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rkfstudio · 7 years

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Top Ten Comic Characters of All Time (according to me)

Introduction/disclaimer:

This list is mine and is based on my personal and subjective criteria. My choices are based on what I have read in comics as opposed to other media. For instance, one of my favorite superheroes, Squirrel Girl, is not on this list because I have read next to none of her comics and my love of the character is based almost exclusively on her concept and her appearances in other media.

Also, some people might want to fault me and my list for a lack of “inclusiveness” or “representation” or whatever. Full disclosure: I’m a straight white dude and I tend to relate most to the straight white dude characters that have historically dominated the comics world. Thus, I’m more likely to be drawn to stories about those characters. I do not apologize for my tastes. If they radically differ from yours, feel free to make your own list and tell me why you like the characters you like. That would be awesome.

Finally, there are half a dozen characters outside this Top Ten that could jump into it at any moment. This list represents my Top Ten at the time I wrote this and is subject to change.

Still with me? Cool! Here we go!

10. Wolverine

Most people would put Logan aka James Howlett aka the Wolverine much higher on their lists, and I completely understand why. He is “the best he is at what he does” ™ and is one of the most complex and interesting characters in comics. He also, until his death a couple of years ago, was perhaps the most overexposed character in all of comics. He’s a down to earth guy who mostly just wants to be left alone, but neither the comic world nor the comic industry is willing to give him a break. With a cool and dark backstory and super cool powers, he’s one of the legitimate badasses in the Marvel universe.

9. Blue Beetle/Jaime Reyes

“What is this blasphemy?! Jaime Reyes ranked higher than Mr. Snikt?!” Yes. This is my list and I say Jaime gets a higher spot.

Hear me out on this. Beetle gets this spot on my list mainly due to his introductory arc during DC’s “One Year Later” event and his recent “Rebirth” run. Both runs are well written with great character interaction and dialogue. Jaime’s just a regular high school kid who also happens to be a superhero. Not the most original concept (*cough* Spider-Man! *cough*) but he pulls it off in what feels like a fresh way. It also doesn’t hurt that he was a show stealer in his recurring role in the “Batman: The Brave and the Bold” cartoon a few years ago. But his comics just shine to me.

8. Batman

More controversy! Batman is only at number 8! I realize most people place him much higher because he’s one of the more relatable members of DC’s top-flight heroes in that he’s just a man in a world of gods. For me, he suffers from the same kind of overexposure that Wolverine has had over the years. I also don’t tend to find him as interesting as the characters he deals with, whether his allies or his rogues' gallery. He’s a darker, more brooding Iron Man (I realize Batman came first, but I think the comparison is still valid). I find him at his best when he’s forced to play with others, especially Superman, because the tension between the “solitary crimefighter” and the “super team” dynamics can be so fun. Recommended reading includes the Justice miniseries by Alex Ross and Co. and the Justice League: Lightning Saga story arc.

7. Captain Marvel/Shazam!

For the five of you that are still reading, this entry might be the last straw. Bear with me. Batman is the dark, brooding hero of the night. Captain Marvel (or Shazam for those willing to give up the ghost of Fawcett Comics) is the polar opposite of that: he is bright, colorful, and full of whimsy. Whimsy and wonder are both things that are in short supply in this post-Watchmen comics world, and that’s a shame. It’s that harkening back to the core of how comics began that is a large part of his appeal to me. Interestingly enough, it’s a couple of his more recent stories that have made me love him as a character. Jeff Smith, of Bone fame, wrote an origin miniseries for Captain Marvel called Shazam and the Monster Society of Evil and it’s wonderful. Also recommended is his part in the previously mentioned Justice series.

6. Captain America

This is a more conventional pick. Cap makes this list for similar reasons to the previous Captain on this list: he represents the values and sentiments of a bygone age. In particular, his refusal to compromise his beliefs regardless of the personal cost is a breath of fresh air and too seldom seen anymore. Leader, soldier, champion of liberty, that’s Cap. Look up his run in the New Avengers series up through the Civil War arc to see exactly what I’m talking about.

Also, Hydra Cap never happened. Just no.

5. Joker

You know how the last two choices were upstanding, almost squeaky-clean citizens?

Yeah, good times.

For someone completely different, Number Five gives us the Joker. He is, bar none, the most fascinating supervillain ever, responsible for some of the most twisted moments in mainstream comics. Jason Todd? That was the Joker. Barbara Gordon? Yep, that was him, too. Harley Quinn? Mistah J says, “You’re welcome.” The Joker is sick, twisted, and downright evil, and he embraces it like no other. Sometimes, a villain isn’t misunderstood; sometimes a villain is just a villain. And the Joker does “villain” with a style all his own. Required reading includes the Justice series (can you tell I like this series? I do.), the Dark Knight Returns, and, of course, The Killing Joke.

4. Superman

Honestly, I thought Supes would be higher on my list. He’s the first superhero and still, to me at least, one of the best. I realize most folks find him to be too powerful to be relatable, and there’s no small amount of validity to that point. But the best part of this character isn’t his ability to punch planets out of orbit or “leap tall buildings” or any of that. It’s his... well, his character. That middle-America farmer’s son upbringing, with its sense of right and wrong that has so seldom failed him, is what makes Superman more than just the Last Son of Krypton. To borrow from Kingdom Come, it’s the “man” more than the “super” that makes him special. It’s what makes him a symbol of virtue and excellence, a standard to which we can aspire. It’s Clark Kent, rather than Kal-El, that I want to be like. Some good reading includes the aforementioned Kingdom Come, The Superman/Batman Supergirl arc (this is actually a good Batman read, as well) and, you guessed it, Justice.

3. Hellboy

Sadly, this is the only non-Big-Two character on my list. For now. I’m just starting to branch out so future lists might have more.

Anyway, Hellboy makes the list because he isn’t what you’d expect him to be. The son of a major league demon and destined to bring about the apocalypse, he should be an earth-shattering villain. But he’s a hero because of his upbringing by a paranormal expert. Nurture triumphing over Nature. The monster as the hero. Also, he’s just a fun character and his stories are good stuff. Of particular note, mainly because this is what I’ve read, is the recent Hellboy and the BPRD 1950s series.

2. Rocket Raccoon

If you’ve read this far, this pick really shouldn’t surprise you. Sometimes, we want heroes to inspire us to be better people. Sometimes, we just want a raccoon with a big flarkkin’ gun. Rocket’s recent string of short series, both solo and with Groot, are just fun reading.

1. Hulk

This was the one pick I didn’t need to think about; Hulk was at Number One from the start. The concept of a super smart guy who turns into a raging monster when he loses his cool resonates with me on an intensely personal level. While he has had quite a few strange turns in his comics history, the big guy really came into his own during the Planet Hulk series, where he was shot into space by his best “friends” to a planet full of enemies and dangers that only the Hulk could survive. His development from monster to gladiator to fugitive to king, and then to vengeful conqueror in the following World War Hulk, is one of my favorite arcs in all of comics. Whether big and kind of dumb or big and super smart or somewhere in between like in the stories I’ve mentioned, Hulk is my Number One comic character of all time. At least until the next time.

So, that’s my list. But what’s a list like this without some honorable mentions?

Honorable Mentions:

12. Rorschach

This is the obligatory Watchmen pick. While I don’t like the story, I appreciate the historical impact it’s had on the comics industry. Rorschach is the only character that I can call anything close to a “good guy” despite his extreme homicidal tendencies. His refusal to go along with the alien invasion story covering Ozymandias’s murder of millions of people “so billions might live”, his refusal to accept the lesser evil, shows an integrity that is perhaps outdated but no less laudable for being outdated.

13. Renee Montoya/the Question

The first woman on this list and it’s neither Wonder Woman nor fan-favorite Kitty Pryde. Renee Montoya is, to me, a more interesting character than either, mostly because she’s very flawed. She’s rough around the edges; she drinks to excess; she has doubts about her abilities and her value as a detective. I gather most of this info from her run in DC’s 52 series, which is a great read on its own.

16. Lex Luthor

This guy.

This guy right here.

He’s the stereotypical “evil businessman” and yet he is so much more. A legit genius who inevitably uses that genius to fight petty grudges rather than help humanity reach claims potential like he claims to care about. Kingdom Come, Justice, you know the drill.

19. Iron Man

Some characters combine seriously cool abilities with personalities that are seriously hard to like. Iron Man is cool; Tony Stark is just an egomaniacal jerk. It’s also worth noting that Tony often has to use Iron Man (and the Avengers) to fix problems of his own making. He’s a great character, but he’s not a good one.

25. Deadpool

Because Wade was going to kill me if I didn’t put him somewhere on this list.

Seriously. He’s standing right next to me while I’m writing this.

Help me.

30. Death of the Endless

I’ve honestly only read one issue featuring Death, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, #8. But that one issue is probably my favorite single comic issue ever. It’s stark, poignant, and beautiful. My list had 29 characters and I immediately thought of her for Number Thirty, but I’m sure she’ll move higher if I ever read any more of her stories.

