This image, and moment in general, is the first pebble to really start the boulder rolling on Superman's downfall in pop culture, isn't it? It really is amazing how much having Superman play the fool to Batman's rebellious old man has had ripples since then.
Since DKR, Superman has never recovered to be the same he was before. He's a joke, a stodgy old relic, a tool.
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Nah.
I don’t believe Frank Miller hates Superman, but the story definitely did some damage to Superman’s brand.
That being said, it isn’t what “killed” Superman. What killed Superman is DC refusing to use him properly
He made Superman a government stooge slavishly loyal to the US government. Ignoring the fact that many times before this Superman was more than willing to refuse to serve the government if they ordered him to do something that went against his small town values.
>Ignoring the fact that many times before this Superman was more than willing to refuse to serve the government if they ordered him to do something that went against his small town values.
Funny how he never needs to be ordered to stay out of genocides. Weird that his small town values line up with that.
What genocides occurred that he stayed out of?
>What genocides occurred that he stayed out of?
Kirai was ethnically cleansed for 7 years while the Justice League of America did nothing and thousands more died until a hero finally assassinated their ruler only to face arrest by the League, led by Superman, for interfering in their sovereign politics. And for killing the bastard to stop him from killing hostages.
Then the ethnic cleansing turned into a sectarian conflict in which many thousands more died which the League also stayed out of. Cause frick them innocent civilians.
There were literal mountains of skulls.
Where does it end? It starts with stopping a genocide, but eventually it ends with Superman and the league ruling over the planet as gods controlling mankinds destiny against their will. Also this isn't world war 2. Superheroes getting involved with a war could spiral into MAD instantly.
I'm sure all those people who died under petty tyrants the League could have stopped and their families still suffering under said tyrants will feel much better knowing that.
Sorry people, you and your loved ones are acceptable collateral damage.
Even Superman concedes in Peace On Earth that for all his power, as much as he tries. He can't save everyone without becoming a monster himself.
Like I said, sorry, Third World People, your beyond salvation asses are necessary losses so Superman doesn't become edgy, which will probably happen anyway when the Joker kills Lois Lane. Or he'll just retire then and a genocidal psycho will take over his job, same difference. So your deaths will be in vain all the same.
>so Superman doesn't become edgy
Option A: Don't put him in an edgy world.
Option B: Actually have him fix said edgy world without turning edgy like a sane person.
DC can't do this because they're literally incapable of not doing the absolute power corrupts story even though that's suppose to be Luthor's entire WRONG motivation for why he hates Superman. Pick a fricking lane.
Like how hard is it for a war to break out and for Supes's dumb ass to say the League can't get involved and then for MM or somebody to ask what the League would do if the sides weren't flying flags? That one stupid question breaks pretty much every stupid bit of DC's writing about why supers let their planet rot.
>Holy frick these stories aren’t real these people aren’t real calm the frick down moron
Shit worldbuilding genuinely pisses me off. I was reading this WN yesterday and I was basically just having to ignore the worldbuilding because it was hurting my head.
>Kingdom gradually pushing Beastmen tribes to the north through territorial expansion and refusing trade with them due to long standing racial tensions
>But also the adjunct to the fricking commander of the royal army is a fricking Beastwoman
Get a fricking editor I swear to frick!
You are the only Cinemaphile schizo I legitimately hate.
I'm not even the only person arguing with you ITT so that's wrong.
No it is you because I recognize your subhuman homosexual-ass little arguments. have a nice day. You ruin every fricking thread even tangentially related to Superman because you have to interject with your shitty little opinions on how Superman doesn’t prevent real-life genocides in the third world. This was just a fricking Dark Knight Returns/Frank Miller thread, and you had to derail it. The other day we were having a Superman/Spider-Man thread and you had to derail it with this same shit.
https://desuarchive.org/co/thread/132314055/
>WHY IS THE JUSTICE LEAGUE NEVER FRICKING AROUND? Spider-Man would HAAAAAAAAAAAAATE Superman. With a fiery passion.
Every fricking post. Every fricking thread. No matter how many fricking times you’re told that genocide is real and Superman is fictional it doesn’t get through your fat fricking skull.
have a nice day, I am not joking. I would take a billion Goku posters over you. I would take a billion Jon Kent posters over you. I’d take a billion Snydergays over you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate. have a nice day. Die. have a nice day. Bleed. c**t. c**t. c**t. have a nice day.
