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linkspooky · 1 year

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The Greatest Rivalry in Comic Books

As a part of an ongoing series exploring possible inspirations from western comic books found in My Hero Academia, I'm going to be comparing the rivalry between Lex Luthor and Superman, to the rivalry between All Might and Endeavor.

Before we even begin there's an obvious difference between the two rivalries you can point out. Lex Luthor is Superman's arch enemy, he's a villain. In that sense wouldn't the relationship between All for One and All Might be a better comparison as they're mortal enemies. However, I am going to make an argument that Endeavor's character is partially inspired or at least comparable to lex, because for both of them their entire character motivation revolves around their envy of the superman.

1. Übermensch

If you are a My Hero Academia fan reading this post and have never touched a superman comic in your life, then I reccomend reading 2006's All Star Superman by Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly. For many people this is THE superman comic, if you want to read a comic that represents everything superman is about without having to bother with the tangled mess of Comic Book Continuity, and it is only twelve chapters and a self contained story. I will also be using panels from that series in this post.

The connection between All Might and Superman is obvious, they are both all American heroes dressed up in the colors of the American flag, who represent the strongest single hero in their worlds.

Endeavor and Lex is where it gets a little more complicated, because one is a hero, and the other is one of the most famous comic book villains of all time. They can't be the same, right? However, they essentially have the same motivation.

What is Lex Luthor's motivation? Of course this being comic books there are several versions of the character floating around, in some versions he has a tragic backstory, in others he was a former friend of Clark Kent, but if you were to boil down Lex Luthor's motivation to its simplest form.

Lex Luthor just wants to kill superman. Why? The reasons vary, but Lex builds super-suits, giant killer robots, death traps all with the same goal of killing superman. Enji essentially shares the same desire, everything he does is all about surpassing All Might.

They have completely opposite means of course, but Enji is also an individual who uses everything, his considerable wealth, his powers, even his own family for the goal of surpassing All Might.

Why though? Why is the idea of surpassing Superman or All Might so important for Lex and Endeavor especially. If you look at Lex and Endeavor they already have everything they could possibly want.

Endeavor is an incredibly rich, succesful, and influential figure. He has the most solved cases of any hero in existence, the respect of an entire hero agency working under him, he is famous and basically considered the peak of the society he is in.

Lex is the most brilliant mind of his generation, he doesn't even need superpowers because he essentially can build robot suits that give him the same abilities as superman, he is rich, in almost every version of his character despite being a supervillain he's one with incredibly good publicity who is still incredibly popular in the public eyes. He even runs for president once and wins. Endeavor even has an entire family of four children, which sets him apart from All Might who has no family to speak of and does everything alone.

They have everything they want yet that's not enough, they want, and want, and want, and want, and want. For both of them all of these accomplishments mean basically nothing, because they are not superman.

When they are faced with their rivals, they are both reduced to nothing more than ordinary human beings.

"You see, Superman. I own metropolis. My techonology built it, my will keeps it going, and over two thirds of its people work for me whether they know it or not. Even you have to admit it's a model of efficiency. And yet, I've often thought, why limit myself to just one city. A being with your abilities could be very useful to me, on a shall we say global scale?" Lex Luthor, Superman the Animated Series.

Why does this matter though? There's a deeper explanation if we want to take a moment to turn to the philosophy of Nietzsche. Now, the popular idea that Superman himself is named after Nietzsche's concept of the "Ubermensch" isn't exactly clear. Siegel and Shuster never said they created Superman with Nietzsche's ideology in mind, and also at the time "Superman" was really common slang to describe men of great ability, athletes and politicians. However, later works with Superman have acknowledged there's a few similarities between the character and Nietzsche's ideas.

"He's strong, he flies, he's a nieztschian fantasy ideal all wrapped up in a red cape. He's Superman." Lois Lane, Superman the Animated Series.

Nieztscehe's ideal of the Overman is a concept he introduces in his 1883 book, Thus Spoke Zarathusra. A lot of people have misinterpreted this idea to mean Nietzsche believed that some human beings were born inherently superior, but it has absolutely nothing to do with that.

NIetzsche's philosophy comes in response to otherworldliness, the idea that morals are dictated to us by some source outside of this world, and they are inherent truths. At the time this was christianity, god creates morals, and they are right and true because they come from god. Nietzsche doesn't argue that morals don't exist or don't matter, just that they don't come from god, and are rather invented by human beings for human beings. That doesn't mean there are no rules or that you don't have to follow the rules, but that we make our own rules.

It's like money, money is technically created by human beings, if you're in the middle of a desert then having a briefcase with fifty thousand dollars won't help you, but at the same time people use money. At the same time because money is a completely human creation, you could argue that society could evolve past the need for money and create some other system of rules for exchanging goods and services, Marxists certainly believe that.

"Zarathustra, however, beheld the people and was amazed. Then he spoke thus:

Despite being credited as the creator of nihilism, Nietzsche's philosophy actually preaches against nihilism. He doesn't argue there are no morals, or that people should just do whatever they want, but in Zasrathura he presents the Ubermesch as the creator of new values within the moral vacuum of nihilism.

"Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman - a rope over an abyss. A dangerous across, a dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous shuddering and stopping.

"What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: what can be loved in man is that he is an overture and a going under.

"I love those who do not know how to live, except by going under, for they are those who cross over.

"I love the great despisers because they are the great reverers and arrows of longing for the other shore.

"I love those who do not first seek behind the stars for a reason to go under and be a sacrifice, but who sacrifice themselves for the earth, that the earth may some day become the overman's.

"I love him who lives to know, and who wants to know so that the overman may live some day. And thus he wants to go under.

"I love him who works and invents to build a house for the overman and to prepare earth, animal, and plant for him: for thus he wants to go under.

"I love him who loves his virtue, for virtue is the will to go under and an arrow of longing.

"I love him who does not hold back one drop of spirit for himself, but wants to be entirely the spirit of his virtue: thus he strides over the bridge as spirit.

From Book 1, Zarathusra's Prologue, 4.

The overman isn't the biggest, or the strongest, or the inherently superior being (in fact literally all of Nietzsche's values argue that there's nothing inherent in this world) just a person who strives towards their own ideal.

"However, perhaps what is more important than Nietzsche's image of the overman is what the concept serves to represent. In slightly broader terms, Nietzsche sets up the Overman to function as a sort of idealized version of one's self - an image of a perfect and powerful being which has overcome all their fears and deficientcies, which one can and should set goals to strive towards. Of course, as an ideal, it cannot ever truly be reached but that is the point." Becoming Who You Really Are - The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche [x]

Okay, so that's enough philosophy nerd shit for now. Nietzsche's philosophy of the overman is someone who creates and pursues their own values, so looking at Superman and All Might vs Lex Luthor and Endeavor from this angle we ask: What are their ideals?

One of the biggest misinterpretation of Clark Kent's character is that rather than seeing him as a person, people see him as a set of powers. However, it's not Superman is the real one, and Clark Kent is the fake one, Superman is Clark Kent. Clark Kent is just a boy from Smallville Kansas, raised by two loving parents with good values who wants to help people. If Clark Kent didn't have powers, he would still want to help people because that's what he does (there's a famous storyline where he loses his powers for a year and still goes on doing the same thing to the best of his ability), he's not defined by the powers he was born with, but rather what he does.

All Star Superman is essentially a comic where Clark learns that he is dying. The reason he falls for Luthor's death trap in the first place, is because he flew straight into danger to help people who would have died otherwise. It's the perfect trap because Superman puts saving people above all else, he's not going to selfishly leave them to their deaths to preserve their own life.

One of the most famous panels in the comic is where Clark is in his last days and literally dying from radiation poisoning, and he still stops to notice something as small as hearing a therapist panic because their patient is putting themselves in danger, and he drops everything to go talk them down off a ledge.

Superman's not about the powers, but rather how they are used. In fact when Lex Luthor looks at superman all he sees is the powers. Once again, Lex is basically as strong as superman with his natural genius and intellect. The fact that he's not gifted or special is entirely Lex's own perceptive, he's just being petty because on top of all the other natural gifts he was born with, he can't fly and shoot lasers out of his eyes.

In fact if there's anyone who believes in inherent superiority it's Lex, not Clark. Luthor's logic is essentially: He was just born with all this power, I was the one who worked to get where I am. Yet, Lex also believes all of his natural abilities make him entitled to something more.

He believes he is inherently great, and yet his actions are not that of a great man.

There's also the aspect where Lex Luthor represents everything that american society tells you is the ideal, he's rich and succesful, he's at the top of his field, he's like what both american society and capitalism consider to be a great man, and yet he's beaten by a guy from Kansas.

This relates again to the rivalry between All Might and Endeavor. All Might is a hero who builds himself around an ideal, sacrificing himself for the sake of a more peaceful society. He has a selfless goal that is greater to him, and All Might as a hero similiar to superman works himself to death saving as many people as possible.

On the other hand, Endeavor has no great selfless goal. He doesn't even have an ideology. Much like Lex, all he has is his own sense of entitlement. He worked so hard so therefore he deserves to be number one.

Endeavor isn't different from All Might because he's not as good at punching people however, it's his deeds that make him different. Just like Lex for all he goes on and on about his hard work being what got him there, Endeavor also believes in ideas of inherent superiority and eugenics. He abandoned one child because he has a genetic flaw, and then trained his youngest forcefully because he believed having been born with the perfect quirk is what will make him qualified to surpass All Might.

If you want another comparison between the two, they also both used their biological offspring to try to surpass their respective supermans. Endeavor fathered children to try to create a child with a more powerful quirk than his. Lex Luthor made Kon-El a clone of himself and Superman achieved by mixing his human DNA with Clark's Kryptonian DNA.

