“We’re all Superman to somebody, sometime,” a conversation about live-action Superman with Michael Gabriel

Hey there, everybody. Welcome back to another bonus episode of the Hugo's There podcast. And this time it happens that the television show Superman and Lois on the CW, which is kind of the end of the Arrowverse. We'll talk a little bit about that.

But it was a show that I really, really enjoyed. And so I reached out to a friend of mine who I know is a big Superman fan to have just an informal conversation about the kind of a, I call it a debrief. I didn't realize what kind of a joke that was, but. I'm a dad, so it's okay. So, Michael Gabriel, hi. Thanks for joining me. Great to be here. I am very excited to talk about Superman. Yes, yes. And last time we talked, we were doing a debrief about your...

the world marathon challenge, which you did in 2023. Yes. Uh, yeah. January, 2023 into February. Yeah. Nice. Any, any other, uh, fun running things that have been happening? You still been doing the small world stuff. Um, Yeah, so lots of running at Disney and I'll be doing the Dopey Challenge for my eighth time, which is a 5K, 10K, half marathon, full marathon in four days in January. But I'm getting the opportunity to do the Tokyo Marathon beginning of March.

since the first the first time since like 2019 i will be properly racing racing a marathon i'm working with a coach for the first time trying to get my old speed back yeah so i'm i'm excited to see if my older man body can start it can get back to where i was yeah yeah it's humbling when when that

kind of stuff starts happening. Your brain loses, loses the understanding of what your body can do pretty quickly. Right? Yeah, yeah. So folks, in this conversation, we are going to talk a little bit about the kind of the CW.

shows. Then we're going to go into a little bit of a, not a deep dive, but just a survey of kind of the live action portrayals of Superman. And then we'll talk more specifically about Superman and Lois. And then I'm going to ask Michael for some comic book recommendations. Sound good?

Yes, that was great. All right. We'll do it. All right. So now talking about Superman, I know that on Trivially Crucial, you and Mandy had done a number of episodes on Superman. Is Superman one of your favorite comic book characters? Superman isn't just my favorite comic book character. He's my favorite fictional character from anything. I had remembered something like that. And I was like, that's why I want to have Michael on to talk about this. Yeah.

Um, but I, and we, you and I have talked about this. I'm not big on Canon, especially comic book Canon because it gets messy. Um, you know, we know how some of the more toxic elements of just nerd them can be sometimes in terms of forget.

comic books specifically but when you say you're a really big fan of something there's sort of the like well do you have a deep like lore knowledge and it's like well you know i have definitely consumed more superman than most people but there are absolutely people who've

who just could run circles around me with superman background knowledge people who don't even particularly care for the character right um and it's really i think when you're a big fan of something it's really just a matter of what does it mean to you rather than how much do you know about a topic so um i'm I would bet that someone's going to listen to this who knows plenty about Superman that I don't and Superman background. And I'm okay with that.

Yeah, yeah. And we're not planning on doing a deep dive on the history of Superman or anything like that. Specifically, I do want to just talk about Superman and Lois, but I do want to set it in its context and kind of set the context for where we're coming from in terms of...

What is our lighthouse for Superman? You know, what is the thing that we think of? And for me, I should start with my guest, but I'm rude. So my podcast for me, you know, I saw the original Superman, the movie in the theater. You know, I was five years old, six years old, something like that. And so, so it's like the indelible mark on my brain of Christopher Reed as Superman. So what about you? So like most boys born in the United States and probably a lot of.

the western world i mean superman was just kind of ever present for a long time and one of many superheroes uh He's really interestingly like he's a really big cultural touchstone, even if he's not the best selling superhero. And that was my exposure. I had seen the first live action movie because. My mom probably rented it at some point or it was on TV on like TBS or something when I was little. But it was really.

So I tend to prefer DC to Marvel. And that is really because of the animated series that they put out in the 90s, starting with Batman in the animated series into Superman. And so for me, I think the... The real connection to Superman started in that Superman, the animated series.

Because I think before that, if you had asked me, I would have listed off like I probably didn't have a favorite superhero, let alone a favorite fictional character at all. And it was just some of the more moving elements of that show got me to be like, oh, Superman, he's a and we will definitely. get into this like this is a it's an aspirational character in terms of like

Now, I would say in terms of like personal ethic and a whole kind of personal philosophy sort of thing. And I feel like it started with that show for me. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I should also mention, of course, I grew up on Super Friends on Saturday morning. which in Anchorage, Alaska, that cartoon was on at 7 a.m. So that took some commitment for school-aged kids. Although it was basically the same time we normally got up on a weekday.

You know, we were willing to do it because cartoons. I definitely was exposed to many Super Friends reruns. And I mean, I enjoyed that, too. So, yeah, there's a place for all of it. Yeah. And then the Arrowverse is actually how we met, right? Because you and I were both on the Supergirl supercast, the fan driven podcast on the incomparable for Supergirl. You want to talk a little bit about that and your thoughts on the Arrowverse? Yeah, I mean, I really enjoyed the Arrowverse.

It had its ups and downs as really any CW show does, and certainly set of CW shows when they keep moving the top-tier writers around, which you could feel. You're like, oh, they shifted the A-team over to this show this season. I really enjoyed it. You know, Supergirl in season one, when it started, it had a bigger budget than the other shows because it was on ABC instead of the CW. And you felt it. Was it CBS?

I thought it was, but no, you could be right. I, my brain, I guess is just, uh, Oh yeah, that would make sense. Cause, uh, ABC is Disney. Right. So, um, regardless, it was one of the big networks, one of the, you know, and so. Yeah, I mean, you could feel that. I think...

At the time, they had this big thing where they didn't want to use any characters in both TV and movies. And so you felt Superman's absence really, especially into season two. But they did a good job. They focused it on Supergirl. They did the thing that, you know, there were times where there was sort of like lampshades, just like hanging lampshades all over the place. It's like, oh, yeah, there's reasons that we're not.

asking superman for help um but several characters here know that that's clark and like are his friends and so on so they're gonna come help but he won't uh so it's a little awkward but you know it's tv um But overall, I mean, I enjoyed the show. And I did finally get really excited when it seemed like, oh, they're finally going to bring Superman in.

And we will get this, but I don't think I was, or I was not let down at all. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, we can go straight to that because I agree, right? I enjoyed the Arrowverse, starting with Arrow. I was really excited about The Flash just because I grew up on the...

john wesley ship oh yeah from the 90s um and i was disappointed that it didn't get a second season and it was you know super cheesy but um but yeah i i really enjoyed that and like you said ups and downs there's a couple seasons of flash i'm like What were we doing here? And, you know, Supergirl has had its things as well. I never did finish watching Legends of Tomorrow, but like that one I felt like was the best example of figuring out what the show was and then just going with it.

yeah because it was that first season was so rough and it was sort of a they could have chosen to just drop it or they sort of reworked it and honestly by the end i think On average, it was the best of all of the CW shows by the end, which is... is not a thing i would have guessed at all by the beginning yeah yeah and so yeah superman shows up i remember seeing promotional photos of of uh tyler hecklin as superman and thinking he's a little wiry you know yeah um i i did

Don't think those pictures were particularly flattering that first came out. But then, you know, he showed up on Supergirl and Supergirl is already not bubbly. I mean, yeah, she. She was kind of right. Melissa Benoist kind of had exudes that, that joy. Right. And so when they brought that version of Superman in, I want to talk about this. I, I was delighted. I thought this is, this is the Superman that I want to see.

Absolutely. And we are very much going to get into this as we go. But I think that's one of the things in other more recent live action renditions that really is just dour is not. superman right like if your color palette is really gray unless you are specifically making a point with that you know you're you're kind of missing the point like you know superman's a symbol of hope both in universe and out you out of universe right like that's that's what he represents and yeah you need bright

colors you need a bright palette like emotionally and and physically and i think that's i really liked supergirl because it was like oh they're going for the right vibe for the super family right and um uh you know with a good dose of feminism etc uh in as you should with Supergirl and so they stuck with that and I think they really really landed it in a way that we haven't seen since the first Superman movie or since the you know the first

live action one that we think of the first modern superior. Right. And that's great to great to see, like someone who's like, oh, this is someone we can look to. He's like, he's the symbol, you know, let's let's back up a little bit, you know, that.

Warning everybody, this is an unstructured conversation. I literally, what was it, two days ago, I sprung with you. I had been putting off the finale, the final two episodes of the show, because like, oh man, I don't know if I want to see the ending. And so I finally watched them last night.

but let you, let's talk about some of the other live action portrayals. Cause, cause it does go back a ways. And I, you know, I did not see the original like television. Me neither. George Reeves. George Reeves. Yeah. Which of course. you know, so many people, myself included, you mix up Reeve and Reeves because you have George Reeves and Christopher Reeve. And it's like, wait, which one is the S and which one is it? Yeah. It's like when people say, uh, Jerry rigged.

When they're mixing up Jerry built and jury rigged. Yep. Yep. Yep. Exactly. Yeah. So we already briefly talked about the Christopher Reeve movies. Honestly, they don't hold up very well for me. I've, I've tried. I don't, I don't think so either. Yeah. I think the first one. is remarkable filmmaking and then the and you know of course it was landmark in terms of you know you think about the poster you'll believe a man can fly right uh like that sort of element of it holds up really well and

Christopher Reeves acting is remarkable, right? And that's a thing that we will revisit. And one of the other things that's just significant about portrayals, but as far as the actual, like the storyline is kind of hokey. There's quite, there's ethical. questionability and in parts of it. Right. Right. Memory erasure through kissing. Yeah, exactly. There's like the

pretty significant consent concerns there, you know? Um, so I, I don't think it's really, it's, I don't think it's great as a story. I don't think it's really especially great as a movie. I do think it's really. significant in terms of kind of landmark uh like a landmark steps stepping stone in portrayal of superheroes on screen right yeah um and that's why we needed that to get to where we are and can go

In the future, I think. Do you think Superman 2 holds up better than Superman 1? Sorry, Superman the movie. Yeah, I don't know. Honestly, I feel rough about pretty much everything from that era. Okay. I felt like when I rewatched them, it held up a little bit better, but you know, like the fight scenes and stuff are not very dynamic because I'm really limited by the wire work that they could do. Um,

It's the first kind of instance, you know, in the first movie, right? He's facing off against Lex Luthor. So it's Man of Steel against Man of Brain, right? Right. And so then... Superman 2, you have this, well, here are people who can stand up, you know, stand toe to toe with him. And ultimately, he doesn't defeat them by just punching them, right? Right. And that's fair. And I think that's a good point. Yeah. And yeah, still.

there's a significant cheese factor when you go back and watch it now. Yeah. And I think that's, and we'll of course get into this, you know, we know, Evan, everybody's listening, like either you think Superman is boring or you know a lot of people who think Superman's boring, right? Like that's, that's the thing. And I think that.

in general, because we're exposed to so many superheroes and we're exposed to so many superhero type stories. And this has been true since, you know, the 1960s when superheroes were no longer novel, right? Because at least for the first decade or so, There weren't that many of them. But.

