#the irons keep showing off kryptonian tech

[mrfandomwars]

If you don't have Clark Kent as the accidental Kryptonian History Nerd of the El-Kent family because when he discovered the Fortress and what he was (a kryptonian) he went NUTS trying to discover everything about, well, everything then What's The Point

[madametamma]

Hey! Just me again.

I just wanted to ask some advice on how to introduce some of my characters from marvel into my MAWS fanfic, which as you can see as crossover with Marvel.

Specifically: Iron Man and the Hulk.

I've had a few ideas, but so far the only thing missing is their relationship and interactions with the characters.

For the Hulk, it would be how he would interact with Clark and Kara, especially after they find out how he became that.

And for Tony Stark, it would be how he would see Lex Luthor, Superman, Task Force X and the other tech companies in Metropolis (since it's been a year in my fic that he secretly became Iron Man.)

Any suggestions?

So here's how I would have Ironman and Superman meet.

Lois volunteers them to interview Billionaire, playboy, philanthropist Tony Stark because she's always up for a challenge, and boy is Tony a challenging interviewee.

You remember his press conference from the first Ironman movie? Shows up late. They stopped to get Mcdonalds on the way. Answers a few questions in between bites of his burger. Drops a bombshell of an announcement, ends conference early. Most of his interviews go like that.

Show up late,

be distracted by his lunch/coffee/phone/ fiddling with a gadget he pulled out of his pocket,

is sassy or sarcastic for every answer

Leaves after a few minutes of giving unsatisfying responses

Bonus points if he seems hungover

Lois however doesn't take that, she aggressively pushes to talk with Tony and with Clark's help, they get in through any window, any locked door, any security system.

Upon seeing Lois enter through a window, Tony glances up at her for a moment to acknowledge she's there before thumbing through his phone, seemingly uninterested in the reporters.

After another 30 seconds of asking him for a proper interview (Clark is trying his best to be very polite about it) Tony shows them what he's looking at on his phone. It's footage of them from the past few weeks or months taken from random security cams from all over the city. He also starts raddeling off info about them, where they grew up, went to school, past stories they broke. Tony turns the interview on them, asking them questions.

Shocked, Clark asks why he's been keeping files and footage of all of them, and that's the impressive part. Tony hasn't been. All of this in depth info he's showing them was scrounged up in just the past minute since they came in through the window. He's just that good a hacker.

Tony turns the table on them that if they want to keep pushing him, they better be ready to get some push back. Of course this scares them away and they leave, discussing what just happened, and that's when something dangerous shows up, Clark changes into Superman and tells Jimmy and Lois to take cover. Tony also comes out in full Ironman armor ready to fight off the threat. Lois and Jimmy run back into Tony's place to look for anything that may help Clark, some blasters, or any other useful invention and THAT'S when they stumble upon the suits.

For the Hulk, I imagine that the reporter trio and Kara are looking for Bruce Banner. They need his help with something. Kara is the one who eventually finds him first, and unfortunately when she finds him, he's depressed and insists that he needs to isolate himself.

He tries to shoo Kara away, at first thinking she's just a university student or college grad who's gotten in over her head by tracking him down and after a few attempts to make her leave, like shoving her out the door only for her to seemingly instantly reappear right behind him (She just super speeded around the backdoor)

Kara explains that she's not like normal girls, and he doesn't have to worry about potentially hurting her. She's looked over his scientific research and finds it remarkable by Kryptonian standards. A rarity on Earth, usually when Earthings come close to replicating Krypton tech, it's because they repurposed what they've found, but Dr. Banner came as far as he did in his research all on his own.

Banner still isn't convinced until Kara reveals something more. While she hasn't seen it for herself she has heard of Dr Banner's "Condition" and she understand entirely what it feels like to get taken over by someone else and made to commit acts of devastating violence.

He eventually decides to come with her and later on Kara does get to meet the Hulk but is surprised to find out that, unlike Brainiac, Hulk is actually great in his own way and he feels similar to how Banner does. That when Banner is in control he feels like he's slipped away too.

Kara ends up becoming close friends with both Hulk and Bruce Banner, although her friendship to each of them is different.

[thevindicativevordan]

My Take on a Superman Video Game

I've seen other people give their takes on how to approach this, and given Superman and video games are two major topics of interest for me, I thought I'd give my pitch.

So first off, I’m giving him a health bar. Yes I know some people will b**** and no I don’t care. I don’t care what people who get their Superman knowledge from YouTube or Instagram “fact” pages think about the character, and all the other attempts such as the city health bar in the Returns game didn’t satisfy me. So right off the bat he’s getting a health bar. Second: it’s time to start showing casuals areas of Superman lore they either don’t know about or aren’t very familiar with. The reason for that is people think they “know” Superman so we need to immediately show something they DON’T know about or HAVEN’T seen already to get them to not immediately dismiss Superman out of hand based on memes or whatever. Which leads into my third creative point. Third: I’m not setting the first game in Metropolis. The Arkham games didn’t immediately throw you into an open world Gotham, they built up to it. The Spider-Man PS4 game started off with an open world because they were able to build upon dozens of Spider-Man games that laid the ground work for them. The first Superman game in decades needs to avoid biting off more than it can chew, and throwing Superman into an open world feels like a bad idea. So where can it be? Well there are options. There’s Warworld. There’s Apokolips. But I think the best location is one that’s intrinsically tied to Superman and his Kryptonian background, and serves as a nice counterpart to Batman starting out in Arkham Asylum: The Phantom Zone

