When I started reading Superman comics around 1991, I didn't pay that much attention to who was writing/drawing them, but I was aware. The villains were often newer versions of older bad guys I was familiar with, new supporting characters came and went and while I'd noticed that the Saga I'd jumped in on--Panic In the Sky--was named after a classic episode of The Adventures of Superman, it was clearly no adaptation of it. By a few years in, my friend and I had certain artists, supporting characters, scenarios and villains we liked and didn't like. Just like any modernization of any classic comic, I suppose.
Now, this "modernization" had began in 1986, with a reboot entitled Man of Steel, much like the new movie (though again, the film wasn't an adaptation of it) and it lasted all the way through the rest of the eighties and the nineties. It brought many changes to the Superman mythos: Krypton was suddenly a heartless planet devoid of human emotion, Lex Luthor was suddenly a billionaire everyone thought of as a wonderful philanthropist, and Jonathan and Martha both lived into Clark's adult years. As for his powers, Clark still had super strength & speed, but they were supposedly more limited, as was his invulnerability. He still had most of his vision powers (x-ray, heat, telescopic, microscopic, infer-red) and super-breath (for freezing and for blowing something away) and of course, he could still fly. However, some powers that Byrne simply couldn't rationalize (hypnotism, time travel) were done away with, even though they'd been used in the films, which were a clear influence on the books.
As a hardcore fan, I won't pretend anyone will be impressed by new supporting characters introduced to the book (Cat Grant, Bibbo, Keith Parks, José Delgado) but I do think some casual onlookers would be interested in all of the events that transpired between 1986 and 1999: the moment Superman kills General Zod and eventually exiles himself for a brief time, his engagement with Lois Lane forcing him to reveal his secret identity to her, the death of Superman, his return after four impostors emerge (well, two impostors and two would-be replacements who continued on as superheroes) and the reformation of the Justice League.
That is to say that during this time, the comics accomplished a lot. However, in 1996, K.C. Carlson took over for Mike Carlin as editor, followed by Joey Cavileri by the end of the year. I'm not going to blame anyone in particular for the decline in quality, but it did seem like the staff was revolving more. Despite a few change-ups in the early '90s, there was a pretty consistent overall staff on the books between 1991 and 1996. It just seems like they had settled into a certain formula by the end of the decade, with even more major stories arguably taking the place of good writing. During the Final Night crossover in November of '96, and the following month, Superman married Lois Lane in The Wedding Album, a one-shot featuring a bevy of writers and artists.
In a way, you could say that this was where "my Superman" died, but that's not quite true. This was the natural extension of the arc that began in 1991: Lois and Superman's engagement. In fact, they would have been married much earlier, but the producers of Lois & Clark: the New Adventures of Superman (you know… even if it had just been called The New Adventures of Superman without the Lois & Clark, I think that would have made it just that much better) had it in mind that the two should get married during a later season and that it would make the comics and the show seem to have more synergy if they married simultaneously.
By this time, Supergirl, Superboy and Steel (the later two having been among the would-be replacements of the Reign of the Supermen saga) began their own series' with Supergirl's being the most successful due to Peter David's writing. Superboy's series was more experimental, with many homages to Jack Kirby, but it was overall, a great book.
For several months, Superman continued on trying to regain his powers, but in May of 1997, D.C. published Superman Vol. 2 #123, in which Superman gains new electric-based powers and gets a wholly new costume. No, I don't mean he gains the same powers but they're somehow electrical, and I don't mean a costume change like the ones we've been seeing lately where they're "modernized" variations of his costume; I mean a wholly new costume.
Predictably enough, this change lasted an entire year, during which time, they actually made it so this Superman split into two, thus reviving the old "Superman Red & Blue" concept from a 1963 imaginary story. The two eventually merged, and expelled all their powers into some menace, with Superman reappearing with his classic powers intact, for the 1998 prestige format book Superman Forever. The subsequent arc involved Superman being sent into different time periods where they could do homages to comics of different eras (the best of which was Simonson & Bogdanove's ode to the Golden Age Superman) which was a harbinger of things to come in the '00s.
This was all due to a fiendish plot by a villain called Dominous and he soon manipulated Superman in trying to destroy the world's armaments. I don't remember that story too well, except for the fact that it paid off the plot line that the Kryptonite Superman gave Batman had been stolen and replaced with a fake.
After that, the Superman books just seemed to meander. There was a three-part prestige format miniseries called The Doomsday Wars which I had fun picking up as they came out, but it was clear that Superman's books had grown stale--and not in the way your typical pseudo-intellectual jackass would have you believe (it may not have helped that in September of 1999, there was a one-month arc called One Man JLA but it didn't gain much publicity).
In December of 1999, Eddie Berganza took over as editor with Jeph Loeb, Mark Schultz, Mark Millar, Stuart Immomen and Joe Kelly took over as writers. The stories had more "bite" to them, and they weren't connected. Also, the books took on more of a variety of artistic styles, especially after Ed McGuinness took over the art chores on the Superman series.
I would say that while there may have, indeed, been a jump in quality on the books, D.C. that this more-or-less marked the end of my era of Superman. I 'm not saying that as a snob telling people that this take on the character was wrong. Far from it, it was an improvement, but it was still the turning point that begat the Superman of the '00s.
Now, certainly, the stories of 1986-1999 were stun in canon with the Superman comics that came out within a couple of years of Berganza's takeover of D.C. right? Yes, but it didn't take long to circumvent the direction of those books with Return to Krypton, which established that Krypton had actually been more like the Silver Age version. This was incredibly controversial and a year later, D.C. had backpedaled. Once again, the cold, forbidding Krypton of Byrne's miniseries was revealed to be the true form of the dead planet.
In September of 2003, D.C. Comics began publishing a 12-issue limited season, known as Birthright. This was another retelling of Superman's origin, but unlike a four-issue miniseries called A Superman For All Seasons, which retold the existing origin from another point of view; Birthright changed much of Superman's backstory, including the culture and nomenclature of Krypton, Clark's years between his life in Smallville and when he became Superman and a Daily Planet reporter, his first public feats as Superman, and to a lesser extent, Clark's personality.
What's strange about this reboot is that it didn't follow a story like Crisis on Infinite Earths or Zero Hour. It was published, and according to some sources, not intended to be canon. However, by Superman/Batman #8, published May, 2004 (months before Birthright came to an end), it had apparently been adopted as the official backstory, as the nomenclature of Krypton matched what we saw in this issue and the issues that followed, which was the reintroduction of the classic Supergirl.
Now, as I alluded to earlier, talking about the history of Supergirl in the "From Crisis to Crisis" era would take a whole hour, so I'm generally going to avoid talking about her here and save it for another entry. But long (long, long… LONG) story short, the original Supergirl, who was Superman's cousin from Krypton had died in Crisis on Infinite Earths and then eliminated from the continuity all together. A couple of years later, they introduced a new Supergirl who was an artificial life form and had very different powers. She was very popular in comics in the mid '90s, but I'm not sure what happened to her. The aforementioned Superman/Batman #8 introduced a version of the character who was more like the original. Oh… and Power Girl was introduced in the mid-'70s as the Earth-2 equivalent of the character, and after Crisis on Infinite Earths, they established that she was really from Atlantis. They later changed her back.
Anyway, back to Superman, Birthright constitutes another "death" of the '90s Superman. By this point, they were turning their back on established facts left and right. Superboy, the clone introduced during Reign of the Supermen was actually the clone of Superman and a mysterious "donor." Eventually, the donor was revealed to be a minor villain known as Paul Westfield, however, when Geoff Johns took over Teen Titans, he overrode that to establish that Lex Luthor was the "donor."
In a way, this makes sense dramatically as far more people would be familiar with Luthor than Westfield, but it was still such a dramatic disregard of the established backstory.
Meanwhile, I'd mentioned Power Girl earlier. In a 2005 miniseries published on the eve of Infinite Crisis, it was revealed that the character was, indeed, the "Supergirl" of Earth-2, just like in pre-Crisis history. Yet, if there were no parallel Earths, how was that even possible?
As an example in another line of comics, a change in Batman's history was that Jason Todd had been revived by Rah's al Guhl years earlier. There was also a Nightwing miniseries (in which Superman appeared in one issue) recounting his evolution from Robin to Nightwing, which contradicted things established in earlier versions of the story.
