Man of Steel | A Half-Hearted Defence

Alright, it's been long enough. I think we can discuss this without upsetting anybody who planned on seeing the new Superman movie. As an added precaution, *Spoiler-Free* nerd beef with Man of Steel first:

In a flashback, little Clark wore a red towel like a cape and ran around with a dog. Without Superman in this universe since 1938, WHO THE HELL WAS HE PLAYING? Captain Marvel? A fictional superhero? Is this Watchmen, and superheroes were never popular comic tropes replaced by pirates? I know Superman wasn't the first superhero. Batman alone predated his publication by a full year. But if the child-wearing-a-cape-superhero trope every existed, it existed because of Superman. End of story.


Now: *SPOILERY BITS*

Squinting because he's looking into a Lens Flare.

Superman gets his powers from a combination of Earth's yellow sun and gravity, and–more oddly–its atmosphere.

Apparently the yellow light powers him up a bit, but it's the gravity that makes him proportionately stronger and faster: Krypton is far more massive than Earth, so despite being the same approximate size as humans, Kryptonians are more rugged, denser, more resilient creatures. Fine.

Flight is also apparently possible, I imagine along the same mechanics as a mastery of one's bioelectrical field in conjunction with stated weaker gravity. Fine.

But the atmosphere is somehow important?

As a baby, Clark apparently had trouble breathing. But he adapted and is fine now. Bring him back into a Kryptonian environment and he hypoventilates, vomits blood, and then passes out. Not good. Cellular breakdown from toxins in the atmosphere, I guess. Alright, plausible. Same thing happens to Zod/other Kryptonians on Earth. Okay, at least that's internally consistent. Zod even adapts quicker than Kal-El, and even makes a point to note that as a bred soldier, he'd be able to. Thanks for the exposition, I agree.

But then once Supes is adapted enough to be conscious and not blood-spitting on the alien spacecraft, he still has no powers. None. No resiliency.

What? So that yellow sunlight is basically working on his cells, which are the least efficient solar batteries ever. They store now energy. His mitochondria must not exist, replaced by some alien organelle. By this logic, Superman is powerless without direct sunlight. He's a plant. And a lousy one at that. He should go into a coma every night. Or what if Kyrptonians simply have extra mitochondria that work only in the presence of direct solar stimulation? At least then he could move, but he'd still be powerless at night, just like his (Kevin-Conroy voiced!) Venture Brothers parody.


Oh yeah, and Superman has no issue with bystander casualties. Don't harp about that or killing Zod. He had to to save innocents, after so many were killed already. Superman used to kill recklessly back in the day. This horrible invasion, as the producers rightly said, explain easily why from now on Superman would refuse to kill and work tirelessly to save every single life.




Short version:

Man of Steel is a poor rendition of Superman, and the pacing makes it a pretty crumby origin story, actually.

However it's a fun as hell super-brawler, and that's all anyone should ever expect from Zack Snyder for any reason.

Also, Jor-El and Zod pretty much acknowledge that the surpersuit is the Kryptonian equivalent of longjohns. Everybody has them under normal clothes and even armor. So even without the red underpants, Supes is still sporting his jockeys on the outside.

The Effects of Inter-Species Reproduction on the Well-Being of Lois Lane

Hold tight, sweetie, or all Mommy's internal organs will fall out
after you ripped her open by poking her belly button.

I have, for years, heard the argument that Lois Lane and Superman could never reproduce due to … incompatibilities in their biologies. Mallrats had the most terse remark:

If Lois gets a tan the kid could kick right through her stomach! Only someone like Wonder Woman has a strong enough uterus to carry his kid. The only way he could bang regular chicks is with a kryptonite condom, but that would kill him."

As much as I love everything Kevin Smith touched prior to and including 2001, it's an argument I never bought, and have only been irked further after reading that it was included in a truly awful script to come to light of late, that may have been an actual working draft for the Tim Burton "Superman Lives" movie starring Nicholas Cage, after Smith himself was fired for refusing to include heinously idiotic shit in his draft (which I also have).

