# Superman movie problem



## androidmuppet (Jul 28, 2013)

Why do Superman movies keep featuring the same old enemies?.

There's this pervasive myth that Superman only has three good enemies: an evil version of himself, Lex Luthor, or a crapload of kryptonite. It doesn't help that we're five movies in and the films have done absolutely nothing to dispel that idea. all five movies featured kryptonite and Luthor (or, in Superman III, his non-union Ross Webster equivalent). And between General Zod, drunken clone Superman, and Nuclear Man.



In all the animated Superman shows or live action Superman shows, He faces other villains not just Lex Luthor, General Zod or lame Superman clones like Nuclear Man.


----------



## Huey Freeman (Jul 28, 2013)

Brainiac, Darkseid, Doomsday needs buildup.

Cyborg Supes is more a GL villain


----------



## androidmuppet (Jul 28, 2013)

Danger Doom said:


> Brainiac, Darkseid, Doomsday needs buildup.
> 
> Cyborg Supes is more a GL villain



There is also Livewire, Parasite, Lobo and Toyman.


----------



## Huey Freeman (Jul 28, 2013)

Toyman and Livewire are not worth translating into film. Parasite/Metallo needs Lex as the mind behind the muscle. Lobo is more of a stand alone mercenary than a Supes villain.


----------



## androidmuppet (Jul 28, 2013)

The superman movies should atleast use Mongul or Bizarro.


----------



## Huey Freeman (Jul 28, 2013)

Mongul I agree. To some extent I would take cyborg Supes over Bizarro since the latter is basically has a mind of a 5 year old.


----------



## Suzuku (Jul 28, 2013)

Hopefully Metallo will be in Batman/Superman.


----------



## Doom85 (Jul 28, 2013)

Superman 1 and 2 can't be criticized since they did Luthor and Zod first.

3 and 4 are shitty movies, the fact that they featured lame "original" villains was the least of their problems.

Returns was Bryan Singer knowing little about Superman outside of the movies so naturally he used Luthor and didn't even bother to make the character fit the more modern version of the comics. And they had Kevin fucking Spacey of all people who could have easily delivered a terrific modern Luthor, probably the most wasted potential of a superhero movie casting ever.

Man of Steel was going back to the origin so it made sense to do Zod and his army again since they fit best there. And unlike Returns, Snyder and Goyer did a good job making Zod and Faora feel more like the modern Superman villains.


----------



## Suzuku (Jul 28, 2013)

They didn't have to do Zod to do an origin film with MoS. They just chose to.


----------



## MF NaruSimpson (Jul 28, 2013)

it strikes me as a gross failure of the highest level that superman movies have failed to introduce/ cameo, or give even the smallest of plot time to lobo, a famously interesting superman villain who could easily have his own movies, not unlike what people imagine deadpool could have had before origins killed that idea.

instead we get stuck with 3 origin stories and shit...

people need to stop fapping to origin stories, maybe try introducing an origin in a sequel, use some imagination


----------



## Suzuku (Jul 29, 2013)

tfw you realize we'll see Deadpool before Lobo


----------



## Shock Therapy (Jul 29, 2013)

for mos if they threw in any other villian, i doubt it would've made as much money. audiences know zod, they don't know brainiac or darkseid


----------



## Suzuku (Jul 29, 2013)

I don't believe that for a second. Audiences didn't know shit about any of the Marvel villains in their films but the movies still all did great. They don't go to the movies for the villain, they go for the hero, unless it's Joker.


----------



## Lee-Sensei (Jul 29, 2013)

Darkseid and Brainiac should be in the DCCA. I even want Doomsday to show up.


----------



## Tom Servo (Jul 29, 2013)

Suzuku said:


> tfw you realize we'll see Deadpool before Lobo



Lobo is voiced by Robert Barone, your argument is invalid


----------



## Perverted King (Jul 29, 2013)

General Zod was just a safe bet for Man of Steel. Not to mention they wanted Superman to go toe to toe with a foe this time. The movie was inspired by Birthright and I can see more Birthright inspiration in the next film with Lex Luthor.