So many people are fixated on the conflict around the power set when that's just not what Superman's supposed to be about. It's almost like his power makes it so that the power isn't the source of conflict, right? Or the superpowers aren't the source of conflict. It's like, oh, how can you use your power to get around this?

thing and really it's and this is the core thing that is going to you know we're going to talk about that's you know spoiler I really like Tyler Hoechlin's representation of Superman uh and it's because really the core of Superman is that The way that he wins and the way that he succeeds is by being good, not by being powerful. And it's sort of a it's, you know, a character who symbolizes kind of that, like, have the faith that being good.

is worthwhile and is the right thing and can lead to positive ends. Right. Uh, and, um, And so I think just going to your point, like that is something that Superman two gets right. It's like, Hey, he didn't just win by smashing the other guy. Like he, he won because he was good. And, and I mean, he did crush his hand and then throw him into an abyss, but.

Well, yeah, that's fair, but, but it wasn't, there's a whole, you know, it's a whole thing. And that's the end of the day too. It's like, well, I think people miss that a lot and many writers miss that, which is, you know, but.

I think, and again, we'll talk about that because I think Lex Luthor is kind of the perfect foil because like, yeah, like his perfect foil isn't someone who is similarly powerful. Like there's a point to Zod and other powerful characters, but those are, and we'll get to that as well, that like they circle back and they highlight.

highlight the real values of superman and why like and and that he stands for what he stands for even when he doesn't have the power advantage but um but at the end of the day the perfect foil is somebody who has a completely different you know a completely different uh mechanism for power which is you know money and wealth etc cruelty and so on um because yeah of course the like the punching each other in the face isn't the interesting part the interesting part is

How do you just keep doing the right thing? You know, and I do want to talk about that in the context. So remind me of, you know, you do end up in the final season of Superman and Lois with. Two more or less immortal beings punching each other. But it works for me and for a particular reason. So we'll get there. Did you ever see the Superboy show? I did not. Live action show? No. I remember seeing a couple episodes.

maybe in college or maybe late high school. I guess it was 1988 when it first came out. I had no idea it went for four seasons. If you had asked me, I would have been like, oh, that was one of those ones that they got a 13-episode order and it never came back. But yeah, so I can't really comment on that one. So if there's anybody listening who loved that show or watched it, you know, and wants to comment on it, I'd love to hear it.

i definitely do periodically i'll go through maybe once every like year and a half i'll go through it's like you know what let me find some old superman related content i have not consumed before and just kind of find it so maybe superboy will jump to the top of the list now that you've just put it

in my brain. All right. Uh, sorry in advance. I have no idea if it needs an apology, but that's fine. If it's, if there's not much to it, I can get through it even if it's not very good. Right. Yeah. So from, from there, still in the eighties, we had, we ended up with Lois and Clark. the new adventures of Superman with Terry Hatcher and Dean Cain.

Mm hmm. And I definitely watched that with my mom when she would turn it on TV because I was not really paying attention to TV schedules. I have it all on DVD. So at some point I watched it through from beginning to end. And, you know, it the the. of it was similar to the Flash show, not quite as cheesy, not quite as bright, but a fair bit of cheese still in there. And this came after kind of the Batman movies were a thing. So it was nice that, and again, I'm...

Spoiler to everybody, I do not like Zack Snyder's representation of Superman. I'm very, very... I just... give no credence to it at all um and so one of the mistakes is just being like oh the entire dc universe needs to be this like dark and gritty thing that really works for batman um but uh so this was kind of the opposite like no we're leaning into that with the the wackadoodle tim burton

stuff uh uh that also kind of works um but the first one was just a solid batman movie and then you flip over to superman and with um you know lois and clark and you're like oh yeah no this is Bright visuals, mostly positive. Like, yeah, it runs into some of the TV writing issues that you inevitably get into, especially with TV of the era. It kind of lived and died on the will they, won't they.

thing right and once they were together you're like okay this isn't quite as interesting and they did the power swap things that always happen where you know lois becomes a superhero for a while and so she gets to know what a burden it actually is to hear everyone in distress and not be able to help everyone um one of the

interesting things about that too uh and this is is that the you know to us now lois and clark being a couple is like a super obvious thing but i think the will they won't they thing was decades long in the comics like i mean they didn't get married for the first time in canonically in the comics until i think the 90s maybe the late 80s sort of a thing but before that it was like just lois was the the damsel that he saved a lot right it's not like there was a lot of emphasis on having

Like she was strong in her own way, but strong in the way that like a very paternalistic society allows women to be strong, not in a not in like an equal partnership type thing. And and now it's just we accept. Yeah, Lois and Clark most of the time are together. Right. That's the thing. Every once in a while.

somebody will do a story where it's wonder woman and superman but um right yeah yeah no that's an interesting point i hadn't hadn't really considered that because it has been in the zeitgeist for for decades now

Yeah, I mean, this is, you know, Lawson Clark was 30 years ago now, which blows my mind. But that's only like the most recent... quarter of superman's existence really so um and so i think even then it was i want to say maybe and i could be completely wrong so Apologies to anybody listening who knows this for a fact or who knows that this is wrong for a fact, but I'm pretty sure that they lined up them getting married in the show with the like the wedding in the comics.

So I think it was that recent, which is part of why the will they won't they thing kind of lined up. So, yeah. Nice, nice. So moving on from then, I think, I can't remember when Smallville premiered. I think it was in the 90s at some point? Either late 90s or early 2000s. I was watching it in high school.

And back then, you know, it was pre-piracy, pre-streaming, pre- like for video stuff. So, I mean, I was going home. If I missed an episode, I would go home and the next day I would find someone who would... written transcripts online so i would be caught up for the next episode uh the following week because i didn't have a dvr tivo was

not a thing my family was going to buy and was basically the only DVR game in town. Yeah, that was it was one of those things that I came to pretty late, you know, because I was a full adult by then um and and my wife isn't a huge genre fan right and so so she'll watch occasional things with me but um you know all the cw stuff has been a

a me watch you know and uh and you know smallville is the proto cw right because it was yeah wb and i caught an episode here or there and then then i finally kind of came to it on tv on dvd That was the first, you know, the first kind of one of the first things that I, you know, went to the library and picked up the DVDs. But I loved Smallville. I thought it was tremendous. And, you know, it wasn't.

all good obviously no certainly not it had all the same issues that the more modern cw shows have yeah like that's just clearly Those are issues that stem from the way they produce their shows, right? Well, and it's even more so, right? And I don't know if the Superboy show had some of this, but, you know.

It's a younger version of Superman, right? So you're going to have some of that drama, right? Where I can't be fully honest with the closest people to me. How can I really be a friend to them? And it's frustrating to me, all the secret identity stuff, because I think it's nonsense. But it was fun the way, you know, I liked that they had the no tights, no flights rule. I was about to say that, yeah, the no tights, no flights was a big, yeah, it was a core thing that I think they got right.

for it yeah yeah it limited him right and and uh and so so he had to he had to work with other heroes as well i love the kind of proto justice league stuff that they did where they brought in cyborg and aquaman and green arrow um and a version of the flash yeah um So I also I obviously really loved Smallville. I have that entire show on DVD. And the big thing with Smallville is.

You know, going back to one of my critiques of how sometimes writers get Superman wrong is they want there to be like shades of gray, moral conflict and so on. But like when the core thing is that your character is.

unerringly good it doesn't mean he can't ever make mistakes but the types of mistakes he makes are like you're pretty constrained in those you can't let him make the same kind of mistakes that lots of other uh that lots of other superheroes do because the consequences are so high it's um

And one of my core things, so we attribute this to... to in the superhero world and the genre world uh with great power comes great responsibility is attributed to spider-man uncle ben and so on it goes back to the very first issue of spider-man um but like it's really that's a

philosophy that's been around since the 1800s i think from like with a noblesse oblige right like it goes back to there and it's not an original thought to be like if you have power you are ethically required to use that uh in

you know and i think superman is kind of of all the superheroes because he's essentially the most powerful of major superheroes and uh you know he is kind of the embodiment of that is like it's not just i'm not just obligated to use this i'm obligated to make sure that i use it to others benefit

And that others do not suffer because of it. Right. And, and that's just a core thing. And, and the idea is like, you can't really afford to get things wrong. Right. Because other people suffer for it. And. And so a lot of the time that like the moral and ethical conflicts, like when they have.

And I have some comic recommendations that we'll talk about later that you can intentionally play with that. But at the core, if you're trying to write a real, a true Superman story where this is Superman, the character...

You've got to be really careful with that. And by the time he is Superman, if he's going to be the symbol, he has to have already figured out who he is. He has to be so... sure of kind of where his moral compass is uh how to gut check himself how to defer how and when to defer to others how to seek correction uh you know that sort of thing because again he can get things wrong but he's not going to get such

because he's a fictional character you don't write him into situations where he gets such huge things wrong that it's disastrous to others right like you're like okay you got this wrong because you didn't have this information and so he can apologize and be like you know what i should have asked for this Uh, let's set up this thing so that in the future, I know where to seek out guidance from others who have a better perspective on this than I do, et cetera. Right. Like that sort of thing.

And the best way, if you want to mess with all the soul-seeking stuff, the stuff that Man of Steel kind of gets wrong, Man of Steel the movie gets wrong, is like the soul-seeking happens before the suit comes on, right? So if you need to stretch on how that goes, and Man of Steel starts to get that, and then he still keeps doing it after the suit's on, right? But that's the thing about...

Smallville is like, you got what? 10 seasons. I was like, if the suit's not on, that's fine. He can make, he can make those mistakes because he's not Superman yet. It's the, he's the, no, I've got this. I know who I am now. Yeah. And. I am Superman and I have to keep being Superman. Right. And I cannot mess that up. I can mess up small things, but I can't mess up.

That I, at my core, am Superman and that matters. Right. And and so it's great. So I think Smallville, like it's very messy. It's a very teenage angsty and so on. It's like, that's fine. That's Clark getting it wrong before he is a full on grown up and has become the person he's.

to go but his yeah superman's character arc is essentially over in terms of finding his identity by the time he puts on the suit right there's other elements of his character he can augment but figuring out who he is at his core that's a thing that he That obligation of power makes him learn young, right? Yeah, yeah. I love that. And, you know, the whole wall of weird kind of villain of the week thing, the meteor freaks in Smallville really, you know.