If this was happening with Superman and Batman, I wonder what was happening to other superheroes. I'm not really sure, but in any case, an explanation came in the form of Infinite Crisis. As the title may suggest, it's a space & time story that altered the status of the entire D.C. Comics Universe by reinstating the multiverse and setting the stage for further revisions in characters' backstories. Infinite Crisis revealed that Superboy Prime, a character who had appeared during Crisis on Infinite Earths twenty years earlier, and who entered a parallel dimension with the Superman of Earth-2, had been punching the walls of reality which lead to these continuity glitches.
Now, Infinite Crisis lead to yet another reboot for Superman, and other superheroes. The new version of Superman first appeared in Superman #650 (depending on how you look at it, they either re-retitled The Adventures of Superman so that it was just Superman again, or they bumped Superman up to that issue, but either way, they'd cancelled the other book, and had cancelled Superman: the Man of Steel years earlier, leaving Superman with two books: Superman and Action Comics) in which he's suffered the loss of his powers following the events of Infinite Crisis. Clearly, the nomenclature of Krypton was different again (owing much to the Superman films of the '70s/'80s and their psuedo-sequel Superman Returns) and other changes to the backstory which seemed to imply, for instance, that he grew up as Superboy, or that his first meeting with Batman was on a yacht, both of which are similar to stories from the silver and bronze age of Superman.
2009 was a rather lousy year for Superman. Not only had Warners' planned sequel to Superman Returns failed to materialize, Superman would not be appearing in his own titles anymore. Action Comics would go to his adopted son, now known as Nightwing (oh, incidentally, the name Nightwing was originally a Kryptonian thing Dick Grayson had become Batman following Bruce Wayne's "death" in Final Crisis but he's alive again so never mind) who had adventures in the Bottled City of Kandor. I've never read any of the issues and cannot comment on them.
Meanwhile, Superman was taken over by Mon-El, a Legion of Super Heroes member with most of Superman's powers, but whose weakness was lead and who had been wrongly imprisoned in the Phantom Zone. I think. Anyway, they didn't even make him the "new" Superman or give the impression that it could be Superman (as in Reign of the Supermen), he was still just Mon-El and he was the new main character of Superman. This, to me, was one of the most asinine moves in comic book history. The character's popularity may have gone downhill and the stories may have been great; but having a comic called Superman when the main character is some other guy is just, I don't know, false advertising.
During this year, Superman went to a new planet to oversee the creation of a new Krypton-like planet. I'm afraid I don't even know how to describe it. I only bought one issue later on, and the idea just simply didn't appeal to me. I may read it one day. It may indeed be a great story. But I think the main problem here is that they had taken the character away from his surroundings to do, basically, a full-on space opera type story, and I'm not sure I wouldn't have objected to it as a shorter story in a six-issue miniseries, but it was its own series outside of the regular titles which were taken over by other characters.
The most disturbing thing is that after twelve issues, they apparently couldn't resolve the story and had to wrap it up in a miniseries called Superman: War of the Supermen in 2010. This was so indicative what what was wrong with superhero comics at the time. Everything centered around big events and crossovers, then publishing a new four-issue miniseries that would be easy enough for the collectable market to pick up.
The follow-up to all of this was an arc called Grounded which I'll talk about one day, but at this point, I'm far too tired. Suffice it to say, I had problems with the concept, but while it wasn't any more severe than the above transgressions, it's the classic case of a creative team who thinks they're turning a corner, but just ended back at square one.
Coinciding with this were Superman of Earth One which I've talked about in an earlier entry, and Action Comics #900 which was the straw that broke the camel's back as far as I was concerned. Superman: Earth One wasn't without its flaws, but it gave us a slightly updated version of his costume and had a certain verve that made it fun without being hammy. Action Comics #900's "The Incident?" Let's just say that to some fans "the American way," may sound a tad jingoistic; but while it's one thing to phase it out of the slogan, it's another thing to simply pooh pooh it.
In a sense, Infinite Crisis had brought back the pre-Crisis Superman with some post-Crisis mollifications. Minor supporting characters from pre-and-post Crisis reappeared almost obligatorily and, in perhaps one of the strangest ideas, Gary Frank began drawing Superman with an unmistakable likeness to Christopher Reeve. This despite many fans' clamoring for a reboot after the disappointing Superman Returns which similarly attempted to tie itself to the earlier films.
It wasn't until 2009 that fans got an actual origin story for this Superman, but by this time, it was clear that we'd had a new demarkation. The era I grew up with was now a thing of the past, and I didn't really know how to feel about it. I wasn't buying the comics much, because they seemed even more obsessed with publicity stunts and experimentation than the '90s stuff I grew up with.
I'm not saying that any version of the character--in or out of comics--is inherently better or worse than the other (well, except Superman Returns, that's worse), but that the character is constantly evolving, whether you like it or not. And I happened to grow up when a lot of sweeping changes were occurring, so I don't feel it's such a strange thing, and I don't think that the fact that a given story is or isn't in canon anymore doesn't mean D.C. has forsaken or disrespected it, which may indeed be the basis for another entry.
Every time people get on the subject of a superhero film, or any other movie based on a comic book, it seems like someone will always claim that "comic book nerds" don't matter to the film studios.
Now, that may seem like common sense. After-all, a single comic book is lucky to sell 100,000 and who cares what some fat, sweaty guy who plays Dungeons & Dragons thinks, right? But are the tastes of people who read comics and weigh in on them on the internet that different from those of everyone else?
Besides, for something so "nerdy," it seems like there's an awful lot of people who play poser to it. After-all, don't graphic novels that have been on bookshelves long enough eventually turn a pretty decent run?
In 1989, Warner Bros. released Batman which was a dream come true for Batman fans who had been reading him starting in the 1970s, when his adventures took on a more gloomy tone, and the deeds of his enemies became more heinous. Oh, it took many liberties with the stories, but at the time, many fans felt it was just great to see a movie like this, which became the biggest movie of the year in the United States.
1992 saw the inevitable sequel, but some fans weren't happy. They could no longer overlook Batman's willingness to kill, and the monstrous look of the Penguin, so different from the comics. There were script problems from day one as well. And yet, many other fans thought it was terrific, however, many parents had taken their kids to see it not realizing that there were elements of the film that children would find scary and depressing. It was only the third-biggest movie of the year in America.
To remedy this, Warner Bros. released Batman Forever, which replaced the gloomy German-expression inspired look of the first two with a more exciting music-video like action flick. The villains were as comedic as in the 1960s Batman TV show--which, mind you, was a comedy in the vain of Get Smart and fans were divided over the inclusion of Robin. Consensus among fans was that the movie was a major disappointment.
Warner Bros. laughed all the way to the bank, however, as it became even more successful than Batman Returns (it was the second biggest film of the year) and continued on with Batman & Robin which was one of the most universally-decried films of the last twenty years. While it opened fairly strong, the film was ultimately considered a disappointment, if not a flop. While a low-budget Spawn movie did respectable, if unremarkable, business at the box office, and the Men in Black movie was an enormous hit, but it seemed that Batman's days of box office supremacy were over as the film came in 12th in the domestic box office.
Had Warner Bros. learned their lesson? Before we had a chance to find out, three years went by before 20th Century Fox released X-Men. Now, this is a strange case because the idea of the team as being feared and hated by ordinary humans was kept, as for a lot of the drama of the comics. It also featured Patrick Stewart as Professor X, who had been WizardMagazine's choice for the role since their first fantasy cast in 1994. Inevitably, there were characters who were altered quite a bit to support the story, and the costumes were pretty much unrecognizable.
The film did well, but was nowhere near what the first three Batman films had been. A year later, Warner Bros had put Superman back on the small screen in the form of Smallville, which covered his high school years, wherein he slowly learned to use his powers and deal with the typical problems of a teenager in Kansas. The show was a success, but with his costume nowhere to be seen, it was almost more like an urban fantasy (or, well, rural fantasy) version of the character as X-Men had been more of a straightforward sci-fi/adventure film in the vain of Star Trek.
Fans' opinions on each of these projects was divided.
That may have held true of Columbia's 2002 blockbuster Spider-Man, but with its box office earnings, it just didn't seem to matter. While there were still small changes to the mythos (the most talked about of which was Spider-Man's webs coming from his actual wrists instead of gizmos placed on them), his costume was much as it had been in the comics, with the main difference being in texture, and the idea of a teenager with coming-of-age problems and who fought crime because he had failed to prevent the killing of his uncle when he had the chance remained.
There were fans who nitpicked the changes as minor as they were. There were also those who felt it wasn't the best film it could be in general. But for the most part, it was considered a blessing from fans.
