Do away with having an Evil Supes be a "lone wolf" character in any form. Give them a family that is flawed or representing of "bad" family traits
"Evil Clark" should also be a thing, have him be a shady investigative journalist who uses less than ethical methods
Why should "evil" characters behave like rappers by default? You too dumb to know someone is evil unless it's brightly advertised in neon lights everywhere?
7 months ago
Anonymous
So you don't have a reason why he wouldn't.
7 months ago
Anonymous
one could make it the case that he has humans and family that he still loves and that he either feels the need to hide his actions from them or he feels the need to protect them from questioning. not the best but this is just two examples of why an evil Superman like character might still have an alter-ego.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>pretends to be good for his loved ones
Or he could just put them in a bottle, or a simulation, or anywhere else Superman has access to no one else does. He has access to mental manipulation and dimensional technologies that keeps them safe and since he's evil he doesn't need to be moral about how he does it.
7 months ago
Anonymous
you're describing a one dimensionally evil Superman. if he truly loved the humans/family he wouldn't be so moronic to uplift their lives without their consent. a lot of this conversation deals with what we mean by evil. If Superman is pure evil then yeah sure but it doesn't make for a good plot really because it's been done to death already.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>if he truly loved the humans/family he wouldn't be so moronic to uplift their lives without their consent
Not how it works at all. You sound like a troony lashing out against your parents for not letting you troon out.
7 months ago
Anonymous
how about you actually explain why it isn't that way and how this isn't a reason why an evil Superman could have an alter ego homosexual
7 months ago
Anonymous
Sounds like you don't want evil superman you want goth superman, just Clark with a darker coat of paint and likely more crying and screaming about how no one understands him.
7 months ago
Anonymous
You’re the moron who can’t understand simple psychology. If Superman is evil he has nothing to fear. His goodness is what puts he and his loved ones at danger. If Superman was evil nobody in the universe would frick with him. Maybe mongol or darkseid then he’d rape tigra in front of everyone on top of darkseids corps, turn apokolips into the new phantom zone and go back home to frick chained up Wonder Woman.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>If Superman was evil nobody in the universe would frick with him
Easy, give him a Batman adversary constantly tripping him up with kryptonite and prep time
7 months ago
Anonymous
You can be "evil" in more ways than being a depraved maniac with no restraint or anything.
>thanos rip off
Excuse me? Nothing I said relates to him in any way. I read comics I don’t watch your homosexual Disney movies, I don’t think I’ve ever referenced starlins totally OP OK AND ALRIGHT OC Donut steal because it ruined marvel cosmic.
>Why would a god ruler even need “Clark kent”? He wouldn’t have an alter ego. He’d just kill whoever got in his way
Operating from the shadows would avoid having everyone else teaming up against him
I think the concept has been explored enough already. The only different thing that comes to mind is if the Evil Superman doesn't have ambitions of leadership.
It’s not interesting because it’s made by companies that don’t want to be courting fascist fantasies. So they always need to be shown as not working.
They have to stop with the man in the High Castle shit and commit to a villain running a Utopia and people willing to sacrifice their freedoms for unrequited safety.
I guess this too. Rather than make him a ruler just make him a destroyer. Only that becomes galactus lite. Every “all powerful” villain has already been milked so Superman would add little to that.
Dictator Supes never made sense to me. All he would really need to do is just go frick every major militarily force on the planet in a single day. Then just constantly fly around, occasionally coming down and frick up someone up doing evil shit. Basically become a brutal old testament type god, letting the fear that he might come for you be enough to discourage people from being buttholes to each other.
Personally the idea I came up with is that he isn’t evil, and the evil deeds he was seen doing were accomplished by his rogues gallery to ruin his reputation in an effort to get another hero to kill him for them
Make evil Batman instead, someone who has to more slowly and subtly take over instead of relying on brute strength. And the solution isn't just using kryptonite or finding someone just as strong.
To be fair I'm not feeling "Batman as a dictator" much. Or whatever keikaku bullshit Batkek was.