Well, that’s all for now. I hope you enjoyed this strange trip through my comic book preferences. For real, to all who’ve gotten this far, I’d love to read your Top Ten. I find the reasons why different people like different characters fascinating.

Till next time, cheers, y’all!

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mediabasedlife · 7 years

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Initial Impressions 05: Doomsday Clock

Disclaimer: This Article Contains Spoilers For Watchmen And Doomsday Clock.

To say Watchmen was a good comic is like saying Bob Ross was a good artist; that is, both sentences are obvious understatements. Watchmen was - and remains - a piece of literary genius, a commercial and critical success. It was one of the first graphic novels to make it onto Time Magazine's best 100 novels list and a winner of the illustrious Hugo Award. For those who don't know, Watchmen is a graphic novel written by Alan Moore (V for Vendetta, Batman - The Killing Joke) and drawn by Dave Gibbons and colorist John Higgins. It started publication in 1986, continuing for twelve issues into 1987, before being collected into a single volume that same year. Watchmen's story is a rich and complex narrative that plays out as equal parts political satire, murder mystery, and deconstruction of the superhero genre. It takes place in an alternate history than our own, in which the world saw the rise of the costumed hero back in the 1940s whos presence dramatically altered the course of world events; America wins the Vietnam War, Watergate is never exposed, and Nixon abolishes the term limitations, going on to be president far longer than he ever should have been. The 1980s see America and Russia edging closer and closer to World War III. Amidst all the political chaos the aforementioned costumed heroes have been outlawed, with many of them now retired or serving the government. All of this history leads to the event which kicks off the entire Watchmen graphic novel; The death of the Comedian, a hero turned government agent and the investigation that follows.

I could talk at length about my love of Watchmen from both the original graphic novel to the 2009 film adaptation, praise its subtleties, narrative, nuances, and motifs, but that's not why we're here today. Instead, we're here to talk about Doomsday Clock, the Geoff Johns (Flashpoint, DC Rebirth #1) led Watchmen sequel. The idea of a sequel is outlandish to some, and with good reason; the last watchmen project that went through was 2012's controversial Before Watchmen, a DC comic book series designed to serve as a prequel to the events of Watchmen proper with each story focusing on a different hero or villain from the original series. Led by a myriad of different creative minds, the project was met with lukewarm critical reception, especially by Alan Moore himself. Personally, I consider the series to be fine at best, neither overly terrible or outstandingly good. It certainly wasn't the stroke of mastery that Watchmen was. This could be said for much of the DC universe at this time; 2012 was just one year into DC's controversial New 52 continuity. It abolished decades of established DC history, electing to start a new continuity more accessible to new readers, but left many veteran fans displeased. The New 52 continued from 2011 to 2016, and it was here that DC found themselves at a turning point. The New 52 was coming to a close, and a rebirth was at hand. DC Rebirth, to be exact.

The DC Rebirth special, also written by Johns, served as a return to form; while still following the New 52 history, Rebirth's goal was to restore as much of the old as it could, bringing back characters and storylines lost to the New 52 and incorporating them into the current canon. On a list of things to read before starting Doomsday Clock, this would be number one. The issue follows Kid Flash, aka Wally West, on his journey back home. It serves as the first in-universe indication that things are amiss in the DCU. Something, or someone, has stolen a decade from the world. Memories, Characters, Events...Rebirth kicks off the mystery of who this somebody is in a spectacular fashion - by bridging the DC Universe with that of Watchmen. This bridge would go on to be further established by a myriad of different storylines throughout the current Rebirth comic line, but most notably by The Button crossover event. In The Button, we see Batman and Flash investigate the mystery of a certain bloodstained smiley face which lodged itself in the Batcave at the end of the Rebirth special. It was also with The Button that we got the reveal of Doomsday Clock, which started its twelve issue publication run in the tail end of November 2017.

So, we're here. We're finally at Doomsday Clock. The Big To-Do, the explosive clash between Alan Moore's Watchmen with DC Comics. As it stands right now, Doomsday Clock is one-quarter finished, with three of its twelve issues available to read right now. So how is it? Well, in my opinion, Doomsday Clock is fantastic. It's no Watchmen, but I don't think it was ever supposed to be. Doomsday Clock serves as a direct sequel to Moore's masterpiece and does a good job standing up next to it, at least so far. So far Geoff Johns has done a fantastic job authoring this story, seeding it with mysteries and hooks that keep you guessing and wanting more. His prose isn't identical to Moore's, but carries the same heft and feel. His writing is amplified by the equally fantastic artwork courtesy of Gary Frank and colorist Brad Anderson. Together the two make the comic pop, painting a vibrant collage across every panel and page. Their style is distinct, adhering rather faithfully to Watchmen's nine-panel grid, sporting visuals that feel right at home next to the literary classic. The tone of Doomsday Clock also melds well with Watchmen, with both stories being byproducts of the political climate of their respective times. Watchmen played off of the politics of the eighties, creating an even darker vision of the world in a sort of parody. Doomsday Clock almost got scrapped, before the 2016 presidential election and how the world changed as a result of it. Together they feel like stories that go hand in hand, but for the purists out there, Watchmen can still be seen as its own work, an entity separate from all else.

But what is Doomsday Clock about? As earlier stated, Doomsday Clock serves as a direct sequel to, and a crossover of, Watchmen and DC Rebirth. But what does that mean? Watchmen concludes with Adrian Veidt, aka Ozymandias, succeeding in his mad plot to bring peace at the expense of countless lives. He averts nuclear war through a convoluted scheme involving a faux-alien invasion and the death of over three million people. Following this Doctor Manhattan, the only truly superpowered being of that world, left earth to find a new universe that was less messy than that of Watchmen's. The Rebirth special established the idea that a hidden power was manipulating the DC universe and all of its characters, a godlike entity who has been watching and altering events to their whim or for some unknown purpose. This entity is revealed to be Doctor Manhattan. Through the Rebirth Special, the Comedian's badge embeds itself in the wall of the Batcave. Batman studies this button, along with the flash, leading to an adventure through dimensions, other realities, presenting a further look at the modifications Manhattan has done to the DC Universe. This leads to Doomsday Clock, where the crossover truly begins. The world of Watchmen is in chaos. The people have discovered the truth behind Veidt's scheme, and it pushed them over the brink. Doomsday Clock's first issue sees all of this play out, taking place seven years after the conclusion of Watchmen. Watchmen's world faces nuclear annihilation, and this time nothing stands in its way. Hence a new scheme by Veidt; he builds a team with the sole purpose of locating the absent Manhattan and bringing him back to the Watchmen universe in an attempt to right the world's wrongs.

This is the basis for Doomsday Clock's story - the hunt for Doctor Manhattan, and the investigation into his true impact on the DC Universe at large. Veidt's team for this universe-spanning endeavor consists of himself, a new Rorschach, and two original characters; The Marionette and the Mime. The first Doomsday Clock issue sees them all coming together, while the second one sends them on their way. As of Issue three, all the players are in motion. It is here I want to diverge a moment and express a certain admiration for an accomplishment Geoff Johns has met with this story. With the Marionette and the Mime, Johns has managed to create new characters that still feel like they could have existed back when Alan Moore first wrote Watchmen all those years ago. Mime and Marionette, much like the other characters from Watchmen, are based on Charlton Comics characters - Punch and Jewelee. Husband and Wife, both are costumed villains in the Watchmen universe, with Doomsday Clock #1 seeing Rorschach springing them from jail in order to recruit them for their mission. Mime is mute, as his name implies, while Marionette is the voice. Doomsday Clock's second issue establishes a believable backstory, solidifying their necessity and value in the events to come. It is with these original characters that Johns proves he is more than capable of capturing Watchmen's tone and feel, a fact that is further solidified as the story goes on.

On the DC side of things, Doomsday Clock is set one year into the future of all current DC stories, further emphasizing that this is the tale Rebirth has been leading to since issue one. The world is faced with a superhero identity crisis; a new theory has been bred that asks the question, "Why are almost all the heroes and villains American?". Dubbed the Superman theory, it has the DC world in its own state of disarray, proposing the idea that the American government has found a way to create heroes and villains in an attempt to get an edge, hence its large number of metahumans as compared to any other region of the world. This ire spills over to Batman as well, with some of our first moments in Gotham being as viewers to a rather angry protest of the Dark Knight. This hasn't stopped Batman from doing what he does best, but it does show a dramatic tonal shift on the behalf of public perception to his heroics. Under the Cowl, Batman isn't faring any better; Wayne Tech and LexCorp are currently at war with one another on a corporate level. To quote Sally Juspeczyk from Watchmen, "Things are tough all over, cupcake."

We're only three issues in so far, but already Johns has proven his worth and created a story just as compelling and intriguing as the stories it strives to succeed. Watchmen was a masterpiece of its time, a piece of literature that continues to stand as a pillar of the comic book industry even now. Doomsday Clock feels like a pleasant complement and a strong sequel, expertly mirroring the narrative flow, the subtleties, and the visual flair of Moore's work while still putting new ideas on the table. It's too early to say whether or not Doomsday Clock will have the same impact as Watchmen, or be the same stroke of literary Genius, but I don't think it needs to. The world already has a Watchmen. Doomsday Clock is shaping up to be something familiar but new, something that can stand on its own merit while still being an impressive sequel to one of the best graphic novels ever written. Doomsday Clock's initial three issues are available now, its fourth releasing on March 28th. The clock is ticking across the DC universe, and with nine issues left to go, all we can do is wait and see what mysteries it has in store for us next.

