I'm saying when you look at Siegel and Shuster's influences, Superman is a really interesting combination of Moses and the Golem
I mean, when you say "here to guide us all to a better world", that's Moses' mission statement right there
and then you add the Golem's strength, indestructibility, and role as defender of the people
BRB, writing a new comic book series where Jonathan Moses climbs into his mech - the Geotic/Orbital Lightweight Electro-Mechanoid, or GOLEM - to fight his arch-nemesis, The Pharaoh.
Superman killing Zod was problematic within the context of this new continuity.
They were already killing thousands of people during their fight when they smashed through dozens of buildings so it's not like Zod threatening to eye laser those people was the first "Superman has no other choice" moment. There were plenty of other times before when Superman could have saved more lives by killing Zod. So why didn't Superman just kill Zod earlier to save thousands of lives? It's not really a pivotal character defining/shattering moment, it's more like a "it's about time" moment.
Also, Zod's plan made no sense. There was no reason for him to start the terraforming process before killing Superman. In fact, his reason for wanting to terraform earth is pretty damn flimsy. Earth's atmosphere gives Kryptonians super powers, why give that up? The whole "needing time to adapt to earth's atmosphere" thing clearly wasn't a big problem since Zod adapted in about 10 minutes.
Henry Cavill's Superman felt spot on. Calm, confident, but still prone to the occasional moment of weakness. There's a bit at the end where he's in full-on Silver Age trickster Superman, chiding a government official as gently as possible, while still making it clear that he's Superman, and he's not to be fucked with.
Really, most of the cast was great. The only exception, was Michael Shannon's Zod. Even in a Kryptonian suit of armor, he's still a weaselly, mush-mouthed thug, more at home playing a gangster, than a general.
The movie's pacing and storytelling were all over the place. Much like Snyder's other directorial efforts, it was mostly just action scene after action scene after action scene, with too little character, to make you care about what was going on.
That said, I thought it was an entertaining movie. I didn't walk out of the theater wanting my money back, as with something like Green Lantern.
Now, spoilery stuff.
Putting aside all the body count and neck-snapping stuff, which I'll get to in a moment, I think the weirdest thing is that Clark lets his dad die, because Pa Kent waves him off, to avoid blowing Clark's secret identity. And this happens while Jonathan Kent tries to rescue a dog, from a tornado.
It was a moment that really went for spectacle over decent storytelling, and felt jarring.
On the massive body count; yeah, it's kind of off-putting. I like the whole trope of people not really dying, when Superman's there, because that's his whole thing. But, it's not like this is the first time Superman's fights have had unintended fallout. His fight with Doomsday leveled a lot of real estate, and resulted in some civilian casualties. But, I'm also willing to give a Planet Hulk pass on this, and just assume that Superman was throwing people through uninhabited buildings, and calculating how to prevent deaths, even mid-throwdown.
On Superman killing Zod; in the comics, the dude slowly poisoned the Phantom Zone trio with kryptonite, which is arguably a much worse, much creepier kind of murder. Breaking Zod's neck to prevent him from slaughtering a few more people, is about as humane as putting down a rabid Old Yeller.
And more importantly, it wasn't treated as a victory. This wasn't like Bad Boys II, or Transformers: Dark of the Moon, where the hero gleefully kills the fuck out of the bad guy, pumps his fist, and leaves.
No, Superman collapses to his knees and screams in anguish, heartbroken at what he's done.
I think that, if nothing else, the movie has its heart in the right place, when it counts.
Everyone in the movie basically acts heroically. Jonathan Kent makes sure everyone gets to cover from a tornado before he dies, and leaves his superheroic son to protect his wife, rather than cower under an overpass.
Martha Kent tells Kryptonian murder-monsters to piss up a rope, when they show up in her front yard, and steadies her son in his moments of weakness.
Col. Hardy throws a weapons chest at Faora, even after she easily dismantles his troops, and more importantly, he chooses to accept Superman as a hero and friend, admitting he was wrong.
Even lecherous Steve Lombard chooses to go back and help Perry White extract Jenny Olsen from debris, rather than save his own ass.
People in the movie frequently live up to that favorite Superman maxim of mine; Do good unto others, and every man can be a Superman.
Even Zod gets a neat bit of character work, when the movie makes you aware of the fact that he was born and raised solely to be a protector of Krypton, and genuinely believed he was acting in its best interests.
Like I said, there's not enough character and story to really hold the action bits together, but I found it to be a pretty enjoyable movie, despite its flaws.