In the meantime, Smallville kept going strong, while a sort-of Batman spin-off Birds of Prey only lasted one season with many viewers complaining that it was confusing. Welcome to our world.
The show made a brief allusion to Smallville (suggesting that in this universe, Superman was far younger than Batman and even Batgirl) but never crossed-over. Birds of Prey had many similarities to Smallville--a modern rock soundtrack, an attractive cast, no costumes for the heroes except in flashbacks) but predictably had a much different atmosphere and premise.
While the series was cancelled after just one season, the show runners were given the opportunity to reshoot the final episode, which showed that they at-least cared what viewers thought as far as it went.
During the next two years, X2 (why they couldn't call this otherwise fine film X-Men 2 is beyond me) and Spider-Man 2 did great business at the box office, each about as faithful as their predecessor. On the other hand, Daredevil was a mediocre hit, and The Punisher more-or-less broke even, while The Incredible Hulk was basically a high-profile flop. All of these films were fairly faithful. It may not have helped that the independent comic-based League of Extraordinary Gentlemen--a tepid film that really would have been lame even for the '90s--was also something of a flop in the domestic box office.
However, none of these films did quite as bad as Catwoman, starring Halle Berry in the title role. I cannot comment on this film in that I haven't seen it, but in addition to terrible reviews, there didn't appear to be any fidelity to the source material. They changed her secret identity, and I'm under the impression she had cat-powers. I'm also under the impression, she's a straight-up hero (if maybe an anti-hero) as opposed to the burglar with a heart of gold as seen in the comics and cartoons.
Oh shit, almost forgot, here's the Spider-Man 2 trailer.
Despite what Catwoman implied, however, Warner Bros. had been listening to Bat-fans. The next year Batman Begins was released. Fans had been clamoring for a "Year One" type film since almost immediately after the release of Batman & Robin. The film not only returned Batman to the darkness of the past (where he'd been in the comics all along), but also stayed somewhat closer to the source material. The film made Joe Chill the killer of Bruce's parents as he had been in the comics, and used the idea that it was a mob-hit made to look like a robbery--a product, ironically enough, of the '50s comics. We also saw Bruce training with Rah's al Guhl, a major character in the comics and in the animated series, but who had never appeared in live-action. The film even ended with a tease for the Joker, that was straight out of Batman: Year One.
That's not to say the film never tarried from the source material. They still had a black, armored costume and the love-interest was an original character; but compared to Batman & Robin, not only was this film practically a work of utter genius, it was also practically verbatim what was in the comics.
And yet, while the film faired mostly well with critics, some felt it was tedious and that too much attention was devoted to things like the creation of Batman's gadgets. In box office figures, the film did well, but didn't quite restore Batman to his early '90s glory days. What I will say is that the film had a certain feel to it like it was faithful to the comics without trying to rest on the laurels of being based on them. This sort-of takes the X-Men formula to a higher level. It's its own movie, and I really think that it was the greatest superhero film of all up to that point, though Spider-Man 2 and Superman: the Movie are strong contenders as well.
The same year, a Fantastic Four movie hit the screen. It was reasonably faithful, with the predictable watering-down of the main villain. It just… sucked. But it wasn't exactly a flop.
By this point, it's obvious that filmmakers and studios saw the value in fidelity to the source material as well as seeking the opinions of the base. But does that mean they started giving a rat's ass about what fans think?
Well, I think we've gone long enough without defining the word "fan." A fan doesn't necessarily mean someone who's at the comic book store every Wednesday
X-Men: The Last Stand or whatever the third film stepped away from treating the series as straight sci-fi/adventure and went with something with more of a superhero feel, even if the costumes were, for the most part, what they had been in the earlier films. It still took liberties with the characters--Cyclops' death being a case-in-point--but it was also just incredibly cheesy. That was the conciseness among fans, though the film did well at the box office.
But that summer came the most divisive film in superhero history.
Superman Returns is a movie I cannot describe in objective terms, because it just pissed me off that royally. I'll try: it was a broad-strokes sequel to the Christopher Reeve film (according to its press, it followed the first two but ignored the later two) and the idea was that Superman left for five years because some scientist discovered evidence that Krypton might not have blown up. Right off the bat, this premise is contrived at best, and self-serving on his part at worst. But anyway, he returns to find that Lois had a son and has a boyfriend. Lo and behold, he discovers that he's the child's true father. Oh, and there's some bullshit about how Lex tried to use the crystals from the Fortress of Solitude to… um… turn North America into that so people would pay to live there?
This offensive, nonsensical gibberish brought in $200 million at the U.S. box office with an additional $191 million overseas. It garnered a 77% on Rotten Tomatoes as well. These numbers aren't that bad, but when you look at the $270 million budget (whether or not that includes prior attempts to create a Superman film) and the aim of critical prestige, it really wasn't that big a deal. Yet, many fans love it.
Why?
Well, because: it said it was faithful. How did it manage that? Well, the film went into pre-production soon after the deaths of Marlon Brando and Christopher Reeve, the stars of 1978's Superman: the Movie which began the age of blockbuster superhero films. It was produced by Alexander and Ilya Salkind, the later of whom was a big fan. Warner Bros. distributed and largely financed it, but it was basically a Salkind production, so the corporate era really began with Batman.
That's why it's easy to say that blaring the John Williams music enough, finding a guy that resembles Christopher Reeve enough, and quoting enough lines from that classic of classics was "faithful" even if the plot was out-of-character shit. At the time, Superman: the Movie was considered more-or-less the granddaddy of superhero films, despite some infidelities and important reboots and events in the comics since it came out. Yet, there was a divide between "comic book fans" and "Donner fans," in the years leading up to Man of Steel. And I hold Superman Returns director Bryan Singer--who had masterfully helmed the first two X-Men films--as the prime suspect.
Now, take another look at the box office figures and critical response. Does this sound worthy of a sequel? I mean, it's more-or-less what Batman Begins took in, albeit on a much larger budget. Bear in mind also that Batman's comics have also sold more in general, with some major exceptions, and that Batman's prior films were more recent and more profitable than Superman's, even adjusting for inflation (Superman IV was an unmitigated disaster at the box office, and III was a modest hit) and Bats had done better in TV animation and far better in video games--in fact, Superman's rep in the world of video games was considered terrible.
However, Superman did still have a feather in his cap, which was that he had always been successful in live-action TV. The Adventures of Superman was a nugget of the golden age of television proving there was life before Reeve, Superboy was a cult favorite, Lois & Clark was a respectable prime-time hit for ABC, and Smallville was still going strong when Superman Returns came out. Plus, the first two Christopher Reeve films had been huge hits, as long ago as they were released, and the 1992 Death of Superman arc, and its sequel Reign of the Supermen (I'm trying to explain it in terms a studio board member would understand) were big-sellers, with the death issue itself selling about three million copies.
Meanwhile, many fans felt Superman Returns was a great accomplishment and embodied everything they'd wanted in a Superman film--especially after years of rumors and leaks of a very unfaithful film in the late '90s and a slight improvement in the early '00s--but many others, including myself, flatly didn't. Some like me were offended by the scenario. There would be no way to follow it up without making Superman a deadbeat dad at-least at the beginning of the movie. Others felt the original films were too old anyway, and hadn't aged as well as some of their contemporaries. I could see where that was coming from, but I feel that if the Star Wars films could have prequels, Superman could have sequels if they loosely adapted more recent stories.
I'm not sure, but I think D.C. was trying to test the waters when they released Superman: Doomsday, the first in a line of animated films based directly on stories from the comics, and with no ties to any other animated or live-action projects. I really hated Superman: Doomsday, but the next one--Justice League: New Frontier--was a gem, and one day, I'll review them in greater detail; but today, I'm here to talk about theatrical releases.
2007 was not a great year for superhero films. While in the U.S. box office, Spider-Man 3 reigned supreme, Ghost Rider and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer barely covered costs. Movies based on non-superhero comics were also coming into the fray. A CG-animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film aimed low with a $34 million budget, but hit its mark with $54 million domestic. 300 was a surprise hit and marked Zack Snyder's entry into the arena of comic book adaptations. But it was Michael Bay's Transfomers, which we can call a comic book adaptation because the first fiction for the characters was the Marvel comics, was a tremendous hit.