#Initial Impressions #Doomsday Clock #Watchmen #DC #Comics #Comic Review

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spicynbachili1 · 6 years

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Deep Analysis: Watchmen

The best/worst adaptation ever

You can’t find a more influential comic book than Watchmen.

Watchmen was a 12 issue comic book limited series released from 1986-1987 that received critical acclaim upon its release. It was the first comic book to be seen by mainstream audiences as a legitimate story which dealt with several serious topics and themes. It wasn’t just a silly picture book that you would buy for your kids at the grocery store for a quarter, this was a comic book for adults. Of course, there were other stories that came before Watchmen that also dealt with serious topics like alcoholism, drug abuse, and the clash of political ideologies, but Watchmen was the one that people outside of the comic book community took notice of. To this day, Watchmen ranks as one of Time Magazine’s 100 greatest novels ever made, standing alongside classics like A Clockwork Orange, The Great Gatsby, Animal Farm, and To Kill A Mockingbird.

For the comic book community, it, alongside The Dark Knight Returns, ushered in an era of comics where characters became darker, more serious, edgier, and full of 90’s…ness. Referred to as “The Dark Age,” this time period was one of the worst periods ever for the comic book industry, culminating in Marvel’s bankruptcy, but none of that was because Watchmen was a bad story. Quite the contrary. Watchmen was so popular that people misunderstood why it was as successful as it was. Many prominent comic book creators believed Watchmen was successful because it was a dark and mature story, so they tried to emulate that style without understanding that the content of Watchmen is what made it so good, not just because it was aimed at adults. Watchmen was good because it was a good story, one that comic book creators still look to for inspiration to this day. The legacy of Watchmen is undeniable, safely secured in the pantheon of comic book greatness.

And then Zack Snyder made an adaptation of it in 2009.

Before I get into dissecting Zack Snyder’s Watchmen, I wanted to share a little behind the scenes look at what led to this post. Back at the beginning of October, Matt approached me and asked me to revive the “Deep Analysis” feature from a few years ago, saying that we were in a position where we had enough talented writers to pull off a new monthly feature. I was honored, but also a little concerned at how big of a task it was. What the hell could I talk about that would justify a Deep Analysis? What would be worthy of writing several thousand words that people will actually want to read and discuss? What would be a movie that people will be passionate about?

I was debating doing Spring Breakers, a 2013 slice of arthouse shlock that condemns the dissonance between reality and fantasy that’s generated from the media, but I’m pretty sure not many people have seen it. And the people that have seen it would say that the movie is about ASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. Then I thought about doing Silent Hill so I could write about how valid a good/decent movie is when it butchers its source material, but I didn’t want to beat on the Silent Hill horse more than it has been. But then I found my answer in the comments of my NYCC article on HBO’s upcoming Watchmen series. It was relevant, people are clearly interested in Watchmen, and it would be worth discussing since I’m a pretty big fan of the movie. So let’s do it. Let’s analyze Zack Snyder’s Watchmen.

A Finely Assembled Clock

Watchmen began with the murder of a government-sanctioned vigilante named the Comedian. Murdered in his own apartment, the police are at a loss at how a man like the Comedian, real name Edward Blake, could have been thrown from his apartment window when he was built like a tank. A mentally unhinged vigilante that used to work with the Comedian, Rorschach, investigates the crime scene and believes that someone is trying to murder costumed vigilantes. He warns Nite Owl/Dan Dreiberg, his former partner, Ozymandias/Adrian Veidt, the smartest man in the world, Doctor Manhattan/Jon Osterman, the most powerful being in existence that can bend space, time, and matter to his will, and Silk Spectre/Laurie Jupiter, Manhattan’s girlfriend who is his only tether to humanity. What follows is a huge conspiracy of lies, murder, and existentialism all in a bid to save the world from nuclear Armageddon.

If you were to ask me what separated Watchmen from every other comic at the time, it would be that it relied on extensive world building and flashbacks to flesh out its cast as well as the topics that it addressed head-on. When you read Watchmen, you could just read through the story and be done with it, but that would be doing a disservice to author Alan Moore. At the end of each issue are several pages dedicated to extraneous materials that have no bearing on the rest of the story, but flesh out the world that the characters inhabit.

There are multiple excerpts from the autobiography of the original Nite Owl that detailed his life, how he became a police officer, and what made him become a costumed vigilante. Then you have articles, interviews, and other supplemental material featured at the end that only serve to enhance the world of Watchmen. Yes, it’s supposed to take place in an alternate 1980’s America, one where Richard Nixon is still in office after successfully winning the Vietnam War, but it’s still our world. But so much time and effort are placed in creating a living, breathing world where other side characters exist. Mind you, you don’t have to read these supplemental materials. You can still enjoy the story as is, but the extra material only serves to do more good than not.

Over the course of the comic, when we’re not following the vigilantes try to solve the mystery of who killed the Comedian, we’re following along with multiple different characters who are living their daily lives. They never directly intercede in the main plot with the exception of maybe one character, but they’re around to flesh out the world and ideas that Watchmen brings up. We may follow some police officers, a right-wing newspaper organization, a psychologist, a guy who sells newspapers, a cabbie and her problems with her girlfriend, or we may just read a comic book about a sailor trying to return home to his family before they’re killed by pirates. All of it serves to cement that there are living, breathing people that aren’t wrapped up in the march to doomsday.

Which brings us to the themes that are addressed in the story. I could go on for days talking about each of the story’s main ideas, like how Watchmen addresses identity, patriotism, fate, time, the validity of vigilante justice, crime, and the moral gray area of achieving world peace at the immense cost of life (Ozymandias and Thanos would get along really well). Those are all well and good, but they’re not what I think the story is really about. For me, Watchmen is a story about the Cold War and the threat of a nuclear apocalypse.

Through both the main plot and the various characters interactions, one troubling scenario remains at the forefront; the world is inching closer to nuclear war. Nite Owl dreams of the world ending in an atomic explosion, Ozymandias tries to save the world before the nukes start flying, and the people don’t worry about how Dr. Manhattan could erase reality if he wanted to. Instead, they worry about the Soviet Union. To take a step away from Watchmen for a minute, in 1986 in our world, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev were trying to do whatever they could to reduce their nuclear arms, terrified that one of them would be the one to end all life on Earth.

Fears of a nuclear war were prevalent during the 80’s but the fear of the atomic bomb was around for decades. The Cuban Missile Crisis is probably the best example that comes to mind, with even people in the White House like former Secretary of State Robert McNamara saying that the only reason the Cuban Missile Crisis didn’t erupt into nuclear war was because of level heads. The Cuban Missile Crisis may have been the theoretical worst case scenario of atomic warfare, the nuclear detonations at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the practical reality. More relevant during the creation of Watchmen was the Chernobyl meltdown, where a nuclear power plant in Russia had a catastrophic meltdown in 1986, rendering all life in the immediate area inhospitable to humans still to this day. Fears of nuclear war were legitimate, and with the two largest superpowers in the world having polarizing ideologies that frequently butted heads, you’d better believe that it was a very real possibility that World War III would erupt over the slightest dispute.

I’d argue that Watchmen could only exist in the 1980’s, right when the Cold War was still at the forefront of politics. Telling the story outside of the 1980’s is possible, but you need to heavily alter it or just ignore the Cold War connections. DC Comics is currently making a sequel to Watchmen called Doomsday Clock, which as of this writing is at issue seven of 12, but it’s not set in the world of Watchmen. It’s set in the modern DC universe, without a single mention of the Cold War. The DC prequels, Before Watchmen, knew that it wasn’t the smartest idea to directly set themselves during the Cold War and the events of the original series, so each of the various miniseries was more character focused and set during whatever time period the creators wanted to set it in. But the 2009 film version tries to tell the story of Watchmen and its Cold War fears from the perspective of 2000’s America through Zack Snyder’s vision. Unfortunately, Snyder made the same mistakes that the comic book creators of the 90’s took from Watchmen that nearly doomed the industry; he took the story at face value. He thought Watchmen’s value was in its violence and darkness.

We’re Locked In With Rorschach

Zack Snyder isn’t a bad director, but he is a director with a very particular style. All you need to do is look at a Zack Snyder movie and you’ll see for better or worse, a lot of his hallmarks. Is there a dark/muted color palette? Is there hardly any joy or positive eomtion? Is the focus more on the action than the story? Are the characters unlikable? If you’ve answered yes to all of these questions, then there’s a pretty good chance that you’re watching a Zack Snyder movie. That’s not to say that we’re watching a bad movie, but we’re definitely watching a Zack Snyder one.