Paint that thing in green and purple, it's perfect.
One concern I have regarding future films.
They'll go the Smallville route and have every future threat, villain, and conflict be Krypton related
They leaned really heavily on the depictions of Krypton and all their tech and culture in this one, probably a bit too much.
Film and TV seem so scared to have more than one premise for their content - everything's gotta be Krypton or Krypton related, because you already bought Superman being an alien from Krypton, and anything other than that will be too confusing/scary/creative for audiences.
To that end, I'd rather Lex lean on his own tech for this - maybe toss some other villains into the mix like Parasite.
It would have also been nice if they spent some time showing Superman helping to rebuild Metropolis. It was rather jarring to go from Superman killing Zod to a comedic scene.
The part where Superman and Lois kiss in the ruins of Metropolis was pretty awkward too.
Well I just saw Man of Steel, and here's my quick thoughts:
It's not a bad movie, but it definitely relies a whole lot on spectacle over character and plot.
I love Amy Adams, but her Lois did not really get a chance to really shine. Even her sharpest lines were delivered kind of softly and almost... apologetically.
Henry Cavill was fine.
Jonathan Kent's death in All-Star was so much better than this version.
For the sheer amount of exposition in the film, they sure did a terrible job explaining things. Like, why were there dead people on the ship Clark found? Did the ship crash? Was Earth supposed to be implied to be a Kryptonian colony of some sort? Why did Zod decide to fly the ship over to the World Machine? Why did a scout ship have such big guns?
I feel like the destruction of Metropolis went on a bit long. At one point was just like, I think we've seen enough buildings collapsing here. Not to mention there was no reason given for the Kryptonians to target the city. It seemed totally random. Not to mention how they seemed in a real big hurry to terraform the planet before they got Superman under control for no clear reason.
Did anybody else notice that the World Machine resembled sort of a giant spider?
And seriously, if you can snap someone's neck, you can choke them out. I do think they handled Superman's anguish over doing it well enough, but the whole situation with the family cowering from the slowly encroaching heat vision felt really manufactured.
Henry Cavill's Superman felt spot on. Calm, confident, but still prone to the occasional moment of weakness. There's a bit at the end where he's in full-on Silver Age trickster Superman, chiding a government official as gently as possible, while still making it clear that he's Superman, and he's not to be fucked with.
Really, most of the cast was great. The only exception, was Michael Shannon's Zod. Even in a Kryptonian suit of armor, he's still a weaselly, mush-mouthed thug, more at home playing a gangster, than a general.
The movie's pacing and storytelling were all over the place. Much like Snyder's other directorial efforts, it was mostly just action scene after action scene after action scene, with too little character, to make you care about what was going on.
That said, I thought it was an entertaining movie. I didn't walk out of the theater wanting my money back, as with something like Green Lantern.
Now, spoilery stuff.
Putting aside all the body count and neck-snapping stuff, which I'll get to in a moment, I think the weirdest thing is that Clark lets his dad die, because Pa Kent waves him off, to avoid blowing Clark's secret identity. And this happens while Jonathan Kent tries to rescue a dog, from a tornado.
It was a moment that really went for spectacle over decent storytelling, and felt jarring.
On the massive body count; yeah, it's kind of off-putting. I like the whole trope of people not really dying, when Superman's there, because that's his whole thing. But, it's not like this is the first time Superman's fights have had unintended fallout. His fight with Doomsday leveled a lot of real estate, and resulted in some civilian casualties. But, I'm also willing to give a Planet Hulk pass on this, and just assume that Superman was throwing people through uninhabited buildings, and calculating how to prevent deaths, even mid-throwdown.
On Superman killing Zod; in the comics, the dude slowly poisoned the Phantom Zone trio with kryptonite, which is arguably a much worse, much creepier kind of murder. Breaking Zod's neck to prevent him from slaughtering a few more people, is about as humane as putting down a rabid Old Yeller.
And more importantly, it wasn't treated as a victory. This wasn't like Bad Boys II, or Transformers: Dark of the Moon, where the hero gleefully kills the fuck out of the bad guy, pumps his fist, and leaves.
No, Superman collapses to his knees and screams in anguish, heartbroken at what he's done.
I think that, if nothing else, the movie has its heart in the right place, when it counts.
Everyone in the movie basically acts heroically. Jonathan Kent makes sure everyone gets to cover from a tornado before he dies, and leaves his superheroic son to protect his wife, rather than cower under an overpass.
