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Epoch Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Epoch Times
‘Superman': The New Guy's Good in Throwback ‘Superman' for Kids
PG-13 | 2h 9m | Action, Superhero | 2025 Introduced 87 years ago in 'Action Comics #1,' the alien meta-human Kal-El— commonly known as Superman ('Man of Steel,' 'faster than a speeding bullet')—became a symbol of hope and justice in America.


Time Magazine
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time Magazine
Superman Is Punk Rock, After All
In the battle for supreme superhero coolness, Batman has been the unofficial champ for nearly 40 years. In 1988, Alan Moore and Brian Bolland rescued him from '60s TV-show camp status with their flinty, inventive graphic novel The Killing Joke, a Joker origin story that stressed the grim psychological similarities between Batman and his most enduring enemy. Tim Burton's two marvelous Batman movies took the character's morose nature seriously, but not more seriously than his savoir faire: the Burton Batman movies also have gothic elegance on their side. But Christopher Nolan's 2008 Dark Knight leaned right into Batman's twilight gloominess. In Nolan's vision, Batman was a vastly complicated superhero, brooding and unknowable. Suddenly, loving Batman—not the Batman-dance goofball Adam West played on TV, or even the grand, pulpy vigilante as originally imagined by Bob Kane and Bill Finger in a 1939 issue of Detective Comics—made you complicated and unknowable, too. Batman, who relied not on superpowers but on his own intellect, was the thinking-man's superhero. By comparison, Superman—who'd made his appearance just one year earlier than Batman, in another Detective Comics publication, Action Comics #1—was kids' stuff. Faster than a speeding bullet! So what? More powerful than a locomotive! Who cares? Superman, despite his status as (arguably) the first superhero, and perhaps the most famous, has long been uncool. Which is exactly what makes him great. There's no existential B.S. with Superman; he belongs to everyone. He's kind, cheerful, and sturdily nonpartisan, caring only for the supremacy of right vs. wrong. Even if you were a Batman diehard, he'd happily save you, kind of the way U.S. presidents used to vow to serve all citizens and not just the ones who'd voted for them. The Superman temperament is one thing James Gunn gets right in his otherwise sub-mediocre reboot Superman, starring David Corenswet, a Juilliard-trained actor who understands how the strapping charm of the caped superhero is directly entwined with the insecurity of his more awkward alter-ego, journalist Clark Kent. The point isn't just that stalwart reporter Lois Lane (played here, appealingly enough, by Rachel Brosnahan) can swoon over Superman and feel only mild affection for Clark Kent, ostensibly because women tend to go for the hot guy over the nice one. (In Gunn's reimagining, she knows about Superman's dual identity from the start, anyway.) The more interesting angle of the Clark Kent/Superman flip-flop is that while being Superman allows the character to fulfill the most unrealistic expectations of masculinity, being Clark Kent frees him from them. To play Superman, you've got to have a little candy-apple sweetness in you, and Corenswet does. He also has the right amount of wheatfield swagger, another essential Superman quality: the superbeing otherwise known as Kal-El may have been born on another planet, but he was raised by kind midwestern farmers. Corenswet has the right look—he's got the glossy black hair, the resolute jaw—which points to another general Superman strength, particularly on film. Because Superman doesn't wear a mask, his emotions are always on display. And we've been lucky: we've had plenty of good-to-great Supermen, even in not-so-great Superman films. Brandon Routh, who starred in Bryan Singer's 2006 Superman Returns, is the almost-forgotten Superman, but he was a terrific one. In shaping the character, Singer and Routh stressed Superman's vulnerability, and not just to Kryptonite: he was a man out of time and place, urged by his father, Jor-El (represented by a ghost version of Marlon Brando, who'd played the same character in Richard Donner's superb 1978 Superman), to use his outsider status to serve the world of the humans. Routh's Superman could never be as mopey as any of the film Batmen, but there was something vulnerable and melancholy about him even so—he came off less as a comic-book hero than a matinee idol, but either way, his sense of dislocation was stark. In one of the picture's most moving scenes, this Superman uses his X-ray vision to gaze through the walls of the house Kate Bosworth's Lois Lane, having forsaken him, now shares with her young son and her fiancé (James Marsden). He sees the coziness of their home life, including their little squabbles. This is the kind of life he'd like for himself, but he'll always be an outsider, looking in. Our next big-screen Superman barely survived the preposterous self-seriousness of the stories Zack Snyder built around him in Man of Steel (2013) and Batman vs. Superman (2016). But Henry Cavill prevailed: his Superman and his nerd-to-die-for Clark Kent were of course gorgeous to look at, but in the first movie especially, both guises carried an erotic charge that's usually forbidden in the world of comic-book movies. When Amy Adams' Lois Lane is wounded in the Arctic while working on a story, the ever-ready hero emerges from nowhere, ready to cauterize her wound with his X-ray eyes. 