At first glance, you may think that Watchmen would be a good movie for Zack Snyder to direct. He holds the original comic in reverence and slavishly tried to recreate scenes from the comics on film the same way that Dave Gibbons drew it. He used David Hayter’s (yes, that David Hayter) script, which took wholesale lines and scenes from the comics that even Alan Moore, who has historically been against any adaptation of his work ever being made, said that Hayter’s script was the closest he saw anyone ever getting to making an ideal Watchmen screenplay. So what happened? Why do some people revile it and call it a bastardization of the comic, despite the time, effort, and love that was clearly put into it?

We might as well start with Zack Snyder, since this is less Watchmen and more Zack Snyder Presents: Watchmen. His style is caked all over the movie, whether it fits or not. Snyder is what you get when you let an edgy teenager become a director. He’s going to focus on what he likes and what he thinks is cool over what other people think. You can easily see this in Batman v. Superman, where most of his time is spent dealing with the sloppy moral dilemma that Batman and Superman have to go through despite none of it making logical sense. However, when the two heroes eventually duke it out, it’s pretty damn awesome. The same can be said for Watchmen, where it seems like Snyder was interested in only two things; Rorschach and the Comedian.

Rorschach was one of the main characters of the comic, but time was evenly spent getting to know all six of our main characters. Each character had an issue dedicated to them where we learned more about them and their personalities, but everyone had an equal amount of development. In the movie, we learn all about Rorshach, but as for Dr. Manhattan, Ozymandias, Silk Spectre, and Nite Owl, we barely delve into their backstories besides a few throwaway lines. Of the four, Dr. Manhattan does have his backstory explained, but it feels like it was out of necessity. They offer the briefest explanation about how Jon Osterman became Dr. Manhattan, but they leave out his relationship with Janie Slater, Laurie Jupiter, and his father forcing him to become a scientist out of necessity, making what we do get feel hollow. That being said, Snyder does spend a lot of time focusing on the Comedian, which lends weight to the fact that Snyder was only interested in what he thought was cool.

The Comedian keeps all of his scenes intact, as does Rorschach. We get an extended fight scene with the Comedian that wasn’t in the comic. Rorschach’s fight scenes are all in graphic detail. The Comedian’s nihilistic dialogue and Rorschach’s grim narration haven’t changed at all. Snyder’s Watchmen is obsessed with these moments, yet the movie doesn’t realize that we’re not supposed to really root for these characters. They’re terrible people and the comic made it vastly aware at how awful both of these characters are, but they’re framed as being badass and cool. The movie cuts down on their condemnation and instead focuses on their greatest hits. Remember when Rorschach threw the vat of hot grease at a guys face? Well, here it is in live action with Rorschach screaming like a maniac about it!

Everything else is downplayed. Ozymandias’ presence in the story is mitigated to his introduction, his assassination attempt, and the ending, which does line up with the comic, but he feels like an after thought here. At least in the comic we frequently saw him talking with other characters, albeit in flashbacks, but we were still able to see him as a fleshed out character. We sort of see how Nite Owl struggles with his identity and accepting that he loves being a vigilante, but you’d have to squint to really see it. Worst of all, the extensive world building is gone. It’s understandable that there had to be some cuts made to make sure the movie didn’t run five hours and it’d be nearly impossible to recreate the pages of supplemental material well, but a lot of what made Watchmen the comic it was is gone. The issue with Dr. Malcolm Long, Rorschach’s psychiatrist, was my favorite issue in the entire series due to how it painted Rorshach as both a monster and a victim, yet showed how the good intentioned doctor could be dragged down to Rorschach’s level, unable to help him and instead adopting Rorschach’s nihilistic viewpoint on humanity. Here… it’s reduced to a quick line about how Dr. Long can’t possibly help him.

But really, the biggest problem that the film adaptation has is that Snyder turned Watchmen into just another action movie. Yes, there was action in the comic, but it was never the focus like it was here. You can’t go a few scenes without an action beat taking place. While some of them are actually really well done, like Hollis Mason fighting against a gang that breaks into his house while flashing back to his days as Nite Owl, you have way more that are just brawls for the sake of brawls. We didn’t come to see the Watchmen fight and pop bones out of arms. Zack Snyder forgot the biggest truth of them all. The original series was a mystery starring vigilantes set during the Cold War that featured action in it. He made an action movie starring 90’s heroes and Batman wannabees that has some mystery elements. All of that Cold War fear of nuclear Armageddon that the characters feel and discuss that was one of the driving themes of the comic? Rarely acknowledged.

And just to quickly bring this up, a lot of the design choices made in Zack Snyder’s Watchmen were to make the movie more similar to Christopher Nolan’s trilogy. Nite Owl was designed to be more like Batman, Ozymandias was designed to be a parody of the Schumacher movies, and you could easily swap scenes from Watchmen and The Dark Knight and be unable to tell the difference. We’ll come back to this.

Turning Oxygen To Gold

So if Watchmen completely bungles its themes, turns itself into an action movie, and focuses on the “cool” characters Rorschach and the Comedian over the rest of the main cast, you might be shocked to hear that I’d still rank Watchmen as one of my favorite movies. It’s a testament to how good the original story is that I could overlook the many, many, many, flaws of this adaptation. Yes, it is more interested in Rorschach and his crusade against evil than the other characters, but Rorschach is undeniably the best character in the movie.

In the comic, Rorschach was a man of few words and very few emotions. Most of his dialogue and choice of words was up to the reader’s discretion, when certain moments, like his climactic final scene with Dr. Manhattan, always felt a bit flat to me with how brief and matter of fact it was. I can’t imagine a voice for Rorschach except for Jackie Earle Haley’s performance. He brings a certain menace to the character that we always knew he had, but never saw. Rorschach’s most vile acts were usually done off panel, but we see that this Rorschach is much more active and unstable, which perfectly suits the character. When Rorschach isn’t a violent sociopath, there are a few scenes where we do see a warmer side to him, mostly through his friendship with Nite Owl.

While the movie does away with a lot of the world building, it did decide to expand upon the Minutemen is fantastic ways. The intro to the movie, set to Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin'” is easily one of the best intros I’ve ever seen in a movie, telling a complete story solely through music and action. No dialogue needed. In fact, I’m a fan of the entire soundtrack. The music that plays during Dr. Manhattan’s backstory is simple, yet perfect for the story being told, but the true highlight comes from the licensed music featured throughout. Yes, even the “Hallelujah” sex scene has its charms (obviously NSFW), if only for how laughably over-the-top it is. It also doesn’t hurt that all of the songs used are great tunes in their own right.

But as sacrilegious as it may sound, what really seals the deal for me is the new ending. It isn’t perfect, but it really is superior to the original ending. Not just the epilogue, where Silk Spectre and Nite Owl adopt fake identities and Nite Owl grows a terrible blonde mustache, but the change for what saves the world. Minus the changes made to the characters and what got more screentime that was prevalent throughout the entire movie, the biggest change that riled up fans and critics alike was that the movie drastically altered the ending. And I like it. Fight me.

In the original series, Ozymandias’ plan for world peace was to fake an alien attack on the United States by kidnapping artists, scientists, and writers to create a fake monster with the cloned brain of a psychic that would have been teleported into New York City, let out a psionic EMP, kill millions of people and drive even more insane, and use that alien attack to force world leaders to put their differences aside to fight a non-existent alien threat. It’s goofy and introduces plenty of leaps of logic in the original series as well as introduce ideas that were never mentioned before that point. Now we have to contend with aliens and psychics in the world of Watchmen that don’t really gel with the rest of the world. I know that Dr. Manhattan exists and he’s more bizarre and outlandish than any alien or psychic could ever be, but the characters at least acknowledge that he’s an aberration. His presence is terrifying because of how unnatural he is.

In the movie, Ozymandias’ plan for world peace is a little bit different. Using his vast resources, he creates multiple fission reactors and places them in key cities across the globe. The reactors all share the same energy signature as Dr. Manhattan, so when Ozymandias forces them all to meltdown, they kill millions while emitting the energy signature of Manhattan himself. Every world government instantly turns on Manhattan, effectively ending the threat of nuclear war because now they have a common enemy; Dr. Manhattan. Dr. Manhattan agrees that this plan is for the best to ensure a lasting peace and leaves Earth for another galaxy, allowing the peace to exist.

The problem that the original ending had was that it was easy to prove that Ozymandias’ alien attack was a fake. In the first issue of Doomsday Clock, civilians are protesting against him because they discover how the alien was a model, how Ozymandias was responsible for kidnapping the artists/scientists/writers, and the peace was instantly shattered. At least in the movie, it’s much harder to prove that Ozymandias was the mastermind behind it all. Everyone knows who Dr. Manhattan is in the world of Watchmen. Everyone saw him have a mental breakdown on live TV. So when a few days later and energy that is similar to Manhattan’s energy destroys New York, Paris, Moscow and a whole host of other cities, you better believe that people are more willing to believe it. It just makes more sense to turn the world’s greatest hero into the world’s greatest villain.

Damon Lindelof: Smartest Man or Smartest Termite?