Martha Kent tells Kryptonian murder-monsters to piss up a rope, when they show up in her front yard, and steadies her son in his moments of weakness.
Col. Hardy throws a weapons chest at Faora, even after she easily dismantles his troops, and more importantly, he chooses to accept Superman as a hero and friend, admitting he was wrong.
Even lecherous Steve Lombard chooses to go back and help Perry White extract Jenny Olsen from debris, rather than save his own ass.
People in the movie frequently live up to that favorite Superman maxim of mine; Do good unto others, and every man can be a Superman.
Even Zod gets a neat bit of character work, when the movie makes you aware of the fact that he was born and raised solely to be a protector of Krypton, and genuinely believed he was acting in its best interests.
Like I said, there's not enough character and story to really hold the action bits together, but I found it to be a pretty enjoyable movie, despite its flaws.
On the ending moment:
Yes, you see him anguished over his decision, but then the movie immediately cuts to him taking out a drone and "He's kinda hot!" which felt REALLY off to me. I didn't think it gave enough importance to the enormity of that moment, and even undercut it with a joke.
Paint that thing in green and purple, it's perfect.
One concern I have regarding future films.
They'll go the Smallville route and have every future threat, villain, and conflict be Krypton related
They leaned really heavily on the depictions of Krypton and all their tech and culture in this one, probably a bit too much.
Film and TV seem so scared to have more than one premise for their content - everything's gotta be Krypton or Krypton related, because you already bought Superman being an alien from Krypton, and anything other than that will be too confusing/scary/creative for audiences.
To that end, I'd rather Lex lean on his own tech for this - maybe toss some other villains into the mix like Parasite.
You know, that's something I've been loving about the Marvel movieverse. Yeah, sure, lot of stuff ties to Asgardian cube tech.
But you got space gods, and dudes in robot suits, and a guy on super steroids, and giant green rage monsters, and totally different aliens, and it's all treated as "Yup. World got weird." instead of going for one unifying theme.
Paint that thing in green and purple, it's perfect.
One concern I have regarding future films.
They'll go the Smallville route and have every future threat, villain, and conflict be Krypton related
They leaned really heavily on the depictions of Krypton and all their tech and culture in this one, probably a bit too much.
Film and TV seem so scared to have more than one premise for their content - everything's gotta be Krypton or Krypton related, because you already bought Superman being an alien from Krypton, and anything other than that will be too confusing/scary/creative for audiences.
To that end, I'd rather Lex lean on his own tech for this - maybe toss some other villains into the mix like Parasite.
You know, that's something I've been loving about the Marvel movieverse. Yeah, sure, lot of stuff ties to Asgardian cube tech.
But you got space gods, and dudes in robot suits, and a guy on super steroids, and giant green rage monsters, and totally different aliens, and it's all treated as "Yup. World got weird." instead of going for one unifying theme.
Really feels more comic book-y.
Yeah, I've felt the same way.
IM3 spoils
I was kinda bummed that they didn't give the Mandarin his ten rings and just have him go completely nuts - alien tech was established in Avengers, IM3 could've gone that route. Reveal that some alien ship crashed in Mandarin Land 20 years ago, etc.
Comics contain so many outlandish elements and aren't afraid to have their heroes tackle all of them - even freakin' Punisher who's guns and grit guy dealt with magical swamp monsters and being a frankenstein for a while. Films and TV could stand to let their material flow from more than one single all-encompassing plot point.
I'm hoping the SHIELD series gets a chance to go crazy like that.
Well I just saw Man of Steel, and here's my quick thoughts:
It's not a bad movie, but it definitely relies a whole lot on spectacle over character and plot.
For the sheer amount of exposition in the film, they sure did a terrible job explaining things. Like, why were there dead people on the ship Clark found? Did the ship crash? Was Earth supposed to be implied to be a Kryptonian colony of some sort? Why did Zod decide to fly the ship over to the World Machine? Why did a scout ship have such big guns?
Yes, Earth was the site of one of Krypton's many outposts. When they ran out of resources, they were all basically cut off, so each outpost just withered and died off the vine.
The rest I can't answer in any way except shrug and go "Zack Snyder!" His sensibilities are great if you want a superhero fight that goes from Metropolis to outer space and back again, not that great if you want to give your exposition some room to breathe because we need time to show Jor-El ride a dragon.
