Special: The Worst Ever Superman Moments, and the Superman: Underrated List
THE WORST SUPERMAN MOMENTS OF ALL-TIME:
5.) Electro-Superman - Following the runaway sales success of The Death of Superman, DC in the 90's kept looking for outrageous, publicity-grabbing storylines to put Superman through. While some of the event-driven stories were fun, others were just godawful. Take for example the time when DC, to much fanfare, CHANGED SUPERMAN'S COSTUME from the classic suit to an Image Comics-style electric blue leotard. Superman's powers were changed as well - he now had no powers as Clark Kent, but could "turn on" his Superman powers - where, as the blue-skinned Superman, he could , wait for it .. manipulate the electro-magnetic field. Aside from a few good self-contained stories and one great issue of Grant-Morrison penned JLA, this whole ill-conceived concept was an electric-blue bomb.
4.) Supergirl: The Movie - After the success of the Donner Superman movies came this bomb - starring Helen Slater as the Girl of Steel. Lacking any of the quality of the first two Superman movies, Supergirl went down in history as a big-screen bomb that is now something of a B-movie cult classic, a high-profile low-point in Superman's big-screen legacy.
3.) The Superman Movies that Almost-Were: Nicolas Cage As Superman?!?! - Whatever reservations fans may have about Superman Returns, these fears are nothing compared to the sheer horror that might have been had Tim Burton's odd vision, or later, those of other Warner Bros. producers and directors of a possible Superman movie, ever come to light. There were many almosts in the storied history of preproduction on this latest Superman movie, but none, even McG and Brett Ratner as possible directors, were as terrifying as the prospect of Nicolas Cage as Superman, a gay Jimmy Olsen, a see-through, translucent Super-suit, a Kryptonian Lex Luthor, or any of the other misguided attempts at modernizing an icon. Luckily we were spared these abominations, but the ten year period in which fans could do nothing but cringe at each new news bit about the upcoming Superman movie was a low point in and of itself.
2.) The Milking of Doomsday: Like I said in my Greatest Superman Stories Ever post, the Death of Superman, in my mind, was a classic tale. And even its followup, Hunter / Prey, was pretty cool in its own right. But then what happened - Doomsday, the most effective villain introduced into the Superman mythos in years - became a joke. Every other month after the Death, Doomsday seemed to retuen, each time less effective and more of a joke than before. In countless stories - the Doomsday Wars, Day of Doom, Our World's at War, The Last Laugh ... every time you turned around Doomsday was back ad infinitum ... and each time fewer people actually cared. Kind of sad, really.
1.) Superman IV: The Quest For Peace: While not QUITE on the level of the Joel Schumaker Batman films in sheer craptitude, Superman IV was close. Vindicated to a degree only by Christopher Reeve's still-iconic portrayal of Supes, this movie nonetheless remained a campy franchise-killer, pitting Superman against, wait for it ... Nuclear Man, in what amounted to a heavy-handed and just plain bad anti-nuke message-movie. After this movie, it would be two decades before the Superman franchise could return to the screen. And it truly takes somethin' awful to kill the Man of Steel.
The SUPERMAN -- UNDERRATED LIST:
5.) Justice League Unlimited - Season 2: Maybe the overall coolest TV adaptation of Superman ever, the second season of Cartoon Network's JLU series showed a Superman who kicked so much ass that he was clearly the top dawg even when in the midst of a literal batallion of hundereds of fellow heroes. This season saw Superman duke it out with Captain Marvel, fight the U.S. government, and even driven to madness in a sweet adaptation of Alan Moore's "For the Man Who Has Everything."
4.) The Kents: Superman in a Western ...? Well, not exactly. But in this 12-part epic written by John Ostrander, we follow the lineage of the Kent family as they live through the Civil War, the wild West, and the turn of the century. Structured as a series of letters written by Jonathan Kent to Clark, this is a gripping, dense, and yes, even educational look at the American West, with a slight nod to the Superman mythos and the DC Universe at large. Mixing historical figures like Buffallo Bill with DC Western characters like Jonah Hex, the Kents is a great read that tells us something about the West, the Kents, and Superman himself.
3.) Superman: The Animated Series - Season 2: Superman vs. Darkseid, an alternate reality where Supes is an evil dicator, fun, action, great voice acting? Yep, Season 2 of Dini and Timm's spinoff of Batman: The Animated Series was huge improvement over Season 1, and contained some of the best Superman stories ever put to screen.