The Asylum was a great starting point for Batman for a couple reason: 1. It’s the iconic prison where Batman leaves his Rogues, 2. It’s gothic and horror esque vibe crafts the perfect atmosphere, and 3. it’s place as a center for examining the mind makes it great for exploring Batman’s mental state. For similar reason the PZ is the perfect place to start off Superman: 1. It likewise is an iconic prison for Superman Rogues 2. It’s science fiction and horror mixed together which crafts the perfect atmosphere for Superman to kick ass or be introspective, and 3. It lets Kal come face to face with his Kryptonian heritage in the nastiest way possible as he’s dumped into a place filled with prisoners his father helped exile as well as all the other monsters and criminals other races have dumped there. So he’s going to the Zone but how does he get there and what’s the story? It would be boring if he just walked in. Here’s the pitch: It’s Year 2 of Superman’s career. He’s already established himself as a hero in Metropolis and worldwide. The public knows he claims to mean them no harm and that he only seems to do good deeds, but they know very little about his origins and are divided as to his true intentions. The problem is Clark himself doesn’t really know his origins either beyond knowing he’s an alien from another planet. His only relics from his home planet are the rocket, a tablet written in a language he can’t read, and a curious device that doesn’t seem to have any use. As a show of goodwill, and because he hasn’t made any progress understanding them himself, Clark turns the tablet and the device over to STAR Labs for study. One day as he’s beating down some Intergang thugs, reality twists, and suddenly Clark finds himself in a place that is definitely not Metropolis. The “earth” is chalk white, the sky is a purple, green lightning flashes around as far as he can see, and where the sun should be there’s instead a black hole. Somehow Clark and the terrified Intergang thugs have ended up in the Phantom Zone with no idea of how they got there and how to get back.

The thugs accuse Clark of transporting them there and attack him, with Clark suddenly realizing his powers are fading in this place with no sunlight. Luckily a stranger arrives and aids Clark in dispatching the thugs. Clark thanks him for his aid and then asks who he is. The stranger pauses and tells Clark: “My name is Dru-Zod, a general of Krypton”. He raises a hand for Clark to shake. “I was a friend of your father, Kal-El”. Zod tells Kal about the place he’s in, and his history with it. He tells him that other humans have been brought here as well besides the Intergang thugs, including many of Clark’s foes. Zod informs Clark that the likely culprit for their arrival to the PZ is the very first prisoner Jor-El ever banished to the Phantom Zone: Xa-Du the Phantom King, who has spent so long imprisoned that he seems to have obtained a degree of control over the Zone that gives him strange powers. Kal is told that if he does not collect the scattered humans and escape the Zone soon, he and the humans will become trapped there, as anyone who spends too long in the Zone eventually becomes unable to leave without special equipment on the other side to bring them back, thanks to the way the Zone warps the inhabitants. Kal’s mission is clear: Collect the scattered humans, defeat and pacify his foes trapped there with him so they can be brought back as well, and defeat the Phantom King before he tears a hole between the Zone and the real world that could cause catastrophe for Earth. That’s the basic story pitch, next I’ll go into gameplay mechanics and what Rogues I’d use.

Clark starts the game having been de powered back to “Golden Age” power levels due to there being no sun in the PZ. Zod teaches him about Sunstones that grow naturally in the PZ, which will allow him to slowly re-empower himself. The Sunstones ward off the PZ’s influence and basically act as perk points for Clark to unlock and upgrade his powers. At the start he can’t fly, he can only run and leap. Zod acts as Kal’s mentor throughout the game, teaching him about Kryptonian history and how to read the language. He also tutors him in the dangers of the Phantom Zone as well as training him to hone his powers. Kal gets the feeling there’s more to Zod than he’s letting on though, and some of his comments raise Kal’s suspicions. The base of the game is the Fortress of Solitude.

It’s backstory is that when Jor-El first discovered the PZ, he built the FoS as a research outpost to study the place. It’s packed full of Kryptonian tech and it has the ability to shift back into the natural world. Zod couldn’t use it because it’s caretaker Kelex only responds to House El members. However it won’t shift back until it judges its user “sterilized” in order to avoid contaminating the natural world with the Zone’s influence. Because Kal was brought over so suddenly and without the proper tech, he has to use Sunstones to purge the Zone from his body before the Fortress will respond to his commands. This is a nice way of tying the gameplay and story together. Kal needs the stones to save the civilians and to go home, which helps explain why he might do side quests rather than stick with just the main questline. Civilians Superman has to rescue in the Zone: Lois Lane, Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, Dr. Veritas, Ron Troupe, Dr. John Henry Irons, Dr. Hamilton, Bibbo, Dr. Hank Henshaw and his family, Commissioner Henderson, Captain Maggie Sawyer, Detective Turpin, members of the Newskids Legion, Morgan Edge, and other OCs or nameless civilians. Kal also meets Krypto, who was transported into the Zone by Jor-El in order to watch over the Fortress as its guard, in order to keep it safe so that Kal might one day reclaim it. Rogues: Some of Superman’s Rogues have been teleported to the PZ as well, and unfortunately they have their own plans for escaping the Zone, even if it means they have to kill Superman to do it.

