That doesn’t make sense. If turning back time resets Lois’s predicament, then it should do the same for the others.
And you’re saying that the earth spinning backwards was just a visual metaphor for what was really happening? Then what was really happening? How does Superman turn back time?
He didnt *TURN *back time, he *went back in *time. First, saved the EC and Ms Tessmachers mother. Then, traveled back in time, and saved LL.
Did both.
Time travel.
He flew so fast that relativity something something, and only he went back in time. Of course, that means that two Supersmen were wandering around for a while. It also means he can save everyone from everything, but doesn’t, cause he’s kinda lazy most of the times.
Amazing what the color yellow can do for you …
It’s the fundamental flaw of having a hero that cares too much about the individual.
Anyway, I have gotten back into JJ. Once I got past the parts that were boring me to tears, I liked it better again. I was home from work the other day, so I had it running while I was doing some Excel spreadsheets, and then watching it last night, too, so I am almost caught up - I have two episodes left.
I promised myself I would not watch any of Daredevil2 until I at least gave JJ a fair shake, so I am. And while it will never be amongst my favorite shows, I do like it a lot better than I thought I would. I will let you know once I finish it.
As for reading Ms. Marvel, I made a dedicated effort to read comic books a couple of years ago and just couldn’t stand it. The ‘art’ just got in my way and was boring and annoying, and I found myself turning the pages quickly, trying to get more of the story, of which there wasn’t. I don’t think comic books as a medium will ever really entertain me much, the books I read generally don’t have any pictures at all. Please don’t take this to mean I think there’s something wrong with reading comic books. They just don’t appeal to me!
But thank you for the suggestion!
Yeah, I’m always amazed by how many people didn’t get what Superman did there. The Earth turning backwards was the effect, not the cause, and it’s only from Superman’s point of view, because he’s moving back in time. It’s still a lazy deus ex machina, but it makes internal sense.
I wouldn’t call it lazy or a deus ex machina. At the time the movie came out, it was well established for decades in the comic books that
I was a reader of Batman, and World’s Finest at the time but apparently I missed that time travel was something Supermen do at will.
Still, everything about how it was portrayed in the movie made it seem like he was turning back time for everyone—not that he was just traveling back in time himself—and he did it by making the earth rotate backwards.
It was a failure of depiction I think.
Yeah, I agree with everything in this post. To be able to argue it sensibly, however, I’d have to watch the movie again, and I am not doing that.
The fact that it’s an established deus ex machina doesn’t make it any less of one. Frankly, it’s kind of hard to avoid dei ex machinae when you’re writing about Superman.
And I’m still at a loss as to what was unclear about the depiction. If it can be interpreted as something that makes sense or as something that doesn’t make sense, why interpret it in the way that doesn’t make sense?
Didn’t you read any of the Silver Age Superboy or Supergirl stories? Both of them routinely, even casually, travel back and forth in time in every story involving the Legion of Superheroes.
Per wikipedia:
Superman’s ability to time travel was not new or unexpected to comic book readers of the time. Maybe for those whose only exposure to the character was the George Reeves tv show or the Superfriends show it was a surprise.
BTW as I and others have mentioned earlier this is quite a problem with the major DC characters making it to the big screen – there already existed a media “canon” that millions more people saw than ever read the comics.
IIRC, Superman’s ability to time travel wasn’t new or unexpected to comic-book readers back then; what was new or unexpected, was his ability to change history by doing so, for exactly the reasons brought up here. So he could, for example, go back to the day Lincoln got shot – but he couldn’t stop Lincoln from getting shot.
Why was Pa Kent dead in the comics? Because our hero couldn’t go back in time and stop it. He could go back in time and watch it, but what good was that? Why didn’t every Superman story end with him retroactively foiling the crime and saving the innocents who’d died? Because he couldn’t.
So it came in handy if he wanted to strand some unkillable monster back in the days of the dinosaurs – because, hey, by definition, doing so can’t muck up the timeline. But if he was ever too late to rescue Lois Lane, he’d be stuck with the results.
Besides which, Poseidon’s ability to call up or call storms wasn’t new or unexpected, either. But it’s still a deus ex machina when he shows up at the end of the play to do so.
The problem is that Superman’s powers in general, and the ability to travel back and change the past in particular, are so overwhelmingly powerful that there’s almost no problem that can’t be solved by them. And if the hero has powers sufficient to solve every problem, then drama becomes impossible.
Thank you! I knew there was something missing that I couldn’t quite quantify.
The depiction doesn’t suggest that there’s something to interpret. It literally shows Superman turning back time by making the earth rotate backwards from a third person POV, not from Superman’s—we see the earthquake, etc., move in reverse.
It doesn’t suggest at all that there is something that needs to be interpreted. It is just showing something stupid happening. And something stupid happening is not at all a stretch for a 1970s scifi/fantasy movie.
Even at 9 or 10 when I first saw this, I was capable of understanding some degree of ambiguity. But there was no ambiguity here. Nothing that suggested that the movie didn’t want me to take what was on the screen as a literal event in the world of the movie.
I couldn’t read every comic book that was out and in the '70s I had no access to back issues. The only “old” comics I had read were in the public library’s hard-bound copy of The Secret Origins of DC Superheroes, which is how I learned about the Golden Age characters for the first time.
In terms of storytelling, the fact that he had this ability that would be used in the climax should have been set up within the movie itself.
OK, so when we see him flying, do you assume that the clouds are zipping past him quickly while he’s staying still? That is, after all, what we see on the screen.