Detail Diatribe: Satirizing Superman
What is the point of the Man of Steel, and how do people miss that point sometimes?
Comments (10)
Having thought this over for a bit and discussing it with friends, I think Superman's invulnerability is key to the character. We want to be kinder, but we have been hurt before and kindness leaves us vulnerable. A character that can't be hurt can afford to be kind in situations which would be too risky for normal people...
"Why do they keep hiring people who don't like superman to write superman?" I actually know the answer to this: they (Time Warner owns DC?) want to make a version of Superman that people who don't like Superman will like. They know people who do like Superman will watch the Superman movie; but they want people who don't like superman to buy the movie tickets anyway. This is why so many of your bad superman examples were more "serious" media (movies, live action TV) and more of your good superman examples were comics and cartoons.
So in the pursuit of profit, they stripped away parts of what made the art unique and popular in the first place? Yeah that sounds about right.
As a fan of The Boys, Invincible and Superman, I completely understand why you aren’t interested. Still I have found that the character of Homelander has a bit more nuanced characterization (in the show anyway, the comics are more or less what you said) and the show does actually have a moral paragon in the form of Starlight. Who, despite going through a lot during the events of the show so far, keeps working to make the world better, to a point in this third season where another hero talks about her saving them by convincing them to be a better person. PS, also really glad someone else is giving Elementary some love!
I think this counts as a Satire that Gets it, but for me my favorite Superman story comes from Injustice (Yes the game, there are also a lot of comics, etc). To not go over too much, the Joker destroys not Superman, but basically destroys the Clark Kent persona/true self. So he has nothing left than *being* Superman. Couple that with crossing the line with straight up murdering the Joker, and it's interesting watching a decline, although mostly he still retains his Paragon. Just a Paragon who...starts to shift. New Thing I learned: So Superman originates from mostly iffy Science background, maybe that explains why his other weakness is just a blanket form of Magic? Interesting. Edit: Oh, so someone explained to me that magic works on Superman is because he's a 'normal' Kryptonian, not a magical one. ...I liked my theory better. Thing that took me *way* too long to figure out: ...At the 1:30 mark it finally clicked that was...a soap box. x;D ...I was wondering for far too long if this was some new meme about something being...soapy?
This is awesome work, however casual and relaxed it is, it still is as powerful as the other series's contents. One point that you raise, and I never considered, is this: How much does being raised among humans result in wanting the best for humanity? (be it Invincible or Superman) ...as opposed to, i suppose, a superpowered being who was raised among animals (like Enkindu) or among their own people (like Omniman, based on the description) ?
Thank you for putting all of my feelings about Superman into such a well worded and easily digestible video. I love Clark and I'm always so sad when people don't get him. Y'all are great!
The section on satire reminded me of why the works of Mel Brooks or the Zuckers have endured, while the "____ Movie" series has been largely forgotten. Poking fun at something you love hits differently than making fun of something you think is stupid.
Brilliant video. My only (mild) disappointment is that you didn't touch on Grant Morrison's All-Star Superman. It's really one of the best, if not the best "Superman as Paragon" stories. The most famous bit is probably Supers comforting and reassuring a girl about to commit suicide; what most people forget when they look at that scene is that the previous scene is Superman saving people from a train wreck; one of the passengers is obviously a psychiatrist dealing with a person in crisis. Superman overheard this one person in the midst of dealing with a literal crashing train, and flies off to save that one life once he's done. That's the heart of the thing, right there.
I like to think most legacy characters have built up enough of a body of work that there are 5-ish pieces you could point to and safely say "if you don't get them after this, you are wrong for this material" And Red pulled most of them.