Now, thankfully, Superman Returns did us all a favor and just showed a living, mostly healthy if a little asthmatic sire of Supes by way of the Lane-gina,  even if it did little to reinvigorate the franchise. If nothing else, it showed three important things: Lex Luthor being truly evil, Lois being borderline incompetent when it comes to avoiding getting murdered, and the fact that Kal-El and L.L. went and did it Krypto-style in the Fortress of Solitude one lonely evening.

Here's the rub: that kid is accurate.

Superman's powers come from a highly evolved biology, but nearly every power can be brought back to two distinct features of Kryptonian physiology: manipulation of one's own magnetic field, and an incredibly dense cellular structure.

Now, the latter would seem to argue that even a half-breed Kryptonian baby could easily burst accidentally forth from the abdomen of a simple Earth woman, if not for two facts:

1. The instances where Superman gets his ass handed to him any time he becomes depowered. And

2. That Superman himself gives his weight at about 220lbs.

Were density the reason for Superman's great strength, he would be incredibly massive for his size, or otherwise hollow and made of diamond. Since we know his biology to be compatible with a human's enough to interbreed (arguably meaning they are not really different species, assuming the child itself is fertile), that is not the case. Also, this should be fairly obvious in general. Moreover, density cannot be affected temporarily by radiation.

Now manipulation of his own EM field, that explains most of Superman's powers, ranging from internal and external force fields (or 'structural integrity field' if you prefer), levitation, heat and X-ray visions, selective telescopic and microscopic–even subatomic–vision, super hearing, all of those are resultant from mastery over one's production and absorption of radiant energy. In theory, Superman could even, if perfectly controlled, convert his mass directly into pure energy, decreasing that mass and allowing himself to not only fly, but achieve the speed of light, though not surpass it.

And all of this powered by solar energy.

Any child with a similar biology, conceived internally at least, would maintain typical human-Kryptonian strength and abilities as a fetus, until exposed to sunlight, even then taking a while to absorb enough to "power up," assuming this is an immediate effect of our sun as in the Christopher Reeves movies and not a maturation thing as in "Smallville."

Short Answer: Lois, avoid in-vitro and give birth in a windowless room under fluorescent lights.


Now, I still maintain that unless they do it under red sunlamps, Superman's great care to not tear our tissue paper world asunder with his might would surely be broken at the moment of climax, and he is more likely to shoot a water saw jet of super-swimmers through Lois' pelvis or up through the ceiling à la The Pro.

Post #1500! | On Supervillainy

When I was younger–I mean very, very young–my mother always told me, "Use your powers for good."

She emphasized the honor of the Ninja Turtles, the sincerity and righteousness of Superman, her intent being to prevent my intelligence from slipping towards the megalomaniacal. Being inconvenienced by those dumber than you is consternating, and considering both my parents' families, it seemed much more reasonable to become a Lex Luthor or a Kingpin, and simply crush beneath my heal through Machiavellian duplicity and sheer force those who would belittle and opress me for my weaker natures.

So yeah, probably best to teach the high road at a young age.

My only regret, really, is that the dastards always had the best toys. Them and Batman. The plot devices, as well as actual devices, always came from masterminds of vengeance and a dash of cruelty, innovation from fury and resentment, unencumbered by societal norms or arbitrary bureaucracy. Were they happy? Never. But man did I still want a trap door in my life.


A couple days ago, I caught my roommate watching an episode of MTV's Cribs, that show where rich assholes show off how unreasonably they spend their money on extravagant homes and furnishings. I had thought there only one thing more opulent than this, that being Cribs Teen or Cribs Kids or whatever it was called when producers devoted an entire season to children showing off how much money their parents have. They are meaningless, completely without merit. I recall a room with a double-king bed. It was basically a raised, plush floor.

As it happens, there is something worse than this yet: Extreme Cribs.

Imagine if you will, homes so outlandish, they cannot be contained within a single episode of regular Cribs. They must somehow be described by an additional adjective, preferably one involving an X.

The home I saw was a castle. They called it a castle, it looked like a castle, it was built out of a castle. It was a legitimate castle. Doctor Doom would have thought the renovations tasteless, but manageable. And as I left the room to have an actually productive day, I hear the preview for the Up-Next episode:

… and an outdoor barbecue powered by an active volcano."