Yeah, MoS is increasingly sounding like its a Netflix movie. I think I'd much rather see "This is the End" than MoS. I think the next comic book movie I'm going to see is Thor: The Dark World.
Hey @Blankzilla & @Tox, I uber-respect your opinions, so how was MoS (I haven't seen it yet)?
I haven't seen it yet.
Superman was not a comic I ever followed closely (never had/read any DC).
I actually didn't hate Returns, though. I mean, I can completely understand all criticism against it, and I can completely get the criticisms of this movie, as well.
The thing with me is that we have a cheap seats in town ($2 per ticket), so as of right now unless it's an MCU movie, there's not a great chance we're seeing it very soon. There's another theater in town that's reasonably priced (only like $6 I think), so if we do see it within the first month or two, it's usually there.
There's been quite a few movies where we've done both. Iron Man, Dark Knight, and Avengers, to name a few.
And I am firmly of the opinion that Avengers continues to be a fun, enjoyable movie on repeat viewings. We watched it recently, like the 8th or 9th time I've seen it by this point, and I still caught myself just constantly grinning and thinking, "FUCK! this movie is fun!"
ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
My initial impressions were good. Then, when I got out of the theater my brain, which had shut down in self-defense upon realizing I was about to watch a Zack Snyder film, re-engaged and it all fell to shit. My opinion on the movie is that it is a but.
No, not a butt (thought at best I'd give it a C-, leaning more towards D+), a but.
As in, virtually everything good I can say about the movie comes with a "but [negative that outweighs positive]". "The casting is great, but they have nothing to work with." "The visuals are amazing, but the film is so leached of color that, among other things, Superman's suit looks dark gray some times. And that was in 2D." "The big ending is well-acted, but they didn't do nearly enough to earn it." The movie is an offering to the gods of missed potential.
Yes, the fights dragged on too long and it became far too unbelievable for me during the metropolis scenes that Superman wasn't endangering people. During the Smallville fight I could at least pretend that Superman hadn't had any real experience with these battles yet, so he wasn't able to think ahead enough to divert the fight to another area. But by that last battle with Zod, he should've known better.
But I thought the film put him in a really tough situation where he had no other out. No more phantom zone projector, no one else that could stand a chance against Zod. Supes himself wasn't even a trained fighter, and he was barely ever holding his own against the warrior-born kryptonians from the Phantom Zone. I was actually more surprised by how quickly the neck-breaking happened when Zod had him by the ropes for the entire movie to that point.
It's something that has been bothering me in DC books lately. Yes, it's great that Batman doesn't kill and that's always been a fundamental element of Superman: he's a moral true north. But then you end up with things like Death of the Family, where a writer has the villain amass a ridiculously high death toll of nobody background citizens just to make the story stand out as an essential one for that villain (so-and-so's back and worse than ever!), and it breaks all logic within that universe for me. It makes these characters less effective to me when they allow things like that to happen. I would much rather see them placed in tough situations like this, where on extremely rare occasions they're faced with difficult choices, and the end results visibly weigh upon them.
How many big two characters are left that have no killing as part of their core character? I don't think many like to do it, but Superman, Batman and Peter Spider-Man are the only ones that stand out with it in their mission statement.
So, if I want the classical, archetypical version of Superman, I'll stick with the Donner films, which I still hold higher than this one.
But I thought this was as great a modernization of Superman as Batman Begins was for Batman. And when that came out, we were having a very similar discussion. As far as modern Superhero films go, Man of Steel is currently my favorite by a substantial margin.
It was like a better version of Superman: Earth One.
Posts
BRB, writing a new comic book series where Jonathan Moses climbs into his mech - the Geotic/Orbital Lightweight Electro-Mechanoid, or GOLEM - to fight his arch-nemesis, The Pharaoh.
Not any more she aint!
And really, she's never been a golem
she's had an origin as a being of clay, but the themes of being a Golem haven't been really included there
They were already killing thousands of people during their fight when they smashed through dozens of buildings so it's not like Zod threatening to eye laser those people was the first "Superman has no other choice" moment. There were plenty of other times before when Superman could have saved more lives by killing Zod. So why didn't Superman just kill Zod earlier to save thousands of lives? It's not really a pivotal character defining/shattering moment, it's more like a "it's about time" moment.
