He's like Superman by having a similar backstory to him, especially in Dragon Ball Minus which updates and expands his initial departure for Earth as a baby with the clear indication he was sent off to save his life rather than destroy Earth. In short this now makes him even MORE like Superman. Goku is a very heroic character who often saves the world, which is played up more in the English dub, and both are seen as one of the strongest characters, if not THE, in their respective universes.
Forgives enemies? Most story arcs involve this. He does not hold grudges period. Turns enemies into friends? This is how he makes friends. Once the fight is over, anyone, even last season's enemies, are affectionately embraced as friends if they can stop trying to kill him and his crew or take over the world long enough. Purehearted? He has a flying cloud to prove it. Again, like Superman.
In short, people who dislike Superman TECHNICALLY also dislike Goku as they at their heart they are so incredibly similar that you're kinda dissing on one if you say you hate or dislike the other. Not saying there aren't marked differences of course between the two, but the similarities are so close it's kinda suspect.
Also with no Superman there would be no Goku so watch who you hate on for winning a fight.
As in the final film Reed goes to the Baxter Building as part of a science scholarship; there he meets Sue and Victor Von Doom.
Victor takes the nerdy Reed to parties, where he meets and falls for Sue, but Victor’s not actually picking up girls at these shindigs – he is secretly feeding Reed’s research to spies from his homeland of Latveria.
We meet Dr. Harvey Elder, who is creating artificial life in the biolab with Sue – the Moloids.
The school refuses to let Reed and Victor use their Quantum Gate to enter the Negative Zone, so they break in with Ben Grimm (who is set up as an old friend and enforcer for Reed, though their relationship is strained) and Sue and Johnny stay behind to man the controls on this side of the portal.
What they find is not the empty broken landscape of the film but rather an alien city. The city is full of skeletons, non-human things that have been killed in some cataclysm. As the team explores the ruins they come upon an amphitheater full of corpses and something else. Something huge, and something wearing battle armor with two blades coming out of either side of its helmet.
Yes, it is indeed Galactus who chases the three explorers. He shoots Dark Matter out of his hands, enveloping and seemingly killing Victor. Reed and Ben make it to the module but it’s not working; on the other side of the portal Sue is working feverishly to fix the circuitry that won’t allow the module to return home. Galactus nears as Sue finally fixes the machine, and he blasts the module with Dark Matter – but the Dark Matter hits the Quantum Gate and there’s a reaction and the entire team – the two in the module and the two in the lab – are pelted with some kind of cosmic madness.
The script jumps head four years. Johnny Storm is a reality TV star (though his ratings are falling), Sue is still in the Baxter Building with Dr. Elder (using her powers to help cancer paitents), Ben Grimm works for the military as a deadly asset, and Reed is hiding in Jakata. He has built himself a Herbie robot and he’s trying to sell his plans for the FantastiCar to Toyota.
Dr. Elder wants Sue to come work on the Moloid program, but she won’t – she thinks it’ll be weaponised.
As all of this is happening we cut to Latveria. Using the information Victor fed them, the Latverian government has created their own Quantum Gate. They send a team through and the module returns splattered in blood, containing only one occupant: a Victor Von Doom now made entirely of Dark Matter. He quickly dispatches everyone around him, using shape-changing abilities and shooting electrified razor wire from his hands. Within minutes he has slaughtered Latveria’s ruling elite and taken over the country.
Back in the US Sue and Ben meet for pizza. Ben’s hiding in a trench coat and a fedora, and he’s telling Sue that he’s basically made his peace with being a monster. What he hates is that Reed abandoned him. Sue, it turns out, has been staying at the Baxter Building because she has been trying to cure Ben, using her cancer research.
Reed is attacked by thugs called Shock Troopers using futuristic weapons of his own design. He figures this must be Victor and that he must be alive. He tries to call Sue, but gets no answer. He grabs Herbie and jumps in the FantastiCar to head back to the US.
The Shock Troopers attack the Baxter Building. Johnny happens to be there with a camera crew, trying to get Sue to join him on the show to spike ratings. In the chaos that ensues Dr. Elder gets Moloid juice on him and is transformed into Mole Man, while Shock Troopers inject a Moloid with Dark Matter.
The script says Sue is like an “Amazonian Warrior” and is just destroying Shock Troopers left and right.
