Superman Through the Ages! Forum

Honest analysis and some valid points:

http://home.earthlink.net/~dvrandy/

Just another fanboy...When you don't like it something the simplest thing to do is don't buy the product,i think a blog is excessive and worthless...

I dislike Smallville probably as much as that guy dislikes Superman Returns.  Maybe I should post a blog and start a letter writing campaign. ;D

Excessive?  Worthless?

Tell that to Sony.  It was a blog that revealed their rootkit scheme

But, I do agree that blog in the link is a tad overdone.

ShinDangaioh, are you saying that Superman Returns is malware?

Repped.  Oops. Sorry, rep points don't exist here. ;)

Superman Returns does seem to have malwared what we expect of Superman with the Supes sleeping with Lois without marrying her.

smf does have karma, but I've turned it off.


Clark hanging out at the bar drinking beer was one of my pet peeves with the film.  I don't think that either Clark or Superman would drink alcohol and it was only in the film for the product placement.  Cheerios was much more appropriate than Budweiser.

What are you talking about?  ???

Please explain.

The best way to show you is to well show you.

http://herogames.com/forums/

As you go through the posts, you'll notice that there are rep power numbers and little boxes that tell how worthy a person is.
 

If I could go back in time and prevent three people from doing the deed that made them famous, I would pick:

The deranged fan who killed John Lennon;

Oliver North;

and Bjo Trimble.

Thanks to Bee-joe "saving STAR TREK" with a letter-writing campaign all the way back in 1960-whenever it was, every time some diehard fan is unhappy with Claudia Christian getting shafted on BABYLON 5 or movie franchises having a director they don't personally like, suddenly it becomes a huge drama queen explosion, with petitions and protests and moneyraising.

Here's the thing: some things are worth raising a stink about, and some things are not. Some things you can change by complaining loudly enough, and some things you can't. This is not to say people aren't entitled to express their opinions or that they're not entitled to express them, but...c'mon, a letter writing campaign to studio executives is insane overkill.

When I heard KUNG FU: THE LEGEND CONTINUES was going to be canceled, I took the news like a man. (I was of course, crying and gnashing on the inside.)

On the other hand, a a "fanboy's fanboy," I can absolutely understand the passion of the die-hard fan, and far be it for me to remove someone's right to complain!  ;D Maybe I'd find this entire anti-SUPERMAN RETURNS kick to be a little less futile if it wasn't a movie that I, personally, am happy with. I don't know.

But one thing is for sure: every time somebody signs the Save Our Sailors petition, a baby kitten dies!

(To our friends from Australia: a "kitten" is a type of small animal, sort of like the wallaby, except it lives on land.)

I'm the guy who got it cancelled, by writing to the studio execs!

Administrator's note:  I removed the name of John Lennon's killer from Julian's post.  When the man was asked why he killed Lennon, he replied that he wanted to acheive fame by being remembered as Lennon's killer.  Yoko Ono has requested that, because of this, his name not be mentioned.  I would like to honor her request on this forum.

Good grief!  What kind of drugs did you get for Christmas?!?

She was in touch with what a lot of people wanted, and had the temerity to get them to express it in a productive way.  There was no Internet to glue interested people together, and no demographics to show anyone how the  show was successful.  Today, the technologies that unify (and in a lot of  cases, segregate) communities would've inevitably led to similar modes of protest.  For better and worse, the audience now has a larger voice and the mainstream media is going to react to it.

Do you think Superman would have a WWW site?  A blog (written in all known Earthly languages)?  Or would he trust Lois and the Daily Planet to interpret his example and message right for all the world.  Does Clark write with the idea that he has a legacy, that someday when his identity is found out, that his words will be analysed for generations to come? 

You're the boss, but, for the record, I disagree with this.

I'm not saying Beejoe wasn't terrific; she, after all, is "the fan that saved STAR TREK."

What I am saying is because she got the ball rolling, and great things came of it, that overreaction became a kneejerk fan response.

Here's the thing, though: people disagree. The nature of something like entertainment is nobody comes to a common consensus on it. A lot of people complain about how diehard fans are "pleased with nothing," but what's left out from that assessment is that nothing pleases everyone 100% of the time. A friend of mine called THE GODFATHER "the most overrated movie of all time." And that's THE GODFATHER, which is one of the closest things in our culture to being something that is universally loved, along with Morgan Freeman and french fries.

I for one, really enjoyed SUPERMAN RETURNS. Clearly, this guy did not. But having a differing opinion on a movie isn't call for a letter-writing campaign. Can't people disagree about a movie without whipping the petitions out?


He might have one. Superman's approach to publicity seems to be one of the few inconstant aspects of Superman's characterization. For instance, there are some stories where Superman gives interviews with "Clark Kent" on WGBS and goes on the Earth-1 equivalent of the Tonight Show, and there was another characterization where Superman avoids publicity.

If the first characterization is more your bag, I can see Superman blogging. Superman would probably spend a lot of time talking about environmental issues, what with having lost his home planet and all (this was Conway's great addition to Superman's characterization: giving him proactive environmentalism). I can't see Superman using his blog to sell t-shirts and S-mugs, though. As Perry White (ironically) proclaimed during the whole Cary Bates Supermobile fiasco, "Superman is ABOVE crass merchandizing!"


Fair enough. That guy was an odious little spit, so if that's what Yoko wants, that's what Yoko gets.