Back to Spider-Man 3, though: it adapted the symbiote costume saga and the advent of Venom with a reasonable amount of fidelity… but the role of Eddie Brock was miswritten and miscast. Bryce Dallas Howard was good as Gwen Stacy, but the role of the character was unlike in the comics and they seemed to be using her for every moment they needed a female of childbearing age who wasn't Mary Jane. The Sandman story was good, and he made for the perfect foe for Spider-Man in the living costume; but while the story of him being Uncle Ben's true killer was almost like a retroactive Batman-esque "have the villain kill the parents" moment. But more importantly, the symbiote isn't well set up or explained, the scene where "dark spidey" goes nuts in a coffee shop is beyond lame, and the special effects were just a little behind the times.
In other words, fans generally acknowledged that it was faithful enough, but it still sucked.
The following year, however, superhero films turned a page.
When that trailer hit… we knew a new era had begun.
The first production of Marvel Studios, Iron Man was, to many people, the ultimate "comic book movie." Not only did the costume look a lot like in the comic books of the time, but the film was faithful almost to a fault. When Tony first escaped from the camp, he wore the original clunky armor that many fans never thought they'd see on the big screen. Practically every supporting character from the comics appeared in one form or another. And most importantly, it ended with a post-credits scene in which Nicky Fury, played by Samuel L. Jackson, telling Tony that they're "forming a team."
Later that year, Tony Stark appeared again The Incredible Hulk, a film that was marketed as a reboot to the 2003 disappointment that was Hulk, and yet, seems to almost take up where the last film left off (Banner is in Brazil) and don't devote much time to the origin, however they do provide a new origin in a brief flashback and explain that it was part of an experiment to replicate the super soldier serum from World War II. Also, there was a new cast, which sold the idea that it was a reboot, but to moviegoers unimpressed by the first film or unfamiliar with the Marvel Studios plan, it wasn't a big deal. This film didn't really do much better than its predecessor, and the big problem remained that the CG Hulk wasn't convincing enough. By that point, however, Iron Man--a superhero who was largely unknown outside of comics and video games--had made his mark, even if the hero who had been Marvel's biggest hero in the late '70s/early '80s (unless you count the Star Wars characters) was clearly not the draw he used to be.
By the middle of July, though, the disappointment of the Hulk movie didn't matter. Batman Begins had built up a following on DVD, and critics were raving about the performance of Heath Ledger, who had died since the film wrapped up shooting. Fans' early reactions to stills from the film was a bit tepid in some cases, as the Joker bore scant resemblance to the comics and there was division over the decision to simply title it The Dark Knight; but by the time the film was on the way to theaters, nobody could hide their curiosity.
The Dark Knight quickly became one of the biggest films of all time, with critical response through the roof and Oscar buzz (and an eventual win) for Ledger. It was the biggest movie of the year, and until Avatar won out, the entire decade.
While the plot of The Dark Knight is not without its influence from the comics, nor is it something that couldn't happen in the books (except, arguably, the ending) it wasn't a direct adaptation. Fans can debate whether the Joker was ultimately more similar to the comics or less than the Jack Nicholson version, and the inclusion of the Wayne Foundations (which owed itself to the comics of the early '70s) was probably neat for some fans but lost on others. One of the main differences between Superman & Batman vs. most of the Marvel stable, is that these two heroes have been in several influential films and TV shows, and rebooted several times in the comics; while the Marvel bunch has seldom been in live-action films of note (the '70s Hulk TV show is a major exception) and the comics were rarely rebooted, notwithstanding Ultimate Marvel. Even the animated series' tend to be more-or-less direct adaptations of certain stories, while D.C. animation has tended to add its own creations into the mix (compare Justice League Unlimited and Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes).
2008 marked a new era because it was obvious that a couple of very different superhero films could come out and be the top two films of the year. It also founded the idea that Marvel's films (20th Century Fox's had a more playful, colorful style while Warner Bros.' films based on D.C. heroes tended to try for more of a "realistic" style. Which is "better" has been the subject of bitter debate among fans, and it's these two films that have set the discussion.
There was also a Punisher reboot that year… but I never saw it and don't care.
The following year, 20th Century Fox released X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which leaked early, and garnered negative press there from. Despite being Fox's most faithful X-Men film to date, it was not well-regarded, but Fox soldiered in the years to come and the box office returns were fair.
Less commercially successful was Watchmen, an adaptation of the most acclaimed miniseries-cum-graphic novel of all time. The film took some liberties, mostly with the ending and the costumes. In my humble opinion, some of the redesigned costumes were improvements and if anything, some of the revisionist history was probably confusing to less-informed moviegoers (e.g. Nixon still being president in 1985). In my humble opinion, the film was very faithful, but it seemed like a lot of fans were upset about what changes were made, and incredibly, some fans even criticized the more incidental moments (the old man and kid at the comic book shop) which is to say that this is simply one of those films where the stereotype of overzealous fans nitpicking minor changes was demonstrable.
Was this a case of a movie studio and filmmaker not listening to fans or fans expecting something not in the cards? Bear in mind that until after the film came out, Watchmen was a completely self-contained story that took place outside of the D.C. Universe and had no prequel, sequel or spin-off of any kind.
That same year, films like G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra, Star Trek and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen were based on franchises targeted to the same audience as superhero films. Again, the Transformers and the G.I. Joe characters' first fiction originated in comics, while Star Trek was very influential in comic book/superhero circles, with actors from the various Trek series' appearing regularly at conventions. For what its worth, many fans felt Transformers had been an embarrassment and did not like what they were seeing with its sequel or the G.I. Joe movie. Even Star Trek was quite controversial because of some feeling that they shouldn't reboot the beloved space saga.
There was also a film called Avatar that became the biggest film ever. But it wasn't based on anything, so we don't need to talk about it.
Meanwhile, a sequel to Superman Returns had been scheduled for 2009, but nothing seemed to be happening. Superman Returns action figures with a Man of Steel logo appeared on the shelves of Target, and the presumptive name of the sequel was indeed Man of Steel, but not one frame of footage appeared to have been filmed. Had the movie been cancelled?
Many fans sure wanted it to be cancelled, but again, many didn't. However it was increasingly obvious that those who did want a reboot tended to be either non-fans, or fans of comics beginning in 1986, following Crisis on Infinite Earths and the reboot miniseries Man of Steel;while those who favored the earlier "pre-Crisis" comics or the Christopher Reeve films wanted a sequel. If Warner Bros. was indeed listening, it had a choice to make, and it looks like they did as early as April 22.
Perhaps this quote from Jeff Robinov in a 2008 interview with the Wall Street Journal sheds some light on this subject: "we're going to try to go dark to the extent that the characters will allow it." In that interview, he said they had been disappointed in Superman Returns and that they'd planned to "reintroduce" the character, although it wasn't set in stone. Still: to that point, there had been little, if anything, to suggest that a reboot was in the offering.
Moving on to 2010, Iron Man 2 hit theaters. By this time, fans were used to sequels that improved upon the first outing: X2, Spider-Man 2, The Dark Knight, and in some people's opinion, Superman II and Batman Returns. This time, however, there was a disconnect. Had Iron Man 2 been a faithful film that managed to excite and tell a great story? Or did it get bogged down with in-jokes and meandering plot threads? Most importantly, was it getting people excited about the upcoming Avengers film, or did the setup get in the way of a good story?
At this point, the later seems to be the more common opinion, though at the time, the excitement was still bubbling for the big crossover.
Iron Man 2 was the only big superhero film of 2010, though Warners put out a film about the western D.C. Comics character Jonah Hex, which faired very poorly. Iron Man 2 was the third biggest film of the year showing that he was still going strong. In my humble opinion, the film may have some rather huge flaws, but it was certainly the type of film many fans had been hoping for. They just should have put more effort into creating an honestly-good film instead of a celebrity pajama party.
By this point, a reboot had been announced, not of Superman, but of Spider-Man, whose massive success at the box office and fidelity to source material had been an inspiration to Hollywood for nearly a decade. It seemed odd, since Spider-Man 3 had done well financially, and even the internal politics (director Sam Raimi's falling out with Columbia/Sony and star Tobey Maguire's leaving apparently out of loyalty) didn't seem like the series needed a reboot. But the decision had been made.
The next year saw the release of four mainstream superhero films, all trying to be at-least somewhat faithful. Thor was the first one out of the gate. While the film was mostly popular and got good enough ratings, influential critic Roger Ebert gave the film a scathing critique. Ebert's no snob by the way. For my money, the film was okay, but nothing special. My knowledge of early Thor comics is limited and my knowledge of later Thor comics is nonexistent, so all I will say is that originally he had a secret identity in Don Blake, a handicapped doctor whose cane turned into the hammer of Thor and he turned into the deity; yet, this is not covered in the film, although there's a brief mention of someone named Don Blake.
