A tragic hero, faced with this dilemma, chooses and faces the consequences of that choice. It hurts. Superman isn’t a tragic hero. Faced with an either / or dilemma, he cheats. If that’s done poorly, it looks like spinning the world backwards to travel back in time and fix things.
If it’s done well, it’s a surprise for the audience but set up as a possibility by other elements earlier in the story. Superman is supposed to rewrite the dilemma. He maintains his square ethics by lateral-thinking his way out of the terms of the dilemma. And he teaches us we can also do that.
Does Gunn get this? The ending of the movie focuses on a long and loud fistfight between Superman and Ultraman during which lots of things break and at least a few of Luther’s goons are badly hurt. I mean, it’s not like Snyder’s Zod fight, but it’s violent. That isn’t a great Superman climax.
But that’s a distraction, right? Really, Luthor forces Superman to choose between helping Metropolis and helping Jarhanpur. …which he solves by sending the Justice Gang overseas so he can fight the harder problem himself. You don’t need to be in two places at once if you have super friends.
(I like that as a solution, though I think Guy Gardner and Hawkgirl aren’t the superheroes I’d choose to conduct international diplomacy.) Anyway, Superman is at his best when he’s given a trolley problem and then refuses the trolley problem’s choices. www.the-reframe.com/there-is-no-...
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Good thread. Part of why the Death of Superman, which continues to be a big part of his history, was always such a dud to me is because Superman fights a big monster and they beat each other to death. It's not even the violence of it that sits wrong with me so much as the lack of imagination.
Yes, you’re right! Making Superman interesting is never about inventing a villain who can beat him up.