# Does Superman need fixing? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 1, 2012, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-superman-need-fixing/630092 "2012-08-01T19:07:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-superman-need-fixing/630092/61 "2012-08-02T14:59:54Z")
Hell, you want boring? Captain “Shazam!” Marvel has Superman beaten in that category before the contest even begins. Superman is tricky to make interesting, much harder than Batman or Green Lantern, but not impossible (That’s Aquaman). ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-superman-need-fixing/630092/62 "2012-08-02T15:17:22Z")
Nope, He doesn’t need fixing. But like others mentioned, he needs compelling supporting characters and adversaries to play off of so we can root for him. There is nothing wrong with supes that a judicious application of Lobo can’t fix. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-superman-need-fixing/630092/63 "2012-08-02T15:52:05Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > I like this. Reducing his powers is one thing. His near omnipotence makes the stories boring. But you have to go deeper than that, because \*he \*is boring. There’s hardly any personality at all. I think Batman is a psycopath, but he’s a lot more interesting than the alien boy scout. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-superman-need-fixing/630092/64 "2012-08-02T17:08:00Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Reducing his powers is one thing. His near omnipotence makes the stories boring. But you have to go deeper than that, because \*he \*is boring. There’s hardly any personality at all. I think Batman is a psycopath, but he’s a lot more interesting than the alien boy scout. Personally, I’d rather see him made less super than less heroic. I want Superman to actually be a hero: someone I—or the kid version of me—could look up to and hero-worship. [QUOTE=The Crash Test Dummies] Superman never made any money Saving the world from Solomon Grundy And sometimes I despair the world will never see another man like him [/QUOTE] In fact, I found superheroes in general, and Superman in particular, a lot more interesting when I was a kid than I do now as a grownup, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I don’t want to see him fixed at the expense of what made him fascinating to me as a kid. (And among the things that I loved, and still do, about Superman, is that he was unambiguously and unapologetically one of the good guys.) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-superman-need-fixing/630092/65 "2012-08-02T17:37:34Z")
I think the biggest key to writing good Superman stories is to focus on personal issues, rather than his powers. The TV series _Lois and Clark_ was a good example of this: Oh, they threw in super-challenges that he needed his powers for, but he beat those all easily. Where the real drama came in was in his relationships with other people. Being able to fly faster than sound and punch out mountains doesn’t make it any easier to tell a woman you love her. The thing is, though, that in a TV show, you have enough time to do long, detailed character studies. But in a movie, you really don’t. For a movie, you can maybe do a little character development, if you devote the whole movie to it, but then you don’t have room for the super-antics, and why are you making a Superman movie, anyway? So I think it’s much harder to do him justice on the big screen. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-superman-need-fixing/630092/66 "2012-08-02T17:41:03Z")
Smallville tip toed around this but what about a Kal El at odds with his parents and all Kryptonians? He considers himself human basically, the other Kryptonians are disgusted with Kal El’s love of the earth monkeys. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-superman-need-fixing/630092/67 "2012-08-02T17:43:44Z")
I read Silver Age DC stuff when I was a kid. (So aside from the crappy movies I really don’t know much about the S-Man since then.) I liked _Batman_, _Flash_, _Green Lantern_ for the most part. Never bought a single _Superman_. But oddly found the _World’s Finest_ books okay. I think those were more influenced by Batman themes rather than Superman themes. There were just crappy comics. Superpowers didn’t enter into it, _directly_. They just had a 10-20 year old time warp feel to them. I think there’s something intrinsic to the character that prevents it from being put into a truly modern world. So you have this person with all this amazing power, how do you fit him into stories that involve computers, gene splicing, quantum mechanics or whatever? Is he going to use his X-ray vision to read the bits inside a working computer? I don’t think so. Everything he can do now, he could do in the 1940s. He cannot be updated without getting silly. But most of the problems over the years just seems to be bad writing. Comic books, TV and movies, it’s all the same. ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-superman-need-fixing/630092/68 "2012-08-02T19:04:04Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > We’re just discussing. Plus, I mean, with the zillions of comics out there, I don’t think it would ruin Superman to have a couple of more serious stories with him, but still fitting who he is. They have those. ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-superman-need-fixing/630092/69 "2012-08-02T19:08:51Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > But you are ignoring a very real problem-declining sales. Comic characters need to develop and change to increase(or even hod) an audience. Put in some new to spark interest(new outfit, new characters, new interests), and take out the old that never really worked(super intelligence-talk about an inconsistent ability!). Unless y’all get together and vow to buy hundreds of copies of each issue of _Superman_ and/or _Action_ it will eventually disappear. All comic sales are declining in the long-term. Using your logic, that means all the characters are broken. And efforts to “change” established characters like you describe usually bump up sales for an issue or two, then things go back to where they were, or the changes _steepen the decline_. Ya think maybe there might be some other factors there? Like the $3-$4 price point? Sorry, Czarcasm, I just think you don’t know what you’re talking about here. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-superman-need-fixing/630092/70 "2012-08-02T19:09:42Z")
Hey wait, when you said “Does Superman need fixing?” did you mean like a vasectomy or castration? Given the current state of his powers that ain’t gonna be easy if he doesn’t want to do it. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-superman-need-fixing/630092/71 "2012-08-02T19:18:10Z")
> [@Lobot](#): > > It’s the reason I hated the _Man of Steel_ trailer–it’s all that “gritty realism” bullshit that was effective when used sparingly, but now is like fucking Autotune. > > Superman is bright, colourful and optimistic. Can’t we have one thing left that isn’t dark and gritty? Heh. I play the City of Heroes MMO, and a while back a created a couple of colorfully-costumed heroes on separate accounts so that I could log them both in at the same time. Then I planted them in the area where new hero characters go, waving protest signs and shouting slogans against black costumes and the general “Batmanification” of the game. All in good fun, of course 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-superman-need-fixing/630092/72 "2012-08-02T19:26:06Z")
> [@CandidGamera](#): > > They have those. You didn’t participate in my comics thread (and I was kind of hoping you would), and you haven’t listed any here. Would you care to list a few here? I promise I’ll look at them with an open mind. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-superman-need-fixing/630092/73 "2012-08-02T19:30:21Z")
> [@CandidGamera](#): > > All comic sales are declining in the long-term. Using your logic, that means all the characters are broken. And efforts to “change” established characters like you describe usually bump up sales for an issue or two, then things go back to where they were, or the changes _steepen the decline_. > Ya think maybe there might be some other factors there? Like the $3-$4 price point? > > Sorry, Czarcasm, I just think you don’t know what you’re talking about here. Well, [let’s check the stats for the last six months:](http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales.html) January-Superman ranks 7th, with a circulation of 73, 719, while Batman ranks 2nd with a circulation of 130,492. February-Superman is 7th, Batman is 2nd. March-Superman is 10th, Batman is 4th. April-Superman is 13th, Batman is 2nd. May-Superman is 21st, Batman is 3rd. June-Superman is 29th with a circulation of 59,081, Batman is 3rd with a circulation of 130,265. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-superman-need-fixing/630092/74 "2012-08-02T19:37:02Z")
How do you market those “couple of serious stories,” and still put out two new Superman comics a month? Does DC need to cut back on the filler? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-superman-need-fixing/630092/75 "2012-08-02T19:45:34Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > How do you market those “couple of serious stories,” and still put out two new Superman comics a month? Does DC need to cut back on the filler? As has been said before, it just needs better writers, and Superman has to be allowed to fuck up royally once in a while. That’s what makes Batman interesting-he is overly paranoid, and that paranoia leads to things like, say, the Brother Eye fiasco. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-superman-need-fixing/630092/76 "2012-08-02T19:46:20Z")