I'm sorry, no.

No. You do not have an active volcano. You don't get to have an active volcano and be a real person. Why do you have an active volcano? And don't tell me, "To power the barbecue!" Just don't. I know most of the power in Scandinavian nations comes from volcanic vents, but yeah, vents. For countries. They don't plop a house down on top of Eyjafjallajoku and say, "Have at it, Doctor Evil."

What the fuck is wrong with you? Is your Crib shaped like a giant skull? Do you keep a secret camouflaged hoverpad under the garden gnomes? Under what circumstances can we just rightly assume that a human being is attempting to create a doomsday machine and hold the world ransom just to toy with an arch nemesis?

Hint: I think one is "Owning your own active volcano."

Green Lantern - In Brightest Glowing Suit, In Darkest Bitter Review

I'd still have preferred Nathan Fillion, but I said the same thing for Captain
America, and he's admittedly too old to play these characters live, now.

I saw Green Lantern last night. Originally I had a wonderful idea to tear down all the terrible things about it, starting with the line, "In brightest lens flare, in darkest…" something. Well, it didn't quite work out that way. Here are all the lousy things about Green Lantern:

• The score's main theme sounds a little like the vintage Superman music, which is to say it's a grand, sweeping fanfare on some horns, or a traditional fanfare, really.
• The suit was a little weird. It could have easily been CG less often, but it wouldn't have glowed as much, so I get it. (I'm sorry, did you want the glowy man and all of his space alien friends flying around an alien planet to by a bunch of puppets? My deepest apologies.)
• The last fight could have been a little longer and involved a few weirder ring constructs.
• They mention some flashbacks happened in 1993, and young Hal looks about 9 or 10, which means Green Lantern is only like 3 years older than me and that means my life is already wasted. At best, I can hope to be Kyle Rayner and find my girlfriend dead in a fridge a few years from now.

That's. About. It.

The pacing was good, the characters were all fairly well enacted, Ryan Reynolds did not turn Hal Jordan into some ridiculous caricature of Van Wilder, and there were tons of great fan nods. Of no importance:

• Carol Ferris' callsign as a pilot is "Sapphire." (She later becomes the character "Star Sapphire.")
• Explanations for there being multiple emotion-color-powers in the universe
• Guardians mention that they did not always rely on green lantern power to enforce peace (manhunters!)
• Specific green lanterns in crowd scenes included B'Zzz or whatever (the bee) and a few others
• Angela Bassett cameos as a certain Project Cadmus bitch
• There is in fact a teaser at the end of the film, and it's incredibly important

Here's the thing, though. I cannot for the life of me figure out why even now Rotten Tomatoes has it at a twenty-three percent freshness rating. Twenty-three! That's twenty point below "My. Popper's Penguins." Really? I don't see how that's possible.

Maybe they're judging it by the seven people who were judging this as a stand-alone movie? People who had no interest in the character or story and were just looking for a good time? Maybe. They probably would have hated all the little blue guys and the big green guys and the weird yellow cloud thing and the pink guy and Tim Robbins.

Which raises an interesting point: we're at a point where comic book movies are actually getting made for people who read the comic books and not casual fans who want to see a good guy in a cape.

• Batman x3
• Superman reboot
• Green Lantern
• Spiderman reboot
• 3x Iron Man, 2x Thor, a Hulk reboot, 2x Captain America and an Avengers extravaganza
• Kick-Ass
• An X-Men prequel and and new Wolverine

Superhero films are starting to rely more heavily on the established fan base, also the ones from earlier movies, but predominantly comic book nerds who are going to all pay for a ticket at least once, even if they think they'll hate the product. There's suddenly this sense of treating the source material as something more than just a jumping-off point for explosions and insufferable drama. The fact that DC is trying to rebrand its Superman to fit more in line with The Dark Knight and axed that god awful Ally McBeal-style Wonder Woman television series proves this.

For some reason, it is no longer okay to screw with time-honored and beloved characters.

You know, unless you're their comic writers.

Dude, Look At My Hand, Dude. It's Like, So Big, Man!

