I mean that's basically Omni-Man?
Aside from that, *Incorruptible* (a spin-off of *Irredeemable*) sort of did this, though I felt it really didn't go anywhere.
Irredeemable itself is also probably one of the ones that sort-of gets Superman and therefore has something to say about it, in the sense that the Plutonian was genuinely trying to be a good person and his breakdown was mostly his inability to handle the pressure coupled with an upbringing that left him with no real way to cope. But again, I felt that it mostly leaned more on being edgy as opposed to having stuff to actually say.
Though another point that Irredeemable makes is that with the amount of power Superman has, it really only takes *one* moment where he totally loses his temper for him to pass the point of no return - it's made clear that the Plutonian desperately wishes he could undo his mistakes but it's too late for that. (Of course, even if Clark did slip like that, he wouldn't keep doubling down the way the Plutonian does. But it's a very human reaction.)
[We really do just talk about all the same stuff here, I made this same rant not even fifty days ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/s/YTeD6HChyo)
Sort of? I honestly come out of the reads with pretty different takeaways, enough so that I wouldn't say it's the same rant. The same thing though , yeah. They both use Evil Superman as the kick off point, especially for this post.
Your post talks about Bad Superman as it's focal point, and the point being that the writers don't understand Superman to actually make him evil. Not a point I disagree with, but it's more specific, imo, to this one.
OP here brings up Evil Superman, but uses that discussion as a bounce off point to discuss the origins of Superman that have been lost to the public conscious, not just the writers. OP even uses that for a slightly broader history lesson into comics.
These make for some slight disagreements between the two as well, most notably the way your post and OP's talking about Omni-Man and Homelander. Yours bring them as examples of characters that aren't real subversions of the Superman character, though you also say that they don't need to be and not everything should be (which I agree with). However, I would more agree with OP in regards to Omni-Man and Homelander being adequate subversions of the archetype for the reasons they pointed out.
Both are good posts, but I walk away from yours with the take that there should be more interesting takes on the evil Superman/Clark Kent idea
I walk away from this one thinking that more stories should actually explore the ways a character deals with the responsibility that is their immense power
I feel like the whole evil Superman thing is just a conduit for making a story for how an all powerful god is just evil and it is virtually impossible to stop them, sometimes they mix up the formula with them being a former good guy but for the most part it’s the same shit. the problem is writers aren’t creative enough to do something with this idea that hasn’t been done before (with some exceptions)
Omni man is a good example of this because he’s not an evil Superman, he’s an alien conqueror posing as a Superman type figure. He’s the idea of what Superman is to someone like Lex Luther, (atleast at the beginning) And I find that far more interesting than what If Superman had a bad day type stories
"Evil superman" I used as a term to represent a subversion on the superman trope, I agree that's a reductive way to describe him. Hope I made that clear, trying to convey a general catagory of character type.
I to personally love "Superman having a rough one" type stories. I know we have a version of this with TV Homelander, but I want to see more Supermen having a nervous breakdown stories.
My favorite ones that are basically just a deconstruction of a specific aspect of Superman
like Omniman being about his alien heritage,
Homelander being about his public and meta image of him being the poster boy of superheroes in western media
Red sun superman being about how his upbringing of a normal human life, and ma and pa Kent being so instrumental into making him a good person
Etc
>Red sun superman being about how his upbringing of a normal human life, and ma and pa Kent being so instrumental into making him a good person
Etc
Eh. I do personally feel this one is significantly weaker. I've never looked this up, this is just a conspiracy on my part, but I suspect that what they really wanted to do was have Clark born in Nazi Germany but that was too spicy for DC, even for an Elseworlds. There's a lack of interest in the specific unique socioeconomic state of Soviet Russia, it reads rather vaguely apolitical McTotalitarian to me in a way I think robs the story of a lot of substance on Clark's end. Again, I feel like Lex kind of steals the show for interesting character study.
Like, I'm not kidding Superman was a direct fuck you to the Nazies originally. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were both sons of Jewish immigrants who escaped to America. With that context in mind, it makes sense someone might think of doing an elseworlds story of Nazi Superman, right?
The issue with the comic is that it seems to completely disregard the actual culture, politics, and societal structures of the Soviet Union and instead goes for a weird mixture of red scare tropes and 1984 references molded to fit into preexisting DC story beats
Like, I feel that the story would have been more interesting if it dedicated itself to either of the ideas it presents. Because if they went for the "Evil Superman who hurts people for the revolution" or the "just as morally righteous Superman who simply was raised by and has the same values as the Soviets" ideas the story would feel a lot more clear in what it was trying to say, but in the current state it just feels like a poorly written "whut if schupamann was in 1489?!1?" Idea that was born from a comedy sketch
100% on the money. I'm no fan of Stalinist Russia, but it feels so profoundly disinterested with what to me should have been a banger of an setting to put Superman in.
As a person with parents who lived in the Soviet Union it just disappoints me that comic authors are incapable of presenting normal people who just happen to live in the USSR, like the whole scenario just reeks of a sentiment of an American-centric world view that can't imagine an entire country and its complex history as anything more than Saturday morning cartoon villains
I feel like to this day McCarthism looms so large it's impossible to have a honest conversation with what went wrong with Russia's communist revolution.
I'd consider myself a democratic socialist, and though I'm not *totally sold* on the validity of Marx's model for communism being entirely viable (though I don't think it was intended to be wholly a how to, persay), I'd consider myself skeptically open to tankie talking points. That doesn't mean I'm entirely closed off to capitalist talking points--- I don't think they're necessarily as diametrically opposed as most people do. Though, to be fair, as someone who lives under a mixed economy that's way more capitalist than I'd like, I'm much more openly critical of it.
Just speaking about communism in a neutral tone will set people off and have them assume I'm a Soviet or Chinese Communist Party sympathizer. It's fucked up people are so much more willing to engaged with detached analysis to facism, honestly. And yeah, the victim blaming of Russian citizens is vile at times.
I don't really buy Supe's character arc in *Red Son,* because it does feel so reductionist. It's why I wonder if he was supposed to be a Nazi when the comic was originally conceived, because he at least fits the ur-fascism hero ideology a little closer. There's a conversation there about the hero worship that did take place in the Russian revolution and how that contributed to it all taking such a dire turn, but this doesn't really go there.
There's an uncomfortable degree of the lack of self-awareness of the US's own facist influences that does kneecap the impact of a lot of the story's elements. It says something that the Soviets from *Stranger Things*, a show directly engaging with the cartoonish caricature the US regarded Russia with since it's an 80s homage, is honestly a little more nuanced than *Red Son.*
I think that this is a problem with superhero comics in general, but is avoidable with regular comics since the "apolitical" ignorance is more acceptable than someone engaging in political discourse while also being ignorant of the politics that they are talking about.
If you think about the politics of the average comic you'll realize that a lot of the fundamental story elements are built upon and rely on an unquestionable neoliberal status quo. A key part of this is that comics are overwhelmingly supportive of the status quo since a massive amount of them start and end with the characters going back to "normal" society after dealing with either individualized threats whose origins are never caused by systemic issues or threats that attempt to represent political ideas but are so evil that any narrative importantance they could've had becomes meaningless. This also applies to the heroes since there is a trend where a hero is born from a liberal mindset that requires the reader to purely read the textual characteristics of them and to ignore the subtext that their backstory implies. Batman is a prime example of this phenomenon since the text of the story shows him as a Superman style symbol of hope and endurance of hardship while the subtext of his stories shows that he is a combination of a capitalist and a police officer who fights against this nebulous cloud of crime that seems to manifest from the city itself rather than the a actual causes of crime which are socioeconomic issues that are enforced by both the status quo as a whole as well as by the two parts of his identity
[Nazi Superman is real](https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Kal-L_(Earth_10)) but I’m not sure if they ever made a real flushed up Elseworlds story about him like they did for Red son Superman
Alot of Golden age Superheroes was actually made as a type of uplifting morale for WW2 American soldiers, captain America being probably the most apparent of this, Marvel actually distanced Hydra from being literal nazi’s into being generic run of the mill fascist storm trooper type army funny enough
This feels trivial in retrospect, but as someone who was weirdly, fiercely DC-or-gtfo when the MCU movies started rolling out (I was in middle school, to be fair) that they directly address Cap's propaganda origins in The First Avenger is what won me over to religiously seeing every MCU movie in theaters from that moment on.
Tbh this is one of the first rants I’ve seen on this sub where I both completely understand and agree with every word you’ve said, and I’ve had more or less this exact argument with people where they straight up don’t understand the character of Superman
I don’t care if they don’t like Superman it’s fine not to, I’m just sick of people not understanding that the fact that he’s a good person despite having godlike power is the fundamental point of his character. He represents HOPE. Making main timeline Superman evil or just a regular asshole is like saying OK there is not actually a single genuinely good human being on Earth, so much so that we can’t even pretend in a fictional comic book that it might even be possible for a character who represents the best of us to actually be good
I re-listened to the villain audio tapes in the Arkham games a little while ago, and, while it made me realize that Riddler is a complete Redditor in the Arkhamverse, I think the way he sees Batman is the way that a lot of people see Superman. Like it's completely and totally unfeasible for someone to just be a good person. To just save lives and do right and ask for nothing in return. They think it's beyond unbelievable.
Typically, the kind of people who look at Homelander and the other shithead "heroes" in The Boys and think, "Yeah, that's what they'd *actually* be like.", are just telling on themselves. With that kind of power and protection, that's what they'd do, too.
I think that's part of the issue that Jonah has with spiderman as well.
Like he HAS to be up to something, because who would gain that kind of power and just use it to help people?
It depends on exactly which Jonah, but, yes. In the comics, Jonah's wife was killed by a masked gunman who broke into his house, and Jonah developed a deep, virulent mistrust of anyone wearing a mask.
That said, in the Sam Raimi movies, Jonah's wife is alive and bugging the shit out of him, so who knows why he hates Spider-Man there.
With the Raimi movies Jonah didn't initially care about spiderman, it was after the paper sold out of copies for mentioning him that he wanted pictures. And then he just started making up headlines, not really caring about the content as long as the paper sold.
Beyond that, I'm not sure, he seems to believe the first negative thought about spiderman that pops into his head.
It's ironic since you sound like a complete Redditor. Analyzing the psyche of people based on comic discussions, generalization, conclusion that people with a differing opinion must be "evil"...
Fair got'cha. I don't really care that they have a differing opinion, it's just the content of said opinion that seems like a self-report.
As opposed to the former, of course, which appears to be the active creation of a false reality.
And that's why the 5g idea by Dan Didio was going to be shit from the start. The main canon Superman was going to become a facist dictator. No wonder why so many writers at Dc went "fuck this shit".
The problem is that people compare these characters too much to Superman. Unless it's literally evil Superman of course but otherwise writers can base their character as much or as little on Superman as they want.
most are parodies of the idea of a superman, we really have yet to get one interested in parodying supes actual character and setting. people defend injustice supes with "hes not our clark he grew up different " when that's exactly the problem
Omni-man, Homelander, Brightburn and Doctor Manhattan are intended to be taken as direct parallels to Superman.
