M: You are fifteen minutes late. I was getting worried.
A: Whenever I’m late for things you can assume it’s because I was off fighting injustice and punching bullies.
M: That’s why I was worried. It’s a dangerous profession.
A: Thanks for your concern. All kidding aside, you actually were a professional superhero for a while, appearing in costume at kid’s birthday parties. What was it like to play Superman?
M: It rarely happened, sadly! Superman was by far the least requested character. Spider-Man, Captain America, Batman… all much more popular. And I think that mostly comes down to the fact that kids today don’t have a real Superman.
A: Yeah, within our lifetime he was never really in. When I was a kid and I told people that Superman was my favourite superhero, they would treat me like I had made some mistake. They’d say he's boring because he can do anything, and isn't "realistic" like Batman or Spider-Man. But I actually think that Superman is the most relatable one.
"When I was a kid and I told people that Superman was my favourite superhero, they would treat me like I had made some mistake."
M: A bold claim!
A: I’ve got reasons! I think that it's a persistently compelling idea that we can have this alter ego who can impress girls, and can punch things until they correct people's bad behaviour. It's like the fantasy that you can be powerful enough to make everything right. Everyone wants that.
M: I’d argue that’s a big part of the appeal of superheroes in general, but since Superman is the origin of that idea it checks out.
A: Yeah, and I feel like him being the original puts him in a more interesting place in pop culture. He’s mythical—nobody is writing songs about Batman, but we have so many bangers about Supe. You got “Kryptonite” by 3 Doors Down, you got “Superman’s Song” by The Crash Test Dummies, and Five For Fighting’s “It’s Not Easy”. These are a huge reason why he’s my fave—there’s a mournful reverence for the guy which I don’t think is there for other superheroes.
M: That evokes a really strange but wholesome memory for me… I used to get my friend to sing “It’s Not Easy” to me at school. I didn’t know the words but he had them memorized, so we’d sit at recess and he’d serenade me. That’s the Superman feeling for me.
A: That’s beautiful. Ironically, a lot of the pushback on Superman comes from the supposed fact that it’s too easy to be him. That he’s just too powerful. But the truth is I never fantasized about being a moody billionaire who dresses up to bully the mentally ill. The fantasy is that I can throw Doug Ford into the sun and everyone will applaud me for it because they all know it’s the right thing to do.
M: I wonder if part of the reason Superman has receded from the popular imagination is that as a culture we can’t agree on what is right anymore. There’s a huge portion of the population who sees the Lex Luthor archetype as something to aspire to, and they wouldn’t be happy with your treatment of Mr. Ford.
A: Right. The idea that there is an objective “right” to stand up for is a bit antiquated, and maybe even undesirable. We might relate to the villains now because Zack Snyder’s Superman was never a good guy anyway. You mentioned kids now don't have a Superman, and I'd agree—Henry Cavill Kal-El is never really a likable authority for truth, justice, etc.
M: Which is, disturbingly, a turn-on for a type of audience—that’s where the cult-like adoration for the Snyder run comes from. But it's also tremendously distasteful for people like us, or for families, or for children.
A: Well, I’m conflicted about that. Because despite not liking any iteration of Zack Snyder's Supe, I more or less agree with the idea that Superman in real life would be a bad idea and should be fought against. And I sort of do think that all superheroes are a bad influence on kids. I’m for sure the old man yelling at cloud here, but now that I’m in my 30s the violence that appealed to me in my youth really frightens me now.
M: In “real life”, sure. A human being given that sort of power would be horrifying, and there are plenty of stories examining that (Watchmen, The Boys, Invincible, etc.). But I see Superman as a figure of fantasy, something aspirational. No man would actually be that good, but he’s not a man. He’s SUPERman! Not representative of who we are, but who we could be if we were better. It’s incredibly sad that the idea of a fundamentally good, decent person who uses their power for the betterment of mankind is considered unrealistic.
A: Well this is the stuff that makes my heart get all mushy. Superman makes me want to do good and be better, but that stuff seems sort of naive today. Maybe it always has. It’s certainly easier to relate to pessimism in 2023.
"Superman makes me want to do good and be better, but that stuff seems sort of naive today."
M: I think it’s felt naive for a long while, but the better interpretations understand that and use it. I didn’t grasp how radically hopeful the Christopher Reeve films were until I grew up and learnt about what was going on in the 1970s. It’s not like that was an optimistic decade either.