It's such a deep comic history with so many characters. They could just be like, this week it's Metallo, and next week it's Parasite. I think at the time, culturally, we called them the Freak of the Week. Yes. I don't remember if that was officially from the show or if that's just what the Smallville fan culture called it at the time. I thought that was more of an X-Files kind of thing. Maybe that was Monster of the Week.

I mean, I know Monster of the Week was a bigger colloquial thing, which might have come from X-Files. I wasn't an X-Files fan. But like Freak of the Week was specifically...

And again, that could also just straight be from it. But I know that like Freak of the Week was what everybody called the thing. And every once in a while, they'd be like, this is not a Freak of the Week episode. It's like, oh, cool. What's going on this time? Because we didn't have the same kind of serialization that the more modern shows have.

So then we finally get back to the movies in, I don't know, 2006, I think, something like that for Superman Returns. Yeah. I didn't actually write down what year it was. I don't remember what year either. And that's a really interesting movie, right? Because... It sort of picks and chooses which of the old movies to discard, which I think bothered me at the time.

But now as somebody who's just been like, I don't care about comic continuity is like, yeah, do whatever. You can start any Superman story anytime and just be like, people will figure out which facts are true and which ones aren't because there are so many Superman stories. There's, there's thousands.

tens of thousands of superman stories out there if you include like fan fiction and stuff like that it's like who cares like so so the starting point is like you assume that more or less superman one happened maybe superman two happened And then it's like three and four did not mostly. But if the facts don't line up, it doesn't matter because it's just like kind of like the Sarah Connor Chronicles, right? Where it throws out everything after Terminator 2. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Yeah, and so it's kind of a throwback as well, right? Because the way Brandon Routh plays the character is much more kind of retro. Right. It's much more kind of back to that innocence thing. And this is maybe something to talk about, about, you know, in Smallville, he's playing Clark Kent. Right. Yeah. He's not Superman yet. and and he's awkward and all that kind of stuff you go back to the christopher reeve portrayal right he did such a great job of the how do people not

realize this is him, right? Because he's a klutz. And he faints when the guy tries to shoot Lois, right? And he pretends to faint but catches the bullet, right? And he did that so well and he was so dorky that the Clark... portrayal was really good. The Superman portrayal was really good. It's not always kind of equal. What did you think of Brennan Ralph in that? I think he did a pretty good job. It's hard to measure up to Christopher Reeve's performance in that.

But I think he did a pretty good job of it. I don't know that I think he got enough of a chance to make it his own, which is pluses and minuses. But also, like, the character always had... any kind of legacy thing and certainly Superman has its baggage with him and I think he was he was up to it pretty well and one of the things that we'll hear is like I am not really critical of

pretty much any of the live action actors the portrayals it really comes down to the writing of how they're written because i feel like the the actors have all pretty much done a really solid job of portraying somewhere from a good to great job of portraying what they were asked to portray right um and uh and i think he did a really good job like he he

seemed like kind of the same sort of Superman who has now been disconnected from his humanity for a while because he's been gone. So he's leaning much, you know, he's much more in the Superman vein of that. much it feels a little bit more alien uh which you know for good and for ill i think any of us as a human being if we were just separated for years and we're not on earth for years and by ourselves would also seem a little alien um

I did have and probably still have some issues around the whole idea that like he has a son and abandoned like an abandoned him kind of a thing, which I know that's not on purpose. He didn't know. Right. But I think and maybe this is just my, you know.

My conservative upbringing, like lowercase c conservative upbringing, right, is like, oh, I don't like that. I don't like you putting Superman in a position where he's an unpresent father, right? Like, that's kind of a... Well, especially if you go back to Lois and Clark, right? Superman's a virgin when they get married.

Yeah. And so the idea that like, you know, that that would happen, it sort of feels like it doesn't have to be a judgment on morality to also be a thing where it's like, it just doesn't feel right for Superman. Right. Like it feels like it's not just a morality thing. It's like, but is that his character? So that element feels wrong, but that's more of the writing element than Brandon Routh. I think Brandon Routh did a good job. I mean, he's a good looking man. He, he kind of, he, you know.

He did a good job of representing the symbol, but I think in that movie, he represents the symbol more and less of that human. Superman transition like you were alluding to. All right. So let's go ahead and talk about Henry Cavill. We'll wrap up the discussion of live action Superman prior to Superman and Lois before with Henry Cavill. I understand why people like Henry Cavill's portrayal so much because just like.

physically and of course henry cavill as a nerd who just likes doing nerd things like you want to root for him and so on and he's a great superman like he's the buffest superman we're ever gonna have right like um and he looks that part he's i don't buy him nearly as much as clark But but I also think the writing didn't give him the chance to do that. Right. Like they kind of made him a tortured Superman the entire time, which is not my.

Again, and we will very much talk about this with comic recommendations. There are comics I will recommend that definitely do the like we don't have the solid symbol kind of a thing. But it's sort of those comics exist in a they sort of acknowledge up front. This is not that Superman.

right like they said like we are specifically and deliberately making a point with this story right uh and that's not what this is um to me and again critique of zach snyder and his influence and everything is very much alike you think the cool thing about Superman is that he's strong and that's wrong. Right. And, and then you're inserting all this, like, you know, eighties grit into it. And, um,

Which is, again, if you watch Watchmen and you realize the things that it feels like he took from it, similar things. You're not quite getting what the important part of this is, right? You think the grit's the important part, and that's not. So I think just Henry never really got the chance to shine like he was really good on sort of like the comic book panel type stuff. He's a great representation of that. I mean, if you extend that into the Justice League stuff like.

he when he's fighting the others because he you know he's he's not quite in straight in his mind and they're doing a whole thing is like he is scary right um And it very much takes inspiration from some injustice stuff and so on. And that's great.

henry does great i would have loved for him to have gotten the opportunity to be a real superman but to me like this is just not like this is the worst live action superman in terms of portrayal because he's just not the character he's this is this is closer to one of the um not parody but one of the obvious commentary characters like homelander or you know numerous others where it's like this is superman if not superman right and um and i think it just fails in so many ways in terms of

uh you know famously and this is a spoiler for man of steel uh i don't need to be specific but there there's a moment like where just the way that the fight is resolved with zod is like that's not It's not that you can never resolve a fight that way, but this is a situation that is just arbitrarily written.

there's no convincing me that this is what was necessary here and it is not in line with my view of superman and yes this is very clearly subjective but i think my view is right yeah yeah i agree and my other problem with the Snyderverse stuff, even though I really enjoyed the Snyder cut of Justice League. It's one of those things where a creator gets to see how something's received and then course correct. And I know that a lot of the...

A lot of stuff was left on the cutting room floor and the reshoots were actually fairly minor for the Snyder Cut. But it kind of wants to have its cake and eat it too with the Snyderverse. superman to present him as if he's this symbol of hope exactly they never really showed yeah and that's that's exactly it like the snyder verse if we had a rich movie landscape let's say uh for example

Um, we had a sensible copyright system and Superman had long ago been in the public domain, which means that we had more than one company start churning out Superman movies. Right. Right. Then you don't, you're not saddled with having to be like, oh, this is the canonical Superman.

that that we're making great do exactly this and it's like oh cool it's a gritty take uh this is a superman that you're trying to present this way but maybe you're being you're doing it on purpose and you're showing that actually he's failing to be that symbol quite right and yet people are going to hold him up as one anyways like there's

a whole nuanced thing to do that but you can't do that when that's your only version of superman right like you just you can't do that and and like you said is trying to have the cake and eat it too and it's not really coherent in that way right um versus again with the comics like you've got at any given time you've got like five concurrent superman comics like

If you call concurrent within a six month period. Right. So it's like, yeah, do whatever you want. Like have a, have a, like have a take. That's not super clear on the messaging, but you're like, Hey, this is everyone who's trying to be and thinks he's the symbol, but isn't.

Here's a Superman who's not pretending to be a temple, but other people are holding him up as one and they're trying to use him as one. Here's a Superman who's very, very much not that. As long as you've got one recent or current one that is like... we don't worry we know who superman really is right right that's that's fine um the snyder verse

if it was part of a multiverse right like you already had a thing and you're like no no this is our superman and here's this other one who's not quite that that's fine it's why um the injustice stuff i have no problem with because like if the injustice is not the main universe right it's like yeah this is this is a what if story what if superman was more uh you know more corruptible and this terrible thing happened right like um and that that's all fine so um

Yeah, I mean, and that's the thing is every story, everything in life is like context matters. And the context is this is the only Superman we were getting. This comes at the cost of another Superman. Right. And. And that's, you don't get to get away with that, right? Without the consequence of being critiqued for it, right? Well, and talking about context, right? It like that.

It leads nicely into kind of talking about this, the CW version of Superman and what a breath of fresh air it was because you had all of that baggage from, from the Snyder versus Superman. And I think at some point they were.

going at the same time because he was on supergirl and and there were snyder movies right yeah um i think the the easiest way to think about this is the um one of the multiverse moments the flash from the uh from the films showed up for like a brief scene into in the flash uh the cw flash so yeah there's towards the tail end of the cw verse there was a brief even crossover of them so well and i i loved actually i i

really respect Greg Berlanti's honoring of historical canon and that kind of stuff where he brings in Dean Cain on Supergirl, right? That actually went back to Smallville. In Smallville, I think the last role that Christopher Reeve ever did was he was a professor for Clark. And it was like, oh my gosh, like what is going on? Right, right. And Clark's mother was played by the...

I can't remember her name, who played Lana in Superman. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so they've been doing that for a long time on that thing. And it's the Miles Millar, Algo, and then Berlanti. It's like a whole group of people who... uh, who just like two, three guys who just keep.

churning away and be like, yeah, we're going to keep pulling in people who, as long as they're interested and we're going to honor them. Uh, and it was, it was fun to have Brandon Routh simultaneously playing the Adam. And then also the, uh, what's the name of that comic, um, kingdom come.

kingdom comes to me of superman as well yeah uh yeah and it's you know and i i think that was just a really funny because like we know he's the same actor so we're gonna we're gonna come as like you look real familiar right like yeah just lampshade that the whole way yeah Yeah, so I don't think that – because we ended up having multiple –

universes, right, in the CW. And so you had a universe where Supergirl was the only hero, right? There was no Flash, there was no Green Arrow, any of that. And eventually they kind of, kind of like in Crisis on Infinite Earths, right? I mean, literally it was.

