Superman: Collateral Damage - Detail Diatribe

Turns out there's a lot to say on this subject, and more still.
Recommended viewing: Superman Red Son - Superman & Lois - Justice League Animated Series, specifically "A Better World" & "Doomsday Protocol" - Superman TAS "World's Finest" - Invincible but no but yes but no.
Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.
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[@cameronmefford]

One of my favorite scenes from a comic is when a little boy asks Superman, “Are you ever afraid of the bullets?” and Superman's reply is, “Only the ones that miss.”

[@tangentreverent4821]

That's a good one.

[@Yuri-Camp]

that hollywoodland scene where the kid aims a gun at the superman actor and he talks him down by saying it would be dangerous if they bounced off and hit someone

[@isaacaxisa2142]

Dam that is raw as hell

[@Saltici.Saturnii]

Why would he be afraid about the bullets that miss. If they miss they go over there. And over there has to stand for itself, has to speak for speak for itself. Because it's only when over there becomes here that we can stop this once and for all.

[@samuelrudy1697]

@@Saltici.Saturnii ?

[@arianhosainy5493]

A thing I really like about Superman and Lois is when a small kid thanks him after the car accident and says "cool costume." and then Superman responds with "Thanks! My mom made it for me." Which is peak Superman.

[@Grim_Sister]

I love when writers remember that Clark is just a dorky kid from Kansas 😂 There’s this one panel of him smelling brownies in space and yelling at the entire watch tower: “GUYS! WE HAVE TO GO TO NORTH DEKOTA RIGHT NOW!” That is just so flipping cute

[@ShadowKamehameha32]

@@Grim_Sister Bruce: Why? Clark: BROWNIES! Bruce: ohmygodohmygodohmygod

[@mintyfresh2281]

It's a reference to Superman: For All Seasons, an excellent comic

[@Benjamin1986980]

​@@ShadowKamehameha32 you know that the Kents have a standing invitation to Wayne Manor every Christmas just a Bruce and Alfred can have some home cooking

[@phootaphan9166]

@@ShadowKamehameha32 Bruce: I don't do brownies any more. Not since that one Dr. Crane gave me.

[@ALookIntoTheEulenspiegel]

The older I get, the more I can appreciate Superman's "simplicity" in just continuing to believe in good, no matter what. When you're a teenager, you go like "Pffsht, he's just a boring good guy with no flaws" But the older you get, the more you realize: still believing, wholeheartedly, in the good of humanity, despite being an adult, takes willpower and courage and brings flaws/disadvantages of its own. And that's what I love about Superman, because he grew up and found a way to still believe in goodness despite all the insight you gain as your life goes on.

[@j.bat.8235]

"In time, you will help them accomplish wonders" hits harder, and it's literally the only concession I'm giving Snyder

[@BeratLjumani]

Considering the fact people strive to do good, to live peaceful lives, to follow the law in a society that regularly throws super villains, mass murdering gangsters, egomaniacal super scientists, technologically advanced galaxy conquering races, incomprehensible god-like entities bent on their enslavement at best and destruction of reality at worst, and they still try to live normal good lives, work normal honest jobs, and try to be a community whether that's a small town, a city, a nation, or planet I think Superman is right to want to protect that.

[@UserRedZero]

We’ve been shown “evil edgy Superman” stories so many times that at this point it would actually be counterculture to play a play Superman story again

[@Emma-Queenofhell]

Or an evil batman where superman takes the moral lead more over one where an alt batman doesn't save the day.

[@jamesbrads4414]

My first thought when they started talking about deriving stakes from saving people was "oh yeah! Superman isn't the ultimate soldier, he's the ultimate firefighter!" It's easy to see him as a soldier because of his combat prowess, and strength and laser vision, but as character he's much more a firefighter.

[@StickmanStudioGames]

This is such a good thing to point out! It's even more important to point out because most of the MCU heroes and even just most modern superhero media the Supers are framed as Cops. They are there to stop bad guys not save people. Superman as a Firefighter is such a good comparison because superman isn't fighting to stop bad guys, he isn't trying to be this hyper violent deterrent for villains because that's not what is important both for him as a person and for stories/narratives about him. He cares about helping everyone he can, his number one goal(or what should be his number one goal) in every situation he finds himself in is to save as many people as possible, to mitigate as much harm as he can. That's why hes such a good superhero. MCU Superheroes focus so much on the super part because it's about the powertrip and feeling strong while Superman as a Superhero focuses on the hero part because its about saving people and preventing as much harm as possible, the super part for Superman/Clark is secondary while the Super part for most Superhero media we see nowadays is the whole point.

[@Sperium3000]

The ultimate firefighter. I like that.

[@eshbena]

Hey, we do see him get a lot of cats out of trees. :)

[@gmlg]

There is a Frank Miller Superman comic where it has that elements in young clark he joins the marines to get outside of Kansas, but get dissilusioned with how much of the training is "Kill them" so he is discharged because he wouldnt take lethal action in danger, His liutenant pretty much tells him, "You have gits but the world is already on fire, go around making iit better son"

[@15oClock]

Now I wanna see Clark Kent riding a firetruck because it was his favorite toy as a kid.

[@illegalmemedealer3549]

While it’s definitely been joked about, I really want to see a Superman story where he ends up saving the day not by beating up a villain, but by writing a scathing exposee as an investigative journalist to get their entire operation shut down

[@flamingpi2245]

Oh yeah! He is a journalist Funny how that’s never addressed I mean he has to have at least some passion for reporting?

[@Leosklein69]

I can't remember an actual issue number, but I know I've seen something like this. I think a father's day special issue, where it ends with Clark Turning in his first article in honor of his father.

[@Leosklein69]

I can't find it right now, but I think it's a B-Story to the cw-verse limited comic series published this last year, the Superman and Lois issue

[@planersage1117]

I think they did during a time when he was completely de powered after one of the crises.

[@christiancrusader9374]

@@flamingpi2245 I know in The Late Mr. Kent his job let him discover an innocent man was about to be executed and he tried to use it to get him released, only for it to backfire.

[@MrBrawler16]

There was a Superman game based on the 2006 film Superman Returns that, while not being very good, had some interesting ideas like for example Superman does NOT have a health bar, and instead a meter that tracks how much damage Metropolis takes. Too much of the city wrecked is Game Over. As well as encouraging the player to watch how powerful the abilities such as the eyes lazers are to avoid charring the city.

[@terry.1428]

I'd really like to see a AAA Superman game on modern hardware utilizing this concept

[@stevejohns74]

Tangential to your post, I really enjoyed that Superman Returns game until the end when Superman defeated the big baddie…tornadoes. 😂

[@HeirofAzaran]

And the way you replenish the city's health is taking civilians to ambulances

[@ParasaurolophusEwan]

There's a game that works like that called Megaton rainfall.

[@thegodofalldragons]

The trouble with that game was that it was still combat-focused, so it turned the entire game into a "protect the thingy" level, which are hardly ever fun (especially the way they implemented it, with enemies prioritizing attacking scenery instead of the player). Superman: Shadow of Apokolips, while not a great game either, had a better idea, where most objectives in the game are centered around rescue scenarios and fixing things (plus, combat was easier to implement since it was based on DCAU Superman, who's always been more underpowered and vulnerable compared to other versions).

[@hootsifer-darling]

Another thing I love about Superman and Lois is that Clark is *constantly* zipping out to save people, like in the middle of a scene he'll hear an avalanche across the world and have to go deal with it, then come back and continue the conversation. Every episode we're reminded that *this is what he does* , and it's just a fact of life for Lois and his sons.

[@Doug_Edwards99]

This reminds me of why The Incredibles manages to be so compelling in it’s first act. The fact that Bob wants to help out everyone he can, but is not allowed to legally. I love how even in a mundane setting of an insurance company he’s doing everything he can to help out and what ultimately what leads to him losing his job is how he wants to save a man being mugged. And there is also that great scene of Bob and Frozone trying to save innocents trapped in a burning building, but their powers are not tailored to fighting fire. It leads to an interesting scene, especially when contrasted to immediately prior, where they mock the monologuing super-villains.

[@omnipresentl1316]

Yeah I really liked how Bob said if he used his super strength while the structure is weak he could bring the building down and Lucius says his power are weakened without hydration and moisture so they both just had to use their heads to get out of it. Imagine how scary it would be if a super hero that just started used their super strength with no regards to how physics work and brought down a burning building, tried to catch a plane from the bottom, punched a robber to hard into a wall, or threw a car at some villain with no regard for the person who pays for said car or the possibility of the villain deflecting it into a crowd?

[@bluecanine3374]

@@omnipresentl1316 reminds me of a very short lived cartoon made by like just two dudes and a young hero was learning the ropes and he was carrying thieves away in their getaway car but didn't grab onto the doors and mid flight the crooks struggled and kicked open the door and fell to their deaths.

[@arcadiaberger9204]

@@bluecanine3374 Oh, bummer. That would be hard for an innocent young hero to recover from. I remember a story in which police are investigating a mysterious death, and eventually realize he was a brand-new superhero who accidentally killed a random civilian and a few hours later killed himself. Very short career.

[@bluecanine3374]

@@arcadiaberger9204 eh in the thing i was referring to he was just bitched at by his manager and just felt like a screw up, the series was a comedy. Oh, there is one anime that is short and has heroes and villains in the world, a young teenager awakens electric powers and decides to go to the public pool with his classmates to make his hero debut, but they recognize him amd start mocking h, he gets emotional and loses control of his flight power and falls into the pool electrifying all of them and killing all them plus some bystanders and it traumatized him.

[@roaringthunder115]

The incredibles is really great at that

[@merrillsunderland8662]

Red and Blue make an excellent point here: ordinary citizens have kind of disappeared from a lot of Superhero media in favor of focusing on the heroes themselves. This is a major issue with the Marvel Cinematic Universe: named non-heroes are usually powerful because they are members of secret organizations moving chess pieces that heroes have to counter. Other more ordinary humans who aren’t part of some hidden Kaball don’t exist on screen for more than a minute. My favorite superhero movie moment from the last 20 (!) years was from the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man when Spidey uses his webs and his own body to stop a train from driving off a rail into the bay. And then he passes out. The people inside the train pull him into the carriage and crowd-surf him into the center of their little group, all these hands carrying him and laying him down. They all marvel at how this young kid saved them. And he did it by putting himself in harms way but also by using his quick thinking and his skills to maximum effect, not by overpowering the runaway train. There’s such pathos in that scene and these nameless ordinary citizens really raise the stakes when the train is about to go over. But then they provide a counterpoint to that act of heroism. They respond with ordinary tenderness and kindness. Superman stories can use this foil to great effect but when they don’t, they lose power. Heroes are only heroes when they have someone to save.

[@henryward5457]

They imply it sometimes (without showing it all the time). There is the moment in Avengers when Captain America coordinates with the police to evacuate the civilians, the evacuation of sokovia (an example that demonstrates that they are not very good at individual rescues). But you are right, there is no focus on it. Later movies seem to side-step this by moving apocalyptic fights away from cities (One subversion is the "Asgard is the people , not the place" line).

[@Wolf-bz6kq]

Or my favorite moment in the trilogy, in the first movie when citizens were throwin crap at green goblin

[@moshonn9318]

There is a moment from the comics when Superman for one reason or another is away at the ass end of nowhere doing something that nobody is likely to ever hear about, but that only he can do - I think it was some sort of Brainiac-situation, not sure and not important - and everyone we ever see him meet, from his fellow Leaguers to Lois to just random Metropolis citizens, band together and help out and keep the city save for as long as he's gone. It examplifies so much that is great about Superman: 1) He goes away from the spotlight because the saving needs to be done elsewhere, because he 2) knows that the comparatively smaller scale threats will be taken care of. The Leaguers take on villains that usually plague his city, Lois shows off her smarts by cleverly twisting some guile bad guy's word on himself, and the random civilians pull off a citizens arrest on a gang of (low-level) meta-human criminals running on chutzpah and 'the right thing to do'-energy because 3) he is the Man of Tomorrow, the paragon, the ideal that inspires people to be better, which is a point that Red has complained about being overlooked before.

[@UntamedDragon02]

@@moshonn9318 I think this is the comic when he took the burden of holding up the Earth for atlas so he could be at his daughter's wedding

[@martithdurel3974]

It is funny, Kohei Horikoshi seems to understand what makes a hero, a hero, better then most of the people who write/direct the DC movies. (I haven't kept up with the comics so I don't know how often you see them saving random Bob Smith over in DC/Marvel Comic land.) My Hero Academia is a really good super hero comic, in manga format.

[@ethanstyant9704]

12:08 just realised. That's why Spiderman is so popular, he's the friendly neighbourhood Spiderman, he doesn't just hit bad guys, he stops bad guys because he can stop a guy with a gun better than someone else and he helps out around the community. One my fav strips from Spiderman comics is one where he sits up late at night helping a kid with his math homework

[@meyramerah]

Which issue is that?

[@chimedemon]

oh god... is that the one where the kid was helping out rob people and he said "alright look. If you stop doing that, I'll help you with your homework."... it ended so horribly dude... but that's why I love Spider-Man, because he keeps going no matter what.

[@TheEepyMagi]

This has always been why i love Spiderman as well. He's not going out into space to fight evil aliens, no. He's fighting armed goons and his rogues gallery to stop innocent people from getting hurt. Similar to Superman, Spidey is at his best when controlling collateral damage. Steering the rhino away from crowds, webbing goblin bombs and detonating them in midair so nobody gets hurt, etc etc. Whats fun about it too is his powerset is so uniquely built to do these things- he doesnt break things, he creates. Webs up buckling columns to stop a collapse, spins a web above the street to stop falling rubble, the list goes on.