Metallo: John Corbyn is a cyborg soldier that served in the US Army under Sam Lane and was created as the government’s Anti-Superman deterrent. After a fight with Superman in his early career left him crippled, he was bonded to a nanosuit that equips him with various weaponry capable of killing Superman. He believes Superman transported everyone there as part of a first strike against humanity. Parasite: A Lexcorp lab experiment gone horribly wrong, Rudy Jones is a science fiction vampire who needs to kill to sustain himself. He absorbs the memories and skills of whoever he kills, and he is able to transform his body into various weapons (think Alex Mercer from [PROTOTYPE] to know what I mean). He’s hunting the civilians to feed on and has his eye on Superman as well. Livewire: Leslie was a vlogger with a far looser code of ethics than Clark. Her “reporting” eventually angered the wrong people who attempted to have her assassinated. Instead Leslie ended up with powers over electromagnetism, and a grudge against Morgan Edge who she believes was behind the Intergang hit on her. Edge is her target but she doesn’t mind stepping over Superman’s corpse if she has to. The Terran (Terra-Man): Krypton wasn’t the only planet to discover the Phantom Zone. One alien race banished the immortal hunter known as the Terran, whose human name was Tobias before he was abducted by aliens who were interested in the potential of the human meta gene and wanted to experiment on him. Their experiment was a success and Tobias broke free, using their own weaponry to hunt them down and carve a bloody path across the stars. Eventually he was transported to the PZ and is now desperate to escape. Mr. Mxy: Who is this creature? Neither a human nor seemingly an alien prisoner of the PZ, Mxy engages Clark in a series of puzzles that reveal secrets about the PZ... and foretell of threats to come. Red Cloud: An enforcer for the Invisible Mafia, her only loyalty is to her boss Leone. Her identity is a secret from Clark for now and she intends for it to remain that way. Silver Banshee: Not every human teleported to the PZ was unchanged. Some reacted much more strongly to the Zone’s influence. One former human has now been twisted into the sinister Silver Banshee, driven insane by the whispers in the Zone and the alterations to her body. She poses a formidable threat to Clark in her current state. Xa-Du: The Phantom King and first prisoner of the Phantom Zone sent from Krypton. Zod claims he was insane even before he was sent here but his incarceration has done nothing to improve his health if so. Gleefully plotting his return to the real world, Xa’s only desire is to raise an army of super zombies with himself as their Necrogod ruler. His time in the Zone has given him control over the degraded Phantoms, and he can channel the energies permeating the Zone into a variety of attacks (basically he’s a space necromancer). His aim is to corrupt Kal-El and the Fortress and use both to travel to Earth and he will never stop hunting Kal. Non boss mooks for Clark to fight: Phantoms - Some of the inhabitants of the Zone have degenerated into the ghostly Phantoms, their only desire to spread their suffering to others. They have been so warped by the Zone they’ve become a part of it and are thus incapable of permanently dying. Shades - Much more powerful Phantoms, Shades retain some memory of their former lives and posses some of their former skills. They serve as the elite of Xa-DU’s forces. Shadowbreed - Native creatures of the PZ, these beings feed on the light of the SunStones and thus see Clark as a meal as well. They possess various animals of the PZ to attack and feed on him. Eradicators - Once these machines served House El in their study of this place acting as defenders. But time has eroded their programming and they now seek to destroy even the Last Son of their old House.

That's the basic of my pitch, I think it's a fairly manageable one that addresses a lot of the arguments you get from people about why a game "wouldn't work" or whatever.

[sueboohscorner]

#SupermanandLois Season 1 Episode 12 "Through the Valley of Death" Recap and Review

The episode starts with John Henry Irons at the Metropolis Institute of Technology. He’s looking for someone. A younger sister? Before we get any detail, he gets the call from Lois.

              Clark is suffering. I’ve been wondering about the red beam of light. It’s obviously being used in conjunction with the Eradicator, but it’s something else too, since Zeta-Rho used it on Edge when he was a child and Edge still appears to be himself. Red Kryptonite maybe? While thinking about this, I almost didn’t catch the important part of Edge’s monologue. They’re replacing Clark with General Zod, who in this time timeline died with Krypton and is not stuck in the Phantom Zone somewhere. Two things come to mind. One is that this plan always seemed very Zod-like, and two is that I’ve never seen Zod as a lackey to anyone before.

              Lois tries to comfort Jordan and Jonathan. She eventually gets them to go at least try to rest and then General Lane shows up. She tells him about Edge’s Fortress in the desert and then she finally cries into his shoulder.

              Kyle has to go to a special D.O.D debrief and therapy session, and then he’s going to try and go to work. Sarah thinks he should rest, but he tells her that it’ll be good to get into a routing. One of the firefighters shows up at his house to advise him to stay home, as he’s persona non grata at the moment. People need time to calm down.

              Jonathan finds Jordan brooding. Jonathan has decided that they aren’t going to sit around and do nothing. They’re going to find Clark.

              John Henry Irons shows up to talk to Lois and General Lane. She wants to organize a rescue mission. Irons just wants Superman dead. Lois storms off and General Lane assures Irons that he’s taking all necessary precautions. He just hasn’t told Lois that yet.