Reed shows up and the inject Moloid shoots out of the ground. Ben is nearby looking at puppies, and runs over to help.
The team engage the giant Moloid, as seen on the cover of Fantastic Four number one,
In a fight that is both exciting and humorous. Ben gets swallowed and tries to fight his way out; when he finally gets to the Moloids mouth he sees that Reed has slingshotted a bus at the creature and Johnny has set it on fire and it is heading right towards the mouth – and Ben.
The rest of the script has the team coming together to go to Latveria, now the center of an international incident because Victor has built a giant Dark Energy cannon. He intends to use it to destroy Galactus; it seems that Victor’s only chance at survival in the Negative Zone was to act as Galactus’ herald and help him find a new world to eat – Earth. But Von Doom intends to destroy the Destroyer before that can happen.
The final battle is in Latveria, but it is revealed the shapeshifting Doom there is just a kind of Doombot; Victor is actually physically attached to the planet in the Negative Zone and has sent tendrils of his being to Earth. The film ends with him trapped in the Negative Zone, the Fantastic Four telling the government Galactus is coming and the retooling of the Baxter Building as their home base and a school for smart kids who can help defeat the coming menace of Galactus.
So.....THIS IS FANTASTIC FOUR!!! HELL THIS IS BRILLIANT!!!!!! It keeps Galactus' origin as being from another universe prior to the current one intact in a VERY interesting way AND sets him up for future movies, it actually EXPLAINS why Sue would get powers when she stayed behind, the time skip makes sense here, and it showcases Doom as he SHOULD be and with Moleman being a LEGIT THREAT!!!!!!
Well the good news? Mayhap when Marvel takes their swing they use this version and knock it out of the park
@outside_85: I'm just saying... Characters that have a full face mask or barring that look reasonably young? Could pull it off. Heck, case in point actors in their 30's playing believably high school age characters. Andrew Garfield, played high school Spider-Man, 32, only way to honestly tell he's not a teenager is when he's got a beard.
@captainmarvel4ever: Can I just say I despise what happened with Earth 2? Seriously they had SUCH a rich lore set up so quickly and? Boom, gone, no more. Now it's an overly sci-fi thing that's not even CLOSE to what Earth 2 should have been about, establishing the Justice Society of America.... AMERICA'S BEEN BLOWN SKY HIGH IN THAT UNIVERSE!!!!!! And saying they're the "Justice Society" one time does not make them the Justice Society since to my knowledge? That's NEVER been said again.
Now while this isn't the first time someone has attempted to reboot Superman to their vision, this is less about reinventing and more reestablishing and reinterpreting several key facets that have existed across the multiverse and from various other versions into a singular Superman. With that out of the way, let's get started.
The basic origin, Krypton, Smallville, etc, is all intact. The difference is that Clark's adventures as Superboy are still in effect... The difference being he's more like an urban legend and designed the costume as a kid with the big S-shield to stand for "Superboy", using the design from a small memory of seeing it on Jor-El's chest as an infant, and did so when he was roughly 10 years old. Keep in mind, he's a kid and WOULD think of something like that. I'd like to tackle the costume, it's the most basic thing. The costume is more or less? Darwyn Cooke's take
Now it may seem like the classic Superman costume, the big difference here is the briefs or lack there of. Yes, those are not briefs they are shorts pure and simple. The simple truth of the matter is Superman's costume needs them to really break up blue it's just a requirement and a red belt does not help at all in that area. A lot of people have pointed out Captain Marvel Jr's costume as proof Superman without the briefs can work as for the longest time they had the same color scheme, but notice this little exercise
The center option almost seems to have neutered Superman with its lack of definition. While option three might be acceptable in this panel, in some poses or in very small panels in the comics his legs might overlap the groin area and the entire pose might loose definition. You literally might not be able to tell his leg from his a-hole. Old time wrestlers, particularly the show wrestlers that preceded the modern day spectacle of the NWA, WWF, WWE, WCW, ECW, TNA and other similar leagues would often wear tight shorts or briefs over top of their stockings, as the stockings tended to be see through and would slip around as they wrestled. Even plenty of MODERN wrestlers wear them. The tight little shorts they wore were not really underwear, but closer to modern day swimwear, it just looked like underwear because it was so tight and form fitting. Whatever the profession, a male character wearing small shorts implies a man of action and athleticism.