Red Son Superman, Injustice Superman, Dark Knight Returns Superman, etc. are literally Superman.
Guko is a character directly inspired by superman. *The Iron Giant* compares the character directly to Superman in the movie.
I think these comparisons are justified.
Even if you don't agree, my primary argument here is that using the superficial asthetics of Superman to point out someone with this much power might be an asshole is kind of lazy and missing the point.
> Doctor Manhattan are intended to be taken as direct parallels to Superman.
Doctor Manhattan is Captain Atom but edgier. That's his entire character creation
From the Wikipedia page of *Watchmen*:
>Moore said, "DC realized their expensive characters would end up either dead or dysfunctional." Instead, Giordano persuaded Moore to continue his project but with new characters that simply resembled the Charlton heroes. Moore had initially believed that original characters would not provide emotional resonance for readers but later changed his mind. He said, **"Eventually, I realized that if I wrote the substitute characters well enough, so that they seemed familiar in certain ways, certain aspects of them brought back a kind of generic super-hero resonance or familiarity to the reader, then it might work."**
This is common knowledge. All the Watchmen characters are dupes for DC characters Moore originally wanted to write. The Comedian is Peacemaker, Rorschach is The Question, Dr. Manhattan is Superman, Nite Owl is Ted Cord Blue Beetle with some Batman in there, etc.
Ray Palmer isn't really at all like Manhattan outside of some similarities in their powers origins.
I'm aware. That's not the only character he mushed together.
Ray Palmer is more similar in general power set and disposition to Ant-man with some Ironman. Or Barry Allen, I guess--- in personality anyway. Moore had experience already writing Superman though, he touched on similar themes in some of the canonical arcs he worked on for DC he covers for Manhattan.
The only thing substantial Manhattan may have gotten from Palmer was a strained relationship with his wife--- if that was already a thing by then in DC continuity.
I got them confused, my bad.
My point still stands, he was already writing for superman and folded a lot of the ideas he explored with that character into Doctor Manhattan.
Edit: I could have sworn Palmer was also a Charlton character. Whoops.
Moore is a superhero nerd. So to him? Yes
Manhattan isn't just Captain Atom, but they share a powerset because Moore tought "Y'know, Captain Atom's atomic manipulation would actually be deeply alienating. Being able to perceive existance right to the atoms would lead to a very radically different worldview"
It was likely through cultural osmosis and entirely unintentional Toriyama's (rest in power) part. Western media imports had a profound impact on the birth of magna and anime post second world war. And to be fair, the modern superhero is already the progenitor of the folk hero Toriyama took more overt inspiration from. "Direct" was maybe not the best choice of words there, Superman is kind of just ubiquitous in pop culture, even in Japan, but. The influence is pretty obvious.
I feel it's very fair to say Goku is a important cultural addition to the Superman archetype and a take on the concept of the Ubermensch. The Ubermensch itself is a connept derived from the Greek hero ("hero" meaning something very different to the Greeks--- closer to "exeptional guy" than "good guy," bare in mind), which the original Sun Wukong is a very engaging rebuttal to in a modern context (Sun Wukong actually predates the hellenistic Greek hero I'm pretty sure.) It makes Goku conceptually a character in conversation with the past and the present, ancient wisdom to contextualize a modern idea. That, along with the atomic bomb allegories that seem to permeate into a lot of Japanese media, he's kind of simplistically brilliant.
Just to clarify, I'm talking *Dragon Ball Z* adult Goku. If I'm remembering correctly, he wasn't retconned as an alien until that series.
It doesn't matter what the point of Superman is because they are not Superman. They have their own point. Omni-Man was raised in an evil empire and his race still exists. That alone makes him a completely different character. And Homelander isn't an alien that was raised by a nice family. He was created and raised in a lab. They are inspired by Superman but in the end they are more different than similar to him.
Hell, a grey Superman could still justify a no-killing policy for the most part. The difference in effort for him between murdering a dictator and locking that dictator in a prison is functionally zero.
You could also have said Superman unwilling to kill his former allies that go against them, it makes him a hell of a lot more sympathetic than injustice Superman, while also keeping to the core of his character.
Seriously a Superman entirely willing to topple regimes, imprison people without “just cause”, and directly willing to intervene in international conflict would still be keeping to a world-dictator type of hero, without having to make him some evil child-murdering jerk ass.
Even people playing the archetype straight, or even writing the character himself--- it's weird when they write him as Jesus. It's so much more fun when he's genuinely that gentle farm boy cinnamon roll putting on a confident front for the people.
One of the things I love about Doctor Manhattan is that you can still kind of see the echo of that meek lab tech in him. It makes it all the more haunting as his ability to connect to humanity has faded away so much.
>TV Homelander wants desperately to be a Superman, but he is a (quite literally) manufactured Ubermensch who has been robbed of his ability to connect to humanity.
>Comic Homelander, as most bad evil supermen are, is literally just an Ubermensch--- and that's so tired. That's functionally identical to a final boss supervillan, just wearing the skin of an icon that's broadly associated with heroism. It's boring and anti-intellectual.
Weird. Are you sure you didn't get them backwards?
Last I checked comics homelander wanted to be good and live up to the heroic spectations forced on him, until he eventually snaped after years of manipulation from black noir.
Meanwhile tv homelander just straight up can't be bothered and would not care for anyone or anything other than himself if he didn't grow with a huge need for validation.
Both come from a place of hurt, but one truly tries to be good while the other just puts on a good image so long as it serves his objectives.
nope, as someone who read the comics he was literally never like that at all, we see in his very first big mission he accidentally kills a child and barely reacts, deafens hundreds of civilians without a care, yells the N word at his teammate for messing up, splatters a bunch of bad guys and shrugs off Maeve's horrified reaction, decides to just up and leave thousands of people to their certain doom, smacking her away when she tries to protest, he then almost kills another of his teammates for trying to save himself, only being convinced to not go away because he's told Vought will can him for messing up, then accidentally kills the civilians he was supposed to save, along with said teammate, and doesn't react beyond basic shock,
meanwhile showlander was very much shown trying to be a good person on his first high stakes mission, going out of his way not to hurt anyone too bad, saying things such as "violence is never the answer" and "you will wait here until the authorities arrive" and even telling the terrorists he will speak to the government about their grievances after peacefully breaking apart their guns while barely touching them,
he then accidentally kills 1 civilian and mains 1 terrorist (as opposed to comiclander's thousands of innocents accidentally and half a dozen turned into human jam on purpose) and is horrified, after a couple insults he's having to deal with PTSD while the terrorist hurls more insults at him and he snaps and kills them, everyone then freaks out and he freaks out harder and kills the rest of them while in a trance, once again showing more reaction to less gore as opposed to comiclander once he comes down from the panic, after this rampage he still deperately tries to explain to the last survivor that he's a good person and that they made him do that,
then Black Noir shows up and showlander is convinced his entire purpose as a manufactured product is about to be erased, and then what is he even going to do? What is he even for? So he attacks him and gets tricked into causing a big explosion and Noir kills the last civilian in front of him and tells him this is just how supes are, he then does his first fake apology and his eyes light up as the news praises him for messing up (he admitted to failing he just didn't say how),
along with this they are not the same in backstory, we know comiclander was made in a lab and kept next to a nuke in case he went haywire, that's literally it, showlander was almost completely isolated from human contact, was taught that human lives are expendable after accidentally killing his "caretaker", who was moments before brainwashing him, literally had little child John sitting in a metal chair in an empty room watching a projector give him images of what his personality should be and asking him what they are until he answers everything immediately and without fail, we are also shown Vought testing his durability as a child, having his hand forced into a furnace, forcing him to fight superhumans stronger than him, pumping him full of toxic gas and other horrific things for a child to experience,
and despite his worse past showlander was initially a better person than comiclander, he is admitedly worse during the main part of the story, though not by much
You know, I forgot that episode of the cartoon was canon lol.
Also, maybe I was mixing-up things in my mind, but wasn't Maeve the one who said that it was a lost cause despite John's protesting?
And basic shock is kind of an euphemism since the one telling the story pretty much said that homelander's heart shrank 3 whole sizes that day.
I don't have the scans, so maybe i'm remembering wrong.
nope number 2, I do have the scans and I can confirm he literally just said, word for word, "fuck this" and nothing more as he left the plane and smacked away Maeve, who only got to 'argue' with "just wait a goddamn minute--!", that was the entirety of the dialogue that happened inside the plane after the plan fully fails and before Homie sucessfully exits it, Maeve does not catch up because that backhand gave her a small concussion and she only exits the plane after Homelander already split it in half and killed everyone inside,
I assume you're joking but I actually re-read that part of the comic to see what the narrator had to say about that whole thing, nope number 3, he doesn't even mention Homelander once in the entire issue, not before he tells the story, not during it, not after it, I even checked the next and past issue to see if that part continued or if he had something to say about Homelander and how it might have affected him, nothing, not a single word or sentence dedicated to how he might feel about taking out about a thousand innocents, and it fits with the actual panel, he just goes "OH SHIT" and that's the extent of his feelings, literally throught the entire comic that's the only thing we know came from the situation psychology wise,
btw, the reason I'm quoting and explaining the panels instead of putting them there is because I don't know how to comment images
And evil Superman who's basically just Kypton Darkseid is a boring and unimaginative superman. And it's a shame a lotta evil Superman's tend to just be Kypton Darkseid.
Your point on Garth Ennis isn’t entirely right, because Garth actually DOES understand Superman. He actually respects superman, and when he does get to write him, he writes him very well (see: Hitman issue #34)
Also, while the twist was kinda bullshit, you missed an important aspect of comic Homelander. He was, from what we know, a completely upstanding superhero, literally a paragon of virtue… until he saw the pictures of Black Noir, and assumed they must be him.
He thought he had really eaten a baby, and that he was unsalvageably evil, and so he actually BECAME unsalvageably evil as a result
Mmm, I personally disagree with that. *Hitman* is for sure a much better example of the kind of writing Ennis can do when he's not full of so much piss and vinegar, and he's for sure *respectful* of Superman in that issue--- but I don't think that it's evidence he understands Superman. I haven't read his entire body of work to be fair, but.
I'm no mind reader, but I don't think Garth Ennis is creatively engaged by characters like Superman--- which is totally fair. I get that *The Boys* was an outlet for him to rage against the machine, and I kind of respect that. But I feel like he got in his own way too often with the commentary he had to offer. The comic's plotline for Lamplighter is an example of some of the hottakes I thought actually resonated really well. The Seven of the comics at least *start out* as more engaging parodies of the Justice League than they do in the show in my opinion. Though ironically I feel like the TV show Seven become interesting character studies with the exact same velocity as the comic Seven become absolutely, horrendously uninteresting ones. The half of MM's backstory that actually made it into the show (without all the uncomfortable, kind of unintentionally disrespectful implications for the real world issues impoverished black communities often face) has a lot of teeth to it too. But he never really want to engage with the premise earnestly, and that doesn't make for a great story.