              Jordan hasn’t found Clark yet. He doesn’t think he can. He tried to be strong when Edge came, and it didn’t do him any good. Jonathan doesn’t allow him to wallow. They just have to keep trying.

              Irons made a rocket propelled projectile for Lex Luthor on his Earth. It drains a Kryptonian of their powers long enough for them to be killed. He is not; however, completely certain that it works. The last time he used it, he was transported to this Earth before he found out if it worked.

              Kyle, Lana, and Sarah get harassed on the way to the D.O.D. debrief. Lois is on their side, even if no one else is.

              She then talks to Lana and Kyle privately about what it felt like to be someone else. Lana doesn’t remember anything at all, but Kyle remembers bits and pieces. He couldn’t picture his family, and when he tried to fight back, he could feel this darkness pressing down on him. It hurt immensely to fight back, and he got this sense that his family would be better off if he let go.

              Clark is still fighting. At one point, he flies out of Edge’s fortress and screams for Jordan. Jordan hears him, but Edge cuts in quickly. He tells Jordan that he won’t find his father when he comes looking.

              Diggle is here!!!!! General Lane asked A.R.G.U.S. asked to deliver some tech but did not say that he was going to use it to make Irons’ Superman killing weapon. Needless to say, he’s a little ticked. Jonathan and Jordan interrupt the pow wow to talk to Lois.

              The Cushing house has been vandalized. Lana manages to talk Kyle down from doing anything more rash than cleaning up the living room.

              Jonathan and Jordan tell Lois and General Lane where Clark is and then they leave. General Lane is going to send Irons in. He doesn’t think he has any other choice.

              Lois finds Irons first and does the big no-no. She tells him everything. She needs hope and he will not give it to her.

              Meanwhile Diggle is trying to convince General Lane that killing Superman is a terrible idea.

              Lana and Sarah are trying to clean the paint off. It doesn’t budge until Kyle uses some paint thinner and “American muscle.” This causes a good old fashioned water fight, which is cute.

              Jonathan and Jordan find Lois in the newspaper office. She doesn’t know if it’s too late or not.

              Clark is getting tired and Zod comes through.

              Jonathan confronts Irons. He tells him what he saw in the videos in his van. He knows what happened on his Earth and he begs Irons not to kill his dad. There’s always another way.

              When Irons gets to the Badlands, he’s immediately confronted by Zod. They fight until Clark is knocked upside the head enough to be himself for a moment. He tells Irons to kill him, which manages to convince Irons to talk to him instead. Clark then fights so hard that he passes out. When he wakes up, he’s ok. Now they’re going after Edge with the missile they still have left.

              Zeta Rho gaslights and guilt trips Edge into doing something. He flies up into space, and possibly uses the Eradicator on himself before the missile brings him back to Earth? Clark then knocks him out because he won’t shut up.

              He comes back to the farm, kisses Lois, and hugs the boys. Irons is with him. Jonathan apologizes for hitting him with a truck. Lois invites him for dinner, but he still has business with General Lane. After all, family time is sacred.

              The Cushings have dinner all together and it’s adorable.

              Leslie Larr is still in the wind, but General Lane is confident that she’ll be captured soon. When that happens, the D.O.D. will leave

              Edge is in a Kryptonite box in a secret government facility, but he’s smirking. The big question remains. Is he still himself? If not, then who would be a bigger deal than Zod?

I’m glad they didn’t do the whole Evil Superman thing for very long, but I’m fascinated by what the contingency plan is. This isn’t over yet. 8/10.

[trulycertain]

Unpopular opinion: god, Batman v Superman had some really good ideas that it chucked down the U-bend, and there are parts of it I really enjoyed. I don’t regret seeing it (and yes, I watched the Extended Cut. All three hours). I was just discussing this with @masutrout​, and here’s a slightly abridged version of my thoughts.

Look, I know no-one sets out to make a bad film, and with so many moving parts, a film getting released at all is a miracle. I know it’s not down to one person and (I’m quite glad) it’s not up to me, because I have no idea how to make films. But if I had, say, a magic lamp and a wish for an ideal BvS and DCEU in general... Here’s what I liked; here’s what I’d magically tweak in a parallel universe; here’s a rant. A 2.2k rant. An Extended Cut rant.

I know it's all desaturated and so on, but I genuinely really love Snyder's style. Dude can set up a shot, and he knows how to use chiaroscuro. In theory, I totally get why they'd look at him and go, "his shit is like comics brought to life, pick him." I wish he'd just... allow a bit more colour into it and let people colour grade properly, because the Metropolis/Gotham Clark/Bruce contrast could've been played up beautifully with visual language and colour too. I mean, I know he can do overwrought iconography and imagery, look at how they went to the trouble of CGI'ing Clark's cape in every scene because it was such a banner, and the pop of red. 

