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.

Jewish Holidays: Explained!

"So, yes, basically, our existence is God's version of Jackass.
Or Fear Factor. It depends if Joe Rogan is busy or not. But he never is."

Since I can't find the explanation I was sure I had already written on this very topic–despite prodigious searching I should say–I can only surmise that my burgeoning, bourbon-fueled artistic insanity is clouding my judgement. Thus, I present:

A Layman's/Gentile's Guide to Jewish Holidays

Passover - This is the one where we celebrate that time we were enslaved, and then God performed miracles to get us out of slavery, then killed all those people who were coming after us and it was through divine intervention that we didn't die. The happy ending is that we were kind of ungrateful and then wandered a desert for 40 years before God helped us kill and rout everyone who had moved into our house since we were originally enslaved.

Chanukah - The one celebrating that time some people we threw out of living in our old place came back and tried to kick us out, and we narrowly fended them off, but they trashed our temple and it was only through divine intervention that we didn't die, and then God let our lamps go long.

Purim - That one time we miraculously caught the guy trying to kill/enslave us beforehand, and didn't die.

Yom Kipur - High Holy Days, where we atone for all the past year's sins, and thank God that we haven't died before doing so.

Rosh Hashana - New Year's Day, where we finish Yom Kipur, read the last page in the torah, and then rewind it back to the beginning and reread page one, thankful to God we have lived another year but solemn in our understanding that we could die at any moment.

Sukot - Jewish Arbor Day. We celebrate a bountiful harvest and remember years past when instead of plenty, we starved to death en masse, and thank God that we ourselves haven't died.

Bar-/Bat-Mitzvah - Batman's 13^th Birthday, where Jewish children become legal adults and, traditionally, were expected to leave home, get a job, and start a family, because we didn't really expect to live all that long. Traditional gift is money, because we really need to to get out and make more little Jews in case the rest of us die suddenly, which, again, is to be expected, really.


Basically, we're just celebrating no one successfully exterminated our culture. Every time.

Look, we get a lot that a lot. Lot of genocide. You can pretty much trace our migratory patterns by it.

By which I mean you literally can do just that:

Israel from Eastern Europe (Holocaust)
Eastern Europe from Russia (Pogroms)
Russia from Western Europe (Spanish Inquisition)
Western Europe from Holy Land (Muslims)
Holy Land from Desert Slavery (Egyptians)
Desert Slavery from Holy Land (Also Egyptians)
Holy Land from Desert Slavery (Babylonians actually let us go)
Desert Slavery from Holy Land (Babylonians were kind of dicks at first)
… (Repeat several times. Reason: Palestinians/Philistines/other not-Jews)

Before that, it's pretty much just God trying to kill us then sending a couple of us to live somewhere else. Lot, Noah, Abraham, Adam & Eve.

We're just really, really glad we're not dead yet.