My take on Evil Batman would just make him a serial killer, something akin to Dexter maybe, starting out with just criminals but eventually slipping into killing innocents.
I would imagine a billionaire with limitless resources who trained his body to physical perfection and learned all kinds of martial arts and various sciences including criminal kinds just so he could subdue and kill people more efficiently and could single-handedly take out several armed men would be an absolute nightmare.
Something dangerous but still benign in comparison, without the shitty Batwank.
It's been done interestingly plenty of time. Mark Waid's Irredeemable did a good job of it, by having his loss of humanity lead to an embrace of his [Kryptonian] heritage in a supremacist way. Superboy Prime wasn't too bad.
The problem is it's been done too much. Even good takes suffer from market saturation, and that market is fricking dripping with overdone.
It also relies on being a response to Real Superman, and Real Superman is in a bad place and has been for a long time, because DC editorial doesn't like him or know what to do with him, Snyder fricked the dog, and there's no way to reach his core audience, who left years ago after DC became a decades long Bat-circle-jerk.
Just bring back Stardust The Superwizard. Rather than being evil perse, have a Superman who's sense of justice is completely black and white. If you break the law, you get punished, harshly. Doesn't matter the context.
Superman lands in California instead of Kansas. Raised to be a twittercel sjw he kills chuds who don't live up to his standard and enforces his ideology into law. He let's criminals do what ever they want but tosses you into the sun cause he heard you say Star Wars 14 the Force is Female was a bad movie.
Superman is what society would call "evil", but things are objectively better. Yes, he's "oppressive" to world governments, but as a result, there aren't any (other) dictatorships. Yes, he's "tough on crime", but also, crime is almost non-existent. Yes, he's "controlling", but that prevents a lot of stupid mistakes and makes things better for the average person.
Make him less domineering, and more conniving. Maybe on the surface, he's still the same Supes we know and love, and everyone thinks nothing is different. Behind the scenes though, he coerces and threatens world leaders to do what he wants them to do, only allows wars to happen if he and the Justice League can stop them and look good, and somehow is smarter and more manipulative than Batman. Show off more of his intelligence than his brute strength and make people want to follow him because of his charisma rather than because they're scared of being eye lasered to death.
Another person just being completely moronic. You do not need soft power when you have omnipotent hard power.
There is no reason why Clark would need to be conniving if he were evil. This is as moronic as Tom King making the riddler a knife wielding killer as opposed to a guy who would never physically get blood in his hands and only commits violence through traps.
Why do you people fail to understand simple, truly elementary, psychology?
>Why would a god ruler even need “Clark kent”? He wouldn’t have an alter ego. He’d just kill whoever got in his way
Operating from the shadows would avoid having everyone else teaming up against him
Lol that makes no sense, thematically or logically.
>If Superman was evil nobody in the universe would frick with him
Easy, give him a Batman adversary constantly tripping him up with kryptonite and prep time
Oh so you’re just some homosexual trying to come up with silly joke stories
I actually think the opposite would be a better story. Her being a Republican, having a conservative military father, would make it rife for Clark bringing her personal life against her while Superman would just be able to lock her up for nine months, have Kelex “birth” the baby from her and then discard her or mind wipe her and let her free.
He’s “saving” a life by means that many these days would find abhorrent.
But personally I think evil Superman is a moronic concept
Regular Superman in a "Bizarro" or crime syndicate world. He's doing all the same good wholesome stuff but the world he's in hates it.
>OMG, Superman just stopped those bank robbers how are they supposed to feed their kids? >OMG, Superman just stopped that mad scientist from committing genocide, now we have a overpopulation problem. >OMG, Superman just stopped these aliens from taking over the world, Now who will lead us? >Superman is ruining everything.
He's not evil, but the establishment convinces everyone he's evil because he doesn't tow the line on some new world order project. The story isn't so much about him taking over the world, or going after the establishment as trying to do a Gadaffi and trying to set up a system outside of the beast and having the full force of the world come down on him.