[@terry.1428]

@@TheEepyMagi Recently started miles morales after finishing invincible and that steering rhino scene just hit different I swear, all those innocent people and the potential collateral damage it felt so real lol

[@sourwitch2340]

@@TheEepyMagi on the other hand Superman has abilities that are hereditary and, primarily, destructive. Spider-Man uses his innate creative abilities to create, Superman finds a way to turn his destructive talents around and make them useful. But what they have in common is superpowers that explicitly alert them when people are in danger. Whether it's x-ray vision and super hearing or spidey senses.

[@Benjamin1986980]

There was one thing in the Justice Lords that you should have mentioned. This wasn't a crazed evil Superman. He was still kind to Lois, in a henpecked husband sort of way. She was under house arrest, but they still had dinner while she told him how horrible he was. That and the Batman argument really set the tone that this wasn't just a crazed Injustice style mad God. This was our Superman, which made it all the more terrifying

[@goff256]

Also it’s not that he just decided to stop Lex for good. The Flash was publicly executed by Lex Luthor with a shotgun.

[@Weirdbrit]

@@goff256 thats more or less still the same thing. Superman could've taken revenge for so many things so many times. That he decided to do it this time still means that he decided that Lex has to be stopped for good. It does not really change anything

[@goff256]

@@Weirdbrit If you don’t know the significance of Wally West in the Justice League, I don’t know what to say. The fact that Wally being killed turned the entire Justice League, even Batman, evil kind of implies it meant something more.

[@roberthelmsen6961]

⁠@@goff256In the show it does, more than anything, but in order for Superman to remain the paragon he is, it can’t. Superman is someone who can’t waver, no matter how personal the loss, no matter who’s vicious the trauma. To illustrate my point, as well as how important the Justice Lords episodes are to the rest of the series, let’s talk about the season 1 finale in Unlimited, where Luthor/Braniac attempts to kill Wally in the main continuity. You can have your own opinion on this, but I firmly believe that, even had he succeeded in killing Wally, the Justice Lords WOULD NOT reform here. Because, they have seen what that would mean. They know just how horrible going down that route would end. And, as was discussed in the previous Superman diatribe, Superman has to be the one to hold himself accountable because no one else can. In order for Superman to, well, BE Superman, he NEEDS to be able to know that if he snaps even once, regardless of the reason, it’s over. This is not to say that I think the JL cartoon fails in its portrayal of Superman (on this count or overall). Instead, it’s to say that Superman is continually shaped by every event he undergoes, and I feel that he only truly begins to embody this specific core principle when he sees firsthand the consequences should he ever deviate from it. So, while in the show, the fact that it was Wally is crucial to the reasoning for the Justice Lords, in regards to the greater context of Superman as a character, whatever horrific act of villainy caused him to cross that line and take the easy way out is inconsequential. The moment he does, he ceases to be the Superman we know.

[@HadrosaurHero]

I really like that the lesson in The Batman was all about tearing down the notion that Batman is only about beating up bad guys, but that he needs to save people. He was a shadow vigilante, but what he needed to be was a superhero.

[@elijahlee3610]

That notion was never established to begin with in the movie landscape post Nolan era

[@austinnowak5414]

What most people don't seem to understand about Batman is that he's both a symbol of fear and a symbol of hope. When he shows up to a crime scene the criminal freak out, but any innocents near by know that everything is gonna be okay because Batman is here to save them.

[@jamalhartley5863]

@@austinnowak5414 Yeah generally Gotham civilians aren't scared of Batman. Sure when he just fucking appears that shit is scary, but once you realize who it is. They're like "oh thank God it's Batman!"

[@stevenhedge2850]

problem with that is: the bad guys in the movie weren't that impressive. the riddler actaully BEATS batman

[@austinnowak5414]

@@stevenhedge2850 That version of Batman is still learning and still growing into the role of Batman. He gets beaten because Riddler is probably the first real super villain he's had to face. He hasn't yet settled in to the role of Gotham's protector yet.

[@jessielefey]

The Superman and Lois comic with the line "he could be anything and he chooses to be kind" just came across my timelines again, so I'm in exactly the correct mindset for more "let Superman be a dorky sweetheart" analysis, bless you.

[@Grim_Sister]

Agreed. I’ve said this once before to a friend: Superman’s power doesn’t come from him being super strong or a Kriptonian under a yellow sun. It’s from his compassion And considering he was created by two Jewish men before America joined WW2, it isn’t surprising to see him implement one of the first lessons every Jewish kid learns: “All who save one soul, it’s as though they’ve saved an entire world.”

[@truthspeeker1]

The best Superman writing isn't where he's scared of being too strong, the best Superman writing has him be scared he's not strong enough.

[@dropkickcorpse]

6:03 Another Superman-alike I like is All Might from Hero Academia. His most famous accomplishment that's still brought up by fellow heroes was the time that he single handedly saved a thousand people because he was the quickest first responder on the scene when the disaster struck. This is still mentioned despite people knowing that he gets into punch ups with supervillains. His protege Deku regularly gets into punch ups with enemies which leave him crippled in the middle of the fight. His experienced hero teacher ,Eraserhead, notices this and is unimpressed by his reckless disregard of his own well-being and tells him that if an exploding punchout is his only hero strategy then he doesn't have what it takes become a pro hero, much less reach the savior All Might.

[@seasnaill2589]

You know, now that I think about it Bakugo follows the same kind of growth. For a good chunk of the show Bakugo wants to be the #1 hero, and he categorizes #1 as the 'strongest'. As a result he's hyper aggressive and terrible in a team cause he's constantly trying to prove that he's better then all of them. During the last tournament arc though(and after a whole lot of character development) we see that his priorities shift. He starts to realize that being the strongest doesn't make you the best hero, just the strongest one. To be the best? No casualties, no injuries, and all Villains captured and incapacitated. And to accomplish that he starts to lean on his teammates more cause his powers are great in a fight but terrible for, say, stopping a falling building!

[@le__birb]

Hell, All-Might's big enemy/rival deliberately fighs him in the middle of a big not-yet-fully evacuated city because he *knows* All-Might cares about normal people, to the point where he doesn't even directly attack All-Might but aims at civilians nearby because that's the most effective way to weaken him.

[@theradionicrevival8068]

I do love how My hero (at least initially) pulled back the layers of hero society with each arc and acknowledging how corrupt their world is and also the nuances of the concept of heroism and how despite all nights best efforts, it lead to world and especially his protege inheriting some deeply self destructive mentalities for the preconceived good of all, neglecting to consider who will be saved by you if you never bothered to look after and save yourself first. It destroys hero society and the new generation the same way it destroyed all might and forced him into early retirement. And with each arc peeling back the layers of the society and the concept of heroism, the gentle criminal/festival arc with zero (the most underrated, misunderstood and hated arc in the series) finally hammers it home to deku and to the audience that saving someone is more than just beating up villains. Not only can that easily backfire, as shown in gentles origin story, it also means that in order to truly prevent a villain from striking, you have to dig to the roots beneath the cracks that lead to these people falling down them and becoming villains in the first place (stuff like how most of the villains in the show were just kids who were victims of abuse but due to the preconceived safety net that the oversaturation of heroes provided, no one reaches out to help them. Ntm Eri and the students of UA technically being safe but still unable to grow or move forward due to the trauma of their pasts.

[@vabhdman]

@@theradionicrevival8068 Oh please, can we stop gentle criminal/festival arc as the most underrated/misunderstood thing. It's a bad arc because its insanely boring. You can tell your arcs be about saving people in a more interesting way, just because the arc has a purpose doesn't mean its good.

[@mangaanimefan3089]

​@@theradionicrevival8068Yeah, I never got the festival/Gentle Criminal arc hate. I loved it. God forbid the high-school kids get to do any high-school activities. Or we get some more actual training. Or more character interactions. Or more world building and set up. But whatever, haters can hate. I love this arc. I like to go back and re-watch it occasionally.

[@Zarastro54]

Also, the thing about Man of Steel being almost good: him wrecking Metropolis could have worked better had they done something similar to what you all mentioned Invincible did. Have Superman try desperately to move the fight out of the city, but Zod, sensing this weakness, continually drags the fight back into it and tries to cause as much damage as possible.

[@meyec]

Except he does that. The only time Clark causes collateral damage is him jumping over the oil truck Zod throws at him. (Which by the look on his face he didn’t think would cause such an explosion, with it being his second day with the cape.) every other case of collateral damage during the Battle of Metropolis was caused by Zod throwing Clark through buildings, not the other way around.

[@errorcrj110]

@@meyec That's not the issue. The point is that Superman himself doesn't make an effort to avoid collateral damage being used by anyone, rather than him not being directly responsible for any collateral damage. And he learned during the Smallville fight how badly others could be hurt, but he never considers it when in Metropolis. It wasn't a conscious decision by the writers either. They just wanted to show the spectacle of Metropolis getting wrecked. But that means that Superman's trait of wanting to be a hero, to save as many innocents as possible, was thrown out of the window and not considered as a factor. If they had thought about it, it would have been an easy fix to have Zod intentionally cause collateral damage in the city while Superman fails to stop him... until he stops Zod for good. But they didn't do that.

[@meyec]

@@errorcrj110 this is a fight between two indestructible beings in a destructible world, and even then, most of Metropolis is destroyed while Clark is in India destroying the World Engine. Throughout most of the actual Zod v Clark fight, Zod is in control, the only times where Clark is is when he’s punching him through the air, punching him into space, and the chokehold. For the sake of a clear argument everyone beat in the fight is either up for debate or Zod is in control. Before the fight even begins Zod makes his intentions known to Clark, he’s going to kill everyone on this planet. Zod won’t surrender, it will only end with one of them dead. While you may not agree with Clark’s reasoning, his priority is stopping Zod, because if he doesn’t, everyone is dead. That is shown in the infamous neck snap. Clark kills the only living Kryptonian to save humanity. The ethical question Clark doesn’t have much time to consider us does he focus on defeating Zod, or focus on saving people while Zod is kicking his ass and causing more death. Also Zod does intentionally cause collateral damage, Clark stops the satalite, and Zod just tears it into pieces to fall into Metropolis. Also please keep in mind, this is his second (third if you count the World Engine) fight. He’s clearly outmatched, giving it his all. He’s known how to fly maybe a week at this point. This isn’t your classic Superman, as he’s still on the way there. This is the first step to what Superman was supposed to be.

[@Zarastro54]

@@meyec Just watched it again. The reason Superman is even in the position at the end where Zod is about to murder those people is because he landed him in the middle of the building rather than literally anywhere else.

[@meyec]

@@Zarastro54 Zod set the initial trajectory from the satellite, Clark just took control of that situation midair.

[@noahrotter]

The best sidekick for Superman, is Raven. We had a little taste of it in the second Justice League Dark movie, and I want more. Not only do I love the trope of big softy dad with moody daughter, but they also complement each other. They both in essence, represent hope and care. Superman in that he unabashedly cares, and Raven in that she’s struggled to be cared for. And goddamn it, I just want Raven to have a father figure and to feel safe.

[@SamaritanPrime]

Raven tried to kill herself in that movie, and who stops her? Superman. Our boy is slowly dying what must be a painful death, with Kryptonite infused into his bloodstream (thanks, Darkseid. Thanks). He’s not nearly as powerful as he once was, and what’s he doing? Caring about people. Not even a world ravaged by Darkseid could make Superman stop caring.

[@timothymclean]

I think Raven would be wary of potential father figures after what Trigon tried to use her for. (This is me agreeing with the OP.)

[@Lughrochben]

You know I never really thought about it, but I'd love to see/read a well done story with this as the premise. Not Justice League Dark, though. While I liked the movie fine, the whole grimdark aesthetic just didn't do it for me.

[@diamondinthesky4771]

The second Justice League Dark movie, or as I like to call it Justice League Crap: Shitopolips Dump, was a fucking horrible movie that was a complete disservice to the DCAMU and all DC characters depicted in that movie as a whole. It unfairly made it so that the only characters worth a damn were the ones on the cover and if you liked any others you were shit out of luck cuz they got killed off and them or their designs/depictions/voices/interpretations are gone forever and banned from any future use in any future DC projects - including the most comic accurate depiction of Conner Kent we've ever had in DC's supplemental medias. Raven was not Clark's sidekick there, she was just a walking plot device to get Trigon to the end. That movie was fucking horrible and should be both undone and ignored + forgotten for the rest of time. It was the worst superhero film ever made.

[@diamondinthesky4771]

@@SamaritanPrime That movie was horrible.

[@brandondavidson4085]

The thing about Lois Lane is that a lot of the time she doesn't just stumble into trouble. Lois gets into dangerous situations *by doing her job* . She's investigating a criminal conspiracy, and interviewing a corrupt politician, or trapped in a fire while talking to a witness. Lois isn't a typical "damsel in distress", she's a strong female character without having to be manly or violent.

[@zanewolfe9754]

Actually, while Hawkgirl ask John Stewart if he remembers when people weren't afraid of them, John counters with all the positive changes that were made, and she snarks back about "Well if that helps you sleep at night.", and he grins at her saying "You know it does." So, at least for those two, I would say they are happy.

[@Benjamin1986980]

They are also the two who are explicitly military. Stewart literally had the concept of doing violence for the greater good drilled into him (burn down the village to save it, no?). To compare, Superman was supposed to be the perfect American, and Bruce just wants no child to ever lose his parents again. Their core values don't sit nearly as well with the ends justify the means philosophy

[@zanewolfe9754]

@@Benjamin1986980 to an extent that argue that Batman's ideals kind of do. After all when Justice Lord Batman pointed out everything that he done and how no child would ever lose his parents to some punk with a gun, Canon Batman dropped his weapon and surrendered because the Justice Lord Batman was correct.

[@dreamcream3738]

@@zanewolfe9754 Only to then put the mirror up to Lord!Batman's face by obeying traffic laws, allowing him to see just how the "little guy" got screwed over, and seeing that this isn't what Thomas and Martha would have wanted.