It’s ironic that when Watchmen released in 1986, it revolutionized the comics industry, but when a movie was made about it in 2009, it was met with indifference. Sure, some people loved it, but others hated it, or worse, thought nothing about it. The most revolutionary comic in existence was met with apathy when it was released to theaters. I think that Watchmen was met with lukewarm reception was because instead of it being a trailblazer like its comic counterpart, it was just following the then current trend of comic book movies.

It’s not a stretch to say that The Dark Knight is one of the best comic book movie ever made. It redefined what a comic book adaptation could be, introducing themes, ideas, and depicting violence that no mainstream audiences had ever seen before in a comic book movie. Watchmen was still in development when The Dark Knight released, but you better believe that Warner Brothers tried to force Snyder to make Watchmen as similar to Nolan’s Batman movies as possible. This is purely my own opinion here, I don’t have any hard evidence to support this claim, but it’s hard not to notice that Watchmen feels more like a Batman movie than an adaptation of Watchmen, or at the very least, a Watchman movie put through a Batman filter.

Watchmen was stuck between a rock and a hard place. You had one of the best stories ever told, but it was created from a very 2000’s mindset. Zack Snyder tried to make it his version of Watchmen, putting a focus on what he liked and ignoring what made the comic stand out. The Cold War commentary was put on the back burner to make it an action movie. Warner Bros. tried to make it aesthetically similar to Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. In short, everything that made Watchmen Watchmen was removed and replaced with… well, a late 2000’s action movie. The fact that Watchmen still comes out in one piece by the end of it is a miracle to say the least, but that the movie is still visually striking, contains some truly spectacular scenes, phenomenal performances, and even finds a way to improve on the original source material is a goddamn gift from the gods.

2019 is shaping up to be a big year for the franchise. Doomsday Clock is set to conclude (hopefully) sometime in the summer and Damon Lindelof’s version of Watchmen will release as well. He’s been pretty quick to refer to Watchmen as sacred text and that he’ll keep it intact but remix it, whatever the hell that means. I’m not expecting HBO’s Watchmen to be a perfect version of the story. Nothing will compare to the original limited series. But experimenting with it isn’t a bad thing. Zack Snyder’s version was full of experimentation and while some would argue that most of it was poorly planned and ultimately failed, there are some like myself that adore it. No one is ever going to be 100% happy with any adaptation of Watchmen. Hell, you can say that about any adaptation in existence. But change is not inherently bad. Make it Damon Lindelof’s Watchmen. We’ll always have Alan Moore’s Watchmen and yes, we’ll always have Zack Snyder’s Watchmen. I just hope the new show lives up to its lofty expectations.

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amateurfan227 · 7 years

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Shitlist Reviews - Man of Steel (2013)

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m Amateur Fan 2.27 and welcome back to the Shitlist, where bad movies burn, this movie has been going on my mind for a good couple of years since it’s official release back in 2013 and especially since the arrival of multiple sequels as well as a spin off relating to events from the first sequel.

The movie I’m talking about is the reboot of an American hero that appeased the eyes of many including yours truly, Man of Steel; as a movie itself, there are a lot of negative reviews towards it which is surprising as several Marvel movies from the MCU are complete garbage which have none-sensed villains as well as plots that have either been used before or not been thought clearly.

Before I start the main review including the production history I’m going to bring a full statement which would cover the review entirely on why I think this movie is the perfect example of Superman’s Origin as well as the fact that everybody seems to miss out on important moments of the Superman mythology, including the story from Clark Kent becoming Superman which is based on the comics (both old and new).

I’ve seen countless reviews on this especially on the Nostalgia Critic’s review where I strongly disagree with him on major parts, which takes my side over towards Angry Joe who defends in on multiple barriers, especially as the movie is based towards emotion on the character as well as the moral standards of the superhero entirely... something which has surfaced on the internet a couple of weeks ago.

I’ve also watched the first 2 movies to cover this though the second movie from the 80’s will be reviewed later after this review but definitely before BVS (which will be done next year at most) and I’ve got some major problems with the Donner versions which might trigger a couple of original fans... I also reviewed the first movie as well and to be honest, it’s a great movie but suffers from heavy flaws.

I will cover all this in the review as well as the story towards Superman is a pretty dark one as well, for those who don’t know the origin of the Man of Steel, Kal-El was the last survivor of the planet called Krypton before it blew-up from within due to an unknown reason which caused his parents, (scientists) to send him to Earth as it has a similar and breathable atmosphere to theirs though with a potential problem as Our planet has a more younger sun which would grant him the powers he possesses.

And with this said, the movie focuses straight on it, as well as a creative way on how General Zod wants to eradicate Jor-El as well as his own heir, as well as the technology the Kryptonians use for the Phantom Zone; the addition of Lois Lane as well as the Daily Planet, the addition to the Military as well as the main aspect of the character development on Clark Kent.

What I love about this movie is the character development that people seem to look over, especially when it comes towards Clark Kent as it’s more of a story driven towards his actions with other characters and his discovery on his new born powers and abilities, and the idea towards his morals on judgement against the others. The idea towards it makes him more human which I admire the most, almost like he is more human than the other superheroes from the DC universe.

One more thing that I find interesting about this movie is Zack Snyder’s direction towards the main character as making him more emotional towards his fight between humanity as well as his other Kryptonians including Zod which makes an intriguing direction towards his faith in humans. Including the most notable scene of the feature which is Zod’s demise which everyone hates towards how it was performed, I will get into that later on in the review which I praised for Kal’s humane action towards it.

Aside from the appraisal of the movie I found problems that might have the opposite effect, such as some of the science in the feature most notably the fact that the Kryptonians were focused on terraforming the Earth, granted that was an interesting idea but effecting the earth’s gravity would cause more damage than what was seen especially for the amount of time that was given in the film.

The idea of having the atmospheres of Krypton and Earth were interesting ideas but raised a question on what would happen to Lois’s biology when she entered the ship as well as Kal’s.

Another question I would give is the main explanation behind the cloning process of birth towards the Kryptonians as they had to take samples from ‘the core’ skull, would that suggest that they’ve never had the ability to fully populate in the most mature form of pure birth instead of cloning their own DNA?

Another question behind that is what was the coming of the war that Zod was bringing up before the destruction of Krypton as he had other motives to suggest that they were being attacked rather than just being blown up; along with that is the crime Zod was really responsible for when he forced his way into the Academy of Science.

Another thing that had got me confused was the messages that Jonathan Kent was bringing Clark towards his moral standing when he was growing up, I managed to watch those scenes a couple of times and in its defence, I believe it’s his way of expressing his emotions towards his adoptive son when Clark discovers his true heritage, and when he comes towards his teenage adolescence which makes him question his own morals aside from Jonathans...

Aside from the minor references as well as the product placements, it was a pretty harmless movie which told the story of the Man of Steel that many were looking for, though it was heavily debated to be the worst of DC which is questioning as they brought us atrocities such as Steel, Catwoman, Batman and Robin and most strangest of all, Superman IV: A Quest for Peace.

I thought the movie itself is similar to the morals from other character standing points such as idolising the hero as Jesus which does get on a lot of people’s nerves for all the wrong reasons and in some cases it does get on mine as well but in different movies with different perspectives such as Neo in the Matrix series.

For the reason why I prefer this movie towards the others is simple but very difficult to explain, this is more of a coming of age story of the Superman mythology rather than an a simple origin movie towards his status especially following inspiration from reboots in comics such as the World One Superman as well as the new 52 series which is heavily influenced on the movie due to its science-fiction feel as a superhero movie.

The movie was more toned towards true believers with new comers as well towards the Superman franchise as well which I applaud and bring Zack Snyder in the idea of rebooting the series is a pretty interesting idea by far due to his recreation of the impossible, look at the Watchmen for example, granted some parts of it weren’t able to come through such as the message of the Watchmen (which is explained more in the comic) as well as ending...

I applaud the idea of having him in the director’s chair of both Man of Steel and Batman Vs Superman for his outlook on the heroes and sending different messages towards their own sense of morality as well as giving fans the impossible, movies that we (the fans) were refused, but seeing him away from the movie Justice League is understandable which I pray for his family as well as his friends... (Sorry Zack).

Aside from this Man of Steel is possibly the best recreation of Superman that we needed, the movie that we deserved as it’s the movie that brought us hope aside from rage and self-satisfaction. Aside from all the input I’ve placed in the paragraphs above, though some of the facts that I’ve repressed will be explored later on in the review at hand; now for the usual routine, time for the production history which is an interesting one at that.

Man of Steel was produced by Legendary Pictures, DC Entertainment, Syncopy Inc (Christopher Nolan’s private company) and Cruel and Unusual Films (Zack Snyder’s Company) and was developed through Warner Bros. Pictures; featured as the first movie toward the DC Extended Universe (with Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad to follow) the movie was written by David S. Goyer, who brought us the Dark Knight Trilogy.

Previous development started in 2008 after Warner Bros. Took pitches from multiple writers and directors in attempt to revamp the franchise to a modern day audience; though in 2009 a court ruling sided with Jerry Siegel’s family (one of the two creators of Superman) to retain the rights to Superman’s origins and Siegel’s copyright.