The shorts variant of Cooke's design is more of a happy medium and it's a small touch I like. But as I said, Clark's career as Superboy largely consisted of secret rescues and encounters with the Legion of Superheroes who would call him to the future to aid them, but not wipe his memory of the events, instead should Clark learn something he isn't SUPPOSED to know yet Saturn Girl carefully editing that out.
Clark throughout his life would have an innate sense of adventure, actively enjoying the situations he finds himself in. Not disregarding any lives at stake however, his main priority is making sure no one is hurt, but the action and the twists and turns it can take is something he loves. He loves being Superman, but that's not to say he was ALWAYS Superman. Becoming Superman officially when he's 25, Clark would spend the time when he was 15 acting as sort of a secret superhero, not really wearing the costume though as he wants to make sure no one sees him too easily as he is still working out the best possible disguise. Clark's main goal is to help people in anyway he can and loves to feel useful to the people around him, to the point when he feels he isn't useful he can take it quite hard for sometime but will always bounce back to his cheery and upbeat personality rather quickly. He however does struggle with issues of when he should intervene and anytime he encounters a problem has to deal with long term effects. There are no quick fixes where Superman is concerned in this, he stops one villain... But potentially creates another disaster that will reveal itself down the road.
Clark's powers would be largely a mix between physical and not so physical. Kryptonians can naturally lift in excess of 10 tons under optimal conditions as part of a genetic trait, which is due in large part to the fact while Krypton's gravity is similar to Earth's, Kryptonian materials are by and large far denser and add in prehistoric Krypton's dangerous forms of wildlife and predator's this physical supremacy would be invaluable under such circumstances.
Under the light of a yellow or blue sun however, Kryptonians gain several powers not available otherwise. As they grow and their natural solar absorption abilities mature(Along with their physical abilities), they gain greater levels of power. The most powerful of these is a small psychokinetic field that permeates their bodies and provides the basis for greater strength, speed, and near total invulnerability to all physical assault and most forms of energy attacks. For Clark this means his strength is more an act of conscious will on energy fields than actual physical strength. It is this act of conscious will that enables him to perform physical feats that are beyond the mere application force, from something as large scale as moving an entire mountain without it crumbling under its own mass or holding someone by their hand while flying and supporting them effortlessly
The exact limits of Superman's speed are very high, though it can be assumed it is far less than those who have a connection to the Speed Force. He is capable of surviving a supernova explosion though such a taxing of his invulnerability will leave him unconscious for sometime.
As a general note, Kryptonians do not grow more powerful due to absorbing more yellow sunlight but rather it is more or less a catalyst for these powers to kick in and any and all examples of Superman appearing more powerful than other Kryptonians comes from him being able to focus his powers to greater levels than them, having had years to hone and control them, such as being able to focus his psychokinetic field in such a way to allow him to increase his strength to any level he needs for a given task.
With this in mind, Superman is as strong as he needs to be. Powers such as his so-called "X-Ray" Vision are a combination of his telescopic and microscopic vision, allowing him to clearly see past an object. He can also discharge heat beams from his eyes, which is a by product of using not just starlight in general though Krypton's red sun was so low fueled those on Krypton could not facilitate this. His ability to hear even in the vacuum of space has less to do with hearing and more to do with being able to pick up radio signals. Jimmy's Signal Watch can emit both a high frequency sound and a specialized radio signal that is so faint yet distinct only Clark could pick it up.
He is of course not without weakness. Magic which is a force that defies all known scientific understanding and physics can bypass his invulnerability. Also Kryptonite, a radioactive mineral that made up the entirety of both Krypton's core and its two moons(Both of which shattered when Krypton exploded) ended up following the gravitational pull from his ship's gravity engine which sent him to Earth. Thus the Earth has small chunks of it laying in various places all over the world, in some cases infecting local radioactive minerals with the radiation but at smaller levels to where it is not deadly like true Kryptonite... But can weaken him.
Other small facets are that Clark would actually have had eye trouble for the longest time, needing to wear glasses as his alien eyes are not adapted to Earth's atmosphere. Upon learning how to focus his senses he no longer NEEDS to wear glasses, but does so for disguise purposes when out of the costume. Clark puts up a more nerdy front, playing up his admittedly more nerdy interests when not in costume, as well as wearing suits two sizes too big and speaking in a more nervous or less poised and confident manner. He is also quite fond of fedoras and you would be hard pressed to find him without one when he's not Superman.