That's what they called it because they had the four-part crossover. And it kind of not dumbed it down, but combined it all into one universe, right? And that's messy when you do that because now you have to explain, well, how come Supergirl's not helping the Flash? And so I liked the fact that I think it was season two, they made it explicit on Superman and Lois. This is not the same continuity with CW, with the other CW shows. I agree. And I think that the big thing is...

when we did the CW show, right. Because of the way that they brought Supergirl in, they're like, Superman has been doing his thing for a long time. Yeah. Right. Um, And then they sort of send him off at the end of the show because they had to keep coming up with a way for him to not be around because in that show, as is right for the show.

you need to let Supergirl come into her own. And like, you can do all kinds of interesting things when you have a, when you have writers who are in charge of multiple characters and so on. But like, this is a show starring Supergirl. So like, we need to. come up with a way and so in their universe they're like we're just gonna have superman leave and then this one i you know i'm glad that they decided tyler got it should get his own show um because he really really deserved it uh he

Like you said, breath of fresh air and so on. And it's like, we need to reset. Like there are no other superheroes. We're going to reset as if he's been doing this by himself. Like presumably it seems like in the CW universe, which of course is just a patchwork thing that. came together over time the way that essentially it seems like superman and batman were kind of both operating in the past like you know maybe a decade prior to the aeroverse even starting um and like

Batman was like so low key that people don't really believe he exists. And then Superman was hyped. But like in universe, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Right. And they're like, no, no, no, we're going to reset. We're going to start fresh. We're not going to have the baggage of the that that comes with comic continuity and stuff like that. here we go um and i i really am grateful they did that because it allowed them to lean into which you know you and i we were

we were talking about this on social media, um, the family element and like the family element means a lot less when there's other superheroes around, right? Like it, or it not means a lot less, but it's. Much harder to have the freedom to tell that story and that development. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I think it was really smart too, to kind of age them up as well.

Yes. And so to break it off to a separate continuity, you didn't have to go, is this 15 years later? And they just didn't tell us. Right. Well, no, it's just a different continuity and they have 15 year old boys. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. And so, so now Superman and Lewis are mature.

right? That's one of the things that you could see some maturation going on on the CW shows over time, but still there was a lot of relationship drama and that kind of stuff where here you have Superman and Lois very stable. Um, and then, you know, coming back to his home in Smallville, which I thought was a nice touch as well. And then when you want those bits of drama, cause it's the CW, you have the boys for that. Yeah, exactly. And I think that's really one of the things that, um,

you know, cause this whole, this episode is happening because you mentioned really liking the show. And I chimed in and was like, I don't necessarily think that the show itself is a great show. It's a good show. I really loved it. But I do think it is the best live action representation of Superman we've gotten. Right. And that exactly what you said, it gave the freedom to do that and to not even have the temptation to fall into.

Superman needs to be the one who screws up, right? Because he doesn't. And that does not mean he's perfect, right? He definitely makes small mistakes, but they're not mistakes of character. right uh you know they're not failures of character their mistakes is like yeah it's hard to decide what to do here right and then he does the thing that a good person does which he owns it he's like oh

I messed up. I'm sorry. Let's do better. And sometimes he's not even necessarily wrong. Sometimes it's like, no, no, he has the right to do this, right? It is perfectly, it not just has the right. He has the right. He's not morally wrong to do this, but he carefully considers it. You know what? I can do even better. and and here's the improvement right so um they they do the thing the secret identity thing which they make it believable that he's kept this super

the identity for such a long time and they make it believable for why it's falling apart now during the show. Right. Like, um, in a way that is not convincing so often in superhero shows. Right. Um, and, uh, And it is one of those things where it's like, you know, the boys understandably, they get upset and angry and so on. And in ways like you get it, but also like.

no no you mean he has a right to not tell people his secret right like yeah yeah but on the other hand you can totally see like i really love the scene the first scene where the boys find out yeah and and and jordan is just like people have been treating me like i'm crazy The stuff that I've been feeling, they put me on pills.

And you didn't think that it was a good time to tell me that maybe I'm not fully human. You don't think that could have had some bearing on this? And I thought that was a wonderful scene. And let's talk about the cast here, because we have Tyler Hoechlin, obviously, as Superman Clark. Elizabeth Tullock or Bitsy Tullock. I think it seems like she goes by both. And she's tremendous as Lois. She's very, very good. And then the boys, did I write down their names? I think I did. Yeah. Jordan Alsace.

as Jonathan for the first couple of seasons and then Michael Bishop for the last couple. Um, which I think it's funny that a guy named Jordan plays Jonathan. Yeah. And then we have a character named Jordan played by Alex Garfin and Alex Garfin is really, really good. Very, um, like wears his heart on his sleeve and he's that kind of character right and the actor really does a great job with that and and yeah so like that that whole now the idea to have one of the boys develop powers

was a really great idea because it just throws a monkey wrench into everything. Cause they, it's not necessarily the boy they thought it would be. Right. And that's where you get some parental drama. Right. And, and like how honest. do you need to be with your kids and superman is an honest guy right and yet he's been gaslighting everybody for years about yeah about his uh secret identity and i think that's it's one of those things where we as a society we tend to

grow up oversimplifying a lot of things right like we're like oh yeah you know honesty we we all believe uh you know integrity is definitely a virtue and honesty is too but it's like that doesn't mean you have to tell everybody everything all the time it doesn't mean like sometimes that You know,

And people use, of course, the excuse to get away with things that they shouldn't. Right. Like people talk about little white lies. Sometimes it's not that little and sometimes it's not that white. Right. Like and and sometimes. But it's like, you know, there's also a thing where it's like you're not obligated to tell other people your secrets. And.

you know because if superman did not if clark kent did not keep the secret then like he would be miserable he probably wouldn't be as good a good of a hero right like he just uh and it's like you know he has a right to live his life um and uh And so there's kind of that balance. And it is like the minute it's a shared secret, it's like, oh, you do have to start.

You know, you do have to start considering the boys do the thing, of course, you know, where they like, well, but this is my secret now, not just yours. And so they're like angry and they're like, well, I want to share it with everybody. And yeah, in a kind of a cavalier way is like, hey, like you're not taking this seriously enough. Like you have not spent the time the way that kids often don't to think through the consequences of what this might be. And this.

and like i would still be arguing with you if it was only you who would face the consequences but also it's not only you who would be facing the consequences right uh and so you have that but then there's also the super you know superman coming to the realization that like for the longest time

He's only had to do the pros and cons in his own head. And he does have to actually start contending with the fact that somebody else does. And again, this is a thing where like, there isn't a one right answer. but they arrive over time over the course of the series. That's sort of the best answer, I think. Uh, and it is that sort of thing where like the point of Superman is to be inerringly good. It's not to be inerringly right, you know? And it was like, yeah, you, you can get little.

fit little, I'm putting that in air quotes, little things wrong that aren't so little, right? Like, because they do make people feel disrespected and so on. And then you just, you.

really kind of spend the effort to see where you've gone wrong how to fix it and so on but you don't destroy people's lives over it right and um yeah and i mean not to like jump ahead but i really liked a scene in the last season where it's kind of the thing that kind of gets superman to be like oh i can't keep doing this the same way with small modifications and it is the like i cannot

I realized I was making good people doubt themselves, question themselves. Gaslighting people. Yeah, absolutely. He didn't use the word gaslighting. He's gaslighting them in a way that's really, really disrespectful. And like on a large scale, it's not even, it's like, and I can't keep doing that. Right. Um, it's, and it is sort of like a pro and con thing, like, because.

when it was they have the thing where you know he's been doing that for his entire life but like with one person here another person there who were like people who he has a close interpersonal relationship is like they will understand It's reasonable to think that if they're a good person, they will understand.

And if they're not a person who will understand, they don't really deserve that consideration for me because the stakes are really high, right? Like, not that they don't deserve that consideration, but I am considering it and they're kind of in the wrong here. But once you have enough people who it's like, they don't have that personal relationship with you. You are going really out of your way. It's starting to cause them consequences.

because other people think they're liars like another and it's like oh like now this is a that's a whole different thing right versus just okay well you're not telling me this thing right i mean and we've all most of us have had situations where like maybe

we're uncertain about a thing like a friend of ours is like you know what i think this is probably true it might not be but it's my friend's it's my friend's place to decide when or if to tell me and i'm just going to try not to draw a conclusion right yeah uh and that's fine like that's what

good friends who have personal relationships are, it's a whole different thing. If it's like, Hey, like something about this situation is suddenly a consequence to me. Like, I really need you to tell me. Right. Uh, and that, and that changes the balance. Um, yeah, yeah. And, and there's also some.

you know the the fact that jordan gets his powers right now you have the additional challenge to the secret identity of there's somebody else around here making you know saving people yeah and and clark doesn't really want to tell him let people die And so that's kind of course correcting from the Snyderverse, right? Let your dad die because you're definitely not fast enough to just go grab him and nobody notice it. Yeah.

And I think they do a great job of ramping that up too, because exactly what you just said. And then you also you add in, it's like, well, he's been doing this for decades, and he didn't have a model. And they do address this towards the end is like, I trained on my own, et cetera, but he built up towards it, right? He's like, okay, I'm going to do the saves that I'm capable of.

while doing this and slowly learn over time how how can i do more and more and more and more while staying more or less within my capabilities and then of course stretch when it comes to it which you know will uh but um you know His sons have had him as an example without even knowing it was him.

yeah and they're like immediately trying to jump to the end it's like you can't do that like you know even from a he's not saying like he is doing the parental thing where he's being a little bit overprotective but also he's right and i was like you can't like you you literally cannot do you do have not learned the skill how to do this while hiding your identity right like you're good you're going to reveal

things because and it's all the kinds of stuff where again a kid who's like but you're doing that it's like yeah but like you don't know all the things that I'm unconsciously checking off like I'm thinking about where I'm launching from I'm thinking about where I come down I'm thinking about like where I do all this stuff and they don't even address that in the show but it's like

the kind of things where any of us who has tried to guide someone significantly younger than us, whether it's like, you know, as a teenager and you're like helping out with like a, a young kid's sports team or an adult with a child or something and you're like oh wow i haven't even thought about all the unconscious things that i do about this that

you are just going to run right over. Right. And that's all in his head as a dad. And, uh, and that's just the thing that the kids are not going to be receptive to at first until they like see some major consequences. Like, Oh, he was right. You know? Yeah. So let's give a quick rundown of the seasons and kind of, you know, what the major arc was.