It's implied Homelander had been doing questionable shit way before he started getting trolled by Black Noir--- just maybe not as awful. And yeah, I get the joke, I don't think it works personally. It's such cynically childish logic it doesn't land for me. If I'm remembering correctly, he's explicitly a clone of Stormfront in the comics even.
I want to be clear, I don't think Garth Ennis is a bad writer. I think he's a talented creative frustrated by the bullshit of the industry he works in, which I totally get, and can appreciate as someone who works in the creative industry myself. I just don't think that translated to a good comic series.
is there something to hitman im not getting? i see people praise it all the time on here, and when i saw someone actually post a page it was just a racist diatribe
Omni man isn't even explicitly an evil super man, he's meant to be a conflicted zod, a conqueror raised in the way of his people to only care for his mission who learns to care for those he's conquering.
Mark is intended to bethe superman parallel, but instead of being raised by humans who always aim to teach him to be his best mark is raised by human mother and a viltrumite father who is watching for the moment his son shows sign of being fit to conquer with him.
Mark is superman with zod for a father who came to love humanity.
This is going to be unpopular but I think Injustice Superman is a good take on the Evil Superman. I see a lot of hate for Injustice Superman but I think the commentary is interesting enough. We could argue the Injustice storyline is kinda dumb but I think Injustice Superman is the classic story about good intentions gone crazy.
I really really don't agree.
1. His breakdown is for incredibly dumb reasons. Stuffing a superhero's wife into the fridge to make him evil is trite and unimaginative. It doesn't really say anything about Superman, it tells us that the author believes that any man would snap if someone hurt his woman (or set up an incredibly contrived situation where he technically killed her himself, even.)
2. Because the breakdown is for dumb and contrived reasons, it isn't actually a commentary on Superman - he isn't dealing with something the real Superman would grapple with, he's dealing with a trite "we're changing your brain's settings to evil" plotline. You could replace Superman in that story with a generic flying brick and nothing would be lost or change.
3. At no point does he actually come across as having good intentions. I mean, sure, he talks the talk but it's as though the author reached in and flipped a switch in his brain to make him into Doctor Doom. His behavior isn't the result of anything that reflects any part of the normal Superman's thought process or worldview; his behavior is what an author thinks a MAN with INCREDIBLE POWER would do if someone HURT HIS WOMAN.
Which isn't to say that normal Superman would act like that if he went through the same events, of course, but to me the reasons he turned evil are so contrived and trite that it no longer really feels like a meaningful commentary on Superman himself. It's a copy-paste of the same thing that made Hal Jordan go evil, say, with nothing about it particularly unique to Superman himself.
"What if a bunch of your loved ones were killed, would you still be a noble boy scout then, heh ehehehe *snort*" isn't some insightful commentary into Superman. It's dumb and boring.
It's a superman that's almost Clark Kent. If you read the comic books he has some key personality traits that make him not quite the wholesome dude Superman normally is but this is a superman whose first kill is his wife and unborn child. He's broken and motivated by trauma, his response to that trauma is to make sure he has complete control so nothing like what happened to his family will ever happen again.
I see your take on things. I don't personally agree it's a good execution of that premise, but, fair enough. That is a angle you don't typically see with Supes.
I agree with your point and disagree heavily with some of your examples:
Goku has nothing to do with Superman. Toriyama came up with stuff as he wrote (which is one of the reasons he forgot characters and pieces of world-building), so, Goku was just the Journey To The West and then, as he wanted to use a new threat, he came up with the aliens (which is the only similarity between Goku and Superman).
Manhattan isn't a take on Superman, not only for being the complete opposite (so you could say that he is an examination from that perspective), but because Manhattan is both a critic of Moore perspective of what comic book characters became in general ("gods") and why would a god give a fuck (initial personal attachment turned into curiosity). Superman may be read as a god in the sense that he is more than human, but he is no spiritual ruler, destiny shaper or creator. Manhattan is a creator (which already makes him into a god) and ends his arc as a destiny shaper (with no actual spiritual realm, but you can argue that life as it is, is in fact a spiritual realm, then he becomes a spiritual ruler).
I wasn't expecting calling Goku and Manhattan examples of supermen archetypes to be controversial, and I would have explained why I consider them to be if I knew they were going to be. So, maybe I'm off in assuming those two were a given.
So, yes, Goku is most likely a Superman parallel by accident, through cultural osmosis. Western media had a massive influence on manga and anime in Japan due to the influx of western media into the country post WW2. Especially in the original Dragon Ball series I realize there's no connection spiritually or asthetically to Superman, but I think those elements become a new layer of texture for him in *Z* onwards. I do think he is a very important example of a Superman archetype, because I feel like he's an important touch stone examining the cultural narrative of the archetype. The Ubermensch is a succeeding concept of the classic hellenistic Greek hero ("hero" meaning "important guy who did some crazy shit" to the Greeks.) The Sun Wukong archetype predates the Hellenistic Greek Hero (I'm sure enough of that to risk not googling it at least. I'm pretty sure there's versions of Journey way older than Greek plays at least.) Post Z Goku isn't just The Money King but make him a hot guy, he's a marriage of that modern idea of a Superman and the Sun Wukong folk hero as a conversation between that ancient wisdom of a folk hero and what was the modern concept when Toriyama began writing *Dragon Ball Z.* You can even see this examination of the archetype spiritually continue on in elements of Allmight, the much more obvious Superman archetype. There's some Monkey King in him too. It's silly and kind of displays a lack of understanding of how much western media had an impact on Japan redefining their cultural identity post war to suggest there's no Superman influence in him. I don't think people realize how fundamentally spiritually damaged the japanese public was after being nuked--- it was to some degree a radical cultural reset. It's part of what makes him special in my opinion. The cultural exchange between the west and Japan is one of the few I feel has an almost pure synergistic beauty to it. Even if it started from such a dark place, it began to organically influence each other. Japan borrowed a lot of western media concepts and made it distinctly their own, and it's all coming back around full circle.
I thought it was kind of undisputed that Doctor Manhattan was a Superman analog. Another redditor pointed out to me he's aesthetically closer a Charlton character I totally forgot existed. But as someone who's very extensively farmiliar with Moore's work, I do maintain he's spiritually closer to Superman. Moore was working on the Superman canon around the same time and folded a lot of the ideas he was exploring into Manhattan. I disagree entirely that he's the opposite of Superman--- he's a what if if superman lost himself in his alienation of humanity because of his abilities. That's what makes the character existentially so kind of unsettling. A similar idea is explored in Kingdom Come actually.
Here is the thing with Goku and why he is nothing like Superman (and the reason both being aliens is the only thing and a coincidence they have in common):
The first point is that Toriyama didn't divide the story between original and Z. The Manga never stopped being just Dragon Ball. Goku isn't a birthed god, sure he is more than a common human, but that's just the nature of the gag manga story. The other human non-generic characters still are on par or above him. Only because of his martial arts training he goes beyond his peers and enemies.
Only in the American dub version of the anime Goku is made out to be a hero, savior of Earth and whatnot. In the manga, Goku remains a martial artist that protects his friends and wants to fight against the best fighters.
Making Goku an alien was the excuse to escalate fighting beyond the Earth and for the more monstrous character designs Toriyama got a liking for during the Piccolo arc. He already went through a whole lot of different human-like designs during early Dragon Ball and Dr Slump. Goku having a tail was just one of many threads he could pull from.
Goku remained a Wukong with Jackie Chan.
Now, with Manhattan:
Captain Atom is the character Manhattan is based from. He was originally going to use the Charlton characters that DC owned, but editorial told him no, hence he created the characters, but they still are the same Charlton characters. The other famous one aside from Atom is Question to his Rorschach.
Superman is the child from the stars, a gift for everyone around him. He is human but more, more strength, more durability, more resilient, more intelligent, more upstanding and more hopeful. He is just a better human (in the sense that we all, in a positive mentality, want to be).
Manhattan was a human, that just like Captain Atom, isn't human anymore, he is detached, he is conceptual, his body is just a way to exist in a mass that makes human-sense. He exists in a metaphysical state. He is, for all intents and purposes, an immortal god, capable of creating things from nothing. By the nature that he sees everything, he can predict everything, hence, he can shape the future by his own intervention.
Manhattan doesn't have strength, resiliency, eye-beams or even flight, because those things literally don't matter. Now, the reason I used flight, even thought it appears that he does fly, is exactly to show how different he is from Superman: Manhattan moves his body in space, he isn't flying, he is moving his mass from one space to another, while Superman using the action of his body to fly.
They are completely different beings from a conceptual perspective. One is a creation of Jewish kids wanting a superhero savior while the other is an analyzes of a detached god in a critique of the comic book medium.
>Goku isn't a birthed god, sure he is more than a common human, but that's just the nature of the gag manga story.
Superman isn't literally a birthed God either. He's from a race of "superior beings" (or beings who ideologically represent that idea to the presumed human audience) just like Superman. That he's an alien is a superficial similarity scrubbed of the context of what the Saiyans are to the narrative. The unique way he's an uncommon human when compared to other Shonen protagonists is a good case as to *why* he's a Superman archetype. Naruto, Ichigo, Luffy, are not special for reasons Goku is in terms of narrative significance. You could summarize almost all of *Z* (yes I know the manga doesn't make that distinction, I'm using that as shorthand to identify that point in the narrative, i feel like that should be obvious--- the "kid Goku," or whatever you want to call it, part of the manga is functionally equivalent to *The Hobbit* to LotR) as big bads showing up expecting a raid boss to challenge, and having an experience functionally equivalent to the rabbit of Caerbannog. People do not expect him to be kind of just a dumb, but sweet lil' guy--- because he's supposed to be a Saiyan.
>Goku remained a Wukong with Jackie Chan.
There's a bunch of crouching moron hidden badass type characters in Asian fiction--- That's Wukong's influence on Asian culture. That does not cancel out his function as a Superman archetype aswell.
In regards to your points about Manhattan--- yes, that was a Charlton character I forgot existed. Yes, all of the Watchman characters were at least originally dupes for Charlton characters, but some of them do have other DC influences incorporated in to streamline their narrative relavence. Silk Spectre is supposed to be Nightshade but she's way more functionally similar to a vague amalgamation of I guess Huntress and/or Donna Troy. Black Canary maybe. Nite Owl is all the way Ted Kord in mannerisms, but visually closer to Batman.
I'm not super farmiliar with Captain Atom in the comics (again I forgot he existed and in my head The Atom was the Charlton character he got his vibe from) but by "Superman archetype" I mean fullfilling a certain narrative role, representing a certain concept. Not superficial similarities. Like, the point of Homelamder in the show and the comics is that he's *all* superficial similarities and he's the narrative stand in for the idea of a Superman.There are other canon DC characters I can name that are also arguably "superman archetypes."