The decision stated that Warner Bros. didn’t owe the families additional support from the previous incarnations but if they didn’t begin production before the end of 2011, the Shuster (Joe Shuster, the second creator) and Siegel estates would be able to sue for due to no revenue on an unproduced movie. Though Christopher Nolan pitched the idea from Goyer after story discussion on the Dark Knight Rises which lead to Snyder being the film’s director in October 2010 leading filming to start in August 2011 in West Chicago, Illinois before moving to Vancouver and Plano, Illinois.

In June of 2008, Warner Bros. took pitches from comic-book writers and directors on how to restart the Superman film series, which lead to Grant Morrison to state “I told them, it’s not that bad. Just treat Superman Returns as the Ang Lee Hulk” which is interesting to mention as both of them are different concepts, one is an Alien who’s praised as a hero as the other is a metaphor of the destruction of gamma radiation...

In August of the same year, Warner Bros. Suggest a complete reboot of the franchise as Studio executive Jeff Rebinov explained “Superman Returns didn’t quite work as a film in the way that we wanted to. It didn’t position the character the way he needed to be positioned.” Paul Levitz stated in an interview that Batman held the key to the reboot stating “Everyone is waiting for Nolan to sign on for another Batman, once that happens, the release date for Superman and all other projects will follow.

August of 2009 arrives leading a court ruling in Jerry Siegel’s family to capture 50% of the rights to the origins and the share of the copyright to Action Comics #1, the reset is above for further information.

The plot of Man of Steel employs a nonlinear narrative to the character as well as exploring more of the story in flashbacks; during story discussions for The Dark Knight Rise in 2008, Goyer told Nolan his idea towards Superman being presented in a modern day world on how we would react if there was an alien on our world; This impression Nolan leading him to pitch the idea to the studio causing him to produce the film with Goyer to write it following the major success on The Dark Knight.

Robinov, Present of Warner Bros. Pictures Group spoke to Entertainment Weekly and allowed a peek over the wall surrounding DC Comics plans, which included references to other heroes alluding possibilities of expanding it towards a larger universe; casting for the film were debated towards Robert Zemeckis (back to the future) Matt Reeves and Tony Scott until casting came down to Zack Snyder who confirmed that Booster Gold and Batman references were placed in the film.

Filming began in 2011 on August 1st in an industrial park near DuPage Airport under the name Autumn Frost; Snyder expressed reluctance to shooting it in 3-d due to technical limitations of the format and chose to shoot the movie two-dimensionally and convert the film into 3-D in post production. He also chose to shoot the movie on film instead of digitally because it would make the movie, “a big movie experience”.

Filming was estimated between 2-3 months which lead to production to take place in Plano, Illinois on August 22nd to 29th, According to Michael Shannon during an interview, filming would continue the following year, Man of Steel filming in the Chicago area, California and Burnaby’s Mammoth Studios was transformed to Superman’s home planet of Krypton as well as mixed extraterrestrial aircrafts. Metro lands on Vancouver’s North Shore waterfront hosted for the oil-rig scene which introduces the character.

Ucluelet and Nanaimo of British Columbia feature in the movie leading the remainder of the movie to take place in the Chicago Loop from September 7-17.

The design of the suit gathered everybody’s attention which was redesigned by James Acheson and Michael Wilkinson; the costume preserves the colour scheme greatly with the S Logo but adopts darker tones which removes the addition of the red trunks that’s usually worn by the hero, Snyder and the producers attempts to devise a suit with the red trunks but it couldn’t match the fit of the tone in the film.

Acheson was tasked in designing the suits while Wilkinson would finish development when he designed the other characters costumes which leads to other problems; as for General Zod, due to the substantial weight a practical suit would yield, the Kryptonian armour for the villain was created through CGI in order to give Shannon freedom of movement.

John “DJ” Desjardin served as the visual Supervisor for the feature with Weta Digital, MPC and Double Negative providing visual effects for the movie as Snyder wanted the movie to “appear natural because there are some very fantastical things in there and he wanted people to suspend their disbelief”.

For the first act of the movie that took place on Krypton, Weta Digital placed alien-like planet environments, creatures and the principal means of display using technology called liquid geometry; Weta Digital Supervisor Dan Lemmon explains, “It’s a bunch of silver beads that are suspended through a magnetic field, and the machine is able to control that magnetic field so that the collection of beads behave almost like three-dimensional pixels, and they can create a surface that floats in the air an describes whatever the thing is you’re supposed to be seeing.

The sequences where Superman utilizes close-combat fight scenes with the other Kryptonians proved to be a major challenge for the filmmakers and visual effects crew; Desjardin explained “When we do these fights and these hyper-real things, we don’t want to do the traditional, ‘OK I’m a cameraman, I’m shooting a clean plate, I’m going to pan over here to follow the action that’s not really there yet but we’ll put the action in later’ Because that’s us animating the characters to the camera.”

“So we would do that Animation with the characters- grappling, punching or flying away-and we would take the real guys up until the point until they were supposed to do that and we’d cut. Then we’d put an environment camera there and take the environment; and then a camera for reference of the actors and get each moment. So then we had a set of high-res stills for the environment and the characters. Then, in post, we take the digi-doubles and animate them according to the speeds we want them to move in our digital environment”.

MPC handled the visual effects for the Smallville scene, before providing the effects; the shots were previsualized for the fight choreography. After the previsualizations, live action portions of the scene would be filmed in small pieces a camera rig would then obtain key frames of the choreographed actor.

On set a camera rig was used to capture the environment of the sequenced, dubbed ‘enviro-cam’, the visual effects crew would mount a Canon EOS 5D and a motorized nodal head, allowing the crew to capture the environment at the 360-degree angle with 55k resolution for every show, the process would take a minimum of 2 to 4 minutes. The set capture resulted in lighting and textures that could be reprojected onto geometry.

Full-screen digital doubles were a major component for the fighting sequences. Digital armour was also added along with the energy-based Kryptonian helmets. Cyberscan and FACS were conducted with the actors and polarized and non-polarized reference photos were taken, Superman’s cape and costume were scanned in high detail- the cape in particular became direct extensions of Superman’s Actions.

For the scenes involving the terraforming of Metropolis, Double Negative took over the visual effects for the sequence. In order to construct a Metropolis that seemed convincing and realistic, Double Negative utilized Esri’s (Environmental Systems Research Institute) CityEngine to help procedurally deliver the city. For the destruction of the buildings, the studio rewrote its own asset system to focus towards its dynamic events. The Bullet physics software was a powerful component for the utilization of the destruction; Fire, smoke and water stimulation tools were provided by Double Negative studios which transitioned between the existing propriety volumes rendering software to rendering in Mantra for elements such as fireball Sims.

The movie was released with a budget of $225 million dollars and received almost 3 times its original budget back in the box office and premiered at the Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in New York City on June 10th 2013, which featured the attendance of the principal cast members, with a wide release on June 14th.

Marketing for the film gave a more interesting action towards the movie especially on its website which had deep space radio waves which had different messages which were translated for the You Are Not Alone speech from the film.

Critical reception was mixed from critics and the public, on Rotten Tomatoes gave it an unfair advantage by giving it 55% stating that it was a generic blockbuster movie and the same for Metacritic, the critics blamed it mostly on the reboot as it was expressing the discovery of Clark going through the characteristics on learning his abilities rather than showing the audience his abilities straight away.

Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times stated, ‘we’ve plunged into a mostly underwhelming film with underdeveloped characters and supercharged-fight scenes that drag on and offer nothing new in the way of special effects creativity’ it’s clear that he didn’t get the message as this was a retelling of the mythos rather than a traditional superhero movie.

There were some interesting reviews praising the movie in that sense such as Kofi Outlaw, Editor-in-Chief at Screenrant.com stating that “Man of Steel has more than earned its keep, and deserves to be THE iconic Superman movie for a whole new generation.”

As this was the first movie, the success of the film starts Warner Bros. plans to extend the DC Universe with other characters bringing Goyer to write a sequel for the film as well as a Justice League script, in San Diego Comic-Con on the same year, Snyder announced that the next feature would show Superman and Batman meeting for the first time in a cinematic format with Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Diane Lane and Laurence Fishburne to reprise their roles.

I did state in previous reviews that I will review this when I have the time but now it’s officially time to dive into the movie that changed DC movies for a good while and for good reason, this is Man of Steel.

The movie begins on Krypton which I have to admit is a very impressive look on Superman’s world especially when it comes to the design, granted they went with a more artificial look on the land and I have to admit, it kinda works especially with Superman’s origins... We also see Lara Lor-Van played by Ayelet Zurer along with her husband, Kryptonian Scientist Jor-El (played by Russell Crowe) as she gives birth to their first-born and Krypton’s latest natural born son... this will be explained later...

In the meantime, Jor-El is called into the council of Krypton to discuss something relating to the core of Krypton collapsing at a rapid level due to harvesting its power which the council refuses to believe only for the terrorist war criminal, General Zod (played by Michael Shannon) to interfere claiming power over the council to Jor-El’s disapproval only for Jor-El to evade captivity leading to a war between Zod’s militia and the army of Krypton which I have to admit is pretty amazing for an introduction.