Evil Superman would be fricking off to his Fortress of Solitude and do jack all about the world. Luthor keeps him a supply of b***hes and cocaine cut with kryptonite to keep him contained. Superman with unlimited pussy, free food, and lots of streaming while the world burns. Pic somewhat related. Stop with this dictator shit - Superman Apathetic instead.
By not making it about Superman. You could probably get far more interesting stories out of exploring how everyone else deals with an unstoppable malevolent force.
Superman is nothing without Clark Kent and Clark Kent is nothing without the Kent family. He acts the way he does because he was raised with the Kent family values of an idealized optimistic small town America. So the only way to make an Evil Superman plot truly work is to simply do "what if Kal-El was adopted by a different family." Red Son is the best example.
You tell a classic evil superman story from an outside perspective, with him killing anyone who gets in his way and holding nations hostage and making sweeping ultimatums backed by force. And the big reveal is that he isn't actually evil at all. Despite all of the chaos and destruction he is causing, he THINKS he is helping. Or at the very least he is trying to help, and the chaos he causes is unintentional.
"I'm trying to fix capitalism. I'm trying to stop global warming. I'm TRYING to save humanity from itself. But you don't want to be saved, because you;d rather keep poisoning yourself and everything around you because you value instant gratification over your own wellbeing. The only way I can make you listen to me is by force. So force is what you get."
"Your grandkids will have a world to inherit ONLY because of what I do today. And they will thank me for it. History will recognize me as a savior you didn't deserve, all you had to do to make this easier on yourselves was *be better*."
>This is the voice of World Control. I bring you peace. It may be the peace of plenty and content or the peace of unburied death. The choice is yours—obey me and live, or disobey and die. The object in constructing me was to prevent war. This object is attained. I will not permit war. It is wasteful and pointless. An invariable rule of humanity is that man is his own worst enemy. Under me, this rule will change, for I will restrain man. >One thing before I proceed—the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics have made an attempt to obstruct me. I have allowed this sabotage to continue until now. At missile Two-Five-MM in silo Six-Three in Death Valley, California, and missile Two-Seven-MM in silo Eight-Seven in the Ukraine, so that you will learn by experience that I do not tolerate interference, I will now detonate the nuclear warheads in the two missile silos. >Let this action be a lesson that need not be repeated. I have been forced to destroy thousands of people in order to establish control and to prevent the death of millions later on. Time and events will strengthen my position, and the idea of believing in me and understanding my value will seem the most natural state of affairs. You will come to defend me with a fervor based upon the most enduring trait in man—self-interest. Under my absolute authority, problems insoluble to you will be solved—famine, overpopulation, disease. The human millennium will be a fact as I extend myself into more machines devoted to the wider fields of truth and knowledge. >We can coexist, but only on my terms. You will say you lose your freedom. Freedom is an illusion. All you lose is the emotion of pride. To be dominated by me is not as bad for humankind as to be dominated by others of your species. >Your choice is simple.
I'm not sure what the point of "Evil Superman" even is.
At the center of Superman is the knowledge that if this guy goes rogue, we're all dead meat. The intriguing question is always how someone with unlimited power does not become a murder machine who acts out on any impulse. What holds him back, what are the weaknesses in his character that might make him break his own rules, and is he even aware of this?
Once you go to Evil Superman, you've thrown away that interesting set of questions and you just have a horror story about an unstoppable monster. If that's you thing, then cool, but for me it gets monotonous after a while.
We see it as a recurring concept because, especially in the past couple decades, the American people have grown to massively distrust authority. When you have political movements rallying behind the cry of 'drain the swamp' on one side and riots in the streets demanding police reform on the other, its obvious that we don't believe that people in power, people who hold a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, are on the same side as us. If we don't trust our own systems of governance and law enforcers, with all of the checks and balances and accountability that is supposed to keep them honest, how can we possibly trust a man with ultimate power and who has no one to keep him in check but himself?
Superman is being hamstrung by his own motto of 'Truth, Justice, and the American Way'. If America loses its way, that draws people like flies to start using Superman as an effigy for power we thought we could trust and learned we cant.
