this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2023
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This is another occasion where I really hope the lesson isn’t “Female leads don’t sell”. Probably an obvious observation, but Captain Marvel always struck me as a boring, flawless, invincible hero without much personality.
The Superman problem. Main sources of conflict tend to involve depowering, fighting another godlike, or threatening people they care about. Over and over again.
Actually makes me appreciate so much more that one set of writers managed to make a semi-compelling show that focuses on Lois, including her personal growth, all while discovering that her plucky goodboy intern is in fact the man of steel. (Referring to My Adventures with Superman in case it’s not obvious)
One of the things a reviewer highlighted as very important to that show was that it didn’t praise Lois’ rebelliousness and spunk as having no consequences. I basically just didn’t see any of that journey in the first Captain Marvel movie.
The problem is that even Superman deconstructions get shat on. Snyder tried to do something different but everyone wanted a hokey silver age comic supes
Snyder's films were crap tho, and he didn't understand the characters - you can't deconstruct Superman and Batman if you don't understand Superman and Batman. Plus the lighting and pacing were awful. That's why they got shat on
this is so interesting, we were just talking marvel today with my best friend and she pointed out captain marvel as one of her favorite mcu characters. and it's specifically because she's a strong female character who's allowed to be strong without being hyper-competent or incredibly cerebral or anything like that. she's just a woman who stands up for things and punches shit occasionally and is allowed to win through sheer brute force.
and yes, she's way too powerful in many of the same way as superman, which is a narrative defect, but i find it extremely hypocritical how much more scrutiny people point toward captain marvel on that, while superman continues to be one of dc's most popular heroes, despite marvel using her better than dc uses superman.
It's new to me that Superman evades that criticism. There's a reason Batman gets so much more media than him lately, in large part because of the "What if Batman is actually bad for Gotham" philosophical junk.
Even the Zack Snyder films, for all their flaws, examine the two-toned mistakes of the hero more than the power, eg "Maybe a god X-raying us at every occasion and destroying buildings to fight his rival is perhaps too oppressive" versus "Maybe he should've used his X-ray vision to see the bomb in that guy's wheelchair before he set it off."
he doesn't evade that criticism, but there aren't constant "scandals" around him regarding that. half the time you hear about captain marvel, it's someone criticizing her for being too powerful (sometimes with accusations of "wokeism" thrown in, but not always). nearly all the time you hear about superman, he's just there, it's a regular positive-ish portrayal you'd normally see around any character, with a bit of critique thrown in of course. that's the difference in scrutiny i'm talking about, the internet doesn't tend to blow up every time they make a superman movie the same way it blew up for captain marvel because god forbid we see a woman in the same position as supes.
(also, i suppose many of her critics were the same people who criticize stuff like female thor or black captain america by saying go make original heroes -- this is the treatment you get when you comply. underprivileged groups always get higher scrutiny, and it easily propagates to otherwise well-meaning people too.)
Superman is a morality play. His powers have been secondary since the 80s.
He's Clark before he's Superman. And Clark is one hell of a good dude who's been fleshed out incredibly well.
Most people who don't like Superman don't know who Clark Kent is, and by that I mean they don't really read much Superman comics.
Not saying this is you, just commenting on the general stigma Clark seems to catch. Dude isn't even the most powerful being on Earth by a long shot.
yeah, an important clarification on that is i base my superhero stuff entirely on movies. i made a genuine effort to get into the comics but i just couldn't -- it might just be my luck but i've literally only read either canon or good stories from marvel and dc, nothing i tried managed to hit both. but for what it's worth, i presume the majority of people are the same way, comics just don't have the same degree of mainstream cultural penetration that movies enjoy.
i do agree with you though, clark is far more interesting than superman. i used to be an ardent superman hater specifically because the movie portrayals sucked and most online fans i interacted with were like "my fictional character could totally beat your fictional character" but i do really enjoy very human stories about the dude. and hell, sometimes his powered stuff can also be kinda cool -- but the same applies to captain marvel as well and that's usually the part that people don't like to accept.
Yep! I'm not a big fan of any of the modern Superman films, I think there's way too much punching and not enough super-human feats. And by that I mean rescuing people, or performing "miracles" that only he can in order to help the greater good.
Clark will let a monster punch him in the face dozens of times if he thinks he can save both the people and the creature's life. That's what creates dilemmas for me when I enjoy a decent Superman story, an ethical dilemma that can't be solved by hitting something as hard as possible.
The cool thing about Superman isn't that he has these fantastic powers, but that the person who wields them will always try to do the right thing, because they know nobody else can.
The original Superman movie nailed that aspect. Clark was confident and maybe even a little cocky because of his abilities... but when his father suffered a heart attack, all the super strength in the universe couldn't save him.
You are 100% correct in that a lot of superhero discourse online seems to aaaaaaaalways come down to "who would win in a fight", which has always baffled me, because comic books are LOADED with ethical and moral plays which are suppose to make us question whether violence is even a good answer for anything in the first place.
It's about using your own strengths to help facilitate the weakness of those who can't help themselves.
At least to me.