Superman Hits Rock Bottom

What was the lowest point in Superman's life?

..Dying?!

Silver and bronze age

I clicked on this thread expecting to see Superman pulling off a wrestling move. Dammit.

He smoked some bud.

Superman Returns

MOS

@farkam said:

MOS

this (:

In movies - Superman 2; in comics – post-COIE era.

Post- Kryptonite Nevermore/Pre-CoIE was the era that left almost nothing noteworthy, with the only exception I remember being "For the man who has everything"

Not really considering how well received Byrne's Superman is. For me his Superman isn't remotely my favorite(I actually don't like his direction with the character) but he has a very strong fanbase among the Superman fans.

Agreed, having to kill Zod really hurt him.

He did the same twenty years before in the comics... Not exactly a solid argument :-P

.... what? I was just trying to flip their obvious troll comments back at them.

It's fairly solid considering how different the aftermath of the two incidents were.

Oh I didn't get that but it doesn't matter since my comment still stands for the other two viners.

@saren: Meaning? I don't know how the fanbase reacted then but I don't think MoS is Superman hitting "rock bottom", considering it happened before in the comics too and in a worse way than how it happened now. Still I didn't like some of MoS creative liberties but it is hardly rock bottom.
If you meant this aftermath of the story, then I think we should wait until Batman v Superman for that. Since Superman: Exiled was another story.

Well, something the people who bring up the "Superman has killed Zod before, look at this scan" argument always neglect to mention is that killing Zod almost destroyed Superman. He had nightmares about it for years and years, and he actually left Earth at one point because he felt a Superman who would kill was not someone deserving of humanity's trust and faith, and that he had started down a path that could lead to him becoming a threat to humanity. He didn't return until Cleric convinced him that Earth would be worse off without him and that even though he had sinned, he had done so when there was no other way to preserve justice and that his guilt was proof that he was a hero and not a threat. We can wait until Dawn of Justice, but Cavill's Superman recovered from killing Zod remarkably quickly in MOS alone. It's possible that DOJ wrangles with the same moral conundrum and re-emphasizes Superman's character in the same way the comics did, but I doubt it given how much other material it has to wrangle with. And ultimately, that's why cinematic Supermen shouldn't kill. The concept of Superman killing deserves greater examination than most movies provide.

@squalleon: you're right: we should wait for Batman v Superman, because THAT will be his rock bottom :3

the New 52

The Dark Knight Returns

For the record, I'm not sure what "rock bottom" for Superman is supposed to look like, but the growing idea among writers to have Superman adopt a few of Batman's worse traits because a sub-section of grumbling fans keep grumbling about Superman's behavior not matching up to their fan-fiction standards has led to a pretty bad phase for the character.

Okay, I agree with this.
My point was that I don't see MoS as Superman's rock bottom based only on a semi-finished saga (because in the back of my mind, I expected that BvS would be MoS2 and it would elaborate on the end of the first film). And I actually agree that in the end of MoS Superman seemed to recover pretty quickly (although we don't know how much time passed). Still when things like "At earths end" and Milligan's "The Demolisher" are out there I can't see how MoS is the worst Superman related thing ever done.

Now that I agree with completely!
This appeal to the masses idea hurts the character. And it keeps actually going. I had a similar conversation before and I remember aswering with this: What ruined Superman came after, when DC constantly rebooted and changed the character to appeal to the wider cynical audience, without realizing that Superman works best when he is a ray of hope in this cynical age Action Comics 775, All-Star Superman, these stories are considered some of the best of this era(not only of Superman), why? Because they hold true to what Superman is, making the audience understand Superman's value. But it seems DC doesn't get it even when writers spell it out for them.

@squalleon said:

Guess I should have clarified this. I don’t have any particular problems with Byrne’s direction (though I don’t really like it), its execution, on the other hand…

Anyway, I feel like whole post-COIE /pre-New 52 era done more hurt than good – through sometimes there was truly outstanding runs/issues plus incredible Elseworlds. At least in the second half of Pre-New-52 Superman got cosmetic update and returned to his more classical roots; but before that – ponytailed Clark, Superman Red/Blue, infamous “Superman/Barda doing p…rn”, whole Conduit mess, etc…

If only that were true :-(

Superman seemed like he had recovered pretty well from everything that happened with him,Earth and the killing thing but we don't know how much time had passed - it may have been a year,or two or maybe months,we can't know. Also there is the thing that Snyder might show us in BvS what Superman went through after he snapped Zod's neck in flashbacks as Clark's origin was shown to us or maybe he will explain it to some of the characters and we will learn it that way. We can't say that SUperman has even fully recovered since we didn't see that much from him in the movie after the neck snapping scene.

That's a lot more thought than I imagine Zack Snyder will ever put into the consequences of snapping Zod's neck.

He seemed to bounce back to his normal - lack of a damn attitude:

While I'm sure in someway Zack Snyder is going to touch upon it - he's going to have his work cut out for him to make Zod's murder worth it.

So can we change this thread's title to

MOS hate thread. It seems it's going in that direction again. I think basically all comic fans should have MOS sucks tattooed onto our foreheads because that seems to be the general consensus. Never mind the fact we have a legitimately good film which reintroduced superman to a darker and cynical world in a correct fashion we comic fans have to hate it. The idiotic mess that was superman returns is now being looked on as a underrated masterpiece. Really? The film that pretty much made superman a dead beat dad and had him not once show an ounce of action is now what we really wanted from a superman film? And plus how can superman be labeled a murderer in MOS? Seriously. We saw batman kill pretty wilfully in the dark knight when he pushed Harvey dent off a building. Ah but that was good because he saved a kids life. Superman saved the world on a whole and he's labeled a murderer. Right. Anyway rant over. For me superman's low points were superman 4 the quest for peace and lois and clark the adventures of superman. Just no for me.

MOS could probably be just the beginning. Now New-52 is a new low for supes. Especially now.

It seems that people have misinterpret what I've posted yesterday.

When I said what was the lowest point in Superman's life, I meant moments he be at his lowest in his stories. Similar to Batman stories where he batman goes on a downward spiral, like the time Batman couldn't save Jason and felt depressed.

That's what I meant

Not whatever ya'll just posted.

He was pretty miserable in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow. Until the end, of course.

Well yeah,he did seem pretty calm and all but we don't know what is going on in the inside. i mean this can be only a cover for the general so he wouldn't notice that Superman is struggling and has problems with what he had done. And that in the second movie we will see him struggle but we can only wait and see what will actually happen.

As far as we know nothing. That's how Snyder chose to tell the story and ended it - with 'he's hot' pun and 'hey, Lois.' The only hope I have is Snyder seemingly setting up to reinforce Superman's 'no-kill' policy - and hopefully with some better writing in BVS these characters will actually have some depth (though I'm holding my breath - because Superman in MOS often felt as deep as a puddle).

But there isn't any going back now - all of WB's eggs are in one Snyder basket - I just have to hope for the best.

We all do hope that Snyder will try to make the story deeper than MoS was cause it definitely needs it. I do have some hope in Snyder but not on that big of a level. I do believe that BvS will be a better movie but I don't know if there wouldn;t be some major flaws in it as well and if Snyder will choose to go to the right SUperman path - the one in which he doesn't kill.