2.) Superman fan films - Grayson and World's Finest: Go to YouTube.com, and look up Grayson and World's Finest, respectively -- two Superman fan film trailers that will make any fanboy salivate with the possibilities that these brief trailers put forth. Imagine a world where Robin seeks to avenge Batman's murder, and ocmes face to face with a government-agent hellbent on concealing the truth - an agent by the name of Superman! Imagine a Batman-Superman movie. Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Lex Luthor, The Joker, Two Face, Catwoman, Lois Lane ... man, this trailer wil lget your adrenaline pumping. These are only trailers for fake movies, but the tantalizing promise of the ultimate fan-friendly Superman films makes them must-sees for any fans of superman.
1.) Karl Kessel and Tom Grummett on SUPERBOY: Right now, nobody by the name of Superboy lives in the DC Universe, or in any other universe, for that matter. Lawsuits by the estates of Siegal and Shuster are currently preventing DC or WB from using the name or likeness of Superboy. But back in the 90's and early 00's, the new version of Superboy - a teenaged clone of Superman introduced during the Death of Superman storyline, had his own series that was an awesome mix of humor, action, and imagination. Writer Karl Kessell made no secret of his love for all things Jack Kirby-created, and every issue of Superboy deliberately channelled the infectiously whimsical and imaginative spirit of Kirby with a modern twist. Superboy was surrounded by Kirby-created characters like Guardian and the Newsboy Legion, Project Cadmus and the Hairies, Dubbilex, Dabney Donovan, Darkseid, and the Zoomway. New characters like Tana Moon, Roxy, Knockout, and a great new villain in Black Zero won the series a cult following. And Tom Grummet's ultra-smooth, always consistent, Disney-like art made the series pop off the page like a classic cartoon series come to life. The series' high point was probably the multi-part Hyper-Crisis story, where Superboy breached the dimensional barrier and went on a twisting adventure though hypertime. Superboy, or Kon-El as Kessel eventually named him, became a fan-favorite character thanks to this great series (he even had his oen brief spinoff, Superboy and the Ravers) , which made fans all the more saddened by his recent death in the Infinite Crisis series. But while SUPERBOY never achieved huge sales, it was an awesomely-illustrated, imaginatively written, and highly underrated series.
5.) Electro-Superman - Following the runaway sales success of The Death of Superman, DC in the 90's kept looking for outrageous, publicity-grabbing storylines to put Superman through. While some of the event-driven stories were fun, others were just godawful. Take for example the time when DC, to much fanfare, CHANGED SUPERMAN'S COSTUME from the classic suit to an Image Comics-style electric blue leotard. Superman's powers were changed as well - he now had no powers as Clark Kent, but could "turn on" his Superman powers - where, as the blue-skinned Superman, he could , wait for it .. manipulate the electro-magnetic field. Aside from a few good self-contained stories and one great issue of Grant-Morrison penned JLA, this whole ill-conceived concept was an electric-blue bomb.
4.) Supergirl: The Movie - After the success of the Donner Superman movies came this bomb - starring Helen Slater as the Girl of Steel. Lacking any of the quality of the first two Superman movies, Supergirl went down in history as a big-screen bomb that is now something of a B-movie cult classic, a high-profile low-point in Superman's big-screen legacy.
3.) The Superman Movies that Almost-Were: Nicolas Cage As Superman?!?! - Whatever reservations fans may have about Superman Returns, these fears are nothing compared to the sheer horror that might have been had Tim Burton's odd vision, or later, those of other Warner Bros. producers and directors of a possible Superman movie, ever come to light. There were many almosts in the storied history of preproduction on this latest Superman movie, but none, even McG and Brett Ratner as possible directors, were as terrifying as the prospect of Nicolas Cage as Superman, a gay Jimmy Olsen, a see-through, translucent Super-suit, a Kryptonian Lex Luthor, or any of the other misguided attempts at modernizing an icon. Luckily we were spared these abominations, but the ten year period in which fans could do nothing but cringe at each new news bit about the upcoming Superman movie was a low point in and of itself.
2.) The Milking of Doomsday: Like I said in my Greatest Superman Stories Ever post, the Death of Superman, in my mind, was a classic tale. And even its followup, Hunter / Prey, was pretty cool in its own right. But then what happened - Doomsday, the most effective villain introduced into the Superman mythos in years - became a joke. Every other month after the Death, Doomsday seemed to retuen, each time less effective and more of a joke than before. In countless stories - the Doomsday Wars, Day of Doom, Our World's at War, The Last Laugh ... every time you turned around Doomsday was back ad infinitum ... and each time fewer people actually cared. Kind of sad, really.