X-Men: First Class served as proof that Fox was trying to get a little more faithful to source material, but they were still off and had no choice but to be off because of how their "universe" was structured. The film had elements of a '60s spy thriller and even managed to incorporate a real-life event (the Cuban Missile Crisis) into the narrative. It had its flaws, but I actually recommend it as something that tried to be as faithful as it could be, mostly using unfamiliar characters, with new actors as the younger Charles Xavier and Magneto, both of whom will return in Days of Future Past along with their older counterparts.
But the biggest disappointment of the year was Warner's D.C. adaptation Green Lantern which I'm honestly afraid to talk about. I said something about it being a mediocre film and someone excoriated me as this fanboy who just wants everything to be 100% like the comics. Then, about a year later, I said it was fairly generic, but that I didn't think it was any worse than Iron Man 2 or Thor and said I was just a D.C. fanboy who had no objectivity.
Anyway, I didn't see much in the way of infidelity given my narrow familiarity with Green Lantern. From what most people said, he was too cocky and irresponsible, which was inconsistent with Hal Jordan's personality. My problem is that it was just generic and didn't have much going for it, with a character who should have been interesting visually. There's also too much emphasis on the love story and not enough on what could have been a fascinating look at this intergalactic authority. For a better film, check out the animated Green Lantern: First Flight.
Now, at some point, D.C. seemed to hope that Green Lantern would become their hero that just suddenly gained a new popularity like Iron Man, and be their third--or even second--most popular superhero. Yet, it just was not to be. The movie does serve as food for thought, however: if this had the Marvel logo on at the beginning and tied in with another superhero, would it have done better?
Thankfully, the final superhero movie of that summer was awesome and faithful to the comics. Captain America: the First Avenger followed the title hero from his origin as a young private who volunteers for an army experiment to grow bigger, stronger, faster, etc. to his seeming demise in the frigid sea with the film ending in modern times as we get a preview of the Avengers film after the credits.
There are scenes taken virtually verbatim from Ultimate Origins and yet, the film feels fresh, almost like Marvel's stab at an Indiana Jones type of adventure. The cast is incredible and while the story isn't gobsmackingly original, it is a thrilling adventure and ode to the most important period in superhero history.
The following year was something of the year of the superheroes. The Avengers was the biggest movie of the year. No, it's not 100% faithful to the comic book. In order for that to be the case, Cap would have to appear either toward the end, or not at all. Plus, you'd have to swap out Hawkeye and Black Widow for Ant/Giant Man and Wasp. But for all the razzle-dazzle, references to comics, the fact that it had basically the same villain as in The Avengers #1 49 years earlier, and that a plethora of other films lead up to it, it's pretty damn faithful if you ask me.
Not only that, but it was produced by a comic book company that had become a movie company. That's the key: Marvel had been producing the Iron Man films, and all other films that lead up to this one. There's not much to talk about as far as the plot goes, but whatever.
Later that summer, the Spider-Man reboot came into fruition. This time, the backstory of Peter's mother and father had more to do with it and Gwen Stacey (the love-interest in late '60s/early '70s comics) was written much as she had been in the comics, rather than the catch-all female of Spider-Man 3. Spider-Man's web-shooters returned, rather than having given Peter the power to spin webs on his own--one of the few controversial liberties taken with the Raimi films--and the costume was changed to something still recognizable, but in my opinion, cheesier. I'm glad to see they've essentially returned to the classic costume in the upcoming film.
While I think The Amazing Spider-Man was ultimately a better film than its predecessor, it isn't such a vast improvement that it warranted making a reboot just ten years after the original. It is only slightly more serious and slightly darker. Both versions depend on Peter and Ben having a heated argument before Ben is killed to ratchet up the guilt, and while the idea that Peter goes on a manhunt to find the killer which is never resolved is an interesting twist, it just never seemed like this reboot was born out of anything but inside baseball.
Incidentally, Sony's other top franchise (I hate that word) returned that year, surprisingly out-earning Spidey with Skyfall, the third film to feature Daniel Craig as James Bond. Many people were confused about the timeline with respect to his initial outing, Casino Royale (it took place when Bond was in training, but it was still the Judi Dench version of M, whose hiring was a major hurdle for Bond in Goldeneye because he had to… *gasp*… take orders from a woman), but Skyfall actually seemed to be having fun with the idea that there's no solid timeline for Bond.
I don't think we can look forward to that kind of artsy-fartsy approach with Spider-Man, but time will tell. In the meantime, it did well at the box office, but was only the seventh biggest film (the first Spidey to not be #1 or 2) in the yearly box office and came in well under $300 million, unlike the others.
Then, of course, came The Dark Knight Rises: the third in what's known as the Dark Knight Trilogy. Where the first movie was quite faithful and the second one was something that could happen in a Batman comic, this one throws it out the window, catching up with Bruce long after he's hung up the cape after the events of the previous film. He returns (with a flying Batmobile) to do battle with Bane. Yes, the part where Bane snaps his back is derived from Knightfall, but the rest of the film is devoid of resemblance to the comics. I won't spoil it, but let's just say there's a reason they've introduced a new Batman to join Superman in his upcoming film, despite the first teaser for the flick being shown along with The Dark Knight Rises.
It may sound like I'm saying that TDKR was written without fans in mind, but by this point, a veritable religion had grown around these films, and Warners had put the man behind them in charge of kickstarting their oldest and debatably next-most-popular superhero.
There were nods to the comics, and ultimately, it played like a high-concept Elseworlds graphic novel. I think what we've learned here is that with the two oldest and greatest superheroes, they've been storied, adapted, rebooted and merchandised so much over the years that there's no way any movie could please the bulk of the fan base and not be controversial.
That will take us to 2013's Man of Steel, but first the biggest movie of that year was, once again, an Iron Man film. It seemed inevitable that Iron Man 3 would be the biggest superhero film of the year and that it would face more competition from the sequels to The Hunger Games and The Hobbit than Superman might have to offer, especially coming off of The Avengers. There were continuity nods, but it was actually a little more divergent from its source material. In fact, I'm not terribly familiar with the Mandarin, but it seemed to me like they completely bastardized him.
But I don't care. The focus of this article was always to talk about Man of Steel and I've defended it as a film. Right now, what I will say is this: many fans loved Superman Returns. Many, including myself, hated it. Opinion from casual fans may have swayed more in favor of Superman Returns, but against it in the eyes of fans of the action genre. For better or worse, though, most seemed to be basing their opinion on the nods to the Christopher Reeve films and the lack of violence than anything else.
Again, though, when a Superman reboot was announced, it was joined with the half-hearted promise of it being "dark," whatever that meant. If you ask me, many fans, casual fans, posers, and people who only liked Superman because of the kitschier elements of yesteryear were pissed and seemed to assume the worst. If they saw him in an unhappy scene, he was being "emo," and it was a dark sign of the times that he wasn't smiling. If he was taking charge and fighting the bad guys, he was "cocky," and causing to much destruction. And the killing of Zod? Superman doesn't kill, right?
Generally no, but he did kill General Zod in an incredibly important story from 1988, and in the years to come, his remorse got the better of him, which is hinted at here, but where they go with it remains to be seen.
The film was considerably more successful than Superman Returns but not competitive with Iron Man 3. Checking boxofficemojo.com today, I saw that it was now only the fifth biggest film of the year, having been overtaken by the animated feature Frozen. I didn't see that coming and thought that if anything, The Hobbit would have been its competition (the high frame rate of that film seemed to distract from the box office) but it didn't matter.
This movie was the product of listening to fans. But as I said above, these two heroes who have been around since the great depression and been part of our culture through thirteen presidents, several wars, countless technical innovations and had been seen in almost innumerable radio dramas, animation, serials, TV shows and movies. Batman has made over $3 billion at the box office, while Superman has made one billion, and has a grand total of 24 seasons worth of live action television. It's almost becoming impossible to please half the fanbase for either of these characters.
Make no mistake: Warners has been listening. It's just that fans can have bad ideas, or give incredibly mixed signals. And if it seems odd that the last two Superman films have been greeted with a strange amount of controversy, well, wonder no more.
Oh. And Thor: the Dark World and The Wolverine were both pretty faithful from what I could see, but I could be wrong, and they did okay financially.
