look, up in the sky!

[mimesere]

This has been a very Superman-eriffic week. I read Kingdom Come, which negated my need to write that story (except yo, Wonder Woman done lost her *goddamn mind*) and I have to say that um. not!Superman, the other one with the lightning bolt who goes "Shazam!" and then there is lightning? Alternately annoyed the piss out of me and made me cry. As did um. um. oh fuck, like I can remember their names.

I don't know. I liked it. The art was pretty and the story was very much something that felt right to me and, you know, Superman was all sad and conflicted and whatnot and that is...everything.

Let's see, and then I read The Death of Superman, Funeral for a Friend, and Trinity. The first two were um. well. Ultimately pointless -- much like reading the original Dark Phoenix saga if you came in to X-team fandom after it was all resolved -- and the artwork just put me off, but I liked Trinity quite a lot. It was especially interesting coming on the heels of reading Kingdom Come and I find that while I love and adore movie incarnations of Batman (Michael Keaton and Christian Bale) and Batman from his animated series and Batman when he's chilling with Superman and Wonder Woman, I mostly find him irritating in his own comic. But you know, that doesn't especially surprise me. Batman/Bruce Wayne in Kingdom Come was just...really incidental and kind of dull to me in the story itself, though I did like when he sort of teamed up with Lex and the Mankind Liberation Front.

But yes. I was talking with glossing a while back about my sketchy and mostly non-existent relationship with the DCU (yeah, me + DCU comics = big no) and I was telling her that I like Batman best not when he's being all Uncle Creepy Badtouch with whatever Robin you choose (lord,I cannot express my complete and *utter* lack of caring for that dynamic which I hesitated to state here 'cause I know some of y'all are totally hardcore about it, but yeah) but when he's being that guy who can't stand for people to die, not when he could prevent it.

Anyway, that's totally a digression about Batman in what is really a post about Superman, 'cause um. Then I spent one evening leafing through the Superman Returns visual guide to the movie while I was on the phone with latxcvi and I can tell you right now that given the stuff in that book (as well as the stuff latxcvi was telling me from the novelization) there's not a single chance that I'm going to be remotely sane about that movie. It's like Bryan Singer took every single thing I love about all of my best beloved characters, tossed in a heaping dose of my personal bulletproof (pun only somewhat intentional) story kinks, and then wrapped it all up with a bow of prettiness.

Am I looking forward to PotC 2? Of course I am; it's *Norrington*.

Do I absolutely and sincerely hope that Superman Return kicks PotC 2's ass at the box office? Oh, you better believe I do. From everything that I have read (or had read to me) and seen, there's no one in SR that I'm *not* going to like. With the possible exception of Spacey's Lex Luthor, but I'm supposed to dislike him and he looks fascinating *anyway*. It's an entire movie filled with good people! Good people who do good things and who are not dicks and who are strong and vulnerable and sometimes bitchy and mostly just awesome. Bless, but PotC 2 doesn't stand a *chance* with me. It might if it were the All Norrington All The Time movie and I'm excited like burning that he's a) significant and b) got a story arc and c) is, you know, *Norrington*, but a movie that focuses on the anti-hero is going to lose to a movie that focuses on a hero and I am honest enough to admit that. I am totally and completely biased, but then, I don't actually expect any of this to be a surprise to anyone who reads this journal.

I bought Superman and Superman II; I bought a cd of John Williams and the Boston Pops (he's a hack! He's *such* a hack, my god. I was listening to the suite from The Cowboys or whatever that movie is called and going, "Oh my *god*, John Williams, you didn't even bother to change the melodic line you stole wholesale from Appalachian Spring! You and the flannel-wearing cracker deserve each other!") and it reminded me of all these movie moments I love (the march from Superman, the Princess Leia theme and the opening titles from Star Wars, etc) like when you see the dinosaurs for the first time in Jurassic Park or the first time you see Darth Vader (*shakes fist at George Lucas* How dare you make one of the most iconic villains of all time into a guy that tries and fails to do the anguished "NOOOOO!" and flails around like a goober? Hack. Hack! I award you no points and may god have mercy on your soul!).

