Do Film Makers Ruin the Films, or is it the Fans?

 

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve really written anything substantial; mostly I’ve been wandering aimlessly around on G+ Marvel, DC Comics, and Transformers pages, so I might as well get back to basics.

So, fandom in general…what is it?  Well it’s an avid interest which can sometimes boarder on obsession on a single genre, character, or body of work.  DC Comics fandom exists in very broad strokes and can encompass hundreds or thousands of characters, comics, novels, movies, cartoons, television shows and video games.  Those that ascribe to this fandom have a vast and sometime oddly specific encyclopedia of knowledge concerning the body of work that encompasses DC Comics properties.

That can of course be narrowed down.  Maybe you are an avid Batman fan and thus might as well have a Master’s degree in all things concerning the Dark Knight.

Or perhaps you are a Transformers fan and thus have spent years, or perhaps decades devoting your free time to the property in all its incarnations.

Regardless of your fandom, whether it is to a publisher, property, or character, you have a vested interest in all media related to your fandom, and thus you take it very personally when you see it mistreated by Hollywood.

What sets fans apart from the general audience is simple, passion.  Fans have a passion for the characters, the story, and demand nothing but the best from the studio.  The general audience wants to take their dates on something that will kill two hours without having to resort to actual conversation.  And eat popcorn.  But do we, the fans, shoot ourselves in the proverbial foot when it comes to our expectations.

I’ve personally had the privilege to be on many sides of the spectrum during my professional life.  I’ve been a supervisor, a writer, and artist, an editor, and a fan.  It’s really as a supervisor and an editor, however that I’ve gotten the best perspective of how the whole equation works.  You have to dissociate yourself from the body of work, not only pick at the nuances, but the piece as a whole.  I can tell you if the whole of a story is great and then in the same sentence says “However in chapter 6, paragraph 4, and line 8 you use the word “burrito” as a verb and that can take a reader out of the scene.”  I’ve defended my employees’ actions and decisions before those casting judgement, and then once the situation is over I’ve reprimanded them for making the wrong choices or using poor judgement.  So I tend to analyze and sometimes over analyze a body of work, and I try to do so objectively from all points of view.

Take Transformers: Age of Extinction.  I’ve been with the franchise since 1985 when the toys hit my local K-Mart.  I’ve been with the robots in disguise through thick and thin, and so I had expectations as a fan when I heard the Dinobots were to grace the big screen.  I heard the outcries:  Optimus was too violent, the movie was too Michael Bay, the Dinobots had little to do, there were too many humans, etc.  I shared many of these viewpoints.  I was not pleased that Optimus was so willing to turn his back on humanity.  I was disappointed that no Dinobot got called by name or spoke.  I did feel the Transformers had little screen time.

Then I had to look at it from the general audience point of view.   I read the reviews from the critics, but the film still did amazingly well at the box office.  If it was such a bad movie, why were people throwing their money at it in droves?   Was it because people like bad movies?  Or was it a better movie than we gave it credit for because it didn’t appeal to our sensibilities?

If they made the Transformers movies just for the transformers fans, then they probably wouldn’t make their money back.  Changes had to be made to appeal to a wider audience, ones who weren’t familiar with thirty years of back story, by my count at least 20 independent animated series (counting the Japanese iterations since often story lines differed) and more comics than I care to count right now.  There was no way everyone was going to be satisfied with the end result.

The same thing happened not too long ago with Superman Returns, which was set in the same cinematic universe as the Christopher Reeve Superman films, at least the first two, with the latter two apparently excised from continuity.  The film harkened back to those old films, and avid fans of those films, myself included, loved the movie.  Yes we could pick out problems with it but we were still pretty entrenched in the nostalgia that we could look past it.  Yet the general audience and many of the broader DC Comics fans demanded more.  “Why can’t we see Superman get in a fight with someone?”  In Man of Steel they got their wish, and immediately came the cries “Superman doesn’t kill!  Why did half the city need to be destroyed?!”

Because Zach Snyder looked at the Superman mythos and decided to up the ante.  There was a call for Superman to fight someone, but that kind of fight is going to have an effect on the environment and for the most dynamic fight scene, you need a dynamic environment.  Why did Superman kill?  Because killing Zod fit with the tone of the story.