Disclaimer: in the past, I've had a blog focused on my artwork. This is not such a blog, as I've more-or-less given up on that, and have decided to focus on this blog. No artwork is mine unless explicitly stated, and upon finding information about photographers, I will include that.
Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to the inaugural installment of my brand new comic book blog. The two or three of you who've read my blog on my own website might be wondering why I didn't post more often, and the reason is that I really didn't have much direction. I also tried to start a podcast, but it just wasn't coming together. This time, I have a more concrete idea: to share my thoughts on comic books and, to a lesser extent, movies and TV shows, especially ones based on comics. And what better way to start than with the most important character in the history of comics? Yes, this is a Superman-centric comic book blog. If you don't like that... just go. That being the case, I am going to talk about the most divisive thing to happen to Superman in... well, two years. Seriously, fellow fans, don't we have the most broken base in all of fandom? Well, in any case, I'm here to talk about why I loved Man of Steel, and why I--as with many fans, but I can only speak for myself--have been so emotional about it. Long story short, I feel like many of us fans had a hand in making it. Oh, we weren't on the set, rolling gaffer tape or lighting the actors; but I feel that without us, Warners would have either made a terrible film as a sequel to Superman Returns... or no film at all. Before I begin, though, I'd just like to say that I know some people are going to be annoyed, or even insulted, by my sounding like I'm trying to read peoples' minds. Yes, I admit it's condescending. But I also think it's important to show that I have an understanding of where I think people are coming from, and to be honest that I think that a lot of old-time fans simply aren't being fair. Admittedly, many of the people who do like MoS are the irritating "highbrows" (note: we're using TV Tropes terminology here) and have an attitude about everything before 1986 (the year of a particularly significant reboot in the comics) just sucks, with the possible exception of things from the Golden Age because the early stories had more of an edge to them.
Truth, Justice and All That Stuff... In 2004, Warner Bros announced that Bryan Singer, hot off the success of the first two X-Men movies, would be throwing his hat into a long list of directors who had been involved in making a Superman film. Tim Burton, McG, Brett Ratner and even Oliver Stone had all been courted to helm a new Superman film while writers such as Cary Bates, Kevin Smith, J.J. Abrams and others had written screenplays which have since leaked all over the internet. Long story short, it went from a sequel to the Christopher Reeve films (possibly starring Gerard Christopher of Superboy fame) to a Batman rip-off starring Nicholas Cage loosely based on the death & return saga from the comics (and with unfathomable alterations to the costume) to a reboot that was trying too hard to be The Phantom Menace and The Matrix all rolled into one, though not without the Superman magic.
That magic was what fandom expected more and more as the making of Superman Returns got under way. Singer was constantly talking about how much he loved the first film at a time when its influence was being felt thanks to Smallville and the Spider-Man films. Unknown Brandon Routh was cast in the leading role based on his resemblance to Christopher Reeve, who had passed away around the time the project began. My excitement reached a pitch when it was announced that it would follow the first two films, although I felt it was a little cheap to ignore the third-and-fourth films even if they were so unpopular. Also, as we would learn, it would be in broad strokes and in comic book time. But anyway, the first two X-Men films were great and DC's other tentpole Batman Begins was awesome, so this would be great, right?
When I first saw the image above, the John Williams Superman theme started playing, but then the trumpet section fell out of breath. Oh, it wasn't any less faithful than Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man costume. All the elements were basically there. But just look at them. The S is too small, the red is too dark and muted, the neck-line looks too hoighty-toighty, the boots are just ugly, and I don't know what's going on with the belt and the trunks. It looks more like a speedo, and while I couldn't see it in this image, how could they take the S off the back of the cape (which makes him look less generic) and yet put it on his belt buckle like a prize from a box of cereal?
But anyway, what's important is the story, right? After-all, aren't you tired of superhero films that are all action and no plot? It was going to focus on the romance, which after the earlier Superman films, the first two Spider-Man films and even Daredevil... was one of those things that isn't original, but people talk about it like it is. In a nutshell, this was the premise of Superman Returns: Superman catches wind that Krypton might not have blown up. He travels there just to check it out, and returns to Earth after five years have passed and without him, life on Earth... is pretty much what it was before. Seriously, the promotion for the film promised they'd explore a world without Superman. But since we DO live on a world without Superman, what's the point? 9/11 happened? There's war? Yup, things are pretty much the same except for Lois who has moved on with a son and a fiancé and is angry enough with him to write an opinion piece about how the world doesn't need Superman. After-all, it's not like he saved her from a helicopter accident, being killed in the aftermath of an attack on the San Andres Fault, and a terror attack on the Eiffel Tower. So why the ingratitude? Well, he left without saying goodbye. Here's the thing: I really don't know how to feel about that. After-all, him leaving and not telling her (because it would be "too painful," he being such a noble hero) is a dick move, but to be fair, did it ever cross her mind that he was in some sort of danger from a possible secret mission in space? Whatever, throughout the course of the film, we have to sympathize with Superman because the only woman he ever loved for some reason, has moved on to find a guy who seems nice enough, and while that goes unresolved, we also learn he's the real father of Lois' son. THIS is our Superman, folks: this is the "oh, thank God they didn't turn him into an anti-hero or he'd be a bad role-model," we've been waiting for. Someone to say, "if you had a kid you didn't know about, it's okay, Superman made the same mistake," and, "if something's too painful for you on an emotional level, it's not worth doing." Now, to this day, fans are trying to defend the film and they always say, "look, Superman made that big speech at the end, so he's totally going to watch over Jason." Ignoring the rumored script for the sequel (which REALLY doesn't help their position), all Superman did was make a speech about how he plans to watch over Jason... which is what he's supposed to do for everyone. Really, that's as specific as it gets, and unless the next film started immediately after this manipulative scene ended (highly unlikely), it would by definition make him a deadbeat dad, even if the predictable ending of the two of them ending up as a couple raising Jason did eventually take place. Oh, and I almost forgot: there was some story in the movie about how Lex was going to use Superman's crystals to cover the con... you know, it's really too stupid. So Now What? It's hard to describe how broken the base was after Superman Returns. In a more convenient world, that film with the undesirable ending would have been the "darker and edgier" one, so Hollywood could roll up its sleeves and make a film that was so vibrant and uplifting that fans would flock to see it. Sadly, since Singer was at-least trying to make a film that was, at once, joyous and intellectual and where we're supposed to think of Superman as not especially noble, but a Christ-like figure; it was hard to explain to people that this film pissed me--and I'm not alone--off because they had portrayed him in a way many fans found offensive. The typical Singer-Puppet accused me of wanting a film with nothing but action. I wasn't alone, however Warner Bros did not seem to be happy with the box office figures either. The film was budgeted at a staggering $270 million, and while this figure may have included earlier incarnations of the project, the fact was that a worldwide gross of under $400 million, with just over $200 million coming from the U.S. wherein it was one of the slowest films to reach that all-important figure (the distributor gets a smaller share of ticket sales with each passing week) it was a disappointment. Now, to follow what I'm about to say, I am asking for a conceit: that film studios DO look at what fans have to say. Yes, they are going to make changes to the source material to make it more commercial, and yes, different fans are going to have different things to say about it; but it's clear that after a certain Bat-bomb in 1997, movie studios--least of all, Warner Bros--cannot just simply say, "eff the fans, we know what we're doing," and while there will never be a perfect translation of any comic book--especially with Superman and Batman who have been rebooted so many times in the comics alone and had many influential outings on TV and in earlier films--if enough fans can agree on a certain sentiment, it will be heard and considered. This was our opportunity as a fandom to say, "look, Warner Bros., this didn't go as well as you'd hoped, did it? Now, what you're gonna do is go back to the drawing board, and give us a new Superman. If you do, we will give you some dinero. If not, you'll have squandered the most important fictional character of the 20th century." Unfortunately, while they seemed to have gotten the memo by August of 2008 (the summer of The Dark Knight and Iron Man), with Warners CEO Jeff Robinov saying, "we're going to try to go dark to the extent that the characters allow it," which is a relatively generic thing to say, but at that very moment, the internet was abuzz about a "dark" Superman reboot. Whatever "dark" meant. To make a long story short, the problem with Superman Returns was somewhat misdiagnosed. To me, and I don't think I'm alone, the problem wasn't that it wasn't "dark" enough, but that in a manner of speaking, it was "too dark." But I also know that some people didn't see it that way. One thing we could all agree on was that Superman Returns could have at-least used some more action. Sadly, another lesson people took from it was that was that the earlier films were somewhat "dated," and that while I think we can all agree that quoting so many lines from Superman: the Movie was overwrought, I for one don't think it was that approach that failed Superman Returns, however, trying that approach again would not be easy to market. Simply put: the feeling was that they had to start over. Enter Nolan After a year-and-a-half of speculation, it was announced that Christopher Nolan would produce the new Superman film and it wasn't long before David Goyer and Josh Nolan were announced as the writers. For many fans, this was the shot in the arm we'd been waiting for, but for the unfortunate onlookers, it was another reason to fear a "dark reboot." Why? Because Chris Nolan's Batman films were seen as the preeminent "dark" superhero movies, and because... let's face it... most people who talk about films on the internet seem to be under the impression that a given filmmaker is some sort of "tone machine," and that he would only be capable of making a film that was identical to The Dark Knight, which despite its acclaim, was easily as "dark" as Tim Burton's Batman films, and when he was on the project, we know he had a lot of terrible ideas up his sleeve. Sadly, people neglected to see that the reason The Dark Knight was so successful wasn't just that it was "dark" but because it was a great suspense thriller. Nope. He brought whiskey onto the playground, and while that's great for Batman, it's wrong to do it with Superman. Let the posturing begin. Meanwhile, in fandom, we Superman fans began asking ourselves some intense questions. What is tone? Why is it so important? Is it more important that the film isn't "dark," or that the character himself isn't? How do you even define or quantify "dark?" Couldn't we use the D-word to describe some key storylines? Like Doomsday and Reign of the Supermen? Or Kingdom Come? Or even some episodes of The Adventures of Superman like "Czar of the Underworld," or, "Mystery in Wax?"
