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jimoakley666 -> RE: The 50 Greatest Comic Book Characters (10/7/2008 9:16:47 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: britesparc
I've always found some people's hatred of Superman to be rather funny. They bitch about him being "old-fashioned" and say that Batman could "beat him" and suchlike. I remember my brother, when he was younger, watching the Justice League cartoon and whinging about Superman in a similar vein: Batman's better coz he's darker.
Well, yes, some of that may be true, and certainly Batman is "darker". But Superman is an eternally optimistic character, a figurehead and an icon, who exemplifies not just an entire industry and artform (and whether he's the greatest comic book character or not, to most people in the world, Superman is the face of superheroes specifically and comic books in general) but an ideal. That's what he is: an idealist.
People often talk about Supes and Bats being yin and yang, light and dark, and I think that's true to a certain extent. They're both archetypes, can be represented as almost 2D characters if you want (that rarely happens nowadays), but basically they're both wearing capes and tights and pants but one is bright blue and red and the other is grey and black. One has almost unlimited power, the other zilch. One is (oooh, he's getting pretentious!) a god trying to live as a man, the other is a man striving for god-hood.
In my opinion, any list of the greatest comic book characters needs to have both Superman and Batman very near the top (personally, I'd have a top five that read something like Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, the Joker, and Wolverine - and it's very painful to not include Robin in that list but this is "greatest" and not "my favourite"!). People who find him old-fashioned or anachronistic haven't read a (good) Superman comic recently, and are to a large extent missing the point. Maybe he seems a bit goofy, but like I say, he's a figurehead, and how ridiculous he appears is entirely dependent on how he's written.
I never said I hated him. He's just a boring character. Let me put it this way. I limit myself to 10 comic titles a month. Bloody expensive as is. Superman is not in nor anywhere near that ten titles. Not because I hate the book / character but because I have no interest in the character and it's because the character never develops. Never moves on. He's got all the powers, tough as hell and has been around so long that I think writers, Grant Morrison being an exception, are just to bored to think of anything to do with him.
Superman to me is a rather stagnant character. That does'nt make him great. He's too tough and to moral and imobile because of it. A great charater should be more 'human'. Faults. Weeknesses (and don't give me the old Kriptonite speil because that is just one mcguffin).
That is why I like Wolverine and think he's the number 1 greatest. He started left field. A minor back-up charater who became a group character and just kept on upping in popularity. Superman never had to climb. He started off on the top with his own story in action comics and his own comic straight away.
Wolverine shows history, development (how much has he changed over the years?)
So It's nothing personal against Superman, mate. I am thinking logically. But then, these things are always subjective.
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