The recent release of Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice has created a huge amount of controversy, a large amount of it centering on the almost unrelentingly grim imagery of the movie, and most specifically on the depiction of Superman. Throughout my life, there have been several times in which people dealing with the superheroic have decided – in various media – that a superhero can't be done for a modern audience and retain the four-color brightness of their origins. The arguments vary but tend to boil down to a perceived, [ Continue reading... ]
Under the Influence: Superman
September 15, 2015 By 2 Comments
"That man won't quit as long as he can still draw a breath. None of my teammates will. Me? I've got a different problem. I feel like I live in a world made of cardboard, always taking constant care not to break something. To break someone. Never allowing myself to lose control, even for a moment, or someone could die. But you can take it, can't you, big man? What we have here is a rare opportunity for me to cut loose, and show you just how powerful I really am!" The Man of Tomorrow. The Last Son of Krypton. The Man of Steel. [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Secret Identity
August 27, 2015 By Leave a Comment
Clark Kent is a teenage boy living in Picketsville, Kansas, a boy who has dreams of being a writer, and a well-developed ability to endure the constant teasing – both well-meaning and malicious – that comes with being named after the secret identity of the most famous superhero of all time. For he lives in our world, or one very like it, where there are no superhuman beings, only stories of them. But one night, while camping alone, he awakens to find himself actually floating in midair. He can fly. He has super-strength, and [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Man of Steel
January 13, 2014 By Leave a Comment
The second of the two major motion pictures I had missed in theaters which ended up under my Christmas tree, Man of Steel shares with Into Darkness one other thing: both are parts of a reboot of an old and respected property, reboots which have drawn considerable fire from the older fandom of their respective sources. Man of Steel is the latest attempt to revive the Superman movie franchise, which died after the execrable Superman IV: Quest for Peace in 1987 and took even longer to be revived because – to put it [ Continue reading... ]
What You’re Saying