Well not literally never, but for the past 40 or so years. I was always confused when people shat on Snyder for making people hate Superman, and supposedly making him underperform at the box office. Inflation-adjusted, Man of Steel is the second highest grossing Superman movie (unless you count BVS, then it's second and MOS is third). It was the character's best media performance in nearly forty years.
Superman is a character who has not had any relevance to the greater cultural sphere since the Bronze Age. His first movie was a massive genre-defining success, but the second cratered (while still doing well) and the next three (inc. Supergirl) flat-out bombed and made the character a joke. Lois and Clark and Krypton both did mediocre viewership and got prematurely canceled. Superman and Lois is averaging fewer than a million viewers per episode. His 80s cartoons got killed after one season, Legion after two. He has never had a AAA game to thrust him into the mainstream the way Batman and Spider-Man have had several.
But even all that doesn't compare to two disastrous humiliations of the 2000s. By far the biggest is Superman Returns, which flopped at the box office and had such venomous audience reception that its sequels got canned. The result was that Superman remained a nobody to millennials while Spider-Man, Batman, and the X-Men got iconic well-received film series (and video games) at the same time (even pre-Avengers).
 |
 CRIME Shirt $21.68 |
|
Lesser but still important was the DCAU. While Batman got 109 episodes and 3 movies, Superman got 54. Except he didn't really; after season one, seasons 2 and 3 were made a package show with more Batman shit. Literally 15% of episodes after that point were Batman crossovers (6/41). THEN, the series got canned altogether (not even a movie to finish its story arc) for another Batman spin-off. Batman Beyond alone (52) literally has more episodes than STAS without the Batman crossovers, plus a movie.
The humiliation continued in Justice League. If any millennial or zoomer says they liked DCAU Superman more than Batman they're probably lying. JL/JLU made Superman a perpetual jobber, gave him limited screen time, and made him an idiot who fell for every villain's trap and usually had to be saved by Batman (even alt-universe Batman has to save the world from a moronic evil Superman). THEN they had his archnemeses, Brainiac and Darkseid, being defeated by Flash, Batman, and Luthor. Just to piss on the ashes. On top of all of this, JLU itself had mediocre viewership compared to BTAS or even the Brave and the Bold series that came immediately after it. It was the final nail in the coffin for the character having any relevance to millennials and zoomers.
This just means that Superman has been mishandled since the Bronze Age which every Superman fan already knows
Superman is a sincere character and does not hold up well in an age of sincerity, that's why all his best stuff in the past thirty years has deliberately evoked the silver age
>Superman is a sincere character and does not hold up well in an age of sincerity, that's why all his best stuff in the past thirty years has deliberately evoked the silver age
I don't think this holds up as an excuse. Spider-Man's Mr. Aw Shucks and he's been the most popular superhero ever for decades. I think the problems are:
A. His IP is popularly perceived as boring. The more fun parts of his lore haven't seen much mainstream exposure.
B. He's not Batman.
Spider-Man's also an annoying wiseass that many characters in universe don't like. Different from Mr. Perfect Superman.
Superman is also a wise-ass. Even boy scout Reeve was.
Spider-Man is 100% legitimately sincere. He wants to help people and will immediately sacrifice everything to do that. The success of the Raimi films is another indication; he didn't even quip in those, he was basically a suffering superhero monk.
Superman is the ultimate wiseass.
>e. Spider-Man's Mr. Aw Shucks
Is not legitimately sincere. He's an ironically cutesy nerd. There's a safe distance between the audience and him.
How are Supergirl, Superman 3, Superman 4, Superman Returns and Justice League not sincere?
>Supergirl, Superman 3, Superman 4
Superman 3 is not sincere, they shoved in Richard pryor because he was the comedian of the day
The other two are sincere but they were just shit
>Superman Returns
Absolutely not sincere, I'm convinced that movie was a money laundering operation and a front for Singer and Spacey to frick the closeted homos Routh and Marsden and molest teenage boys in Sydney
>Justice League
Not even gonna bother with that shit
How is BvS and ZSJL not sincere?
You are autistic and moronic and a big part of the problem, you homosexuals blame the world for superman not being more popular and hold to an imaginary version of supes that never existed, your favorite superman is headcanon.