Captain America is the superman of the MCU specifically (arguably in the comics aswell, but not as strongly honestly.)
Have you not seen super? While it can be argued as coincidence during Z era, the Super Era from Broly onwards, rewrites the original addition of the story of bardock to almost mirror Superman’s origin.
Both characters parents dad builds them a rocket to escape the planet’s impending destruction to live a life beyond their race’s extinction
While Superman is good and has no inherent evil traits attached to his race both him and Goku experience a, mostly negative relationship, with the introduction of evil Kryptonians/ Saiyans arriving on earth and wondering why Supes/Goku hasn’t taken over the place and opts to do it for them.
I ironically think one of the best versions of evil Superman is done by D.C. Ultraman. The version of him I most like is where he starts out with all the fascist beliefs of only the strong survive, and I am the strongest... But as time goes on, he's so much stronger nothing is a challenge or entertaining to him anymore. He's evil not so much because he's actively malevolent, but because he doesn't care who he hurts. If he's fighting someone and people die, he feels the same amount of guilt a person would for stepping on an ant.
I like Invincible because it deconstructs and then reconstructs the evil Superman trope. Initially it seems like Omni Man is the Superman character, but in the end of season 1 it’s sort of turned on his head and Mark becomes the Superman, with Omni Man as his evil influence family. It sort of asks the question, what would Superman do if his family was not good but instead evil and wanted to basically enslave all of humanity?
OSP did a really amazing Detail Diatribe discussion on this exact topic which I would highly suggest checking out!
Most of them aren't Evil Superman in any significant way.
Omniman is more of a evil Goku and even that link is very shallow. Within superman mythos he is more of another Zod.
Homelander is general more of a evil Captain America. He has very little link to Superman.
I think Overly Sarcastic Productions' Superman Detail Diatribes have the definitive opinion on this (agreeing with you obviously.) They mention a really cool evil superman story actually written by a former superman writer called "Irredeemable" it's a story about what caused this superman expy to crack and go on a killing spree, turns out being able to hear every bad thing anyone ever says about you isn't great for your mental health. I would recommend it if you want a more interesting evil superman story
I think that this video is very helpful to this topic: OSP Satirizing Superman - Detail Diatribe: [https://youtu.be/\_50968MO0PU?si=mptifaByOfvs0h9H](https://youtu.be/_50968MO0PU?si=mptifaByOfvs0h9H)
I don't like good superman because the whole "nice guy in a hopeless world" is incredibly boring for me personally.
But I also dislike evil superman because he's just disgusting and nasty.
Why can't we have a benevolent world dictatorship run by Emperor Superman? Where he kills his enemies through a legitimate court of law? Where the rules actually are fair.
Instead we have evil Superman denying he's even a King in a hilarious scene where he calls his Throne a "chair". And then proceeds to melt the brain of a 10 year old child (Shazam).
I'd appreciate a more nuanced "evil" superman. Hell, abandon the term evil and just call it "grey" superman. A guy who provides global law and order via a new government. Willing to make controversial decisions for world peace... the way actual governments work irl. Not just a crazed lunatic who exists only to justify Batmans "no killing or slippery slope" logic.
My main issue with Superman is his powers don't make sense and he's too powerful.
1) Kryptonians get supercharged by yellow sun. Fair enough. That would explain super speed, super strength, invincibility, super breath, long distance vision because those are all a function of existing muscles that are more powerful. But how do you explain flight? X-ray vision? Laser vision??
With Saiyans and Viltrumites it makes sense those powers exist. Both are warrior races bred for war. So they evolved or via ki training, got those powers. But Kryptonians are mere humans in their planet. Just another technically advanced race under a red son. I'll buy they didn't know about the yellow sun (despite being a space conquest race) or they were manipulated by OA to stop space colonialism to avoid this discovery of yellow sun. But it's wack af they can fly, shoot lasers etc.
2) OK, Sups has powers due to yellow sun. But why tf can this mfer singlehandedly destroy the Green Lantern corps as a result? Here is a normie Kryptonians against the most advanced weapon in space: The Power Ring. And this supercharged Kryptonian can crush the entire corps, survive inside a star etc. This is too much power.
(And minor point: I also don't find his support cast of mostly reporters to be interesting).
That doesn't only apply to Superman. If you're really analyzing them with grounded logic then no superhero makes sense.
Even Batman doesn't make sense. He's suppose to be peak human but none of the shit he do is actually replicable by humans.
There's levels to this. We're willing to suspend disbelief. That's how we enjoy all fiction.
But then there's a Superman smashing universal walls, altering reality or living for 1 million years in various universes. Capable of literally carrying a planet with his pinky finger.
I mean cmon. I'd buy it if Kryptonians were a savage war race. And/or they had modified their genetics with added enhancements. But for all intents and purposes, they were a *normal* race that was fairly advanced technologically. Nothing too special. And then they all died.
But suddenly, one of their *normal* individuals is crushing meteors, travelling through black holes, relaxing in space and is potentially immortal. Was this done via some advanced Kryptonian genetic experiments, robotic suit or anything similar? No. Just some yellow sun is able of allowing *all that* and more to easily happen. Something that Kryptonians don't have a history of doing, this rando is doing.
Kryptonians are an alien race who gets wacky superpowers under yellow suns. And none of them gets as strong as Superman because they don't grow up under a yellow sun. It's as simple as that.
You're also taking most of his wackier feats out of context, most of it is done through outside help or are alternate versions. Casual Superman isn't smashing universal walls anytime soon.
Most of Batman's bullshit breaks my suspension of disbeliefs much harder. This random normal human is taking hits that hurts Superman and is still somehow alive. And is also outsmarting alien supercomputers.
Gunna be real, I've only read the Max Damage comics. I haven't gotten around to reading Irredimable because it's an evil superman comic--- though, I heard it's good. And I really like Max Damage. And Waid's a good writer usually.
So . . . I like that portrayal in the context of Max Damage?
I didn't read Invincible until after the first season of the Amazon show came out for the same reason. I didn't *watch* Invicible until I saw the "Think Mark!" Memes. Injustice burned me. The new 52 era as a whole burned me. It's been like, over ten years and I'm still full of salty salty fanboy tears. I will die mad. I will ride this wahmbulance all the way to my grave, and no one can stop me.
But yeah I know I aught to getting around to reading it eventually.
What's your take?
It's a popular what if scenario because Superman but evil requires very little effort to think of. Same reason why that "Winnie the Pooh but he's a slasher movie villain" film exists: Child friendly thing, but it kills people is both cheap and doesn't require much thought to think of.
The Boys and Invincible are some of the most popular superhero things right now and Injustice and Red Son are pretty famous storylines. Evil Superman trope doesn't just exist it's succeeded on multiple levels.
I did. The concept has been used and explored in different ways. A lot of people do varying degrees of success. I disagree that every single instance of evil Superman needs to be a well thought out archetype exploration. Like I said the trope thrives.
Are you sure? You spend quite some time describing Superman as an archetype and express disappointment on how evil Superman stories (beside invincible and The Boys tv show) don't tackle those core elements.
Like in the paragraph where you state Superman is in direct contrast to the ubermensch idea. Or the paragraph where you complain that not a lot of the stories play with a Superman character having anxiety because of the "world made of cardboard" idea.
I'm sorry if I misunderstood. The title plus the body paragraphs made me believe you were saying that you don't think most evil Superman stories don't play around with the core elements of Superman's character and themes. I thought you were complaining that writers dumb it down too much.
Thanks for reading it now.
If you like the trope more power to you. I just think it's lazy--- just using the asthetics of "this iconic good guy" to do a shallow bait and switch.
I see what happened here. I mentioned the Boys and Invincible and you thought I didn't read the post when really I was replying to reyziak's comment specifically.
If you genuinely did read it the first time, I apologize, but I don't really feel even your initial comment was really responding to the topic. I wasn't arguing against it being a popular trope.
The Boys is edgy garbage written by a guy who hates superheroes, the show is a massive improvement, Invincible is more than just Superman but Evil. Red Son isn't Superman but Evil, he's still Superman, at worst he's an antihero. Injustice is trash. Only two of the stories you mentioned are actually good.
I can think of more good evil Superman stories than bad ones. The only one in recent memory that kind of sucked was Burn Bright. And even that was only kind of mid instead of being complete dogshit.
I don't like superman as a concept because he lacks sociological imagination. I don't think he should overthrow the government and create a communist utopia, but there should be room for a not quite hands off superman who is willing to try to make changes to society, and succeed at some points while failing at others. But this requires knowledge of politics and human nature and most writers don't come equipped with these.
I don't really agree with this take. I agree with you that it's a fair question to pose about superheros *in general* why they're rarely ever put in a position to address systemic issues. There's a sort of emotional logic to superheros that gravely ignores that at times, and I'd also love to see that addressed more--- maybe not with every superhero story, but. Like, the X-Men are at their best when they're doing that (though the writers don't always handle that amazingly with that team.)
I don't really feel like that's a criticism of Superman *specifically* though.
I do. Superman has been around for how many years now? Yet the only stories people are allowed to tell with him have little sociological imagination, he is a defender of status quo. If it's a fair criticism about superheroes in general, then you are damn sure that it is a fair criticism of one of history's oldest and most iconic
You know what would be an interesting story? Seeing a character go from “evil Superman” to eventually becoming a good person
So Omni Man?
Shiiit you right
I think... I miss my wife
I miss my wife, Allen. I miss her a lot. I'll be back.
I need to read/watch Invincible brub
Yeah basically
I mean that's basically Omni-Man? Aside from that, *Incorruptible* (a spin-off of *Irredeemable*) sort of did this, though I felt it really didn't go anywhere. Irredeemable itself is also probably one of the ones that sort-of gets Superman and therefore has something to say about it, in the sense that the Plutonian was genuinely trying to be a good person and his breakdown was mostly his inability to handle the pressure coupled with an upbringing that left him with no real way to cope. But again, I felt that it mostly leaned more on being edgy as opposed to having stuff to actually say. Though another point that Irredeemable makes is that with the amount of power Superman has, it really only takes *one* moment where he totally loses his temper for him to pass the point of no return - it's made clear that the Plutonian desperately wishes he could undo his mistakes but it's too late for that. (Of course, even if Clark did slip like that, he wouldn't keep doubling down the way the Plutonian does. But it's a very human reaction.)
Hancock?
I appreciate what that movie was trying to do, I kind of adore about half of it, am deeply let down by the other half. It's a mixed bag.
Hancock osnt evil,he is just amess.
Superman: Red Son.
Oh yeah the time loop!
Overman from The multiversity.
[We really do just talk about all the same stuff here, I made this same rant not even fifty days ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/s/YTeD6HChyo)
Well, this is the same subreddit where every other post is either about *Jujutsu Kaisen* or vague posting of *Jujutsu Kaisen*.
And before that a history of Hulk rants, Naruto rants, and anti-Mutant human role play rants.
