2013-07-23 Slash Stab Spurt

[shelmaliar]

Then Sandra whips out a bottle of liquor out of nowhere, and goes Popeye on the director's face.

[Eisu]

Slash! Stab! Spurt! Hurl...

As to Supes, while it's true the movie would be better if they simply cut all the fight scenes in half (same with The Hobbit 1), I try to take a long view.
It was initially disturbing to see Zod killed. But thinking about it, it might work over the duration. So we have this mantra: Superman Doesn't Kill. But why? For us, it's because we've known the character for years. For the Man of Steel himself? If it's because he killed someone once, and refuses to ever do it again, that doesn't seem like a bad story.

In my opinion, the whole Superman doesn't kill thing should not be something learned but something inate... it's like, it's common sense that killing is not good... I've never killed anyone and I know it's not a thing you should do... but then, circumstances gives the fact that as a soldier or defender or fighter, you have to kill to protect those you love so people might say Superman falls into this adage, but then, there's the whole Superman should be beyond us to what humanity should ideally want to be thus in that sense, Superman should know right off that killing is bad and should not be a thing to learn but a common sense to know. In my opinion, Superman should always, ALWAYS, no matter what, try to look for a third choice. A lot of this is already pointed out in "Superman: What's so funny with truth, justice and the american way?" or the more straightforward animated version, "Superman vs The Elite".

[badwolf]

I got a bad feeling about this...


The upside is, it could be very, very meta... ;)

[Kradeiz]

My main problem with 'Man of Steel' (wait, isn't this forum about a rookie supermodel or something?) is that the writer and director kinda missed the point of Superman. He wasn't a guy who learned justice because he watched his parents killed (Batman), or indirectly caused a loved one's death (Spider-Man), he simply learned those values from his honest, hard-working parents. At the end of the day, Bruce Wayne may be Batman, but Superman is Clark Kent, and he does the right thing, not because his homeworld was destroyed or his adoptive father died, but just because it's the right thing to do.

And I'm not saying that there wasn't violence in the comics to begin with (with protagonists who spend their nights socking bad guys in the face it'd be kinda hard to avoid that), but the violence in those days was very different from the violence we see now.

[Raamyah]

Then Sandra whips out a bottle of liquor out of nowhere, and goes Popeye on the director's face.

Complete with the damned music.

[Bambikles]

"Look what they've done to my game..."
Oh poor Sandra, she looks completely broken. She'll probably be speechles for the remaining of the show.

[Error of Logic]

Oh like this trend is new. Every series that goes long enough has this incarnation somewhere in it.

Yeah, true. It's been going on in comics since the 80s, but it seems more and more of the action/superhero movies are doing it ever since Nolan's Batman.

Well, Batman is darkness-fodder just by its basic premise: little boy watches his parents get shot by a mugger right in front of him and basically goes crazy.

[Don Alexander]

This thread has become sooooo meta

[Pking]

Slash! Stab! Spurt! Hurl...

As to Supes, while it's true the movie would be better if they simply cut all the fight scenes in half (same with The Hobbit 1), I try to take a long view.
It was initially disturbing to see Zod killed. But thinking about it, it might work over the duration. So we have this mantra: Superman Doesn't Kill. But why? For us, it's because we've known the character for years. For the Man of Steel himself? If it's because he killed someone once, and refuses to ever do it again, that doesn't seem like a bad story.

Superman has killed Zod before in comics. People complain that Superman doesn't kill when it's actually just really hard to make him decide killing you is a reasonable idea. Nuke Metropolis? He'll kill you. Murder all life on the planet and threaten to come to his dimension to kill everyone there like Zod did in comics? He's going to execute you.
Alot of people view Superman as a perfect being but really he's just as petty as the rest of us. the difference is he doesn't let that rule him and acts like the better person he can be just like everyone else can.

[Eisu]

The thing about that John Byrne storyline of Superman killing Zod in the comic-verse was John Byrne giving a middle finger to DC right before he left and back then, almost everyone's reaction to that storyline was the same as most comic fan's reaction to Man of Steel's Superman's kill action of today, nothing has changed, the true Superman fans do not want Superman to kill, so for people to use that whole "Superman has killed before in comics" really does not justify "It's okay for Superman to kill if he wants to learn something". That storyline in the comic was written out of spite and was panned back in those days and it took other writers A LOT of issues and years to "fix" the situation (by making a storyline that Superman exiled himself from Earth and goes soul searching through space).

Also, in the movie, he didn't kill Zod because Zod nuked Metropolis... in fact, he kinda looked like he didn't even care that half of Metropolis is flattened cos there was no shot of him looking around and gonig, "Oh my god, I let him do this... this is my fault..." kinda deal, there was just him beating up Zod. He killed Zod in that movie cos he thinks he had no choice or 3-4 people in front of him at that time would die, even though a there are a million other choices for him (cover Zod's eyes with his hands, fly away, etc etc) to do to avoid Zod killing that family. There was never any indication at all that Superman fought Zod because he was mad at Zod for flattening half of Metropolis, all that we can see is he fought Zod cos Zod was there and he wanted to stop him, this is a good reason yes, cos it's not out of anger, but that makes the killing even more "senseless" because it's not like he's really angry at Zod and plus during the fight, he didn't seem like he cared about collateral damage either.