Also, Zod's plan made no sense. There was no reason for him to start the terraforming process before killing Superman. In fact, his reason for wanting to terraform earth is pretty damn flimsy. Earth's atmosphere gives Kryptonians super powers, why give that up? The whole "needing time to adapt to earth's atmosphere" thing clearly wasn't a big problem since Zod adapted in about 10 minutes.
http://comicbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/man-of-steel-print-zod-explosion.jpg
Paint that thing in green and purple, it's perfect.
Henry Cavill's Superman felt spot on. Calm, confident, but still prone to the occasional moment of weakness. There's a bit at the end where he's in full-on Silver Age trickster Superman, chiding a government official as gently as possible, while still making it clear that he's Superman, and he's not to be fucked with.
Really, most of the cast was great. The only exception, was Michael Shannon's Zod. Even in a Kryptonian suit of armor, he's still a weaselly, mush-mouthed thug, more at home playing a gangster, than a general.
The movie's pacing and storytelling were all over the place. Much like Snyder's other directorial efforts, it was mostly just action scene after action scene after action scene, with too little character, to make you care about what was going on.
That said, I thought it was an entertaining movie. I didn't walk out of the theater wanting my money back, as with something like Green Lantern.
Now, spoilery stuff.
It was a moment that really went for spectacle over decent storytelling, and felt jarring.
On the massive body count; yeah, it's kind of off-putting. I like the whole trope of people not really dying, when Superman's there, because that's his whole thing. But, it's not like this is the first time Superman's fights have had unintended fallout. His fight with Doomsday leveled a lot of real estate, and resulted in some civilian casualties. But, I'm also willing to give a Planet Hulk pass on this, and just assume that Superman was throwing people through uninhabited buildings, and calculating how to prevent deaths, even mid-throwdown.
On Superman killing Zod; in the comics, the dude slowly poisoned the Phantom Zone trio with kryptonite, which is arguably a much worse, much creepier kind of murder. Breaking Zod's neck to prevent him from slaughtering a few more people, is about as humane as putting down a rabid Old Yeller.
And more importantly, it wasn't treated as a victory. This wasn't like Bad Boys II, or Transformers: Dark of the Moon, where the hero gleefully kills the fuck out of the bad guy, pumps his fist, and leaves.
No, Superman collapses to his knees and screams in anguish, heartbroken at what he's done.
I think that, if nothing else, the movie has its heart in the right place, when it counts.
Everyone in the movie basically acts heroically. Jonathan Kent makes sure everyone gets to cover from a tornado before he dies, and leaves his superheroic son to protect his wife, rather than cower under an overpass.
Martha Kent tells Kryptonian murder-monsters to piss up a rope, when they show up in her front yard, and steadies her son in his moments of weakness.
Col. Hardy throws a weapons chest at Faora, even after she easily dismantles his troops, and more importantly, he chooses to accept Superman as a hero and friend, admitting he was wrong.
Even lecherous Steve Lombard chooses to go back and help Perry White extract Jenny Olsen from debris, rather than save his own ass.
People in the movie frequently live up to that favorite Superman maxim of mine; Do good unto others, and every man can be a Superman.
Even Zod gets a neat bit of character work, when the movie makes you aware of the fact that he was born and raised solely to be a protector of Krypton, and genuinely believed he was acting in its best interests.
Like I said, there's not enough character and story to really hold the action bits together, but I found it to be a pretty enjoyable movie, despite its flaws.
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One concern I have regarding future films.
They'll go the Smallville route and have every future threat, villain, and conflict be Krypton related
They leaned really heavily on the depictions of Krypton and all their tech and culture in this one, probably a bit too much.
Film and TV seem so scared to have more than one premise for their content - everything's gotta be Krypton or Krypton related, because you already bought Superman being an alien from Krypton, and anything other than that will be too confusing/scary/creative for audiences.
To that end, I'd rather Lex lean on his own tech for this - maybe toss some other villains into the mix like Parasite.
The part where Superman and Lois kiss in the ruins of Metropolis was pretty awkward too.
It's not a bad movie, but it definitely relies a whole lot on spectacle over character and plot.
Henry Cavill was fine.
Jonathan Kent's death in All-Star was so much better than this version.
For the sheer amount of exposition in the film, they sure did a terrible job explaining things. Like, why were there dead people on the ship Clark found? Did the ship crash? Was Earth supposed to be implied to be a Kryptonian colony of some sort? Why did Zod decide to fly the ship over to the World Machine? Why did a scout ship have such big guns?