----------



## Canute87 (Jul 29, 2013)

I like it when superman doesn't have to be gimped.


They need to bring darkseid now.  That would be shit worth seeing.


----------



## Lee-Sensei (Jul 29, 2013)

Perverted King said:


> General Zod was just a safe bet for Man of Steel. Not to mention they wanted Superman to go toe to toe with a foe this time. The movie was inspired by Birthright and I can see more Birthright inspiration in the next film with Lex Luthor.


----------



## Tom Servo (Jul 29, 2013)

^we will more than likely see Luthor in that suit since there's a fuckton of kryptonian tech lying around and being near kryptonian tech weakens Superman.


----------



## MF NaruSimpson (Jul 29, 2013)

here's an idea that i'm gonna throw out there: would it be too much to ask that this round of superman movies not have luthor at all? or at most as a side villain?  i mean, he's played out and been done a hundred times.  

that's one advantage iron man had going for it, nobody expected anything out of those movies and it's villains (up until part 3 anyway) and everyone was happy.

you put luthor in a movie, bring on everybody's expectations of who lex luthor is


----------



## masamune1 (Jul 29, 2013)

Well that's the gag. Luthor has been in 4 Superman movies, and yet he hasn't actually been in _any_ of them. Movie Lex is a world away from Comic Lex.

Also, Lex from the comics is a gateway to other villains. That's one of the main reasons he is the archenemy; he works so well with nearly all of Superman's other notable rogues that its kind of silly not to put him in if you want to see them. They work better when they work with Luthor.



androidmuppet said:


> Why do Superman movies keep featuring the same old enemies?.
> 
> There's this pervasive myth that Superman only has three good enemies: an evil version of himself, Lex Luthor, or a crapload of kryptonite. It doesn't help that we're five movies in and the films have done absolutely nothing to dispel that idea. all five movies featured kryptonite and Luthor (or, in Superman III, his non-union Ross Webster equivalent). And between General Zod, drunken clone Superman, and Nuclear Man.
> 
> ...





androidmuppet said:


> The superman movies should atleast use Mongul or Bizarro.



So you don't want him to fight a Superman clone, but you _do_ want him to fight Bizarro?


----------



## James Bond (Jul 29, 2013)

godzillafan430 said:


> ^we will more than likely see Luthor in that suit since there's a fuckton of kryptonian tech lying around and *being near kryptonian tech weakens Superman*.


----------



## Lee-Sensei (Jul 29, 2013)

> here's an idea that i'm gonna throw out there: would it be too much to ask that this round of superman movies not have luthor at all? or at most as a side villain? i mean, he's played out and been done a hundred times.



That's like leaving the Joker out of a Batman movie. Or keeping Loki out of a Thor movie. Lex has to show up eventually. Hopefully in World's Finest.


----------



## MF NaruSimpson (Jul 29, 2013)

if a villain has to be included everytime, it's gonna be real tough to have original movies.

supposing there's a new batman trilogy, will any joker compare to nolan/ledger's joker?  If your gonna say joker is a must have, you might be setting yourself up for failure.


----------



## James Bond (Jul 29, 2013)

Yeah but people said the same thing about Ledger/Nicholson and now look at what people say.


----------



## androidmuppet (Jul 29, 2013)

masamune1 said:


> So you don't want him to fight a Superman clone, but you _do_ want him to fight Bizarro?



I'm talking about half assed superman clones that are NOT BIZARRO.


----------



## MF NaruSimpson (Jul 29, 2013)

James Bond said:


> Yeah but people said the same thing about Ledger/Nicholson and now look at what people say.



i'll give u that, if u give me that an actor taking up the role of joker is even more treachorous now, in hind sight of ledger's joker and nicholson's joker.

makes me wonder, would the next batman be even "grittier"? it would be tough to top nolan's batman world for that.


----------



## Tom Servo (Jul 29, 2013)




----------



## James Bond (Jul 29, 2013)

godzillafan430 said:


> ^we will more than likely see Luthor in that suit since there's a fuckton of kryptonian tech lying around and *being near kryptonian tech weakens Superman*.