So looping back around to where this all started…did the movie makers ruin the film, or did the audience ruin it for themselves?  With everything art related, there isn’t a right or wrong answer…it’s all subjective.  Art, beauty, entertainment in general is all in the eye of the beholder.  I can criticize bad movies, but I can also appreciate them.  Batman and Robin was probably one of the worst comic book based movies ever created, and it bombed at the box office, and I hate it, but I can also appreciate it from a certain point of view.  It’s stupid beyond belief but it’s a harmless stupid.  It’s something I can pop in with friends and we can riff on.  I can watch it alone and view it through the same lens that I view the Adam West television series.  If I don’t take it seriously, then it’s not that bad.

Just to clarify, it’s still bad, but in the same way the Adam West series was.

So do I shortchange myself when I expect too much from Hollywood?  Probably.  Should I stop expect the very best product they can make?  Absolutely not.  Yes at the end of the day Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, the Ninja Turtles, and Transformers, these are all very silly concepts but that doesn’t mean they should be done sloppily, but maybe I should curb my criticism a little because before I know it, they will roll out with something else.  Maybe the next iteration will be better, maybe not, but at least we can enjoy the ride.

Thanks for reading.

Transformers: Robots in Disguise 2015 Review-Legion Class Underbite

Again, this is a figure that shows that the RID 2015 line needs to have a "Scout" class, something between Legion and One-Step Changer.  Basically he is just too small for his own good.  I picked this little guy up because, well, I'm like 99% of America and am on a budget, and I wasn't willing to shell out $10 for the One-Step based on it's reported manufacturing flaws.

Now that doesn't mean this is a bad figure.  Not by a long shot.  I honestly thought he was going to be very simplistic but I was pleasantly surprised with how complex he can be.

 

I draw attention to the figure's rear, which of course is where everyone wants to look.  Anyway, in what could have easily been a lazy flip around ended up being a moderately complex action.

Now in a departure from the rest of the line, where in most everyone eventually takes on an Earth vehicle mode, Underbite here offers no excuses or apologies, turning into some kind of Cybertronian tank thing, which honestly looks like it fell out of one of the new Batman games by Rocksteady.

 

Then there is the issue, as I stated above, about scale.  He's only in scale with two characters: Optimus Prime...

                       
                                                                    And Grimlock...

 

So, is he worth it?  Well as always that's completely subjective.  If you are a completest or on a budget, I'd say yes.  He doesn't feel cheap or flimsy and while he may be WILDLY out of scale, he's still a really well put together figure.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

 

The Hero’s Journey: The Path of Sam Witwicky

                First off, I want to say, I do not hate nor do I blame Shia LaBeouf for anything.  People like to rag on him because it’s easy.  He started out a child actor, and as a young adult actor was given roles in movies that weren’t great, but that’s not his fault.  He did his job and, in the context of the end result, did it well.

Yet, we aren’t necessarily talking about him today, at least not directly.  We are talking about a character he brought to life, one Sam Witwicky, probably the most hated and derided character in the Transformers movie franchise.  However, he’s not even that bad of a character.  We have to look at what he represents, how his actions inform where he is at during the stages of his life that we see. 

In Transformers, the first live action endeavor, we meet young Sam, a high school student desperate for two things; 1) a car, and 2) to get with the girl of his dreams Mikaela Banes.  Now looking backwards in time, through the lenses of age, reason, and experience, we can criticize his choices, his actions, and his motivations…but would we really have acted much different if put in his position?  Think about it the target demographic of your average Michael Bay film…its Sam Witwicky.  That is who Michael Bay plays to, and that is the mindset of the average white heterosexual male American teenager.  You want a car that will help you get noticed by the girls.  That’s it.  Your world is hormones and you have no idea what you are doing.  At no point during the film did Sam really take charge of the situation.  He has strong feelings about Bumblebee and insists he be released, but had it not been for the intervention of Lennox and his team, along with the U.S. Secretary of Defense, he would have been overruled and kicked to the curb.  The only reason he was even there to begin with is because he’s had immediate contact with the aliens.  He has no special skills, talents, or information.  The only time he says something that everyone else in the room doesn’t already know is when he points out that Megatron is a huge threat.  They were going to find that out in a few minutes anyway and it never shifts the tone or the weight of the situation.

