Movie Notes: Superman (2025)

I take notes when I watch movies and after the movies, I post those notes on the internet. These are my notes for Superman. Notes made after the movie are made in <<>>'s.

Previews

Naked Gun 2025 - Okay

 

Smurfs - Are we still doing "that's gonna leave a mark"? Are we still doing it or did we go all the way around and the back to "that's gonna leave a mark"?

 

The Odyssey - Initially thought this was "The Return" with Ralph Fiennes. But it's The Odyssey with Tom Holland. I've seen hotter Telemechai. 

<<Discussion has since been consumed by the *horror* of a dark-skinned Helen and a transgender Achilles. Which is a shame.>>

 

Wicked II - Okay. It's a part three? Can't even guess about the arc of this series.

 

Treason and Truth - Again; GUNS are our most powerful weapon. The truth is up there, but guns are very powerful. And apache attack helicopters. They've got guns and missiles.

 

Project: Hail Mary - Obvious mix of Interstellar and The Martian. Written by the The Martian guy. No kiddin'.

 

Fantastic Four - Looks good. Interesting to put together context clue from the Thunderbolts and the last mini trailer. [Man, I was wrong about most of that.]

 

Cat & The Hat - Bill Hader? "A new world." Yeah, let's make the Seuss-iverse happen. ::(

 

Welcome Back - Is that the The Last of Us woman?

 

One Battle After Another - Very different from the first trailer.

Nerd Overload Videos

These came up yesterday, but even posting them now, you'll probably have seen them by now.

Shoot The Doctor, Then Throw Batman Into the Sun

There's a trope, whether it's on TV Tropes or not, called "Just Shoot The Doctor." You see, in Doctor Who, the titular character causes all manner of trouble for the variety of militaristic aliens (The Doctor's an alien too, so they're not all bad). It would be far easier for the Daleks, Sontarans, and Cybermen of the universe to just shoot the insufferable Doctor the moment he emerges from his little blue box.

But they don't. Why? Because the universe of Doctor Who does not work that way. There are in fact, quite a few writers who work very hard to make sure that universe expands according to a set of rules which start with and sit below that one. As with every other piece of entertainment, the creative team are a pantheon of gods, defining the hero's method of triumph by crafting every atom of the conflict from the ground up.

So, like Captain Picard staring down Armus on Vagra II, we find our selves face-to-face with the skin of evil that is Man of Steel. (Spoilers after this point)

Playing Favorites excerpts, pt 50 - The Verdict

Every Most Tuesdays I post excerpts from best selling at not selling super blog, Playing Favorites. 

Spider-Man

Jenny Sparks

The Batman

Blue Beetle (Ted Kord)

Lindy Reynolds (Dark Avengers)

Captain America

Gauntlet

Superman (All-Star Superman)

Elijah Snow

Cable (Cable & Deadpool)

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Playing Favorites excerpts, pt 41

Every Most Tuesdays I post excerpts from best selling at not selling super blog, Playing Favorites.

Okay, I’m on this thing now.  I know Dean Cain’s Clark from “Lois and Clark” did some petty things that I don’t think of as super(though I can’t think of any specific examples), but maybe that’s part of his relatability? I mean, wouldn’t we do some petty things against people who are jerks if we had Superman’s powers?  Most of us would go beyond ‘petty,’ which is strange because I’ve used that word so much to describe super-villains. They aren’t petty, they’re petty and they won’t let it go. Oh, man, with the exception of the hairpiece thing, I’m not really sure what I’ve got on Superman doing that kind of thing. I’m sure it was common in The Silver Age. On the one hand, I get that Superman is a persona; he is that guy of course, but he’s also Clark Kent, average human reporter who doesn’t carry the weight of the world on his shoulders all of the time. Someone who does relax, who has fun, and enjoys the life that he works so hard to preserve for others. No, again Clark Kent is a reporter who’s clumsy and awkward. He doesn’t exude confidence or enjoy the company of others. Again, I’m thinking is the guy who can bench press planets and have quiet evenings with Lois Lane is someone else entirely, someone who can do all the things I listed two sentences ago. A guy who misses his planets and a family he’ll never see, but enjoys baseball and his mom’s apple pie. A guy who talks to his wife about the burdens of being a living icon while causing some occasional mischief with his god-like powers. Again, I think of Superman as really being Kal-El, Last Son of Krypton, Clark Kent by day, Superman…also by day.