[@shebjess]

This reminds me of how the Flash Appreciation Day episode of Justice League is one of my favorites. It shows just how smart Wally actually is and shows he's an active part of his community. There's even a part where he talks to one of his "nemesis" and he's like "Buddy, you're not talking your meds again and I'm concerned for you." and just UGH, IT'S SO GOOD

[@Dirtyblue929]

The Flash has such a wholesome dynamic with his villains. With the exception of Reverse Flash they all respect and even kinda like him to varying degrees, and he repays the favor. I remember one of the endings to Injustice 2 has Captain Cold go legit as a superhero because Flash helped him through the grief of his sister’s death and it’s great

[@Joy-zz8wz]

@@Dirtyblue929 omg i didn't know that about injustice 2 thanks for sharing!

[@rmsgrey]

Episode title "Flash and Substance" and, yeah, Flash's Rogues are so outclassed by him that he can afford to go easy on them - and he uses that to treat them like people, and on their side, they adopt their own code of behaviour that basically comes down to "don't piss the Flash off by being gratuitously evil".

[@christophergarcia9022]

@@rmsgrey too bad a lot of comics just make them do a lot of gratuitiously evil stuff even like that tbh.

[@ihatepower4580]

@@Dirtyblue929 it was me Barry, I made your villains addicted to drugs so you would get emotional.

[@d_3634]

One of my favorite comics is the one where joker sneaks into the daily planet and tries to kill clark kent with a hammer. It shows how clark thinks in superspeed about how deep in thought he was to not notice joker sneaking in, but much funnier is how the hammer is slowly creeping to his head and all he's thinking about is "what would getting hit in the head with a giant mallet even look like? It would definitely kill a regular guy right? Could I move at the last second to barely dodge it or would that be too suspicious?" I like to imagine he juggles around in his head at super speed the best possibilities to save people

[@fallingstar9643]

I love that, because it suggests that he always knows where Batman is, but he pretends not to so that Batman can do his ninja thing and sneak up or sneak away. But then to re-analyze that... I wonder if, after the job is done, Supes helps Bats out by critiquing his sneaking technique; like, "I heard the fabric of your glove snap when you let go of the slightly sticky elevator cable you were climbing up" and Batman adjusts his gloves to compensate. Like, the reason Batman is so good is because he can never sneak past Clark, but, being Batman, he's never going to stop TRYING and Clark is more than happy to help him out.

[@JaelinBezel]

Which comic is it?

[@callumdimmick870]

@@fallingstar9643 This is my favorite explanation I have ever heard for his sneakiness.

[@Blueeyesthewarrior]

@@fallingstar9643 Now that is good friendship headcannon. I approve.

[@StonedHunter]

@@fallingstar9643 honestly my favorite depictions of the pair are like this where they support and better each other. Everyone says Batman needs the Joker but that's false. He needs Superman cuz Superman, like with everyone, encourages him to be better. He does the same in return by being one of the few people who's ready to deal with a Superman who snaps. They hold each other accountable for their actions and are as close to equals as is possible given the difference in raw strength and power.

[@negigima]

I feel like when Lois is done well, SHE'S genre savvy. "Superman always saves me. Superman will always come to my rescue, so my job is to help other people get saved by Superman, by gathering together every innocent person I can find, and we'll help Superman by being together so he can come save us all at once." This sense of wanting to help people and wanting to be doing good, and wanting to not be a burden on Superman by just being a damsel in distress.

[@ajpowers2989]

My favorite scene in Man of Steel is in the beginning when he saves the workers from the oil rig, because it shows him using his powers to try and save innocent people who he doesn't even know.

[@timothymclean]

If only Snyder realized why that was peak Superman.

[@tibboocelot9272]

One thing I want to mention about the part of "superheroes saving people" segment of the video is the movie, The Batman where at the finale he chooses to dive into the water and personally lead everyone out of the flooding building. The entire movie he was almost ignoring the other people to go after Riddler and Falcone, and only at the end does he realize it's the people he needs to be saving so he makes the conscious decision to go after them and do that instead.

[@michaelpugmire4533]

And it ends with him literally holding the light to lead people out of the darkness. Heroes don't just save people, the lift them up too

[@aegis9374]

AGREE SO HARD

[@A1phaWolf150]

That’s what made The Batman so good. It was α different kind of origin story for the character, not the story of how Bruce Wayne became the vigilante, but how that vigilante became the hero Batman.

[@DragonbIaze052]

I feel like he fully expected to die when he cut that cable and fell into the water with it.

[@manbat4582]

@@A1phaWolf150 it kinda came out of nowhere. Plus, the movie focuses too much about flirting with Catwoman, that the sense of urgency the threat demands always get sidelined. In addition to failing to stop Riddler at every scheme, batman causes too much collateral damage in everything he do like the car chase, club beatdown without the results to justify them

[@kaylinhendrich4673]

Kind of in the vein of the waitress and Captain America scenes getting cut in the first Avengers, there’s a similar scene in Endgame that got cut. It was supposed to introduce Smart Hulk by showing him rescuing a bunch of people from a high-rise building and then directing the fire crews to where they could more effectively fight the fire. Much cooler than how he was actually introduced imo

[@thelittleredhairedgirlfrom6527]

Why was this cut?!? It sounds so much better!

[@lamaface]

@@thelittleredhairedgirlfrom6527 didn't you get the memo? the only person allowed to be cool during their introduction in an MCU movie is Tony Stark.

[@ToaArcan]

@@lamaface I mean, Tony's introduction in Endgame is him slowly starving to death on a spaceship and desperately recording messages for his wife that he has no reason to believe she'll ever hear, because even if she hasn't been snapped, he's several million miles away from home in a ship with no fuel and no food. Not exactly "cool" by any sense of the word. In terms of 'cool' introductions in that film, there's... Carol, Thor, Gamora, and 2014 Thanos? Everyone else just kinda... shows up.

[@austinsetser6081]

@@thelittleredhairedgirlfrom6527 they didn't want to finish the cgi I guess

[@ethankrieger1210]

I heard that they cut that scene because the movie was so long already and it wasn’t necessarily a vital scene.

[@noahgetthenukevt]

12:01 the first thing that came to mind was that bit in MHA where Deku is learning to accept the power of all might and AM literally tell him like "see this beach? you are going to clear it because yeah sure strength training and all but also this is literally one of the most important things in heroing is helping fix these kinds of issues because you have the power to do so"

[@adamzimmerman8345]

To your point about his morality being interesting when you explore the edges, the Rebirth stuff with his son Jon as a kid (before the time skip) was fascinating. "Superman as Dad" is complicated. Jon ENTIRELY ACCIDENTALLY heat visions the cat, and it turns out several issues later that Clark knew the whole time, and Jon had been agonizing over how to fess up about the missing cat, and Clark isn't smugly judging his son or anything, but figuring out how best to teach his super-son, Clark agonizes, remembering (with occasionally rose-tinted nostalgia) just how good Jon Kent had been with him as a kid. But the run was fantastic; Clark had another challenge. It's easy to be moral and ethical about the big stuff, but we all get a little weird when it comes to our kids, and seeing him having to figure that out (at the same time...do I hide my son to save him from the pains and heartache this life can cause? CAN I hide my son from this life without ruining my credibility as the guy who does the greater good? SHOULD I hide my son from this life, if only for a while?) is all fascinating stuff. Turns out Clark is a genuinely good Father, but also a genuinely good Dad. It's a callback to Kingdom Come that when Clark puts the "Super" before the "Man" he goes awry, but when Clark's humanity is on display, he comes out okay. It's a different way to challenge his morality and ethics than we've seen; it's not his love interest or his adopted home or his friends, it's his SON, his flesh and blood. DC went off the rails due to executive meddling (the aforementioned age up of Jon while off in space being just one snippet of their overarching Crisis addiction), but the initial Superman/Action Comics run with Clark-as-father was BRILLIANT.

[@1ULTRAKNIGHT]

Made even richer with pairing him up with damian as a friend. Superdads are great.

[@R2D2589]

I’m not sure if it exists already but I want to see a Superman story where instead of fully saving the day, Superman simply delays a big catastrophe long enough for some random people like firefighters or nuclear power plant workers to actually save the day and then have Superman simply let them have the spotlight they deserve. Make it even more apparent with Superman in his Clark Kent reporter disguise call them heroes for saving the city or stopping a wildfire from going out of control.

[@HovektheArtist]

They did do this for a special 911 comic, and both dc and marvel had a run of comics made specifically for free distribution to soldiers during iraq and afghan wars where the soldiers are the focus and the superheroes that do show up each comic act as basically backup, the only 2 that really had a major part in their comics were of course captain america and the punisher, being vets themselves. However superman had a real good one where basically all he did was save a falling transport helo for soldiers that were injured

[@stewy497]

You could do something like the story of Stanislav Petrov, except instead of refusing to retaliate to a false nuclear defense alarm, the nukes _actually_ get fired and Superman had to stop them from hitting their targets while then Stan analogue - the Stanalogue - fights the bureaucracy.

[@valuebrandmelkor5973]

Like superman plugs a reactor leak with his body until it can be fixed

[@Ramsey276one]

A Superman version of 911 Operator He can stop ONE catastrophe, Fire and Rescue need to catch the rest!

[@GrimAxel]

@@valuebrandmelkor5973 ...King-Size Superman?

[@GeekMasterGames]

This is fantastic, and the internet needs more "Superman is good, actually" discussions with examples and introspections. So yes, ABSOLUTELY do another one if you can, please.

[@anitanielsen1061]

569 nice

[@jakec9522]

There's another moment from Superman and Lois that I love and think captures the character perfectly. In that same first scene that Blue mentioned when he saves that car, some kid just says, "Hey! Nice suit." And Superman just says, "Thanks! My mom made it." That's just perfect, boy scout, down-to-Earth Clark Kent. He's not telling kids to eat their vegetables. He's not trying to make a larger statement. He's just being the humble farm boy from Kansas who happens to also be Superman. 😊

[@calebbailey06]

I love this so much because to me, this has always been the heart of Superman. Superman is what he does, Clark Kent is who he is. The idea that he inspires people not to be perfect (because he's not) but rather to try each and every day to be good is honestly the perfect combo of awesome, wholesome, and fun - everyone can be superman, because everyone can do good. Great analysis by the team about my absolute favorite hero 🤩

[@rowanthearchitect3227]

I want to point out, in one of the pre-86 comics, one of the coolest things Superman ever did for me at least was save someone by racing a bullet that someone had fired out of a gun towards, I don't think it was Lois but it was an innocent. As in, he couldn't stop the gun from firing, so he had to literally go faster than a speeding bullet and get in front of it by outspending it in a confined space and jumping in front of it to let it bounce off his bulletproof pecs.

[@Semudara]

That's badass! I can totally imagine people in-universe starting to refer to Superman as "faster than a speeding bullet" specifically because they heard about this happening.

[@rowanthearchitect3227]

@@Semudara "Oh come on, he's not actually faster than-" "No, really, he actually outran a bullet. That is a thing he can physically do."

[@mariacyr6494]

I just realized that the idea that the idea that superheroes are there to save people not just fight bad guys is actually one of the main theme of One Punch Man

[@RamonChickon]

The writer of One Punch Man should write a story where Saitama has to hold back his strength to save innocent people from a natural disaster without causing another natural disaster. They had the thing with the meteor where everyone blames him for the collateral damage even though he saved the city, but I want to see him do more classic superhero stuff. He’s already found out that punching problems away is super boring for him. If he’d just find some people to help he could be happy.

[@mariacyr6494]

​@@RamonChickon I honestly think that will be a late stage storyline. Many moments of the story seems to point toward the idea that Saitama wouldn't be as depressed if he focused on trying to save people instead of just wanting a strong opponent. I would love it if that was the conclusion of his character arc, instead of actually finding an opponent that gives a satisfying fight. Cause where would that even go after that? He just gets back into depression and tries to find an EVEN stronger guy to fight?

[@Zarastro54]

MHA to a large degree as well.

[@gguy3600]

@@mariacyr6494 It could even tie back into the start of his character arc. Probably the most exhilarated he's ever been was when he fought Crablante, which unlike his later fights isn't something he did for fun, it was just to save some random kid.

[@mariacyr6494]

@@gguy3600 yeah you're right the whole time Saitama just misunderstood that what made him feel good wasn't just the rush of fighting a strong monster

[@wesverr]

Iron Man 3 has one of the coolest best "saving nameless people" scenes in any super hero movie. Him saving the people falling out of air force 1 was so much fun.

[@adambielen8996]

Yes, he was even told he couldn't save them all but does it anyway.

[@lyinar]

Huh... Come to think of it, that's one of the very few "let's make an entire sequence about just saving people" instances in the entire MCU, which is a shame because it IS a good sequence.

[@intergalactic92]

@@lyinar frankly that film is so much better than people say it is.

[@roaringthunder115]

@@lyinar yeah and I love it for that

[@alexhayden507]

@@adambielen8996 it's such an easy narrative trick to set up insurmountable odds and then have your hero exceed their limits to beat the odds but it gets me every time

[@dragonbretheren]

I just revisited this episode and realized the entire discussion starting ~11:30 regarding "graduating from saving civilians to defeating supervillains" is basically answered by the main Hero/Lancer pair of My Hero Academy Deku & Bakugo. Their two contrasting takes on heroism basically boils down to "save to win" vs "win to save". Does rescuing everyone necessarily put an end to the conflict, or does stopping the villain necessarily save lives? They ultimately learn from each other that it has to be a healthy medium. This is where superhero groups and teams are ultimately at their most interesting. Some members are going to be naturally better at evacuating or saving civilians, and some will be naturally better at restraining baddies. But nobody can do everything. Nobody except Superman. Superman _can_ do everything, but _can't_ do everything at the same time. Thus, depending on the circumstance, "do we have Superman on punching duty or rescuing duty today?" is a question that has to be answered both on a in-universe level by the characters and also at the meta level by the writer for every Justice League encounter.