Essentially Sam is an unwilling participant in his story, his life has been high jacked, and that is a common element on the hero’s journey.  Often the main character will be forced along his quest by a collection of circumstances.  Luke Skywalker initially rejected Obi-Wan’s offer to become a Jedi.  Bilbo Baggins rejected Gandalf’s offer to become Thorin’s resident burglar.  Young Arthur initially scoffs at the notation that he might actually be the King of England.  Yet just like those narratives, there comes a moment where Sam, likely without thinking about it, accepts his place in the story.  Sam, after the incident at the Hoover Dam becomes a delivery man.  His job is to take the cube from point A to point B.  He has to run the ball down field and it is everyone else who heroically fights off the Decepticons to give him a clear path.  That’s not where he takes his place.  No, again that is just Sam following the direction of everyone else, like you do at that age.  You may think you are forging your own path during your teens, but how much of your own life is decided by other people?  Teachers, parents, principals, doctors, friends, parents of friends, your entire life is dictated by committee.  It wasn’t until Optimus offered himself to take on the cube’s immense power and sacrifice himself that Sam made his own decision.  He and he alone, chose to shove the cube into Megatron’s spark, killing him.  This was the Hail Mary throw.  This could have ended disastrously, but it worked.

However that doesn’t mean that Sam has control of his life now.  Quite the opposite, in Revenge of the Fallen (which I’ll talk in more detail about in a later essay), Sam has returned to his tried and true methodology of taking cues from everyone else, and it makes sense given his age.  Sam is going into college, which means he wants to take control of his own life, but he can’t quite get there.  That is very common for that demographic.  Going from high school into college is a transition period that becomes very complicated very quickly.  He continues to defer to those around him and again, he is summoned into the Hero’s Journey.  His life is defined by those around him and he reacts at lot like how many of his contemporaries react.  I think it’s here that people take issue with Shia LaBeouf because he portrayed a character who isn’t really that likeable, but that is typical for that age group.  People aren’t upset because Shia’s a bad actor or plays a bad character, but rather that the character he portrayed is a reflection of that subsection of society.  They are angry because they see themselves in the character.  A result of writing, or lack there-of created a movie that hit a lot of the same notes as the first.  Which is pretty accurate since your freshman year of college often feels like a rehashing of your high school experience.    That doesn’t excuse the production, but it does inform why they did what they did when they did it.

Where the Hero’s Journey really comes full circle is about the middle of the third film.  The beginning of the film featured another transition for the character, going from college to the world of adults and trying to find a job.  Sam is dealing with a lot at this point, he’s complaining that he got a medal from the president and saved the world twice and can’t tell anyone about it.  On one hand he’s feeling entitled because of all that he did, but on the other hand, he really didn’t do that much.  Again, his Hero’s Journey had him essentially run the ball to the goal while everyone else fought the battle.  In the second film, all he really did was plug a new battery into Optimus Prime.  Had it not been for the intervention of Jetfire, Optimus likely would have been killed again during the ensuing battle.  Sam is placing a lot of important emphasis on his past, which is what you do when you are fresh out of college.  You are hung up on what you did, but what employers, what adults, what the world wants to know is “What are you going to do now?”

That question becomes an essential theme for Sam during the movie.  As the world he knows is stripped away from him through the violence of the alien war and the betrayal of former allies, he is left with those around him telling him what to do, or rather, what not to do.  Remember our first two films?  His world was loaded with people telling him what he needed to do, what they needed him to do, but now there is no one telling him to take this here and do that, to plug that in there and restart that.  Now they just look at him and say they’ve got nothing.  Nothing he’s done to this point matters, not anymore.  He now has to ask himself “What are you going to do now?”

This, like I was saying, is where he comes full circle.  He finally has agency in his story, he picks himself up and says “I’m going in and I’m going to save the woman I love.”  Even Epps who has come with him to the edge of the city says it’s a lost cause, but he chooses to push on, and honestly, Shia sells that moment.  That is the end of the kid and the beginning of the man.  This time, people are taking cues from him, following his lead.

I was actually kind of glad that the character was absent from the fourth film, not because I didn’t like him, but rather because it was time for his character to move on.  I don’t think Michael Bay and his team would have been able to really shape the character any further, and Shia was having so many problems at the time I don’t know that he would have been able to devote much energy into continuing Sam’s story even if he wanted to.

Ultimately Sam’s story will always be one of contention because the lens of nostalgia is not a forgiving one.  I don’t know that I would mind if they revisited the Sam character later on down the road, but I would ask that they give him a new story, one where he decides where he goes from now on.

Thank you,

Hulk vs Superman (or) Keep Your Logic out of My Fandom!

So earlier in the week I posted two polls.  One was to the DC Comics fan page, the other to the Marvel Comics fan page, both via Google +.