Playing Favorites excerpts, pt 39

Every Most Tuesdays I post excerpts from best selling at not selling super blog, Playing Favorites.

In the What-If, however, Doctor Doom detects The Beyonder's survival and doesn't fall for his trickery. The heroes are not revived and Doom is free to master his new powers and return to Earth.

He does, and pwns heavily. He is opposed first by Tony Stark and Doctor Strange. He simply adjusts Tony's Blood Alcohol Content to make him permanently drunk (bypassing the 'bottle' part of “Demon in the Bottle”) and though Doctor Strange has spent time in a hyperbolic time chamber preparing new spells for the battle, Doom simply Silences him and punts him elsewhere in the multiverse. Then the other heroes rally; pregnant Sue Storm, Daredevil, Ghost Rider, US Agent and...seriously, they are fairly unmemorable from that point forward. It's the C-Team plus S.H.I.E.L.D versus deus ex Doom and in the end...well, Doctor Doom only knows how to rule worlds and defeat that Accursed Richards, and he left all of his Richardses on WarWorld.

Playing Favorites excerpts, pt 24

Every Tuesday I post excerpts from best selling at not selling super blog, Playing Favorites.

It’s easy for Superman to do the little things because regardless of what’s going on, he’s aware of the little things. For guys like Spider-Man and Batman, those little things aren’t quite so easy.  Spider-Man, despite all of his other hardships, does do well with the average citizen of New York. Regardless of what the papers say, people know he’s there to help and while I don’t read a lot of Spider-Man, I imagine he makes some time to say a few kind words to those he rescues (or arrests, though I doubt anything he could say would engender much affection from them). Batman, in the Grant Morrison run, is generous. He gets a young woman on the street a job at Waynetech (or Wayne Enterprises, whatever it is this week) and even gives a hobo that he almost hits with the Batmobile a cool hundred dollars (Granted, that hobo later overdosed and his ghost led drug-addled, mind-wiped Bruce Wayne on a trek across Gotham, but then maybe he didn’t die? Really, it was unclear whether it was ghost karma or what, and not unclear in a Grant Morrison way, just generally unclear.[Edit: He has since shown up as a pimp.]). So he does stop and take time to help out average citizens of Gotham, and the only way for him to know there’s a data-entry position open at Waynetech or have $100 in the glove compartment is if he’s anticipating this sort of thing (alright, the 100 dollars could be in anticipation of a number of things, but you get my point).

But now that I think about it…Grant Morrison did write both those Batman scenes and the Superman scene that I cited earlier. Perhaps that isn’t something fundamental about the character, but a detail that Grant Morrison puts into his characters to give them this heroic trait. No. I actually have a Superman comic that I’m relatively sure isn’t written by Grant Morrison (what was he writing in 2001?) where he visits the captain of a Russian sub who’s dying of radiation from the accident that Superman saved him and his men from. The captain stayed behind to shutdown the reactor and was dying of cancer as a result (though, sadly, whoever was writing that comic didn’t know much about nuclear reactors, so good story aside, it’s a rough re-read) and another where he’s reading letters from fans while he goes about his daily Superman stuff. Anyway, so yeah, Batman, but not nearly as much as Superman, which fits because a lot of it works for Superman being a nice guy with a positive public persona (not that he does these things for those reasons. Harvesting a dying Russian sailor/farmer’s final crop isn’t something you do to get on the front page of The Daily Planet.

It’s not that Batman doesn’t care about people. I think he does, but I think it’s more in that he believes in the good in all people and thusly redemption and the value of life. It’s not exactly caring about people, again I think it’s more of an expanded world view and perhaps just a necessity of believing that, with all of the messed-up dudes he has to take care of, he has to believe that the people he’s saving and the people he’s stopping both have some sort of merit, even if he can’t see it. Otherwise, the things he does take on a certain kind of dark futility (which, if you read “Batman R.I.P.” in The-Lump-as-Alfred’s ponderings, Bruce slips into a sort of darkness right before he picks up Dick as Robin. To me, Dick enjoys life in general and the life of crime fighting crime specifically, serving for many years as a contrast to Batman to remind him of the better parts of life and why he does what he does.).

