It’s Superhair
I just watched the trailer again. I don’t know why, but Krypto makes me happy.
The way I’ve heard it described: It’s impossible to write a good story about Superman, because he’s just too powerful. It is, however, possible to write a good story about Clark Kent, because his problems are the sorts of things that powers can’t fix.
“It’s impossible to write a good story” about a character that’s been in continuous publication for going on 90 years?
I find it hard to believe that whoever said that had ever actually read a Superman comic.
Whatever you do, don’t watch The Boys then. 
Truth, justice, and the American Way.
The phrase first appeared in the radio series in 1942, a war-time message to remind everyone that the immigrant Superman took on American values totally opposite the fascists we were fighting. He represented the best of us. We were all supermen, at least when we worked together for the side of good. Radio didn’t use the phrase much, though, and it’s now associated with the Adventures of Superman tv series, which seeped into every corner of the public psyche.
That portrayal is why Superman became such an icon. He was us as a united nation, and he was us in the daylight, unlike Batman, who might have been the best of us as an individual but was limited to the night. Those growing up in the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s were taught that America was the greatest nation of all time, always in the right, and committed to fighting for justice. We had no flaws. Superman could never be anything less than super. First generation Jew Jerry Siegel absolutely thought that way. (Immigrant Jew Joe Simon created Captain America in the same vein.)
Well, turned out we had flaws. We as a nation didn’t much like that people pointed those out, but the flaws became too big to ignore. Nevertheless, immigrants still had this rosy image of America, risking great danger and suffering to arrive here.
We still need some image of our country as a good and decent home. We still need country farm boy Clark Kent and immigrant arrival Superman. I like that we’re getting a Jewish Superman actor, I think for the first time. Take that bigots. I’m hoping this version will remind me of a better past and lead to a hopeful future. Lot of weight to put on a comic book movie, but Superman long ago transcended comics and became a symbol.
Exactly. Superman is hope and faith in the goodness of people. Inspiration to be the best that you can be. The character is needed now more than ever.
Nonsense. It’s entirely possible to write a story where the hero’s skills turn out to be useless and they have to outthink, outreact, fool, or use their wits some other way to save the day.
And you can always write a tragedy where Superman can’t save the day, no matter how hard he tries. Just look at all the times Ma and Pa Kent died.
And Superman’s biggest enemy is a corrupt CEO/tech billionaire, and he’s famously fought the Klan.
Superman/Leslie Knope 2028
I kinda hope they give the new Luthor hair extensions, a stammer, and a South African accent. 
And those are stories about Clark Kent.
Power levels are completely irrelevant to telling a good story. There’s no such thing as “too powerful” when you can just make up whatever the hell you want.
Superman is almost 90 years old and is probably one of the most recognizable characters on the Planet (I would bet the number of people anywhere who don’t say “Superman” if shown the S symbol is very very small). I think the argument that he is a bad or boring character is solved (He’s neither bad nor boring).
It bothered me when I first watched the original Fleischer cartoons (which started i September 1941) that the intro says “fighting for truth, justice”, leaving out “the American Way” (which I was familiar with from the 1950s Superman TV series.
Besides, why not “truth AND justice”? It seems as if the narrator wanted to go on, but couldn’t remember the rest of the line.
The cartoons. IIRC, (which were eventually made by Famous/Paramount after Paramount foreclosed on the Fleischer operation) continued to use the “Truth, Justice” into through 1943.
I know that the almost line preceded the radio show. But every superhero in comics and in the preceding pulps fought for truth and justice. Those were meaningless cliches.
It was the wartime addition of “the American Way” and the resurrection of that slogan in the anti-communist early 50s that cemented the phrase into the popular psyche. Yes, all the superheroes fought for the American Way during the war. Wartime comics are almost unreadable today because every villain is a Nazi, and Nazis make for boring villains.*
Superman was different. DC made the conscious decision not to get Superman too involved in the war because readers would ask why he didn’t capture Hitler and rout the armies all by himself. His superpowers were a hindrance rather than a help. That’s why they had to create nuisance villains to avoid the Nazi trap. The Toyman and the Prankster were from 1943.
Superman had far fewer powers than he did later, but still more than most. He could fly, and just because, no real reason given. Hardly any heroes could fly back then. Superstrength and invulnerability, too - except to Kryptonite, also introduced in the radio show. But that was rare. Those powers were enough, and the ones more wished for by kids. More than any other character, he was the wish fulfillment of the American Dream. Not bad for a comic.
* Boring because every Nazi was the same caricature. They certainly didn’t present as boring** back then; to a kid each victory over a Nazi was a yay, just as each cowboy victory over a caricatured Indian that now looks boring was then a yay.
** Except when drawn by Wayne Boring. Beat you to the pun.
And that’s the other reason the character has persisted, despite it being hard to write good stories about him. Kids don’t demand good stories. Wish-fulfillment is enough for them.
I like how they didn’t choose a “heroic dog” look for him, he’s just kind of scruffy looking. A Bark Kent sort of dog, if you will.
Exactly. But Superman’s powers increased to an absurd level. Do kids dream of juggling planets or blowing out suns? Do adults, the ones who buy most comics these days? Showing a bloody Superman in the trailer may help bring the powers down to an acceptable level of uberness.
The trouble is, the Klan is still there. Defeating them in comics doesn’t change that.
To me, it would be like a Superman comic where he ends school shootings. Sure it’s a feel good stry, but tomorrow, someone will shoot up a school. Better to defeat Bizarro.