>How is BvS and ZSJL not sincere?
allegories for 9/11 and jésus cristo are the opposite of sincerity
>Superman is a sincere character and does not hold up well in an age of sincerity, that's why all his best stuff in the past thirty years has deliberately evoked the silver age
Here are some basic hard facts for Superman as of 2017:
>of his nine films, five are flops (Supergirl, Superman 3, Superman 4, Superman Returns, Justice League)
>two of his three highest-grossing films are Snyder's
>most of his recent shows keep getting canceled after two seasons
>he still has no good video games; the only video game he features in that people care about is the one where he's a stupid evil strawman that gets beaten up by Batman
>his current show is averaging 1/4 what Gotham did and fricking 1/3 of throwaway garbage like late Agents of Shield or Agent Carter
>no one wants to see a Superman movie; they might still do it if it's good but the character has essentially zero brand power
>high-tier comic readership, or the viewership of DC's animated movies, is in the tens of thousands and completely irrelevant on the scale of a middling TV show or video game, much less a blockbuster film or AAA video game
What was the point of this?
reflecting on the state of a supposed A-lister. I think this character's supposed popularity is just selective delusion. People recognize him, but few actually like him. He's been a laughingstock for the last 40 years. It long predates Snyder's take.
Sometimes a tist needs to drain his tism.
OP is an angry MCUck.
I'm actually an angry/despondent supergay.
There’s a guy or small group of guys who have an autistic fixation on Superman.
Like, it’s fine to not like a character, but these people (or this person) posts nearly every single day with the same words and pictures (so you can tell it’s him) talking about how much he hates Superman. It’s bizarre. I don’t like the X-men, I’ve maybe posted about them twice (including this post).
If I were to guess, it’s like a “goofy time” situation. I imagine OP’s dad used to come into his room and night whispering “there’s no such thing as rape when you’re wearing a Superman cape” and now he has to vent his hatred on Cinemaphile
I like Superman, I'm seething that his brand is poisonous and a non-stop series of humiliations.
This is also the first time I've posted about Superman on this board.
I do not see why you would lie about such a thing. I have seen these exact same posts before, using that exact same image
It's a famous image so it's plausible someone's used it other than me but I've 100% never posted about Superman here before and you find any post worded similarly to mine on the same topic before today.
It’s more than plausible, I know for certainty that you have made this exact thread before with that exact image
anon wanting to rant about something no one cares about.
>Superman makes tard seethe
Based SuperChad
the only Supermen that any zoomers know about besides Man of Cardboard are
A. the guy who got literally cuckolded by Batman then defeatd by a Batman villain before being saved by Batman then had both of his main villains defeated by Batman then jobbed to them again after they were revived before being saved by Flash, Luthor, and Batman.
B. the guy who got figuratively cucked by a Batman villain then became a tyrannical dictator only to be stopped and beaten up by Batman
Superman #75, which features Superman's death, sold over six million copies and became the top-selling comic of 1992.
I could look up more, but I don't feel like it.
Boomers love him. Cynical zoomers don't relate to him.
>Boomers love him.
Boomers made him box office poison at the same time Batman was breaking records.
>Superman #75, which features Superman's death, sold over six million copies and became the top-selling comic of 1992.
Because it was a gimmick. The average readership of his book in 1994 was 100,000 people monthly.
It was also the first "OMG character is dead forever so you'd better turn out for his last appearance" gimmick so people weren't wise to it yet. Compare it to the Ms Marvel thing recently where anyone who knows anything about comics is laughing at the overreactors because she'll be back
It was a gimmick that would not have moved issues like that if the character was not popular. Consider various C-Listers who's deaths had not gotten the same response. While it's not proof of the quality of the character (which isn't the argument), it is certainly proof of his popularity.
>admit he's never been popular
>well, not literally never
What?
Superman should've just stayed dead and been retired as an IP in the 1990s. It would save him the humiliation of Superman Returns, JLU, Justice League, Injustice, Superman and Lois, and so on.
I unironically think Black Panther has surpassed Superman in the minds of the public
it's not even a question, he has.
Superman’s biggest weakness as a character are:
> his supporting cast
> his job as a reporter
> lois lane being his only love interest
> and metropolis not being fleshed out.
Compare this to Batman:
> much more expanded cast
> extremely fleshed out Gotham worldbuilding
> allowed to have lots of love interests
> more interesting life as Bruce Wayne
Superman needs an extremely hard reboot. His normal life is holding his character back.