If anything All Might is actually the one who was born powerless, because he was quirkless and he accepted a powerful quirk and trained his body for the sake of saving others, whereas everything Endeavor has done is only for himself. He, just like Lex has many things he could have done, he could have been a father, he could have saved people, but everything he does is just to prove the superiority he thinks he's entitled too.

If anything, the reason why Lex and Endeavor are so jealous has nothing to do with being physically weaker, and because their lives are so empty in comparison. They do everything for themselves so in essence they have no one. There's a small scene in All Star Superman, where he travels to the Bizarro world where everything is the opposite and meets Zibarro, an intelligent and educated version of Bizarro Superman who makes his own poetry, and then at the end of the comic he spends time thinking how amazing that is Zibarro could create poetry and even preserves it. That act of creation is the thing that Clark is most impressed with, and really when he's talking about the life he lived, it's really the other people he found amazing not himself.

So there you have it. My argument that All Might and Endeavor's relationship is not superman and batman, or even Vegeta and Goku, but rather they have the most in common with Superman and Lex Luthor as two people blessed with great abilities, one who uses their abilities in service of other people, and the other who uses their powers only in service of themselves.

#dc comics #dc comics meta #mha meta #endeavor #enji todoroki #superman #clark kent #lex luthor #all might #toshinori yagi #dc #superman meta #bnha meta #superman analysis

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artbyblastweave · 2 years

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So there’s this Superman comic I really like called Superman: Earth One, written by J. Michael Straczynski, and I enjoy it because it portrays a version of Superman who’s believably angry about the state of the world and often has to work around that in his decision making. And as a follow-up to that, I also really, really like the comic because it directly addresses the elephant in the room about why Superman doesn’t get involved in politics.

There’s a sequence in the second volume where Superman is providing disaster relief to a minority-dominated area of a country, which the local dictator has been passively trying to genocide by denying conventional relief. Said dictator shows up and starts executing and mutilating the local populace until Superman leaves; this causes Superman to throw in with the local revolutionaries, and he subsequently storms the dictator's palace, disarms everyone present without actually hurting anyone, and then leaves the dictator open for the revolutionaries to do with as they please. Very messy things subsequently happen to the dictator.

And this is the point at which the United States Government drops everything to begin working out a way to kill Superman, because they surmise that it’s only a matter of time before Superman does the same thing at the White House.

And then, after Superman barely scrapes out a win against the CIA’s half-baked predictably-nearly-apocalyptic plan to kill him by cutting a deal with General Zod, he goes to the United Nations and says, “Look, I can’t survive you assholes pulling out all the stops to get rid of me, but you can’t survive the fallout of a successful plan to get rid of me because anything the CIA makes or recruits that’s capable of killing me, is almost certainly going to immediately turn around and kill all of you. As this whole mess demonstrated! So how about I pledge to stop couping dictators, you stop growing evil Superman Clones, we all go home really unhappy and do our best to get on with it?”

And, you know, ask any Superman fan who hasn’t read this comic why he doesn’t fight the government and you’d get an answer along these lines! It’s not hard to intuit the realpolitik of Superman’s position on the world stage, he can’t help people if he’s constantly fighting every government at once. But most Superman comics that get political in this way either have him stay out of it entirely due to personal ethics, or have him become a crusading tyrant to demonstrate why it’s a bad idea. So even if it required a generally angrier and grittier Clark than you usually see, it was really refreshing to see a version of Superman that dipped into this kind of thing just enough to canonize the obvious answer as to why he usually steers clear of outright political violence.

#superman #superman earth one #general zod #thoughts #dc comics #dc comics meta #superman meta #j michael straczynski #dc earth one #earth one #dc #dc meta

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theparadiseproject · 4 months

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Genuinely do not like that they changed Superman's background to include him being adopted. It gets even worse because the Kents being farmers make it even more unlikable for me, because I am not a big fan of Clark growing up in the country at all.

It does really show how he was a blueprint for Spiderman. Metropolis was even originally in New York and he was pretty much a full city boy(loved that).

The idea that he needed someone to instill his morals and worldview into him doesn't make sense at all. If anything growing up as an orphan in a big city would be the place he learned about the corruption of the city and what the poor and needy go through.

He also already has parents that cared about him deeply, which the Kents and their focus really takes away from and is way too overemphasized when his actual parents are way more interesting.

The only actual push back I see to this idea is that its "sad" but his backstory is supposed to be sad. The writers never write the fallout of being shipped to earth properly and losing Krypton, its not even a point brought up until he gets older despite the fact of him wanting to know his real parents being something that he would have thought about from as young as he could conceive.

#superman #clark kent #dc comics #superman meta

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frownyalfred · 7 months

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You know what this makes me think about? A guy as paranoid and highly trained as Batman would absolutely flip out if someone he didn’t know tried to touch him. He’s probably on alert at virtually all times for possible hits or hands reaching toward him.

But here? He’s on his comm and he doesn’t even blink when Dick reaches into his belt pockets. His belt pockets with explosives and highly dangerous materials that shouldn’t be accessible to anyone who doesn’t know how to disarm them.

