Coerulea
121190
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29
#superhero
Apr 28, 2023 8:59 PM
Coerulea
121190
2956
29
#superhero
kamehameaculpa
Superheroes are born throughout history when mankind feels helpless to battle collusion and corruption. Their superpowers grant them immunity against any unfair power structure. They bypass every constructed hurdle to topple oppressors and, to the very least, inspire faith to the masses that the world can be, for a time, fairer for everyone.
Tento2
neither, it's about the horrible responsibility that comes with having power.
duramater1
Like when when Henry Cavil’s Superman gets arrested. He is trying to demonstrate that he is not there to harm humans. Just snaps the handcuffs off.
ImHereToExplainTheJoke
DC movie and comic writers https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/024/196/sign.jpg
Fabulously
He’s lawful good. Not the neutral evil of the GOP.
pilomotor
GOP is chaotic evil. They break the law when they can get away with it, and if not, try to change the law to fit their needs.
DanCodyComics
Superman wasn't originally a power fantasy for anyone other than (mostly Jewish) immigrants that believed they could fit into a society that rejected them if they were just useful enough. Lex Luthor is simply the natural extrapolation of the industrial giants of the age exploiting the poor while driving the moral crusade against them.
cuskarie
One version of Lex Luthor, the one I think was best, was motivated to appose superman cause he thought having someone that powerful not be human was a danger to mankind.
Blud4BludGod
Your favorite version of Luthor is the one where he's just a shitty space racist?
DoktorWeasel
Spacist
ISayShenanigans
I like Injustice Superman instead of the regular one.
FromTheBeyond
aiuta219
Superman is a monster. He can hear every heartbeat and plea for help. It is within his power to help so many, but he almost never acts unless one of his favorite humans is involved. He enforced an unjust status quo on his world and that makes him a villain.
HaderPiaK
Superman is about preserving status quo.
KaptainObveeus
LOL good point. Cause i think zero people with power have ever been good.
Rips4w
Which is what made Injustice so interesting. Everyone knows the trope of what happens when you push a good man too far. Now, imagine the good man happens to be a god.
jethroismaxbaer5772
"It is a remarkable dichotomy. In many ways, Clark is the most human of us all. Then...he shoots fire from the skies, and it is difficult not to think of him as a god. And how fortunate we all are that it does not occur to him." - Batman
MajorPoopyPants
Mine is that WW/Superman (new 52) was a better relationship than Clark/Lois because having sex with Superman would do very gruesome things to Lois. It isn't like he (or any of us dudes) can control the strength of certain autonomic reflexes that occur during sex
onlyawfulnamesleft
Gold Kryptonite cock-ring.
DoktorWeasel
Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html
theyallwenttoMexico
That's literally how I thought about Superman when I was a little kid. When you're little, everybody but yourself seem to have the power.
Sunshine12345
Superman is just an allegory for someone still in the closet. He has to pretend he is ordinary when he's truly extraordinary. His disguise is Clark Kent because the world wasn't ready for Superman and he's just stuck with that status over the years.
Flarty
I am the kind of guy that has gone to the store to buy tampons for the Mrs, guessing it just isn't that much of a thing in the UK
293ehcapa
People also forget that Superman is not human. We measure ourselves against him and him against ourselves, but in the end he is an alien.
EllisHobbs
Too true.
dirtmarker
Red Son is excellent. What would the world be like if superman landed in Russia.
theoutlander523
The comic is, yes. The movie version is utter trash.
TheLastDigitOfPi
Sechran
*Good* Superman stories are. Shitty ones are just demented power fantasies.
AnythingMuchShorter
That's why I don't like most punisher comics. The type of people he kills are definitely bad people, like child molesters. But making them up just to show him effortlessly and brutally kill them with no real plot beyond that is just revenge porn. Perhaps it's cathartic for some people. But considering we can almost all agree these are bad people it just seems like pandering.
Sechran
That's the Punisher's whole schtick though, and I don't think anyone expects anything more from him. Superman is, shockingly, more nuanced and difficult to write. With Castle, "revenge porn" is all you really have to do - gruesomely slaughter some bad guys. Superman? His character can't be about doing bad things to bad people, so his stories have to offer something more, one way or another.
netutoring
This also outlines why I got annoyed at the writers who complained Roddenberry's Next Gen ideals were too hard to write for. THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE. So you're forced to look at things from new angles.