[@WhiteKnuckleRide512]

On the other hand, I think this also brings up what really is the biggest problem with the superhero genre. The necessity of “supervillains” for the setting to work forces so much unavoidable contrivance into the story, and it ends up making the themes and questions the stories end up asking so far removed from anything normal people would actually relate to.

[@paulgibbon5991]

@@WhiteKnuckleRide512 Not necessarily. Villains are those who have great power and use it selfishly to enrich or aggrandise themselves with no regard for using it to help other people. Which is essentially every billionaire who spends their incomprehensible wealth on buying twenty Rolexes or a gold-plated toilet rather than giving it to the poor and subsisting on a mere hundred million, or every anti-vaxxer guru who spreads health disinfo that gets people killed and grifts their little heart out to become rich. There's a reason that so many MCU villains (Loki, Ironmonger, Killmonger, etc) draw from the archetype of "just like the hero, except they're dicks". In this context, they make the heroes more heroic because we can see an embodiment of the temptation that they're not giving into.

[@talleywa5772]

I enjoy villains who use Supe's proclivity for saving innocents as a way to slow him down/distract him while they do their sky beam evil plan thing. Makes it so much more gratifying when he shows up ready to catch rounds without anything to sidetrack him.

[@Neo232100]

I do want to correct one minor mistake that you guys made. Clark _does_ have combat training in the comics, having been trained in pressure point combat and some martial arts by Batman, general combat by Wonder Woman, and, depending on the story, boxing by either Wildcat or Muhammed Ali. It's just that writers don't often have him _use_ that training either because they don't know about it or feel that him being immensely powerful and a skilled fighter might be too much. He also _really_ understands how his powers work having had a lifetime to master them. The New Krypton arc, despite having some problems has a great moment that shows that Superman's width and breadth of experience in his powers still puts him at a higher level of skill than the kryptonian soldiers even if they might be better fighters or more disciplined because Clark has a better understanding for how their powers work.

[@xanderfulton3186]

New Krypton arc?

[@quintenhobman4326]

@@xanderfulton3186 it was a story line that had Kryptonian refugees end up on earth and shenanigans involving a bunch of solar charged Kryptonians and general Zodd trying to take over the world. As far as I know it's a pretty wild story. Don't take my complete word for it as I don't have the immediate time to research it right now

[@grozwald]

Let's not forget Theta State, the Kryptonian martial art. Though, I think this might have been retconned.

[@user-sl3pt2is2e]

@@xanderfulton3186 Brainiac had all those shrunken cities of different civilisations on his ship, one of those cities was Cryptonian city, for one reason or another it was unshrunk on earth and it led to a lot of political problems, with cryptonians having enormous cache of advanced technologies and superpowers from yellow sun, Superman had to deal with this disaster.

[@HovektheArtist]

@@grozwald it was sort of retconned but in a way that expands it in torqasm vo and torqasm rao, which do still show up, and is also used sometimes as an explanation for how he can resist kryptonite a bit more now

[@TaylorRussell_TheAnimator]

These two detail diatribes on superman haved honestly completely changed my opinion on the big blue boyscout. They really flipped the whole way I was viewing the character and like... that's so cool, man.

[@terry.1428]

Seriously. Changed my whole perspective on Superman and superheroes as a whole

[@richyrich6099]

15:40 This exact point is why I love characters like All Might. All For One has been such a menace in the world of MHA that All Might literally had to exist as a necessity to stop him. Before him, All For One was actively running a criminal empire and murdering heroes who tried to stop him indiscriminately and All Might was the only hero who ever stopped him at any point, making his existence as the world's strongest hero at that point of the story a necessity because of the villain as opposed to the hero.

[@ssfbob456]

All Might is also an amazing example of what happens when Superman can't be Superman anymore, and how does a world that's relied on him so much deal with that loss.

[@BookWyrmOnAString]

​​@@ssfbob456 a lot of mha's most interesting stuff comes from all might's limits. He only has 24 hours in a day, he has to eat and sleep, injuries and aging have weakened him since his prime. But people rely on him, and that's really fun to explore.

[@WhiteKnuckleRide512]

Ironically, just as All Might is a way better superman analogy, Homelander is a way, way better villain than All For One (at least in the show). Just as a character who does good for the sake of doing good can be really compelling, a character who does evil for the sake of doing evil just isn’t. While AFO is evil because the setting falls apart if there’s no big bad, homelander is evil because of a snowballing series of attempts to deny or distract himself from how much he knows he should hate himself.

[@postmodernguava9518]

The thing that stood out to me when watching the original Superman movie is that the entire climax consists of him saving people from Luthor's artificial earthquake. If that movie was made nowadays, the end would probably involve Supes fighting Lex wearing a suit of kryptonite-powered armor to stop him from launching the nukes, but instead arresting the bad guy really feels like an afterthought.

[@lohto3]

The talks about the emphasis on saving people kept reminding me of the new Batman movie and how it actually does focus on that. It starts with him saving people and it ends on a note of him saving people. Yeah, he helps named characters, but he also just stands there like a weirdo and stares into the eyes of the children whose fathers he couldn't save.

[@a_e_hilton]

+++ I was thinking this the whole time too!

[@Blueeyesthewarrior]

That movie is so good. I will never stop gushing about it. The shot where he’s literally leading the people of Gotham out of the darkness. Chef’s kiss. A masterpiece.

[@mattk7182]

While I think The Batman was better at focusing on being a “hero” rather than just “super”, I also think they still had an issue with collateral damage. Batman forces Penguin into a street chase on the highway and, presumably, kills/injures a bunch of people.

[@hcstubbs3290]

@@mattk7182 Yeah, I loathed that bit. It didn't ruin the movie for me, but it felt so out of character that I'm going to skip it upon every rewatch. Batman wouldn't engage in a car chase in which that many people die.

[@Birthday888]

​@@hcstubbs3290 That was kind of the point though? OSP has a great podcast with Moviestruck where they discuss the movie, but this Batman is too overly concerned with the vengeance portion of the Batman persona. He's got the "terrifying criminals" portion down pat, but he's absolutely stumped when it comes to reassuring or directly helping the people of Gotham. Hence why he just stares like a weirdo into the Mayor Kid's eyes instead of actually reassuring or comforting him. Batman's evolution throughout the film is realizing that he has to symbolize more than just vengeance. Which is why the finale involves him guiding the people of Gotham out of the darkness. So yes. Batman wouldn't have disregarded endangering that many lives. That's the point. He's not "our" Batman yet. Also, unlike Superman, Batman's abilities are far more limited, and so he has a smaller range of direct responsibility. If all it took for Batman to back off was criminals randomly killing citizens in the hopes it would slow Batman down, Batman wouldn't be a very effective vigilante.

[@VivaLaDnDLogs]

Superman is supposed to _save people,_ I can't believe how we've all gotten so far away from that....

[@luigiboi4244]

That’s part of the reason why I love Spider-Man: Homecoming so much. In the first act or so he’s not fighting super-powered maniacs, he’s just trying to help people with everyday inconveniences, like bike theft or someone asking for directions. Still don’t get why everyone hates Age of Ultron though.

[@VivaLaDnDLogs]

@@luigiboi4244 my big issue was how breakable all of Ultron's robots were, as well as Ultron himself.

[@kevinstephenson3531]

@@VivaLaDnDLogsyeah. They nerved Ultron to the point he lost the main thing that made him threatening; his main body was hard to destroy. Like not a this is a strong metal type of hard to destroy. A device will fix all damage if he’s not entirely destroyed instantly type of destruction. Like he’s just the hacking robot which is ok I guess but like he loses how threatening he felt. Also MCU Ultron feels too human to me and Ultron is supposed to be entirely inhuman.

[@Omega_Orion]

I just have to say because I absolutely love Injustice, it's not that Superman "saw Lois die" it's that Lois who was pregnant with his kid died at his own hand because the Joker laced fear toxin with kryptonite so to Superman she appeared to be Doomsday. And because of course that isn't enough, her heartbeat was tied to a detonator and when she died Metropolis died with her, and Superman blames himself for it all (but takes it out on others outwardly blaming them). I'd actually argue for at least the first couple "years" of the comic it was really nuanced. He was manipulated into further tyranny by the militaristic "alien" Wonder Woman, and there are moments that really show how he's just a scared kid afraid to lose anything else (i.e. his "fight" with Green Arrow at the Fortress of Solitude)

[@Dawnelldo2]

Yeah, I was about to say the same.

[@Omega_Orion]

@@Dawnelldo2 Yeah like I totally respect how much effort they put in to find out a lot of these things but that oversimplification really hurts the whole narrative. That's the best evil Superman story in my opinion

[@kyriss12]

It was still a bit of a stretch the supes would go full psycho after that. There wasn’t even any logic to how far he went, no slow decent or escalation, just boom crazy. Kingdom come had a very similar scenario where Superman simply lost all faith in humanity and fucked off to the fortress of solitude for several years letting the anti hero’s get out of control and the world get increasingly more cynical without the blue boys out to serve as a role model.

[@dozencatfish1667]

It's a shame how badly wonder woman got butchered to make that story kind of work. Injustice was fun but wonky from the jump.

[@Omega_Orion]

@@dozencatfish1667 I really struggle to not see her that way when she comes from an island of militant isolationists, and she has deemed herself a protector of the world. Terrifying possibilities there, I'm glad she's on the side of good but there's a lot of room for cruelty and fascism in her biography

[@larstollefsen1236]

Writing good Superman stories is hard for the same reason writing the Smart Guy is hard. The writer has to be clever.

[@FrostSylph]

I want to see superman saving more reporters than just lois. Like they're just his buddies from work and it would draw attention away from him just saving lois and also always being where Clark Kent is. Would be funny if he just got a reputation of "friend to reporters"

[@loadeddice4696]

"Well, I am gonna save all of these reporters...but I'll leave the games journalists til last. They can cook for a minute, screw 'em."

[@michaelramon2411]

Recently, I was talking with some people about Superman origin stuff, and I imagined a scene where a young Clark Kent, maybe as a part of a school project, maybe just by watching the news, learns about the dictator of one of DC world's many fake countries jailing some journalist. He asks his parents why someone would be hurt for telling the truth, and they say that truth is the most powerful force in the universe, and the thing that bad guys are most afraid of. From then on, Clark idealizes the reporter profession and freedom of the press in general, and feels that they can trigger real change in society while Superman can only ever really put out the fire of the day. There's a reason that his motto starts with "Truth".

[@milesmcallister2342]

@@michaelramon2411 TFW a random KZbin commenter with three upvotes on their comment understands Superman better than the people making three hundred million dollar movies about the character...

[@ryszakowy]

@@michaelramon2411 superman has it easy living in a world where american government is good because in our world his attempts at telling the truth would mark him as public enemy and if he tired to bring officials to justice physically as a superman he would be turned into a terrorist and villain.

[@timothymclean]

"Bah, that big bluffing boy scout just saves reporters because he wants us to write good things about him. Well, _I'm_ not falling for his tricks!" -J. Jonah Jameson, probably

[@renan-elias13]

that whole bit about saving people remind me about this cool idea some people have for a Superman video game: Superman has no health bar, but the city does.

[@worldweaver2691]

that's megaton rainfall on steam. nerdcubed did at least two videos on that game.

[@harlannguyen4048]

Superman Returns had that as a core mechanic. Too bad the game sucked.

[@bobbluered8984]

That’s already a game, Superman Returns, back in the OXbox and PS2 era. It… was not good. Cool idea, though.

[@Syphonus811]

@@worldweaver2691 finally! a person of culture!

[@negigima]

I like that in the actual comic of Red Son, they actually do a narrator say that Lex Luthor start spawning kids, and his last name slowly shortens. From Luthor to Lutho, to Luth, to Lu, and finally, his decedents come down to Jor L, who notices that their planet is about to blow up, and so sends his son, Kal L, out in a pod. The implication is that it's all a stable time loop.

[@WebbedManiac]

It's also kinda depressing though. In main canon, Jor-El sends his son to Earth in order for him to survive. Superman does that successfully and thus Jor-El's dying wish comes true. In Red Son, Jor-L is disappointed that no one believes him about the Earth dying and sends Kal-L to the past in hopes that he could prevent the human race from becoming a complacent and uncaring lot. But all this being a time loop implies that Superman failed his mission. Even worse, the narrator telling the story is implied to be Superman himself, implying that not only did he live for millennia into Jor-L's time, but his brain also became dull from continuous exposure to the Red Sun. So Superman becomes the very thing he's sent back in time to prevent.

[@SilentRuth10]

A scene I actually like from the old Superman movies is one where Superman is hovering above earth just...listening. He can hear every problem on the entire globe, which he could very well solve, but he can't be everywhere at once. I can't imagine what that'd do to a man - he probably couldn't sleep at night with all that guilt for the people he "should" be helping at any given time.

[@jameskingman1227]

The fact you referenced this scene as from the old Superman movies makes me feel so old lol

[@SilentRuth10]

@@jameskingman1227 *older compared to the latest films haha 😂

[@jameskingman1227]

@@SilentRuth10 ha, I’d just never describe it as old. I do feel Superman Returns is underrated thought.

[@AevitosTrath]

That is happening in the newest [as of this comment] episode of My Adventures with Superman. He gets super-hearing and gets stressed. Same with Daredevil in the Netfix show.