Since the famous "wat" image wasn't enough.

Being around Kryptonian tech does not weaken Superman, what weakened Superman was the fact that they were changing the gravity to be more dense like on Krypton. Being around Kryptonite weakens Superman however we have yet to discover if Kryptonite will exist in Snyder's Superman verse.


----------



## Perverted King (Jul 29, 2013)

I'm betting Kryptonite will be rocks that aquired radiation from the World Engine.


----------



## James Bond (Jul 29, 2013)

I'm hoping kryptonite doesnt exist.


----------



## Tom Servo (Jul 29, 2013)

James Bond said:


> Since the famous "wat" image wasn't enough.
> 
> Being around Kryptonian tech does not weaken Superman, what weakened Superman was the fact that they were changing the gravity to be more dense like on Krypton. Being around Kryptonite weakens Superman however we have yet to discover if Kryptonite will exist in Snyder's Superman verse.



They stated multiple times in the film that being near the tech will weaken him so, the kryptonian tech is the equivalent of kryptonite


----------



## James Bond (Jul 29, 2013)

No they didn't, the only thing that was stated was that because they were terrorforming the earth to be more like Krypton Kal-El was becoming weaker due to the shift in gravity.


----------



## Linkdarkside (Jul 29, 2013)

Danger Doom said:


> Mongul I agree. To some extent I would take cyborg Supes over Bizarro since the latter *is basically has a mind of a 5 year old.*


they could make Bizarro similar of how he was in Smallville.


----------



## Jimin (Jul 29, 2013)

I feel that if there is a Justice League movie, they're gonna use Darkseid. I know it's a Superman villain, but from what I know, he seems to be DC's most powerful/popular villain. I could also see the Sinestro Corps being a team of villains as well.

As for Superman villains, I feel that unlike Spider-Man and Batman, he doesn't have too much variety and none of them truly jumps out. On topic, I feel they should do Doomsday. He seems to be the most impressive villain that hasn't appeared on a live action Superman film.


----------



## Banhammer (Jul 29, 2013)

Luthor
President Luthor
Himself
Doomsday
The Elite
Zod
That yellow gladiator guy
Darkseid
Polaris
The list is huuuuge


----------



## Perverted King (Jul 30, 2013)

Superman has plenty of villains

Lex Luthor
Darkseid
Doomsday
Mongul
Ultraman
General Zod
Faora/Ursa
Brainiac
Parasite
Atomic Skull
Maxima
Metallo
Cyborg Superman
Bizarro
Eradicator
The Elite
Bloodsport
Livewire
Toyman
Mr.  Mxyzptlk
Silver Banshee

And there is a couple of lesser know villains as well.


----------



## androidmuppet (Jul 30, 2013)

Perverted King said:


> Superman has plenty of villains
> 
> Lex Luthor
> Darkseid
> ...




Thats a huge number of villains, it's sad how the live action superman movies only use Lex Luthor or Zod.


----------



## Banhammer (Jul 30, 2013)

Superman Vs The Elite is a sorely needed movie this day and age, and it's a type of story marvel really can't offer right now



> Lex Luthor or Zod.



Lex Luthor and Zod are Superman's respective symmetric and polar oposite. When sequels and such come short, and every storyline is either an origin or a all-star classic, those are the only two that qualify


----------



## androidmuppet (Jul 30, 2013)

Banhammer said:


> Superman Vs The Elite is a sorely needed movie this day and age, and it's a type of story marvel really can't offer right now
> 
> 
> 
> Lex Luthor and Zod are Superman's respective symmetric and polar oposite. When sequels and such come short, and every storyline is either an origin or a all-star classic, those are the only two that qualify



The animated Superman movies are better then the live movies, atleast we see more villains like Doomsday or Brainiac.


----------



## MF NaruSimpson (Jul 30, 2013)

tbh, i would have been disappointed in MOS bc of using zod as a villain as opposed to some as yet unused villain, but bc i hated how zod was used in the first superman movies ( i couldn't even follow the story, it was so dumb says my modern sensibilities), which was decades ago anyway, I thought it was alright to use zod again.