The polls were pretty straight forward.  I detailed that, ignoring the decades of comic book continuity and factoring in only their current cinematic incarnations, who would win a fight between Man of Steel's Superman and Avengers: Age of Ultron's Hulk.

By the time I stopped counting votes it came out to 663, with 343 for the Hulk and 320 for Superman.  When you are considering internet numbers, that's pretty close, but a definitive win for the Hulk.  Yes, on the DC Page Superman won, and in the Marvel the Hulk won, but the real question is why, when all the votes were taken into account, did the Hulk win?

Is it because the fans believe him to be stronger?  Not necessarily.  Is it a complete lack of understanding of basic physics and biology?  Probably not, most of the folks who voted seemed to have a good grasp on high school level science.

It seems that fans gravitated towards the hero they could identify with more.  Superman has god-like powers, he's from another planet.  Bruce Banner, aka the Hulk, is a home town boy.  He grew up on Earth, he had a mother and father from the same general background as many of the voters.  He has emotional issues like many Americans today.  He has demons we can all relate to.  Very few of us can relate to being shipped away as our home was destroyed, only to land in a location where we found ourselves with fantastic powers but still ostracized by our new communities.  That doesn't happen...that often.

I could wax intellectual about how the characters physical abilities would decide this fight, but I don't know that we've seen the upper end of their powers yet.  In Avengers, Hulk took down a leviathan with one punch, but in Age of Ultron Iron-Man defeated him with a newer armor.  In Man of Steel Superman can fly in space, and destroyed a world engine by himself, but its not known if that's the upper end of his physical abilities, or is he just getting started, but it looks like Superman has more power, pound for pound, than the Hulk...at this time.

So yeah, I guess until writers can get into the head of Superman and find a way to make him relatable, tortured characters are just going to be more popular because they are more relatable to the target audience...us.

Thanks for reading

Why was the Vision able to lift Thor’s Hammer?

I’ve heard the founded argument that, since the Vision is an artificial being, he has no more soul than your average coffee table and therefore is able to lift the hammer.  However that doesn’t quiet check out…

I think in order to riddle this one out, one has to examine what is defined by the term “lift”.  Does it mean, within the context of Odin’s decree, the simple act of raising up from one location to another, or rather is it closer to the terms “wield”, “carry”, or “move”?  Let’s look at the early scene from Avengers: Age of Ultron:  We see various heroic characters attempting to lift the hammer off the table, none are able to do it.  The closest that comes to it is Steve Rogers, who barely budges it.  Why?

The simple answer is “they are not worthy?”  I think it goes into the motivation of moving the hammer.  They were attempting to prove something.  It was, for lack of a better term, a pissing contest.  Banner didn’t engage in the contest because he probably suspected that the frustration from being unable to lift the hammer would cause him to have “an episode”.  Everyone else wanted to prove they were just as cool as Thor.

Let’s rewind just a bit, back to the climax of “Thor”, where in Thor has Loki on the ropes, has knocked him down, and lays his hammer down on Loki’s chest.  What happens?

Loki is unable to move because he’s not worthy to lift the hammer…but then why didn’t his chest cave in?  See, for those of you totally unaware of the biological functions that keep you moving, breathing works by way of expanding and contracting the chest cavity to allow air to pass in and out of the lungs.  If Thor’s hammer is so heavy that only the worthy can lift it, then Loki’s chest should have caved in as the hammer would have sunk to the lowest point, but it didn’t.  Loki was still able to breath, he just wasn’t able to move the hammer out of his way.

Fast forward to the battle on the helicarrier in Avengers:  The Hulk desparately tries to move the hammer, causing him so much strain that he digs his feet into the metal floor.  But the helicarrier still flies.  Why didn’t it instantly go crashing to the ground?  Was the helicarrier worthy to lift the mighty Mjolnir (and you thought I didn’t know the hammer’s name)?  No more than say, an elevator.

Late in the film, Capt. America and Iron-Man briefly quip that an elevator could lift Mjolnir, ergo the elevator must be worthy, but I think they misinterpret what Odin’s motives were when he placed the limitation on the weapon.

He didn’t anyone but the worthy using the hammer, ergo it would not be moved, lifted from its resting spot unless that person was worthy.  It rested on the ground and Thor could not move it.  It rested on Loki’s chest and he could not move it.  It rested on the helicarrier floor and Hulk could not move it.  It rested on a coffee table and 99% of the Avengers could not move it.  If Thor left it there for a million years, it would rest, unable to be moved by any thinking force unless that force was worthy.

