - He is trying to be a role model to let humanity follow his guidelines of goodness, purity and empathy, but as much as they look up to him, they also deify Lex Luthors' ruthless attitude and thirst for power.

Superman's struggle is not against criminals, but the very emotions and lusts that turn people to crime, greed, and hatred. He is not fighting humans, he is fighting the human condition, and the stubbornness of Lex Luthor to be involved in the most depraved evil schemes, never even consider changing his ways, yet be insanely popular and loved by humanity because of his success, just prove how much Superman is losing that struggle.
 

McMarbles

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Zombie Badger said:
Since watching Man of Steel (which I wasn't a particular fan of) I've been wondering what exactly is the appeal of this attempt to make Superman dark and serious in the vein of the Nolan batman films. I'm not saying that a realistic Superman couldn't be good (that's what Dr. Manhattan was after all) but I've heard a lot of fans of it saying things like 'this is the Superman I've always wanted' and I don't quite understand what the advantages of Superman being realistic are?
Because Superman's optimism and idealism doesn't jibe with our modern culture, but we're too goddamned myopic and self-absorbed to consider whether, maybe, it's WE who are wrong.
 

spiderzeter

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Well the thing is they didn't really spend any time developing characters. It was all plot and exposition. I would rather Super Man go back to being how he was in Justice league where he would have his moments of being serious.
 

V4Viewtiful

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the animated series showed a relatable Sups in my opinion especially in his hatred of Darkseid, you all have those people that spit in the face of everything you try to achieve, that's an easy thing to relate bearing high responsibility but having things in the way.

If they wanted a relatable Superman why not create a dude who goodey personality isn't in his nature but then after the death of his dad and the message from his father attempts and hates it but keeps doing it in their name even though the world is telling him it's not worth it. What they did was create a morally burden man with no direction.

I know people liked the action (though shaky cam is a nuisance), the music is great, Zod is fun (i liked him anyway). You could write Sups in many ways.

What's funny is in the comics now they've made him appear as a perfect child (not really needing influence from his earth daddy) yet have him as as a less non-sense adult :/
 

Eddie the head

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Jonny49 said:
I still wouldn't class Man of Steel as gritty or dark, just more naturalistic.
Umm. I'm not say this to be a dick, but I don't think "naturalistic" means what you think it means. Naturalistic story's are ones that take the nurture position in the "nature vs nurture" argument. Dark/gritty is a tone.

Naturalistic is a narrative structure not a tone.
 

Jonny49

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Eddie the head said:
Jonny49 said:
I still wouldn't class Man of Steel as gritty or dark, just more naturalistic.
Umm. I'm not say this to be a dick, but I don't think "naturalistic" means what you think it means. Naturalistic story's are ones that take the nurture position in the "nature vs nurture" argument. Dark/gritty is a tone.

Naturalistic is a narrative structure not a tone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(theatre)

I meant in terms of this definition.
 

Eddie the head

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Jonny49 said:
Eddie the head said:
Jonny49 said:
I still wouldn't class Man of Steel as gritty or dark, just more naturalistic.
Umm. I'm not say this to be a dick, but I don't think "naturalistic" means what you think it means. Naturalistic story's are ones that take the nurture position in the "nature vs nurture" argument. Dark/gritty is a tone.

Naturalistic is a narrative structure not a tone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(theatre)

I meant in terms of this definition.
Hmm. I wasn't aware of the definition. I guess I can see where you're coming form with that. But the idea that anything was three-dimensional in that movie makes me laugh. Ok that last part was a joke if you like it whatever.
 