I'll admit, I wasn't always all-in on Affleck's performance, though it was one of his best in his back catalogue (I am one of the few people I know who has zero problems with him as an actor and tends to find it more the material, but I grew up on Kevin Smith films and his shtick works for me, even if he has a manner. I'm not too discerning). But. A Bruce who's tired and broken-down and greying and has lost even more, and still in the aftermath of that, tries to find hope and "I can't let this happen to anyone else" again, in the wake of one more death? God yes give it to me. A Bruce who's taller than Clark and just plain tall in general, because maybe Kryptonian ideals are different and because it'd give Bruce one more thing to desperately play down? God yes. Just... in general, middle-aged Bruce but without a lot of the Batfam stuff (which I like, I have a love for several of the Bats, but my favourite stories are always solo) with a regimen of painkillers and who's turned Wayne from an "I'll just jump into the water feature" jackass to a schmoozer and flirt and maybe a drunk. Take out the branding. I wanted Bruce as a broken idealist, not a fascist. It's actually way more fascistic than the original Dark Knight Returns, even. But goodness, the whole idea of an established, tired Batman is good. There’s a reason the comics and animations keep coming back to it.

"Superman was just a story. Superman was just the dream of some farmer from Kansas." I forget the exact phrasing, but everything about that idea, and this idea that Superman is as much an ideal for Clark to live up to as everyone else, and he’s daunted by it? Yeah. There’s something in there.

I loved everything about Jeremy Irons' Alfred. Seriously, everything. Tech guru, little less RP, little rougher around the edges, clearly has some scars of his own. Absolutely biting, even more than most incarnations, and gets all the best lines. Yes, keep that, it'll do.

I liked the voice changer... halfway. To me it makes way more sense than putting on a voice, which is a bit daft and way more variable. I just wouldn't have gone that heavy on the processing, so that Bruce sounded less like a hacker from 1999. I also thought it was a good way of representing how Bruce desperately tries to emotionally distance himself when he’s the Bat, and how his anger has made him colder.

Batman as just a rumour or an urban legend is great, and a wonderful contrast to Superman, who’s this bright, transparent... common god. Bruce never did it for credit, he did it to get it done. It’s stretching the bounds of credulity, sure, but in this strange, semi-operatic storytelling with heavy myth feel, it makes a bunch of sense thematically.

Bruce meeting Martha Kent, and their first meeting being him saving her life. Even this broken-down Batman who thinks he’s a mess. Actually, just more Martha in the DCEU in general.  I mean, I get why they didn't lean into it so much because they maybe wanted Bruce and Clark to feel more like equal peers, rather than Bruce being too dadly, but... god, again, more Martha. In JL, in something, if nothing else. Martha who's lost a son (Jason); Martha who later has a son in another city trying to do good and is worried as hell about them (Dick's canonically in Bludhaven PD at this point); Martha who is one of about five people in the world who knows who Batman is and hasn't spilt that information; Martha who saw Bruce at the cemetery and might have some really interesting things to say to him, angry or forgiving; Martha who is one of the few people who's seen the good in the Bat (when Bruce himself couldn't)... Man, I was so, so glad that fic leaned into that. I would read a regular comic book of just Martha and Bruce Being Reluctant Friends and Worrying A Little About Their Kids, But Maybe In An Enemies-To-Friends Way Because Holy Shit You Had A Fucking Spear What the Fuck.

No, really, wait, I’m going to go on about Martha again.  The scenes in BvS where she was basically saying, "God, don't kill yourself for them, come home, if they're gonna hate you they don't deserve you..." On the one hand she could've been a contrasting voice to Jon, but this way also makes sense. "I know you want to help but please don't kill yourself..." It was always both parents in the comics who affected him equally, even if the Donner films had his father's death, iirc. It was Martha who pushed to keep him, Jon who taught him not to break people and show off, Martha who taught him how to cook and be gentle with things and in Superman: Birthright, which MoS is heavily, badly based upon (I love that miniseries, time to read it again) she researches alien sightings in the hope he won't be alone. I get why they went for a more "grounded" Kryptonian uniform thing, but Martha made his costume, in the original canon. In all canons, she was a huge help in creating the "Clark Kent" persona (yeah, sure, maybe a woman would have something to say about making yourself quiet and shrinking in a room and having to look helpful and nonthreatening all the time, but Snyder and Goyer were never gonna be the kind of people to explore that and even Waid, whom I love, barely touches on it). Every other film or comic book is crap, dead, or crap and dead dads. Clark's relationship with his mother and father is hugely important.

Getting to see Bruce doing the society beat, and just a little more philanthropy would've been great. You don't have time to build that character? Sure, OK. Take out the Flash dream sequence and the sleeping-with-random-women, maybe don't have a totally unnecessary but kinda hilarious shower scene, and replace it with some identity weirdness where Bruce and Clark are stuck interacting as civilians a little more. Or something about what the hell happened with Jason and the manor, though I don't mind most of it being unexplained. There, still building character, still serving a purpose, you can fit a brief scene into your three hour movie. Civil War had a ton of "Steve Rogers and Tony Stark brood or sit in rooms talking to each other."

If they were going to throw away all the secret-identity potential, they could at least have done it interestingly. That scene at the gala made it clear how hard they both had to act, and Jesus, the idea of Clark eventually, finally finding someone else who has to lie and cut off what they can do, who has to bumble almost the way he does... That could've been interesting and also maybe worried the shit out of him. Or made him want to talk to this crazy billionaire who goes round combat-booting people in the face and try and get what his deal was, which could've led to more interesting misunderstandings. 