But what makes someone worthy?  This should be easy…intent.

What was Thor’s intention to move the hammer early in the film?  He wanted his god-hood back, it was selfish intent.  What would Loki’s intent be to move the hammer?  To stop Thor from stopping him, again a selfish intent.  The Hulk couldn’t move it because he would have caused more damage and killed hundreds of people in his rage…safe to say that’s a selfish intent.  The men of the Avengers can’t move it because, survey says “selfish intent”.  Even Capt. America, probably the most selfless character in all of Marvel wasn’t able to truly move it because his intent to move it was selfish.

So why was Vision able to move it from its resting spot?  It comes down to his intent.  He didn’t want to prove anything, he wasn’t showing off.  His intent is show during that very scene…he was giving it back to its owner.  It was selfless intent in its purest form.  I would wager that if it came to saving lives, the Vision could have used that hammer to stop the threat, because that’s a selfless act.  To put yourself in harm’s way for no other reason than to save someone else is a purely selfless act.

Now, I’ll address two more arguments before I close up shop for this blog:

1)      Mjolnir is biometrically coded to only respond to Thor.

No, this cannot be the case because if it were, Thor would always be able to lift the hammer.  There are times, even after he regains his god-hood, seen in Avengers, where the hammer doesn’t respond to him because he’s at a low, selfish point, making himself unworthy.

2)      The Vision fooled the hammer by mimicking Thor’s “worthiness”.

Again, no, as the Vision would have no motivation for it.  Yes, the Vision by way of J.A.R.V.I.S. would have scans of Thor and know how to biometrically fool advanced computer systems, but why?  It would have taken far less processing power, been far more economical to a soulless machine to say “Thor, your hammer is over there.” than it would have been to mimic Thor on a cellular level just to pick up the hammer.

 

Well, that’s my two cents, for what it’s worth.

Thanks for reading.

Superheroes and Faith

In the recently released trailer for Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, there is a brief clip that features a massive statue of Superman with the words “False God” scrawled across his chest.  Now obviously the character of Superman would never present himself as God, or even “a god”, but it does raise an interesting question; how do you handle faith in a world with superheroes?

First, I want to clear up some definitions:  Faith as defined by Merriam-Webster is “strong belief or trust in someone or something: belief in the existence of God: strong religious feelings or beliefs: a system of religious beliefs.”  The Bible defines faith in Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

Yet in, say superhero films, you “see” the amazing all the time.  You see the things that shouldn’t be possible fly all over the world.  How do you deal with a question of faith in a world that has Thor and Loki and the Hulk, in a world that has the King of Atlantis working alongside a man who can run faster than the speed of sound and the last survivors of alien races?

Just yesterday I saw a meme that featured Captain America, pointed out “Met two gods, still a Christian.”  This drew a line of dialog from the Avengers film; where in Captain America was in pursuit of Thor, Loki, and Iron-Man.  Black Widow states “Might want to sit this one out, those guys are basically gods.” To which the Star Spangled hero replies “There’s only one God, ma’am, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that.”

When that line was spoken in the film, my wife and I fist pumped and laughed, but now thinking about it, it probably shows the most well rounded opinion of the fantastic things going on, and speaks to just how people of that universe approach faith.

Steve Rogers sees Thor and Loki not as they have been perceived by mythology, but for who they are.  They are another race, another species, and not celestial beings.  He treats aliens and their fantastic abilities and powers no different than he would the Tony Stark, because to him, they really aren’t any different.

It’s a problem we see in our own culture.  We see men and women with amazing talents, namely actors and athletes, and we hold them up on high and attribute to them special qualities, and hold them to a higher moral standard.  When they fail to meet our lofty standards we demonize them.

This is paralleled in the trailer for Batman v. Superman.  Clearly society, or at least a group of society, has lifted Superman above the rest, holding him either to a higher moral standard or even deifying him, and when he either refuses or fails to follow that path, they demonize him, decrying him as “a false god.”

But in Man of Steel, Superman never held himself above other people.  In fact, when faced with a difficult choice, he went to a pastor, he sought out a higher authority, he sought out God, he acted on…faith.

Yet, if you notice, the characters that ultimately lead to questions of faith aren’t technically human.  Thor, Loki, and Superman are all aliens.  Now I’ve heard it said that aliens would invalidate faith by proving that we, humans, are not God’s only creation…but if you go back to the Bible, it’s never stated that Earth was the only thing in the cosmos that God created life on.