[@brandonthompson8640]

i think the reason Invincible works so well is that, throughout the whole show, Mark is still trying to save people and it /isnt/ just the finale.. Mount Rushmore, the elderly woman during the alien invasion, then the mother and daughter in the building thats collapsing, the pilot. Mark's whole reason for being a superhero is because he wants to be like his father and save people. beating up the bad guys is something he does but it still feels like its always because it helps /save people/. and then the switch flips and you find out that's not what Nolan is doing, and he tries to convince Mark he's wrong, but Mark still says no. i mean, i do really enjoy the MCU but we really only see civilians get saved a handful of times. the first Avengers during the Manhattan fight, Age of Ultron in Sakovia, the ferry scene in Homecoming, on the Bifrost in Ragnorok when all the Asgardians are trying to get to the ship to escape, well Ragnorok. aside from those i cant really think of many. and that seems like a problem when these characters are that their best, especially Clark and Bruce IMO, are saving people. i mean, Bruce and Ace in JLU, in Young Justice you have the episode Coldhearted where Wally is delivering Perdita the heart for her transplant in the middle of a country wide blizzard, hell talk shit about the Amazing Spider-Man movies all you want but that scene where Peter gives the kid his mask so he has the confidence to climb out of the car to him is top tier shit, and the scene is acted wonderfully by Andrew. i like the flashy fights as much as everyone else but, where has this stuff gone?

[@willowarkan2263]

That scene of Ace and Batman is so heartbreaking, just thinking about it makes me tear up.

[@leithaziz2716]

For the crap people give the Amazing series, I can tell you Andrew Garfield is NOT one of those reasons. He's probably my favorite thing about Amazing Spider-Man. Good mention on that Young Justice episode though. That was when I really started to like Wally.

[@emblemblade9245]

Yeah, the MCU is just way too big in scale now that nothing feels like it matters because the small helpless people are just a statistic

[@ethanstyant9704]

It's stuff like that which makes Spiderman the most popular hero, the friendly neighbourhood is what makes him so compelling. He's not grandiose or a paragon, he's friendly and helps people in a way that people can aspire to

[@paulgibbon5991]

Heck, one of my favourite ever comic moments is a Flash comic where he foils a hijacking or something on a plane, but during the battle, an unlucky stewardess gets sucked out, to fall to her doom. Flash immediately jumps out to save her, even though he knows he doesn't have the best power set for "jump out of a plane and not die".

[@dudebladeX]

I think the thing about _Injustice 1_ that actually made me feel like they actually *got* Superman right is when they bring in the Mainstream Superman, and right away, Mainstream Superman wants to get to work at the problem because of the civilians. He outright states that he wants to use teamwork to minimize casualties, notes that he would have to force the Doomsday fight to another location to avoid collateral damage, and then gets to work at saving people. And then Injustice Batman, who has had to deal with a Superman who has basically gone full Justice Lord and couldn't do a thing about it just looks at Clark and says "It's good to have you back" and it was in that scene that basically tells you that the writers didn't get Superman wrong, far from it. They know that it would take a *_LOT_* to drive Superman over the edge, and while the way they do it is somewhat convoluted, it also shows in that last chapter that they got Superman right. Not exactly right, it's a fighting game, and they need to have story mode fights, but they still got it right enough so that you can recognize what the big differences between Mainstream Superman and Injustice Superman and know which one is the _real_ Superman. And while I don't like what Injustice Superman has done to the perception of Superman to the general public, it still shows that the writers knew what they were doing. I honestly miss the scenes where the heroes would save civilians. The idea that saving people is the "kid stuff" should honestly be thrown out and incinerated. Saving people is what heroes do.

[@Denjiman-qz9mi]

Let's also remember that in Injustice, Lois isn't the only one who dies. Her death literally causes the destruction of Metropolis. I'd argue that if it was just Lois, Superman wouldn't have gone all tyrant, but when the city he protects is lost with it, he may question his methods.

[@Hunter_6430]

Exactly. Part of what fascinates me about Injustice is that it goes so dark because the entire universe that story takes place in is essentially doomed to misery the second that bomb goes off. We’ve had a lot of bad stories where people lose sight of what Superman is supposed to be, and Injustice Clark loses sight of himself in watching the whole city turn to ashes. He loses everything, except for his best friend Bruce Wayne - who chastises him for faltering as Superman. He ends up snapping as his friend totally refuses to help him in any way, even knowing he was at his absolute lowest, and flips his shit accordingly. The whole story hinges on the moment Superman forgot what it meant to be Superman - and _everyone_ is all the lesser for it.

[@dudebladeX]

@@Hunter_6430 Yeah. Basically when Superman hits his lowest point, everyone does too. It makes everyone else worse off. Batman wasn't there to console him, Wonder Woman actively encouraged his dictatorial tendencies, and so many others were just watching from the sidelines because "He's _Superman._ Nothing phases Superman." Yeah. Nothing _physically_ phases Superman. But things can emotionally damage him. The worst part about all of it though, is that in the end… Joker basically won. He made a_the_ hero cross that line. He got him to lose control. Maybe it wasn't that Superman wasn't Superman anymore, it was that Clark Kent had very little left after all that. And if he can't be Clark, he'd lose it. And he did.

[@vodkavecz]

@@Denjiman-qz9mi Yes they underplayed Injustice a lot with saying Lois died and that's it. To go a bit deeper, Lois AND their unborn children dies, BY THE HANDS of Superman, who got gassed by fear toxins, and thought he was fighting Doomsday, and when Lois died, that triggered the bomb that destroyed Metropolis, and a tons more people. It's WAY more darker than just Lois dies, Superman snaps.

[@clarehidalgo]

Then the Injustice movie isn't even Injustice it is some weird mishmash of Kingdom come and Injustice

[@iKhanKing]

I think a lot of people miss that Superman actually has a complete arc between Superman: TAS, JL, and JLU, and it's exactly what you mean about them "exploring the boundaries of his morality". Through most of Superman: TAS, he is completely idealistic, bright eyed, and bushy tailed, and a couple things happen to subvert that. 1. He fails to save Dan Turpin from Darkseid 2. Darkseid brainwashes him and turns him upon earth. That second one is the reason he completely flies off the handle at Darkseid in JL, because Darkseid took away Superman's legacy, his ability to be a beacon of hope. He violated his body to do something completely against Superman's being. (Which, sidenote, is what makes Darkseid a good superman villain. He's not just selfish. He is actively evil and derives pleasure from harming others). This slightly more jaded superman then becomes even more authoritative when he is betrayed by his teammate, and Thanagar invades earth under the pretenses of "helping the people". Ultimately, this makes superman more inclined to be prepared to prevent problems altogether rather than just fix them. This takes us to JLU S2 with the giant super laser and Superman's fear of Lex Luthor running for president. It is through the final 2 seasons that Superman kind of discovers the theme of his "world of toothpicks" speech at the end of S3, wherein he discovers that he does have a side within him that can hurt people, despite his good intention, so he must be reserved in how he does this.

[@kyriss12]

The whole dceu was excellent at long term character development. You had Batman going the opposite way. In BtAS he was the usual dour cynic but as the bat family expanded he slowly dislodged the stick from his ass. In JL he was significantly more sociable but still a bit of a stick in the mud. By the time jlu came around he was friends with most the team. Then something between jlu and Batman beyond and he became a cranky old shut in.

[@TheTigerwolf55]

@@kyriss12 TLDR version: Return of the Joker happened. Longer version: By the time of JLU we see Nightwing has already moved on (he has a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo in the season 3 episode Grudge Match) and it had already been mentioned by Barbara in RotJ that Dick had relocated leaving just Bruce, Barbara and Tim in Gotham so you already had a piece of Batman's "family" missing. The "Chase Me" short that was paired with Mystery of the Batwoman even suggested the last time he and Catwoman met which meant that sort-of romance they had going on was officially over. He was friends with the Justice League but, as we got reminded several times, he was only ever part-time with them. And while this part might be conjecture, I can see him leaving things more and more up to the JL once things had stabilized following Lex and Darkseid's defeat and what can be assumed to be the dissolution of Grodd's Society since half of them were dead and the other half likely didn't get very far with that five minute head start Bats gave them. So, Batman is back to focusing on Gotham, (maybe even a result of the near apocalypse of '09 Terry mentioned that involved Ra's?) things going rather well overall and then Joker pops back up and we get the flashback scene from the Batman Beyond movie. After that, Bruce goes back into the "I will protect the people I care about by shutting them out" weakness he'd always had in this continuity, biggest example of it probably being Robin's Reckoning. Tim and Barbara move on when Bruce puts up his walls, Alfred eventually dies and Bruce is all on his own again, worse than ever before. I will admit this is half head-canon but it was how I was able to fit the idea of Batman's "brightest" time with Justice League to eventually devolve to his "darkest" time by the beginning of Batman Beyond.

[@kyriss12]

@@TheTigerwolf55 Which goes to show the amount of thought that went into the dcau

[@DefaultName-du3kr]

@@TheTigerwolf55 I also love how Terry softens him again, and by the end of it all Terry takes care of Bruce like an aging father, and Bruce fusses over Terry being safe. Terry also finds out that Bruce is his biological father thanks to Amanda Waller shenanigans and never burdens him with the truth.

[@Parsonator64]

Thinking about this, I realised that the Doctor Who episode "The Return of Doctor Mysterio" actually has a more faithful take on Superman than most other interpretations of the character. Grant takes up the persona of "The Ghost" because he wants to save lives and he is in the unique position to do so. In the climax of the episode, he doesn't beat up the badguys, instead saving New York from a falling space station!

[@positivelink6961]

It was a spaceship rigged into being a bomb, but yes. It was a very fun special. It’s a better superhero movie than most. We see Grant dip out of conversations to save random civilians from fires. It’s cheesy and wholesome. The Doctor is arguably the secondary character in this one.

[@sw_tower8530]

"You've graduated from street crime!" This actually reminded me of a scene from "One punch man" in which Sitama learns heros of C grade have a quota to deal with where as hero's of the B grade no longer have to deal with the mundane "crime" because they're not in danger of loosing their hero credentials. Exploring that whole thing as a status idea would be interesting.

[@joshuahadams]

The aftermath of the Deep Sea King’s attack is probably my favourite example of this. Dude throws his reputation under a bus to save the reputation of the other heroes who held off the villain until he arrived.

[@PyrusFlameborn]

@@joshuahadams after all, he isn't a hero for the benefits nor the prestige. He's just a hero for fun

[@danielcastillo591]

@@joshuahadams God that one dude is infuriating Like I get he's a general representation of the "The masses won't take this situation seriously/will alter the facts" feeling but fuck I hate that guy

[@yokaiwatcher8500]

The trolley problem analogy works really well with Superman when you realize Superman’s solution would be jump In front of the trolley, I get hurt so no one else does.

[@tangentreverent4821]

Unless there are people on the trolley.

[@friskybitzboi]

All Might vs Endeavor is a good example of what Blue talks about starting at 28:42 All Might is the quintessential superhero, the paragon of justice, the Symbol of Hope. He represents everything good about superhuman society and prioritizes not only human life, but being a beacon in a world that is dangerous and corrupt. Even after losing his ability to fight villains, he devotes himself to making sure the world still has protectors, and a Symbol, once he’s gone. Endeavor on the other hand, is not the a model hero. He’s an abusive father, he’s hot-headed, he hardly ever even smiles- he’s a PR nightmare. However, he’s not a bad hero. He’s extremely good at his job and spends every day not on missions patrolling and saving people from even the most low-level villains. He has some concern about inspiring people and making them feel safe but that only became a concern for him when he replaced All Might and was expected to fill the same role as the Symbol of Peace.

[@B4dr4bbit]

Much of this conversation reminds me of my favorite deadpool comic, the whole Don't Jump thing, and moments where you see heroes just trying to help a person are always so nice. Same thing about the small comic bit of Peter Parker telling a woman he saved that his name is Ben when she asks to know his name since she wanted to name her son after him. Its nice watching the Heroes care about people.

[@ryonalionthunder]

One of Quicksilver’s greatest scenes was him saving everyone in the X-Mansion.

[@mesektet5776]

And this is the thing that the like of Mr. Snyder and Mr. Miller forget. Superman is not a super-powered professional-wrestler, he isn’t the counter-super-villain, he’s the counter-natural disaster.

[@ClericOfPholtus]

He's not Goku to say the least

[@ryszakowy]

@@ClericOfPholtus even goku would take the fight to a desert or other place without innocent people. reasons goku fought in the city: entire city was destroyed and everyone was most likely dead with universe at stake and that happened at the end of GT. every other fight he either wanted to quickly take the fight to an empty place or city was abandoned or everyone already dead. reasons superman fought in the city: cgi destruction looks cool i guess.... snyder wanted to destroy as much cgi city as he could in superman vs the elite they fight on moon and when fight ends in the city with superman pretending to snap, robots from fortress of solitude are there to save civilians - justice league/batman paid for collateral. in Justice league and justice league unlimited they fight in the city but superman does his best to minimalize destruction - only when darkseid comes back and they fight in the city superman uses more of his power and punches darkseid through a building and makes a crater in the street after "world of cardboard" speech.

[@cactuscrisis4521]

@@ryszakowy also Goku fighting in a wasteland also saves time on drawing backrounds

[@elijahlee3610]

You do realize that Clark spent most of the movie saving people before zod came to earth right?

[@mesektet5776]

@@elijahlee3610 No he spent most of the movie feeling bad about how his parents were telling him not to do anything for others.

[@chrisshorten4406]

One good example I've seen recently in media of a superhero actually saving the individual, everyday person, even when stakes are super high, has been Ben 10 (specifically Ben 10 Alien Force and Ultimate Alien). So many episodes actually show him rescuing innocent people, even in ther middle of a big fight. I agree, this is a matter that had become lost over the years in superhero media.

[@calebh4861]

I LOVE you guys. I've had several conversations with my friends about how sad it makes me that superheroes have to be edgy and dark to be made relatable because I refuse to believe that I'm the only one who relates to Superman just trying to be good and live up to his ideal. To me, a great Superman movie will be about philosophy, not fights, like Superman vs The Elite.