'This is going to hurt,' he warns her, though his smoldering warmth is like faux anaesthesia—surely, it's got to feel great. In Batman vs. Superman, a movie that attempts only feebly to settle, once and for all, the question of who's the greater superhero, Snyder instead just focused on pumping the doom juice. Ben Affleck makes the most dour Batman imaginable; Cavill is forced to spend much of the movie looking noble and pained. No matter which superhero you prefer, Snyder served both badly. Besides, when it comes to the best film Superman of all, there's no contest: it's got to be Christopher Reeve, who played Superman and Clark Kent in four Superman films, the first two of which—Richard Donner's 1978 Superman and Richard Lester's 1980 Superman II—are gems of the superhero genre. Reeve, like Corenswet, studied at Juilliard, and he took the role of Superman just seriously enough. Reeve had the gleaming, streamlined beauty of Superman as the character's co-creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, first envisioned him in 1938. But he also came armed with a sense of humor about his own handsomeness. He took clear pleasure in Clark Kent's clumsy pratfalls, making the most of even the tiniest gestures, bringing casual, offhanded glamor even to the simple act of pushing his horn-rimmed glasses to the bridge of his nose. As Superman, he was a living, breathing, Art Deco fantasy—muscular, yes, but more like a dreamy Adonis than a magazine-ad Charles Atlas. In Superman II, the most romantic of all superhero movies, his Superman/Clark Kent becomes acutely aware that Lois Lane (played by the feisty, luminous Margot Kidder) will only suffer, having discovered his dual identity: there's no way he can settle down and have the normal romance she yearns for. As Clark Kent, he bestows upon her a Superman kiss, and instantaneously that one bit of painful knowledge—that Clark Kent and Superman are one and the same—is erased. Some Superman fans hate this plot point: it does not appear in a 2006 version of Superman II known as the Donner Cut, which includes patchwork chunks of footage shot by Donner, the original director of Superman II, before the film's wheeler-dealer producers, Alexander and Ilya Salkind, replaced him with Lester (who'd previously directed the wonderful Three Musketeers for them, as well as its sequel The Four Musketeers). The Donner Cut has its devotees, but I'm not one of them: If the Lester-Donner hybrid Superman II isn't perfect, it includes moments of lyrical beauty I wouldn't trade for anything, including that kiss, an act of mercy and empathy. Maybe the moment wouldn't work with just any actors. But with Kidder and Reeve, it's magic. Sadly, there's almost zero magic in Gunn's Superman. Its special effects are more overbearing than special; the plot is all problem-solving and no poetry. Even so, Gunn astutely picks up on the nice-guy aesthetic that sets Superman apart from many of his superhero brethren. At one point Brosnahan's Lois articulates a Superman character trait that he can only acknowledge is accurate: 'You trust everyone, and you think everyone you've ever met is beautiful.' She tells him he's just not 'punk rock,' though he wonders aloud if she's wrong. He posits, almost melting the universe around him with his impossibly blue eyes, that maybe caring about people is the real punk rock. It's dorky cornpone dialogue, but Gunn is onto something, the same diffuse yet potent concept that Joachim Trier articulated at the press conference for his film Sentimental Value when it premiered at Cannes in May. 'Polarization, anger, and machismo aren't the way forward,' Trier said. 'Tenderness is the new punk.' As a character, Siegel and Shuster's creation deserves better than Gunn's Superman. And that's unfortunate, because we probably need a great Superman now more than ever. When he first appeared, well into the Depression, it's no wonder Superman had an almost immediate hold on the public imagination, at a time when so many many Americans were feeling helpless. If you had generational wealth in your pocket, you were probably doing OK. But if you were either a recent immigrant or the child of immigrants—and given the large number of people who'd emigrated to the United States in the first 30 years of the 20th century, there's a good chance you fell into one of those categories—Superman, himself a transplant from another planet, must have felt like kin. Then as now, he had a stake in the value of tenderness and kindness; he took it upon himself to right all sorts of wrongs that humans inflict on one another. In his resolute squareness, he was also the coolest—and he still is.


The Hindu
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
The curse of perfectionism: Why Superman is a timeless superhero we could all relate to?