So I got around to reading All Star Superman a few weeks back. I kind of liked it. I'm a fan of the "Elseworlds" CD stories ("What If?" tales and alternate universes and timelines and such. Read Red Son if you never have yet).

It's pretty good, even if you're not a fan of the art style (I'm not). The basic gist is this: Lex Luthor realizes he's getting older but Superman isn't, so he concocts a plan to ultimately kill Supes. Supes then spends a year our however long trying to fix all the major problems he's never been able to solve.

DC and Warner Bros. have been releasing a lot of animated superhero movies lately, and they've actually been pretty good. All Star Superman is their newest title, released this week. They've done a good job of voice casting as per usual, and they've steered clear of the pouty, kissy lips present in Superman/Batman.

All Star actually follows the plot of the comic rather faithfully. Honestly, I'm wondering if they really even bothered to hire a script writer or if they just took the comic transcripts to an editor. The only things to get cut were the slowest, least important elements of the comics and the most fantastic piece of the ending, which actually manages to pull the story back down into the realm of the temporarily believable.

That said, here's a clip of a Lex Luthor all hopped up on super serum and getting all philosophical and junk.

Of Wingmen

So tonight I had planned to stay in, relax, and otherwise try to prepare myself for the gauntlet that will be Christmas tree shopping with Mom followed by Hanukkah with Dad + Stepfamily, followed by drunken shenanigans followed by depressing nursing home Hanukkah with Grandma the next day. All within normal waking hours, which I can assure you I have very nearly defenestrated out of the Prague that is my life.

Obviously, my plan failed as a friend sent the instant message "hey wat you up to tonight" and since there was no question mark something big was clearly going to happen and there was no time at all for frills and extravagances like punctuation.

Donning my recordedly unlucky but still favorite Santa hat, I set off in my car to this friend's house with the belief we would be going to our regular bar and shoot a few games of pool, and just otherwise let good times congeal around that.

Oh, but did I not mention my unlucky hat? Well, the Unlucky Hat is a wonderful Santa hat. The red and white faux-fur are both their perfect respective lengths, the poofball at the end is just the right size, it is warm but not sweltering, and it fits just so. Also, I have never one a single competitive anything while wearing it. For some reason it simply stops anything from working in my favor. I would stick pins through and through and burn the wretched thing if I did not love it so ridiculously much.

So obviously as I'm driving my friend calls me and says that no one else was up for the bar so I shouldn't bother coming. I told him I was already on my way, so there was a bit of an awkward situation there.

What we resolved was that I should wait five minutes and then call him. He had in his attempts to set something up this evening been invited to go see the movie Avatar, though I'm not sure if either he or his inviter realize that film's still a week away. Maybe they got a preview showing or something, whatever.

The point being, if this had been a group invitation surely I was also invited, but if this had been a date-ish invite, then my presence would be out of the question, more awkward even than the manner in which any friend of ours would say they were "going on a date." We are hangers, chillers, not usually daters.

I decided to pull over in a nearby bank and give it a few minutes, but maybe only a minute later I was called back. Got to love the immediacy of texting someone who actually checks their messages.

It was a date-ish invitation. My friend apologized for bailling but, dude, not that sorry. Nor should he be. Though it's never helped me, the Unlucky Hat has given much of my money to my friends over poker games, has given my honor up over beer pong, and so why now should it not give up the night out I had not planned on having if it could get my friend into see a great movie before the masses?

Also, he's probably getting some mouth sex. Not great mouth sex, but definitely fair to good. Certainly not mediocre mouth sex.

Anyway, the point is I'm thinking about hot gluing the Unlucky Hat to my friend's head. IT'S NOT LIKE HE FUCKING NEEDS IT, GEEZE. The only problem with being a wingman of my caliber is that it's like a natural wonder. All of my energies go into making everyone else look good, but I can never use my powers for personal gain. I'm like Superman in the Fortress of Solitude. You know how it feels in the Fortress of Solitude? Solitary. You know what games we play? Solitaire. Because it's just me.

On the other hand if Superman were to meet a nice girl, I fall in the camp that believes he would in fact rip her to shreds mid-climax without the aid of red sunlamps, so you know, the analogy falls flat on that point. Any mishaps I encounter would not hypothetically be sunlamp-related.