[@TheShuuman]

You're not alone dood, I am in the same boat superheroes being edgy and dark to be relatable. I very much prefer a hero that are strives to do good and hold themselves to a high standard and others to that standard. Not that they are full of themselves, but acknowledging they are flawed but wish to overcome them and for others to better themselves and wishing others to be better too. Peak Superman for me is there is this one guy that invented a jetpack and was using it to rob a bank. Superman while disappointed praised him for his genius for making the jetpack. He tells him he has to face the consquences of his actions, but says he'll hide the jetpack and when he is getting out of jail he'll help him make some real money and help him do good in the world. Superman recognizes that the man isn't some wannabe villain, just a desperate man that made a stupid decision in the heat of the moment. Superman still scolds him about it, yet gives him the chance to redeem himself and not be defined by that one terrible moment.

[@shorewall]

It's because the fruit reflects the tree it grew from. Does anyone think modern Hollywood can do sincere, or uplifting? Hollywood is subversion, made to make everyone feel stressed and depressed. Same goes for DC and Marvel. They've all been converged by hateful people who want to suck the good out of life.

[@williamblack2904]

When Blue said he was going to make Red mad I thought that he was about to point out that Age of Ultron actually does this really well. The whole climax isn’t just about beating Ultron, but it’s about saving as many lives as they can while doing it.

[@Daughter_of_Stories]

Yeah, I would argue that Captain America, at least, is consistently like this. (I'm also going to push back at Red's analysis of Civil War from the paragon trope talk). Saving people may get abstracted for him, as they deal with bigger and bigger threats, but it's always the core of who he is, and of his movies, and Bucky ends up playing that Lois role, where saving this specific person represents his need to save people in general. Cap 1: He wants to join the army because the Nazis are hurting people. Then, in the first action set piece, he almost stops chasing the Nazi to save a kid, and only doesn't because the kid is fine, actually. He is convinced to go on the press tour because he is told that it will help people. He goes AWOL to save people--Bucky may be the personal aspect of that, but he saves over a hundred people from that factory. Then, the climax is saving cities from being nuked. Avengers: The first action thing he does is save the old man from Loki. Some of the saving the innocents in the climax got cut, but we still see Cap directing cops to get people to safety, directing the Avengers to contain the damage as much as possible, and jumping on a grenade to save the people in the bank. Cap 2: Opens with him saving people on a boat, and getting really pissed when he learns that Fury and Widow had a hidden agenda. They may have brought back Hydra, but the conflict is basically the Justice League/Justice Lords conflict. That's why they destroy SHIELD instead of just trying to de-Hydra it: because SHIELD was on board with the "save the world at the expense of the people" plan until they got smacked in the face with the Hydra of it. At the climax, they stop the weapon that would kill millions, and Cap insists on saving Bucky, even if it means letting himself die. Avengers 2: When Ultron starts lifting Sokovia, some of the Avengers want to make the city fall right away, saving the world at the expense of one country, but Cap insists no, we have to save the people, and that's what the climax is about. Wanda and Pietro make the shift from sympathetic villains to heros when the help save the train. Cap 3: Opens with the Avengers saving people. Wanda makes a mistake, and people die, though notably fewer people than would have died had she not been there. Tony comes in with the accords, but Cap says no, letting someone else make the calls and take the blame is the easy way. We have to take responsibility for our own actions, and when we fail, we accept that and do better next time. He doesn't try to stop Bucky from being arrested, he makes sure he gets arrested instead of extrajudicially murdered The airport fight is about Team Cap wanting to protect people, even if its against the rules (and turns out to be a red herring). Basically, I will defend MCU Steve with my dying breath.

[@tbotalpha8133]

@@Daughter_of_Stories I think Civil War is an extremely messy movie, ideologically. I'm genuinely on the side of Stark - people with power MUST be accountable to the people over whom they hold power. Anything less will guarantee tyranny. But superheroes as a genre are libertarian wish-fulfilment, where government institutions are always either corrupt or useless, and only special individuals can get anything done, often by ignoring or overruling the legal authorities. So the film has to side with Cap, regardless of the right or wrong of his actions, otherwise it would end up arguing against superhero stories as a whole.

[@jasonreed7522]

@@jmedrano704 also, in that movie Cap can be seen reading the accords (its 1 scene but movies have basically no narative space to work with), everyone else is apparently arguing over the idea of them but Cap is atleast reading the terms and conditions first to see if they are acceptable, and apparently they weren't to him. (Not surprising, his whole thing is saving people and doing the right thing comes first and the whole world can shove it if they disagree with him)

[@emblemblade9245]

TBot Alpha Yeah, that pretty much sums up why I don’t like Civil War’s conflict

[@rmsgrey]

@@tbotalpha8133 The problem with the Sokovia Accords is not that they provide oversight for powered individuals; it's that they require permission to be granted before the heroes can act. Imagine requiring a beat cop to get a warrant before they could intervene in a mugging (or other crime in progress). It's a much better model to allow individuals and organisations to operate according to their own judgement, and then evaluate their actions based on what actually happened. The Sokovia Accords don't make enhanced individuals accountable to the people; they make them accountable to the people with political power, which may be duly elected representatives of the people, or may be political appointees who can expect to hold their jobs for life so long as they don't screw up too badly.

[@Zarastro54]

The “problem” I sometimes see with stories where heroes actually directly save people doesn’t even really have to do with the story, but some of the critics and audience. Often if a story highlights a person/group of people needing rescue, one of the main criticisms I hear is “why do we care about these people? We know nothing about them.” Unless it’s a named, established character, then these types of people just won’t care about their peril and complain when they get focus. Thus, the success of a story with such elements is being held back by an audience that in part just lacks empathy or the understanding of the fundamental core of being a superhero.

[@reganator5000]

It's sort of funny that in the more recent thor films trying to do that is often played for laughs, even though it's essential to what being a hero is.

[@Hat-Trick]

I’ll never understand that mentality. Even if you don’t care about those innocent strangers, surely you care that the superhero DOES? Isn’t that the whole point of heroism?

[@edselcervantes6229]

pretty much the ending of age of ultron was that but cgi army is bad so we dont talk about the heroes doing their job.

[@ThePCguy17]

@@edselcervantes6229 That movie had a lot of problems, it's true, but it is weird that it didn't get a mention because it does feature all of the heroes doing their level best to save a city of innocent lives AND the hundreds of thousands/millions/billions that are in danger the higher up the city goes, likely at the cost of their own lives. One of them even does die but...we don't talk about that part. It was one of the dumb parts.

[@airplanes_aren.t_real]

@@reganator5000 which film?

[@ericemanwu]

I have a personal theory about the diminished role of protecting civilians in superhero media. And that's a change in philosophy for how the world handles problems. That's it's not as much about the protection of good. It's more about the destruction of evil. Both are intertwined at times, but people think the latter is more important because it ensures the former can never happened again. And if superman or invincible or spider man can defeat the supervillain as quickly as possible, then we won't have to worry about protecting "normals". That another aspect of superman's decline is with this mentality in life and storytelling, all those talks of purpose and mechanics are diminished as the creativity to stop the theat takes priority.

[@alepenagorbe9135]

That "defeat evil before saving good" modern mindset speaks of post-9/11

[@user-ye6so5uj2k]

It’s funny how people apparently forgot how intwined “destruction of evil” is to “protecting innocents”. Why stop evil or a someone wrecking a building? Because evil/destruction is hurting people or has the potential of putting people in danger. Evil is stopped because it hurts people. In comics, stopping evil is to punish and prevent future destruction. It seems some superhero media are more focused with flashy, dramatic fights & destruction scenes & that’s really shallow (especially when the heroes are the wreckers).

[@BW-CZ]

@@alepenagorbe9135 Funnily enough I just recently read a writer talking about this concept being a problem. He wrote it in 1920s.

[@thecreatorofthedark]

One of my favorite things that I think perfectly captures the kind of man superman is. When he saved a little girl who was on the otherside of the universe, alone and scared. And absolutely nothing would have stopped him.

[@ohno8398]

This video made me realise why I loved the scenes in the first Thor film where he was just hanging out being weird in that one town, even if other people understandably found it boring. Now I'm imagining if, during the 'Thanos snap' they'd shown civilians who'd been saved in other films and how such a set-up would have grounded the galactic threat as something actually impacting people when the time came.

[@elenafriese891]

Wait, people found Thor 1's urban fantasy thing boring??

[@NoobsofFredo]

@@elenafriese891 Can't imagine why, honestly. One of the few Marvel films I actually enjoyed, largely due to the whole urban fantasy thing.

[@elenafriese891]

@@NoobsofFredo also the romance in it was just... Sweet?

[@NoobsofFredo]

@@elenafriese891 It really kinda was, aye.

[@timothymclean]

That would, of course, require the prior movies to put any focus on civilians who weren't directly connected to the heroes. Stan Lee cameos aside, they didn't. The civilians rescued would just be some guy, not someone we recognized.

[@VillainousMuse]

I would love to see Red and Blue talk in detail about the famous comic where Superman talks a woman down from suicide. I found it fascinating because it demonstrates Superman's compassion because he *could* just stop her from jumping and force her in to counseling but he doesn't. He deliberately chooses to just... hover nearby until she's ready to talk it out and gains her consent to save her.

[@GimbalosMorkinar]

Stopping someone from killing themself is not a heroic thing

[@Stray7]

@@GimbalosMorkinar Shame on you for thinking like this. I hope no one you love ever has to be talked down from a ledge, because it's obvious it wouldn't matter to you if they lived or died.

[@danielcastillo591]

@@GimbalosMorkinar How is it not? By definition it feels like the most down to earth, most heroic thing ever

[@GimbalosMorkinar]

@@Stray7 It's their choice. Suicide is their right. It might suck to the ones who experience a close one killing themself but it is selfish af to keep someone alive who hates it.

[@VillainousMuse]

@@GimbalosMorkinar clearly you haven't read the comic, so not only is your opinion very wrong but is also completely irrelevant. :D

[@angryclown1990]

I think it's worth talking about Doomsday vs Superman because I think what makes it work is exactly what you guys are talking about. Superman is most interesting when he's trying to actually save people. Both the comic story and the animated movies based on this story do a pretty good job of getting across that what makes Doomsday so terrifying isn't just that he's more powerful than superman. It's that Doomsday is 1: Compelled to seek out densely populated areas because he's a shock trooper 2: Constantly getting distracted from the fight with Supes because he wants to kill EVERYTHING. It's not only a fantastic spectical of a fight where Superman is faced with a foe who can duke it out on his level, it's also a great panic inducing ride watching him have to constantly regain Doomsday's attention. He's trying to get Doomsday away from the city l but the monster is too strong to just be swept off somewhere empty and Superman is constantly on the back foot. The terrified looks on his face each time Doomsday stops fighting him to go after civilians is genuinely heartbreaking. The Death OF Superman movie also does a good job of showing civilians in danger that Superman has to worry about, and cutting to people who know him (fellow superheros, friends, and people he's saved) watching the fight and they can't believe they're watching the greatest hero on earth be beaten to death by, as Lex Luthor excellently describes him, an intergalactic soccer hooligan.

[@kyriss12]

Invincible had a similar but darker version on that in the fight against his dad, where omniman was teaching mark he can’t save everyone by deliberately causing as many casualties as possible, sometimes with mark’s face.

[@bitnewt]

These videos have made me appreciate Superman so much more and put into words my feelings on the frustrating cynical superhero trend. He clearly hasn't been used well as a character in the mainstream recently!

[@starwarsnerd100]

Spot on with the "it's not that no one got hurt, it's that they're not saving people" bit. I've seen a lot of people defend Man of Steel saying things like "oh, he did try to reduce collateral damage, he flew off into space", but that's like 3 seconds of screen time. After plenty of scenes of him just tackling Zod through skyscrapers. When Superman is holding Lois in the middle of the miles wide parking lot that used to be downtown, and a character says "he saved us!" people in my theater actually laughed out loud. It's not like people are complaining because Superman was too busy to stopping a meteor to rescue a kitten from a tree or something. People are complaining because the film fails to properly convey the idea that he really does care. If the filmakers wanted us to think Superman was honestly trying his best to avoid collateral damage, they did not convincingly get that across.

[@onilink134]

There's also the fact that people are used to seeing Superman "supermanning" because he's been doing it for decades, and they forget that in Man of Steel, Zod and crew are his first real big fight. He doesn't have the balance down yet, he's angry because they threatened his mom, he learned to fly like 3 days before this! He's going to be clumsy, because he's a bull fighting 3 other bulls in the world's biggest china shop for the first time. Man of Steel was newbie Superman trying to be veteran Superman, and he fucked up because he didn't have experience. I'll agree that it could have been communicated better, but to the people who say he could have taken Zod to space? Zod IS Superman of he had grown up a cold-blooded soldier and tactician. Once he saw what Supes was doing, he would have gone back down to Earth, because his stated goal was to rob Superman of his world like he was robbed of Krypton by Superman mere minutes before.

[@Wlof25]

How many seconds of screen time is sufficient and based on what metrics?

[@emblemblade9245]

Yeah I agree that MoS Superman causes a lot of collateral damage but I’m of the opinion that Zod really gave him no choice. The same way he gave Superman no choice but to kill him to save those people from being burned. And that the results of that day convince him to never let that stuff happen again. Of course to do this I just pretend Batman Vs Superman doesn’t exist

[@thelittleredhairedgirlfrom6527]

They unironically did the “We Saved the City” thing from SpongeBob

[@MonkeyJedi99]

I think a more interesting second phase of the battle with Zod would have been to smash around on the Moon, blasting Kal-El through the descender module of one of the Apollo missions and causing the American flag (which in reality is faded away, but this is a fantasy movie) to tilt dangerously until Supes takes a moment out of the fight to straighten it. - Sure, THEN let Zod drag the fight back to the land of collateral casualties with the Grand Central scene and the neck break.