1.) Superman IV: The Quest For Peace: While not QUITE on the level of the Joel Schumaker Batman films in sheer craptitude, Superman IV was close. Vindicated to a degree only by Christopher Reeve's still-iconic portrayal of Supes, this movie nonetheless remained a campy franchise-killer, pitting Superman against, wait for it ... Nuclear Man, in what amounted to a heavy-handed and just plain bad anti-nuke message-movie. After this movie, it would be two decades before the Superman franchise could return to the screen. And it truly takes somethin' awful to kill the Man of Steel.
The SUPERMAN -- UNDERRATED LIST:
5.) Justice League Unlimited - Season 2: Maybe the overall coolest TV adaptation of Superman ever, the second season of Cartoon Network's JLU series showed a Superman who kicked so much ass that he was clearly the top dawg even when in the midst of a literal batallion of hundereds of fellow heroes. This season saw Superman duke it out with Captain Marvel, fight the U.S. government, and even driven to madness in a sweet adaptation of Alan Moore's "For the Man Who Has Everything."
4.) The Kents: Superman in a Western ...? Well, not exactly. But in this 12-part epic written by John Ostrander, we follow the lineage of the Kent family as they live through the Civil War, the wild West, and the turn of the century. Structured as a series of letters written by Jonathan Kent to Clark, this is a gripping, dense, and yes, even educational look at the American West, with a slight nod to the Superman mythos and the DC Universe at large. Mixing historical figures like Buffallo Bill with DC Western characters like Jonah Hex, the Kents is a great read that tells us something about the West, the Kents, and Superman himself.
3.) Superman: The Animated Series - Season 2: Superman vs. Darkseid, an alternate reality where Supes is an evil dicator, fun, action, great voice acting? Yep, Season 2 of Dini and Timm's spinoff of Batman: The Animated Series was huge improvement over Season 1, and contained some of the best Superman stories ever put to screen.
2.) Superman fan films - Grayson and World's Finest: Go to YouTube.com, and look up Grayson and World's Finest, respectively -- two Superman fan film trailers that will make any fanboy salivate with the possibilities that these brief trailers put forth. Imagine a world where Robin seeks to avenge Batman's murder, and ocmes face to face with a government-agent hellbent on concealing the truth - an agent by the name of Superman! Imagine a Batman-Superman movie. Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Lex Luthor, The Joker, Two Face, Catwoman, Lois Lane ... man, this trailer wil lget your adrenaline pumping. These are only trailers for fake movies, but the tantalizing promise of the ultimate fan-friendly Superman films makes them must-sees for any fans of superman.
1.) Karl Kessel and Tom Grummett on SUPERBOY: Right now, nobody by the name of Superboy lives in the DC Universe, or in any other universe, for that matter. Lawsuits by the estates of Siegal and Shuster are currently preventing DC or WB from using the name or likeness of Superboy. But back in the 90's and early 00's, the new version of Superboy - a teenaged clone of Superman introduced during the Death of Superman storyline, had his own series that was an awesome mix of humor, action, and imagination. Writer Karl Kessell made no secret of his love for all things Jack Kirby-created, and every issue of Superboy deliberately channelled the infectiously whimsical and imaginative spirit of Kirby with a modern twist. Superboy was surrounded by Kirby-created characters like Guardian and the Newsboy Legion, Project Cadmus and the Hairies, Dubbilex, Dabney Donovan, Darkseid, and the Zoomway. New characters like Tana Moon, Roxy, Knockout, and a great new villain in Black Zero won the series a cult following. And Tom Grummet's ultra-smooth, always consistent, Disney-like art made the series pop off the page like a classic cartoon series come to life. The series' high point was probably the multi-part Hyper-Crisis story, where Superboy breached the dimensional barrier and went on a twisting adventure though hypertime. Superboy, or Kon-El as Kessel eventually named him, became a fan-favorite character thanks to this great series (he even had his oen brief spinoff, Superboy and the Ravers) , which made fans all the more saddened by his recent death in the Infinite Crisis series. But while SUPERBOY never achieved huge sales, it was an awesomely-illustrated, imaginatively written, and highly underrated series.
posted by Danny B at 12:06 AM
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