I Choose Superman | Hacker News Reader

I Choose Superman

randsinrepose.com

28 pointsfilament20 comments

My family has an obsession with Superman too. Basically for the same reason that the author states; he always does the right thing. Unrealistic, but then again I've always had a problem with people shouting "unrealistic".

When I was in high school, we used to read these miserable, loathful stories about people having affairs (The Awakening), or committing suicide (Ethan Frome), or murdering each other for fun (The Most Dangerous Game), or a variety of other unpleasant topics, and I would get sick of these books and ask the instructor why we couldn't read a happy book once in a while. "That's not how real life works," she quipped. Yeah, but real life isn't that freaking depressing either. And occasionally in real-life, amazingly happy things do happen and I want to hear about them. Why would I want to read a book that captures the mundane, the ordinary, the boring plight of a human life that I can easily experience myself? I would much prefer to read about the extraordinary.

I have high hopes for this Man of Steel movie this summer. So far I've liked every Christopher Nolan film I've seen. On the other hand, I thought Superman Returns was an absolute disaster. Clark was a flat, nonchalant character without much of a moral direction. The script didn't even follow the comics very well. Lex Luthor came across as a buffoon. The citizens of Metropolis were generic and forgettable. And Lois was rather whiny in my opinion and had a child with Clark before they even got married. I don't remember that happening in the comics.

Regarding people shouting "unrealistic": "The solution, obviously, was to hurry up and become God."

I choose Batman.

While Superman is a good superhero, I think he just got the powers handed to him on a silver platter.

Batman on the other hand was a normal human who got his powers with hard work.

With Batman, it is exciting to see him fight crime because if he gets shot, he is dead! Superman doesn't have much to fear, you can shoot a bullet in his eye and you'll end up breaking the bullet only.

Batman has also been portrayed as more intelligent most of the times and that is another quality I like!

So yes, Superman is fine. But I choose Batman.

Hard work, and a massive amount of inherited money.

I actually really like Spider-Man for that reason. Yes, he had the luck to be bitten by a radioactive spider, but he also built a ton of his gadgets himself (in the comics, for example, the web shooter is all him) and took on a ton of responsibility at a very young age.

Yes, I watched quite a bit of Spider Man and he's fine. But for some reason I don't like him. Maybe just because he's all good and nice guy while Batman works alone and can be a badass at times. And not to forget that he's mysterious as well. In Justice League series, others are open books but no one knows his plans.

The reason more people choose Batman is he's more identifiable with. You can look at him and say:

"If only I really applied myself, I could make some money, learn Kung Fu, set up a base, invent some cool toys, do a lot of planning and do what Batman does."

Superman, on the other hand goes something like this:

"If only I was an alien... Aww screw it. Nevermind."

"Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad." -Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson

Now that's a long list for Batman but yeah, he can be identified with more easily. Superman, he just has the powers! No way we punny humans can get those.

Batman didn't have to apply himself to make his money. He's what happens when you give billions of dollars to an angry orphan with no social life.

As a Hercules-like demigod character, it's partly the point that Superman is more than the mere mortals he saves, but he can be written to be identifiable, usually through his alienation, his angst over not being able to help people, or having his morality tested.

Batman can be tough to relate to as well, depending on the portrayal. It's a very fine line between theatrical act meant to scare criminals and lonely billionaire dressing as a giant rubber bat. Just look at how people reacted to Bale's overdone Batman voice in the films; it crossed that line of silliness.

Well, Batman's powers are handed to him on a silver platter as well, being born into wealth and given access to technology. When talking about story cop-outs, just as Superman is usually invulnerable to things due to superpowers, Batman ends up being invulnerable to things due to convenient technology. E.g., if Batman was shot, he'd just so happen to have been wearing bullet-proof armor.

Not all of them though. His strength(both mental and physical) comes from hard practice.

Agreed about technology though. Technology and wealth combined make him Superman born on earth most of the times.

I don't think this should be on the front page of Hacker News.

Then again, some other people thought otherwise.

I'm not sure why you think that. Michael Lopp (Rands) is a noted software engineering and management commentator. His thoughts on hope in the face if tragedy are interesting and relevant.

Well, it might have just been too deep a meaning for me - but even if the author is a "noted person", that would not automatically make anything he says/writes/publishes interesting or relevant - at least not to everyone.

But seeing as being relevant to everyone there is is pretty much an impossible feat, I'll just leave it at saying that I just couldn't make much sense out of that article.

Well, it's Sunday, and it's kind of nice to have a fun submission now and then. The author related his love of Superman to hope in the face of tragedy. I can dig that.

Seth Godin had a great blog post last year about "Superman, Batman, and worldviews" at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/07/superman-bat... here is the core of his analysis:

   Consider two common worldviews: Superman's and Batman's.

   Batman comes to the world angry. His origin story is filled 
   with vengeance and revenge, and in his iconic (non Adam West) 
   backstory, he is the merciless enforcer of right and wrong. 
   Batman-types see the world as a zero sum game, and battles 
   are either won or lost.

   Superman, on the other hand, comes to our world with his gifts 
   and sees his life as an opportunity and an obligation, one that 
   he embraces. Superman could easily kill all the bad guys in a 
   heartbeat, but he never does. For him, every challenge is an 
   opportunity for healing. He believes in redemption and finds 
   pleasure in using his gifts to help others.

I always liked Batman because he was obsessed with perfecting himself, while I liked Superman because he was like a universal punishment of evil and an example of morality, someone given amazing powers who chooses to be selfless, never lie, etc.

Superman can become boring if not written well, unfortunately. But there are some cool moments from the comics, like when he talks a suicidal girl off a ledge, or when he discovers Captain Marvel is a kid and angrily confronts the wizard Shazam about burdening a child with that kind of responsibility. I like him because he's a big boy scout, but he needs well-written situations for it to work.

While we're at it.

If you want to read some great, inspirational, and easy-to-get-into story about Superman, read All Star Superman by Grant Morrison.

http://www.comixology.com/All-Star-Superman/comics-series/16...

I also loved Superman-Batman by Jeph Loeb. But it's way more... action comic-bookey.

http://www.comixology.com/Superman-Batman/comics-series/378

obligatory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWTJIBGNId0

Perhaps the biggest critique you can make of Superman is that because he makes it look so easy with the flying and the invulnerability that doing the impossible is somehow easy or even achievable. It’s big. It’s over the top. It’s unrealistic and no one human can ever complete the feats of a single Superman. But it’s not the individual feats of Superman we care about, it’s that we, as a group of humans, working together, can do anything, even though it’s never easy.

While I entirely agree with the commenter regarding Superman being an unpaid cop for the capitalist class, I do wish to note that Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, at least, manages to be properly revolutionary with many of the same themes ;-).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com