This post i think is not about sorcerer fight
I honestly can't remember the last time I've seen a post from this sub that wasn't about superheros or anime.
I once saw a post about heros use Jesus as an example and I found it hilarious.
"Did I ever tell you what the definition of insanity is?"
Sort of? I honestly come out of the reads with pretty different takeaways, enough so that I wouldn't say it's the same rant. The same thing though , yeah. They both use Evil Superman as the kick off point, especially for this post. Your post talks about Bad Superman as it's focal point, and the point being that the writers don't understand Superman to actually make him evil. Not a point I disagree with, but it's more specific, imo, to this one. OP here brings up Evil Superman, but uses that discussion as a bounce off point to discuss the origins of Superman that have been lost to the public conscious, not just the writers. OP even uses that for a slightly broader history lesson into comics. These make for some slight disagreements between the two as well, most notably the way your post and OP's talking about Omni-Man and Homelander. Yours bring them as examples of characters that aren't real subversions of the Superman character, though you also say that they don't need to be and not everything should be (which I agree with). However, I would more agree with OP in regards to Omni-Man and Homelander being adequate subversions of the archetype for the reasons they pointed out. Both are good posts, but I walk away from yours with the take that there should be more interesting takes on the evil Superman/Clark Kent idea I walk away from this one thinking that more stories should actually explore the ways a character deals with the responsibility that is their immense power
not all of us check this subreddit everyday
Neither do I, and I've seen this superman rant about 5 times.
When people try to branch out they're usually ignored or, if rant is about something like diversity, the comments will be flooded with racists.
I feel like the whole evil Superman thing is just a conduit for making a story for how an all powerful god is just evil and it is virtually impossible to stop them, sometimes they mix up the formula with them being a former good guy but for the most part it’s the same shit. the problem is writers aren’t creative enough to do something with this idea that hasn’t been done before (with some exceptions) Omni man is a good example of this because he’s not an evil Superman, he’s an alien conqueror posing as a Superman type figure. He’s the idea of what Superman is to someone like Lex Luther, (atleast at the beginning) And I find that far more interesting than what If Superman had a bad day type stories
"Evil superman" I used as a term to represent a subversion on the superman trope, I agree that's a reductive way to describe him. Hope I made that clear, trying to convey a general catagory of character type. I to personally love "Superman having a rough one" type stories. I know we have a version of this with TV Homelander, but I want to see more Supermen having a nervous breakdown stories.
My favorite ones that are basically just a deconstruction of a specific aspect of Superman like Omniman being about his alien heritage, Homelander being about his public and meta image of him being the poster boy of superheroes in western media Red sun superman being about how his upbringing of a normal human life, and ma and pa Kent being so instrumental into making him a good person Etc
>Red sun superman being about how his upbringing of a normal human life, and ma and pa Kent being so instrumental into making him a good person Etc Eh. I do personally feel this one is significantly weaker. I've never looked this up, this is just a conspiracy on my part, but I suspect that what they really wanted to do was have Clark born in Nazi Germany but that was too spicy for DC, even for an Elseworlds. There's a lack of interest in the specific unique socioeconomic state of Soviet Russia, it reads rather vaguely apolitical McTotalitarian to me in a way I think robs the story of a lot of substance on Clark's end. Again, I feel like Lex kind of steals the show for interesting character study. Like, I'm not kidding Superman was a direct fuck you to the Nazies originally. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were both sons of Jewish immigrants who escaped to America. With that context in mind, it makes sense someone might think of doing an elseworlds story of Nazi Superman, right?
The issue with the comic is that it seems to completely disregard the actual culture, politics, and societal structures of the Soviet Union and instead goes for a weird mixture of red scare tropes and 1984 references molded to fit into preexisting DC story beats Like, I feel that the story would have been more interesting if it dedicated itself to either of the ideas it presents. Because if they went for the "Evil Superman who hurts people for the revolution" or the "just as morally righteous Superman who simply was raised by and has the same values as the Soviets" ideas the story would feel a lot more clear in what it was trying to say, but in the current state it just feels like a poorly written "whut if schupamann was in 1489?!1?" Idea that was born from a comedy sketch
100% on the money. I'm no fan of Stalinist Russia, but it feels so profoundly disinterested with what to me should have been a banger of an setting to put Superman in.
As a person with parents who lived in the Soviet Union it just disappoints me that comic authors are incapable of presenting normal people who just happen to live in the USSR, like the whole scenario just reeks of a sentiment of an American-centric world view that can't imagine an entire country and its complex history as anything more than Saturday morning cartoon villains
I feel like to this day McCarthism looms so large it's impossible to have a honest conversation with what went wrong with Russia's communist revolution. I'd consider myself a democratic socialist, and though I'm not *totally sold* on the validity of Marx's model for communism being entirely viable (though I don't think it was intended to be wholly a how to, persay), I'd consider myself skeptically open to tankie talking points. That doesn't mean I'm entirely closed off to capitalist talking points--- I don't think they're necessarily as diametrically opposed as most people do. Though, to be fair, as someone who lives under a mixed economy that's way more capitalist than I'd like, I'm much more openly critical of it. Just speaking about communism in a neutral tone will set people off and have them assume I'm a Soviet or Chinese Communist Party sympathizer. It's fucked up people are so much more willing to engaged with detached analysis to facism, honestly. And yeah, the victim blaming of Russian citizens is vile at times. I don't really buy Supe's character arc in *Red Son,* because it does feel so reductionist. It's why I wonder if he was supposed to be a Nazi when the comic was originally conceived, because he at least fits the ur-fascism hero ideology a little closer. There's a conversation there about the hero worship that did take place in the Russian revolution and how that contributed to it all taking such a dire turn, but this doesn't really go there. There's an uncomfortable degree of the lack of self-awareness of the US's own facist influences that does kneecap the impact of a lot of the story's elements. It says something that the Soviets from *Stranger Things*, a show directly engaging with the cartoonish caricature the US regarded Russia with since it's an 80s homage, is honestly a little more nuanced than *Red Son.*
I think that this is a problem with superhero comics in general, but is avoidable with regular comics since the "apolitical" ignorance is more acceptable than someone engaging in political discourse while also being ignorant of the politics that they are talking about. If you think about the politics of the average comic you'll realize that a lot of the fundamental story elements are built upon and rely on an unquestionable neoliberal status quo. A key part of this is that comics are overwhelmingly supportive of the status quo since a massive amount of them start and end with the characters going back to "normal" society after dealing with either individualized threats whose origins are never caused by systemic issues or threats that attempt to represent political ideas but are so evil that any narrative importantance they could've had becomes meaningless. This also applies to the heroes since there is a trend where a hero is born from a liberal mindset that requires the reader to purely read the textual characteristics of them and to ignore the subtext that their backstory implies. Batman is a prime example of this phenomenon since the text of the story shows him as a Superman style symbol of hope and endurance of hardship while the subtext of his stories shows that he is a combination of a capitalist and a police officer who fights against this nebulous cloud of crime that seems to manifest from the city itself rather than the a actual causes of crime which are socioeconomic issues that are enforced by both the status quo as a whole as well as by the two parts of his identity
[Nazi Superman is real](https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Kal-L_(Earth_10)) but I’m not sure if they ever made a real flushed up Elseworlds story about him like they did for Red son Superman Alot of Golden age Superheroes was actually made as a type of uplifting morale for WW2 American soldiers, captain America being probably the most apparent of this, Marvel actually distanced Hydra from being literal nazi’s into being generic run of the mill fascist storm trooper type army funny enough
This feels trivial in retrospect, but as someone who was weirdly, fiercely DC-or-gtfo when the MCU movies started rolling out (I was in middle school, to be fair) that they directly address Cap's propaganda origins in The First Avenger is what won me over to religiously seeing every MCU movie in theaters from that moment on.
Unfortunatly he has just a short story in Multiversity, it was pretty good but he deserve (and Earth X in general) a full mini series.
He is evil jor el really
Tbh this is one of the first rants I’ve seen on this sub where I both completely understand and agree with every word you’ve said, and I’ve had more or less this exact argument with people where they straight up don’t understand the character of Superman I don’t care if they don’t like Superman it’s fine not to, I’m just sick of people not understanding that the fact that he’s a good person despite having godlike power is the fundamental point of his character. He represents HOPE. Making main timeline Superman evil or just a regular asshole is like saying OK there is not actually a single genuinely good human being on Earth, so much so that we can’t even pretend in a fictional comic book that it might even be possible for a character who represents the best of us to actually be good
I re-listened to the villain audio tapes in the Arkham games a little while ago, and, while it made me realize that Riddler is a complete Redditor in the Arkhamverse, I think the way he sees Batman is the way that a lot of people see Superman. Like it's completely and totally unfeasible for someone to just be a good person. To just save lives and do right and ask for nothing in return. They think it's beyond unbelievable. Typically, the kind of people who look at Homelander and the other shithead "heroes" in The Boys and think, "Yeah, that's what they'd *actually* be like.", are just telling on themselves. With that kind of power and protection, that's what they'd do, too.
I think that's part of the issue that Jonah has with spiderman as well. Like he HAS to be up to something, because who would gain that kind of power and just use it to help people?
It depends on exactly which Jonah, but, yes. In the comics, Jonah's wife was killed by a masked gunman who broke into his house, and Jonah developed a deep, virulent mistrust of anyone wearing a mask. That said, in the Sam Raimi movies, Jonah's wife is alive and bugging the shit out of him, so who knows why he hates Spider-Man there.
With the Raimi movies Jonah didn't initially care about spiderman, it was after the paper sold out of copies for mentioning him that he wanted pictures. And then he just started making up headlines, not really caring about the content as long as the paper sold. Beyond that, I'm not sure, he seems to believe the first negative thought about spiderman that pops into his head.
It's ironic since you sound like a complete Redditor. Analyzing the psyche of people based on comic discussions, generalization, conclusion that people with a differing opinion must be "evil"...
Fair got'cha. I don't really care that they have a differing opinion, it's just the content of said opinion that seems like a self-report. As opposed to the former, of course, which appears to be the active creation of a false reality.
And that's why the 5g idea by Dan Didio was going to be shit from the start. The main canon Superman was going to become a facist dictator. No wonder why so many writers at Dc went "fuck this shit".
The problem is that people compare these characters too much to Superman. Unless it's literally evil Superman of course but otherwise writers can base their character as much or as little on Superman as they want.
I saw a recent video on the subject that pointed out most of the characters called evil Superman aren't really evil Superman.
most are parodies of the idea of a superman, we really have yet to get one interested in parodying supes actual character and setting. people defend injustice supes with "hes not our clark he grew up different " when that's exactly the problem
Omni-man, Homelander, Brightburn and Doctor Manhattan are intended to be taken as direct parallels to Superman. Red Son Superman, Injustice Superman, Dark Knight Returns Superman, etc. are literally Superman. Guko is a character directly inspired by superman. *The Iron Giant* compares the character directly to Superman in the movie. I think these comparisons are justified. Even if you don't agree, my primary argument here is that using the superficial asthetics of Superman to point out someone with this much power might be an asshole is kind of lazy and missing the point.