Both Spider-Man and Superman are selfless. Indeed, Batman is too. All three are willing to risk their lives to stop evil. Spider-Man (as I discussed above) is willing to go the extra mile of not just sacrificing his life, but risking even the better parts of living to shoulder his responsibility. Superman doesn’t sacrifice a lot of personal stuff (save perhaps his dignity on crappy excuses) to be Superman, but he is willing to put his life on the line. Batman, too, is willing to risk his life to do what he does, but while Spider-Man and Superman have run the risk of leaving widows behind, the only grieving family for Bruce Wayne is Alfred Pennyworth. It’s hard to say what’s selfish and what’s selfless in this scenario; the married guys dedicate their lives to someone else to make them happy in an ‘everyday heroes’ sort of way, but they also risk their mate’s happiness in order to continue fighting crime. Though their spouses knew the risks before they were married, it’s still a ding for both of them. But then, looking at Batman, everything he gives is solely for crimefighting; he doesn’ t have an ‘everyday hero’ part of making the world a better place. Maybe that’s part of Batman’s general appeal; he doesn’t have ordinary human qualities that detract from him as a crime-busting machine.

He’s not relatable, not even a tiny bit. Batman is more human than Spider-Man and Superman, but he has very little human about him. He is a human fully committed to his persona of being a strange shadow; a mysterious figure of the night.  Whereas so many heroes fight to seem relatable and human, to connect with the people they protect, Batman is the one who has worked (in the past, anyway) to present himself as something inhuman.  His persona is not supposed to be relatable, but whether that’s supposed to be an outgrowth of how detached he is or a reflection of it, I’m not sure. It is not a heroic quality. Being a ‘weird avenger’ is not heroic. He might be a wish-fulfillment character, but that is a far cry from heroic.

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Playing Favorites excerpts, pt 22

Every Tuesday I post excerpts from best selling at not selling super blog, Playing Favorites.

Superman is one of the best heroes because he cares about people individually. What he does isn't to help save lives or protect society, but to save people. Individual people. He wants to live a normal human life, but he also can't ignore the ways that he could help us. Then by putting on a costume, he commits himself to being part of a larger society of superheroes that he again can't ignore his duty to. He must become the paragon and symbol of superheroes to the populace of Earth because heroes need their trust to operate.

 

Source: Kelly Callen

It depends on the interpretation, but Superman isn't who Clark Kent really is. Clark Kent isn't really who Superman is. I think that somewhere in between is Kal-El, the Kryptonian that loves Earth and its people and feels compelled to protect it. Superman is Kal being everything he needs and wants to be, a fully-expressed super-ego of absolute integrity that exudes confidence and inner peace. That's what he shows to the world to let them know that Superman will always take care of them. In reality, he will always take care of them--there aren't many things Superman loves more than humanity—but he's a real person with self-doubt, worry, and even moral quandries. His moral myopia isn't quite as myopic as Spider-Man's, and heaven knows it's not quite as diluted, but...

...man, now that I think about it, I can't think of too many moral dilemmas that Superman's had. I mean, every so often he does snap and you think he's really going to kill Darkseid, but he doesn’t. While he occasionally has certain doubts about himself or what he does, usually, those are personal and he doesn’t have any compunctions about what needs to be done as Superman. In the comics I’ve seen him in, he’s usually presented with fairly straightforward scenarios.

If you know who did this incredible picture, let me know and I'll be happy to link them.

Intuitively, that moral myopia I attribute to him is something that he just has by dint of being in the scenarios I’ve seen him in: something bad happens and he doesn’t hesitate to swat it or repel it. He respects all life and believes in freedom, so his intervention in the affairs of man is minimal. He is almost exclusively reactive, and I think that works for him because we never expect more of him. The people who propose that The Dark Knight proactively murder half his rogues gallery rarely ever volunteer the belief that Superman do the same for Darkseid, Braniac, or the Parasite (though I’m sure Braniac is a special case, seeing as how he isn’t ‘murdered’ so much as ‘destroyed,’ which in turn isn’t much more effective—given his propensity for copying himself—than a good sleeper hold. And how does a massive, complex Kryptonian artificial intelligence store full backups of itself on 20th century human computers? Kryptonian file compression technology? Heretofore unmentioned Kryptonian programming conventions that focus on elegance over keeping up with the Moore’s Law?)

Superman’s vague moral code, lack of proactiveness, and general good faith in the face of being invulnerable are pretty much balanced out by the fact that he’s apparently smart enough to keep expectations pretty low. The man is a hero.