I mean, I don't, I don't have a super clear memory of all of this stuff. I didn't go back and rewatch the entire series because like you said, right? Like I really enjoyed the series. I thought, I thought it was a great portrayal of Superman. And I liked that you framed it that way because there was something about it that I connected to.

that it was more than the sum of its parts in some ways. Yes. Because some of the storylines are standards here, superhero storylines, right? Yeah, I would even say not especially good ones, but again, like that's not... At the end of the day, that's not the thing I take away from stories that I love the most. Yeah. So in the first season, this is the first hint you get that they're in a different universe because they have a Morgan Edge character who they play by a different actor in Supergirl.

And it turns out he's actually – and this is a hint at some, quote, moral failings on Superman's mother's part, right? Because she has another child, and his name is Tal Rowe. And he's – In some ways, almost like the Superman Red Son, where he is brought up by a crueler father figure, right? He has his own fortress of solitude, but it's the hell version of it.

It's fiery and desert-y instead of cold and, I guess, cold and desert-y. And he's planning to restore Kryptonian consciousnesses into humans. Right. Through the Eradicator, right? He's a Kryptonian supremacist, essentially, right? Yeah, more or less. Yeah, I hadn't thought of that. Yeah, that makes sense. And yeah, it's called the Eradicator, I think, which is, I think, a reference to the death of Superman.

comics because wasn't there a character called the Eradicator? I know that in one of the Supergirl comics, Zor-El was actually the Eradicator, which was interesting. But, you know... I don't remember all that much about the story other than Superman finds out this is his brother and he won't give up on him. Yeah. And, and he doesn't want to kill him. Right. He, he, he wants to, well, you're my brother, you know, let's.

Let's reconcile here. And it doesn't, of course, happen right away. But toward the end of season two, Tauro comes back and saves him and then moves off to another dimension. Because this is where they make it clear. We're not part of the CW multiverse. And then immediately introduce a parallel earth where the earth is square. Which is like, so clearly they're like, this is not even a, this is a very different universe. Yeah. Yeah. The physics are different.

But I like some of the seeds that they planted kind of all along about this is the way Superman's going to deal with stuff, with compassion. And also little things like... In season two, you have the bizarro, right? Well, the way they introduced that character is totally doomsday from the comics. Right. And then ultimately that character becomes doomsday at the end of the show. And it was really nicely bookended. Yes, I agree.

Yeah, I mean, I agree with all of that. And I think one of the things, as you said, his approach to his brother was sort of the, I'm not going to give up on you. And I think that's a thing that... I definitely have taken in-person life and, and we can talk about like, there's all kinds of privilege that comes with this. Different people are taking advantage of it, different frequencies for all kinds of, yeah, kinds of reasons. So the amount of, uh, as a, as a regular.

human being in the real world like the amount of emotional labor and burden you can take on and the risk that you can take on is different from person to person but as a general philosophy I think one of the things in my life and in terms of like forgiveness and so on that I take that

i see exemplified here by superman is the i'm not going to give up on you that doesn't necessarily mean i definitely think this is going to turn around but i'm going to keep leaving the window open right um it's sort of a like

what is the best possible outcome let me at least make sure i'm doing what is necessary to allow for that like that does not mean i'm going to allow you to run roughshod over other people i'm going to oppose you when you're doing things that are wrong whether to me or to other people and so on it's not just like a

you know, you don't have to be a doormat to be forgiving, right? But, but there's sort of the like, let me make sure I'm not closing off that door for redemption, restoration, etc. And again, when you're writing a fictional character, you can kind of you can really lean into that a lot and they do a great job of that with superman in this is there's lots of people who do pretty bad things and it's always like a no bad uh but also like hey

if you want to turn around, we're open, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And so, I mean, I kind of glossed over season two because I don't think it's a very good season, but it has season two, the one with the lady on the other side. Yes. Yeah. That, that season was like the, Ooh, what are they doing with this one? I thought it was fun for them to play with. It was a different son who got the powers. So it's the Jonathan from the other world.

It was interesting, but it wasn't an amazing season. No, no. So season three, I mean, the bad guy is cancer. Yeah. For the most part. I mean, you do end up with Doomsday at the end of the season and Lex Luthor. And Bruno Mannheim's in there as well. It's the kind of thing where I feel like the writers knew we've done enough with the characters so we can set it up so that the main villain of this season is cancer. Because we think that our viewers care enough about Lois and these characters.

for that to work and to me it totally worked yeah i mean i agree i think that's again one of the things with superman So, and again, we're going to talk about my personal philosophy that has stemmed from like, I mean, it doesn't come from Superman, but it's one of the ways because I like the character so much, I connect it to my life is most of us have.

and some much more than others, some degree of privilege over other people in many contexts of our lives, right? We all have power at some point. And so I think one of my personal phrases that... as far as i'm aware is original to me is like we're all superman to somebody sometime right it's like we're all in that position where we're the one who can make the difference if we choose to right uh and i think that we are obligated to do so right we're obligated to

use that position that opportunity to make things better for other people because of that like a lot of that's just in regular life and rather than superpowers right and so having superman deal with regular life stuff where he's in exactly the same position as everybody else Yeah, this is not about his powers. It's about his character.

Right. Because we can be Superman too. And so it's like, sometimes you're just powerless. Like you are. And he's, he's more powerless than the average person when it comes to cancer. Right. Because he is so powerful. In reality, and yet the distance between the power that he has and what he can do for Lois is a larger gap than a typical person. I can imagine what it would be like to have cancer. Superman can't.

Right. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it shows that struggle with him, the way that he's just kind of falling apart. I was like, yeah, he's not invulnerable mentally to the real life, the stresses, the struggles that we deal with just because...

So I run marathons. We, you know, we were talking about that. If I suddenly magically just like never tired and could do a thing, it's like, I wouldn't fix anything in my life. Like my, my life would still be my life. Right. Like I was like, yeah, okay. I wouldn't have to spend as much time. training but like running is not the thing that stresses me out it's a thing like you know uh and uh if i you know now there are people for whom like sure people who have uh uh who are

uh ill you know pretty much constantly and so i was like yeah you fix that that would be a primary stressor but like interpersonal relationships are still stressful and the people who do not support them and the you know in the ways that are adequate still wouldn't right and so it's kind of one of those uh things where i

to your point like cancer being the big bad in season three is like really highlights like superman is a person first right uh he's a good person first and the powers just change the situations that he is in and puts himself into because again

according to me, is like he's obligated to do so. Like he has to. He has to put himself in these positions. But if he were a regular person with regular powers, then he would be obligated to put himself in the situations where the power at that level would be, would obligate him to insert himself, right? Yeah. So one of the things, too, about this show is that Superman and Lois are a great team, right? And they have the same philosophy. Where in this season, she threw...

getting her cancer treatments at one of Mannheim's hospitals meets Mannheim's wife. She doesn't realize it at the time, but they developed this relationship and she ends up finding out that she contributed to Lex Luthor being locked up unjustly. It's a terrible decision to let him out of prison, but it's the right decision. Yes. And morally, it's the right thing to do. And.

That's very consistent with Superman's philosophy. But you also have that relationship between her and Pia, I think. Pia, yeah. And Bruno comes back full circle in the final season where that's important that they connected as people. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And that's the thing is like you take the opportunity to connect with people when you can. And because again, you can't really take advantage is the wrong term. You can't leverage your relationship for the betterment of people.

without developing the relationship, right? Like you have to build the relationship in order to make an impact. If you want to be a person who can, uh, who can help others find their way, you know, well, you have to connect with people. Um, it can't just be, uh, and I am like, there are bad people. There are good people. I am absolutely not the arbiter of where that line is. Right. Like.

You know, but like, I do believe that I should say, I believe that there are good people and there are bad people was like, but I think a lot of that is choices and there's a. the line is somewhere i have no idea where i feel like sometimes you can clearly tell and then but that's not a but like in fiction it's great because you can just demonstrate like hey this is a person who

has the choice to be better right and they they either will or they won't by their choice by their choices but like the opportunity isn't going to really you increase the opportunity that people has by like the

that people have by developing these relationships. And again, that's a, you don't have to believe that, but that is a philosophy I believe. And I think it's a philosophy that is in really good Superman stories is embodied in, in them. Well, and they even, you know, I don't know if you, you were referencing any of this.

in that but with manheim they nuance him a little bit as well right because he is a bad man but he genuinely cares for his community and for his wife um and and so that comes full circle again in the in the finale yeah and that's the thing is With rare exceptions. And, you know, we used to say, like, except for comic villains, but even with good comic villains, it's like being bad does not mean.

there's nothing good about you. Right. And I think that's the thing is you find the good things about somebody and you leverage that and be like, Hey, do you see where you're going wrong here? Do you see where you can do better? Right. And that's, and that's the hope. Yeah. I'm sorry.

And this Superman can do that. Yes, exactly. And that's the point is like Superman is he's a fictional character and he's supposed to embody that, that hope, that belief, that faith in not necessarily that everyone will make. the good decisions but that many people or even most people can are capable of it if the people who have the right opportunity show them the way

And then they choose to, and not everybody will. Lex Luthor doesn't, right? And it's important to say that it doesn't mean he's a lost cause, but you keep trying and trying and trying, and it's up to him to not do it. It's not up to you to say you're not going to, right? Right. And let's spin off that. So we end up with Michael Kudlitz as Lex Luthor, a very angry Lex Luthor, which is a different portrayal than we've had in other things. I thought he did it brilliantly.

for that trail. I mean, I love the actor. He played Bull Randleman in Band of Brothers and Abraham on The Walking Dead. And yeah, I thought he was tremendous. I think this was my first exposure to him, really. And I was like, oh, this guy's good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that spins off into season four because we end up where Luthor exploits...

Bizarro and turns him into a version of Doomsday. He doesn't look quite comic book accurate in the third season, but they round that out in the fourth season. And so it ends with that. that cliffhanger where yeah i thought this was nice that it ends up with them fighting on the moon um because that was one of the criticisms of the snyder verse like you you didn't think maybe you could take this fight to mars you know yeah

Yeah. So we end up with Superman being even more vulnerable than usual, right? Because this is what I wanted to talk about earlier about the, you know, two immortal people punching each other. It's not that interesting. Right. And so ultimately. Superman's not going to be able to defeat Doomsday by just continuing punching him.