When comic book writers Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster debuted the red-caped crusader in 'Action Comics #1' in 1938, Superman was a necessity. He was a collective champion who was meant to be a ray of hope for the less fortunate children; a preacher who shone light on a world reeling from the economic depression; a Jewish icon against anti-Semitism; an alien who shattered the misconceptions attached to immigrants; an advocate of the American dream, and a powerful voice against injustice who offered a fantasy escape for the working-class. Born in one of the most vulnerable eras in modern history, he had to be the perfect hero, so perfect that only something not of this Earth, like Kryptonite from his home world, could weaken him. Ironically, the very society that once necessitated a perfect superhero has now largely deemed him irrelevant. In 2025, Superman is often dismissed as an outdated fantasy. Compared with the 'real' superheroes from DC and Marvel, he's often criticised as a product of an absurd myth — superhero origin stories now need to happen on Earth — and as an overpowerful entity who is too alien to our reality. But what Superman critics often miss is this: the 'Man of Steel' does have a weakness — not Kryptonite — but a compulsive need to be perfect, and the perennial struggle of being too perfect in a world suspicious of those who stand out. The quiet exile 'Perfectionism,' says American clinical psychologist and author Anne Wilson Schaef, 'is self-abuse of the highest order.' Living in a society that constantly sets up ideals to live up to, we try to become the perfect version of who we and others think we should be. It's a cage we put ourselves in — a lonely pursuit towards an impossible, abstract ideal. Life as a human can feel so fragile that even failing in a daily routine seems like the end of the world. Superman has always mirrored this complex compulsion. He's intrinsically a character designed to replicate society's notion of perfection — chiselled jaws, fit body, handsome, gentlemanly, and a farm boy who has touched grass and can see right from wrong. In Richard Donner's Superman (1978), Christopher Reeve's iteration, anguished by the death of his sweetheart Lois Lane, even breaks cosmic laws to bring her back. In Zack Snyder's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Henry Cavill's Superman pleads to Batman to 'save Martha,' his adopted mother, in a vulnerable moment that paints him as a tragic figure still beating himself for not being able to save his adopted father, Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner). Unlike other superheroes, being invincible is non-negotiable for Superman. 'Superman cannot kill' — this is a code every depiction of the superhero has followed. When fiction decides to break that code, he is often pushed to the other extreme, as a monster in alternate depictions such as Brightburn, Homelander (The Boys) and Omni-Man (Invincible). In DC, even the evil Superman in Donner's third film doesn't go to the extent of killing; while Zack Snyder's reign at the now-defunct DCEU ended before we could see an evil Superman (hinted at the Knightmare sequence in BVS), the scene in which Superman reluctantly kills General Zod caotures this moral tussle. In fact, unlike most superheroes, Superman can never allow himself to be who he truly is or use his powers to their full potential. Loneliness of being too good The 'Last Son of Krypton' is often depicted as a god-like entity who must learn to live gently among fragile beings. But seldom have films depicted the fear of isolation and frustration that comes from not being allowed to be yourself. As Superman's alter ego, Clark Kent, he has to refrain from using his full potential — even holding a glass of water too tightly could cause trouble — to avoid being detected. He must suppress parts of himself even from Lois. Fascinatingly, this isn't always about protecting his identity. In the 1978 film, the first dialogue his father tells him is, 'Been showing off a bit, haven't you, son?' for an inconsequential prank he pulls off on his friends. Clark responds, 'Is it showing off if someone is doing the things he's capable of doing? Is a bird showing off when it flies?' Is Superman showing off if he is… Superman? To which Jonathan responds, 'when you first came to us, we thought people would come and take you away because, when they found out, you know, the things you could do... and that worried us a lot. But then a man gets older, and he starts thinking differently, and things get very clear. And one thing I do know, son, and that is you are here for a reason.' Clark can also be seen as a mask that a misfit needs to wear. Even his reluctance to open up to Lois portrays him as a tragic figure who must wear the hat of a journalist to fit in. It's his only survival strategy and the only way he could be 'tolerated.' In a world that demands conformity and alienates misfits, Clark is the only way to cope with the loneliness that comes with being a tad too brilliant than the rest. It's easy to be what they want you to be — wear a pair of spectacles, and they'll see a man who vanishes into a crowd. Working under the compulsive need to be perfect, Superman retreats into his Clark Kent identity whenever things go out of order. In Dawn of Justice, shaken by the Senate bombing and media trial, Superman internalises the disapproval and questions his own purpose. Usually wielding a strong moral compass, he seems more affected by how others see him, reflecting an internal crisis between who he wishes to be and who he is expected to be. A fascinating parallel comes in Superman II (1980), where Clark is left bloodied by a bully at a bar. His sense of self-worth crumbles. He realises that Clark isn't who he is supposed to be, it's a ruse. Alternatively, Superman's struggle as an ideal is pronounced well when supervillains appear envious of his image as the leader of humankind. In James Gunn's upcoming Superman film, Lex Luthor's conflict reportedly stems from the belief that he — not Superman (David Corenswet) — is better suited to lead humankind. Superman is the epitome of perfectionism, a freak who isn't allowed to be, and that makes him the rarest of superheroes in the history of fiction. You don't need a spear of Kryptonite to threaten him. He is already his own Kryptonite.