A: Yeah, Christopher Reeve’s Superman embodies a kind of goodness that reaches beyond the violence and nihilism of that period. Like when he destroys all the world's nukes, or saves airplanes from crashing, or rescues kids falling into Niagara Falls.
M: I think the only time he’s violent is against other super-powered beings (General Zod and friends, Nuclear Man). But never against normal people.
A: Not entirely: even he cannot help himself from doing a good old-fashioned punch-punch—like at the end of Superman II (1980) when he goes and beats up the rude guy in the diner who emasculated him after he gave up his powers earlier in the movie.
M: That’s a very good point. I guess even the Reeve version plays into that “What if I could punch a bully?” fantasy. Which also makes me sad, now that you point it out. Your take on Superman is depressing!
A: I do think it’s a depressing story, but I’m into the sadness of the character! He’s very lonely as the last son of Krypton. Re-watching a couple of the Fleischer Bros cartoons from the early ‘40s, I notice that the lore there says he was raised in an orphanage as opposed to being adopted by the Kents. It really made me feel for the guy. The fact that he's an alien on Earth and nobody knows he's special. At least Martha and Jonathan know that Christopher Reeve's Supe is a special guy.
M: That’s what’s so beautiful about him choosing to do good. He has every reason to be resentful, to be selfish, but he chooses to be selfless even at the expense of his own happiness. The second Christopher Reeve movie has a terrific distillation of this: when he sacrifices his relationship with Lois to save the world. (Which, btw, the Raimi Spider-Man trilogy would copy nearly exactly decades later.) I imagine that series will always be my favourite take on the character.
A: Absolutely agree. For me, it’s those movies and the Fleischer Bros cartoons that cement the myth. As a kid watching those cartoons, it felt like I was watching hieroglyphics, something ancient and sort of unknowable. And because of all the racism, you knew you were watching something taboo. The animation style is something I haven't seen elsewhere. It's otherworldly and everyone is very malleable—especially their faces.
M: They’re more visually compelling than any live-action adaptation, that’s for sure. I’d love to see a modern film get that impressionistic… that stylized and bold. The best we get now is Zack Snyder slow-mo. Speaking of… I saw you logged both versions of Justice League on Letterboxd in the same weekend? I’m in awe of your stamina.
A: Another one of my superhuman feats! But yeah, I don’t recommend doing that. I was in a real bad mood after that bender. They’re so cringey and grim. And kind of boring.
M: I think that speaks to, again, the idea that Superman really shouldn’t be “realistic”. So much of the appeal of the Reeves run is how fantastical his powers are. He freezes an entire lake, lifts it into the sky, and drops it on a burning chemical plant to douse a fire in Superman III. Say what you will about the effects in that sequence, but it’s not boring.
A: Yeah. There was a brief moment in Man Of Steel where I thought we were getting something fun when he uses his laser vision to cauterize Lois Lane’s wound. He tells her that he can do things other men can’t, and I was really hoping we’d get more fun, campy, and flirty stuff like that. I do love the casting of Michael Shannon as Zod though. There’s that moment when he reveals his presence to everyone on Earth by making everyone’s TV say “YOU ARE NOT ALONE”. It’s both a comforting and frightening sentiment. We also understand Zod’s perspective on Krypton, that their politicians are leading the planet to an energy crisis that will destroy their world, and he’s trying to stop it.
"He tells her that he can do things other men can’t, and I was really hoping we’d get more fun, campy, and flirty stuff like that."
M: I completely forgot about all that. Any inspired moment or idea was punched out of my brain by the endless final battle. But the fall of Krypton is such an eerily prescient idea, regardless of the iteration. Like, the opening of the 1978 Superman feels as though it’s commenting on our current conception of climate collapse.
A: I love the design of Krypton in that version. There's something so haunting in the ‘78 film with how sparse it is. It's frighteningly efficient. And the faces of the judges projected on the walls… it's like a graveyard. Or heaven. It's completely lifeless.
M: Again, it’s impressionistic rather than realistic. The Phantom Zone doesn’t make any sense, but the image of Zod trapped in a floating pane of glass is inexplicably horrifying.
A: It gets across effectively that The Phantom Zone is a completely impossible and abstract space. That being said, even the less visually striking, lower-budget TV adaptations do a better job with the character than Man of the Steel. You really do not need extensive special effects to tell a good Superman story. Like, Smallville does wonderful work dramatizing Clark’s coming of age, and that was a corny teen soap. It’s just brilliant that he’s got a crush on Lana Lang, but she wears a kryptonite necklace… so relatable to feel physically unwell around your first crush.