>lois lane being his only love interest
for decades he was in a love triangle with lois lane and lana lang, and then you have characters like lori laramis, lyra lerrol, hell even cat grant and maxima
None of these are as interesting as e.g. Mary Jane, Gwen Stacy, and Felicia Hardy/Black Cat. Or Catwoman, Talia, and Zatanna.
They’re not properly utilized or known in the public consciousness. That’s what I’m saying. Unironically, Superman needs to FRICK more. Look at the DCAU:
> Clark has no love interests, endlessly pines after lois and nothing happens
> gets cucked by Batman instantly
> Batman allowed to have multiple love interests and women interested in him, which he reciprocates
> even has a whole fricking movie with a love interest (phantasm)
What does that leave Superman? A sexless, humorless, boring piece of paper with no appeal for self inserting
>for decades he was in a love triangle with lois lane and lana lang,
All ruined by comfygays
He hasn't, ameircans may worship Black folk but the rest of the world doesnt.
The morons seething at snyder are the same people that ruined superman, the same people that turned away from superman as a character and just want comfypandering, they dont want superman angry or sad, they dont want superman to be challenged by anything that isnt something really heavy to lift
>> his supporting cast
Like who? Supergirl is the obvious one to throw in to an adaptation. Then who else? Jimmy Olsen? Steve Lombard? Dan Turpin? John Irons? Sam Lane?
Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen are the only people anyone remembers. And who actually gives a shit about them? Lois has been a roastie ever since her conception, and there’s no reason Superman would be so fixated on her. Jimmy…exists. Perry White is a poor man’s Jameson, without the charisma, stories, or depth.
And who gives a shit about anyone else? No one remembers Turpin, Sam Lane, Cat Grant, or Bibbo Bibbowski. They don’t have the same strength if a supporting cast as Batmans. Superman needs a much stronger focus on them, or to make new ones entitled.
>Bibbo Bibbowski
I thought you made this name up.
That’s what I’m saying! Bibbo is unironically in the top five most relevant of his supporting cast…and he is completely forgotten and irrelevant. Same with Turpin. Superman needs a better supporting cast.
I unironically think that they should lower his power level, put him in more space adventures, and double down on pulp. Some Legion characters in his supporting cast would be fun. Look how quickly everyone took to Thor after he left earth, or how much everyone cooms over the Spiderverse concept. There's some inherent potential for fun interactions there too like his older-now-younger cousin and the son/clone of his archenemy.
Superman’s best comics double down on him being an IDEA. This has him evolved way beyond Lois and the Daily Planet. I agree he should double down on the pulp inspiration. More interactions with other characters. He should be more of a father figure and leader for everyone too, like All Might. Give him a bunch of kids to train or a school to run.
Agreed. Smallville was at its best focusing on Clark’s relationship with his supporting cast.
>Some Legion characters
Legion is the most boring boomer shit, no one can take characters with names like radiation lad or translucent lass and particle boy seriously. The problem is you people latch onto these characters made up in 5 minutes 70 years later long after they stop resonating with people
have a nice day troon
>Superman needs a better supporting cast.
He doesnt, he needs to have actual complex relationships with his supporting cast, he lacks that, he hasn't been allowed to grow as a character since 1994.
calling me a gay won't make Superman popular
ITT: People who don't read comics or know any history attempt to aggressively push their history revisionism
>People who don't read comics
Comics unironically don't matter.
>How can we fix Superman? We need____
>Well anon the basis of a lot of your answers can be found in comic-
>those don't matter
>How can we fix Superman?
Didn't ask.
Why are you such a fricking LOSER!?
>Superman has never been popular
Bait.
My dad and grandpa love Superman and they're not even capeshit fans, boomers and gen X love the dude.
if you have to invoke a literal grandpa you're just proving the point
It proves Superman was popular though and honestly he was most popular superhero longer than anybody.
>"Superman was never popular"
>Actually, here is an example of him being popular in the past
>"Thank you for proving my point"
40 years
The only way to make Superman relevant again would be to reverse the Batman Superman dynamic and have Batman do nothing but take big L after big L to superman for a decade. But since Batman is DC and WB's only cash cow that consistently prints money that's never going to happen. Only the dark gritty 'realistic' hero can exist and be a real hero. Nonono. Can't have a hero who's actually happy and positive and inspires people to be better and is an example of how people with power should behave.