Sechran
To be a little fair to the writers (though, if you can't write a good StarTrek, don't) Roddeberry's Post-Scarcity, Post-Capitalism society is just that - a whole society. Even he doubtlessly fell short of depicting such a humanity. Superman's just one super good dude in our society - infinitely easier to imagine, let alone showcase.
netutoring
Yeah, but if you can't buy into that, don't make Trek try to suit your ideals of what it should be, you know?
jkoudys
There's three Punishers: the high-tech, badass antihero who premiered in Spider-Man and is more at home on a SHIELD carrier than a big city. The revenge porn one you described. And the self-aware, compelled to kill but doesn't consider himself a hero one. Welcome Back Frank is a great comic example. The Punisher from Daredevil and his solo netflix show is another good example. Not revenge fantasy all.
thedudeman519
The best Punisher comics are the ones that take place on holidays like Fathers day or birthday anniversaries where he doesn't really kill anyone. They mainly explore how deeply broken he is as a person at least that's my .02
causality
Oh you don't know how bad it's gotten. One recent villain's whole evil plan was selling assault rifles to preteens. Just for the sales.
unsneakyLurker
Preteens are some of the worst customers for gun sales. Like, where are they gonna get the money? Their parents' credit cards? And it's not like it's Fortnite or Clash of Clans - they're not gonna want more and more guns and turn into repeat customers.
Badprenup
Sounds like a comic that is fairly grounded in reality, as far as Marvel comics anyways
TheEvenPrez
Superman is an immigrant journalist God stand-in whose primary antagonist is the Rayndian ideal of humanity at the cost of the vulnerable.
MrSwissroll
I disagree with the 'God stand-in' sentiment. One of the core traits of ol' blue is that he's a human first, super strong alien second. I've only really seen /movies/ try to depict him as Jesus-like and it fails every time because that's not who he is in the comics. He's a boy scout, sure, but he's not some all-powerful, omniscient paragon of good like Richard Donner and *especially* Zack Snyder seem to think.
realizedagain
Marvel's Captain America is pretty supes-like in his attitude.
StormofWyverns
Yeah he’s Moses, not God/Jesus, he was written by Jewish authors originally, then the cringe authors came along and decided that Clark needed an infusion of Christianity in his “Jewish Golem” archetype.
Ellisd83
hes my favorite fictional character
tzahtman
Oh I can assure you Ian MacIntyre is very real
TheOnlyPtylerdactyl
I'll say it every goddamn time Superman is brought up: his real super power is restraint!
CmpltBlsht
Which is why he would always win against Wonder Woman.
Quichita
Wonder Woman’s weapons are magically based so Superman is extremely vulnerable to them. I think that gives her an edge.
DigiT00l
Not extremely vulnerable, just normally vulnerable
TheOnlyPtylerdactyl
Yeah, okay, I see what you did there
DoktorWeasel
"Oh no, someone tied me up with my own lasso. Again." She's totally into that shit.
IhopeyougetstageIIIcoloncancer
As I understand, Wonder Woman's power is also a restraint...
DigiT00l
No, it is her weakness, apparently
lackinglife
To be fair this is literally Luther's beef with him, he can't wrap his head around supes having all that power and not behaving poorly
MysteriousAsTheDarksideOfTHEMOOOOOOOOOOON
Zuckerberg and Gates and Buffett Amateurs can fucking suck it Fuck their wives, drink their blood Come on, Jeff, get 'em!
mt77932
A cheater thinks everyone cheats, a thief thinks everyone steals
jayman0123
https://golfweek.usatoday.com/lists/donald-trump-long-history-cheating-golf-liv/
HFlashman
I kept wondering what religion had to do with Superman until I realized that you spelled *Luthor wrong.
samwyze
I got 99 grievances and Superman is ALL OF THEM!
KalleSchnikov
Luthor
NiceGreenArrows
Not the only beef he has. I quite liked the "You're making us reliant on you. You're stunting our growth and self-reliance." angle.
chbarts
Or Lex is afraid of what Superman might become, and can't trust him.
jtalbain333
Depending on the depiction, Lex has actually been afraid that humanity will forget how to solve their own problems if they are reliant on Superman. He feels the human race has always advanced by using their ingenuity to solve the problems in front of them, and thus Superman's presence stunts their growth, dooming them when he eventually leaves/dies.
pip1
Okay, but when did Sups solve global warming, famine, the Israel-Palestine conflict? Can he fix my laptop? Srs, Superman isnt solve-all-of-humanitys-problems great, he's prevent a car crash and muggings great
Lonecoon
Superman: Red Sun touches on this with Superman mentioning that ships don't even carry lifeboats anymore because they know Superman will save them.
42underscores
Red Sun is my favorite Superman
luckybreak91
No, that's an excuse he made up to justify his actions. It's a lie he made up to sound noble. We know this to be true, because in every iteration of the story, Lex Luthor is a criminal who ruins lives solely to become richer and more powerful before he ever even heard of Superman.
DoktorWeasel
And weren't some versions just pissed because he lost his hair?
LindyLind
I feel like that's the excuse he uses, when it's more about believing absolute power will corrupt Superman, as that's his justification for his own power and corruption.
Ryanator50
My favorite way to describe The Boys is "Homelander is what Lex Luthor fears Superman secretly is."
jkoudys
Which is why Homelander is 1/1,000,000th as powerful as Superman. He's tough enough to run amok and cause trouble, but like you see in the failed plane rescue or his few fights, he's pretty limited. Him being Superman-tier is as much a product of marketing as his perceived heroic nature.