M: Yeah, Smallville was my jam growing up. Loved those “superpowers as adolescence” moments. There’s an episode where Clark begins uncontrollably shooting lasers out of his eyes whenever he gets a boner, and that spoke to me at 12. Tom Welling’s Clark had such an effortless sweetness about him, he really felt like he could be your pal.
A: The current CW show, Superman & Lois, is solid too. I’d be happy to have Tyler Hoechlin as my super-dad. Maybe there’s less pressure on the TV versions to be macho.
M: That brings me to something else I wanted to touch on. Tyler Hoechlin is fit, but he’s not a muscle head. He’s just in shape. Same with Christopher Reeve. Most superhero men have to have the body of an action figure now. Anything less than sculpted perfection is unacceptable on the big screen.
"His powers come from our yellow sun, not from CrossFit!"
A: I also prefer a Supe with a more relatable body type, it just makes more sense for the character. His powers come from our yellow sun, not from CrossFit! And it helps you believe that he could pass as a mild-mannered reporter too.
M: That’s a big reason why Cavill never worked for me. He’s too big and doesn’t make any effort to change his performance when he’s in Clark mode.
A: For real! I don't buy that body as a reporter at all. That being said… Henry Cavill is hot, and Snyder isn’t afraid to show him off. There's a real body worship thing going on there. He's presented like a Greek statue, it’s a parade of physical power. Which is also an older version of masculinity, and one that isn’t exactly comforting.
M: No. As a dweeb, I am naturally afraid of men with muscles that big. I shouldn’t be afraid of Superman, but I would be concerned that Cavill would bully me if I ran into him.
A: Whereas Reeves, Welling, or Hoechlin feel like the kind of guys who would stand up to a bully, then help you up and make sure you were okay. They’d give you a hug and a smile, then fly off to do something even more wholesome. I think that’s a major reason you and I are friends, by the way. We’ve always rejected the kind of masculinity that the Snyder movies fetishize. We’ve always wanted to be Christopher Reeve.
M: Exactly. And I hope that we give the people of Earth an ideal to strive towards. They can be a great people, Adrian, if they wish to be. And in time, they will join us in not wanting to be gym bros.
M: You are fifteen minutes late. I was getting worried.
A: Whenever I’m late for things you can assume it’s because I was off fighting injustice and punching bullies.
M: That’s why I was worried. It’s a dangerous profession.
A: Thanks for your concern. All kidding aside, you actually were a professional superhero for a while, appearing in costume at kid’s birthday parties. What was it like to play Superman?
M: It rarely happened, sadly! Superman was by far the least requested character. Spider-Man, Captain America, Batman… all much more popular. And I think that mostly comes down to the fact that kids today don’t have a real Superman.
A: Yeah, within our lifetime he was never really in. When I was a kid and I told people that Superman was my favourite superhero, they would treat me like I had made some mistake. They’d say he's boring because he can do anything, and isn't "realistic" like Batman or Spider-Man. But I actually think that Superman is the most relatable one.
"When I was a kid and I told people that Superman was my favourite superhero, they would treat me like I had made some mistake."
M: A bold claim!
A: I’ve got reasons! I think that it's a persistently compelling idea that we can have this alter ego who can impress girls, and can punch things until they correct people's bad behaviour. It's like the fantasy that you can be powerful enough to make everything right. Everyone wants that.
M: I’d argue that’s a big part of the appeal of superheroes in general, but since Superman is the origin of that idea it checks out.
A: Yeah, and I feel like him being the original puts him in a more interesting place in pop culture. He’s mythical—nobody is writing songs about Batman, but we have so many bangers about Supe. You got “Kryptonite” by 3 Doors Down, you got “Superman’s Song” by The Crash Test Dummies, and Five For Fighting’s “It’s Not Easy”. These are a huge reason why he’s my fave—there’s a mournful reverence for the guy which I don’t think is there for other superheroes.
M: That evokes a really strange but wholesome memory for me… I used to get my friend to sing “It’s Not Easy” to me at school. I didn’t know the words but he had them memorized, so we’d sit at recess and he’d serenade me. That’s the Superman feeling for me.
A: That’s beautiful. Ironically, a lot of the pushback on Superman comes from the supposed fact that it’s too easy to be him. That he’s just too powerful. But the truth is I never fantasized about being a moody billionaire who dresses up to bully the mentally ill. The fantasy is that I can throw Doug Ford into the sun and everyone will applaud me for it because they all know it’s the right thing to do.