Superman would be ashamed of you throwing temper tantrums on his name, anon. He'd take you away and give you a gentle but firm lecture on the subject.
But that's just because he's that nice a guy, most other heroes would just rightfully call you a screching butthole.
>as much as he tries
>as much as he tries
b***h there are not an unlimited supply of tanks and guns in the world. Even just DISARMING the worlds dictators would cut down on ethnic cleansings by a frickton and have made several of those food drop offs he basically abandoned immediately in Peace on Earth completely feasible.
HE HAS HEAT VISION. SUPER SPEED. SUPER STRENGTH. If he can take on first world gangs and supervillains he can fricking take on 3rd world armies. Genocide should never fricking happen on the same planet as him.
Okay, he can't save everyone. 3 million children die of hunger each year. He can build roads and bridges and canals and dams and wells. He can lower that number by a frickton by just making food easier to produce and get around.
You're acting like 250 tanks or terrain manipulation is an insurmountable problem for Superman.
Frankly Superman: Peace on Earth made me truly hate the character. That was when I realized they had shoved a square peg in a round hole and broken both.
Holy frick these stories aren’t real these people aren’t real calm the frick down moron
The setting and the worldbuilding can't have it both ways. Either play it like the Silver Age and have Superman live in a colorful funnybook world where his biggest week to week worries are tricking the imp into saying his name backwards and making an idiot out of Lois while she tries to uncover his secret identity while tracking oneshot gangster Smelly Fingers Callahan or power the guy down to a Golden Age or Timmverse level where you can say that, okay, there's only so much he can do.
But when you say 'this guy can do anything and be beacon of hope, but the world will keep on being realistically shitty so there's actually nothing he can do to improve it other than setting an example mankind won't follow anyway because the setting would stop being realistic' like modern Superman comics do, there's a problem because that only makes him look long term inept.
Writers themselves keep on calling attention to problem they can't get out of.
It literally can have it both ways because DC plays fast and loose with their canon and their tone all time and it’s all not real and you’re morally outraged over a fricking cartoon character have a nice day kill your self die die die die die die have a nice day die
>DC plays fast and loose with their canon
And look at where that got them lol.
Ikr? I legitimately couldn't even tell you if they have a canon by any functional definition anymore.
>He can build roads and bridges and canals and dams and wells. He can lower that number by a frickton by just making food easier to produce and get around.
The entire point of the story Peace On Earth was how even when Superman does that, things conspire to make them ultimately useless and he has to concede that he can't save everyone bit that doesn't mean he's not going to stop trying.
In the story he brings food to a tribe of starving african villagers. Only for a few days later the dictators army to come in and confiscate all the food. Sure, Superman could fly into the country and overthrow the dictator and make sure the normal people get the food. But then he'd have to stay to supervise and make sure there was a smooth transition of government, and he'd have to leave to make sure the next alien space octopus attack was dealt with which would give bad actors time to overthrow or assassinate the new leader.
>The entire point of the story Peace On Earth was how even when Superman does that
Superman wasn't trying to do that in Peace on Earth. I said make permanent structural improvements to improve food availability. In Peace on Earth he just runs around delivering food. Well...failing too anyway. Guess the job was too hard for Superman.
The entire point of Peace on Earth is that millions of people should starve to death each year because future generations of squishy humans will be more equipped to deal with warlords than fricking Superman. It was a stupid fricking book that should make you hate the character, the message, the writer, DC comics, and anyone at all ever that pushes for gradual change when radical change is both viable and would save lives. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK the message of that book.
>But then he'd have to stay to supervise and make sure there was a smooth transition of government
Why? There are billions of humans on the planet that can help do that shit once the tanks are gone.
Have you considered staying mad? You're very good at it?
The problem with calling attention to that is that if the almighty alien can't fix those issues and people can't fix them on their own either (because otherwise they wouldn't be in that shit to begin with, and what's the point of deposing a dictator if another one will rise lol amirite?) then you are tacitly admitting that the problem is impossible to fix at all ever.
Which is fine if you're writing crapsack world fiction but goes against your point when you are trying to portray and sell your hero as a beacon of hope for ALL of mankind.
Calm down moron these stories aren’t real
No shit Sherlock. Then writers should stop bringing those points up with their 'is Superman relevant' stories. Because when you start looking at it you find out that the character doesn't even work when taken out of a simple narrative context OR without being severely powered down.