Um. Dude, I totally lost my train of thought. And honestly, the flannel wearing cracker and John Williams may both be hacks (seriously! stole many a melody from Appalachian Spring! Or Rite of Spring!), but I do not deny that they are brilliant.

But yes, Superman. Superman deserves a post of his own, but I want to say that I am excited as hell that this movie is coming out and that it looks to have that same heart and power of the original movie.

I am totally babbling and I don't care. I want to write fic. I want to dork around a lot. I want to write meta about characters and meta about goodness and heroism, I want to write a post about how all sorts of things should work for me and inexplicably don't, and just...stuff. I don't know. I am tired and flaily and giddy and I bought new shoes and some t-shirts.

St Elsewhere by Gnarls Barkley is an awesome, awesome cd. I am enjoying the hell out of it. Also? Maynard is a sick freak and I love him.

That is all. Thank you and drive through.

Comments

[juleskicks.livejournal.com]

Dude, I downloaded the Superman March because I cannot believe I don't have that already.

I love the good guys, man. Love them so much. The times you love Batman? Are eerily similar to the times that I love Buffy. I just. Oh. *shares in the hero!love with you*

And mostly this is going to degenerate into me sharing in your 'why the hell are good characters considered boring?' rant and yes. Just. Yes. I <3 the heroic characters so much, who are just heroes because it's the right thing to do and if you can help people with the gifts that you have you should.

Dah.

[anonymous_sibyl]

Kingdom Come. Alex Ross. Oh, yes. I was reading Mythology tonight and I so much love the way he draws Superman.

I've been writing a post about Superman, too, and thinking of you and just a few others while doing so.

[gloss]

not!Superman, the other one with the lightning bolt who goes "Shazam!" and then there is lightning?
Captain Marvel. He's...underused.

Uncle Creepy Badtouch
That term is never not going to crack me up, you know. And in my Platonic ideal fandom, you'd be writing gen epics about your Batman and it would be *amazing*. Just so you know.

You have liberated my love of Superman from its hipster-numb chains and I cannot thank you enough. *loves*

[latxcvi.livejournal.com]

It's an entire movie filled with good people! Good people who do good things and who are not dicks and who are strong and vulnerable and sometimes bitchy and mostly just awesome. Bless, but PotC 2 doesn't stand a *chance* with me. It might if it were the All Norrington All The Time movie and I'm excited like burning that he's a) significant and b) got a story arc and c) is, you know, *Norrington*, but a movie that focuses on the anti-hero is going to lose to a movie that focuses on a hero and I am honest enough to admit that. I am totally and completely biased, but then, I don't actually expect any of this to be a surprise to anyone who reads this journal.

Oh, look, I totally agree with you about this! Which I'm sure is a total shock, in that way it totally isn't a shock at all to anyone who pays a tenth of their attention to my journal either. I'm excited about PotC2 (and The Devil Wears Prada, but that is neither here nor there), but dude, dude! Superman! Superman always totally wins with me. In LaTVerse, Superman > everyone else. And Singer's take on Superman looks *completely awesome*.

[ladyjax.livejournal.com]

Kingdom Come was the only time I ever spent mad money for a hardcover edition of a comic book. I already had the paper editions, the trading cards, hell, we even have the "Decent of the Heroes" poster on our living room wall.

I bought the hardcover when Wondercon was still in Oakland and Mark Waid was a guest. I wavered for about twenty minutes until the dealer (who owns our local comics shop, the bastard) said those fateful words: "This is the last copy I have."

Suffice to say, I love the story including Wonder Woman's dilemma: how can you advocate peace when you have the skills, means and will to wage war? I love that Batman is the one to talk her off the ledge; he gets it. Let's face it: Bats is nuttier than a fruitcake and the only thing that keeps his ass out fo Arkham Asylum is that he has a job to do. The biblical parts are very familiar to me and they worked that into the story really well.