They never call him Doomsday. They just call it that thing, which I thought was hilarious. Through the whole season, through the whole series, nobody gave it a name because you didn't have Chloe there to give it a name. I guess at the very, very, very end, they say that there's a guy

government file calling him the doomsday weapon right oh that's right yeah yeah but but they never call him that that's just like the very last like okay we we've done this no actual people are calling him this but um but i think that was the second to last episode so yeah yeah

Yeah. Because you end up with Superman with, I mean, this is huge spoilers for a season. Maybe I won't do it. But he's, well, no, we're going to have to go full spoilers. Yeah, we are. Jump off now if you don't want to. And go watch the show because it ends well. where he ends up with a heart transplant with Sam Lane's heart. Right. Yeah. And that ultimately is leading to him.

losing his powers it gives him mortality essentially and yeah and uh our aging process essentially yeah and um and then you end up with the the Superman going on television and saying, hey, everybody, I'm Clark Kent, also Superman, which I thought was great. And I love the moments leading up to that, the one in the diner. Yeah.

you know the first thing he says you know somebody shoots a bullet at him right and he opens up his shirt and it's a great it's really well shot yeah and then he's just standing there in his in his costume and he just kind of looks around and the first thing he says is i'm sorry i lied to you for so long

Yeah. Which I thought was great, which is such a Superman thing to do is like, it's like, sure. Of course. He's like, i you know you know he's stressed about the fact that like the secret's out now i'm gonna have to deal with all the consequences i've been not wanting to for a long time and all the good reasons i had yeah but in the end like

It has been gnawing at me that I've been lying, lying to all of you and I'm sorry. Right. And good people understand. Right. They're like, yeah, I mean, we get it. Right. Like I wouldn't want to tell people. So, um, yeah. One of the other characters we didn't talk about yet is John Henry Irons.

And it's kind of fun that when he first comes through, he's in a, like a Lexo suit kind of thing. Right. And it refers to him as captain Luthor. Yeah. Which I thought was, it definitely was like a red herring at first. So I was like, Oh, is this an alternate universe Lex Luthor? What are they doing with this? And.

yeah totally just not it yeah so yeah yeah he's bald he's in a suit like he's in what we think of as a lexus suit okay cool like it's an alternate universe who knows what's different there yeah yeah And, and the thing that you find out is different in his universe is that he was married to Lois Lane. Right. And his version of Superman went bad and killed Lois. Right. Which is shocking. Yeah. Yeah. Which, and again, this is one of those things where like.

that's not to suggest that our Superman would have done the same thing if he was not married to like, like, but it's like a, Hey, Lois certainly doesn't hurt. Right. Like, right. Right. You know? Yeah. Um, but you know, John Henry Irons is another. reference to the death of superman and so they introduce him pretty early on they introduce a version in season two of doomsday and then ultimately they they don't do the full death of superman and uh you know reign of the superman kind of thing right

But they have those characters there and it evokes it in a lot of ways. John gets his powers in the fourth season, which was nice. And he's quicker to pick them up. um just just by nature of kind of his yeah he was the athletic kid growing up which is why early on they thought he would be the one to get it uh to get the powers and um and he gets it up but also like doesn't deal with like the

the kind of confidence issues and so on that his brother has his whole life. So, yeah. And it takes a while for them to kind of work as a team. Because Jordan's just kind of, I'm over the whole Superman thing. Superboy thing. Well, and I think that's the thing is they found that Jordan was overly excited for the wrong reasons. And then Jonathan is overconfident.

right and so so it's like they both have their issues with that too and they're like you are doing too much uh right reasons but you are doing too much right like you cannot sustain this uh which is a thing that you know many of us deal with is like you need to learn when to say no like there is a limit uh and um and you have to kind of you have to rest you have to recover you have to take care of yourself some so that you're more capable of helping people later right yeah

You want to just skip right to the end? Yeah, we can do that. And talk about that. Anything else you want to talk about about the final season? I think they did a really good job in the final season leading up to the end. They did a really good job of just painting, showing us that like while...

You understand Lex Luthor being angry about, you know, being imprisoned for a long time. He's wrong because like, yeah, this is not an innocent Lex. He happened to be innocent of this particular charge, but he is guilty of so much. So often that like, it's completely believable that good faith people would truly think like they would buy the evidence. They would think they'd do it. These are people who would look for reasons to exonerate someone who was not Lex Luthor, but like.

They know for a fact he's guilty of so many things that they're like, oh, this is finally the thing we're going to peg him on. Right. And. And so like you don't feel bad for him at all because he's given numerous opportunities, like the things that he claims. And this is a thing that we'll circle back to later when we're talking about core elements of Superman is one of the things that's great about Lex is.

as a villain in general in comics and with this is when you get him right is that his complaints that he says with his words are the right complaints And he is never acting in good faith and he's never saying them in good faith. Right. Right. And that's the thing that makes him truly a villain. And it's like, yeah, he complained about it. You took me away from my daughter. It's like, no, no, no.

You took you away from your daughter, right? Because if you had not been a criminal mastermind, if you had not been doing all these things, this would not have been a thing. You do not care about the relationship because you keep putting- And when you're given a chance to reconcile with her, you spit on it, right? Exactly, exactly. Because she objects to the things you're doing.

and they did a really really smart good nuanced way of being like this is not new this has been ever present in his life they tore at the very end and this is taking us into the end like We draw a thing to a prior relationship in his life and be like, there was this, there was his daughter, and now it's you. And that is part of his downfall at the very end is like, hey, we are not telling you a thing that is false. We are showing you.

Draw the lines yourself like this is what he does. He is a bad person who keeps not trying. You are just the latest in a series of this. we are trying, yes, we want to take him down, but we're not using you. We are trying to show you and help you too. Right. Um, and that's kind of the right way for a Superman story because you don't take Lex.

luther down as we said early you don't take him down with power you you use that power to resist power right because otherwise he would crush you the way he same way he crushes everybody else um so like superman's power makes that a challenge and makes it so you don't just

get stomped out the way that every single other person who's ever known anything on him has. Uh, but in the end it's like, no, we, we are more trustworthy than this person and someone is going to finally listen. Right. Yeah. And you know, both. Superman and Lois kind of used their ability to connect with people to kind of connect with Doomsday as well, right? Yes. And I thought it was a beautiful moment when Superman ends up carrying Doomsday up to the sun.

Yeah. And that's like something has happened to wake him back up. Yeah. And that's one of those things where back when Man of Steel came out and. People defending the movie would argue is like, well, what was Superman supposed to do? Because spoiler for that as well, since we're deep into spoiler territory, he kills Zod. It's very, very upsetting to Superman fans, to many Superman fans, because it's like, that's not how you resolve.

the story when you're introducing superman like that's not what you do and people like what is he supposed to do it's like well what you're supposed to do is writers is not write a situation where superman needs to kill kill the superhero or kill the villain or if you he does You really build and you make this nuanced thing, not this snap.

snap situation and then this it's like he's not murdering his opponents right like like there there's a thing where when his heart briefly stopped earlier and he's and this is true and they're like first fight and he thought he killed him is like that's not a he's making a choice to kill him is like they're just

punching each other and then the guy stops moving right like uh and that's because he's so pushed his limit and that's not that's not murder that's essentially like self-defense and then it's like oh the guy's stopped i really just wanted him to stop and it's a whole thing um in this situation is like you see even superman is like do i want to do this i don't want to do this like i don't and then you see the look in their eye and that kind of communication is like and he's essentially the other

bizarro other superman is like please right this this is it like i i just need the nudge and it's it's sort of them doing it together rather than superman doing it to him right and um and so it's it's a instead of it being a forceful like i finally beat

Like I punched this guy into oblivion, took him into the sun. He couldn't do anything about it. It's like, no, no, no. We are, we are having an emotional moment and we are both sad that this is the only way, but you are suffering too. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So the very end of the show has this vision of the afterlife, right? Right. And I thought one of the beautiful things in it is that it shows that there is at least a move toward reconciliation between Clark and Lex.

In the afterlife. Yeah. It doesn't look like they're all the way there, but you can see that like Lex looks like he has regrets. Right. Which I like. I like that. I wish that they had planted the root a little bit beforehand, like maybe Lex kind of thinking about doing the right thing and then just choosing not to and sort of, you know.

digging his own grave or making his bed, that kind of thing. And they didn't. So I feel like it would have been nice with a little bit of... something presaging that but yeah it's fine it's like it's fine i wasn't just like a smiling anakin skywalker though yes 100 there was still some some purgatory to go through yeah for sure um yeah and i do like that and um

and you know we'll circle back to to that idea too is like the idea that people are not past redemption until they are and if you believe in an afterlife it's like maybe that's an opportunity too right like even if they didn't choose to in life like

if there's enough time to really think about it, like, and again, I know some, many people don't believe that. Right. But, but at least it's like, it's nice to think, to be optimistic that like people can eventually be redeemed, whether or not they will choose to, they can, you know? Yeah.

Uh, anything, anything else to talk about, about the show before we move into sort of some comic recommendations? Um, I, uh, I guess talking about Lex, um, you know, we, we have talked about some of the reasons why he's a good. foil for superman and that he it isn't like you know fists and and so on and sometimes he uses the tech as a sort of as an equivalent um so this is really more of a segue from the show into it is one of the things that i'm really glad that they

they kept in mind the context of this show. We are jumped to the future, so we cannot do some of the things with Lex that we might have done in other stories. And so this is very much a segue into the comics when we start talking about that, is one of the things that...

I think sometimes people get wrong when they're doing origin stories for Superman, which clearly we skipped right past with this show. We skipped decades past in this show is that the challenge of Superman, again, is not his physical.

thing but it's the human element of like i think trust is a big element um because one of the we we're all aware of people who let's say you are in a situation where uh where you are trying to help somebody and they don't trust you And many people in that situation respond by being offended instead of being like,

Well, no. Okay. That's reasonable. You know, it's reasonable for you to not trust me, this person with this power, especially like, you know, we have this situation a lot. We see this a lot with like men and women and so on. And men being like offended that a woman doesn't trust them in a situation. It's like, well, have you thought about the kinds of.

that they're normally confronted with. And so Superman, when he comes out to the world, one of the really good core stories is you build that when there is no consequence to him. right there is no like he's just this is easy for him essentially as he as far as everyone's concerned he's like essentially like a god right and he's just doing all this stuff and so in a sane world

Some people would be like, wow, isn't it great? And then other people would be like, can we trust this guy? This is kind of scary, right? And that's a perfectly sensible thing to do. And so when you tell those kinds of stories. a really good implementation of Lex Luthor is preying on that doubt instinct, right? Uh, it's like, it's like,

whoa, we need to protect humanity against this guy who could do whatever he wants with us. And so now, again, Lex Luthor is a bad faith implementer. Like he doesn't actually believe that in his heart. He's using it to his own advantage.