So yeah that's just my take on my favorite superhero. Feel free to comment!
This sums up my thoughts too. Is Huck any good to anyone who's read it? I'm uneasy with The Millars' comics.
Its good. And Millar can write great heroic stuff. Superior, Red Son, Superman Adventures, the guy has it.
Oh yeah, it's when he's NOT doing Superman related stuff/homages that we get stuff like... Nemesis or Wanted. Kick-Ass is neither here nor there for me as it's just meant to be balls to the wall(Pun intended) over the top campy violence with thin realism behind it. I honestly think the movies do it BETTER, but still.
After reading Mark Millar's new comic Huck, I gotta ask... Should that be the direction New 52 Superman needs to go in?
This comic just brought the biggest smile to my face and made me so happy to see THIS kind of hero in this day and age again. I'm a gigantic fan of heroes like this. The big powerful Superman archetypes who? Are as nice and genuine as possible and Huck fits the bill.
And that got me thinking... Shouldn't this be what SUPERMAN is supposed to be like? Ya know the nice and GENUINE guy who goes out of his way to help people? I think post this whole "powerless" thing it should be the idea since? It would be pretty natural for him, this version anyway, to see the NEED to be like this. To make an express habit of helping anyone and everyone with small things as much as big things. He's got the time, he DOES have super speed.
Just... Huck WAS written in direct response to Man of Steel and how dark of a take it was on Superman... Shouldn't we need to see the character Huck was inspired by actually take ON That mindset once again? I mean I remember stories where we had scenes like this
Or this
Or scenes that were adapted into movies like this
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So.... Is it REALLY that wrong to want to see Superman BE Superman again when we've got a character that was created to basically BE the Superman we've been missing out on these past few years? No I don't think so.
Since John Byrne's Man of Steel introduced the idea any and all superpowers Kryptonians possessed came from yellow sunlight, wouldn't it have been more interesting to see Daxamites not have the lame-sauce lead weakness but instead actually be more of a legit different species from Kryptonians in more ways than that?
How so? Well with the mandate Superman was to be the only Kryptonian, this could allow for character such as Mon-El to become more prominent. How so? Make Daxamites more similar to Golden Age Kryptonians. How would this work? Joel Siegel once cited John Carter: Warlord of Mars stories as an influence:
"Carter was able to leap great distances because the planet Mars was smaller that the planet Earth; and he had great strength. I visualized the planet Krypton as a huge planet, much larger than Earth"
Now the thing to keep in mind? Since it's generally accepted Daxamites, barring a few small examples, are horribly xenophobic and only want to stay on their own planet, the idea that a few such as Lar Gand AKA Mon-El or any number of them would grow tired of the xenophobic nature of their world and leave, some in particular filling roles SIMILAR to Pre-Crisis Kryptonian characters in Superman lore, without the limitations of the "lead weakness"
Also it would allow them to fulfill legitimate threats to Superman, but with Superman still being the largely more powerful due to his ability to draw greater strength from yellow sunlight whereas Daxamites would retain strength comparable to him, but with powers being more like the Golden Age Superman. For instance, their "X-Ray" vision actually DOES function under X-Rays and can focus them to cause damage to others and so on.
This is not ENTIRELY my idea, an artist by the name of Aaron Diaz(He does good work, check him out) did his take on the Justice League about a year after the start of DC's New 52 reboot(Which you can check out here)
While I didn't care for many of his, just out of personal opinion(Flash, Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter were cool), I didn't really care for his take on Power Girl.
Origin: Superman is considered a security liability by the US Government, as he does not recognize their authority over most matters. As a response, the CIA secretly worked with LexCorp on replicating the Man of Tomorrow’s abilities in human beings. The only test subject to survive the process was Lieutenant Karan Starr, who was given the codename “Power Girl” and tasked with being the United States’ counter to Superman. However, instead of openly opposing him, Karan was sent to infiltrate the newly formed Justice League as an independent “superhero.”
Powers: Strength and invulnerability comparable to Superman, though she does not have his more unusual abilities like flight. However, since LexCorp did not know that Superman is an alien, their methods of replicating his abilities were very different. This may lead to Karan experiencing side effects later on.