And then there's Diana, who's not a bumbler but a "nothing to see here, rich eccentric" type too (no wonder she and Bruce had weird insane chemistry in that "sizing each other up/I know exactly what you are" way), and why the hell does Clark basically never see her? I actually don't mind the whole "she's only here for her photo and never meant to get involved, so she's only needing to chase Bruce," that makes sense, but after Doomsday?! In Justice League?! She understands what it is for the world to be frightened of you, resistant to you, the urge to go and hide where it's safe with your family, the loneliness. I mean, just imagine MoS!Clark meeting her and the goddamn relief of it. And the way it could've played off the whole Jonathan Kent is a creepy "kill em all" weirdo now thing, if they insisted on keeping it.

Similarly, please god please show Clark being a journalist more. Perry chewing him out more. A mild hint of office politics. That's the perfect place to leaven a rough film with a dose of humour. People wouldn't have been so bothered by "Is she with you?", which is actually not that terrible a line next to some Marvel "zingers", except for it being so tonally inconsistent. A gentle thread, a few moments of it. Maybe have Clark save someone and have to scrabble to keep his identity a secret, like in MoS - maybe a minute, you could go for some physical humour or a mild sight gag. Obviously, this'd be pre-bombing the courthouse. Relatedly... 

Take out Nairomi and the branding. They serve very little purpose, story-wise, basically never come back into the plot, and only serve to make Clark and Bruce look like dicks unnecessarily when if you want to inject flaws, you have a ton of opportunities to do it with how they deal with people and their loved ones, how they deal with perps, and their brooding moments. 

Seriously, Bruce kicking the shit out of people and investigating shipments from the Black Zero and World Engine crashes would be enough to worry and piss off Clark, as would the whole "I am the night"/lack of transparency shtick. I mean, for a start, John Byrne retconned their first meeting that way in the 80s and that issue is actually great (Clark is trying to arrest Bruce when they meet, because he's young and idealistic and maybe a little up himself and he's been Supes for about five and a half minutes). Look: Clark is being revered and hates it. He blames himself for Black Zero, at least a little. He has excellent reason to be desperately projecting brightly-coloured not-a-threat and also hate that someone else is terrorising a city and violence is being revered, especially when Metropolis and Gotham are still so raw. I mean... Snyder and Goyer did the fucking stupid offensive 9/11 comparisons. Look at how that affected people and still does to this day; emotions run bloody high, and the entire point of Clark is that he's still human and terrified and guilty. And with Wallace O’Keefe and all the threatening notes... look, there's already a good plot in there! 

Meanwhile, Luthor clearly knows Bruce has been sniffing around the K shipments and could've just tipped off Clark about that as well, saying, "He clearly is gonna use it for his own power, and with how sinister and opaque and violent he's already been, he's gonna hurt people." Having his heritage used against people is one of Clark's worst nightmares, it was implied pretty clearly in MoS, and you'd still have the righteous anger. No branding needed. Kryptonian artefacts and the entire masked violent vigilantism are already enough "this is someone who thinks he's above people and can decide their lives" to piss Clark off. He could even investigate that as himself rather than Supes. You need it to be an unanon tip-off and Keefe wouldn't have access to that information? Sure, OK, just filter it through Mercy Graves and make her a "worried confidential source." I mean, she's in the movie and completely wasted. Why not actually, you know, do something with her? Clark wants to believe the best in people, and he might dislike Luthor personally, but he doesn't know Luthor's out to get him yet - or wouldn't, if the writing was better. Again, Birthright, the text Goyer repeatedly ripped from, did this brilliantly. The brand... it's overkill. Grimdark overkill.

I actually... look, I had a really fun, if baffled, time with this movie, but goodness I’d like to see what it could’ve been. And now all the film sites are waving goodbye to Batfleck again while running DC retrospectives due to Birds of Prey, and Cavill’s blue tights are in doubt, it seemed like as good a time as any.

[hellacre13]

Who is the real person? Superman or Clark? Because there seems to be a big push with Rebirth to try to push back against the alien part of Superman that was explored in the new 52 etc.

For me. Both. 

But I think certain writers at DC handles Superman is a way to make him very conventional and stagnant than to move with the times.  I actually hear stuff like, he’s not an immigrant story but an adoption one. Clark is all that he is. He’d never really connect to certain Kryptonian aspects of his heritage because he grew up on a farm etc. Some even say they hate when anyone calls him Kal or he’d never say Rao.  That as he was just a baby, it would never affect him. This sort of thinking baffles me. How Clark sees himself depends on many things and the way he is built from his origin. And origins changes with time and from writer to writer, who all might have a certain bias or maybe to reflect the times we live in. Or as in some cases to react to it. Superman was more Kal than Clark for decades. Until the 80ties when they decided to follow the Marvelization of heroes and emphasize the human aspect at the expense of Krypton. Krypton was reimagined as sterile and cold. The New 52 actually gave Krypton back emotion and culture. Jor-El and Lara’s story often start and end with sending their child away in a rocket. But in the new 52 Clark gets to connect with his parents and we get to see them as more fleshed out characters that you care for. So how can Clark just be Clark is all I am? 