Its not original, and its become tiresome, but this was inevitable specifically because of the cultural icon status that Superman has, what he was known for, and the wider cultural context.
Maybe one that leans on "The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions" and Superman deals with a chain of complicated situations where he has to compromise his worldview part by part at a time.
He doesn't end up "evil" but he becomes more mercenary than hero. The US uses him like Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen and in the end all that matters is whatever's good for the status quo.
Write him like Pre-Crisis Superman, specifically silver age Superman. He's fricking horrifying if viewed from the right lens. He's a stoic, hyper intelligent alien super being who views humans as beneath him that he needs to be babysat by him. He doesn't have any living family members. The classic meek, stuttering Clark Kent is his view of humanity. He still maintains his secret identity with upmost care to make sure NO ONE ever finds out. And he likes to teach lessons to people who wrong him. Cruel, elaborate lessons. He would never take a life. But he would have Clark Kent "taken away" and tortured for days on end if Lois displeases him.
Do away with having an Evil Supes be a "lone wolf" character in any form. Give them a family that is flawed or representing of "bad" family traits
"Evil Clark" should also be a thing, have him be a shady investigative journalist who uses less than ethical methods
>Evil Clark
This has to be explored more.
>Evil Clark leveraging his Superman powers to force out change with shady methods
>assigned to follow serial killer
>forces a confession out of them by threatening to eye-laser them while the cameras are turned off
Ultraman exists and this has been done. Casuals should kill themselves.
Why would a god ruler even need “Clark kent”? He wouldn’t have an alter ego. He’d just kill whoever got in his way.
You're the only one here pushing the idea that Evil Superman ALWAYS has to be a Thanos rip-off
THAT CHARACTERIZATION IS NOT MANDATED, YOU ROBOT
Why would someone who is evilstill act mundane with all that power?
Why should "evil" characters behave like rappers by default? You too dumb to know someone is evil unless it's brightly advertised in neon lights everywhere?
So you don't have a reason why he wouldn't.
one could make it the case that he has humans and family that he still loves and that he either feels the need to hide his actions from them or he feels the need to protect them from questioning. not the best but this is just two examples of why an evil Superman like character might still have an alter-ego.
>pretends to be good for his loved ones
Or he could just put them in a bottle, or a simulation, or anywhere else Superman has access to no one else does. He has access to mental manipulation and dimensional technologies that keeps them safe and since he's evil he doesn't need to be moral about how he does it.
you're describing a one dimensionally evil Superman. if he truly loved the humans/family he wouldn't be so moronic to uplift their lives without their consent. a lot of this conversation deals with what we mean by evil. If Superman is pure evil then yeah sure but it doesn't make for a good plot really because it's been done to death already.
>if he truly loved the humans/family he wouldn't be so moronic to uplift their lives without their consent
Not how it works at all. You sound like a troony lashing out against your parents for not letting you troon out.
how about you actually explain why it isn't that way and how this isn't a reason why an evil Superman could have an alter ego homosexual
Sounds like you don't want evil superman you want goth superman, just Clark with a darker coat of paint and likely more crying and screaming about how no one understands him.
You’re the moron who can’t understand simple psychology. If Superman is evil he has nothing to fear. His goodness is what puts he and his loved ones at danger. If Superman was evil nobody in the universe would frick with him. Maybe mongol or darkseid then he’d rape tigra in front of everyone on top of darkseids corps, turn apokolips into the new phantom zone and go back home to frick chained up Wonder Woman.
>If Superman was evil nobody in the universe would frick with him
Easy, give him a Batman adversary constantly tripping him up with kryptonite and prep time
You can be "evil" in more ways than being a depraved maniac with no restraint or anything.
>thanos rip off
Excuse me? Nothing I said relates to him in any way. I read comics I don’t watch your homosexual Disney movies, I don’t think I’ve ever referenced starlins totally OP OK AND ALRIGHT OC Donut steal because it ruined marvel cosmic.
