Why we need Superman
Dec. 29th, 2007 10:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ursangnomeSo, as noted before, Ghost Rider was awful. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer wasn't bad, but it sure wasn't gripping. Superman Returns was a bit slow, but better, and it made me think a bit.
Lex Luthor is sitting on his newly created island, waiting for it to grow. His new land is made with kryptonite laced through the fiber of its being - it is a land that can bear no Superman. Such beings are not allowed. And when one shows up, the results are predictable. His is laughed at, beaten, dragged through the mud, and eventually stabbed with a chunk of his very home, dumped into the cold remorseless ocean and left to die.
The problem with the scene is that it is so... plausible. Luthor's land is so much like our world. Damned stupid naked monkeys, we cannot stand to have something good in our presence, but we have to tear it down, drag it through the mud, wound it, and hope it dies.
I am not Superman. I am not a man of steel. Much as I might like to, I cannot lift a city bus, and I cannot fly - it was leaden feet on the sidewalk all the way to the video store and back to return the movie. I can't swing from a web or crawl up walls. I don't use a vast family fortune to suport my habit of patrolling my city at night. I don't have an indestructible shield, or repulsor-driven battle armor.
I'm just a guy. I go to work each day, to earn a little bit of money to have a home, and a couple of pleasant hours with my wife. I'm not faster than the cross-town bus, much less a speeding bullet. I'm powerful enough to get a heavy box of books out of the way, if I remember to lift with my legs and not my back. Saving the world from crisis is pretty much out of my reach - I have enough problems making folks listen to me when lives aren't at stake.
I wish I were any of those great things. But I'm not. Neither is anyone else. Not my neighbor, or those folks all vying for election in November. And that's why we need Superman. Because we have no one great hero. We can't - our world doesn't allow it. Not all in once place, at one time. I'll be damned, though, if I'm going to join Lex Luthor. The Son of Krypton has to be hidden from the bones of the world, lest he be born down and rent asunder. And so I rent the movie, and for a little while he's safe from the kryptonite, and can live to fight Lex Luthor another day. Maybe when someone's car is busted, and they need a cell phone, or when I'm at the ballot box, or when I've got a choice to buy compact fluorescent light bulbs, or something.
Which is probably for the best, because I wouldn't look good in blue and red tights anyway.
Lex Luthor is sitting on his newly created island, waiting for it to grow. His new land is made with kryptonite laced through the fiber of its being - it is a land that can bear no Superman. Such beings are not allowed. And when one shows up, the results are predictable. His is laughed at, beaten, dragged through the mud, and eventually stabbed with a chunk of his very home, dumped into the cold remorseless ocean and left to die.
The problem with the scene is that it is so... plausible. Luthor's land is so much like our world. Damned stupid naked monkeys, we cannot stand to have something good in our presence, but we have to tear it down, drag it through the mud, wound it, and hope it dies.
I am not Superman. I am not a man of steel. Much as I might like to, I cannot lift a city bus, and I cannot fly - it was leaden feet on the sidewalk all the way to the video store and back to return the movie. I can't swing from a web or crawl up walls. I don't use a vast family fortune to suport my habit of patrolling my city at night. I don't have an indestructible shield, or repulsor-driven battle armor.
I'm just a guy. I go to work each day, to earn a little bit of money to have a home, and a couple of pleasant hours with my wife. I'm not faster than the cross-town bus, much less a speeding bullet. I'm powerful enough to get a heavy box of books out of the way, if I remember to lift with my legs and not my back. Saving the world from crisis is pretty much out of my reach - I have enough problems making folks listen to me when lives aren't at stake.
I wish I were any of those great things. But I'm not. Neither is anyone else. Not my neighbor, or those folks all vying for election in November. And that's why we need Superman. Because we have no one great hero. We can't - our world doesn't allow it. Not all in once place, at one time. I'll be damned, though, if I'm going to join Lex Luthor. The Son of Krypton has to be hidden from the bones of the world, lest he be born down and rent asunder. And so I rent the movie, and for a little while he's safe from the kryptonite, and can live to fight Lex Luthor another day. Maybe when someone's car is busted, and they need a cell phone, or when I'm at the ballot box, or when I've got a choice to buy compact fluorescent light bulbs, or something.
Which is probably for the best, because I wouldn't look good in blue and red tights anyway.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-30 01:35 pm (UTC)