How DC Messed up Superman.

In my last post I said something about how DC could never write for the Man of Steel and maybe I should do a separate post on that. Well, here it is.

I don't think there is a person in the States who doesn't know who Superman is. He's had four feature films, a bunch of TV shows, several animated shows, several animated movies and has been in comics since the forties. He stands for Truth, Justice and... well, if you watch or read the modern Supes the American Way has been left behind in order to be more politically correct. So, now he stands for Truth, Justice and Political Correctness.

Now, someone might ask, "Why do you say they don't know how to write for him? He's the most popular superhero ever!"

I'd say to that, "True. Then why is Marvel so much more popular than DC?"

One could say that Marvel has more heroes that draw readers. But if you look at sales, they get their money from comics with the Big Names in them. Whenever the New Warriors have Wolverine guest star in their comic circulation goes up and goes down as soon as Wolverine gets tired of hanging out with losers and goes and kills a grizzly bear with his bare hands. Deadpool is rising in popularity (I was into Deadpool before he got all "popular") because he is a generally interesting character, but his sales still raise when he get's teamed up with/against Spider-Man or any other brand-name hero.

Same goes for DC. (Enter lame hero)'s sales go up when Superman or Batman show up to lend a hand. DC knows it's main powerhouses and even tried to cash in on that, doing a story-arch called Trinity where Supes, Batman and Wonder Woman teamed up and beat the shit out of everything that looked slightly bad.

Where am I going with this? Well, Supes is the icon of virtue and all that good stuff but he doesn't hold my attention like Spider-Man does or even Wolverine.

Why?

Because he's goddamn Superman! Nothing can hurt his super-ass unless you have a particular green rock. It's hard to read about someone who is all powerful because it's BORING.

When he stops a robbery, is there any doubt that he will stop it? Absolutely not. The guy can circle the globe in a heartbeat, bullets bounce off him and he can see through walls; there's absolutely no way to escape from him. With Spider-Man there's a chance that one of the robbers might get lucky and cap his ass, or they drive out of Manhattan and Spidey can't chase because there are no more sky-scrapers to swing from.

Well you can stand up for him and refute my point various ways but I'd like to point out that the highest selling comic of all time was The Death of Superman.

People who don't even read comics bought that comic. Partly because it was the Paragon of Virtue Superman being killed. For me (yes I bought it and then promptly lost it) it was because there was an actual story about struggle.

Why are movies like Die Hard, The Shawshank Redemption, even The Dark Knight so entertaining? Because the main character has some serious barriers to overcome! And you're there, eating your popcorn, rooting for him when he's winning and sharing his pain when he gets knocked down. And when he finally gets to the end, and finally wins and can go home, you have that same relief that he feels.

How can you share pain with someone who is invincible?

How can you relate to someone who always wins?

To me, the Death of Superman was exactly what was needed for Superman; showing that he is just like me. He can lose.

...I would have gone a different path than killing him, but there you go.

What brought all this to mind was the opening CGI in DC Universe Online, where Supes looks all crazy-cool with his glowing eyes, shredded cape and unshaven face (how does he shave, anyway? His hair is strong enough to hold a ton, a literal ton) and he seriously just owns Black Adam's face with his laser eyes, probably killing him. Then he beats up Lex a bit, goes over to Wonder Woman who's all messed up and Oh ho ho, Lex is crafty and put Kryptonite in her mouth which messes with Supes and Lex walks up and impales Supes on a spear.

That got me thinking, "How would I handle Superman?"

When he starts out he has all the same powers. But when he's around Kryptonite, it has permanent effects. He's still Superman, but bullets can hurt him. Not kill him, but hurt him. And only high-caliber weapons. That would mean that Tanks could hurt him potentially. I'd let him keep his super-speed and heat-vision, of course, but making it so he can be hurt by things other than nuclear bombs makes him so much easier to write.

And kryptonite? Only one rock. ONE. And after Supes gets weakened the majority of it gets destroyed. I read somewhere that with how much kryptonite is available on Earth, Krypton would have had ten times the mass of our entire solar system when it exploded for all that stuff to fall to Earth. So, there's only one rock.

Oh, and his solar powered powers? Only last six hours. When he wakes up in the morning in the winter, before he opens his window, he's a regular Joe. So there'd be no need for that stupid red sunlight shit.

Superdog never exists.

Jimmy Olsen? Dies as a child.

Lois Lane IMMEDIATELY figures out who Clark is because she's not a complete IDIOT. It doesn't take the investigative powers of a Pulitzer prize winning reporter to figure out Clark Kent = Superman. "Hmm. Same height, build, hair and eye color, not to mention they look identical. Never seen at the same place at once. Clark avoids Superman stories like he's allergic to them..." I WONDER IF CLARK IS SUPERMAN.

Aaaand because Lois finds out Supes secret identity early without the building of their friendship/relationship, she might just write that news story Supes is always getting her to promise not to write. I actually don't know what I'd do here, either out Supes or get him to threaten Lois from doing it. Maybe not threaten threaten, but being all "Publishing that could put everything that is close to me in danger. What if someone wanted to hurt my mom to get to me? etc."

Anyway. That, to me, is far more interesting than "OH NOES GIANT ROBOT--oh, Superman just tossed it into the sun. It didn't even start up yet. Huh."

-McK