Superman should frick Selina its the only way
From my perspective, what you’re saying is true OP
Sure thing, OP
Go admit to yourself that you're a gay in the mirror, OP
5 cinematic flops
multiple shows canceled after 2 seasons
no games
only animated show of note canceled after two seasons for a Batman spin-off
Superman had a game for the N64. You can't say that about any Marvel heroes except for Spider-Man.
It's also in the ranking for one of the worst video games ever created so that's not exactly a high point there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox
He may not be unpopular but he is indeed ‘scuffed’
Unironically he's a less popular character than a popular vidya man like Kratos or a low to middling Marvel character like Ant-Man. Movies featuring either of them would have more inherent brand appeal. Hell a movie featuring a complete no-name OC would have more brand appeal because it wouldn't have a history of flops.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Wrong board
He did go there
I wonder how many of the replies are him sockpuppeting
>78 posts
>32 posters
don't need to sockpuppet
changing your Phone IPs don't count as separate posters
meds
Joss Whedon’s cut of Justice League opens with a hideous and corny video interview with Superman, foregrounding him as a central character. Later, Whedon suggests that Superman renders the rest of the team redundant. Superman can fly as fast as the Flash (Ezra Miller) runs. When the Flash saves a single family, Superman saves an entire building as a background gag. When Cyborg (Ray Fisher) struggles to separate the Mother Boxes, Superman arrives to handily rip them apart.
Whedon’s cut basks in the classic iconography of Superman. Zack Snyder had originally planned for Superman to appear in the black costume that the character wore after his death in the comics, but Whedon opted for the traditional red and blue look. Similarly, Danny Elfman’s soundtrack makes sure to quote from John Williams’ classic score to Richard Donner’s Superman, which is perhaps still the defining live-action adaptation of the character four decades later. Elfman justified this decision as an appeal to nostalgia.
Some traditionalist fans complained that the Superman introduced in Man of Steel and developed in Batman v Superman was “not really Superman” or even “a deliberate trashing of the character of Superman.” In many ways, Whedon’s alterations to the theatrical cut of Justice League feel like a concession to these fans. Much like how Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker approached its older characters, Whedon tried to assure those fans that their take on Superman was still the most important.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League understands that Superman is a symbol and an idea, and that he works best in that context. After all, while there’s some debate about whether he was technically the first superhero, Superman codified the superhero genre. All modern superheroes can trace their lineage back to him. As the graffiti on the memorial at the end Batman v Superman reminds audiences, “If you seek his monument, look around you.”
Even though he dies at the end of Batman v Superman, Superman still wins an important moral victory: He redeems Bruce Wayne’s faith in humanity. It’s revealing that Superman is a clear inspiration and influence on the team that Bruce assembles in Zack Snyder’s Justice League. “He was my hero,” the Flash concedes as he exhumes Superman’s body. Bruce repeatedly talks to Alfred (Jeremy Irons) about his newfound belief in something beyond the material world, inspired by Superman.
Each of the new members of the team reflects some facet of Superman back at him. The Flash has tremendous power and moves through the human world but seems unsure of how to relate to other people. “I need friends,” he confesses to Bruce. Barry Allen is awkward and uncomfortable interacting with other human beings. During his introductory action set piece, Snyder demonstrates how fragile and strange the material world must appear to Barry Allen, as the hero intervenes to prevent a horrific car accident.
It’s a scene that mirrors an early use of Superman’s powers in Man of Steel to save a bus. Much like Man of Steel continually demonstrates how alien Earth must seem to a being with the powers of Superman, Justice League suggests something similar in relation to the Flash’s ability to slow down and distort time. And much like Man of Steel ends with Clark getting a job at the Daily Planet, Justice League ends with Flash getting a job at Central City Crime Lab. He is now part of the world.
The parallels are more pronounced with Aquaman (Jason Momoa). Much like Superman is a child of two worlds, caught between Krypton and Earth, Aquaman is trapped between Atlantis and the surface world. And much like Man of Steel suggested that General Zod (Michael Shannon) sought to turn Krypton into a fascist dictatorship, there are similar suggestions in Justice League that King Orm (Patrick Wilson) is attempting something similar in Atlantis.