M: I wonder if part of the reason Superman has receded from the popular imagination is that as a culture we can’t agree on what is right anymore. There’s a huge portion of the population who sees the Lex Luthor archetype as something to aspire to, and they wouldn’t be happy with your treatment of Mr. Ford.
A: Right. The idea that there is an objective “right” to stand up for is a bit antiquated, and maybe even undesirable. We might relate to the villains now because Zack Snyder’s Superman was never a good guy anyway. You mentioned kids now don't have a Superman, and I'd agree—Henry Cavill Kal-El is never really a likable authority for truth, justice, etc.
M: Which is, disturbingly, a turn-on for a type of audience—that’s where the cult-like adoration for the Snyder run comes from. But it's also tremendously distasteful for people like us, or for families, or for children.
A: Well, I’m conflicted about that. Because despite not liking any iteration of Zack Snyder's Supe, I more or less agree with the idea that Superman in real life would be a bad idea and should be fought against. And I sort of do think that all superheroes are a bad influence on kids. I’m for sure the old man yelling at cloud here, but now that I’m in my 30s the violence that appealed to me in my youth really frightens me now.
M: In “real life”, sure. A human being given that sort of power would be horrifying, and there are plenty of stories examining that (Watchmen, The Boys, Invincible, etc.). But I see Superman as a figure of fantasy, something aspirational. No man would actually be that good, but he’s not a man. He’s SUPERman! Not representative of who we are, but who we could be if we were better. It’s incredibly sad that the idea of a fundamentally good, decent person who uses their power for the betterment of mankind is considered unrealistic.
A: Well this is the stuff that makes my heart get all mushy. Superman makes me want to do good and be better, but that stuff seems sort of naive today. Maybe it always has. It’s certainly easier to relate to pessimism in 2023.
"Superman makes me want to do good and be better, but that stuff seems sort of naive today."
M: I think it’s felt naive for a long while, but the better interpretations understand that and use it. I didn’t grasp how radically hopeful the Christopher Reeve films were until I grew up and learnt about what was going on in the 1970s. It’s not like that was an optimistic decade either.
A: Yeah, Christopher Reeve’s Superman embodies a kind of goodness that reaches beyond the violence and nihilism of that period. Like when he destroys all the world's nukes, or saves airplanes from crashing, or rescues kids falling into Niagara Falls.
M: I think the only time he’s violent is against other super-powered beings (General Zod and friends, Nuclear Man). But never against normal people.
A: Not entirely: even he cannot help himself from doing a good old-fashioned punch-punch—like at the end of Superman II (1980) when he goes and beats up the rude guy in the diner who emasculated him after he gave up his powers earlier in the movie.
M: That’s a very good point. I guess even the Reeve version plays into that “What if I could punch a bully?” fantasy. Which also makes me sad, now that you point it out. Your take on Superman is depressing!
A: I do think it’s a depressing story, but I’m into the sadness of the character! He’s very lonely as the last son of Krypton. Re-watching a couple of the Fleischer Bros cartoons from the early ‘40s, I notice that the lore there says he was raised in an orphanage as opposed to being adopted by the Kents. It really made me feel for the guy. The fact that he's an alien on Earth and nobody knows he's special. At least Martha and Jonathan know that Christopher Reeve's Supe is a special guy.
M: That’s what’s so beautiful about him choosing to do good. He has every reason to be resentful, to be selfish, but he chooses to be selfless even at the expense of his own happiness. The second Christopher Reeve movie has a terrific distillation of this: when he sacrifices his relationship with Lois to save the world. (Which, btw, the Raimi Spider-Man trilogy would copy nearly exactly decades later.) I imagine that series will always be my favourite take on the character.
A: Absolutely agree. For me, it’s those movies and the Fleischer Bros cartoons that cement the myth. As a kid watching those cartoons, it felt like I was watching hieroglyphics, something ancient and sort of unknowable. And because of all the racism, you knew you were watching something taboo. The animation style is something I haven't seen elsewhere. It's otherworldly and everyone is very malleable—especially their faces.
M: They’re more visually compelling than any live-action adaptation, that’s for sure. I’d love to see a modern film get that impressionistic… that stylized and bold. The best we get now is Zack Snyder slow-mo. Speaking of… I saw you logged both versions of Justice League on Letterboxd in the same weekend? I’m in awe of your stamina.