[@Kimosabes2hot]

Superman: The Justice League will pay for all damages. Batman: He say wha?

[@KhanhNguyen-mh5ec]

Green Arrow: Not even me and Bruce combined money can pay up for this much damage!

[@zanewolfe9754]

I would argue that Injustice Superman didn't simply go nuts just because of Lois dying, but rather a combination of several factors. Yes you have Lois' death, along with their unborn child, but you also have Metropolis being nuked, and Wonder Woman, one of Clark's only remaining friends, being among those to argue "No you weren't wrong about Joker and we really should do more of that." A fact that is... arguably not incorrect. The revolving door prison issue is a MASSIVE problem. I believe in Dark Knight Returns, Batman points out "How many people you killed!? How many deaths am I responsible for because I didn't put you down!?" Of course being Joker, he simply makes a a joke that shows off how much of a completely irredeemable monster he is. Yes Clark does snap initially when he kills Joker, but he doesn't instantly go "ALL BOW BEFORE MY POWER!" but rather slowly spirals down into "I do what I must to protect everyone." And, at least initially, I'm not sure his actions are wrong myself. Killing off the absolute worst of the supervillains, the ones who are simply beyond redemption, honestly seems like a good idea to me. The problem is that is an EXTREEMLY slippery slope and Clark and Co slide down it face first all but cackling while they do so. It also highlights the biggest reason Batman does NOT kill people. Because once you start it is oh to terribly easy to keep justifying the killing of more and more people. And Batman knows he's already pissed off and crazy. That's a slope he can't tread himself without falling.

[@ManiaMac1613]

In the games it does seem like he just snaps after the death of Lous, but in the tie-in comics they do a much better job of showing his previously ironclad morals being slowly worn down over time. He goes from "I must save everyone" to "I must protect people, no matter the cost," to "I'm the only one who knows what's right."

[@alexhayden507]

These two episodes were great! I would totally be onboard for a third. It's really nice to hear people speak passionately on what makes Big Blue great. All Star Superman definitely made me a convert once upon a time.

[@petermartin6049]

Would love to see similar breakdowns with Batman, Cap, Spider-Man, etc. Let's get some nice deep analysis of why ALL of these good guys who are actually good are cool and interesting.

[@jacquelinejones7787]

I didn't like superman until the previous superman episode and since then I've read a few comics and I am thrilled to see you guys talking about supes this way! My favorite superman moments are all the moments where he has to solve problems as opposed to win the brawl. Honestly, that's why lex is such a great foil for him. The creative genius reaching for power paired with the godlike hero striving to make the best decisions. They're nearly a complete inversion of each other

[@halowaffle25]

I'm glad you got into Superman! He's long been one of my favorite characters (even just in general) but hollywood has been VERY unkind to his perception in the mainstream. The Superman that I know from his pantheon of best stories is kind, witty, and a true paragon... it really does hurt that he's known for being a dumb bruiser whose first instinct is to punch his problems away at the cost of everyone around him.

[@jacquelinejones7787]

@@halowaffle25 I always liked him in Justice League and crossovers, but it does seem like everyone thinks injustice is the best starting point to interpret superman. Now, I feel like you can only really appreciate that story if you understand how Clark reveres humanity and why he breaks his ethical code. Joker was just giving superman his "one bad day" on the scale needed to break that Paragon. Turns out the things I love about superman are the things I feel the MCU did with Steve Rogers. He's just a genuine nice guy who feels normal human emotions and cares about people

[@aaronman4772]

Not sure what you’ve been able to read, but if you want the best one shot Superman comic that embodies the best of Superman, check out All Star Superman. A great story overall and contains my single favorite Superman panel ever.

[@DaDunge]

I would reccomend watching Smallville, it's basically one of the few live action version media that gets superman.

[@ClericOfPholtus]

If you don't like Superman you should go watch Superman: The Animated Series First three parter episode sets up the whole deal Kent is an actual three dimensional character facing consistent challenge of both a physical and mental nature throughout the show Its all the stuff before the Justice League cartoon

[@sclair2854]

"Man of Steel is so close to being good, but it fails it and so just sucks" sums up how I feel about the movie so hard. Superman needs a director like Raimi or Patty Jenkins who really focus on heart and humanity of their heroes for better or worse, cause any time Man Of Steel focus's on like wonder or heart it works so well. Hopefully someday we'll get something like that again

[@leithaziz2716]

My thoughts are simillar as well. I don't hate it or put it alongside BvS or Suicide Squad because there IS a decent amount of compelling and powerfull stuff. But the issue here is consistency. I think Shazam personally got this right and it's probably the only DCEU film I like wholeheartedly.

[@tenkenroo]

I think the parts that were good were due to the meddling of Christopher Nolan. Like the scene with Clark as a kid getting used to his powers, I actually liked that scene. But all the dumb “ Zach synder is an objectivist “ crap is what bogged the movie down

[@danielsmith2235]

Lol, I don't know if Patty Jenkins is a good example. She made Wonder Woman rape a man and didn't notice what she'd done.

[@shoelace5977]

small point about superheroes not saving people: would like to give a shoutout to the Ironman v Hulk fight in age of ultron. i just like in general how the fight is a mix of making sure no civillians are hurt and findin an edge over the hulk, as while the suit helps, its movements are generally slower than the hulk. its like comparing a whale to a shark, but they´re the same size.

[@Vinemaple]

Oh, man, this was worth it. Even better than the first one, waaay better! Two additions: Blue & Red's characterization of Invincible & Omni-Man only takes the TV show or the first few anthologies into account. _Invincible_ the comic goes in a darker direction in later issues. An excellent example of Superman getting tactical and ingenious because he can't use his powers is "The Clan of the Fiery Cross," a 1946 radio serial which pitted Superman against a thinly veiled stand-in for a popular White-supremacist organization I don't want to name in KZbin chat. The series, based on actual investigation of said real-life organization, caused irreparable damage to the real organization's credibility. And now it's available as a new comic book: _Superman Smashes the Klan,_ from Gene Yang.

[@jamesraney3948]

I would argue that in Injustice specifically it's not just seeing Lois die that sends Clark over the edge. The Joker engineers a scenario in which Clark is tricked into killing Lois (and their unborn child) with his own hands, then by killing the Joker he also triggers a nuclear blast in Metropolis. That's a LOT of collateral damage, which actually feeds into your point about that being his weak spot.

[@Khajitxi]

I think it’s a few other things all but together retroactively in the injustice comics that makes up the crap fest that the original injustice story was. For instance, Krypto didn’t hang out with Clark as a kid/teen in injustice. This robs injustice Superman of having any social interaction with any being that he couldn’t accidentally hurt and the ability to even slightly relax even if it’s “just” a dog. Even then, Superman didn’t want to be the one to kill the joker. He wanted Batman to do it instead of actively trying to save the Joker from retribution or justice. By not doing that, it shows injustice Superman that mankind is not willing to fix themselves, and he decides to start doing it all himself. Interestingly he recognizes the slippery slope and is willing to take measures to stop it, but Batman arguably keeps on shoving him off the edge. Batman keeps on throwing bodies at Superman and causing further slips into extremism as Superman loses every person in his social network that can ground him, or causes collateral damage like causing a mass genocide of the Amazons via summoning the Greek gods (that anyone with even a basic understanding of the myths should know is a bad idea) to fight Superman. Each attack Batman does further erodes Superman’s trust in humanity in general and to govern themselves. In the end he devolves into the paranoid dictator so far removed from Superman’s core we needed some serious legwork from the comics to show us how it was even possible.

[@DarthChocolate15]

Unless I'm misremembering, killing Lois is also what triggers the destruction of Metropolis. He kills Joker afterwards.

[@silverdeathgamer2907]

Yeah the specifics really matter, he failed his city and he failed his family and he believes that the cause of that failure and all the pain and regret he feels is his and many superheroes code and the mercy shown towards Villains who escape and kill more and more people time and time again and that to prevent the next Joker superheroes must change and become more ruthless. So he failed both as a father and husband and as a superhero and on such a scale he is unable to deal with that. Also as others have said he does become more extreme over time and does want to work with the other heroes initially before he gets more desperate(though as injustice progresses he does become more of a traditional villain).

[@Marsproject11]

Actually the nuclear bomb is triggered when lois and the unborn childs hearts both stop.

[@krakios3950]

I was thinking the same thing, honestly. I'm fully convinced that the situation Superman is put into is just... _anyone_ in that situation, given the ability to do so, would do what he did, especially in the heat of the moment. It's the only thing I can imagine someone doing, if they could in fact do it. So Superman does it, barely giving it any thought, probably seeing red- AND A CITY GETS NUKED BECAUSE OF IT. I don't think it's Lois' death that made him snap, it's all the rest that happen _because of him_. He slipped up, and he won't let that happen again.

[@cameroncrouch5843]

11:21 the conversation about how superheroes don't save just random people is actually criticized in a Marvel Comic. Early in Cable's run, he explained to Spider-Man that he is considered the only true hero in the future, because while everyone else was focused on stopping galaxy ending threats, he was the only one who still helped out the common man

[@empoleonmaster6709]

God damn, that's some deep shit.

[@cww2490]

Sounds too biased. Those galaxy level threats still do need stopping. And when their are None it's not like they do nothing.

[@Firemalleoandjelly]

For Thor he has duties beyond Earth, for Hulk he will cause far more damage than he solves, for Tony Stark his weapons are too destructive for that, for Black Panther he is a king of a nation and other nations would be put off by him beating up random criminals in their nations. As for Cap he is a soldier anbd can't just beat up thugs because of something called the law.

[@NobodyC13]

That's kind of why there's a tier-list in the superhero hierarchy; some heroes fight and cover different types of threats. Avengers: global and extra-terrestrial threats; Doctor Strange: fantastical and inter-dimensional threats; Fantastic Four: inter-dimensional and extra-terrestrial threats; Captain America: government and law-based conflicts; X-Men: fighting and/or rehabilitating rogue mutants, fighting against government encroachment, and sometimes extra-terrestrial threats; Spider-Man, Luke Cage, and Daredevil: street and city level threats.

[@cameroncrouch5843]

Lot of people missing the point just to focus on power scaling

[@ravenwilder4099]

I think that in general, popular media is FAR more interested in Person vs. Person conflict than in any other variety (such as Person vs. Nature/Environment, where most of those big rescue sequences fall). This doesn't just apply to superhero stories, but across fiction in general. Like, notice how almost all mystery stories are about tracking down and outwitting some criminal? What's the last one you read/watched where there WASN'T a human antagonist behind the mystery?

[@genth3575]

The problem with the Red Son Movie is that it goes the cheap way and just says "yep Superman Empire is awful and violent". In the comic, the Soviet Union under supes is demonstrably, explicitly, a better place to live. It expanded through "winning the argument", not invasions as in the movie. The US becomes an awful place where people are starving until Luther takes over and *uses Soviet ideas* to improve things. Instead of the question just being "look at the slippery slope", it's "Is peace, prosperity and safety worthwhile if it robs humanity as a whole of its agency".

[@redleaderantilles1263]

This. The film goes with the trite "oh good ideas but in practice EVIL" justification liberals have clung to as a safety blanket when the dissonance of maintaining capitalism but knowing its horrors becomes too much. Its Animal Farm, and Animal Farm is trash

[@piguy5684]

On the point of most superheroes "graduating" from saving civilians, One Punch Man literally has superheroes graduate from civilian affairs. Lower-level heroes have to register jobs every week to continue being heroes. Technically those job requirements can be fulfilled fighting giant monsters or supervillains, but those types of threats aren't around every day. This means that C-class heroes are glorified public servants -- running around saving cats from trees and helping grandmothers cross the road. It is only once a hero gets into B-class that they are free from weekly quotas; at which point they are really only seen in actual superhero fights because those give them the most exposure to climb the ranks further.

[@sclair2854]

The world really uses this to its advantage too for storytelling. With Mummen Rider focused on as an amazing dude because he truly cares about the common people

[@coolgreenbug7551]

@@sclair2854 Who REFUSES to graduate for that very reason

[@joshuahadams]

@@sclair2854 Mumen Rider is amazing. He’s literally just a guy with a bike, but he will do against pretty much anything from helping direct crowds to safety, to distracting a monster that can squish him like a bug so it can’t go after anyone else. He’s what every superhero _should_ be.

[@hansakkerman2611]

@@joshuahadams and Saitama fully acknowledges this, treating them better and with more respect than he does the other S rankers.

[@MegaNightmare4]

@@joshuahadams You've sorta missed the point of Mumen Rider. Mumen Rider is not a favorable depiction of a hero. The story pretty definitively shows how Mumen is a bad hero. Mumen is a hero who only cares about people and doesn't care about power. And in turn, that makes him too weak to help anybody. Mumen's character is the other side of the classic superhero moral that ideals matter more than strength. The actual core message of OPM is that ideals and strength are equally important, and you need both to be a true hero. Most of the S class have power, but flawed ideals. Mumen has the ideals but not the power. Saitama has both the ideals and the power. Saitama has the power to graduate from the little problems. but he doesn't. He still saves cats from trees and stops muggers. Mumen tries to do these things, but when a real threat shows up, he's too weak to actually help anyone. Mume's character flaw is his self defeatism. He doesn't try to get any stronger, even though it would make him a more effective hero if he did. So the best he can be is a good samaritan/human shield. Saitama has the ideals, but also trained to make sure he could help anyone in any situation. By the moral of the story, Mumen is a bad hero. You have to secure your own oxygen mask before helping someone put theirs on, but Mumen refuses. He chooses to stay weak, thus remaining less effective than he otherwise could be.