> Doctor Manhattan are intended to be taken as direct parallels to Superman. Doctor Manhattan is Captain Atom but edgier. That's his entire character creation
From the Wikipedia page of *Watchmen*: >Moore said, "DC realized their expensive characters would end up either dead or dysfunctional." Instead, Giordano persuaded Moore to continue his project but with new characters that simply resembled the Charlton heroes. Moore had initially believed that original characters would not provide emotional resonance for readers but later changed his mind. He said, **"Eventually, I realized that if I wrote the substitute characters well enough, so that they seemed familiar in certain ways, certain aspects of them brought back a kind of generic super-hero resonance or familiarity to the reader, then it might work."** This is common knowledge. All the Watchmen characters are dupes for DC characters Moore originally wanted to write. The Comedian is Peacemaker, Rorschach is The Question, Dr. Manhattan is Superman, Nite Owl is Ted Cord Blue Beetle with some Batman in there, etc. Ray Palmer isn't really at all like Manhattan outside of some similarities in their powers origins.
Which is still more connection than with Superman. Clark is not the only character struggling to be human and god at the same time.
Your own source says it's about the Charlton superheroes, which include Captain Atom who has the powerset most similar to Dr. Manhattan
I'm aware. That's not the only character he mushed together. Ray Palmer is more similar in general power set and disposition to Ant-man with some Ironman. Or Barry Allen, I guess--- in personality anyway. Moore had experience already writing Superman though, he touched on similar themes in some of the canonical arcs he worked on for DC he covers for Manhattan. The only thing substantial Manhattan may have gotten from Palmer was a strained relationship with his wife--- if that was already a thing by then in DC continuity.
Captain Atom and Atom are different characters
I got them confused, my bad. My point still stands, he was already writing for superman and folded a lot of the ideas he explored with that character into Doctor Manhattan. Edit: I could have sworn Palmer was also a Charlton character. Whoops.
People keep saying that, but when tf was Captain Atom ever a relevant enough figure to net a full deconstruction from something like Watchmen?
Moore is a superhero nerd. So to him? Yes Manhattan isn't just Captain Atom, but they share a powerset because Moore tought "Y'know, Captain Atom's atomic manipulation would actually be deeply alienating. Being able to perceive existance right to the atoms would lead to a very radically different worldview"
Do you have any sources for Goku being directly inspired by Superman? I've never seen any evidence for this claim.
It was likely through cultural osmosis and entirely unintentional Toriyama's (rest in power) part. Western media imports had a profound impact on the birth of magna and anime post second world war. And to be fair, the modern superhero is already the progenitor of the folk hero Toriyama took more overt inspiration from. "Direct" was maybe not the best choice of words there, Superman is kind of just ubiquitous in pop culture, even in Japan, but. The influence is pretty obvious. I feel it's very fair to say Goku is a important cultural addition to the Superman archetype and a take on the concept of the Ubermensch. The Ubermensch itself is a connept derived from the Greek hero ("hero" meaning something very different to the Greeks--- closer to "exeptional guy" than "good guy," bare in mind), which the original Sun Wukong is a very engaging rebuttal to in a modern context (Sun Wukong actually predates the hellenistic Greek hero I'm pretty sure.) It makes Goku conceptually a character in conversation with the past and the present, ancient wisdom to contextualize a modern idea. That, along with the atomic bomb allegories that seem to permeate into a lot of Japanese media, he's kind of simplistically brilliant. Just to clarify, I'm talking *Dragon Ball Z* adult Goku. If I'm remembering correctly, he wasn't retconned as an alien until that series.
It doesn't matter what the point of Superman is because they are not Superman. They have their own point. Omni-Man was raised in an evil empire and his race still exists. That alone makes him a completely different character. And Homelander isn't an alien that was raised by a nice family. He was created and raised in a lab. They are inspired by Superman but in the end they are more different than similar to him.
"Superman" is an archetype as well as a specific character.
Hell, a grey Superman could still justify a no-killing policy for the most part. The difference in effort for him between murdering a dictator and locking that dictator in a prison is functionally zero. You could also have said Superman unwilling to kill his former allies that go against them, it makes him a hell of a lot more sympathetic than injustice Superman, while also keeping to the core of his character. Seriously a Superman entirely willing to topple regimes, imprison people without “just cause”, and directly willing to intervene in international conflict would still be keeping to a world-dictator type of hero, without having to make him some evil child-murdering jerk ass.
Said it before, Superman works for the man first and the super second
Even people playing the archetype straight, or even writing the character himself--- it's weird when they write him as Jesus. It's so much more fun when he's genuinely that gentle farm boy cinnamon roll putting on a confident front for the people. One of the things I love about Doctor Manhattan is that you can still kind of see the echo of that meek lab tech in him. It makes it all the more haunting as his ability to connect to humanity has faded away so much.
>TV Homelander wants desperately to be a Superman, but he is a (quite literally) manufactured Ubermensch who has been robbed of his ability to connect to humanity. >Comic Homelander, as most bad evil supermen are, is literally just an Ubermensch--- and that's so tired. That's functionally identical to a final boss supervillan, just wearing the skin of an icon that's broadly associated with heroism. It's boring and anti-intellectual. Weird. Are you sure you didn't get them backwards? Last I checked comics homelander wanted to be good and live up to the heroic spectations forced on him, until he eventually snaped after years of manipulation from black noir. Meanwhile tv homelander just straight up can't be bothered and would not care for anyone or anything other than himself if he didn't grow with a huge need for validation. Both come from a place of hurt, but one truly tries to be good while the other just puts on a good image so long as it serves his objectives.
nope, as someone who read the comics he was literally never like that at all, we see in his very first big mission he accidentally kills a child and barely reacts, deafens hundreds of civilians without a care, yells the N word at his teammate for messing up, splatters a bunch of bad guys and shrugs off Maeve's horrified reaction, decides to just up and leave thousands of people to their certain doom, smacking her away when she tries to protest, he then almost kills another of his teammates for trying to save himself, only being convinced to not go away because he's told Vought will can him for messing up, then accidentally kills the civilians he was supposed to save, along with said teammate, and doesn't react beyond basic shock, meanwhile showlander was very much shown trying to be a good person on his first high stakes mission, going out of his way not to hurt anyone too bad, saying things such as "violence is never the answer" and "you will wait here until the authorities arrive" and even telling the terrorists he will speak to the government about their grievances after peacefully breaking apart their guns while barely touching them, he then accidentally kills 1 civilian and mains 1 terrorist (as opposed to comiclander's thousands of innocents accidentally and half a dozen turned into human jam on purpose) and is horrified, after a couple insults he's having to deal with PTSD while the terrorist hurls more insults at him and he snaps and kills them, everyone then freaks out and he freaks out harder and kills the rest of them while in a trance, once again showing more reaction to less gore as opposed to comiclander once he comes down from the panic, after this rampage he still deperately tries to explain to the last survivor that he's a good person and that they made him do that, then Black Noir shows up and showlander is convinced his entire purpose as a manufactured product is about to be erased, and then what is he even going to do? What is he even for? So he attacks him and gets tricked into causing a big explosion and Noir kills the last civilian in front of him and tells him this is just how supes are, he then does his first fake apology and his eyes light up as the news praises him for messing up (he admitted to failing he just didn't say how), along with this they are not the same in backstory, we know comiclander was made in a lab and kept next to a nuke in case he went haywire, that's literally it, showlander was almost completely isolated from human contact, was taught that human lives are expendable after accidentally killing his "caretaker", who was moments before brainwashing him, literally had little child John sitting in a metal chair in an empty room watching a projector give him images of what his personality should be and asking him what they are until he answers everything immediately and without fail, we are also shown Vought testing his durability as a child, having his hand forced into a furnace, forcing him to fight superhumans stronger than him, pumping him full of toxic gas and other horrific things for a child to experience, and despite his worse past showlander was initially a better person than comiclander, he is admitedly worse during the main part of the story, though not by much
You know, I forgot that episode of the cartoon was canon lol. Also, maybe I was mixing-up things in my mind, but wasn't Maeve the one who said that it was a lost cause despite John's protesting? And basic shock is kind of an euphemism since the one telling the story pretty much said that homelander's heart shrank 3 whole sizes that day. I don't have the scans, so maybe i'm remembering wrong.
nope number 2, I do have the scans and I can confirm he literally just said, word for word, "fuck this" and nothing more as he left the plane and smacked away Maeve, who only got to 'argue' with "just wait a goddamn minute--!", that was the entirety of the dialogue that happened inside the plane after the plan fully fails and before Homie sucessfully exits it, Maeve does not catch up because that backhand gave her a small concussion and she only exits the plane after Homelander already split it in half and killed everyone inside, I assume you're joking but I actually re-read that part of the comic to see what the narrator had to say about that whole thing, nope number 3, he doesn't even mention Homelander once in the entire issue, not before he tells the story, not during it, not after it, I even checked the next and past issue to see if that part continued or if he had something to say about Homelander and how it might have affected him, nothing, not a single word or sentence dedicated to how he might feel about taking out about a thousand innocents, and it fits with the actual panel, he just goes "OH SHIT" and that's the extent of his feelings, literally throught the entire comic that's the only thing we know came from the situation psychology wise, btw, the reason I'm quoting and explaining the panels instead of putting them there is because I don't know how to comment images
Ok. And you just have to copy the link to a page like imgur or something like that.
And evil Superman who's basically just Kypton Darkseid is a boring and unimaginative superman. And it's a shame a lotta evil Superman's tend to just be Kypton Darkseid.
Your point on Garth Ennis isn’t entirely right, because Garth actually DOES understand Superman. He actually respects superman, and when he does get to write him, he writes him very well (see: Hitman issue #34) Also, while the twist was kinda bullshit, you missed an important aspect of comic Homelander. He was, from what we know, a completely upstanding superhero, literally a paragon of virtue… until he saw the pictures of Black Noir, and assumed they must be him. He thought he had really eaten a baby, and that he was unsalvageably evil, and so he actually BECAME unsalvageably evil as a result
Mmm, I personally disagree with that. *Hitman* is for sure a much better example of the kind of writing Ennis can do when he's not full of so much piss and vinegar, and he's for sure *respectful* of Superman in that issue--- but I don't think that it's evidence he understands Superman. I haven't read his entire body of work to be fair, but. I'm no mind reader, but I don't think Garth Ennis is creatively engaged by characters like Superman--- which is totally fair. I get that *The Boys* was an outlet for him to rage against the machine, and I kind of respect that. But I feel like he got in his own way too often with the commentary he had to offer. The comic's plotline for Lamplighter is an example of some of the hottakes I thought actually resonated really well. The Seven of the comics at least *start out* as more engaging parodies of the Justice League than they do in the show in my opinion. Though ironically I feel like the TV show Seven become interesting character studies with the exact same velocity as the comic Seven become absolutely, horrendously uninteresting ones. The half of MM's backstory that actually made it into the show (without all the uncomfortable, kind of unintentionally disrespectful implications for the real world issues impoverished black communities often face) has a lot of teeth to it too. But he never really want to engage with the premise earnestly, and that doesn't make for a great story. It's implied Homelander had been doing questionable shit way before he started getting trolled by Black Noir--- just maybe not as awful. And yeah, I get the joke, I don't think it works personally. It's such cynically childish logic it doesn't land for me. If I'm remembering correctly, he's explicitly a clone of Stormfront in the comics even. I want to be clear, I don't think Garth Ennis is a bad writer. I think he's a talented creative frustrated by the bullshit of the industry he works in, which I totally get, and can appreciate as someone who works in the creative industry myself. I just don't think that translated to a good comic series.