Ultimately, it affected me differently than the Dark Phoenix saga. I saw characters who I cared about die and at the same time, the heroes themselves, by unmasking, forced humanity to reassess their own relationship with the superhumans among them.

[llaras.livejournal.com]

But! Does there have to be ass kicking? Can't SR and PotC just get along?

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

Heeee. I rarely love Batman, but when I do, it is because he's not being a dick.

And yes, exactly. Also? It's not enough to not be bad; for me to consider someone *good*, they have to actively do good.

But there s a whole post there that I am too tired to make.

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

Oh, oh, I cannot wait until you post that!

And Alex Ross is...interesting. My only real complaint about him is that he draws all his characters to look sort of the same and that makes it hard to differentiate between them. But he is awesome nonetheless.

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

*g* My friend described the Captain Marvel vs Superman fight in Kingdom Come by saying, "Captain Marvel fucked Superman *up*." And then of course I had to go read it. But yeah, um. If you gag him, can he still zap you? Because that strikes me as a sad, sad weakness.

And oh, Batman. I think if I ever write Batman -- which will likely be never -- it will be in the context of Superman/Batman/Wonder Woman fighting crime and bickering.

Oh, Gloss, you will *love* Superman Returns. And I am glad your Superman love is liberated! There's *so much* there. Pride and vanity and the honest desire to do good and loneliness and always being apart and the struggle between knowing you can help and knowing you *shouldn't* help. Just oh. Oh, so much love.

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

I am shocked. Shocked, I say! And dude, weekend of awesomeness is only a little bit away!

Also, The Devil Wears Prada looks *so good*.

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

I do love the story of Kingdom Come passionately and I do love Wonder Woman, but she did lose her goddamn mind. But she seems to do that a lot, so I do not worry about it too much.

Mostly I brought up Dark Phoenix because that whole story loses its impact once you realize just how many times Jean Grey dies and comes back; reading Death of Superman and Funeral for a Friend were ultimately rendered pointless because I knew Superman came back. That emotional punch was lost. It's like watching Smallville and seeing Lex in danger -- I don't believe anything bad happens to him because he's *Lex* and he has to survive. The drama is gone. Woe ;)

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

*thinks* I want them both to do well and, lord knows, I want them both to do better than X3. But yes, I want there to be a clear winner in the box office receipts and I want, badly, for that winner to be Superman Returns because yes. In any kind of thing between hero and anti-hero, I want the hero to win.

I am a traditionalist at heart.

[llaras.livejournal.com]

I completely understand. :-)

[crowie.livejournal.com]

Been peeking at your journal since I found it re: Norrington squee. and this is really interesting.

I'm one of those where the anti-hero wins pretty much all the time. I'm not that excited about Superman because well.. he's too good and straight forward. I tend to find all good all the time folks not quite boring but fairly uninteresting.

It's the manipulating scheming tricksters that I love (usually) I mean I don't want them to be all bad. I prefer it if they come through when it's really important (rather like Jack in potc really). Like someone said there's a difference between being a hero and not being a villain. I prefer my characters in the ambigious space between. Or just my very favouritest comic book character is John Constantine.

And that's why I like Norrington so much now for me he's a great schemer and manipulator and lies with the best of them when it comes down to it and then goes a head and does what he wants because he wants it. Yes he does it to regain his honour as he sees it etc. but really I think Wills motivation with the heart was probably the most selfless of them all.

A good example of my preference for the anti-heros is that one of my favouritest tv shows is Oz, don't know how much you know if it but it's set in a maximum security prison where pretty much all the protagonists are murderers or worse.

Anyway this is facinating and it's fun to see what different people like. I also find it great when people know what they like. Also fun to see the different interpretations people have and what they identify with.

And now I'm going off on tangents in my head about why some people like the Good guys and others prefer the Morally Ambigious crowd (goes without saying that there are badly written good guys and badly written anti-heros as well, those don't count) but that's for writing down somewhere else.