In all seriousness though, he’s proven on several occasions (in the modern age at least, if not earlier ones), that even without his powers, he’s willing to fight the good fight and take risks to do the right thing.  What’s more is that he’s worthy of the people’s trust. While he does sometimes have to fight his urge to return to his Kryptonian roots (New Krypton storyline), he does realize that The Kryptonians are pretty much elitist jerks, and humans, despite also being jerks, aren’t nearly as elitist and don’ t have heat vision, so tend to be a bit more receptive when you tell them to quit being jerks.  So, he has good intentions, he’s dedicated to doing the right thing, and he’s willing to risk everything to help others. 

The depth of his convictions is evident in what he does as Clark. Superman could have been the best construction worker or banker or private eye or politician ever (though inevitably, something heavy would’ve been dropped on him, revealing his secret identity).  In his personal life, he works for truth and justice as a reporter. Whenever stories let Clark Kent be a reporter, they’re given room to explore what makes him a good person instead of just good hero, and while I am generally talking about qualities that make Superman one of the best heroes out there, being a good person is a part of that. Especially when you’re trying to talk about the man between Clark and Superman, a venn diagram of seeing where their decency overlaps is a good thing. Caring for others, searching for truth, and helping people is something that Clark does. In fact, Clark--again, this is when stories focus on it--manages to pick up the proactivity slack that Superman leaves behind. What Superman can’t fix with fists and heat vision, Clark can attack with publicity and proof. There have been a number of Superman stories which have ended in a win with fists, but cemented with a victory in words.

Selflessness, care about people, and honesty define the most heroic aspects of Superman.

Still though, not the best at gift-giving.

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Playing Favorites excerpts, pt 21

Every Tuesday I post excerpts from best selling at not selling super blog, Playing Favorites.


Again, just like with Booster Gold and Damien, his desire to do good and his total commitment to good counts for something. He's willing to sacrifice and risk a lot just to do what's right, and that counts for a lot.

The fact that he's kind of a douche about it might hurt him in the long run.

So, Spider-Man is selfless, relatable, uncompromising (in the way that he won’t weigh one evil versus another, but try to fight against both), humble, and committed (in that once he makes a decision, he’s committed to it, until he changes his mind. I know, it’s not exactly, “committed,” but what would you call that?). In many ways, he’s also responsible, in that much of what he does as a hero is done with his loved ones in mind.

Field Manual Kris: He will/will/won't/will be back.

Big week. I'll admit. I wanted it that way for my big announcement announcement of no particular size. Let's follow this stuff up.

Superman
So, Fox News, io9, and Mightygodking (sorry about that election man) did some mentioning of this Superman thing. In addition, Comics Alliance Editor-In-Chief Laura Hudson put a lot of what I said into much, much better words. While I don't agree with all of her points, I'm very, very angry she made them in a better fashion than I did. Also; I agree with most of them.

Canadian Election
It's the same Prime Minister they had before (Stephen Harper, a conservative), but apparently a third party that's pretty cool rose to prominence, so it was a mixed bag for most and reality check for the rest.  A third party bump in Canda isn't as big as one here, but it's important for Canada over the next few years. All of this is thanks to The Torontoist, your source for Canadian news. For whenever you feel like looking up.


And there was much rejoicing.

The only thing that gives me pause about this is that now that bit with Bruce Willis in "Planet Terror" doesn't work so well.  Well mostly it does; it wouldn't surprise anyone if Bruce Willis was a time traveling, terrorist-killing warlock who ad libbed that line as an in-joke with himself[1].

I've Written Reviews For The Prisoner, but Haven't Posted Them Yet
...because the world is now short one terrorist mastermind and I aim to fill in the gap. Tremble infidels, as I withhold vital information on The Prisoner! There is only one god; and The Prisoner actor/producer/writer/director Patrick McGoohan is his prophet! But seriously guys, I'm trying not to put up too many posts at once, so I'm holding off until after this 'going public thing,' which sucks because I'm not watching any more episodes until I get some of these posted and I really want to watch more of The Prisoner. Also, added pictures to "Free For All" and "Dance of the Dead."

---
[1]You can do that kind of stuff if you're a time traveling warlock of the terrorist-killing kind (plus actor).