Aquaman’s arc in Justice League is about coming to understand the obligations that he has, the responsibility that comes with great power. When Bruce initially tries to recruit Aquaman to the team, Aquaman refuses. “I wanna be left alone,” he insists. “I don’t owe anyone anything.” It’s similar to Superman’s arc in Man of Steel, having to “take a leap of faith” and decide that the human world is worth fighting for. Aquaman eventually makes that same leap.
However, the parallels are most strongly pronounced with Cyborg, the character who most benefits from the expanded runtime and shift in focus. Cyborg is also the character who is most explicitly positioned as a spiritual successor to Superman. He is the “next generation” of superhero. As Richard Newby pointed out, it is Cyborg who gets the big traditional superhero introductory sequence in Justice League, learning to fly like Superman in Man of Steel. Both Cyborg and Superman are resurrected by Mother Boxes.
If Superman’s relationship with his fathers Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner) provided the central arc of Man of Steel, Justice League is rooted in the relationship between Cyborg and his father Silas Stone (Joe Morton). If Man of Steel suggested that Superman was a child of two worlds, then Silas is explicitly positioned as “a father twice over.” Even Silas’ final scene in Justice League is shot to evoke that of Jonathan Kent in Man of Steel, calm in the face of death.
Crucially, Cyborg is presented as the next logical evolution of Superman. In Man of Steel, Superman served as a bridge between the old world and the new world, with Krypton presented as a corrupted version of Europe succumbing to fascism casting Superman as a refugee to the New World. In Justice League, Cyborg exists as a bridge from the material world into a new digital frontier. Silas’ monologue suggests that his son is just as much of a game changer, if not more so, than the Last Son of Krypton.
Indeed, it’s telling that Cyborg gets the DCEU’s signature climactic scene in Justice League. In both Man of Steel and Wonder Woman, the protagonists are confronted by an enemy that offers to remake this “fallen” world in the image of a nostalgic paradise. In Man of Steel, Zod tempts Superman with the resurrection of Krypton. In Wonder Woman, Ares (David Thewlis) tries to tempt Diana (Gal Gadot) with plans to restore the world to the paradise that it was before mankind sullied it.
It’s a classic mythic moment — it’s Satan tempting Christ in the desert. In Justice League, Cyborg is tempted like Superman was in Man of Steel. As he attempts to interface with the Mother Box, he is offered the promise of a humbler sort of nostalgia, a restoration of his life before the accident that transformed him into a fusion of man and machine. Naturally, Cyborg rejects this invitation to retreat into memory and fantasy. In doing so, he embraces the future.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League suggests that this is the true power of Superman, acting as an inspiration to and springboard for a new generation of heroes. Fans have noticed Snyder’s cut features an appreciably more diverse cast than the theatrical cut, literalizing Superman’s status as a metaphorical minority character. Even Barry Allen’s description of himself as “a very attractive israeli boy” evokes the popular reading of Superman as a uniquely israeli character.
Joss Whedon’s theatrical cut of Justice League offers its audience reheated leftovers of an iconic portrayal of the Man of Steel, a hollow invocation of a beloved take. It attempted to reassure viewers that Superman was as strong or as fast as any of the heroes that followed him. However, as Silas narrates in the film’s final act, “The world is not fixed in the past, but the future.” Zack Snyder’s Justice League understands that Superman’s real strength is as an idea and an inspiration — not what was, but what could yet be.
>Making the same threads on Cinemaphile and Cinemaphile
I never want to hear about Snyder ever again
You're going to keep hearing about him for years and years to come.
he's still the only filmmaker to make Superman a commercial success since 1980.
So if you can make money off Superman how is he unpopular? Using OP's logic against him then a Superman movie hasn't flopped since 2006 and even that made more than the Batman film that came out the year before.
>Using OP's logic against him then a Superman movie hasn't flopped since 2006
Justice League flopped.
So another flop for Batman.
Yes, and Batman immediately followed it with an $800 million Batman movie and $1 billion Joker movie, and also preceded it with two $1 billion Batman movies. Superman just stopped showing up in films.
And Batman was just in another flop that's going to make less than the last film Superman was in
Superman was in the Flash.
if you're resorting to "they cameoed in a movie that then made/lost money" then you're basically just admitting defeat. Batman and Superman had starring roles in BVS and JL. But only one of them had successes after it.