Soon enough, announcements were being made: Nolan had a shortlist of directors including Tony Scott, Matt Reeves, Jonathan Liebesman, Duncan Jones and his eventual choice, Zack Snyder. I really wasn't happy at first, because Snyder had said something about him not being able to see Superman in a "modern context," but then I thought, well, Bruce Timm has said a lot worse, and the animated series he'd directed was still great, so what's really important is what's on screen.
I held my breath as I waited for more announcements, and after a while, they were coming at us thick and fast... and a bunch of self-styled purists, eager to stake their claim their title as the greatest of the elite, couldn't keep their mouths shut.
The Bitch Is Back
First off, Zack Snyder wasn't exactly the most popular director in Hollywood. His adaptations of Dawn of the Dead and 300 were successful enough, but his Watchmen movie (based on one of the most revered miniseries' in comic book history) was controversial to say the least, and his magnum opus Sucker Punch was universally decried. Still, the casting of Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent was inspired, and since Henry Cavill was a fan-favorite, you'd think he'd be praised, right?
Nope. Suddenly, people were complaining about a British actor playing an American Icon. Yup. How dare they cast a man from another country as a man from another planet? And it only got worse from there. Amy Adams as Lois Lane? Too perky. Russell Crowe as Jor-El? I don't know what their beef was. Lawrence Fishburne as Perry White? Yes, people decried him because he was black. Now I'm not going to accuse them of racism, but I do think that when we're talking about a respected actor of the same body-type, it's okay if his skin is a little darker. Then, there was the announcement that Michael Shannon was the main villain: one General Zod. Welp, the same people who had complained about how this wasn't similar enough to the earlier films were now complaining that the villain who was mainly important for being the enemy in Superman II was the villain here instead of someone who hadn't graced the silver screen before (e.g. Brainiac, Metallo, Parasite, Bizarro, Darkseid, Doomsday, etc.) and many of those who had clamored for a reboot were right with them.
Admission: when I first saw this costume, I didn't notice the bracelets or other details, and I couldn't tell whether or not he was wearing the trunks. Furthermore, it looked like he was wearing a black belt, which I'd have been fine with. In a sense, this costume told us a lot... without telling us much at all. In the meantime, the comics had rebooted the characters (or were about to, I'm a little fuzzy on the dates) and a new costume had surfaced for the character with a more aggressive attitude and certain political bent. I'm actually NOT going to get into the "New 52" here, except to say that I really hope DC stops calling it that.
Anyway, I could walk you through every little development along the road, but the point here is that it seemed like no matter what they did, people were convinced that this was going to be some sort of "grim & gritty" attempt to "make Superman dark," and that this movie about a man from another planet who can fly and see through walls would be "too realistic."
So What's So Great About Man of Steel?
Basically... the same thing that was great about the rest of the Superman canon. If I were to sell it to a longtime fan, I'd say that yes, it's the familiar origin, but with more depth and better special effects than anything since, or even including, Superman: the Movie. Henry Cavill was the greatest Superman since Christopher Reeve, that Amy Adams is the best Lois since Teri Hatcher, that Russell Crowe is the greatest Jor-El ever, and even the changes to the mythos were interesting. To non-fans (not haters, but just casual viewers, eff the haters), I'd say that it's a science fiction epic about first contact, and what someone might do if they found out there's an alien... and there's a lot of pulse-pounding action.
This movie may have a darker tone, but it's nothing like some people made it out to be. It's not "gritty" except for the scenes of young Clark being bullied (which were somewhat intense) and for everything people were worried about, Clark is not an anti-hero, except in the classical sense of lacking some of the traits of a hero. Some might say they're turning him more into Spider-Man, plagued with self-doubt, but all that means is that they're using outside influence to find a new light on something that was already there.
Finally, as I go through the various complaints with this film, I want to say that while I'd have been up for a nostalgic, bolder-than-a-rainbow Superman film that tried to be more like the Iron Man films or whatever people were expecting, it is its own take. Any exploit of any long-running superhero, will only ever be someone's own take. The two youngsters who created the character are long gone, and their original Superman was tamed within a few years. Ironically, the people who hate this film for trying to go for any "dark" or "modern" trends are forgetting that the early stories were "dark" and that the Superman they tend to favor IS a modernization. The unflappable, all-powerful Superman of the '40s and '50s was a product of the atomic age. In my heart, I love those stories, but I also know that the character's past can only be preserved with an eye on the future, as that's what they did back then.
For that matter, where would the great Christopher Reeve have been if his films weren't in an arms race of special effects with the Star Wars pictures?
Anyway, the best way to defend Man of Steel is to start at the end and work our way back, so let's do this.
Superman snaps Zod's neck... killing him! How can you possibly defend that!?!
In 1988, writer/artist John Byrne had wrapped up his two year run on the character (which began with a reboot called, yes, Man of Steel) in a story entitled The Supergirl Saga. Explaining the ins-and-outs of that story would be beyond the scope but it ends with a story in which Superman kills General Zod and two other Kryptonian villains.
Now, by itself, this might not have been enough to justify it. After-all, the events leading up to the killing of Zod, and the nature of the killing itself, weren't especially similar to this three-part story. And yet, because what took place in this story was an execution, rather than a snap-judgement with people in immediate danger like in the film itself, the film version is even more justified. Also, as in the comics, Superman shows great remorse, so at the very least, this isn't just, "¡Hasta la vista... baby!" this is a moment he regrets, despite it being necessary to protect other lives. Even that might be somewhat impeachable as the writers could have put him in some completely different scenario, however this wasn't just any comic, but a very pivotal one, whose effects spawned even more important events in what's known as the "From Crisis to Crisis" era.
Despite what some utterly ignorant people have claimed, this was not an attempt to make Superman "hip" by killing a bad guy, but a direct reference to a monumental moment in the character's history.
What about the destruction of Metropolis during the fight?
Well, for one thing, it's not like Superman flew into these buildings just for shit and giggles, General Zod was punching him into them. But at the risk of pointing at bad behavior to justify more bad behavior, this is such an obvious double-standard. This sort of thing happens in an action movie. Buildings get destroyed, and you just gotta say, "welp, I hope it was Sunday so everyone was at home praying."
Then there's the charge that there weren't enough scenes of Superman saving people, there's really two ways to address this. On a pragmatic level, Superman is in mortal combat with the most powerful supervillain in the universe. He has to keep fighting back, nobody else can. Hopefully, emergency response and the military are getting people the help they need. On a more thematic level, well, there's a shot of Superman saving a military pilot from a helicopter. This is to remind us all that he's not just there to punch bad guys, and while you may not feel it was enough, don't tell me that they didn't even attempt to show that side of him.
Why didn't Martha...