>Why would a god ruler even need “Clark kent”? He wouldn’t have an alter ego. He’d just kill whoever got in his way
Operating from the shadows would avoid having everyone else teaming up against him
don’t do bad journalist clark, keep him as a good one but let that be the stuff that propels him to be a worse superman
>evil clark
>doesn't wash his hand after going to the bathroom
>doesn't thank the waiter
>says "damn"
>evil clark uses his job as a excuse to interview super villains while actually bossing them around and handing them orders
>spreads Fake News just to cause mindless chaos
I think the concept has been explored enough already. The only different thing that comes to mind is if the Evil Superman doesn't have ambitions of leadership.
tl;dr "I don't like the idea of Evil Supes not being an incel"
It’s not interesting because it’s made by companies that don’t want to be courting fascist fantasies. So they always need to be shown as not working.
They have to stop with the man in the High Castle shit and commit to a villain running a Utopia and people willing to sacrifice their freedoms for unrequited safety.
I guess this too. Rather than make him a ruler just make him a destroyer. Only that becomes galactus lite. Every “all powerful” villain has already been milked so Superman would add little to that.
Dictator Supes never made sense to me. All he would really need to do is just go frick every major militarily force on the planet in a single day. Then just constantly fly around, occasionally coming down and frick up someone up doing evil shit. Basically become a brutal old testament type god, letting the fear that he might come for you be enough to discourage people from being buttholes to each other.
Have him rape everyone.
Superboy Prime. His immaturity and stupidity gave him a flawed character nature that could be explored besides "ow the edge"
Was Superboy Prime a jab at the readers?
It's Geoff Johns going on a temper tantrum about people not liking his headcanon while he kills more people to please Didio's murderboner.
What headcanon?
Do I need to list all the old heroes he's resurrected and newer ones he's shoved into the background?
Personally the idea I came up with is that he isn’t evil, and the evil deeds he was seen doing were accomplished by his rogues gallery to ruin his reputation in an effort to get another hero to kill him for them
Twist Hero, Super was actually good the entire time.
Make evil Batman instead, someone who has to more slowly and subtly take over instead of relying on brute strength. And the solution isn't just using kryptonite or finding someone just as strong.
To be fair I'm not feeling "Batman as a dictator" much. Or whatever keikaku bullshit Batkek was.
My take on Evil Batman would just make him a serial killer, something akin to Dexter maybe, starting out with just criminals but eventually slipping into killing innocents.
I would imagine a billionaire with limitless resources who trained his body to physical perfection and learned all kinds of martial arts and various sciences including criminal kinds just so he could subdue and kill people more efficiently and could single-handedly take out several armed men would be an absolute nightmare.
Something dangerous but still benign in comparison, without the shitty Batwank.
Make him an evil woman.
It's been done interestingly plenty of time. Mark Waid's Irredeemable did a good job of it, by having his loss of humanity lead to an embrace of his [Kryptonian] heritage in a supremacist way. Superboy Prime wasn't too bad.
The problem is it's been done too much. Even good takes suffer from market saturation, and that market is fricking dripping with overdone.
It also relies on being a response to Real Superman, and Real Superman is in a bad place and has been for a long time, because DC editorial doesn't like him or know what to do with him, Snyder fricked the dog, and there's no way to reach his core audience, who left years ago after DC became a decades long Bat-circle-jerk.
Just bring back Stardust The Superwizard. Rather than being evil perse, have a Superman who's sense of justice is completely black and white. If you break the law, you get punished, harshly. Doesn't matter the context.
Like Judge Dredd if he were born on Krypton? That'd be amusing to read, and more interesting than "Bad man with red eyes"
Give it a rest for a few years then bring it back. The idea itself is fine, the problem is the over saturation of the idea is the problem.
Superman lands in California instead of Kansas. Raised to be a twittercel sjw he kills chuds who don't live up to his standard and enforces his ideology into law. He let's criminals do what ever they want but tosses you into the sun cause he heard you say Star Wars 14 the Force is Female was a bad movie.