Freeflare
The best way to describe The Boys is "A superhero comic written by someone who hates superhero comics".
tirohtar
Luther follows the popular fallacy that "power corrupts". Power does not corrupt, it reveals.
MangoPort
Hot take you didn’t ask for. I’ve known a number of regular folks that became fantastically wealthy (I’m in wealth management as a profession). Being surrounded every day by ‘yes folk’, where everyone - even people that you used to be equals with, need you / are grateful to you… it gets to your head. Spend 10 years of everyone fawning over you and you being to think you’re hot ****. I see so much of this in Trump, actually.
itsdarkandicantseewhatimtyping
Power attracts the corruptible.
Badprenup
Except for all the times it does
PinkyTheUnicorn2
Unfortunately power often corrupts in a world where money and power almost always ensure ease, luxury, and health.
Arbitrarynamehere
The system rewards corruption
fractal5
Love this
seckoo
This
IxnayOnTheOttenRay
Honestly there's no way to differentiate. Not without a time machine
junkgoof
Unfortunately it reveals the type of person who is willing to do what it takes to get power.
IAmTheBadW01f
"a person who wants to be president and is capable of getting themselves elected president should be by no means allowed to wield that power" -Douglas Adams, paraphrased
SmokyDoggg
Then you have Homelander and Omniman to remind you what Superman would be like if he wasn’t a big blue Boy Scout..
SpuriousScapegrace
Boring. The answer is: they would be boring. I said what I said.
isaidsomethingcool
Also that kid from Brightburn. *shudders*
jkoudys
The big twist with Omniman isn't that he's evil, it's that he's actually _not_ evil. In morally absolute terms relative to humans he's evil, but for his species he's the most good and righteous there is. He was the only Viltrumite since the empire formed thousands of years ago spare a planet. The species is also far from unstoppable. They're a genetic monoculture that potato famined themselves to near extinction.
RaySkye
I... love this post. Spot on A+. No notes.
Jackospade
And then there's Plutonian.
davaloha
There's the injustice series too as an insight
PatrickDiomedes
The level of character assassination those games did to Diana, jesus fucking christ
MoochieMan
I really hope they do the rest of invincible as good as the comics... several of the best story lines I've read. I kept thinking, well how can they top that story. And it just kept coming. One of those books I wish I could forget, just to experience it again for the first time.
Eddafred
Thragg vs everyone is going to be as viral as S1's final fight, if not more so. I can't wait.
gobblinal
Where did his beard come from at the end?
DreadPirateRendle
Time moves faster in that dimension. He was there for months trashing the place, but only gone from Earth for a day or two.
gobblinal
So, a lot of repressed anger to work out?
DreadPirateRendle
Nope, it's much scarier than that. Go watch the series!
OliverClothesoff70
Don't forget Brightburn.
RaySkye
We don't talk about Brightburn
OliverClothesoff70
Why not? It was a solid take on what if a “Superman” type alien turned out to be deep down world-conquering evil?
RaySkye
There were SO many chances for him to be either A) Npt evil or B) Actually killed. And most of the chances were missed because no one talked to anyone about anything. Dude saw his kid MANGLE a fork with his mouth and said NOTHING.
malakim
Tbh, most of us would not be Superman nor Homelander or Omniman. Most of us would be Titan from Megamind.
SmokyDoggg
I’d be Hancock lol Superman with good intentions, but incompetent, accidentally breaking shit left and right.
malakim
Good point. How about 59% Hancocks, 40% Titans, 1% Supermen, Homelanders and Omnimans?
MajorPoopyPants
I can't watch this anymore because the father/son fight scene is way too much like what happened between my father and I when I was 15. Awesome show but far too triggering. It leaves me with the shakes.
Boxingjedi
sturmhauke
Sorry your dad's a shithead.
BishlamekGurpgork
Sorry to hear that. The show is very real, sometimes cruelly real, despite being fantastical. I understand.
sturmhauke
My favorite shows and movies are often ones that use some batshit premise to highlight something real about the human condition. In other words, using lies to tell the truth, as in V for Vendetta.
sturmhauke
Homelander: What if Superman was a psychopathic manchild with serious mommy issues? Omniman: What if Superman was calculating and absolutely fucking ruthless?
Lampmonster
And a nazi, backed up by an entire culture of super nazis.
Duraxis
Omni-man: what if superman was basically a Saiyan willing to play the long game
GogglesGreek
Invincible is Superman. Omniman is Zod.
FajitaPrinceofAllMexicans
I mean, Homelander pretty much became a Trump allegory. Even getting away with murder was just straight up being Trump.
jayman0123
/gallery/C3VAYwc
sturmhauke
When MAGAts jerk it to Trump, they imagine him looking like Homelander.
jayman0123
I have a post for this. /gallery/C3VAYwc
Nuttsy
Literally Ben Garrison.
sturmhauke
That dude would be a fascinating topic for someone's psychology PhD thesis.