If we're to take some peoples' complaints at face value, they seem to want a scene where Martha and Clark rebuild the Kent home brick by brick. To be fair, it shouldn't be a task for Clark, and I'll have to review the DVD sometime to see if they did, indeed, not fix it while Clark was trying to figure out a new vocation.
And yes, it's contrived that he became a "stringer" at a bigtime newspaper without any apparent journalistic education or experience. I'm not sure about Smallville, but as far as I know, the only live-action version that had a really convincing account of how Clark ended up at the Daily Planet was Lois & Clark.
The Codex thing was hard to follow, and so was the hologram of Jor-El.
I agree, the Codex was--as McGuffins go--hard to follow. I also think it would have been better if the Jor-El hologram had an effect on it to remind us that it is a hologram, and I think they could have done so without being too derivative of the earlier films. It does get confusing. I won't argue.
That said, if you can't agree that Lois Lane--played by Amy Adams--running around a space ship with a ray gun is awesome, you can take the purist attitude and stick it in your ear! Incidentally, I do wish they'd dyed her hair black, or at-least a darker shade of red, but whatever, she had red hair in the comics during the '90s...
Superman should have sought Jor-El's advice instead of going to some random priest.
First, for all we know, he's an exceptional priest. Second, he wasn't consulting him for some sort of strategy, he wanted moral advice. He wasn't sure what to do, and while the priest didn't seem all that helpful ("what does your gut tell you?") I'm not really sure that he didn't consult Jor-El or that he would have told him to do something he didn't already do.
I'll recheck when I get a chance to watch the DVD, but let's face it: I doubt that Jor-El--who ends up being re-killed--would have had all the answers anyway.
The costume... how could they change something so iconic?
I agree that this is an incredibly iconic costume.
And yet, with each film, costume designers veer further away from that design with Batman. And yet, in almost all of these designs, and yet, they're still Batman...
What the alterations have done is make us look at what makes Batman who he is. What are the basics of the costume that make it so identifiable? When we can distill that, we understand what makes the costume so "iconic" and so it is with Superman.
Between the New 52, Man of Steel, Injustice and even Superman: Earth One, what does not get changed reminds us of what makes the character an "icon" that's so well-known. Even though the "underwear on the outside" is a part of the classic Batman design, it was jettisoned in the movies, and eventually Warners realized they had to do so with Superman as well. The important elements are still there: the red cape, boots and S atop a blue bodysuit.
And if you want to say it's too dark, fine, I won't argue, but it's not the first time.
They fundamentally changed the relationship between Lois & Clark
And that is true. However, this is another example of "my Superman vs your Superman." By the time I started reading the comics with even a mild regularity, she knew Superman and Clark Kent were one-in-the-same. Of course, it didn't start out that way. In fact, he only revealed his true identity after they were engaged. However, I think that because so many people found it a bridge too far that this ace reporter couldn't tell that her own co-worker was really this powerful figure she had a crush on, I think they made the right decision. It just all kind-of adds up.
Everything about Jonathan Kent was wrong.
Well... that's a tough one. In Superman: the Movie, they make a meal out of how, "all these powers... and I couldn't even save him." Yes, Jonathan's callousness about the other kids on the bus was out of character. They'd basically changed him from someone trying to inspire altruism to someone fearful of what will happen if they find out about Clark. However, it's not completely without precedent. I will agree that the death scene itself is somewhat contrived and they could have filmed it better.
As for those of you who think that the wonderful thing about Superman is that he doesn't have a particular motivation, but just does good for goodness' sake, well, I won't argue with you, but it was a major bone of contention with some other fans (especially on imdb) that there was no such motivating factor, so my question is, is it really so wrong?
Okay, at one point, he trashes a guy's truck for bullying him.
Well, first, he wasn't just bullying him, he was also harassing a waitress. But also, this isn't the first time Superman's gotten petty revenge on a bully. Heck, a bully character was introduced--Steve Lombard (who appears in the movie, but doesn't bully Clark, ironically enough)--to allow Clark to pull pranks on him, which you can see in the animated films Superman: Unbound and All-Star Superman or read most comics from the '70s.
Plus, at the end of Superman II, he basically assaults a guy in a diner who had beaten in up back when he didn't have his powers. Here, he just broke his truck. "What if there was a kid inside taking a nap..." oh, go to Hell.
There's a part where he has a beard and trying to look all scary...
No, he's not trying to look scary. Listen, in most comic versions, there's a time when Superman doesn't have his costume, and solves some problem in plain clothes. That's what we've got here. Yes, he'll have his red & blue costume, but in the meantime, here he is before he gets it. He's still saving people from a horrible disaster.
Krypton...
Yes, they changed Krypton drastically from what it had been in the Christopher Reeve movies. But do you really want a history lesson on the planet Krypton? At every point before the films came out, Krypton was supposed to resemble this futuristic wonder world like in an old Flash Gordon serial and it stayed that way even after the film came out. In the 1986 reboot, it was reimagined as this cold, anticeptic world from which this film took some cues, but it was still a far cry from the ice planet with magic crystals of the Christopher Reeve movies. That never entered the comics until the 2006 reboot, which tried to incorporate elements of the Christopher Reeve movies.
Every version of Krypton has been different, and this was just another example. What works and what doesn't is subjective, but the important thing is for it to appear technologically advanced enough to support a rocket that can travel a few galaxies away.
Finally, the tone of the film is just too dark...
...and yet, isn't there a certain amount of subjectivity? Look: there is more to Superman than the blazing trumpets of John Williams and the million dollar smile of Christopher Reeve, and while those films could hardly be considered dark (except for maaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyybe the fourth one, relatively speaking) they weren't a two-hour long pep rally either.
What Superman Returns taught me, in all its manipulative glory, is that tone is neither that important nor easy to pin down. You can have a sociopathic killer as your protagonist in a light-hearted movie (The Spy Who Loved Me) and a more compassionate, basically good protagonist in a dark and scary movie (Halloween). The tone of a horror movie can actually be pretty light (Jaws) and an incredibly dark and sinister film can have a hopeful message (Terminator). Superman fandom cannot continue to make everything about light and dark, especially when the character is becoming "the other guy" to Batman whose made a fortune for Warner Bros off of "darker" material, even though his credentials as an anti-hero are a bit inflated.
Some fans (young and old) love to put their hands on their hips and say, "today, everything has to be so dark and gloomy just to make a buck, whereas in the days of Christopher Reeve, a delightful and whimsical film could still make everyone happy and that's the way things ought to be," but the Marvel Studios films and for that matter, J.J. Abrams Star Trek films are acorns of the Christopher Reeve Superman films that haven't fallen too far from the tree. Meanwhile, films like Avatar and The Hunger Games may be somewhat "dark" but that's not exactly the first word that comes to mind, and that's about where I'd put this movie.
As for the idea that the film is "too realistic," not only is it still basically a sci-fi/fantasy film at heart, but this is the first time anyone has ever criticized realism in films. No really, find another example of that.
The idea they're trying to convey is that they've tried too hard to make Man of Steel out to be a clone of Chris Nolan's Batman films, but they're way off. People keep talking about them making him a "vigilante" but he had no choice but to fight of Zod's forces, and in the meantime, he never deals with street crime, which makes a vigilante a vigilante: a tag you'd have an easier time trying to pin on George Reeves in the '50s.
However, both Man of Steel and The Dark Knight do have something in common, which is that in each case, the hero kills a major villain. But again, both of them mirror the issue I talked about earlier, which is to say, in both cases, it was done with extreme reluctance and there were major consequences for the hero.
Man of Steel is not without its problems. There are times when Snyder's direction isn't tight enough, and there are times when important elements are almost lost (such as when Clark overhears some soldiers talking about the Canadian outpost he ends up traveling to) but for the shit storm the film had to put up with, it's still a great film.
It's a lot more entertaining than you may have been lead to believe. I'm tired of all of these artificial notions of what Superman can and can't be. The Superman of this film isn't a drunk or a womanizer or a cold-blooded killer. This Superman may have had a face-lift, but he's steeped in the traditions of the character, even if the last Superman-outing made Warner Bros. a little gun shy about laying on the homages.
In a sense, Infinite Crisis had brought back the pre-Crisis Superman with some post-Crisis mollifications. Minor supporting characters from pre-and-post Crisis reappeared almost obligatorily and, in perhaps one of the strangest ideas, Gary Frank began drawing Superman with an unmistakable likeness to Christopher Reeve. This despite many fans' clamoring for a reboot after the disappointing Superman Returns which similarly attempted to tie itself to the earlier films.