Let’s take a look at what the Catholic Church as to say.  I go to them because they are considered the ultimate right-wing, ultimate conservative, ultimate nay-sayers and surely they would be the first to stand up and say aliens aren’t possible because they aren’t mentioned in the Bible…

Well, doing a quick Google search on the topic, you find officials with the Catholic Church; all the way to the Pope himself, when faced with the question “Do you think alien life exists?” shrug and say “Yeah, probably.”

While the Catholic Church could be considered the ultimate “creationists” they also admit that creation is a really big thing.  There is a lot to creation that we are discovering every day.  New species, impossible lifeforms are being found all the time, but that doesn’t make the church rip up Bibles, nor does it make them wave their finger saying “that’s just not real.”

Obviously in the universe contained within the films themselves, they are faced with the irrefutable fact of alien life, main characters are aliens after all, but their existence doesn’t immediately discredit God.

In fact, nothing discredits God.  Even the characters who have amazing powers to traverse impossible distances and venture into the dark unknown admit there is something more powerful out there, something they can’t understand.  It’s why they learn, why they study, because they are still amazed by a greater knowledge yet to be discovered.

So is there a place for Christian faith in, say the Marvel or DC movie universes?  There absolutely is, because even when you have a bunch of answers, they only lead to more questions.

Thanks for reading.

Why So Down on Superman?

                I’ve noticed a strong thread in comic book communities that are very pro-Batman, anti-Superman.  Some of this is tongue firmly in cheek good natured ribbing; some of it is down-right hateful.  So I got to thinking, why?  Why are so many people so willing to fly the flag of the Bat and stomp on the S-shield?

I suppose it comes down to a handful of factors:

1)      Superman is easier to pick apart.  Not only is he generally accepted as the first superhero, he is implausibility incarnate.  You can try to science your way around his powers, but when you step back and look at them, they are a ridiculous combination of plot conveniences smashed together and wrapped in blue tights. 

 

Batman, on the other hand, has no powers, and we are psychologically predisposed to relate to him because he’s “human”.  He is stupid rich, has an unlimited supply of improbable technology, a massive underground lair full of the craziest stuff you could put together, but it rolls back to him being human.  We may never be ludicrously wealthy, have a fleet of jet black vehicles and our own personal football stadium to park them in, but we can dream, and just being human we are part of the way there.

 

2)      Batman is the bad-boy.  I’ve heard it said, Batman is the one girls want to date, Superman is who women want to marry.  This stems from Batman’s tortured past and dark persona.  Girls tend to lean towards men they can mold, shape into someone better.  Superman is that better person.  He’s honest, kind, noble, heroic, and never sticks around for praise.  Batman is menacing, brooding, and more likely to beat the crap out of the guy who gooses you in a bar. Superman represents a level of stability that’s appealing to women looking to set down roots but still want the occasional adventure.  Batman, on the other hand, will globe trot at the drop of a hat and his life is constantly popping. 

 

3)      We want to be better than Superman.  Ever noticed how everyone can come up with a thousand ways Batman can beat Superman.  Some folks can rattle them off the top of their head.  Some of these are severely sinister plots that require hours of intense thought.  This stems from our “mortal” insecurity.  We want to think that if push came to shove, we could bring down the Man of Steel because he makes us feel inadequate.  “Because I’m Batman…” isn’t just a clever punchline, it’s a catch all to make us all feel better than Superman.  What makes matters worse, at least for John Q. Human, is that Superman never boasts about his powers.  He’s calm and quietly awesome without effort.  Batman has to “work” for everything.

 

What is kind of sad is when you try to counter the argument of “Batman can beat Superman…” by saying “But Superman can…” “NO, Batman already won.” “Yeah, but if Superman just…” “BATMAN’S AWESOME SUPERMAN SUCKS!!!” (Actual conversation)  Some refuse to believe that Superman could be anything more than Batman’s bitch.  (By the way, hurricane force super breath invalidates like 99% of what Batman can do.)

 

What the whole debate actually boils down to: who is writing the story?  Guys like Frank Miller will always have Batman win because Batman.  Other writers will side with Superman and the fight will be over before it gets started.  Looking at Dawn of Justice trailer, I was thinking

“Do you bleed?  You w…” and Superman blows Batman into the next county with just a quick puff of breath.

But I may just be saying that because I love Superman.

Later!