MeChaNiZ3D

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Rikun said:
MeChaNiZ3D said:
It's a difference of taste. I don't enjoy unironically goody-two-shoes Superman. I didn't enjoy Man of Steel for a great deal of reasons related to military fetishism, unrelatable characters, cliches in scene and dialogue, unneeded characters, and many other things, but I'm sure there's a dark, gritty Superman that I would like. However he'll never be quite as good as plenty of other superheroes because he has no personality, an uninterestingly large and standard array of powers, and his weaknesses are the arbitrary kryptonite and the generally boring love interest. Basically the only reason that it hasn't been appealing to me is that it was done very poorly. To conclude, I'd like to ask what the appeal of the typical unambiguously good Superman is.
If you ask me, the appeal of an umambiguously good Superman is comparable to the appeal of Captain America in an age where everything has to be "darker and grittier" because realism. I've had this discussion before with others who thought of Cap as another boring goody-two-shoes while evil is so great that it almost takes an anti-hero to fight the bad guys. I would argue in cases like this this is EXACTLY why we need the heroes that are bright, optimistic, and unambiguously good. I'm actually certain we went over this in the 90s where all the bloody anti-heroes started popping up and racking up the body count because killing people was extreme and cool.

If you need a more direct Superman example as to what on earth his appeal could be, look no further than "Superman vs. The Elite" or the comic miniseries it was based on. To make a long story short, Superman meets a team of metahumans that not only fight crime, but are willing to kill the bad guys while all Superman does is just send them to jail. Most would think the Elite are doing the right thing since it's a more immediate and effective solution than goody-two-shoes in blue, but then you start seeing that because this team believes humans to be fundamentally assholes, the only real way to keep them in line is to strike the fear of GOD in them, even if it means slaughtering the leaders of war-torn countries to ensure peace.

"But wait!" you may say, "These guys are WAY more interesting than boring good guy Superman! AND they're more effective!" Well then, howabout you show a Superman who's willing to go that far to put the animals down? Notice how scary he becomes? And then notice how no matter how tempting it would be to do so, Superman would never let himself stoop that low? If you ask me, THIS is what makes Superman's "good guy" act a compelling character, especially when juxtaposed with a much more cynical modern world. As the world gets darker and grayer due to its harsh realities, you really need a hero who can be that beacon of light that will always appeal to our better nature.

As far as I'm concerned, you don't need a hero to become dark and gritty to become interesting, even if there are those who say, "but dark and gritty is more realistic and Superman has to be realistic!" As cornball as the big blue is, the reason he's endured for all these years is because he gives the audience something to look up to and something to strive for. He might seem hokey and antiquated, but I honestly don't think being a "good guy" ever goes out of style.

And before you bring in Batman to this argument, Bruce himself had to deal with this when Azrael took over the mantle for him. Here was a Bat who didn't have the moral inhibitions that the original Batman did and would have no problem slaughtering and/or brutalizing anyone who'd stand in his way. From what I remember, this storyline was created as a response to readers wanting more "dark and gritty", and hooboy did they get it.

Maybe there's a way to strike a balance between realism and optimism. Last I checked, nobody wants to have every hero become the Punisher.
So this is a little bit late for a reply, but there are a few things I need to clarify: I don't particularly care about realism, but I do care about characters being interesting. It could just be that I've never seen any good Superman material and you have, but I don't find an implied internal struggle to do the most immediately moral thing possible very interesting, because all it has translated into is Superman making seemingly stupid choices. When he puts away a villain or thwarts something we rarely see any emotional conflict and we rarely see him try to reform or debilitate the villain. If he accidentally killed someone in a moment of rage, then that would be interesting. Then he would be emotionally unstable, have the approval of the population but feel guilty himself, and would provide a basis for not killing anyone afterwards. But no, he's just all-good, all the time, and while that may take monumental motivation and integrity and self-restraint, it doesn't come across, he's just a rock. And the powers thing is a bit separate but that's another reason, he never has to think about any situation beyond save A or save B. Sometimes he does the odd intelligent thing but he never has to be creative with his powers because there are so many.

I think it boils down to you find something about Superman's implied massive integrity and restrain compelling and I don't, I like to see flawed characters come to grips and get by rather than flawless characters be tested in pretty clear scenarios.