I get it if Clark was just dropped off by some random human couple and the Kents took him in and he grew up normal. Then it’s adoption. I get it if he grew up to just be a guy with a regular job. I get he’d assimilate with no major hurdles. But we’re talking about a being whose parents died; people and planet died. In a tragic way. They saved him. He was sent away not because they did not want him. While growing he is not only told about it, he knows he is different. He’s reminded everyday due to his abilities. Yes he’s nurtured well by the Kents but Clark’s education does not begin nor end there. The creators of Superman were Jewish. Superman drew from Moses. Not Jesus. But we ironically been inundated with Christ imagery. I mean I get the Messianic connection but being killed by Doomsday is not really the thing that should define this character. For one Death of Superman was a gimmick. Two it makes a mockery of death itself. Three It’s not that a great a story as it was much an event. Four. Being killed in a slugfest with a monster…look many heroes in DCU die to save others. This does not make you the best there is.

Superman is a man who eventually reconnected with his heritage because it was what helped honed his greatness. If a baby who lost his entire family in the Holocaust and was adopted by a family in the states…when he grows up I am positive that once he is told what happened, he will want to find out more about the how, when, why etc. And the magnitude of the tragedy will influence his life and he would honor them by never forgetting. So when DC writers try to throw Krypton under the bus, I get really irritated at this dismissal of Kal’s heritage and how it would affect his psyche. 

Many adopted people often try to reconnect with birth parents. Many people pay to trace their roots and ancestry and are profoundly changed when they learn how their forefathers lived and what sacrifices they made.   You’re telling me a guy who gets concrete evidence and tech that can show him his roots will not connect with that and only see himself  as one way? The powers he uses everyday, the responsibilities he has to use it…he can just say Clark is all I am? Or Superman is just a job and I can clock out and go home and take the family on picnics when I want?.Live in a little bubble? Hell no. Not if you’re respecting that he is a man of two worlds and he has a responsibility to say and do more. And usually the only time Superman says more and does the real hard stuff is when he is not in canon.

So when writers come and say well you know,  Clark is the real person etc and Superman isn’t who he is etc. I just think that is a simplistic was of looking at things. He is a man of two worlds. He was nurtured in one but has to learn about where he comes from to find himself as well. He’s two parts of a whole. They are all valid aspects of him, Clark, Kal-El and Superman. And don’t for a moment think that wouldn’t bring with it its own issues to try to adapt or adjust. Clark is lucky he is a regular looking human guy. What if he looked like Martian Manhunter or Lobo?  I also don’t see how they can just presume, hiding as Clark somehow is all there is to him. How long can he and will he do that for? Is he going to ply everyone with immortal juice? Is he going to age up and age down at a whim? How is he human or grounded when he practically hides his alien-ness and lies about it? How does passing like us makes him us? I understand the need for privacy, to not be treated as special, to try to keep himself grounded by working etc and living among us but…again…this is not his whole truth nor his whole story. If you have to assimilate so much you hide then basically you’re rejecting parts of yourself. 

Clark Kent/ Kal-El has not been remotely explored at depth in canon because he and his supporting cast gets stuck in a bubble. If done well and thoughtfully, this character can be so complex and compelling. I guess this is why outside of canon stories are so important to the character. Because in truth they get to define him more than the soap opera-like nature of serial story telling that sometimes just jumps the shark and makes no sense. Rebirth hasn’t done anything remotely definitive with Superman in terms of his heroism and how he inspires us all to join him in the sun.  

[aion-rsa]

Superman & Lois: Inside the Season’s Big Twists and that Finale Ending

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This article contains major Superman & Lois spoilers. Don’t read until you’ve seen all of season one!

Superman & Lois Episode 15

The Superman & Lois season finale, “Last Sons of Krypton,” has finally arrived and it’s as big as you might expect. For a series that started off teasing lots of family drama and that eschewed the traditional Metropolis setting for the (theoretically) friendlier confines of Smallville, it was full of blockbuster-scale action in the second half of its 15 episode run.

“Last Sons of Krypton” effectively wraps up the season’s blockbuster elements in its first two acts or so, before offering a series of codas that tie up nearly everyone’s arcs with a sense of finality usually reserved for a series finale, not just a season one. Well, with one major exception, of course.

And when you think about the journey this season took viewers on, that’s a lot to wrap up. From the Captain Luthor is actually John Henry Irons twist to the Morgan Edge is really Superman’s Kryptonian half-brother concept and everything else in between, the first season of Superman & Lois was unlike any Man of Steel tale we had seen before. It’s something that showrunner Todd Helbing says came out of an early desire to tell a “different” Superman story.

“There was nothing that was off limits,” Helbing says. “It was kind of like, we’re going to do this. Let’s just swing for the fences, and hopefully we connect on a couple of these.”

Let’s take a look at some of those big characters and concepts the show tackled in its first season, and talk about that multiverse-shattering ending.

JOHN HENRY IRONS

Those “big swings” Helbing alludes to came early on. The initial “Captain Luthor” reveal wasn’t supposed to be a fake out at all, and the idea that he was really John Henry Irons from an alternate Earth came along organically during the writing process.

“When we watched the first cut of the second episode, we knew that there was something missing that you could feel in the pilot,” Helbing says. “So we wrote a few new scenes and then a couple more for episodes three and four. From there on it kind of snowballed, and we brought up a lot of stuff that we were going to do later, and we paced up the show. I think when the John Henry Iron’s idea came, it sort of gave us this confidence, because we knew that it if we could keep it a secret, that it was really going to work.”

The secret was kept, and virtually all online speculation about the nature of Captain Luthor was proven wrong. And in the process Wolé Parks became the definitive live action version of beloved DC Comics hero Steel.