A: Another one of my superhuman feats! But yeah, I don’t recommend doing that. I was in a real bad mood after that bender. They’re so cringey and grim. And kind of boring.
M: I think that speaks to, again, the idea that Superman really shouldn’t be “realistic”. So much of the appeal of the Reeves run is how fantastical his powers are. He freezes an entire lake, lifts it into the sky, and drops it on a burning chemical plant to douse a fire in Superman III. Say what you will about the effects in that sequence, but it’s not boring.
A: Yeah. There was a brief moment in Man Of Steel where I thought we were getting something fun when he uses his laser vision to cauterize Lois Lane’s wound. He tells her that he can do things other men can’t, and I was really hoping we’d get more fun, campy, and flirty stuff like that. I do love the casting of Michael Shannon as Zod though. There’s that moment when he reveals his presence to everyone on Earth by making everyone’s TV say “YOU ARE NOT ALONE”. It’s both a comforting and frightening sentiment. We also understand Zod’s perspective on Krypton, that their politicians are leading the planet to an energy crisis that will destroy their world, and he’s trying to stop it.
"He tells her that he can do things other men can’t, and I was really hoping we’d get more fun, campy, and flirty stuff like that."
M: I completely forgot about all that. Any inspired moment or idea was punched out of my brain by the endless final battle. But the fall of Krypton is such an eerily prescient idea, regardless of the iteration. Like, the opening of the 1978 Superman feels as though it’s commenting on our current conception of climate collapse.
A: I love the design of Krypton in that version. There's something so haunting in the ‘78 film with how sparse it is. It's frighteningly efficient. And the faces of the judges projected on the walls… it's like a graveyard. Or heaven. It's completely lifeless.
M: Again, it’s impressionistic rather than realistic. The Phantom Zone doesn’t make any sense, but the image of Zod trapped in a floating pane of glass is inexplicably horrifying.
A: It gets across effectively that The Phantom Zone is a completely impossible and abstract space. That being said, even the less visually striking, lower-budget TV adaptations do a better job with the character than Man of the Steel. You really do not need extensive special effects to tell a good Superman story. Like, Smallville does wonderful work dramatizing Clark’s coming of age, and that was a corny teen soap. It’s just brilliant that he’s got a crush on Lana Lang, but she wears a kryptonite necklace… so relatable to feel physically unwell around your first crush.
M: Yeah, Smallville was my jam growing up. Loved those “superpowers as adolescence” moments. There’s an episode where Clark begins uncontrollably shooting lasers out of his eyes whenever he gets a boner, and that spoke to me at 12. Tom Welling’s Clark had such an effortless sweetness about him, he really felt like he could be your pal.
A: The current CW show, Superman & Lois, is solid too. I’d be happy to have Tyler Hoechlin as my super-dad. Maybe there’s less pressure on the TV versions to be macho.
M: That brings me to something else I wanted to touch on. Tyler Hoechlin is fit, but he’s not a muscle head. He’s just in shape. Same with Christopher Reeve. Most superhero men have to have the body of an action figure now. Anything less than sculpted perfection is unacceptable on the big screen.
"His powers come from our yellow sun, not from CrossFit!"
A: I also prefer a Supe with a more relatable body type, it just makes more sense for the character. His powers come from our yellow sun, not from CrossFit! And it helps you believe that he could pass as a mild-mannered reporter too.
M: That’s a big reason why Cavill never worked for me. He’s too big and doesn’t make any effort to change his performance when he’s in Clark mode.
A: For real! I don't buy that body as a reporter at all. That being said… Henry Cavill is hot, and Snyder isn’t afraid to show him off. There's a real body worship thing going on there. He's presented like a Greek statue, it’s a parade of physical power. Which is also an older version of masculinity, and one that isn’t exactly comforting.
M: No. As a dweeb, I am naturally afraid of men with muscles that big. I shouldn’t be afraid of Superman, but I would be concerned that Cavill would bully me if I ran into him.
A: Whereas Reeves, Welling, or Hoechlin feel like the kind of guys who would stand up to a bully, then help you up and make sure you were okay. They’d give you a hug and a smile, then fly off to do something even more wholesome. I think that’s a major reason you and I are friends, by the way. We’ve always rejected the kind of masculinity that the Snyder movies fetishize. We’ve always wanted to be Christopher Reeve.
M: Exactly. And I hope that we give the people of Earth an ideal to strive towards. They can be a great people, Adrian, if they wish to be. And in time, they will join us in not wanting to be gym bros.