Jor-El leaves the ruins of the council in finding the codex, a genetic code that was once used to be of natural Kryptonian birth; for those who don’t know majority of Kryptonian members are born synthetically apart from the main superiors such as councillors scientists, generals and others with more power in their title as for Jor-El who was born naturally as for his new born son was born natural as well, this will be included when I review BVS.

Side note, the outlook on Krypton looks incredible especially when it comes down to layers of CGI, granted I hate the use of it but when it comes to making an impossible task like making a planet like Krypton exist, it makes sense for it to be heavily used to make the appearance of the planet deceiving yet believable, kudos to the special effects team.

Jor-El manages to get the codex back to Lara before sending Kal-El into orbit before being followed by Zod only for Jor-El to place the Codex within the DNA of her new child, only Lara to reveal a world for their only hope to live on. Now here’s where the science of superman that everyone seems to ignore kicks in, most of you think that Superman’s story isn’t interesting towards how his powers generally work, especially when it comes to numerous individuals asking that if his powers work, how come they don’t work on Krypton.

Krypton is in a solar system of a Red Star before converting into a Supernova as well as for Earth as for our solar system has a younger star as the sun meaning it’s yellow which gives off more energy, there are other examples of uses of stars relating to the Superman mythos such as the Blue Star which does a lot more damage as it increases Superman’s powers rather than the Yellow Star; The Red Star on Krypton would just make Superman into an average human removing his powers instantly, this too will be shown later on in the film.

They discuss on what will happen to him only for Jor-El to state that he will be a god to us once upon arrival, only for Zod to arrive too late as Lara places the child in the rocket as the codex is fused into his DNA leading Jor-El to place the key (plot point) into the cot that Kal-El is secured too. Jor-El prepares his battle armour as Zod breaks through the doors in order to confront them... and to be honest; I think Shannon’s performance as Zod is more laughable rather than forceful.

Zod is easily thrown around by Jor-El only to be killed when Lara launches the rockets through the phantom drive leading to Zod’s arrest as well as his militia when the Army of Krypton arrives to take Zod in. Days later the surviving members of Zod’s previous attack of the Council send Zod and his allies through to the Phantom Zone for reconditioning after his crimes only for Zod to announce to Lara that he will find her child; later on that day Krypton is indeed destroyed from within when the core has finally collapsed. Despite all the reviews I’ve seen including the Nostalgia Critic’s review I believe they were wrong as it is a powerful scene as it lands a hand on how Krypton was really destroyed, you can tell that they were following the Earth One story arc from DC’s Earth One series (which I recommend).

We skip to the rocket that Kal was sent on leading towards Smallville near the Kent farm only to skip again to Kal-El/Clark Kent played by Henry Cavill (who I’m referring to as Clark at this point which will lead me to change his name later as the story progresses) as a fisherman whose nearly crushed by a falling cage, fortunately saved by one of his colleagues, his boss informs his team that there is an oil rig that is need of help which they tend to ignore.

Only for Clark to leave that order and manages to save the men inside from burning leading to another scene which does get me confused on him risking his own identity for saving a bunch of guys, like I said before on morality I believe that this is both a good and bad use of his morality as it would show he’s only there for helping them, including when they are saved by helicopter, but also for him to reveal who he really is.

Like I said previously, they are saved only for the oil rig to crush him to the ocean which reveals a flash-back to Clark discovering his abilities for the first time, mainly X-ray vision as well as super hearing and laser vision as a child, his mother Martha Kent (played by Diane Lane) is there to support him as his class mates mock him when he runs from the class into the school closet.

I have to admit this is a pretty interesting move to make because not only does it show the sympathy side of the future Superman but it shows the human side of the alter ego; Again, kudos to the writer as well as the director.

Clark does manage to wake up only in water this time, exiting the flashback only for him to literally steal some dry laundry in order to return to humanity, he walks past a school bus entering another flashback to when his superhuman strength is seen as this time he lifts a school bus of his class-mates out of the water, leading for one of the children’s parents to confront the Kents over the incident.

To be honest love I’d be more thankful rather than claiming someone to be a freak (which is inclined in her conversation) actually coming to think of it why were you confronting them to begin with? This leads to a conversation towards Clark and Jonathon which is pretty convincing on what Jonathon wants his son to do which majority of the internet seems to ignore, it’s not about showing Clark the way on how to act on what he is more on how to act on what he’s to become, again another conversation over morality, not just pleading him to let the kids drown...

It’s also another conversation over how to become more welcome to humanity over that Clark’s alien nature, which is introduced to the next scene when Jonathon shows Clark the ship he arrived on as well as the key which he took for testing only to be unrecognized by science as if it’s an alien object. You can see that it’s coming from the Earth One story because the script is exactly the same.

We skip the present as we see Clark working as a barman in a saloon only for one of the patrons to flirt on one of the bar-maids leading to an aggressive argument which causes Clark to leave only for the next scene to see the patron’s truck (semi-truck from the looks of it) to be completely destroyed. Clark (after hearing a discussion with several soldiers) leaves for Canada (I think) where the army is planning an exploration mission on an unknown object beneath the ice.

We see Reporter Lois Lane (played by Amy Adams) is following the mission with Colonel Hardy (Christopher Meloni) and Dr Emil Hamilton from DARPA (Richard Schiff) whom talks about the object leading it to be over 12 thousand years old. Later that night, Lane follows Clark (who hides as one of the workmen) into the cavern, into a large ship leading it to be one of the Kryptonian scouting ships.

Though he manages to move around the ship at ease and bypasses the security, he uses the key that was given to him at an early age and activates the ship, leading him to explore the ship, Lois on the other hand manages to make way through the ship only to get injured when a security android injures her through the stomach, Clark destroys the android and heals her injuries only to leave with the ship leaving Lois on an island not far away.

Lois does come around however, releasing her report to Perry White (Lawrence Fishburne) who disapproves her report stating that it was a hallucination; he refuses her report only for Lois to send her report to another associate known as Woodburn who releases her report willingly. Clark on the other hand meets the holographic image of his biological father whose consciousness was placed into the key before passing (like in the comics) and reveals to him the history on what he really is.

I think this is a powerful scene to the series as the original adaptations ignore this greatly on how Clark becomes Superman especially when it comes to his discovery of his homeworld. Jor-El reveals to him that they’ve used great machines to terror form planets into landscapes for their species to live in, though it came to a problem when space exploration missions were abandoned as well as overpopulation of artificial children were raising.

Which lead to the core of Krypton to become unstable leading for General Zod to intervene in attempt to safe Krypton, he also shows Clark the Genesis chamber, a chamber full of the ingrown Kryptonian babies that are still in hibernation; again another story of real morality between father and son.

This leads to the suit that Jor-El prepared for him when his conscious was built into the machine, leading for him to discuss the S on the symbol is a meaning as well as his families logo, but a meaning of Hope, which causes Kal to place the suit on as well with the radiation of the sun to give Kal the ability that no other human could posses, flight.... another scene that I love greatly.

Most people misunderstand the science in the Superman mythos, and then this film is greatly accurate towards the mythos as it tells you everything about his abilities...

Lois however is looking for Clark’s past by talking with people who knew Clark through careers or friends, leading to Martha which informs her to go to the graveyard where Jonathon’s tombstone is stored. Clark arrives behind her leading her to ambush interview him, granted this is going towards Lois’s ambitions to become a reporter but ambushing him through his family is definitely a low blow Lane...

Clark has another flashback to when Clark was leading to another conversation that the Kent’s weren’t much of a family to support Clark’s abilities; AGAIN another story with morality (seeing the difference NC?) though this is interrupted when a tornado arrives killing Jonathan when he manages to save numerous people though orders Clark to remain in order to save his son one last time from revealing his identity.

Another powerful scene, though in the present Clark reveals his story leading Lois to return to the Planet only to get suspended without pay by Perry though he has other thoughts about it when he claims on how everyone would react when someone like Clark would actually exist.

Clark returns to his home however to be greeted by his adoptive mother who is eager to meet him only to discuss what he’s been going through as well as his species; the U.S. Army however have found something else which is interesting, a large UFO hanging outside the hemisphere of Earth leading to the Lieutenant General Calvin Swanwick (Harry Lennix) to deduce that whom is controlling the ship will most likely be hostile.

However, all around the world, the power shuts off everything leading to a broadcasting signal from the UFO stating that You Are Not Alone, leading for General Zod to request that Kal-El must return to Zod, otherwise the Earth will be destroyed.

With the world scared, Lois watches the news only to discover her associate Woodburn has revealed her name as the primary source Perry to announce that he does believe her to Kal the live on Earth, though this is changed however when Lois is taken by the F.B.I. for questioning.

Clark however goes to a church to discuss with a father one whom he really is only to discuss his identity and how he needs to do the right thing only for the priest to agree with him on trusting faith and leaving trust for later, Kal places on the costume only to turn himself in to the military only to be questioned, he has an interview with Lois which is cut short only to have a discussion with Swanwick and Hamilton about his identity leading Kal to surrender to Zod.