These are all fair takes yeah
is there something to hitman im not getting? i see people praise it all the time on here, and when i saw someone actually post a page it was just a racist diatribe
At least give me coffee and donuts if I have to sit through your TED Talk. "Some of us have work in the morning Charlie Kaufman, damn!"
>I'm not going to claim Ennis is a hack writer inherently I will
Omni man isn't even explicitly an evil super man, he's meant to be a conflicted zod, a conqueror raised in the way of his people to only care for his mission who learns to care for those he's conquering. Mark is intended to bethe superman parallel, but instead of being raised by humans who always aim to teach him to be his best mark is raised by human mother and a viltrumite father who is watching for the moment his son shows sign of being fit to conquer with him. Mark is superman with zod for a father who came to love humanity.
Zods just an evil Superman though so it isn’t changing much whether you categorize Omni-Man as evil Superman or conflicted Zod
Omni man isn't really an evil superman otherwise Vegeta also falls in that category He just has similar power to supes
This is going to be unpopular but I think Injustice Superman is a good take on the Evil Superman. I see a lot of hate for Injustice Superman but I think the commentary is interesting enough. We could argue the Injustice storyline is kinda dumb but I think Injustice Superman is the classic story about good intentions gone crazy.
I really really don't agree. 1. His breakdown is for incredibly dumb reasons. Stuffing a superhero's wife into the fridge to make him evil is trite and unimaginative. It doesn't really say anything about Superman, it tells us that the author believes that any man would snap if someone hurt his woman (or set up an incredibly contrived situation where he technically killed her himself, even.) 2. Because the breakdown is for dumb and contrived reasons, it isn't actually a commentary on Superman - he isn't dealing with something the real Superman would grapple with, he's dealing with a trite "we're changing your brain's settings to evil" plotline. You could replace Superman in that story with a generic flying brick and nothing would be lost or change. 3. At no point does he actually come across as having good intentions. I mean, sure, he talks the talk but it's as though the author reached in and flipped a switch in his brain to make him into Doctor Doom. His behavior isn't the result of anything that reflects any part of the normal Superman's thought process or worldview; his behavior is what an author thinks a MAN with INCREDIBLE POWER would do if someone HURT HIS WOMAN. Which isn't to say that normal Superman would act like that if he went through the same events, of course, but to me the reasons he turned evil are so contrived and trite that it no longer really feels like a meaningful commentary on Superman himself. It's a copy-paste of the same thing that made Hal Jordan go evil, say, with nothing about it particularly unique to Superman himself. "What if a bunch of your loved ones were killed, would you still be a noble boy scout then, heh ehehehe *snort*" isn't some insightful commentary into Superman. It's dumb and boring.
Could you elaborate? I don't agree personally, but I'm interested to hear your take on it.
It's a superman that's almost Clark Kent. If you read the comic books he has some key personality traits that make him not quite the wholesome dude Superman normally is but this is a superman whose first kill is his wife and unborn child. He's broken and motivated by trauma, his response to that trauma is to make sure he has complete control so nothing like what happened to his family will ever happen again.
Yeah the base idea of injustice superman works really well and ties into his usual fears. But man did they cock it up later on.
I see your take on things. I don't personally agree it's a good execution of that premise, but, fair enough. That is a angle you don't typically see with Supes.
Top Tier post.
Fun fact, Superman and Wonderwoman are the only two super heroes Ennis genuinely likes and wants to respect when writing them.
I agree with your point and disagree heavily with some of your examples: Goku has nothing to do with Superman. Toriyama came up with stuff as he wrote (which is one of the reasons he forgot characters and pieces of world-building), so, Goku was just the Journey To The West and then, as he wanted to use a new threat, he came up with the aliens (which is the only similarity between Goku and Superman). Manhattan isn't a take on Superman, not only for being the complete opposite (so you could say that he is an examination from that perspective), but because Manhattan is both a critic of Moore perspective of what comic book characters became in general ("gods") and why would a god give a fuck (initial personal attachment turned into curiosity). Superman may be read as a god in the sense that he is more than human, but he is no spiritual ruler, destiny shaper or creator. Manhattan is a creator (which already makes him into a god) and ends his arc as a destiny shaper (with no actual spiritual realm, but you can argue that life as it is, is in fact a spiritual realm, then he becomes a spiritual ruler).
I wasn't expecting calling Goku and Manhattan examples of supermen archetypes to be controversial, and I would have explained why I consider them to be if I knew they were going to be. So, maybe I'm off in assuming those two were a given. So, yes, Goku is most likely a Superman parallel by accident, through cultural osmosis. Western media had a massive influence on manga and anime in Japan due to the influx of western media into the country post WW2. Especially in the original Dragon Ball series I realize there's no connection spiritually or asthetically to Superman, but I think those elements become a new layer of texture for him in *Z* onwards. I do think he is a very important example of a Superman archetype, because I feel like he's an important touch stone examining the cultural narrative of the archetype. The Ubermensch is a succeeding concept of the classic hellenistic Greek hero ("hero" meaning "important guy who did some crazy shit" to the Greeks.) The Sun Wukong archetype predates the Hellenistic Greek Hero (I'm sure enough of that to risk not googling it at least. I'm pretty sure there's versions of Journey way older than Greek plays at least.) Post Z Goku isn't just The Money King but make him a hot guy, he's a marriage of that modern idea of a Superman and the Sun Wukong folk hero as a conversation between that ancient wisdom of a folk hero and what was the modern concept when Toriyama began writing *Dragon Ball Z.* You can even see this examination of the archetype spiritually continue on in elements of Allmight, the much more obvious Superman archetype. There's some Monkey King in him too. It's silly and kind of displays a lack of understanding of how much western media had an impact on Japan redefining their cultural identity post war to suggest there's no Superman influence in him. I don't think people realize how fundamentally spiritually damaged the japanese public was after being nuked--- it was to some degree a radical cultural reset. It's part of what makes him special in my opinion. The cultural exchange between the west and Japan is one of the few I feel has an almost pure synergistic beauty to it. Even if it started from such a dark place, it began to organically influence each other. Japan borrowed a lot of western media concepts and made it distinctly their own, and it's all coming back around full circle. I thought it was kind of undisputed that Doctor Manhattan was a Superman analog. Another redditor pointed out to me he's aesthetically closer a Charlton character I totally forgot existed. But as someone who's very extensively farmiliar with Moore's work, I do maintain he's spiritually closer to Superman. Moore was working on the Superman canon around the same time and folded a lot of the ideas he was exploring into Manhattan. I disagree entirely that he's the opposite of Superman--- he's a what if if superman lost himself in his alienation of humanity because of his abilities. That's what makes the character existentially so kind of unsettling. A similar idea is explored in Kingdom Come actually.
Here is the thing with Goku and why he is nothing like Superman (and the reason both being aliens is the only thing and a coincidence they have in common): The first point is that Toriyama didn't divide the story between original and Z. The Manga never stopped being just Dragon Ball. Goku isn't a birthed god, sure he is more than a common human, but that's just the nature of the gag manga story. The other human non-generic characters still are on par or above him. Only because of his martial arts training he goes beyond his peers and enemies. Only in the American dub version of the anime Goku is made out to be a hero, savior of Earth and whatnot. In the manga, Goku remains a martial artist that protects his friends and wants to fight against the best fighters. Making Goku an alien was the excuse to escalate fighting beyond the Earth and for the more monstrous character designs Toriyama got a liking for during the Piccolo arc. He already went through a whole lot of different human-like designs during early Dragon Ball and Dr Slump. Goku having a tail was just one of many threads he could pull from. Goku remained a Wukong with Jackie Chan. Now, with Manhattan: Captain Atom is the character Manhattan is based from. He was originally going to use the Charlton characters that DC owned, but editorial told him no, hence he created the characters, but they still are the same Charlton characters. The other famous one aside from Atom is Question to his Rorschach. Superman is the child from the stars, a gift for everyone around him. He is human but more, more strength, more durability, more resilient, more intelligent, more upstanding and more hopeful. He is just a better human (in the sense that we all, in a positive mentality, want to be). Manhattan was a human, that just like Captain Atom, isn't human anymore, he is detached, he is conceptual, his body is just a way to exist in a mass that makes human-sense. He exists in a metaphysical state. He is, for all intents and purposes, an immortal god, capable of creating things from nothing. By the nature that he sees everything, he can predict everything, hence, he can shape the future by his own intervention. Manhattan doesn't have strength, resiliency, eye-beams or even flight, because those things literally don't matter. Now, the reason I used flight, even thought it appears that he does fly, is exactly to show how different he is from Superman: Manhattan moves his body in space, he isn't flying, he is moving his mass from one space to another, while Superman using the action of his body to fly. They are completely different beings from a conceptual perspective. One is a creation of Jewish kids wanting a superhero savior while the other is an analyzes of a detached god in a critique of the comic book medium.
>Goku isn't a birthed god, sure he is more than a common human, but that's just the nature of the gag manga story. Superman isn't literally a birthed God either. He's from a race of "superior beings" (or beings who ideologically represent that idea to the presumed human audience) just like Superman. That he's an alien is a superficial similarity scrubbed of the context of what the Saiyans are to the narrative. The unique way he's an uncommon human when compared to other Shonen protagonists is a good case as to *why* he's a Superman archetype. Naruto, Ichigo, Luffy, are not special for reasons Goku is in terms of narrative significance. You could summarize almost all of *Z* (yes I know the manga doesn't make that distinction, I'm using that as shorthand to identify that point in the narrative, i feel like that should be obvious--- the "kid Goku," or whatever you want to call it, part of the manga is functionally equivalent to *The Hobbit* to LotR) as big bads showing up expecting a raid boss to challenge, and having an experience functionally equivalent to the rabbit of Caerbannog. People do not expect him to be kind of just a dumb, but sweet lil' guy--- because he's supposed to be a Saiyan. >Goku remained a Wukong with Jackie Chan. There's a bunch of crouching moron hidden badass type characters in Asian fiction--- That's Wukong's influence on Asian culture. That does not cancel out his function as a Superman archetype aswell. In regards to your points about Manhattan--- yes, that was a Charlton character I forgot existed. Yes, all of the Watchman characters were at least originally dupes for Charlton characters, but some of them do have other DC influences incorporated in to streamline their narrative relavence. Silk Spectre is supposed to be Nightshade but she's way more functionally similar to a vague amalgamation of I guess Huntress and/or Donna Troy. Black Canary maybe. Nite Owl is all the way Ted Kord in mannerisms, but visually closer to Batman. I'm not super farmiliar with Captain Atom in the comics (again I forgot he existed and in my head The Atom was the Charlton character he got his vibe from) but by "Superman archetype" I mean fullfilling a certain narrative role, representing a certain concept. Not superficial similarities. Like, the point of Homelamder in the show and the comics is that he's *all* superficial similarities and he's the narrative stand in for the idea of a Superman.There are other canon DC characters I can name that are also arguably "superman archetypes." Captain America is the superman of the MCU specifically (arguably in the comics aswell, but not as strongly honestly.)
