Originally posted by LabRat:
His general view is that Superman was written as too powerful; that he can't be seen as very heroic because he's not really risking himself in most situations.
I'm sorry, Rat, but that is just rubbish. It's a cop-out used by bad writers as an excuse not to have to do any work. It's just like
Moonlighting syndrome -- romance stops when the characters get together/get married/make love/whatever -- and it's drivel. This is
SUPERman we're talking about, so make him super! It means you have to use your imagination, just as you do to have romance with a couple who have been together for a long time (or even <shock! horror!> got married), but that's what a writer is supposed to
do, and if s/he can't cope with the concept of Superman, then s/he had better stick to mud-grubbing and let those who can soar in the sky.
We've seen what happens when Superman is downgraded to Slightly-Above-Average-Man; that's what happened in the animated series, where "Supes" spent something like half of each episode being kicked around by the lamest of villains -- and then he'd go and save Earth from a comet the size of Nightfall. To quote Clark: "Give me a break!" L&C was bad enough that way, but STAS was just plain ridiculous.
As for the accusation of the Big S not being heroic enough, that falls down on (at least) two counts: first, having him risking himself is not the sole measure of heroism, and even if it was, it is possible to come up with ways of having that happen -- they just require more imagination than "The bad guy has a gun"; and secondly, it's easy enough to come up with threats that don't impact on Superman directly, but do threaten him in other ways -- his family and friends, his self-esteem, his motivation, even his identity. The drama is still there, but it's true
drama rather than a physical threat. L&C did this a number of times, and probably the best example of it in Superman media of all types is
Miracle Monday by the great Elliot S! Maggin. Don't try to tell me that a man who rationally and deliberately vows to spend his entire life fighting an agent of Hell who has destroyed his Clark Kent identity and intends to destroy the world is not heroic. But then, Maggin is a Superman writer with few peers, not someone looking for an easy ride and disparaging anything that might actually require him to use his imagination.
Batman... well, I like the idea of the character and I have read and enjoyed many Bat-stories over the years, and even more featuring Batman and Superman as the World's Finest Team -- but I don't like the character as he is written these days. Oberunterfuhrer O'Neil, Frank Miller, Brubaker and all their devotees have a lot to answer for, for turning the obsessed but still human Batman into the modern Psycho-Bat.
In fact, Psycho-Bat is now a lot like Spider-Man -- a character specifically designed to do two things: beat up the bad guys, and
suffer. The pair of them are an angst-fan's delight; neither of them are ever allowed to be happy for more than a page-and-a-half at a time, and even that's pushing it. I really cannot understand why people enjoy reading that stuff, but they seem to, Finagle only knows why.
It boils down to this: Superman (when properly written, a caveat that must always be made) is a symbol of light, of hope and of aspiration; he is the Man of Tomorrow, someone that his creators envisaged as what they (and all the people they wanted to appeal to) would like to be, someone that Humanity ought to aspire to becoming like -- and we'd be so much better off if we did. Batman is a figure of fear, of darkness and of vengeance, who is nonetheless "heroic" in that he works for the safety and well-being of his fellows by dealing with threats from criminals. He is a vigilante, working from the shadows, needing to terrify to do his "job;" fear is an inherent part of his very existence.
Now, I have always thought that the differences between these two characters, icons of the light and the dark, are what makes them work so well as a team, but I'm afraid that, if it comes to a choice, I have to go with the light. Superman gets my vote.
As for Spidey -- well, I'm sorry, Parker-fans, but Pete is basically a superhuman
pinata.
Phil, whose favorite "superhero" (because he's not) is Orion of the New Gods