Before Zod arrives, Clark and Lois have a brief moment together on how he would do the right thing, only for a smaller ship from Zod’s larger ship to collect Kal, it turns out to be one of Zod’s commander, Faora (Antje Traue) who accepts Kal and also Lois (which is confusing though she was more as damsel in distress caused by this action).

Kal and Lois arrive onto the ship leading to Zod’s introduction though for Kal it’s different as he falls due to the amount of pressure which is given from the ships close atmosphere towards Krypton rather than with Earth’s. Kal awakens in a vision of Smallville with Zod teaching him how he was freed from the imprisonment due to the Phantom Zone being destroyed when the link with Krypton blew up.

He also states that he creates a hyper-drive which would travel among galaxies in order to find Kal in order to help creating a new Krypton to replace the home that was once destroyed, only for Zod to reveal that the ship Kal used earlier sent of a signal to the ship that Zod was using, though through his journeys, Zod salvaged what he could of old Kryptonian colonies including a world engine which would be used for terraforming worlds.

The vision turns dark on how Jor-El hid the codex with Kal when he sent him on Earth for Krypton to be reborn again, leading for Zod to state that he will use the codex in order to create a new Krypton leaving Earth to be destroyed and the residents on it. Ending the vision, Kal remains chained in a separate section with Zod who interrogates him more stating that he will find the codex in order to create Krypton.

Lois however manages to place the key (god knows how she manages to get it in the first place) into Zod’s ship only for Jor-El to teach her how to help Kal in order to escape, though Zod has left with another ship in order to find the codex where Kal was born; Jor-El manages to help her get into an escape pod, while killing some of Zod’s followers as well as changing the atmosphere to earths, giving Kal an aid to escape.

Kal however manages to break through his chains due to the atmosphere change leading him to talk with his father for one last time, with some inspiration by his father’s words, Kal leaves the ship and manages to leave for Lois to save her from impact on landing back on Earth. He manages to save her though it comes to an issue that Zod has already arrived at the Kent’s home.

He brutally interrogates her by destroying her house as well as finding the ship that Kal was found in only for the Codex to be missing. Again this is followed with more humorous lines by Michael Shannon which leads to a full on brawl between Kal (whose now officially accepted his role as Superman) and Zod which escalates into Smallville.

Aside from the constant product placements like 7/11 and I-hop think it’s a decent fight and a pretty incredible one to express Superman’s abilities, though the same can’t be said for Zod as his armour is destroyed only for his abilities to break down on him when the atmosphere is too strong, Faora and Zod’s henchmen leads to a larger fight which includes the U.S. Military,

Though some lines given from Faora are rather misleading especially when she states that Evolution always wins? She does get her comeuppance though when Superman manages to destroy her breathing helmet though Supes has his own problem when the other Kryptonian throws a train carriage at him.

He does recover though stating the main obvious that he is on their side, Superman leaves to check on his mother though only to find the house in ruin though she is alright, though Lois comes in to state that she’s got a plan to stop them; Zod on the other hand finds a weakness to Superman as one of his scientists discovers the codex was in his DNA which leads Zod to release the World Engine and plans to kill Superman for his blood.

The U.S. military find out that the ships are separating one two remote locations, the ocean and Metropolis as it starts operating, terraforming the earth at the same time, manipulating the gravitational pull. Lois and Superman arrives with Superman’s craft stating that if they place the craft between the phantom drive of the world engine then the machines would self destruct in a black hole like matter... which I’m thinking would be extremely dangerous as it would not-only destroy the machines but also destroy the earth as well...

The Army will take the craft towards Metropolis while Superman takes on the world engine on the other side, Zod finds Superman’s ship he used earlier and managed to come across the genesis chamber leading him to take over the ship completely; Superman however is having some issues with the World Engine as it proves too tough for him when the gravitational pull is resembling Krypton’s...

Metropolis is getting completely destroyed by the other World Engine, with the U.S Military having severe issues taking it down, Zod takes the ship away from the Arctic towards Metropolis to align with the World Engine, as Superman manages to overcome the gravitational pull and faces the machine head on destroying it, ceasing the terraforming process.

Lois and Hamilton manage to get the craft ready with the Key...WAIT...wait a minute... WAIT A MINUTE... Where the bloody hell did she get the key from, the last time I saw it, it was on Zod’s Ship, come one Snyder, at least show us how she got the key, it’s not like there’s numerous amounts of them as we’ve clearly seen that there was ONE BLOODY KEY... as I was saying; they manage to get it in but a huge problem as it won’t fit in fully,.

The U.S military are attacked however when Zod returns to finish the job only for Superman to destroy the ship the Zod has taken, which Superman uses his heat vision to literally cause it to crash in Metropolis, destroying the genesis chamber in the process. Hamilton manages to fix the problem before Faora returns for revenge only to trigger the black hole leading Lois to fall out of the cargo ship falling only to Superman to save the day once again.

Zod’s Army are killed off through the Black Hole as Superman escorts Lois to safety where he confronts Zod for one last time, leading for a major problem, now that Superman has foiled his plans, Zod is willing to kill everyone in Metropolis and the entire world for revenge. This leads to a huge fight in metropolis with Zod out of his suit understanding the abilities of the younger sun, giving an equal advantage for the fight.

Again over use of destructive tones are incredible which you can see the tones from Superman Earth One, as well as some other references to the Superman Mythos, They both land in a train station where Zod finally challenges Superman where he prepares to kills several passengers which leads to a pretty humane death where he breaks Zod’s neck, killing him in the process.

This is a pretty emotional scene, especially for a Superman movie, a lot of people hate this film because of this scene and to be honest, I actually enjoy it because it connects towards the emotion of Kal-El as well as Clark Kent, as much as people say that Superman doesn’t kill anyone, how about in Superman 2 where he removes the powers of Zod and his allies and literally throws them into the frozen pits of the Fortress of Solitude killing them and the smirks about it.

In this scene you get pure blooded emotion for the hero which is something I enjoy, something that makes it more than an Alien movie, it relates to the characters as well, as much as I enjoy Christopher Reeves performance in the 70’s edition, Henry Cavill, performs it way better when it comes to showing the human side of Superman aside from just being there to save the day.

Lois arrives at the station (which raises on how she would get there which is literally miles away from where they were fighting) to comfort him in his time of need, Swanwick however manages to have a brief meeting with Superman when he destroys a droid... so much for a superhero... Superman informs him that he won’t attack the American nation as long as the government allows him.

Later Clark and Martha are walking past the graveyard speaking on how much they miss Jonathan which leads to a flashback on when Clark was playing a hero when he was a kid, which is symbolic to the man he’s become, Martha raises him a question on what he’s going to do when he’s not saving the world leading him to work for the Daily Planet being introduced to Lois Lane by Perry White.

And that was Man of Steel...

Possibly one of the best introductions to the Superman series ever made, granted I did ignore some questions that were raised by multiple viewers of this movie such as why the suit was there to begin with when it was clearly explained in the movie, there were multiple which I will leave for good reason.

A few reasons on why I prefer this movie than the 70’s version is because of a few simple reasons that I revealed earlier on, it’s more scientifically based to the character which debunks major questions that were raised before the movie was even released and raises more theories about the Man of Steel.

The acting was questionable on numerous actors mainly Michael Shannon which I won’t interrogate further which his performance in Midnight Special was more impressive, though half the time I thought it was more in a comical tone rather than a serious performance that Terrance Stamp had.

Amy Adams as Lois Lane.... now it’s a good idea of bringing her in but why on earth was she dragged into every scenario that Superman was in; I think it was more easier on bringing someone like Lana Lang into her past as she knew Clark more but her of all people? Come on Snyder, clearly you knew something was going on here.

And finally the best till last... Henry Cavill as Superman... possibly the best Superman I’ve seen for a good while, now saying that I’m probably going to get a lot of hate, but let me put on thing first, Christopher Reeves only plays Superman as a coy rather than placing emotion in his role, Cavill does however mainly the remark on when I placed when the death of Zod came forth. But does he surpass the original, most definitely I know the original will always be the best but the new one has passed it by far.

The action was pretty incredible to see especially with the realistic tones of the comic series by far, well in DC standards at least, at least it’s more realistic than Marvel as they seem to avoid major questions that science raises; though it is overused when it comes to product placements it’s still acceptable action.

The score brought the movie more enjoyment such as especially bringing an alien tone to the movie’s environment, though some parts are questionable such as when Jonathan passed away... the special effects really out done themselves this time, I seriously mean it, they literally made a fictional planet look quite alive, especially with the life-forms and technology that they’ve used, kudos.

So now for a final judgement from yours truly... This movie will be on my Hitlist for a good while, I know that I’ve been away for a good while but due to work, medical problems in my personal life as well other altercations I have to say one simple thing, that I am back and back for good, aside from the Halloween reviews I’ll be doing 1 review fortnightly and trailer talks weekly, I hope you guys enjoy this review as it took me a good while to finish it off, as well as timing restraints to finish the review as for that I apologise in advance.

I’m Amateur Fan 2.27 and you’ve just read the Shitlist review of Man of Steel...next time we’ll dive into something more....monstrous...

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