Like, nobody would question why Early Golden Age Superman doesn't change the world for the better, he can't even fly and there are lots of limits to what he can do.
I mean, Golden Age Superman prevented World War II
Of course, floating timeline and all that, so then he just assisted in World War II
Now he showed up after World War II
Is JLA Superpowers even canon? I’ve never seen or heard of it’s events effecting or even being referenced in other stories
>What genocides occurred that he stayed out of?
The Holocaust for one.
He actually prevented the holocaust before the timeline shifted. He now was born and rocketed to earth long after the holocaust was over, but originally he stopped the holocaust
Kek, kinda wish comics would do this more and just say “frick realism, super heroes would obviously make the world a better place.”
It's amazing to see Frank Millers attitude about Superman and Batman change so drastically before and after he survived 9/11.
>So we see him more or less through Batman's eyes, and his opinion of Superman is very different than the one you generally see.
You mean to tell me Superman was written poorly because Batman was a schizophrenic tard who assumed Superman was a fed gangstalker?
Geez, if I didn't read DC I wouldn't ever think those two were best friends with how much people like to pit them against each other.
truth and justice are so passé
It did start the “muh Batman could totes beat Superman with prep time” meme.
It’s weird how people forget that 1) Batman lost 2) Batman’s plan was to lose 3) due to unforeseen circumstances Batman couldn’t have “prepped,” Superman was weakened
Batman got a couple good punches in, that’s it.
Plus Clark was holding back the entire time. He could see his heartbeat. Bruce is just schizo ranting while Clark lets him throw his tantrum.
>Batman lost
Even when he won, he lost. Because it was him faking his own death to escape the feds.
Well yeah, hence the other point.
People mischaracterize the fight as Batman “winning,” but the fact is Batman intended to lose and then lost.
People don't actually read comics, they just read wikipedia articles about them.
Wouldn't the gauntlets just break?
Nah, Superman was severely weakened by a sun blotting nuke and kryptonite.
>Dark Knight Returns killed Superman
Superman died the moment they decided the all powerful superbeing should be used for dramatic storytelling in a setting that's supposed to be recognizably similar to the real world.
As much as I love DKR? I have to concede you are right OP.
I'd say Superman started dying with the Kryptonite Nevermore story. That's where they began doubting about the character as he was and began feeling a need to retool him.
It also brought the TV newscaster stage that lasted until Crisis but nobody seems to really like, nobody has ever brought it back or seems to miss it.
Superman's original stories weren't as boot licking as his mainstream 70s80s90s. But by the time Batman went edgy Superman had been assimilated and America along with him. If we could have a more mischievous socially conscious Superman like the Golden Age comic depictions we could have a better LIVING Superman.
Miller and Snyder go on about how much they like Superman as a character, yet their obsession with Batman beating him down feels like a borderline fetish. Like, they enjoyed every single second they spend on making Superman suffer at the hands of Batman.
Why are Batgays so desperate to tear down other superheros and Superman in particular? Superman and Batman are best bros by all accounts, needing some Else world nonsense to pit them against each other, and such worlds are inevitably written by try hards who simply don't understand Supes.
Yet, these gays take them as gospel. Is Superman, a shining beacon on hope and justice, really such a threat to them emotionally? If so, they are surely some of the most pathetic creatures to ever waddle across the Earth, up there with the brain fried weebs of Cinemaphile that must periodically seek validation by spewing their shit opinions at us.
>batgays
The thread is just more victim playing from superdaddygays like yourself. Superman wasn't affected by DKR, in fact superman popularity was at its peak since the 70's by the time of Death of Superman. The only morons pretending superman is not popular any longer are supergays the same ones that sperg over MoS, the same ones that think Injustice is a sign of global morale decline.
>shining beacon on hope and justice
He isnt any of those things and he has never been anything like that for real people, stop confusing in universe narratives with the real world, superman is a product of entertainment, nothing more.
>AkShUlLy, It'S SuPeRgayS wHo ArE sHiTtInG oN sUpErMaN bEcAuSe...BECAUSE SHUT UP!!!
Oh, Batgay's got his butt all bothered. I'll bet if we stuck him in front of a screen we could project his mental gymnastics for our entertainment
I unironically like Superman way more than Batman. His villains are better too.
I think Superman not having a movie in the 90s and then having two shit movies (Superman Returns, Man of Steel) is what soured his reputation among modern audiences.