but he's also not incorrect in terms of skepticism. And so when you talk about worlds in which you can use Lex alone in that, and then you use, say, Lois, who is very much a skeptic, or not a skeptic, but... she's not stupid right and you have her like she's an investigative reporter like what what is this guy like you know and that's why superman's like no i need to build trust with people and not everyone's going to trust me and they deserve my help anyways right um and in

versions of the story where there's other superheroes and so on it's one of the things where like bruce wayne batman is a good compliment to uh to lex is like he is skeptical in exactly the same ways but the difference is for him it's good faith and inevitably that becomes a french is like okay

you are actually trying and in good, good versions of the story, which I actually, I think the animated show, the Batman and Superman shows had their first crossover. Batman versus Superman is like three episodes that also is sold as like a film sort of thing.

um that does a really good job of just in a concise way building that is like you know super batman's like bringing out kryptonite and so on and they like fight each other they're skeptical of each other they figure out each other's secret identities and then they're like oh okay

like maybe maybe you do mean this maybe you are actually looking out for people uh and then superman's like hey you should you should have the power to keep me in check because someone should right and again good person good people with power don't

actually want to keep it for themselves right they want to use that power for other people and they do understand that they should be kept in check because their their judgment is not infallible and that's that kind of thing and so that relationship is really core to When you're just doing a long-term from origin to ending story of Superman, like getting that bit right of like his first challenges.

earning trust and then knowing he's never going to have it from everybody and that's okay and never being offended by that right um And so that goes into superhero comics that I think do that right. So I believe you have read All-Star Superman? yes yeah i think i saw that on your goodreads at some point and i feel like that's one of those for people who are not big into and it's not perfect it's not a perfect comic it

It's not great on diversity. It's a little bit paternalistic. But it's also kind of leaning into sort of some hokey 50s, 60s presentation and kind of bringing them into the future. i guess this is in the future it's not even the present anymore but into the 2000s uh and i think it does a really good job of kind of building that like here's superman's entire life right uh and from beginning to end uh he

He is dead at the end of it, right? Like and that's just like this is the it's in his entire life as a. as this being on earth and it's just a great telling of sort of here's he built the relationship he built many relationships uh including his relationship with lex uh and uh and it does pivot on that sort of like let there's a point in it where he's like, Lex, you have had you keep saying that if I wasn't here, you would do all these great things and you keep not doing them.

And we have had how many opportunities to do great things together and you keep not taking them. Right. And that's like a really pivotal moment because it just crystallizes that like this is what that relationship is about. It's like. Lex is just a bad faith actor who's in it for himself, regardless of whether what, what he says makes sense. Right. He has concepts and concepts of a plan to do something. Yeah, exactly. Good. Um,

And this is, of course, in a world where like we believe in a fictional world, we believe like Lex is actually a genius and could really, truly do really great things if he just put that effort into it. And he just keeps choosing not to because that's not what he cares. What he cares about is that Superman is better than him.

right and and he can't let that stand um and i i think that's a really good um any any thoughts about all-star superman yourself you know i haven't read it in so long i i just remember like it was the first comic that i read where i was like okay i understand why people

don't recognize Clark because it really shows like the changes in his posture, which it's easier to do that on, on a page where we're like in the movies, they had to just make him kind of dorky. Yeah. And I meant to, cause I, I, remember seeing that in your Goodreads review because I was, I was using Goodreads to like glance through, um, some, cause not every comic.

Sumeran comic I've read is on there but some are and then you were one of my friends who had also read All-Star Superman and I saw that and I was like oh yeah that makes me think of

the first superman movie which we saw and they depicted the same thing in different ways and i would bet they took some inspiration because the way that they have him hunch over and then straighten up is similar yeah but i didn't remember that i'd written that in the in the review that's funny yeah so there you go that stuck with you for sure yeah um and

And he does similar things where he's like, you know, he's actually Clark is interviewing Lex and Lex does not know his identity while Lex is in prison and Clark like to save people like stomps. you know, it stomps to cause an earthquake in the prison and stuff like that, uh, while falling over. Right. And so there's like lots of stuff like that, which is like, this is basically taken from the movie. I think I feel like, um,

But but it's and it's funny because people look at him like Lex even goes like you. You have the big farmer's body like from from doing things like you're a muscular guy. You could be so much more imposing if only you chose to. And Lex sees that as an admonishment. It's like, why don't you do this thing?

and little does he know right um that's like yeah because that's not the point like that the only reason to show that strength is when it's on behalf of and to inspire other people i don't care for myself like whatever um and uh one of the things and i don't remember because i i definitely have read the comic a couple times and then i've watched the animated version of it there's like an animated film version of it and the

the comic is 12 issues it's not that long but it's still much more content than they can put in the show in the movie and so there's definitely stuff like i think the answer if you want to do it quote air quotes right You read the comic, you watch the movie. I actually really like something about the movie that they kind of circle around. So it's done where the entire thing is actually told by Lex afterwards. He's essentially been redeemed in prison.

Like because that like there's a moment where Superman gets through to him, but it's too late for him to not be essentially imprisoned for life. Right. Right. And Lex is like, oh, crap. Yeah, I I could do better.

I should have done better. And so, so he's essentially writing the story of Superman, of Superman's life after the fact. It was really cool. And one of the core things in it is that like Superman couldn't have children. He and Lois in this version, he and Lois could not just genetically.

And I, there's a nice little tie up at the very, very end of the movie that does not exist. And it's fine. The detail I'm going to spoil the detail, but that's not really, it's a matter of how it's delivered where Lex uses his genius. to actually solve the genetic problem so that Lois can bear Superman's child. And I don't think that that was in the comic. And I was like, that's a nice little extra redemptive factor of like Lex really did actually learn.

in this in this situation it was very late in his life but it wasn't too late and he's like you know what the world like the world was better for superman and it was worse for me and i'm going to help finally partner with him in this last opportunity that i have right um yeah that's all-star superman and i probably like i have a bunch of other comics talk about i won't talk nearly to at length at nearly as much length i just felt like all-star superman sort of encapsulated a lot of

because it is a total encapsulation of his life from beginning to end. Have you read Superman Birthright? No. So it's written by Mark Wade. The truth is I remember basically zero specifics of that, but it was essentially a rewrite of his origin story in the 2000s.

And I think that if somebody just wants a good telling, it's also 12 issues. If you want a good telling of a newer-ish version of his origin for like... that's more contemporary that's a great read i remember liking it a lot i don't remember because i've read so many origin stories of them that i don't but i remember it hitting really well and i remember actually when i walked out of man of steel at launch

Like I watched it opening night or the night after. And the very first thing I saw was back when I was on Twitter and, and that was very active. Mark Wade was the first thing I went to and, and he went, I was really enjoying it until that moment. And then I and he said something along the lines of like.

oh dear oh my or oh no like it was just something and i knew exactly what he was talking about and i was like yep that's how i felt and it's like if mark wade is saying that because um it's very clear that a lot of the details of the origin and how they implemented it were taken aesthetically from birthright and uh and so that was just a a moment but if you just want a plain old here's a well-told version of superman's origin story birthright is is that um

You actually referenced a lot the death and return of Superman storylines in our conversation. If you want the like... here's superman in a universe where lots of superheroes exist and here's what he means to other people and the inspiration like this was a storyline in the 90s um 80s late 80s i want to say the end of the 80s where uh and people have seen

you you have seen regardless of who you are you have seen the picture of superman's torn cape like waving in the wind and that's from this right and they have the uh the death and return of Superman is certainly the death and then the reign of the Superman, which you mentioned is essentially in his absence. There's, I think four different people wearing his logo who show up to try and like take on his, uh, take on it.

sort of take his place or honor him to different degrees uh and then there's the return because it's comic books um but it was sort of the first really big story of, you know, we're all used to superheroes dying and coming back and it wasn't the first time that had happened. Yeah. But it was, this was, I think the first time where the death of one of the superheroes was used as a crossover and so many others. Um, so.

It does involve a lot of the tedious stuff that big superhero crossovers do, but it's pretty landmark and there's a lot of good in terms of seeing in a well-done universe, like this is what Superman stands for. to other superheroes and to the world around them. Right. Yeah. And you read that storyline. Yeah. Yeah. I've definitely read it. And there's a bunch of characters that like, as a comic book reader from back in those days, I'm like, I don't recognize.

And I believe this was the origin of Doomsday, right? And it's not remotely explained, really. No, no, not. I think he gets some backstory a little bit later. And I think in action comics in recent years, they've reintroduced Doomsday. Yeah, and Doomsday has so many different storylines. My first exposure to him was in the animated series, I believe.

um and you know they did a similar like a a concatenated version of of it just the death and return type thing yeah um you know lots of stuff like that uh so that's I recommend that if you want the kind of, that's kind of the one really messy so-called canon superhero thing, Superman thing that I'm going to recommend that's involved with a bunch of superheroes.

Yeah, it's a big event. It's the only one that I'm going to everything else that I that I recommend is a side story. Like it's a this is a self-contained story that is not part of canon. With, I guess, minor exception. The next one, it's a single issue comic. I wish I had written down what specific issue it is, but it's What's So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way.

To me, so there's a movie version of this as well that's called Superman vs. the Elite. It's just, but it's a single comic, single issue story. And the idea is at the beginning of the comic, there's, you know... some people are fed up with Superman's goody two shoes approach, never killing, you know, always allowing for redemption, et cetera, because, uh, and the elite is a new superhero force led by the Manchester who, um,

who they come out and they are doing the kind of really ruthless stuff that some people think Superman should do. And Superman fights them, seemingly loses. And then suddenly... uh and this is all about the implementation but it's essentially like how does superman deal with that and he is he quote kills everybody or cripples everybody in the elite uh and this is decades and decades old

And then it turns out he actually faked them. He was just knocking them unconscious. He gave one guy a concussion, but he had made him think that he had lobotomized him to remove his powers. And it's like...

see this is what it's like if i do the thing that you do you don't actually want me to do this right like and it's it's sort of superman leveraging his power to teach a lesson um but it's like but really the way that he won that isn't to just beat the snot out of them it's to beat the snot out of them but really pulling back his punches. Like, no, no, no. The point here is the lesson. It's like, listen, you don't want somebody with my power or your power doing this consistently because...

When is it going to be you? When is it going to be somebody who you think is not one of the worst elements of society? And that's just not it. This is why I do the thing that I do. So then those are kind of the regular Superman stories that I think those are all of the regular Superman stories that I have to that are kind of top recommendations, which is like these are using real Superman. Here's the.

here's the kind of this is what he represents um then one of the things we've talked about is i don't care about canon i don't care about when you get details right like there's always that thing whenever a superhero and thankfully now with multiverses and comic books being much more mainstream we get this less but

um we've all been exposed to especially in the early 2000s when people watch things and then people who didn't read a lot of comics but knew some about the characters would go through it's like well that's not what happens in the comics it's like well which comics right you know um and I just I even back then I just did not care. Like I think it took me very little time to get over the idea that in.

the first spider-man movie the uh the toby uh movie that he had organic web shooters like ah whatever who cares right like and i think one of my best embodiments of this like not caring what i care about is getting the character right is a four issue character uh four issue comic by Kurt Busiek. I don't know how to say his name. B-U-S-I-E-K Superman secret identity, which the, this story, it takes an origin. No.