Dick reaches into his belt for a sucker and Bruce just lets him. It’s such a casual display of touch that I overlooked the first time I came across this panel.

How many small touches and invasions of his space does Bruce allow from family? How big of a gift is it for him to allow those? What other ways does the Batfamily climb all over him with casual touch and affection? Did he have to learn to accept it after being relatively devoid of it for so long?

Just some morning thoughts as I wake up on cold medicine.

#thoughts #bruce wayne #batman #dc #batfamily #dick grayson #meta #Batman meta #batfamily meta #clark kent #superman #nightwing

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bet-on-me-13 · 4 months

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The Villains Daughter

So! Years ago, back when the Justice League was only just starting out, only a year or two after their initial team-up, they had one of their biggest battles to date. A group of Extra-Dimensional Beings had burst into their reality, hellbent on destroying a Government Facility and the nearby small town in Illinois.

They barely managed to beat the Invading Army back, although the Government Facility and a part of the nearby Town had been destroyed in the battle.

Later, they would learn about what had happened. Apparently the Government Base, called a GIW Facility, had managed to finally Crack the secret to Interdimensional Travel a few days earlier. Unfortunately, they had opened a Portal into a Dimension known as the Ghost Zone, ruled over by a Tyrant King who wanted to enslaved all world under him. Their Breaching of the GZ had alerted the Tyrant King to the existence of their Dimension, and he had launched an immediate Invasion to try and take it over.

And the evidence supported this.

Wonder Woman shared Legends of her People, telling that their Founding Ancestor had fled the rule of a Tyrant King when she passed into the Afterlife.

Zatara shared his Magic Tomes, showing them passages detailing the horrific Rule of the Tyrant King of the Infinite Realms.

They even asked Boston Brand, the Deadman and resident Ghost about it. He hadn't been the the Ghost Zone in Years, but even he told them that he had personally fled the Tyrant King.

And they also learned that when the Tyrant King set his eyes on something, he did not falter on his Warpath to acquire it. The Tyrant King, Pariah Dark, would be back for their World, again and again.

And they needed to be prepared. This Battle was what kickstarted their true Commitment to the idea of a Team. They knew they could not defeat Pariah Dark alone, so they needed to remain as a Team.

But there was another thing that came about from the Battle.

While the JLA had been helping clean up, Wonder Woman came across a strange sight. A Baby had been left in the rubble of the GIW Building.

She asked around, investigated, and did all she could to find the babies parents. At first she thought that one of the GIW Agents had brought their kid to work that day, but their records indicated that none of the Agents had children of that Age. And Neither did any of the other workers who worked on the base, like the Janitors or the Kitchen Staff. And of they did, all of their children were accounted for.

She eventually came to the conclusion that the Baby must belong to somebody in the nearby Town, but that lead led nowhere either.

She finally came to the conclusion that the Baby's parents must have died in the Invasion, a very unfortunate but very real possibility. She was going to place her into the System, but over the course of her investigation she had grown fond of the Child.

She decided to Adopt the baby herself. She didn't know the child's name, so she had to come up with a new one.

"How do you like the name, Stella?"

The baby gurgled in delight.

...

Over the next decade of their Teams Existence, the Justice League had to fend off the Legions of the Ghost King's Army many more times. It seemed that Pariah had grown wise to the fact that they were the ones defending the Human Realm, as almost all of the later attacks were directed on them personally.

It made sense, they were the First Line of Defense against his Armies, if he managed to defeat them, their World would soon fall.

But they dealt with the attacks as they came. They had made it their mission to defend their Home from the Forced of Pariah Darks Army, and they would not falter now, or ever.

In the case of Wonder Woman, he Daughter had grown to be a fine little lady. Stella had eventually developed Powers similar to her mother, in that she could fly and had super strength, and had begged to be trained as a Hero.

And who was Diana to deny her Daughter her greatest wish? Over the next 5 years, Diana trained Stella in the ways of the Amazon's. Then, when Stella was 15, she had her join the newly formed Young Justice.

She made a great group of friends on that Team, and even started going by Ellie as a Nickname. Her best friend was by far Conner, though she didn't know why she felt such a strong connection to him? It felt like she could relate to him, but her situation was completely different?

Ah well, her Mom wouldn't mind having another kid, would she? She always wanted a Brother!

...

Meanwhile in the Ghost Zone, the Ghost King was getting anxious. After 15 years, his Agents in the Human Realm had finally managed to set up the Ritual needed to Summon Him into the Human Realm.

Who knew that accepting the Ghost King's Throne would bar him from entering the Human Realm through normal Means? He couldn't even use the Portal, he needed to be summoned or he simply wouldn't be able to leave his new home dimension.

But now, it was almost time. Just another year or two, and he would finally be able to enter the Human Realm. He would finally be able to Find Her. His Daugther.

Danny would finally be able to reunite with his daughter, Ellie.