One way to make Superman more interesting might be with villains that understand that if you have a being who is invulnerable to all physical attacks, you attack his mind and morale. Make him doubt his purpose (mind games), and/or his senses (misdirection and illusion). Or, con him into doing things that, in the end, prove to be his downfall emotionally. (Emporer Palpatine “turning” Supes to the Dark Side. 😃 ) This requires good and imaginitive writing, which Hollywood seems to forget, sometimes. I don’t know the history/canon of the entire Superman comics. Maybe this is already old hat. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-superman-need-fixing/630092/77 "2012-08-02T20:41:38Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Well, [let’s check the stats for the last six months:](http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales.html) > > January-Superman ranks 7th, with a circulation of 73, 719, while Batman ranks 2nd with a circulation of 130,492. > February-Superman is 7th, Batman is 2nd. > March-Superman is 10th, Batman is 4th. > April-Superman is 13th, Batman is 2nd. > May-Superman is 21st, Batman is 3rd. > June-Superman is 29th with a circulation of 59,081, Batman is 3rd with a circulation of 130,265. However, Superman has meh writers and a revolving team of artists, while Batman has had one writer (with a story to tell) and one artist. If we make the more apt Action Comics comparison (name author with a story to tell), the numbers aren’t nearly as bad. January-Action ranks 3d, with a circulation of 105,088, while Batman ranks 2nd with a circulation of 130,492. Feb-Action is 3d, Batman is 2nd March-Action is 6th, Batman 4th (Avengers books are responsible for all place changes) April-Action is 6th, Batman is 2nd (Big changes–Avengers had something to do with it, but Green Lantern jumped up a few ranks. Was it a special issue?) May-Action is 9th, Batman is 3d. (A Batman annual didn’t help Action’s rankings but the downward trend is continuing) June-Action is 13th with a circulation of 80,751, Batman is 3rd with a circulation of 130,265. So–while the numbers for Action aren’t as dire as the Superman title, there’s still a consistent downward trend. However, the big problem is the numbers overall. In the '40s, Captain Marvel sold something like 1.5 _million_ copies a month, and the Dell Walt Disney (or just duck titles) sold over 2 _million_. So to a degree, quibbling over Action selling 50,000 less comics than Batman, when they’re both considerably less than 1/8th of the circulation of the Golden Age titles is kinda like arguing who has to be the last man in the lifeboat with a hole in the bottom. 😉 > [@](#): > > As has been said before, it just needs better writers, and Superman has to be allowed to fuck up royally once in a while. That’s what makes Batman interesting-he is overly paranoid, and that paranoia leads to things like, say, the Brother Eye fiasco. Fully agree. One of the better bits in the Silver Age (especially in Maggin’s reinterpretation, but either way) is that Superboy _created_ Lex Luthor. Lex was a troubled genius, Superboy made him a lab (per Maggin, because Lex’s science-fair project was so good that the judges assumed Superboy helped him and Superboy felt guilt). Lex (age 16-ish) created artifical organic life and…oops…accidentally set the lab on fire. Superboy saw that and…did he get a giant fire hose? Did he fly in at super-speed and fly Lex out first? No–he used his super-hurricane-force breath in a lab filled with volitle explosive, flammable chemicals. Which started a nasty chemical fire which killed the artificial life, burned all of Lex’s notes and permanately disfigured him (the baldness thing). Lex figured Superboy did it on purpose because no-one could be so stupid as to think that the best way to stop a fire in a chemistry lab is to blow the chemicals over. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![DiggitCamara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@DiggitCamara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiggitCamara)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-superman-need-fixing/630092/78 "2012-08-02T23:33:38Z")
> [@Tom\_Scud](#): > > Look for the first Astro City collection (“Life in the Big City”); the first story involves an all-but-Superman (“Samaritan”) and his daily schedule. I think people have done essentially the same story with Superman, but I haven’t seen it done better than in that issue. There’s also the fantastic [The Eagle and the Mountain](http://www.comicvine.com/astro-city-samaritan-special-the-eagle-the-mountain/37-151787/) story where he faces an enemy as powerful as himself. ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2012, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-superman-need-fixing/630092/79 "2012-08-03T01:01:07Z")
> [@DiggitCamara](#): > > There’s also the fantastic [The Eagle and the Mountain](http://www.comicvine.com/astro-city-samaritan-special-the-eagle-the-mountain/37-151787/) story where he faces an enemy as powerful as himself. Yes! Criminally underrated. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2012, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-superman-need-fixing/630092/80 "2012-08-03T12:08:52Z")
> [@Fenris](#): > > However, Superman has meh writers and a revolving team of artists, while Batman has had one writer (with a story to tell) and one artist. That’s because Superman is a boring character who’s hard to write good stories for. Consequently, all the top writers want to work on another title. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-superman-need-fixing/630092.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-superman-need-fixing/630092.md?page=5)