zslane

I'm sorry, I realize it's just my opinion, but I have a lot of trouble characterizing Tony Stark's reaction to seeing his parents brutally murdered before his eyes, with the guy who did it standing right in front of him, being protected by the man who knew the truth about his parents and kept it from him, as being "batshit insane." IMHO almost anyone in that situation would have reacted that way.
 
I see a clear arc in the development of Tony's character and views to where he is now, which is logical and understandable, as I see a clear arc in Steve's. No question, this incarnation of Tony Stark has major character flaws, which have been with him in one form or another from his first film -- massive ego, self-centered world view, need to control his environment, and more recently a savior complex -- but he's come a long way from where he started. He's fallen more than once, but picked himself back up, which to me is far more heroic than being some paragon of virtue and self-confidence. He genuinely wants to do good, help people, and protect his friends, and is willing to make major sacrifices to do so. From his perspective he's bent over backwards trying to bring Steve Rogers on what he considers the right side, only to keep being rebuffed. His biggest problem is he keeps making decisions for others "for their own good," which torpedoes his efforts.
 
I consider this Tony Stark a hero. Just a flawed one. Which makes for good drama IMHO, YMMV etc.

A government so multi-faceted and complex that it defies such simplistic abstractions.
 
I am from the generation that sits awkwardly between the baby boomers and gen X, and I've watched our culture slowly transform into one in which political awareness and understanding has become reduced to only that which can be conveyed by a sound bite or a Tweet. Clearly it is easier to just yell "Fire!" than it is to educate people how to help keep the building from burning to the ground around them.

Well of course we're being subjective. This should be self evident. Forum posts should not require diclaimers stating, "This is my opinion, a very subjective one which I don't believe holds true for everyone." That is supposed to simply be understood. Imagine how (even more) annoying every single forum post would be if prefaced with that.
 
Opinions are just opinions, no matter how passionately expressed. Are readers really unable to separate conviction from delusion?

Well of course we're being subjective. This should be self evident. Forum posts should not require diclaimers stating, "This is my opinion, a very subjective one which I don't believe holds true for everyone." That is supposed to simply be understood. Imagine how (even more) annoying every single forum post would be if prefaced with that.
 
Opinions are just opinions, no matter how passionately expressed. Are readers really unable to separate conviction from delusion?

Cassandra wins.

Why do they always have kill the villains in the movies? Something about that bothers me, not on some moral level, but just in terms of the sheer wastefulness of it. Part of the superhero tradition is that villains return to cause problems for the heroes over and over again. The MCU should not treat its villains as so disposable.

Why do they always have kill the villains in the movies? Something about that bothers me, not on some moral level, but just in terms of the sheer wastefulness of it. Part of the superhero tradition is that villains return to cause problems for the heroes over and over again. The MCU should not treat its villains as so disposable.

Why do they always have kill the villains in the movies? Something about that bothers me, not on some moral level, but just in terms of the sheer wastefulness of it. Part of the superhero tradition is that villains return to cause problems for the heroes over and over again. The MCU should not treat its villains as so disposable.

Captain America: Civil War was a great movie but it high lights the one great weakness of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  There are no super villains.  In the Comics Zemo would have assembled a group of like minded villains and battled the Avengers.  Instead he turns out to be a mastermind who manipulates the heroes into fighting each other through the power of plot contrivance.  

In that "Cardboard World" fight with Darkseid, the writer(s) contrived the physics of the fight so that the nuclear bomb-level shockwaves that would have resulted from Superman's strikes did not damage Metropolis in a way that jeopardized any civilians. Even the few that you see standing around on the streets and watching never faced any real danger. Had this fight been staged by Snyder, the devastation would have been Michael Bay-ish in scale and the cost in civilian lives nauseating. It always comes down to how you choose to portray the situation, and "realism" is a misguided aesthetic in this case.
 
I guess I would say that any writer who does not know how to create tension and drama from the appearance of limited choices (usually by witholding the "solution" until the climax of the scene/film) shouldn't be given the responsibility of writing for superheroes in general and Superman in particular. "Deep characterization" is a phallacy in the superhero genre, unless you are Alan Moore and you are deliberately trying to unravel it by pulling on one of its most vulnerable threads.
 
There seems to be this naive assumption that every genre is capable of being a vehicle for every kind of storytelling, but the truth is that genre conventions lay down constraints that make that assumption false by nearly every measure.

It is the writer's task to see to it that he always can. Somehow. Remember, the writer is always in control here.
 