#Dpxdc #Dp x dc #Dcxdp #Dc x dp #Danny Phantom #Dc #Dcu #Justice League #Wonder Woman #Diana adopts Ellie #Ellie was kidnapped by the GIW #Ellie was deaged so her Core would be able to grow alongside her Body #She doesn't know she even has powers aside from her flight and strength #They all just think that he is an unregistered classification of Metahuman and that's why her blood work didn't come back with a Meta Gene #Ellie Joins Young Justice #She is extremely uncomfortable when Superman rejects Connor but she doesn't know why #The Justice League thinks that Danny is a Villain #They think that he is Pariah Dark #Just under a new name #The whole world thinks that Danny is the greatest Supervillain to ever live #Including Ellie #She does not react well when she finds out that the World Greatest Evil is her Dad #Especially since she doesn't have the context #Danny attacked the JLA because she could sense that they had his daughter #He thought they were working with the GIW

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butwhyduh · 5 months

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One of my favorite tropes is that the entire superhero community can’t believe batman is just a human.

“I thought you were a meta?”

“No.”

“Well how did you do that?”

“(Long explanation of a tech he invented.)”

“Oh so you have super intelligence.”

“No…. I’m just smart.”

Then they meet Robin and assume he’s super powered.

“Bit of a hypocrite to have a super kid when you won’t even let us in the city.”

“Robin isn’t a meta.”

“WhAT?? He’s just a CHILD??”

They think this with every new Gotham vigilante. Some still refuse to believe Nightwing isn’t a meta.

“Humans can’t bend that much okay?”

“He’s… well trained.”

“Batman you can’t expect us to believe that.”

#Bruce Wayne #batman #meta #dc superheroes #superman is concerned #batman is not a meta #dc tropes #Robin #nightwing #dick Grayson

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theerurishipper · 2 months

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Honestly, I do love Dick as Nightwing and Bruce and Dick's complicated relationship, but sometimes I like the old days when things were sweet and simple you know? When it was just them and Alfred and they all had fun with each other. Like when they blew off boring parties to go on patrol by using Dick's bedtime as an excuse. When Bruce let Dick go off on his own and said he was allowed "a little escapade" and ruffled his hair. When Alfred always brought coffee and "turkey sandwiches with Swiss cheese" to the Batcave while Dick and Bruce happily talked about their nightlife escapades. When Dick would make Bruce laugh regularly.

When they discussed Hamlet while riding in the Batmobile. When Alfred picked Dick up from school and dropped him off on dates and helped him go behind Bruce's back on cases. When Dick and Bruce would play fight with each other. When Dick made Batman's meetings with Gordon "more optimistic." When Bruce was being a helicopter parent and wanting to know why Dick would want to go to a public school. When Dick would sneak off with Clark when Bruce wanted him to stay back to finish his homework, and Clark did it for him before Bruce noticed. When Bruce teased Dick about his failed date, and they talked about it and their love lives. When Bruce apparently told stories about Joker to Dick during rides in the Batmobile. When Dick was actually the one who named the aforementioned Batmobile. When they would banter even in between a serious case. When Dick would cling onto Bruce to annoy him. When Dick was contemplating how alone he felt, and Bruce just showed up to catch him and do a routine on the trapeze with him. When Bruce would call Dick "kiddo." When Dick even called him stuff like "Bruce-ter." When Bruce used to call Dick "chum." I miss those days.

Yeah a lot of these are from Robin: Year One but that's just because it's the one I remember most. But there's a lot of them just having a good time and it doesn't feel like we see a lot of that anymore.

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nicholasmoorethetwittermigrant · 10 months

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Something I really appreciate about My Adventures With Superman is that I think it’s the best approach I’ve seen in a recent adaptation regarding Clark’s nature as a journalist.

Not only is the job afforded more plot utility in an adaptation where Clark doesn’t have all his powers cracked yet (so he can’t just hear/see everything to the point of literal omniscience), but it’s also a really smart choice to have reporting be something that Clark wants to do independent from any Superman-related stuff.

Clark never planned on becoming a superhero, but he did plan on being a reporter because journalism is a field that interests him. That immediately humanizes him and gives the viewer an emotional stake in the Daily Planet as a setting and aspect of Clark’s life that we should care about. It also immediately gives he and Lois as massive thing in common that their chemistry can then build out from naturally.

A lot of recent Superman adaptations seem to not know what to do with the Planet besides just having Clark BE there as a matter of obligation to source material, but this show has a clear, pointed purpose that lets it be the base for the whole series, and it’s a boon for Clark’s character across the board.

#my adventures with superman #animation #superman #clark kent #dc comics #superman and lois #lois lane #clois #meta

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chaoswarfare · 1 year

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dp x dc prompt #34

Everyone always says that having a good reaction time is a great thing in a town where ghosts attack daily. Nobody ever warned him that sometimes it’s a bad thing to punch first and ask questions later.

Danny gets startled by Bane while wandering around Gotham, and punts him four blocks into a brick wall. Danny scrambles to get gone before anyone notices, but unfortunately for him, Gotham has eyes everywhere. And one Red Robin cannot believe that a twink of a guy just sent one of their physically strongest rogues flying like it was nothing.