[@dancedancelauren]

I think Superman's terrible fighting technique is one of my favorite things about his portrayal in the JL/JLU shows. Like, the man doesn't even try to block incoming punches, he just takes the hits - and it makes *perfect sense* he would do that. Not just because he can't really challenge himself in sparring from lack of an equivalent partner, but because he doesn't *have* to in most cases. Even punches that are enough to overcome his mass and knock him back (especially while flying) don't usually do real damage. So he's just never bothered to learn to fight. And it's such a delightfully insightful bit of character portrayal that the strongest man alive would fight like trash because he's literally never had a reason to learn to do otherwise.

[@Broomer52]

I still love the part in the Injustice comics that perfectly shows how much of a chump Superman is as a fighter should he ever face someone that can go toe to toe with him. Alfred takes the Super Drug that gives him strength and durability equivalent to Superman and wipes the floor with him in a single page. Superman relies on his durability too much so he doesn’t know how to counter getting his face stomped in.

[@Batknight12]

In JL he sees himself as the 'tank' of the team. He's there to take the hits so others don't because he's a lot more durable than anyone else in the group.

[@drascin]

The opposite can be fun, too. There's one comic where a big bad kryptonian is like "Pft, you don't stand a chance, Superman, you're just a bumfuck from Kansas, I was trained by great kryptonian masters, who did you even train with you *yokel*"... ...at which point Clark just says "Batman" and introduces the other guy to some classic Bruce Wayne style martial arts backed up by superman-tier fists.

[@notoriousgoblin83]

He hits like a 18 wheeler going full speed downhill carrying cement, naturally sparring isn't going to work

[@redgekko3966]

It's a bit like in the "Omni Man vs Homelander" death battle; sure omniman is stronger than homelander but his real advantage was that homelander is a sociopathic manchild, whereas omni man is a soldier born and raised in a highly militarised society with millennia of wars on his resume

[@valdonchev7296]

Something I noticed immediately about the Justice Lords episode thanks to this Detail Diatribe is that when Superman is having dinner with Lois Lane, he's Superman, not Clark Kent. He no longer uses his human persona, so he no longer lives that experience, no longer sees how the Justice Lords affect the people, only how they affect the world at large.

[@jamalhartley5863]

Speaking of DCAU they even explain in universe why it seems Clark gets smacked around so much. It's mostly on purpose. More attention on him because he's invulnerable so the more hits he takes the less his teammates have to since he'll most likely be able to walk it off. It's so in character while making so much sense.

[@demonzone9774]

I think the conversation about saving people underlines why Robert Pattinson's "The Batman" was so good (spoilers ahead) Defeating the big costumed weirdo was the end of the second act - the entire third act was just saving people. And sure, some of them were named. But it wasn't all about the named people. It was about everyone

[@thatll-do7606]

This video is such a good encapsulation on why Superman works, but I'm honestly surprised you guys didn't bring up Lex Luthor more often. He is the personification of a problem that Superman cannot punch away, or if he were to punch him away that would only create even worse problems within Superman.

[@Bulbamaster4851]

I am rather surprised that this video talked about collateral damage without speaking about the "the world is cardboard speech", which is rare for this specific topic so I'm glad!

[@Stratagemini]

So, you've basically convinced me that Superman is actually Spiderman with even greater powers and greater responsibility and less depression.

[@foldabotZ]

So conversely, by that logic, Spider-Man is Superman with less powers and responsibility and more depression?

[@Stratagemini]

@@foldabotZ yep.

[@DrakeAurum]

A great example of this is in the old Lois & Clark TV series, the episode Ultrawoman where Clark's powers get transferred to Lois and she has to take over the superheroing duties for awhile. After her first full-time day she comes home exhausted and practically sobbing because she had to deal with a disaster in one part of the world while people were dying in a tsunami half a continent away. She realises that Superman's greatest weakness is that he simply cannot save everybody - which is compounded by his super-senses letting him know about all the ones he's failing to save.

[@annastevens1526]

Oof 😵 Speaking as a human rights & social justice advocate, knowing what's happening in the world & caring deeply about it but NOT being able help everybody really hits home deeply! It feels like avoiding total burnout would be a huge challenge for Superman, given that level of awareness and empathy?

[@leifsilver]

There is a webcomic called “Strong Female Protagonist” that I think does a really good job of exploring some of the themes you talked about here. It follows a “Superman-esque” hero after she beat all of the big supervillians and is trying to make the world a better place despite the fact that all she really knows how to do is punch things really hard. It was written by Brennan Lee Mulligan of Dimension 20 fame.

[@masterofskillz14]

It's so GOOD

[@josephperez2004]

That speech by the former big bad is cutting. I wont spoil the whole thing but to paraphrase it a little, he says some stuff along the lines of 'super strength doesnt solve poverty or hunger or disease or any of the actual problems the whole world suffers from'.

[@ethanmcfarland8240]

cough korra cough

[@josephperez2004]

@@ethanmcfarland8240 I actually recently binge watched all of a Avatar: Legend of Korra and I admit I saw a few similarities, key of which was being strong and having super powers doesnt mean you are neccesarily good at solving complex problems or systemic issues in society. And for someone with strength and power, that is a hard and often painful lesson.

[@Nimelennar]

It's too bad that it looks like it's never going to be finished. The "few month hiatus to sort out the final chapter" has been going on for years now.

[@mrsbasia122]

55:00 "The first time I make the choice not to save someone because it might inconvenience me, I've lost." Thank you, Blue. THIS right here is Superman.

[@TFalconwing]

You know what I loved in Avengers 1 and 2? The focus they put on how the team was trying to save civilians as much as possible.

[@IAsimov]

It's something I realized from Invincible. My favorite scene from the first season was from Atom Eve. Not fighting, not a tense moment to save everyone, not a react-now catastrophe... ... it was the aftermath of her leaving her superhero team. She chooses to fly solo, and goes around waking up making herself some coffee, simply helping people. Grow forests, help crops, save mountain travelers, clear skies or give rain, and return to a rewarding sleep. I absolutely loved that scene for how humanizing, how beautiful it was, and how it gave me way more of an escapist fantasy than hundreds of hours of action figures bashing eachother. I think we have gotten so used to superhero battles and the powers of superheroes, that as Red and Blue mention, we've forgot that superheroes were made to HELP people. I mean, sure, superpowered battles are fun, but there was a time we loved superheroes because we NEEDED heroes. Not for war, but from everyday fears. Natural disasters, robbery in the streets, machinery gone awry, and so on. Not just war -- and hell, Watchmen was about how dangerous it was if if superheroes lost their humanity and sight of the little man.

[@RmsOceanic]

There's a reason one of the most iconic Superman moments is from All-Star Superman: "Your doctor really did get held up, Regan. It's never as bad as it seems."

[@Condor2481]

Fuck that shit. If you are trying suicide. ITS EVEN WORSE AS IT SEEMS.

[@lord_kyjax4450]

It took me three distinct sessions to finish this because of a lack of time, but I think you should keep making 'Superman is good, actually' videos until the sun blows up.

[@Matrim42]

There was a Superman game in the mid 00s, I think it was the Superman Returns tie in game if I remember correctly. The game itself was pretty middling, but it had a very novel approach to handling Superman‘s invulnerability and collateral damage. Superman didn’t have a health bar, no amount of damage could kill him, but Metropolis did. And if during your fighting you destroy the city, that’s how you get game over.

[@Dmobley9901]

Honestly, I feel like there's a lot to be said about the parallels between Superman (and to a lesser degree, DC heroes in general) and Spider-Man at least in terms of how they go about "Super-Heroing", as with Marvel heroes, specifically those that fall into any of the big three groups, The Avengers, The X-Men, and The Fantastic Four, all of them generally focus on large scale threats and sometimes ulterior (but generally positive) motives. The Avengers are Earth's Mightiest Defenders, The X-Men fight for equality while dealing with ultra powerful potentially world-ending super mutants, and The Fantastic Four are all about the importance of family and trying to stop multi-dimensional, existential, cosmic threats. The same argument can also be said for the idea of The Justice League and other hero teams in DC- But Spider-Man, while capable of doing the big things, is considered one of the most down to earth people in the Marvel Universe, not because of the amount of people he saves, but because his expressed goal and motivation IS TO SAVE PEOPLE, to quote Tom Holland's version "There is no Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man if there is no neighborhood left." The only other characters who really seem to express this same idea in Super-Hero comics- Are Batman (and by extension the rest of the bat family) who fights regular crime as his main priority and driving force because he doesn't want anyone else to go through the sorts of tragedy he has. And SUPERMAN, who is the logical evolution from this philosophy of paragon heroism, what do you get when you have a Super-Hero who CAN save everyone? You get a man who MUST save everyone. It's Spider-Man's tagline, but Superman also embodies the phrase "With great power comes great responsibility." Being the most powerful, he also must juggle the most responsibility of just about anyone in his universe. Not to mention, what makes modern heroes heroes, instead of just protagonists who fight evil people, is that they SAVE and PROTECT people. This is actually the exact thought process that went into Superman inspired videogames called "Megaton Rainfall" and "Undefeated", the characters you become isn't exactly Superman of course because of copyright and stuff like that, but they're functionally inspired by the question "How do you make an interesting Superman game", since he's nigh-indestructible, hits like missile, and can move at super-speeds across the entire world in seconds, it'd be nearly impossible to make a regular "action" game and have it be balanced when your character is inherently overpowered. Their solution? Literally make the goal of the game be preventing collateral damage, and instead of having the player character have a health bar, the city itself is the thing with a health bar, and it works perfectly, in concept, on paper, and in practice, people have actually, whether intentionally or not, proven that this form of portraying truly heroic characters, works across EVERY form of media. In addition, Superman is a living force of nature, the only "threat" comparable to him, is a force of nature.

[@guardiantree8879]

There was an actual Superman game that did it that way… wasn’t too good though, city was too fragile lol. Surprisingly, this is something the CW shows did well. Especially Supergirl, J’onn in the later seasons is just trying to help people.

[@Dmobley9901]

@@guardiantree8879 Can you tell me what game it is? I don't think I've heard of it, only Superman game I ever hear anyone talk about is Superman 64, but also, from the sounds of it, that sounds like more of a balancing issue on the developer's part than a flaw in the concept.

[@guardiantree8879]

@@Dmobley9901 Yeah it really was just a balance issue. Flying around as Superman was quite fun. It was called Superman Returns, after a movie I think. It was on Xbox 360.

[@jayradcliffe337]

In regards to that "Superman also embodies the phrase "With great power comes great responsibility."" line, there's an interesting comic where Spider-Man becomes Captain Universe and gives the power up because he simply cannot deal with the responsibility of now being able to save the entire planet

[@Dmobley9901]

@@jayradcliffe337 I heard about him getting the power but not the story behind that, and yeah that makes sense, he'd likely feel responsible for keeping everyone on the entire planet safe all at the same time, which even if he was all powerful, his mind probably couldn't handle trying to process everything. Even if you could do everything, it'd probably feel exhausting to feel obligated TO do everything. Peter as a character, has a very strong sense of obligation with just his regular abilities, and he can be very wise beyond his years, but he's still more or less a normal guy who struggles to just pay his own rent, in other words, he already feels the weight of the world and chooses to try and carry it so other people don't have to, but that's over a city/state at best, and while he can play a part in saving the world, he almost always does so as part of a team, whereas Clark has had not just the power and responsibility, but the life experience to be able to function the way he does, in other words, the power isn't new to him, he was born with it, so naturally, he's had time to process and realize the full extent of his powers and the responsibility that comes with them, so there wouldn't be the shock of suddenly having a whole new level of power and responsibility, in addition, Clark has a support network that frankly, Peter doesn't really have, in their typical timelines, Clark has his parents, Lois, Jimmy Olsen, the entirety of the Justice League on the super hero end of things, and potentially children who he loves and cares for as well, so he has all the emotional and mental support he needs to carry a responsibility like that- Peter meanwhile has a POTENTIAL support group at best, Aunt May is always either okay, in danger, or in the hospital on the edge of dying or dead, his friends range from supportive but lacking understanding to actively evil, he's largely disconnected from a super hero "community" to where, while he has connections and relationships with all the major hero teams, he's never really "one of them", and they frequently believe it when there's an impersonator or someone possessing him that he's just straight up turned evil without giving him the benefit of the doubt, the person who would normally be his best friend, Harry, is either dead, evil, or missing, his other best friend in Ned Leeds is also either dead, in danger, evil or irrelevant, Uncle Ben has been dead for years, any mentor figure he gains is either too amoral to match his sense of morality, or secretly evil or deceptive, and all his potential love interests since the dreaded one more day story, have either been evil, amoral, actively hate him, have no trust whatsoever, because again he keeps having imposters, or naturally don't really understand him or have a connection, since he can't trust anyone in his normal life to know his identity, which, given the overview of what happens every time he trusts someone except his aunt, makes sense, and the boy needs a hug and some people who can see through any fake versions of him.

[@praveenvijeyakumar741]

"We could probably do a third video on this" YES PLEASE! After your first Detail Diatribe on Superman (which I absolutely loved) I didn't think we'd get another one. In fact, I couldn't help but feel a _bit_ disappointed by the lack of any mention of Superman & Lois. Not only did we get a second video on Superman, but you _also_ talked about Superman & Lois. Needless to say, this video made my entire week, and I think everyone would appreciate a Part 3 to this series.

[@Random3716]

+

[@matthewdinode]

I decided to come back to this and the other Superman one after watching the first episode of the new Superman show online. I think it gets what you're going for.

[@spyguy318]

Ther are occasional MCU moments that focus on saving civilians. You mentioned the village in Iron Man 1, there was also the people falling out of Air Force 1 in Iron Man 3, the ferry in Spider Man Homecoming, and protecting civilians from Loki in Avengers. Probably the most significant is in Age of Ultron, protecting civilians is a recurring theme, especially in the final battle in Sokovia, to the point where it’s speculated it was done in reaction to the awful collateral damage in Man of Steel.