Superman secret identity. So this is in, it takes place in our world. There's no such thing as a superhero. DC comics is a comic book company. Superman is a legendary, like is the, the first superhero from the 1940s. There's this kid in Kansas, not in Smallville, because that's not a city. That's a fictional city, right? But in a small town in Kansas, his last name's Kent. His parents are just absolutely hilarious, and they thought it would be very funny to name their son Clark.

after after superman and the kid does not like it but he's just resigned himself to his lot in life he's a scrawny kid he whatever like he's just like he he is too nice to tell people he's really annoyed by all the superman gifts he gets

and so on. And he gets teased about it, you know, growing up. And he has the kind of like, he wishes, he's like, you know, it would be great. And then one day he's just like, wakes up. He's like, I'm flying. What is happening? And suddenly he has all of Superman's powers. in this world where Superman's a fictional character. And essentially like he goes through and.

not long after like something happens and he basically is like oh well i'm in this position to save somebody i have to right because uh and so he has the model of fictional superman and just becomes superman And where's the suit? Because like, who's going to believe that they saw Superman, right? Like, and it follows his entire life. Like, you know, gets married, has kids and so on. Plays cat and mouse with the government, you know, and of course he's Clark Kent. So like.

why would you investigate a guy named Clark Kent? That's ridiculous, right? And so it's just the whole thing where the idea is like, no, he did not need to be an alien. He did not, because we all know what it's like to feel like...

we're not misunderstood right we we all know what it's like to feel like we don't belong even if we're wrong you know and and that's not to invalidate that some people are very much ostracized more than other people and people very much have reasons to be disconnected but it's like that's not

The important part, those are really good elements that you can tell really interesting stories with like, you know, as a, my parents are immigrants. So like I do, I see value in the immigrant story like that of Superman. And I think there's a lot of that, but the importance is.

you have this power, you do good period. Right. And, and it's just four issues. It's a really quick read. And I think it nails that it's like, this is the part that's important is Superman has power that other people don't. And he has to use it.

to benefit others like he does not have a choice right or he has the choice but there's only one right choice and he's gonna keep making it you know um and so i it's one of my favorites i'm not gonna say it's the best comic ever but it's one of my favorites because it's just like really crystallizes what's important about the character to me.

And there's lots of funny little like once you're playing with that trope, there's like, OK, you know, people who learn his identity and like the jokes and people who don't know his identity and make the jokes because he's always grown up as Clark Kent in the world where Clark Kent is Superman, Superman fictionally. Right.

So and again, it kind of before this, I had already had the thing where it's like Clark Kent is an aspirational character. It's like and I had already arrived at the like, we're all we we all have the opportunity to be Superman to somebody sometime. And I was like, well, yeah, like.

we know we live in a world. This is what these fictional characters are for, right? These fictional characters are too. So we don't have to figure things out on our own. Like we need, we have models to follow, uh, of the like, yes, we are imperfect, but we can strive to do better. And.

you know if i was suddenly given superpowers like i would try to be superman right like because we have the model i don't have to figure that out on my own the way that superman in comics did right right right so um so i love that one uh then uh you mentioned kingdom come which it's like if you want to go and start doing elseworlds and like and stuff like that we're like that's a

kingdom come knows what it is right kingdom come knows like this is not this is a superman gone wrong right um for for things and i think it's a good it's good to explore that right and it's like this is but it doesn't pretend to be the canon kind of thing um but i think more interesting to me is superman red sun yeah which uh is three issues by mark millar um and it is

just what happens if he landed instead of being brought up in breadbasket america it was brought up as a soviet you know and um and it's essentially like again the power is not it it's not like It is very much a like the path to hell is paved with good intentions because it's like, OK, well, if you're if. He's still trying to do what he considers good. But again, with our American sensibilities, this is not the right thing. Too much control, et cetera, et cetera. And.

it's it's told really interestingly it's a it's good elseworlds thing and again is clearly not trying to be the same superman right um yeah that's very very cool i like it um similar story that i really really believe uh that i really like is a non-comic and i actually just i was trying to find um a way to reread it because i'd read it online which clearly was a pirated version of the text and so i finally uh it's in a

There's an e-book that's just a collection of short stories, but it's Kim Newman. He wrote this in 1991. It's a text story, a short story called Ubermensch. And it's an alternate world where... Kurt Kessler instead of Clark Kent, uh, he landed in Nazi Germany. Right. Um, and so this, so he's raised in Nazi Germany. Um, and it,

it's not the only thing that was changed about the war. Cause I, cause he was, he kind of grew up too late to be like, Oh, I'm gonna, I'm going to win the war for the Nazis. Um, but he was still present as like, uh, and a lot of this stuff. And. The entirety of the story is, it covers an interview 45 years afterwards. So it covers the interview between a retired Nazi hunter who, like he grew up watching the brown streak flying through the sky.

Right. Like because he's a he was a Jew, a German Jew. He has he has the tattoo on his arm. And so he's a retired Nazi hunter and he is interviewing Kurt Kessler.

in the prison that he is being imprisoned with for 45 years because it's a kryptonite lined prison and at the very beginning very very beginning he even says to the guard who is like essentially a kid to him who, you know, the guy had already been imprisoned for 20 years by the time the guard was born is like, listen, I know we've got all this stuff, but he could walk out even with the green.

the green stuff right like he is he's a prison because he allows himself to be imprisoned right uh and uh and it's really because this this version this ubermensch is still super racist like and so on and he comes across in that in an interview but it's it's a really clever kind of like here's another elseworld sort of thing there's like again superman isn't the power it's the it's that like that upbringing

of I'm a good person who's going to do what I should do with my power for the betterment of other people. And it's not only... Because people in general should do what they think is right. But some people are wrong about what they think is right. And a good Superman really just... It's not just like, oh, I was brought up with conservative American values. It's like, no, no, no. I revise and I respect every individual's like right to happiness to life. And so I want to in modern.

in modern comics we we do take away the american way because we start to see you know we see the we acknowledge the the fallacy in that it's like no no there's truth there's justice and then there's there's goodness there and so on so this is kind of that i think red sun and ubermensch back to back are like a couple good reads uh but yeah ubermensch if you look up kim newman

uh ubermensch you will find that there is there's an ebook available for like 10 bucks that has it as well as many other superhero short stories okay um And that's kind of that's it for Superman stories. I think Mark Wade, who I mentioned, wrote Superman Birthright, which is that kind of good, more modern origin story. You know, he really wanted to play with the character. And so he made Irredeemable.

which I'm not sure if you're aware of that. And so it's a separate imprint. He clearly wanted to do this as a Superman alt story. And so he created his own entire universe of superheroes, where the very beginning of it...

And the first issue, it's a 37-issue run. And then we'll talk about there's a spinoff that's 30 issues. And this is my kind of last recommendation. If you want to explore... other other stories um the plutonian man is essentially this universe's superman he was the first superhero he's the iconic superhero he's the one everyone looks to he's the greatest superhero and he just goes absolutely nuts and

and just starts killing millions of people in the very like very very beginning of the first issue he just goes nuts starts killing people and it's 37 issues of how does the rest of the world how does the rest of the justice league and the other superheroes deal with this with essentially superman gone bad right like uh like what what happens and they are not given at the beginning you have no idea why

you just know he just started murdering people and you're like, what, what just happened? Right. Um, so that's a really, it's a really interesting cause again, it's written by Mark Wade, who was a superhero story, who's Superman with right is held up as like, this is a great execution of it. So he knows Superman and he's like,

Here's an alternate like here. Here's what happens if Superman goes bad. And then several months into that run, he started a spinoff called incorruptible and they ran in tandem and finished the same time. 30 issues. that follows a super villain, Max Damage, from that universe, who witnesses the Plutonian Man going bad, and is like, uh, I guess the world needs a new hero?

And he is like absolutely like he is not a good person. He is absolutely amoral, does not like amoral in that he does not understand morality. Like he does not really have a compass and he recognizes that. So essentially he like. kidnaps a journalist or i can't remember if that's if it's a journalist or somebody else he's like i need you to guide me to being a hero because i don't know what to do and so so it's just like 30 issues of this former supervillain

trying to become a superhero to combat the plutonium man. Um, so I think of the, of the alternate, not spoofs, but the. Evil Superman alternate takes irredeemable is my favorite of those. So that's that's my whole run. Sorry, that's like a long monologue of comics, but those are my things. It's like a good kind of.

encapsulation yeah yeah no that's that's uh why i wanted to have you on because you know i've just read bits and pieces here and there um you know i was more i read some justice lead when i was a kid and teen titans and that kind of stuff but not not a lot of superman yeah

Cool. I think that will suffice for that. All right, Michael, where can people find you if they want to find you online? These days, so I'm on Mastodon, although I don't really post much. I keep trying to get into that again at... Alhim, which is A-U-H-I-M at mastodon.social. And then on social media, I probably post and share the most on my running slash run Disney account, which is run the small world on Instagram. That's kind of those are my most active online presences right now.

Cool. All right. Thank you, Michael, for doing this on short notice. And you brought a lot of good content here, so I appreciate it. Thanks. It was great. I'm glad because I did start halfway through my reread of Ubermensch. I was like, oh man, I forgot about this story until I was thinking about which ones have stuck with me because I've only read it once or twice before and it has stuck with me for a long time. I'm definitely going to pick up a couple of these irredeemable.

It looks interesting. I'd been reading a bunch of Invincible this year. Yeah, yeah. I like Invincible. Slots into that vein a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Invincible is great. Yeah. All right. Take care, Michael. Bye now. Thanks. Bye. I think really quick, I want to...

just a tiny little note about the structure. Yeah, yeah. So if you'd stick around for just a minute. Yeah, sure. I'll just, this is back in time. Yeah, that way people know what they're in for. Yeah. I told my wife, about an hour. you know? Yeah. And I was telling my girlfriend, I was like, uh, like,

I think his episodes go like he tries to do an hour, but sometimes I know he goes up to two if, and I'm long winded and she's like, yes, you are. No, the way that she put it is like, you are really good at talking is the way that she put it. Well, that, that makes. That makes a good podcast guest. I don't have to do so much talking. I still have to edit, but I just put a little truncate silence on things.