It's Not Superman, It's You: Why Superman's Not Boring

"Somewhere, in our darkest night, we made up the story of a man who will never let us down."-Grant Morrison

Deciding what to write about is a difficult process. Sometimes you start with an idea but can't develop it enough to finish. Other times there's a big treatise in your head that needs to be pondered for just a bit longer. Hours can while away as you struggle to come up with a topic, any topic.

And then there are days when Cracked posts an article about how you can't make a great movie about Superman and multiple people ask for your opinion on the matter. So strap in, it's Superman Day.

Ironically, despite being a "comic guy" I've never actually been that big of a fan of Superman. While not to the extent his critics would want you to believe, Clark Kent is still a relatively straight-shooting, honorable guy, and while his nobility doesn't cheapen the character it does deny him the shades of grey that add nuance to characters like Batman or John Stewart.1 Couple that with an overpowered set of abilities relative to his Justice League coworkers and a truly dreadful rogues gallery and we're left with a superhero that I never gravitated toward.

But if Superman's far from my favorite hero, he's certainly not a bad one. The central point of the Cracked article, and one I hear again and again when talking with friends, is that Superman is "boring". And that's not true. Superman is not an intrinsically uninteresting character. It's just that writers, when given such a powerful being, too often go for empty spectacle instead of exploring what it is that makes Superman great.

Going back to the Cracked article that prompted this post, the author Soren Bowie (who is for the most part an entertaining read) makes some excellent points about the major pitfalls in writing an engaging Superman tale. But his thesis, that "there's only one way to make a great Superman movie, and that's to make a movie about someone other than Superman", is wrong, and it's because many of his starting premises are flawed. First, he states that Superman, and other epic and extremely strong characters, have nowhere interesting to go with their arcs. The lack of any real threat or challenge to them means that they are never forced to change and evolve for the better and makes them hard to relate to. Of the three angles used in the article, this is the weakest link. For starters despite being the most prominent member of DC's heroes, Superman isn't even the most powerful character within his own universe (Martian Manhunter and Captain Marvel2 immediately jumping to mind). But on a deeper level, this line of reasoning implies that overcoming physical obstacles is the only way for heroes to prove their strength as characters. This is not only overly simplistic, it ignores the fact that what makes Superman exceptional has never been his battles against supervillains but his struggle to temper his power and abilities against his own moral code.

Superman is a superior being, not only to humans but to most of his fellow superheroes. Yet rather than use his powers for his own gain or to rule over our more primitive society, he instead became a man who works tirelessly not only to defend us, but to inspire us to become better ourselves. This contrast between his natural 'outsiderness' and his embrace of humanity is simple to understand, but the way he strikes a balance between those two traits is constantly evolving. This internal conflict in turn is reflected in both of Superman's two non-awful villains: Brainiac is exactly the type of cold, conquering alien threat that some fear Superman could become and Lex Luthor is a man willing to turn his back on his own species in order to be elevated above them. Both of those are paths Clark could have walked but didn't; instead he chose to inspire us.

All-Star Superman #10

Which brings us to the article's second point: that since Superman is defined by having the potential to be unstoppable were it not for his ironclad set of values, when films (frequently) choose to have him lose his powers he no longer has a compelling hook. The thing is though, the option to just start wrecking shit isn't something unique to Superman. Hal Jordan almost eliminated the entire Green Lantern Corps once, Tony Stark shoved his friends into an extra-dimensional Guantanamo because Mr. Fantastic ran some numbers, and there are one-shots where Batman just decides to kill everyone.

I absolutely agree that having Superman get temporarily depowered is bad storytelling, but that's just because it's been overused to death. It happens to every superhero and it's always used in the same way: to show that even without powers Clark Kent (or Bruce Wayne, Wally West, Thor, etc.) is still going to try and help those they can. It's a cliche, and depowering Superman doesn't lessen him any more than it would to other heroes. No one argues that a powerless Peter Parker gets to ignore "great responsibility" every time he loses "great power" is acting up again.

Of course Soren's final point, the one that forms the bedrock of his stance that a good Superman movie isn't actually about him, is that Superman stories are at their most interesting when they tackle the fallibility of their hero. Painting a portrait of what one friend described as "a Superman version of The Wire", the article describes how Superman, rather than acting as a positive force in the world, is a source of constant disappointment and false hope as he fails to save everyone. Every minute he spends stopping a speeding train is a minute where he can't catch a crashing plane or stop a gang war from hurting innocent civilians. Worse, no amount of superheroism can stop systemic problems like world hunger or disease. Therefore, a proper Superman story would focus as much about the world responding to his presence, first with adulation then despair, as it does the hero himself.

Look, I absolutely agree that Superman can't save everyone, and that him coming to terms with that fact is an important aspect of his character. But that's just it: he does face it. Everyday. So much of the Cracked article seems to overlook the fact that Superman isn't just an invincible symbol in a bright blue suit. Underneath the cape there is a person wielding that power, and how Clark reacts under the strain of his mantle is just as important as how others react to him. You can tell a great, engaging story about the political and societal upheavals that the existence of Superman would create3. But you can't overlook that there is still a character at the heart of those stories, and it's the character that makes them compelling.