In my view, a writer who has decided to tell a story in which the hero can not, and does not, find a solution to that dilemma has perhaps told an interesting story, but he (or she) has not told a Superman story.
 
By way of analogy, The Godfather is a brilliant story, but a lousy romantic comedy.

It is the writer's task to see to it that he always can. Somehow. Remember, the writer is always in control here.
 
In my view, a writer who has decided to tell a story in which the hero can not, and does not, find a solution to that dilemma has perhaps told an interesting story, but he (or she) has not told a Superman story.
 
By way of analogy, The Godfather is a brilliant story, but a lousy romantic comedy.

It is the writer's task to see to it that he always can. Somehow. Remember, the writer is always in control here.
 
In my view, a writer who has decided to tell a story in which the hero can not, and does not, find a solution to that dilemma has perhaps told an interesting story, but he (or she) has not told a Superman story.
 
By way of analogy, The Godfather is a brilliant story, but a lousy romantic comedy.

It is the writer's task to see to it that he always can. Somehow. Remember, the writer is always in control here.
 
In my view, a writer who has decided to tell a story in which the hero can not, and does not, find a solution to that dilemma has perhaps told an interesting story, but he (or she) has not told a Superman story.
 
By way of analogy, The Godfather is a brilliant story, but a lousy romantic comedy.

I'm sure there are folks out there who want Superman to be kind and gentle and pacifistic or something, but that certainly isn't me. There's a difference between being honorable and virtuous and being completely non-violent.
 
Is Superman violent? Of course he is. He fights with the energy output of major nuclear weapons. Will there be collateral damage? Of course. These are superhero/supervillain fights he's getting into. There's going to be a lot of material damage, but comics tradition typically dictates that the cost in human lives is pretty minimal, even if that isn't terribly "realistic".
 
Can Superman get angry? Of course he can. But if that turns him into an angry man, that's different. Usually his anger gets channeled into a grim determination at worst. If he loses control and becomes reckless or hateful, then that's not Superman. Maybe it is Superman under the influence of red kryptonite or Braniac's mind control or something, but it isn't part of his core character.
 
Does Superman kill? Sure, when the writers have lost their way, IMO. Writers who understand and respect the core of his character will always find a way to avoid having him kill an adversary. Full stop. The fact that Supermam has killed before in the comics doesn't mean that killing is a core part (or even an acceptable part) of Superman's character, it only means that someone got it wrong (again, IMO). The same can be said of any film portrayal.
 
Was Superman born with a perfect moral architecture? Of course not. He learned that--or at least the human version of it--from Ma and Pa Kent. But the idea is that by the time he put on the blue supersuit he had integrated all the best features of "being human" and came to embody our ideal selves. Can he make errors in judgment and mistakes in action? Sure, but such moments should be rare, and they should be used merely to give Superman an opportunity to overcome those momentary lapses and return to the righteous path.
 
Should Superman be a light-hearted happy-go-lucky goof? Of course not. By the same token he shouldn't be a brooding, angst-filled figure of self-doubt. There is actually a middle ground that easily walks the line between the two, but I did not see that happening in MoS. I tend to see it in the animated versions of Superman (not all, but most). It's as if WB thinks that the only way to make Superman suitable for adults is to make him into an adult saddled with all the same neuroses as the writers tasked with making him fit the contemporary zeitgeist. Sorry, but I happen to think that is profoundly misguided.
 
The dramatic tension in a Superman story should never be one where the circumstances put him in a crisis situation and we wonder whether or not he will do the right thing, but whether or not he'll be able to do the right thing. His struggle should never be existential or ethical, but practical: Can he (find a way to) defeat Zod without hurting civilians and/or killing him, not will he choose to do so.

I'm sure there are folks out there who want Superman to be kind and gentle and pacifistic or something, but that certainly isn't me. There's a difference between being honorable and virtuous and being completely non-violent.
 
Is Superman violent? Of course he is. He fights with the energy output of major nuclear weapons. Will there be collateral damage? Of course. These are superhero/supervillain fights he's getting into. There's going to be a lot of material damage, but comics tradition typically dictates that the cost in human lives is pretty minimal, even if that isn't terribly "realistic".
 
Can Superman get angry? Of course he can. But if that turns him into an angry man, that's different. Usually his anger gets channeled into a grim determination at worst. If he loses control and becomes reckless or hateful, then that's not Superman. Maybe it is Superman under the influence of red kryptonite or Braniac's mind control or something, but it isn't part of his core character.
 