This is actually something I've thought of, ever since they mentioned a dirty pornsite dedicated to Supergirl. Surely Superman would be a blogger, and he'd have his own MySpace account and possibly even a YouTube Vlog: the guy's trying to save the world here, right? So it would make sense for him to try to reach as many people as possible. Like Julian, I feel that Superman should be a keen evironmentalist, and he'd probably try to spread the word as much as he could.

Since Superman is a horse designed by a committee, he can't really have any political opinions of his own, only moral ones, so this can't be canon, but hey, if I were Superman, I'd be using my influence to get people to vote my way.

I have always thought that when you truly dislike a specific version of a comic book or a movie/television character,the best way for making it disappear,is to stop to read/watching it, and this is exactly what I have made with the De Falco&Frenz run on Thor or the Byrne Superman,if this something is really bad,don't worry,the loss of fans among the way will surely decretate is end.

But he drinks wine and champagne in the comics and the movies and TV shows. He even enjoyed the occasional beer and whiskey on Lois & Clark. Superman having a drink or two is not out of character.

Really, he does?  I don't think I've ever seen it.  Maybe in Superman III.

Aside from L&C, have you got some examples?  (ie, specific issues or episodes)

He knocked back a few beers with Jimmy in Superman Returns, in what I seem to remember being a shameless bit of product placement. I never really saw the point of Superman being a teetotaller: he can drink molten lava, for crying out loud, a couple of drinks aren't going to affect him.

i think it shows the changing morality of the public. if superman fathered a child out of wedlock back then, it would be very contraversal and seen as a wicked thing superman wouldnt do, now its seen as a sort of tragic plot point, especially since Lois's husband is such a nice guy (they could have really simplified it by making the husband a jerk)

This is precisely what bothers me and I'm very surprised that no one else seems to have complained.

Not only is this a beer advertisement targeted directly to children, but Superman is being used to enourage the consumption of alchohol.

Some may just chalk it up to "the changing morality of the public," but we now live in a world where children are constantly barraged on all fronts by messages encouraging alchohol, pornography, consumer consumption, violence, and gambling.  If the morality of the public is changing, it's the industries that push these things that are changing it.  In twenty years the children who grew up under this assault are going to be the ones running the planet.  What kind of people do we really want them to be?  It's up to us, right now, to decide whether we want the world to become better or worse than it is; and to work for it accordingly.

Superman should not be subject to these corporate abuses, he should be promoting good values.  Our kids need to grow up with guidance instead of being programmed by companies.

I'll try to locate the issue, but I recall that when Superman went to the Jewish couple's home for shabbas dinner, that they made a  point of serving grape juice instead of wine, specifically for Superman.

I was just catching up with storylines at that point, having taken a few years off of comic-buying, so perhaps someone can enlighten me.

Was it established prior to this story that Superman didn't or couldn't drink alcohol?   My guess was that he either didn't as to not set a bad example, or he didn't see the point since it had no effect on him (much as I feel about decaffienated coffee), or that it somehow had some sort of bad effect on him (though i couldn't see how this could be)

I'm way more bothered by the idea of Superman being an illegitimate father than seeing him drink alcohol (which since it doesn't have any effect on him, I'd assume he'd only drink for the taste/to keep Jimmy company.... though not surprised if it's just there for cheap product placement), despite that I have no problem with out-of-wedlock births in real life....

Related to this: a YouTube "Apple/PC ad" parody of this plot element in "Returns":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytqV6GEHW24

It was during John Byrne's recent return to Action last year or so.

Thanks for keeping up with those John Byrne comics for us, Klar.

Thanks Klar Ken, that'll make the search for the issue number a bit easier, since I only have to look through one title.

Does anyone else agree that it was weird though?  Like he was a recovering alcoholic?

That's why I was leaning more towards the theory about him not setting a bad example......I didn't mean for the youth of Metropolis !     But that it was an editorial decision that Superman or Clark to be specifically shown avoiding alcohol

quite frankly, with all the pervasive violence in the various titles, i think alcohol should be the least of the worries

and Marlboro got loads of product placement in Superman II

It's Action Comics #835, according to this review:

http://comicfacts.blogspot.com/2006/01/guess-whos-coming-to-shabbos-dinner.html (http://comicfacts.blogspot.com/2006/01/guess-whos-coming-to-shabbos-dinner.html)

Birthright, while in Africa.

He enjoys some champagne with Lois in the Fortress in the Donner and Lester versions of Superman 2.

He appears to be drinking some wine here (http://superman.nu/Maggin/lois2.php).

Plus, he made the comment in Superman the Movie that he never drinks while he flies.

It could be worst, he could be smoking, like these two:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntrsMAlIQWA

or them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVPUGy9yJEk

or these fine folks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W5zzL3g7jM

He should be! Boeuf Bourguignon requires most of a bottle of burgundy in the recipe (I usually make it on my birthday). Mind you, the alcohol boils out.

If I tried to list all the comics where he enjoys an alcoholic beverage, I''d be spending weeks documenting all the numbers.

If you make it a drinking game, the time will go by quickly.  :)

ea, passed out from looking through thousands of issues where Superman is NOT drinking. lol

I don't think he has to worry about that team doing a second Superman film.  The movie did make money but it still seems iffy that they will make a sequel to Superman Returns.