Like literally I have legitimate concerns about the observational powers of Marvel fans. Does the glut of irony and pratfalls make you incapable of absorbing a different style of cinematic storytelling? Are you just so high on the billion-dollar box office success that you can’t see how obviously hypocritical it is to compare a superhero team up movie to the first movie in a franchise starring a single superhero against nearly impossible odds? Really, like, I want to know, because I don’t get it. I don’t even get why you feel the need to ENDLESSLY compare your team-up movies to Man of Steel, is it because YOU feel insecure about something? Is it because YOU feel defensive? Because WE are fine. In fact, most Man of Steel fans LOVE the entire MCU because we recognize it as what it is- a win for geeks, a win for comic book fans, a win for superheroes. But here, let me help you-
1- an elementary-aged Clark Kent lifts a school bus full of his peers out of a river at great risk to his personal identity. This isn’t the Marvel cinematic universe where you go “oh I’m an alien” and the whole human race just goes oh cool, superheroes, we learned about this in 1945; this is an ET situation where they may or may not roll you away for dissection and exposing yourself to your entire grade school class leaves that totally in their hands.
2- When the planet is threatened, Clark hands himself over TO US. He’s already got flight, so he could easily just fly up into the atmosphere and try and deal with Zod or hell punch a hole in the ship and get the element of surprise, he’s certainly capable of breaching their ships hulls. But he doesn’t, he surrenders himself to humanity so that humanity gets the credit for handing him over, to protect the planet, to give US the choice about how best to save ourselves because he’s not a messiah or savior, he’s just one of us who can do more than most. If Lois hadn’t saved him, that would have meant GIVING HIS LIFE to protect the planet.
3- When the fight in Smallville begins, he instructs citizens to go back inside, he stops fights he’s losing in order to catch falling soliders in mid-air, he throws down with not one but two opponents who clearly outmatch him in terms of skill, and everything is actually not too bad until the military shows up and blows up the block. If you’re paying any attention to Cavill’s performance, you’ll notice that Clark is ALWAYS aware of bystanders. His ability to do anything about it when he’s being used as a projectile is obviously limited.
4- Superman HAS a team, they are just not all blessed with combat skills or firepower. You will notice that Tony and Thor don’t do a lot of rescuing civilians in the Avengers fight, that makes sense because they are more valuable elsewhere, they are better situated to take the fight to the skies where the innocent people aren’t. Superman’s team consists of Lois Lane, Colonel Nathan Hardy, General Swanwick, and Dr. Emil Hamilton. Two out of the four members of his team LAY DOWN THEIR LIVES during this battle to defend the earth, to prevent further casualties. Lois provides the plan, Swanwick provides the manpower, Hardy not once but twice enters a fight he has no chance of winning in order to gain the tactical advantage, and Hamilton saves everyone by figuring out the alien technology.
5- Colonel Hardy and a plane full of military personnel give their lives to save their planet because everyone in the Superman universe has the capacity to be a hero, because they were bound by duty, brave as hell, and inspired to greatness. THAT’S why Man of Steel is a more faithful adaptation of the comic books than any media to come before it, and if you don’t like that about it, you probably don’t like Superman.
6- This seems pretty obvious but it’s possible due to the flimsy criticisms I’ve been seeing that nobody caught it- Clark isn’t in the first fight. The terraforming machine that is punching Metropolis flat is both the cause of the destruction and not something he can do anything about while he’s trying to stop it on the literal other side of the planet. For all the complaining about how OP this character is, you would think people would be pleased to see some reasonable limitations put on the character in this film, but apparently there’s no winning so I won’t even get into it. Superman ain’t there. He can’t be there to get down on one knee and adorably wipe the soot and tears off the cheek of an orphan because he is too busy saving the world.
7- There are SO MANY heroes in the first half of the Metropolis battle. They are people; they are people in uniform, doing their job incredibly well the way that heroic people in uniform often do their job incredibly well. They are normal people like Perry White who struggle against ridiculous odds to save an intern, and people like Steve Lombard who decide to offer what feeble help they can on the off chance they can risk their lives saving someone else. We see these people doing, trying, succeeding, failing, and they don’t have supernatural powers and they don’t have government spy training, and they are wearing uniforms and not costumes so maybe they are easy to miss. Go back and check it out- they are there, and they are so important.
8- People die. People die terribly, people die on-screen, bodies are picked up in the air and hurled back into the ground. It’s is terrible and horrifying to watch, and it doesn’t feel good. Here’s a thought though, should it? Should it feel good to watch a scene of battle, a scene with innocent bystanders, a scene where people are losing their lives to an invading alien force, senselessly? Because it happened in the Avengers, and as evidenced by the memorials in the final scenes, it happened A LOT, the casualties were large and memorable to the people of New York, and maybe for the tone of that particular movie that was sufficient, but Man of Steel is not- this might be shocking, hold on- Man of Steel is not The Avengers. It doesn’t want to be, it wants to be a different kind of movie, and that’s okay. Man of Steel doesn’t want you to be ever ever be comfortable with the violence. So you will see people die, you will see the horrors of war, and you will feel uncomfortable, but I for one learned something about the nature of violence. I’m not sure what I learned from the battle in New York.
9- Superman is not in charge of the final battle with Zod. This is a huge sticking point for naysayers, so I’m going to say it again: Superman is not in charge in the final battle with Zod. He is outmatched and outclassed. He is a farm boy fighting a military General and even if he were out to kill Zod from moment one of the fight (he’s trying to find an alternative, because killing someone, even a not human someone, is a serious thing- again, we’re not taking violence lightly here) he would still be getting his ass kicked. I don’t understand how being used as a wrecking ball by Zod translates into “not caring” about the human casualties. I don’t get it, I don’t know how to refute it because it makes zero sense to me. Like I’m sure that Clark Kent the character feels super terrible in the aftermath about the various people Zod was able to kill while fighting with him, but that doesn’t mean he should feel terrible or responsible. Like if someone picks me up and throws me at you, are you going to yell at me? I hope not. The last moments of this fight are him giving up his clean hands to SAVE INNOCENT BYSTANDERS. Even Zod knows from limited contact with Clark that his biggest weakness is his desire to prevent bloodshed, but somehow that didn’t penetrate a huge number of viewers. I don’t get it, I truly don’t understand.
10- If you are really putting Christopher Reeve up as the ultimate ideal of pacifist Superman, I think you need to watch the Donner films again.