Does Superman kill? Sure, when the writers have lost their way, IMO. Writers who understand and respect the core of his character will always find a way to avoid having him kill an adversary. Full stop. The fact that Supermam has killed before in the comics doesn't mean that killing is a core part (or even an acceptable part) of Superman's character, it only means that someone got it wrong (again, IMO). The same can be said of any film portrayal.
 
Was Superman born with a perfect moral architecture? Of course not. He learned that--or at least the human version of it--from Ma and Pa Kent. But the idea is that by the time he put on the blue supersuit he had integrated all the best features of "being human" and came to embody our ideal selves. Can he make errors in judgment and mistakes in action? Sure, but such moments should be rare, and they should be used merely to give Superman an opportunity to overcome those momentary lapses and return to the righteous path.
 
Should Superman be a light-hearted happy-go-lucky goof? Of course not. By the same token he shouldn't be a brooding, angst-filled figure of self-doubt. There is actually a middle ground that easily walks the line between the two, but I did not see that happening in MoS. I tend to see it in the animated versions of Superman (not all, but most). It's as if WB thinks that the only way to make Superman suitable for adults is to make him into an adult saddled with all the same neuroses as the writers tasked with making him fit the contemporary zeitgeist. Sorry, but I happen to think that is profoundly misguided.
 
The dramatic tension in a Superman story should never be one where the circumstances put him in a crisis situation and we wonder whether or not he will do the right thing, but whether or not he'll be able to do the right thing. His struggle should never be existential or ethical, but practical: Can he (find a way to) defeat Zod without hurting civilians and/or killing him, not will he choose to do so.

I'm sure there are folks out there who want Superman to be kind and gentle and pacifistic or something, but that certainly isn't me. There's a difference between being honorable and virtuous and being completely non-violent.
 
Is Superman violent? Of course he is. He fights with the energy output of major nuclear weapons. Will there be collateral damage? Of course. These are superhero/supervillain fights he's getting into. There's going to be a lot of material damage, but comics tradition typically dictates that the cost in human lives is pretty minimal, even if that isn't terribly "realistic".
 
Can Superman get angry? Of course he can. But if that turns him into an angry man, that's different. Usually his anger gets channeled into a grim determination at worst. If he loses control and becomes reckless or hateful, then that's not Superman. Maybe it is Superman under the influence of red kryptonite or Braniac's mind control or something, but it isn't part of his core character.
 
Does Superman kill? Sure, when the writers have lost their way, IMO. Writers who understand and respect the core of his character will always find a way to avoid having him kill an adversary. Full stop. The fact that Supermam has killed before in the comics doesn't mean that killing is a core part (or even an acceptable part) of Superman's character, it only means that someone got it wrong (again, IMO). The same can be said of any film portrayal.
 
Was Superman born with a perfect moral architecture? Of course not. He learned that--or at least the human version of it--from Ma and Pa Kent. But the idea is that by the time he put on the blue supersuit he had integrated all the best features of "being human" and came to embody our ideal selves. Can he make errors in judgment and mistakes in action? Sure, but such moments should be rare, and they should be used merely to give Superman an opportunity to overcome those momentary lapses and return to the righteous path.
 
Should Superman be a light-hearted happy-go-lucky goof? Of course not. By the same token he shouldn't be a brooding, angst-filled figure of self-doubt. There is actually a middle ground that easily walks the line between the two, but I did not see that happening in MoS. I tend to see it in the animated versions of Superman (not all, but most). It's as if WB thinks that the only way to make Superman suitable for adults is to make him into an adult saddled with all the same neuroses as the writers tasked with making him fit the contemporary zeitgeist. Sorry, but I happen to think that is profoundly misguided.
 
The dramatic tension in a Superman story should never be one where the circumstances put him in a crisis situation and we wonder whether or not he will do the right thing, but whether or not he'll be able to do the right thing. His struggle should never be existential or ethical, but practical: Can he (find a way to) defeat Zod without hurting civilians and/or killing him, not will he choose to do so.

The only boxed version of Danger International that I know of was its predecessor, Espionage.

It's hard not to think that way. But I really have no idea what it would be like to have every victimized, brutalized, or oppressed population on Earth crying out for my help every moment of every day. It reminds me of that Samaritan story from Astro City. It takes a Christ-like degree of compassion, patience, and indomitable will to do what is asked of heroes like Superman or Samaritan.
 