MORGAN EDGE, TAL-RHO, AND SUPERMAN’S BROTHER

Unlike the Captain Luthor/Steel thing, however, Helbing and company knew going in that Morgan Edge was going to turn out to be the malevolent Kryptonian Tal-Rho, and specifically that Tal-Rho would be Superman’s biological half-brother. 

“That was part of the pitch,” Helbing says, before clarifying that not all of these elements were set in sunstone from the outset. “There were some things, some twists and turns…a lot of it was the writers and talking to Greg. The staff that I get to work with every day, they’re really talented people who love Superman, and we all just really clicked, so it was great.”

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With Tal-Rho there are surprises within surprises, as DC TV shows aren’t known for creating original villains for a season’s big bad.

“We knew we wanted to tell a mythology that hadn’t been told in live action with Tal-Rho being the half-brother,” he says. “It was really just, how do we pace this reveal out?”

But Edge/Tal-Rho, despite being both unpleasant and immensely powerful (a perfect recipe for villainy) is an almost tragic figure, especially when compared to other supervillains.

“It would have been pretty easy for him to just become a mustache-twirling villain,” Helbing says. “But on our show, we want everybody to have a point of view, whether the audience agrees with them or not, and this includes our villains…The villain part of it is great, but it doesn’t mean anything unless you understand where they’re coming from, you can get into the emotion of it. And I think him being related to Kal-El and just all of his pains and struggle, that’s really where it worked.”

THE ERADICATOR

Despite the fact that Tal-Rho himself is an original character created for TV, the character eventually evolved into another important figure in Superman lore: The Eradicator, perhaps best known to fans as one of the “replacement Supermen” who appeared in the wake of the Man of Steel’s death at the hands of Doomsday.

But it turns out that the Eradicator wasn’t part of the plan, initially. Edge, of course, was taking humans and infusing them with Kryptonian souls and powers, turning them into “subjekts,” and there was one in particular who was going to tower over the others.

“Originally we started laying out these ‘subjekts’,” Helbing says. “We were going to build up the Subjekt-17, but it became very apparent that we weren’t just going to do 16 subjekts in a season.”

(NOTE: Subjekt-17 was a villain who only made a handful of appearances in the comics, an alien baby discovered by the Soviets and held in stasis for decades, before eventually wreaking havoc on Superman and friends. It’s part of an unfairly overlooked Superman storyline by Kurt Busiek, Carlos Pacheco, and Jesus Merino, and you should check it out. But I digress…)

Once the Subjekt-17 concept became unworkable, the Eradicator’s name arose.

“The Eradicator was brought up pretty early on, but that was one of the elements where like, okay, we’re going to see how this plays out and how we’re going to be able to make this land the best way,” he says. 

Of course, bringing the distinctive comics look of the Eradicator to the small screen brings its own challenges.

“When you look at some of the art of the Eradicator, you’re like, how do we translate this? Do we give him Ray-Bans or something?” Then we just kicked that idea around and came up with the way he is in the show. I think it’s pretty cool.”

LOIS LANE AND JORDAN KENT

But amidst all the Kryptonian fighting and love for Superman lore, the finale’s highlight is the moment where Elizabeth Tulloch’s Lois Lane pulls Jordan Elsass’ Jonathan Kent back from the brink, after his personality has been “eradicated” by the soul of Tal-Rho’s evil father. Lois does what we’ve seen her do several times this season, which is (with the help of some Kryptonian tech this time) help Jordan “push through his darkness” in an emotional scene that’s as triumphant as any bit of high-flying action we’ve seen throughout the season.

For Helbing and the Superman & Lois writers, it was a moment that happened naturally when working on the final two episodes of the season.

“That stuff was all kind of by the seat of our pants,” Helbing says. “We knew emotionally what needed to happen. We knew the sort of format and structure that we wanted to do in episode 14, two acts of family setup, town drama, get all that stuff up and running and then it was four acts of action. But episode 15 starts with four acts of action, and then ends with two acts of the emotional landing. But that one particularly, there was just a lot of [writers] Kristi [Korzec], Mike [Narducci], Brent [Fletcher], me, and Greg [Berlanti]. Where are the places that we have to land emotionally? Let’s build the story around that, which we did.”

NATALIE IRONS RETURNS

The episode doesn’t quite wrap up everyone’s emotional arcs. We’ve known for some time that Irons is still dealing with his feelings for Lois, even as he has accepted that this isn’t the same Lois he was married to on his world. Just as he seems to have made peace with the notion of moving on, and that he can’t stay with the Kents any longer, the multiverse throws everyone quite a curveball…as a mysterious craft falls out of the sky and reveals John’s daughter Natalie Irons (Tayler Buck) has somehow survived and made her way to this world.

Helbing won’t give many details yet on what to expect for Natalie Irons in Superman & Lois Season 2, but he  does reveal that they’ve already written the season premiere. 

“We knew Nat was going to show up, and we knew we wanted her in the show, because we want to explore a new family dynamic,” he says. “I’ll just say, in season two, there’s a lot that everybody is dealing with, having to get used to new members of a family, I’ll just put it that way.”

We’ll have more from Todd Helbing about Superman & Lois Season 2 soon!

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What did you think of the Superman & Lois season finale? Let us know in the comments!

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