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soleminisanction · 8 months

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I've always really liked DC's in-house choice of referring to their various superhero groupings as "families," but it has gotten a little frustrating recently with people both in canon and in fandom seeming to forget that families aren't just a parental-unit-and-kids formation. They're complicated, and a lot of the DC families are too messy to fit into that neat little nuclear family mode.

Which is to say... here's some scattered thoughts/summaries about how these families are actually structured in canon, because I think it's interesting:

Supers -- The smaller, more traditional Superfamily (Clark, Lois, Kara, Kon, etc.) is a pretty traditional Midwestern nuclear family, with Jimmy Olsen filling the role of close family friend/goofy neighbor sidekick (in the Silver Age, he was Kara's would-be suitor) and Steel feeling more like part of Clark's personal circle of friends. The recent line up, though, with Jon, the twins, Kong and Nat? Starts to feel more like some old dynasty or noble house, complete with fostered foundlings and the Steels acting almost like knights under a noble's banner, possibly reflective of what the House of El would have been on Krypton.

Arrows -- Might currently be the closet to a traditional nuclear family structure. You've got Ollie and Dinah, their younger sisters, Ollie's adopted and biological children, and Ollie's granddaughter through Roy, plus by some counts Roy's co-parent and her sister as "in-laws." Bonnie and Cissie King-Jones are adjacent to but not technically "part" of the family, though I believe it's implied at one point that Ollie might also be Cissie's bio-dad. Pretty straightforward, these guys are actually family and they act like it, for good and ill.

Shazam Family -- Also a literal, actual family. Not originally, the original golden age "Marvel Family" was considerably more complicated and only Billy and Mary were full siblings, but nowadays the whole point of the modern Shazam family is that they're foster siblings united by familial love and that's fantastic. Meanwhile your average Black Adam story is 75% angsty family drama, 25% Egyptian mythology references.

Flashes -- Technically closer to three nuclear families (the Allens, the Wests and the Garricks; four if you include the Quicks), two of whom are united by marriage and all of whom are bound by the Speedforce, which, given its semi-spiritual connections to things like Speedster afterlives, can act almost like a religious force that connects them to the additional members like Avery, Circuit Breaker and Max as Bart's foster-dad. They're a big, sprawling tree with more cousins than siblings, the kind of family that functionally has a reunion every Christmas and Thanksgiving.

Lanterns -- Now these guys are the exception that proves my point about the whole 'family' thing not being straightforward. The lanterns aren't a family, they're a corps. Soldiers. Space cops. Comrades-in-arms. They respect each other, have each other's backs, might even like or care about each other, but those last two are optional, and they don't have the same kind of assumed obligations towards each other that a family would have. They're friends and co-workers, not family, but that doesn't mean their relationships are less significant, they're just different.

Wonders -- Roughly half of them are either one of Hippolyta's daughters (Diana, Donna, Nubia pre-Crisis) or related to them through the gods (Cassie), and the other half (Artemis, Yara, modern-age Nubia) use sister as a term of endearment more in a utopian lesbian commune kind of way. I think they brought Steve Trevor back recently? He's basically the Ken in this equation and perfectly fine with that role. None of which should be surprising if you've seen Professor Marston and the Wonder Women.

Bats -- This is the one that people get really wrong when they try to force it into a traditional family structure. Don't let WFA fool you, the Bats are and have always been way more a snarled mess of tangled interpersonal relationships than they've ever been a cohesive family. Whether Dick is Bruce's son or his brother depends on what era you're talking about, and the former reading is much more recent than you think -- as in "started cropping up in the early 2000s" recent. Barbara is both Cassandra's sister and her mother. Duke and Steph both have living parents and neither of them want or would ever dream of treating Bruce like their dad; Tim was the same way until his dad died. None of the Robins ever lived in the mansion together, nor did Cass. Babs considered Jean-Paul Valley her brother and Huntress is so close to Tim she once hallucinated him calling her Big Sister. They're a beautiful mess of people finding places where their broken edges fit together into something that works for them and trying to reduce it down to a cozy nuclear family is just so goddamn reductive and lazy.

Blue Beetles -- Are only tangentially related to each other. Seriously, they never even get direct mentoring, each one just takes over when the previous one dies and works on completely different rules from the other two. They're complete strangers bound by a legacy and that's honestly pretty fun.

Zataras -- There's only three of them and they're literally a father, daughter and cousin.

Martians -- Not really a family because there's only the two of them, but an interesting case where the two survivors of what was functionally a war of mutually assured destruction came together in an attempt to find some peace in the aftermath of what they'd lost.

Titans -- The JLA and JSA aren't really in the "family" category, but the Titans lean into it hard, mostly because they're a textbook found family. They don't mirror a nuclear family structure, they're simply a group of people who came together to form a mutual support network. They're the idealized college friends you grew into your own with, some of them childhood companions and others you only met once you leave home for the first time, but all of them friends that you manage to maintain contact with for life, with everyone coming back together even as you scatter and do your own things.