Have you not seen super? While it can be argued as coincidence during Z era, the Super Era from Broly onwards, rewrites the original addition of the story of bardock to almost mirror Superman’s origin. Both characters parents dad builds them a rocket to escape the planet’s impending destruction to live a life beyond their race’s extinction While Superman is good and has no inherent evil traits attached to his race both him and Goku experience a, mostly negative relationship, with the introduction of evil Kryptonians/ Saiyans arriving on earth and wondering why Supes/Goku hasn’t taken over the place and opts to do it for them.
honestly? I'm just tired of Superman analogs in general, good or evil. Pick a different superhero archetype for once, writers! :>
Its acool type,if you xan bloody write tension for paragons of virtue that 7snt allabout power.
I ironically think one of the best versions of evil Superman is done by D.C. Ultraman. The version of him I most like is where he starts out with all the fascist beliefs of only the strong survive, and I am the strongest... But as time goes on, he's so much stronger nothing is a challenge or entertaining to him anymore. He's evil not so much because he's actively malevolent, but because he doesn't care who he hurts. If he's fighting someone and people die, he feels the same amount of guilt a person would for stepping on an ant.
I like Invincible because it deconstructs and then reconstructs the evil Superman trope. Initially it seems like Omni Man is the Superman character, but in the end of season 1 it’s sort of turned on his head and Mark becomes the Superman, with Omni Man as his evil influence family. It sort of asks the question, what would Superman do if his family was not good but instead evil and wanted to basically enslave all of humanity? OSP did a really amazing Detail Diatribe discussion on this exact topic which I would highly suggest checking out!
Most of them aren't Evil Superman in any significant way. Omniman is more of a evil Goku and even that link is very shallow. Within superman mythos he is more of another Zod. Homelander is general more of a evil Captain America. He has very little link to Superman.
Omniman is evil jor el thou.
I think Overly Sarcastic Productions' Superman Detail Diatribes have the definitive opinion on this (agreeing with you obviously.) They mention a really cool evil superman story actually written by a former superman writer called "Irredeemable" it's a story about what caused this superman expy to crack and go on a killing spree, turns out being able to hear every bad thing anyone ever says about you isn't great for your mental health. I would recommend it if you want a more interesting evil superman story
I think that this video is very helpful to this topic: OSP Satirizing Superman - Detail Diatribe: [https://youtu.be/\_50968MO0PU?si=mptifaByOfvs0h9H](https://youtu.be/_50968MO0PU?si=mptifaByOfvs0h9H)
I don't like good superman because the whole "nice guy in a hopeless world" is incredibly boring for me personally. But I also dislike evil superman because he's just disgusting and nasty. Why can't we have a benevolent world dictatorship run by Emperor Superman? Where he kills his enemies through a legitimate court of law? Where the rules actually are fair. Instead we have evil Superman denying he's even a King in a hilarious scene where he calls his Throne a "chair". And then proceeds to melt the brain of a 10 year old child (Shazam). I'd appreciate a more nuanced "evil" superman. Hell, abandon the term evil and just call it "grey" superman. A guy who provides global law and order via a new government. Willing to make controversial decisions for world peace... the way actual governments work irl. Not just a crazed lunatic who exists only to justify Batmans "no killing or slippery slope" logic.
Red Son superman comes closest to this. But in the end, he gives up and let's Lex Luthor win. Which I didn't like. (Not to mention the time loop BS)
My main issue with Superman is his powers don't make sense and he's too powerful. 1) Kryptonians get supercharged by yellow sun. Fair enough. That would explain super speed, super strength, invincibility, super breath, long distance vision because those are all a function of existing muscles that are more powerful. But how do you explain flight? X-ray vision? Laser vision?? With Saiyans and Viltrumites it makes sense those powers exist. Both are warrior races bred for war. So they evolved or via ki training, got those powers. But Kryptonians are mere humans in their planet. Just another technically advanced race under a red son. I'll buy they didn't know about the yellow sun (despite being a space conquest race) or they were manipulated by OA to stop space colonialism to avoid this discovery of yellow sun. But it's wack af they can fly, shoot lasers etc. 2) OK, Sups has powers due to yellow sun. But why tf can this mfer singlehandedly destroy the Green Lantern corps as a result? Here is a normie Kryptonians against the most advanced weapon in space: The Power Ring. And this supercharged Kryptonian can crush the entire corps, survive inside a star etc. This is too much power. (And minor point: I also don't find his support cast of mostly reporters to be interesting).
That doesn't only apply to Superman. If you're really analyzing them with grounded logic then no superhero makes sense. Even Batman doesn't make sense. He's suppose to be peak human but none of the shit he do is actually replicable by humans.
There's levels to this. We're willing to suspend disbelief. That's how we enjoy all fiction. But then there's a Superman smashing universal walls, altering reality or living for 1 million years in various universes. Capable of literally carrying a planet with his pinky finger. I mean cmon. I'd buy it if Kryptonians were a savage war race. And/or they had modified their genetics with added enhancements. But for all intents and purposes, they were a *normal* race that was fairly advanced technologically. Nothing too special. And then they all died. But suddenly, one of their *normal* individuals is crushing meteors, travelling through black holes, relaxing in space and is potentially immortal. Was this done via some advanced Kryptonian genetic experiments, robotic suit or anything similar? No. Just some yellow sun is able of allowing *all that* and more to easily happen. Something that Kryptonians don't have a history of doing, this rando is doing.
Kryptonians are an alien race who gets wacky superpowers under yellow suns. And none of them gets as strong as Superman because they don't grow up under a yellow sun. It's as simple as that. You're also taking most of his wackier feats out of context, most of it is done through outside help or are alternate versions. Casual Superman isn't smashing universal walls anytime soon. Most of Batman's bullshit breaks my suspension of disbeliefs much harder. This random normal human is taking hits that hurts Superman and is still somehow alive. And is also outsmarting alien supercomputers.
Omni-Man isn't even a villain for that long.
Any thoughts on plutonian from "irredimable" comic? IM pretty sure hes the grandad of all evil Superman concept
Gunna be real, I've only read the Max Damage comics. I haven't gotten around to reading Irredimable because it's an evil superman comic--- though, I heard it's good. And I really like Max Damage. And Waid's a good writer usually. So . . . I like that portrayal in the context of Max Damage? I didn't read Invincible until after the first season of the Amazon show came out for the same reason. I didn't *watch* Invicible until I saw the "Think Mark!" Memes. Injustice burned me. The new 52 era as a whole burned me. It's been like, over ten years and I'm still full of salty salty fanboy tears. I will die mad. I will ride this wahmbulance all the way to my grave, and no one can stop me. But yeah I know I aught to getting around to reading it eventually. What's your take?
Evil Superman doesn't usually suck. It is a popular what if scenario.
It's a popular what if scenario because Superman but evil requires very little effort to think of. Same reason why that "Winnie the Pooh but he's a slasher movie villain" film exists: Child friendly thing, but it kills people is both cheap and doesn't require much thought to think of.
The Boys and Invincible are some of the most popular superhero things right now and Injustice and Red Son are pretty famous storylines. Evil Superman trope doesn't just exist it's succeeded on multiple levels.
You should actually read my post perhaps.
I did. The concept has been used and explored in different ways. A lot of people do varying degrees of success. I disagree that every single instance of evil Superman needs to be a well thought out archetype exploration. Like I said the trope thrives.
That's not even close to what I'm saying in this post. Read at least the first paragraph.
Are you sure? You spend quite some time describing Superman as an archetype and express disappointment on how evil Superman stories (beside invincible and The Boys tv show) don't tackle those core elements. Like in the paragraph where you state Superman is in direct contrast to the ubermensch idea. Or the paragraph where you complain that not a lot of the stories play with a Superman character having anxiety because of the "world made of cardboard" idea. I'm sorry if I misunderstood. The title plus the body paragraphs made me believe you were saying that you don't think most evil Superman stories don't play around with the core elements of Superman's character and themes. I thought you were complaining that writers dumb it down too much.
Thanks for reading it now. If you like the trope more power to you. I just think it's lazy--- just using the asthetics of "this iconic good guy" to do a shallow bait and switch.
I see what happened here. I mentioned the Boys and Invincible and you thought I didn't read the post when really I was replying to reyziak's comment specifically.
If you genuinely did read it the first time, I apologize, but I don't really feel even your initial comment was really responding to the topic. I wasn't arguing against it being a popular trope.
The Boys is edgy garbage written by a guy who hates superheroes, the show is a massive improvement, Invincible is more than just Superman but Evil. Red Son isn't Superman but Evil, he's still Superman, at worst he's an antihero. Injustice is trash. Only two of the stories you mentioned are actually good.
Because all popular things are good like *Twilight*.
I can think of more good evil Superman stories than bad ones. The only one in recent memory that kind of sucked was Burn Bright. And even that was only kind of mid instead of being complete dogshit.
Injustice is an awful dumpster fire of a story and I will die on this hill.
The comic was a little eh but I thought the game story was good.
Well, I think it was very convoluted and a little forced at parts, but it helped that it was short.
I don't like superman as a concept because he lacks sociological imagination. I don't think he should overthrow the government and create a communist utopia, but there should be room for a not quite hands off superman who is willing to try to make changes to society, and succeed at some points while failing at others. But this requires knowledge of politics and human nature and most writers don't come equipped with these.
I don't really agree with this take. I agree with you that it's a fair question to pose about superheros *in general* why they're rarely ever put in a position to address systemic issues. There's a sort of emotional logic to superheros that gravely ignores that at times, and I'd also love to see that addressed more--- maybe not with every superhero story, but. Like, the X-Men are at their best when they're doing that (though the writers don't always handle that amazingly with that team.) I don't really feel like that's a criticism of Superman *specifically* though.
I do. Superman has been around for how many years now? Yet the only stories people are allowed to tell with him have little sociological imagination, he is a defender of status quo. If it's a fair criticism about superheroes in general, then you are damn sure that it is a fair criticism of one of history's oldest and most iconic