I feel like the destruction of Metropolis went on a bit long. At one point was just like, I think we've seen enough buildings collapsing here. Not to mention there was no reason given for the Kryptonians to target the city. It seemed totally random. Not to mention how they seemed in a real big hurry to terraform the planet before they got Superman under control for no clear reason.
Did anybody else notice that the World Machine resembled sort of a giant spider?
And seriously, if you can snap someone's neck, you can choke them out. I do think they handled Superman's anguish over doing it well enough, but the whole situation with the family cowering from the slowly encroaching heat vision felt really manufactured.
On the ending moment:
Steam
You know, that's something I've been loving about the Marvel movieverse. Yeah, sure, lot of stuff ties to Asgardian cube tech.
But you got space gods, and dudes in robot suits, and a guy on super steroids, and giant green rage monsters, and totally different aliens, and it's all treated as "Yup. World got weird." instead of going for one unifying theme.
Really feels more comic book-y.
Why I fear the ocean.
Yeah, I've felt the same way.
IM3 spoils
Comics contain so many outlandish elements and aren't afraid to have their heroes tackle all of them - even freakin' Punisher who's guns and grit guy dealt with magical swamp monsters and being a frankenstein for a while. Films and TV could stand to let their material flow from more than one single all-encompassing plot point.
I'm hoping the SHIELD series gets a chance to go crazy like that.
The rest I can't answer in any way except shrug and go "Zack Snyder!" His sensibilities are great if you want a superhero fight that goes from Metropolis to outer space and back again, not that great if you want to give your exposition some room to breathe because we need time to show Jor-El ride a dragon.
Presumably the problem had to do with
It was probably
It'll all come back to ancient Krypton problems, I'm betting.
A very large dog aint even that crazy!
Diablo 3 - ArtfulDodger#1572
Minecraft - ArtfulDodger42
I just don't uber-love you...
Sure.
WHAT!?! OH NO!!!!!!!!!!
I haven't seen it yet.
Superman was not a comic I ever followed closely (never had/read any DC).
I actually didn't hate Returns, though. I mean, I can completely understand all criticism against it, and I can completely get the criticisms of this movie, as well.
That said, I anticipate enjoying it fairly well.
I cherish your opinions.
I'm broke, what can I say.
I actually didn't know it was out yet. It's on our list right after Now You See Me.
I'll let you know when I see it
There's been quite a few movies where we've done both. Iron Man, Dark Knight, and Avengers, to name a few.
And I am firmly of the opinion that Avengers continues to be a fun, enjoyable movie on repeat viewings. We watched it recently, like the 8th or 9th time I've seen it by this point, and I still caught myself just constantly grinning and thinking, "FUCK! this movie is fun!"
No, not a butt (thought at best I'd give it a C-, leaning more towards D+), a but.
As in, virtually everything good I can say about the movie comes with a "but [negative that outweighs positive]". "The casting is great, but they have nothing to work with." "The visuals are amazing, but the film is so leached of color that, among other things, Superman's suit looks dark gray some times. And that was in 2D." "The big ending is well-acted, but they didn't do nearly enough to earn it." The movie is an offering to the gods of missed potential.
But I thought the film put him in a really tough situation where he had no other out. No more phantom zone projector, no one else that could stand a chance against Zod. Supes himself wasn't even a trained fighter, and he was barely ever holding his own against the warrior-born kryptonians from the Phantom Zone. I was actually more surprised by how quickly the neck-breaking happened when Zod had him by the ropes for the entire movie to that point.
It's something that has been bothering me in DC books lately. Yes, it's great that Batman doesn't kill and that's always been a fundamental element of Superman: he's a moral true north. But then you end up with things like Death of the Family, where a writer has the villain amass a ridiculously high death toll of nobody background citizens just to make the story stand out as an essential one for that villain (so-and-so's back and worse than ever!), and it breaks all logic within that universe for me. It makes these characters less effective to me when they allow things like that to happen. I would much rather see them placed in tough situations like this, where on extremely rare occasions they're faced with difficult choices, and the end results visibly weigh upon them.
How many big two characters are left that have no killing as part of their core character? I don't think many like to do it, but Superman, Batman and Peter Spider-Man are the only ones that stand out with it in their mission statement.
So, if I want the classical, archetypical version of Superman, I'll stick with the Donner films, which I still hold higher than this one.
But I thought this was as great a modernization of Superman as Batman Begins was for Batman. And when that came out, we were having a very similar discussion. As far as modern Superhero films go, Man of Steel is currently my favorite by a substantial margin.
It was like a better version of Superman: Earth One.