Young Justice -- Meanwhile, this team is the chaotic group of misfits you hung out with when you were a teenager, especially when you were just starting to be allowed to act without adult supervision. You drive each other crazy, none of you know you're all queer as fuck, and you'd fight a bear for any of them even if they asked you not to. They'd probably be insulted if you tried to call them a family. They come out here to get away from their families, thank you very much.

#dc comics #meta #batfamily #super family #arrow family #flash family #wonder women #shazam family #batman #superman #wonder woman #green lantern #teen titans #young justice #kinda rambling #just kinda throwing some ideas together #families of choice #non-traditional families

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jesncin · 1 month

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I hope Superman fandom as a whole will one day understand that if you truly want to commit to the immigrant allegory, scenes like Lois shooting Clark with a gun or her jumping off a building to prove he's Superman pair really badly with that allegory.

I know some fans like to say "Superman was always an immigrant allegory" and while I get the sentiment of retroactively looking at how the lives of his creators inform the character they made, we also have to acknowledge that the allegory was never consistent to begin with. The original Superman comics were fun gags and shenanigans. Superman Smashes the Klan wouldn't stand out so much if his immigrant identity was consistently integral to his character.

And if you're going to commit to Superman being an immigrant, then you've got to be open to changes on staple Superman lore. So much of this fandom is dedicated to nostalgia, references, canon events, "but Lois does that in the comics! It's not Lois Lane if she doesn't do crazy things to prove who Superman is!" without considering how that is contextualized in the allegory.

I still get so many comments on my Clois comics but especially the Private Interview comic saying "I've never seen Superman this way before" from even longtime fans of the character. Honestly, I never saw him that way until I read Smashes the Klan. Since then I want people to have that recognition of themselves in him too. But that means being brave with changes! Maybe it's okay for this version of Lois to respect Superman's boundaries. Maybe an Asian Lois can be more than an aesthetic shallow retread of white Lois.

These characters are more than callbacks and references. The reason they persist throughout many versions is because they hold themes. Lois isn't just "stunt girl reporter obsessed with Superman and THE TRUTH", she's also a jaded reporter hardened by life who finds hope again in Superman. Superman isn't just "save cats from trees" guy. He's an alien immigrant, and you can make a ton of new stories from that lens alone.

#ramblings #media criticism #jesncin dc meta #<- I will update this tag #“you're writing Lois different!” yeah no kidding I'm committing to the allegory of immigrant solidarity that doesn't exist in canon #I'm also committing to the belief that BIPOC characters aren't just white characters with flavor but whole different experiences #that should be explored! wragh had these thoughts for a while #jesncin talks maws #this is a superman smashes the klan supremacy blog

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batfleckgifs · 26 days

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Detective Comics #1083 / Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

#batman v superman #detective comics #batman #superman #superbat #GAYYYYYYY #but also #RAM V MY BELOVED #snyderverse #misc: meta.#not really but idk how to tag this so

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artbyblastweave · 1 month

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So I recently had the thought that Superman as depicted in the DCAU canon probably has the best-articulated-by-the-narrative and most-consistent character flaws of any Superman I’ve seen, in a way that’s enabled by the long-formedness and consistent creative vision of the series.

He’s got an Atlas complex that grinds the gears of his equally-durable, equally-capable colleagues in the Justice League. He has deep-seated fears of moving the wrong way and breaking something or someone, which is then upstream of some moderate control issues. He’s got anger problems, although it’s rare for someone to push him far enough that this takes center stage; you see this with Prof. Hamilton in the series finale of STAS, but also in a number of fights against opponents strong enough that he starts getting frustrated. When the stakes are lower, he can be cocky bordering on genuinely vindictive; there are lots of examples of him rubbing his opponents' noses in it when he finally gets them on the back foot, and it’s shown in flashbacks that he was genuinely kind of a dick when he was a teenager and hadn’t completely sorted out what proportional responses looked like. He doesn’t always think through the implications of his grand projects, be that the implicit threat-escalation posed by the expanded JLU, or the massive disarmament project he spearheaded that turned out to be part of an alien invasion scheme. There are probably more of these that I’m forgetting. The final roundup here is that he’s a good guy. He’s far and away from a perfect guy, with perfect judgement. All of this amounts to something that’s more coherent and specific than the contradictory, subject-to-eternal-revision mess you could assemble from his 60-something year publication history in the comics, but nonetheless with a substantial-enough runtime that all of these traits can be put on display again and again.