There's a great Superman issue in Garth Ennis' Hitman4 where the Man of Steel randomly flies by the titular assassin and the two chat. Superman's in a bit of a funk: while rescuing the crew of an exploding space shuttle, he wasn't able to save one of the astronauts. In and of itself this would be standard stuff; what makes it memorable is the reason Clark takes this death so personally.

Hitman #34

To me, this moment encapsulates the internal nuances of Superman's persona. Clark knows that he can't save everyone and that we can't expect him to. What stings him isn't that he failed, it's that Superman failed. The fact that he has been placed upon pedestal doesn't take away from Superman's complexity but strengthens it, constantly motivating Clark to strive to live up to the standards that have been set for him. It's no less an impossible task than Batman's quest to eradicate crime in all its forms. But Superman works towards it anyways, in the hopes that doing so will lead to others following in his path.

Sadly, struggling to uphold a set of ideals and providing a role model for the masses isn't exactly cinematic, which is why film executives find it easier to just have Superman punch Zod in the face a bunch of times. It remains to be seen whether Zack Snyder's upcoming Man of Steel will prove to be the Superman movie fans have been waiting for or if, like Superman Returns before it, a fundamental misinterpretation of the character will leave it a bland, dull mess of a movie. But even if this newest installment on the silver screen fails it doesn't mean that Superman as a character is flawed. It just gives us something to strive for the next time.


1: The Green Lantern one, unless snarking at Fox News counts as a superpower.
2: Technically "Shazam" in the New 52 butI'm ignoring that. Like almost everything in the New 52
3: See, Red Son
4: Given Ennis' typical attitude towards superheros, the fact he treats Superman with such respect speak volumes by itself

Michael Bay and...Nuance?: Tone in Pain & Gain

The year is 1994. It's Miami (because of course it's Florida). Three body-building friends with no money and a warped concept of the American Dream decide to kidnap a rich asshole who works out at their gym. They have a plan. Things don't go smoothly. And for 40 minutes, Pain & Gain is the funniest film of the year.

The latest film from Michael Bay, Pain & Gain is a passion project for the director, who has wanted to make this "small" movie for years. And it's clear why: the film's plot is chock full of misplaced bravado, disastrously over-the-top scheming, and oozes 'attitude' from every pore. In short, subject matter right up Bay's alley. Yet what makes Pain & Gain work so well is that the director manages to reign in his own chaotic visual style. The editing still jumps from shot to shot with abandon, the colors remain garishly vibrant, and the camerawork once again is defined by its kinetic movement. But if Michael Bay retains his signature touches, here they're used to tell an actual story instead of a CGI-cutscene, resulting in what is the director's best narrative work since Bad Boys (admittedly, not a high bar).

He is buoyed by some tremendous performances by his talented cast. Mark Wahlberg's ringleader, Daniel Lugo, is the film's magnetically compelling center, the actor's playful charisma successfully disguising the utter psychopath hiding beneath the surface. Meanwhile, Tony Shaloub does great work as the businessman the criminal trio targets: despite having done nothing wrong, Shaloub comes across as such an asshole that we understand why no one would miss him. But the true star of the show is Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Really. Portraying an actual character for once, rather than just an intimidating build, Johnson is cast surprisingly against type as a well-meaning but overly trusting co-conspirator. His born-again ex-con finds himself constantly torn between his love of Jesus and love of cocaine, a struggle which is both hilarious and, at times, genuinely touching.

The end result is an exhilarating ride as we follow a stupid get-rich-quick scheme perpetrateded by even stupider criminals. And for the first half of the film, Pain & Gain seems to be a spectacular absurdist comedy. But around the time that Lugo and co. attempt to rid themselves of a now-penniless Shaloub, a sneaking thought entered into my head: They actually did these things to a guy. And at that moment, my film experience took a disturbing turn that it never fully recovered from.

 

Pain & Gain is based closely on a true story, and this is simultaneously its greatest strength and its eventual downfall. On one hand, the sheer absurdity of the real-life events ironically work to ground the film, creating a world where the audience is willing to go along with anything. In a late scene, Johnson waves to neighbors as he grills pairs of human hands and the words "This is still based on true events" are thrust onto the screen. It is blunt, crude, and deeply unsettling; it also is one of the film's biggest laughs.

Ultimately, however, the knowledge that I wasn't watching a hijinks-filled caper but an embellished version of real-life crimes gnawed at me as the film went on. To Bay's credit, this seems to be part of his point. By casting people like Wahlberg and Johnson, the audience is pre-inclined to align themselves with them, and early scenes play up the trio's bumbling earnestness in order to make us root for them. But then their amorality accelerates, more and more unspeakable acts are committed, and I felt uncomfortable watching the action onscreen. More than that, I felt complicit. It's a bold move for the film to take, and in the end it doesn't quite work as well as the film wants it too. What it did do though is make me think about myself as an audience member and how I approach film, which means that Michael Bay has made the most thought-provoking movie I've seen this year. Again, really.

Pain & Gain is far from a perfect film. Many of Bay's second-act attempts at comedy are played so earnestly that it undercuts the guilt-inducing tone he's just managed to establish. There is also an insane overabundance of voice-over narration throughout the movie (When a random stripper gets a V.O. backstory I thought the film was parodying itself. Instead, it kept introducing even more narrators). But if it's not a great film, then Pain & Gain is just shy of great. It's entertaining as hell until it isn't. And "until it isn't" manages to be the most interesting part.