In other words, yes, he's killed before even in the comics, but a lot of people hated it just as they do now because a lot of people believed Superman shouldn't kill, period.

[Zippy]

Oh MAN is Sandra about to blow this gig in a highly unprofessional manner that circumstances will (unlike in real life, where she would be fired) cause to work in her favor.

"Sure you are an unknown model who verbally (and possibly physically) accosted the client in front of a crowd, but the people love you for it, so instead of firing you, we are going to pretend like it was the plan all along!"

She can't be fired. She's not employed in the first place!

[Seriously, remember the bit about "get into this costume, we'll sort out the contract later"? There IS the question of whether she's in breach of contract with her ACTUAL employer, that said, the one who hired her to stand around in the mascot suit...]

[Pking]

The thing about that John Byrne storyline of Superman killing Zod in the comic-verse was John Byrne giving a middle finger to DC right before he left and back then, almost everyone's reaction to that storyline was the same as most comic fan's reaction to Man of Steel's Superman's kill action of today, nothing has changed, the true Superman fans do not want Superman to kill, so for people to use that whole "Superman has killed before in comics" really does not justify "It's okay for Superman to kill if he wants to learn something". That storyline in the comic was written out of spite and was panned back in those days and it took other writers A LOT of issues and years to "fix" the situation (by making a storyline that Superman exiled himself from Earth and goes soul searching through space).

Also, in the movie, he didn't kill Zod because Zod nuked Metropolis... in fact, he kinda looked like he didn't even care that half of Metropolis is flattened cos there was no shot of him looking around and gonig, "Oh my god, I let him do this... this is my fault..." kinda deal, there was just him beating up Zod. He killed Zod in that movie cos he thinks he had no choice or 3-4 people in front of him at that time would die, even though a there are a million other choices for him (cover Zod's eyes with his hands, fly away, etc etc) to do to avoid Zod killing that family. There was never any indication at all that Superman fought Zod because he was mad at Zod for flattening half of Metropolis, all that we can see is he fought Zod cos Zod was there and he wanted to stop him, this is a good reason yes, cos it's not out of anger, but that makes the killing even more "senseless" because it's not like he's really angry at Zod and plus during the fight, he didn't seem like he cared about collateral damage either.

In other words, yes, he's killed before even in the comics, but a lot of people hated it just as they do now because a lot of people believed Superman shouldn't kill, period.

I can generally agree with most of what you say. I just dont think the idea of an extreme situation where superman has no other choice but to kill to protect millions resulting in Superman performing an execution is bad. Man of steel however from everything i've heard completely gets the characters wrong. It's a bit sad considering that from what I recall the same guy who wrote or directed it(i forgot which) managed an awesome run of superman comics despite his other comics being somewhat lackluster. In man of Steel everything was wrong from the start in terms of motivations Pa Kent had and(He'd have never told Clark to hide his powers at the possible cost of lives in comics) it spiraled from there. The motivations become more selfish at heart because for some reason it's thought that a person cant genuinely want to help the world be a better place. The killing is fine if absolutely every other option is exhausted.It's the motivations behind it in man of steel that goes wrong. Generally if Superman can kill you he's capable of stopping you instead. Zod was no exception in the movie.If in the comics Superman had killed zod with a phantom zone projector or some other option right there it would have been ridiculous. Superman also would have at least felt guilty about having to cross the line so he'd have turned himself in for trial afterwards like he has always insisted upon happening anytime a superhero kills a person.

[Lokitsu]

@Eisu

The true Superman fans???

Get a grip dude, its a comic book character, not a religion.

And on that note, you've made him holier than the Christian God. In the Bible, God kills repeatedly. Your Superman is not only physically perfect, but mentally and morally as well. He's not a character, he's the incarnation of deus ex machina. If he's never really in any danger of any sort (ie physical, moral, emotional, etc), then there's no conflict which makes him BORING.

BTW Superman vs The Elite was a strawman arguement. Making Manchester a psychopath was the worst, most unprofessional kind of cop-out for a writer. And Superman's "lesson" at the end was both sadistic and pointless. If he'd been a real hero, he'd have just captured the Elite, not played twisted headgames with them.

Oh and this, totally this. http://www.shortpacked.com/2013/comic/b ... ourselves/

[Eisu]

Uhhmmm... I'm not talking about Superman as a religion at all... I don't know where you get that from what I'm saying... there's nowhere at all in my words where I said I worship the guy, I'm just saying that in the way Superman was written as a character throughout the years, he had that ideal of "Superman doesn't kill" kind of thing. I'm talking about how the character is perceived by the comic fans and readers throughout the decades (75 years this year) and how some writers today think it's okay to change the 75 year old perception for the sake of "grimdark"... I'm not saying Superman is better than God cos that's just a whole other territory that, I can assure you no one but YOU are treading on to right now. Nobody discussing this issue right now is even thinking that I bet except for you to make this argument currently.

As for Superman vs The Elite, I did say it was a much more straightforward version of the comic "What's so funny about truth, justice and the American way" and that comic had a much better way of handling the story from Superman vs The Elite.

[Raamyah]

Superman's not a religion? You haven't been paying attention to the subtext of his whole character. Look up what "Kal-El" means in Hebrew ("voice of God"). Look up what Siegel & Shuster influenced them (Moses). Heck, look at the religious pose he takes in the latest film.