In turn, this allowed the collective DCAU continuity to get away with at least three “what if Superman went rogue” plots- four if you count the mind-control situation in Legacy- specifically because they did the legwork to establish the concrete neuroses and psychological vulnerabilities that might cause this specific version of Superman to go rogue. It was never completely insane that Luthor might figure out the exact set of words, actions, and personal losses necessary to coax this depiction of Superman into an authoritarian partnership for the supposed greater good. It’s not completely insane that this depiction of Superman, if pushed far enough, might lose faith in the collective judgement of humanity and decide to put the world and all his loved ones in a bottle. And when the Cadmus plot rolls around in JLU, it’s as effective as it is because they’ve already advanced two roads-not-taken, established what levers you need to pull to make this specific version of this guy cross the line, and that Cadmus and Luthor are pulling all of them.

I emphasize the specificity here, because the flipside of this are Superman-gone-rogue narratives that jump right to that as the cornerstone of the continuity, with no real opportunities for juxtaposition. A major issue I eventually developed with the Injustice franchise is that despite its pretenses of being an alternate universe, there’s no established continuity that it’s deviating from, bar its own. To some extent I feel as though it’s banking on the audience transposing their gestalt-understanding of Superman and the broader DCU- hell, their understanding of the Justice Lords arc in particular- in order to elide that they’re playing extremely fast-and-loose with the specifics of what has and hasn’t happened to Superman in this continuity. The DCEU is a runner-up- jumping right to the Damocles-sword of a bad-future after two movies is jumping the gun, in the same way everything about the 2010s DCEU was jumping the gun. I think you could plausibly attack TDKR’s portrayal of Superman under this logic, although I personally wouldn’t- but that’s its own post.

Point being that you can’t sell me the upset of a paradigm if you never established it-you need to set up the pins before you can bowl worth a damn.

#superman #DCAU #justice league #justice league unlimited #superman the animated series #stas #thoughts #meta

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bet-on-me-13 · 1 year

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Danny runs for Mayor P.2

kgned3Part 1

Some more snippets of the Gotham Mayor Danny AU!

...

Danny would absolutely try to hire some of the Rouges as his Mayoral Cabinet, I can just imagine Waylon Jones, the Killer Croc, in a Suit and Slacks sitting in a the Mayors Office while awkwardly holding his resume.

Danny: So, Mr. Jones, why do you think we should hire you? Waylon: Well sir, I have something of a reputation and I feel like I would be an amazing Bodyguard. Danny: OK, one question though. What is your opinion on Clowns? Waylon: I don’t like them. Danny: Hired!

...

Danny: Now, Mr Nygma, what do you think you would bring to my office? Edward: Well sir, I am fairly well known for my expert planning and timing skills. Also I can give you fun riddles whenever you want! Danny: Hmmm, that’s definitely a good point. One question, if needed, will you attack a clown on sight? Edward: Yes? Danny: Hired!

...

Danny: Now, I can see that you used to have a very reputable resume Mr. Dent. Harvey: Thank you sir. Danny: I can’t see any reason to refuse your application, but I do have one question. Do you like Clowns? Harvey: Uhm...yes? Danny: I am sorry dir, but I am going to have to reject your application for a job in the Mayors office. Mr Jones, please escort this man out

...

Danny would absolutely do an amazing job in decreasing the crime rate, just by virtue of the fact that his very presence is destabilizing the Curses put on the City.

But at the same time, his policies are also very efficient, based on Gen Z Humor/Ideas

Danny: As my new Law states, every year the most rich person in the City will be forced to give up 70% of their assets to Charity. You can avoid this by donating as much as possible in the weeks leading up to the Sacrifice Day, whoever donates the most is exempt from the choosing even if they are the Richest, we will then move on to the second Richest, and so on Reporter: Sir, isn’t this just the “Winner Of Capitalisms” Prompt from Tumblr? Danny: Yes.

...

Batman: Why did you just pass a Law that states that all Vigilantes are given the right to kill? Danny: Because I accidentally hired every villain in Gotham, so now there is nobody to try and bribe me. And if nobody tries to bribe me, then nobody realizes that I will only accept bribes if the Joker is dead, like I said in my Campaign. I know that you guys have a no-kill rule, but I know at least one of you who would jump at the chance Batman: *realizes that Dick has already killed the Joker once, Jason is actively attempting to every day, Tim is chaos incarnate and would do it to feel included, and Damian just really wants to let loose* Well played...

...

Danny: Vlad, I am serious. Leave me alone or I will put you in Soup Jail for 3 months! Vlad: FINE! I’ll just go possess another Billionaire to force them to give me their company again Batman, listening from outside the window: What the f-

...

Danny in every conversation with the Batfamily: I re-respect your decision to not tak-take a life...but I must insist you kill the Joker...for the good of the peephol-People! He is not a good inf-influence on this city and he must be des...troyed. Batman: *Wondering why he sounds like he is reading from a script* Um, I don’t think thats a good idea? Lady Gotham: *Standing behind Batman with some Cue Cards, trying to communicate with her Knights through Danny* *Thumbs Up* Danny: Also I wanted to say that you need to- oh um, ok- to get over the deaths of your parents and grieve in a healthy way instead of adopting every child you see. You are doing a great job kid, parentheses, do not read this par- Oh-Oops. Batman: Hm. I’m not even going to question that anymore.

...

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