Superman Wishes He Could Quit Us, Does

This comes at the end of a story where Superman shows up to show support for Iranian protesters and the government uses that to link the protesters to the United States government and political fallout ensues. Image is from an article on the subject by Comics Alliance(read the comments; they are insane!).

Why This Is Happening

I saw him kicking around this ball in mid-2002. It was issue where he had spent the entire day answering emails from around the globe. Superman has always been a man of the world, and his own Batman-like journeying around the world to find himself in his early years is one the pieces of his mythology that I have really liked.

Superman represents the best of America. In a lot of ways, America belongs to the world as much as Superman does. The difference is that The United States has to face certain political and cultural realities--even the DC Universe United States--and Superman does not. Superman represents the ideals of democracy and freedom better when he’s not being linked--however erroneously--to the US government.

But Superman cannot represent the American government. Standing for The American Way was a product of a more defensive time; it implicitly meant defending the culture of the United States from fascists and socialist dictatorships masquerading as communism. Now that both The United States and Superman are, shall we say, slightly, more proactive players on the world stage, the contrast between people’s fear of the projection of force and influence by governments and by legitimate independent agents is much sharper and more relevant.

Whenever Superman’s in space fighting Darkseid, punching Brainiac, thwarting Zod, or doing something else, it shouldn’t be because it’s in the US’s best interest. If Lex Luthor wanted to rule Russia or Iran, it’s not like Superman would just stand by and let it happen because it was happening to America’s enemies; he’d intervene because it’s the humane thing to do.

Ultimately, the world must know that Superman stands independent of US government policy and politics.

However, more importantly, Superman is a property and an icon. He’s a legally contested property, but he’s a property none the less, and a globally popular one. No, it shouldn’t matter to comics readers where Superman pays taxes(?), files his marriage certificate at(?), or fills out as his home address on his health insurance forms(?), but it does. They want Superman to be a citizen of the world, someone who ideologically transcends borders as easily as he does physically. The editors of Superman apparently suspect that the cost of alienating a few people who actually read Superman in the US will be offset by the increased readership abroad. It is, and has always been, a business. Sorry.

Why this Doesn’t Work

He’s still American and nothing has changed. Superman was raised in Kansas. He works in Metropolis. He speaks English. He works in Metropolis. His home is in Metropolis and most of the time he spends saving people is there. He is white as fuck. Until the next Crisis whenever he gets a darker, pan-cultural appearance and starts speaking a polyglot language and Metropolis is retconned into being a free city floating in The Pacific Ocean, he’s still going to be an American (no, that's not going to happen, but I'd love to read an explanation for why that would be a terrible thing).

Also, this happens on a backup story after a run on Action Comics that focuses primarily on Lex Luthor. The past two Superman stories (I’m aware of) are New Krypton (where Krypton comes back and Superman goes to live on Krypton as a regular schmo working under General Zod before Krypton is destroyed by Zod, Braniac, and Luthor) and Grounded (where Superman walks across the United States because he feels out of touch).  

None of these stories (as far as I know) touch on the conflicts caused by Superman aligning himself with America. If anything, he tries to reconnect with America right before he relinquishes his citizenship, which is either poor storytelling or a clear sign that even though Superman is no longer legally connected to the US, his connection to it remains.

My biggest gripe with this is that it comes out of nowhere and has little to no support in anything else Superman is doing. It’s treated like a non-issue (which it largely is) whenever it could have been made into an actual story about Superman and his relationship with the United States that not only could have established a better foundation for this, but could have also made it so that The United States asked Superman to relinquish his status instead of the other way around.

Why People Are Angry

Because that’s the bee in everyone’s bonnet. I mean, there’s a lot of knee-jerk “You’re raping my childhood” outrage out there, but the real issue is that no matter how justified, obvious, irrelevant, or overdue this decision is, in the eyes of some, Superman is still rejecting America. If there’s anything I’ve learned that’s brought me special feelings of shame in some of my fellow Americans, it’s their personal--and sometimes collective--ability to take any sort of rejection damned poorly.

Fuck Superman; I’m going on a rant here...tomorrow:

Question

What does it matter if Superman calls The US his home? What if he never presented himself as an American (assuming he could pull-off a pan-cultural appearance alongside flawless linguistic skills)? What if he was from another country and was inspired by American democracy? What if he was from another culture entirely, but held the same ideals? If those ideals could not be the same if he came from another culture, what would the differences be?