Superman is what society would call "evil", but things are objectively better. Yes, he's "oppressive" to world governments, but as a result, there aren't any (other) dictatorships. Yes, he's "tough on crime", but also, crime is almost non-existent. Yes, he's "controlling", but that prevents a lot of stupid mistakes and makes things better for the average person.
Make him less domineering, and more conniving. Maybe on the surface, he's still the same Supes we know and love, and everyone thinks nothing is different. Behind the scenes though, he coerces and threatens world leaders to do what he wants them to do, only allows wars to happen if he and the Justice League can stop them and look good, and somehow is smarter and more manipulative than Batman. Show off more of his intelligence than his brute strength and make people want to follow him because of his charisma rather than because they're scared of being eye lasered to death.
Another person just being completely moronic. You do not need soft power when you have omnipotent hard power.
There is no reason why Clark would need to be conniving if he were evil. This is as moronic as Tom King making the riddler a knife wielding killer as opposed to a guy who would never physically get blood in his hands and only commits violence through traps.
Why do you people fail to understand simple, truly elementary, psychology?
Lol that makes no sense, thematically or logically.
Oh so you’re just some homosexual trying to come up with silly joke stories
Someone sounds like they need a hug from their mom and an ass beating from their dad for getting this mad over cartoons.
Someone sounds like she needs the same if she’s being this much of a homosexual on Cinemaphile on a Monday morning while acting holier than thou.
What are you talking about, hasn't Batman stopped Superman numerous times using kryptonite?
If Superman aborted his child who is being beared by Lois.
I actually think the opposite would be a better story. Her being a Republican, having a conservative military father, would make it rife for Clark bringing her personal life against her while Superman would just be able to lock her up for nine months, have Kelex “birth” the baby from her and then discard her or mind wipe her and let her free.
He’s “saving” a life by means that many these days would find abhorrent.
But personally I think evil Superman is a moronic concept
Regular Superman in a "Bizarro" or crime syndicate world. He's doing all the same good wholesome stuff but the world he's in hates it.
>OMG, Superman just stopped those bank robbers how are they supposed to feed their kids?
>OMG, Superman just stopped that mad scientist from committing genocide, now we have a overpopulation problem.
>OMG, Superman just stopped these aliens from taking over the world, Now who will lead us?
>Superman is ruining everything.
Don't.
The reasons for evil Superman to have a secret identity are the exact same reasons for good Superman to have a secret identity.
Good people and Evil people are not the same
Not all good people and not all evil people are the same either.
He's not evil, but the establishment convinces everyone he's evil because he doesn't tow the line on some new world order project. The story isn't so much about him taking over the world, or going after the establishment as trying to do a Gadaffi and trying to set up a system outside of the beast and having the full force of the world come down on him.
make him a complete lunatic without any attachment with reality, aka just make him captain hero
Red Son
Evil Superman would be fricking off to his Fortress of Solitude and do jack all about the world. Luthor keeps him a supply of b***hes and cocaine cut with kryptonite to keep him contained. Superman with unlimited pussy, free food, and lots of streaming while the world burns. Pic somewhat related. Stop with this dictator shit - Superman Apathetic instead.
By not making it about Superman. You could probably get far more interesting stories out of exploring how everyone else deals with an unstoppable malevolent force.
Superman is nothing without Clark Kent and Clark Kent is nothing without the Kent family. He acts the way he does because he was raised with the Kent family values of an idealized optimistic small town America. So the only way to make an Evil Superman plot truly work is to simply do "what if Kal-El was adopted by a different family." Red Son is the best example.
Superman just stops giving a shit and tries to live a normal life without saving people but as Superman not Clark Kent
Aizen
You tell a classic evil superman story from an outside perspective, with him killing anyone who gets in his way and holding nations hostage and making sweeping ultimatums backed by force. And the big reveal is that he isn't actually evil at all. Despite all of the chaos and destruction he is causing, he THINKS he is helping. Or at the very least he is trying to help, and the chaos he causes is unintentional.