And I think that's why it is difficult to take a "realistic" approach with these characters. They would quickly implode from the sheer implausibility of their circumstances. I just feel that humanizing a character like Superman (too much) undermines his ability to actually do the job assigned to him.

I agree. Of course, that is not what I was saying. I'm not sure if you just oversimplified my point to draw up a straw man, or if I was being too subtle. In either case, let me clarify. 
The range of human emotions is quite broad. Not all heroes need display every single human emotion. The more noble and virtuous will, by definition, avoid all of the uglier emotions and behaviors. It will simply not be in their nature to succumb to those tendencies (if they have them at all, which is arguable if the subject isn't even human to begin with).
 
I don't subscribe to the notion that if a character does not display the full range of human emotion that they are "shallow". They are just more crisply defined. And when we're talking about a myth-level archetype, it isn't necessary for him/her to be the Everyman that stands in for us all. He (or she) may stand in for all our hopes and dreams (i.e., the wish fulfillment angle), and could be far more valuable as an aspirational paragon than as a metaphor for the human condition.

I agree. Of course, that is not what I was saying. I'm not sure if you just oversimplified my point to draw up a straw man, or if I was being too subtle. In either case, let me clarify. 
The range of human emotions is quite broad. Not all heroes need display every single human emotion. The more noble and virtuous will, by definition, avoid all of the uglier emotions and behaviors. It will simply not be in their nature to succumb to those tendencies (if they have them at all, which is arguable if the subject isn't even human to begin with).
 
I don't subscribe to the notion that if a character does not display the full range of human emotion that they are "shallow". They are just more crisply defined. And when we're talking about a myth-level archetype, it isn't necessary for him/her to be the Everyman that stands in for us all. He (or she) may stand in for all our hopes and dreams (i.e., the wish fulfillment angle), and could be far more valuable as an aspirational paragon than as a metaphor for the human condition.

Dragging superheroes like Superman down to our level is fraught with all kinds of deconstructionist pitfalls. I don't want my Superman to be brooding or pensive or full of self doubt or any of the other neurotic ills that afflict normals humans. I need my Superman to be a steady rock of confidence and a moral compass that always points to true north. That is only ever boring when the story surrounding him is boring.
 
If a publisher wants a Superman character who gets consumed by rage, guilt, jealousy, indecision, or any number of other petty traits we normally associate with "real people", then they should go for it, but they should give him a new name, a new costume, a new origin story, and his own title. Calling him Superman is disingenuous, no matter how strong your legal hold on the IP is.

Dragging superheroes like Superman down to our level is fraught with all kinds of deconstructionist pitfalls. I don't want my Superman to be brooding or pensive or full of self doubt or any of the other neurotic ills that afflict normals humans. I need my Superman to be a steady rock of confidence and a moral compass that always points to true north. That is only ever boring when the story surrounding him is boring.
 
If a publisher wants a Superman character who gets consumed by rage, guilt, jealousy, indecision, or any number of other petty traits we normally associate with "real people", then they should go for it, but they should give him a new name, a new costume, a new origin story, and his own title. Calling him Superman is disingenuous, no matter how strong your legal hold on the IP is.

Dragging superheroes like Superman down to our level is fraught with all kinds of deconstructionist pitfalls. I don't want my Superman to be brooding or pensive or full of self doubt or any of the other neurotic ills that afflict normals humans. I need my Superman to be a steady rock of confidence and a moral compass that always points to true north. That is only ever boring when the story surrounding him is boring.
 
If a publisher wants a Superman character who gets consumed by rage, guilt, jealousy, indecision, or any number of other petty traits we normally associate with "real people", then they should go for it, but they should give him a new name, a new costume, a new origin story, and his own title. Calling him Superman is disingenuous, no matter how strong your legal hold on the IP is.

Dragging superheroes like Superman down to our level is fraught with all kinds of deconstructionist pitfalls. I don't want my Superman to be brooding or pensive or full of self doubt or any of the other neurotic ills that afflict normals humans. I need my Superman to be a steady rock of confidence and a moral compass that always points to true north. That is only ever boring when the story surrounding him is boring.
 
If a publisher wants a Superman character who gets consumed by rage, guilt, jealousy, indecision, or any number of other petty traits we normally associate with "real people", then they should go for it, but they should give him a new name, a new costume, a new origin story, and his own title. Calling him Superman is disingenuous, no matter how strong your legal hold on the IP is.