Now I didn't particularly LIKE his take at first, well really the whole double agent spy thing for the government is what turned me off since I never really thought of Power Girl like that... But given recent developments with DC sticking Power Girl(Who may I mention is one of my personal favorite DC heroes that is in my top 21) in the new Earth 2 series which is.... Yeah garbage.... I've found myself going back to his work and finding that... I actually like his basic take on Power Girl.
That being said though, as Mr. Diaz is an artist first and these little blurbs for his redesigns were to give context, what follows are MY ideas on expanding his basic premise for Power Girl. No it does not involve any of his takes on the Justice League either. This is purely his BASIC Power Girl with my ideas on how to approach the actual character, her powers, and place in a more traditional DC Universe.
Now as Mr. Diaz has her, being a soldier who's given Kryptonian powers from Superman's DNA, I would keep that. I'd go into more detail about just WHAT she can do. Namely? I'd make those power fluctuations DC gave her all those years? Part of this take's powers. You see DC after Crisis on Infinite Earth's destroyed the Multiverse(It eventually got better), they added Power Girl to the new DC Universe as she had long been a fan favorite. However since management at the time had a rule about Superman being the only Kryptonian and Power Girl was Superman's cousin from Earth 2... Yeah she wasn't allowed to be a Kryptonian anymore, which resulted in power fluctuations and at one point saying she had magical powers due to being an ancient Atlantean from before Atlantis sunk.... That didn't last long.
But for this, since she's been artificially given Kryptonian powers, not cloned like say Superboy will be in order to create a truer hybrid, the only STABLE ones she never has to worry about are her strength, speed, and invulnerability and to a limited degree super hearing(Has to REALLY try and focus to use that one) along with infrared vision. But heat vision? Freeze breath? X-Ray vision? Telescopic vision? Can get those at random intervals and then lose them just as quickly, but usually they manifest in really stressful situations. She can match any Kryptonian in strength, BUT flight and most other powers still out of her league(can leap high enough to SIMULATE flight though)
However one of those side effects? She's immortal, or rather due to her taking in solar power? It's caused her cells to just stop aging. It's not a Kryptonian power either, though possibly if you go with the idea Kryptonians ARE immortal under a yellow sun, just a totally unexpected freak side effect. Given how basically ALL comic characters have this kind of immortality to a degree? I don't see any harm adding it.
Mr. Diaz has her as a government spy placed within the Justice League, which is an aspect I VERY much disliked... Until I figured out a way to use and still have her in character. I'd play her as a Superman supporter and fan and is totally upfront with Clark about her reasons for being there though asks that he try not to mention it to anyone else. She doesn't mention WHERE her powers come from however, to anyone but Clark, leading a lot of the League to assume she's a metahuman who just happened to get Kryptonian-like powers.... But that'd be revealed as soon as Superboy comes into the picture.
You see since she doesn't have the full range of Superman's powers, and can only get some of them in bursts, the government discharges her from the military and deems the "Power Project" a failure and Karen Starr is banned from all government and military functions. This is where they begin to try and clone Superman, now knowing he's an alien(This is EARLY Superman when she gets her powers), and a human/Kryptonian hybrid clone in the form of Superboy AKA Project KR.
Basically Karen believes in the government, she wants to work with them.... But is not above drawing the line in the sand, especially after they discharge her, and going
"Yeah no, this is wrong and I'm with the League on this one."
Even after she's discharged she has this mindset, but doesn't want to return to working FOR them given how fickle they can be.
Basically this Power Girl as I envision would be VERY much the Power Girl as written and defined by writers Justin Grey and Jimmy Palmiotti, both of whom wrote her 27 issue comic which lasted on up until DC's reboot in late 2011. I consider this run as the quintessential Power Girl characterization, much like how I consider Grant Morrison's All-Star Superman as the quintessential Superman characterization.
Mostly because the opening arc of it has her struggling to figure out where she belongs and I think that would fit THIS take very well. After all this version is not Kryptonian, she's not military anymore, and since the origin of her powers came to light not a lot of the League trusts her fully anymore(Not DISTRUST, but... Yeah little doubtful since that big of a secret was kept), much like how she's presented early in their run(Her JSA Classified arc on into the first 12 issues of her series) with the same room to come to the same kind of character by the end of that first Power Girl arc.
So yeah, if I do any Power Girl centric fan fics(Which I DO plan on doing) this is going to be my basis for her character since? Mr. Diaz made one point I agree with 100%.... Power Girl's origin, even now, is a mess.
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