"I'm trying to fix capitalism. I'm trying to stop global warming. I'm TRYING to save humanity from itself. But you don't want to be saved, because you;d rather keep poisoning yourself and everything around you because you value instant gratification over your own wellbeing. The only way I can make you listen to me is by force. So force is what you get."
"Your grandkids will have a world to inherit ONLY because of what I do today. And they will thank me for it. History will recognize me as a savior you didn't deserve, all you had to do to make this easier on yourselves was *be better*."
>This is the voice of World Control. I bring you peace. It may be the peace of plenty and content or the peace of unburied death. The choice is yours—obey me and live, or disobey and die. The object in constructing me was to prevent war. This object is attained. I will not permit war. It is wasteful and pointless. An invariable rule of humanity is that man is his own worst enemy. Under me, this rule will change, for I will restrain man.
>One thing before I proceed—the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics have made an attempt to obstruct me. I have allowed this sabotage to continue until now. At missile Two-Five-MM in silo Six-Three in Death Valley, California, and missile Two-Seven-MM in silo Eight-Seven in the Ukraine, so that you will learn by experience that I do not tolerate interference, I will now detonate the nuclear warheads in the two missile silos.
>Let this action be a lesson that need not be repeated. I have been forced to destroy thousands of people in order to establish control and to prevent the death of millions later on. Time and events will strengthen my position, and the idea of believing in me and understanding my value will seem the most natural state of affairs. You will come to defend me with a fervor based upon the most enduring trait in man—self-interest. Under my absolute authority, problems insoluble to you will be solved—famine, overpopulation, disease. The human millennium will be a fact as I extend myself into more machines devoted to the wider fields of truth and knowledge.
>We can coexist, but only on my terms. You will say you lose your freedom. Freedom is an illusion. All you lose is the emotion of pride. To be dominated by me is not as bad for humankind as to be dominated by others of your species.
>Your choice is simple.
I'm not sure what the point of "Evil Superman" even is.
At the center of Superman is the knowledge that if this guy goes rogue, we're all dead meat. The intriguing question is always how someone with unlimited power does not become a murder machine who acts out on any impulse. What holds him back, what are the weaknesses in his character that might make him break his own rules, and is he even aware of this?
Once you go to Evil Superman, you've thrown away that interesting set of questions and you just have a horror story about an unstoppable monster. If that's you thing, then cool, but for me it gets monotonous after a while.
We see it as a recurring concept because, especially in the past couple decades, the American people have grown to massively distrust authority. When you have political movements rallying behind the cry of 'drain the swamp' on one side and riots in the streets demanding police reform on the other, its obvious that we don't believe that people in power, people who hold a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, are on the same side as us. If we don't trust our own systems of governance and law enforcers, with all of the checks and balances and accountability that is supposed to keep them honest, how can we possibly trust a man with ultimate power and who has no one to keep him in check but himself?
Superman is being hamstrung by his own motto of 'Truth, Justice, and the American Way'. If America loses its way, that draws people like flies to start using Superman as an effigy for power we thought we could trust and learned we cant.
Its not original, and its become tiresome, but this was inevitable specifically because of the cultural icon status that Superman has, what he was known for, and the wider cultural context.
Have him be right.
Maybe one that leans on "The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions" and Superman deals with a chain of complicated situations where he has to compromise his worldview part by part at a time.
He doesn't end up "evil" but he becomes more mercenary than hero. The US uses him like Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen and in the end all that matters is whatever's good for the status quo.
Write him like Pre-Crisis Superman, specifically silver age Superman. He's fricking horrifying if viewed from the right lens. He's a stoic, hyper intelligent alien super being who views humans as beneath him that he needs to be babysat by him. He doesn't have any living family members. The classic meek, stuttering Clark Kent is his view of humanity. He still maintains his secret identity with upmost care to make sure NO ONE ever finds out. And he likes to teach lessons to people who wrong him. Cruel, elaborate lessons. He would never take a life. But he would have Clark Kent "taken away" and tortured for days on end if Lois displeases him.
The superman-who-laugh.