----------



## masamune1 (Jul 30, 2013)

androidmuppet said:


> Thats a huge number of villains, it's sad how the live action superman movies only use Lex Luthor or Zod.



To be fair, many of those would have been a _lot_ harder to pull off in the 1970's-80's, and many of them didn't even exist yet (and Faora / Ursa _has_ been used, obviously). For most of them, the special effects simply weren't there yet.

Superman 3 was _supposed_ to feature Brainiac but they changed that at the last minute, and the Directors Cut of Superman 4 has _two_ Nuclear Men, the first of whom is much more like Bizarro (though he isn't- and it doesn't save the movie, though it clears up some plot holes)._Superman Returns_ reused Lex because Bryan Singer wanted to make that kind of movie, in continuity with the first two Christopher Reeve movies (when WB should have just rebooted the franchise then and there), while using Zod in MoS might not be the most original move, but it makes sense for a number of reasons. 

I don't think Bizarro would be a very good villain, because by definition he's not meant to be taken all that seriously, so he's either too comedic to be a threat or so dim and childlike that Superman seems like an asshole for beating him up (or you make him an outright villain, but then that isn't really Bizarro). Someone like Darkseid really demands a ton of buildup, while Doomsday is by design a pretty one-dimensional character who really would only be brought in to smash stuff up. 

One reason for using Luthor is that he gives you the opportunity to use villains like Metallo or Parasite, or most of the human villains,  either as their creator and / or the mastermind bossing them around, though thusfar that's more something we hope the films will get round to doing. He also works well teaming up or playing against Brainiac or other big alien villains. Both he and Zod work well if you want to keep a strong emphasis on story. 

But yeah, lets hope that the start using other villains. I don't think ditching Lex would be a smart move, but he should be the villain that ties the movies together, not the only real threat Superman faces. But you shouldn't use different villains just for the sake of using different villains.


----------



## androidmuppet (Jul 30, 2013)

masamune1 said:


> To be fair, many of those would have been a _lot_ harder to pull off in the 1970's-80's, and many of them didn't even exist yet (and Faora / Ursa _has_ been used, obviously). For most of them, the special effects simply weren't there yet.
> 
> Superman 3 was _supposed_ to feature Brainiac but they changed that at the last minute, and the Directors Cut of Superman 4 has _two_ Nuclear Men, the first of whom is much more like Bizarro (though he isn't- and it doesn't save the movie, though it clears up some plot holes)._Superman Returns_ reused Lex because Bryan Singer wanted to make that kind of movie, in continuity with the first two Christopher Reeve movies (when WB should have just rebooted the franchise then and there), while using Zod in MoS might not be the most original move, but it makes sense for a number of reasons.
> 
> ...




There is more then just using two villains, I think Parasite would be a perfect villain to use.


----------



## masamune1 (Jul 30, 2013)

He'd be okay, but I don't think he deserves too big a part. And he probably should be sharing the screen with a two or three other villains, but Luthor as the actual main villain and the rest as pawns. 

Problem with Parasite is he risks acting like just another Superman clone. After all, his main threat comes from his ability to steal Superman's powers. Which also means that he's most dangerous when Superman isn't.


----------



## androidmuppet (Jul 30, 2013)

masamune1 said:


> He'd be okay, but I don't think he deserves too big a part. And he probably should be sharing the screen with a two or three other villains, but Luthor as the actual main villain and the rest as pawns.
> 
> Problem with Parasite is he risks acting like just another Superman clone. After all, his main threat comes from his ability to steal Superman's powers. Which also means that he's most dangerous when Superman isn't.



The villains they should atleast use are Mongul, Metallo (If Luthor made him), Livewire, or Ultra Humanite.


----------



## James Bond (Jul 30, 2013)

I'd be okay with Metallo being made from the wrecks of Kryptonian ships therefore being able to do damage to Kal-El but not turn him into a little bitch like Kryptonite does.

My hope for World's Finest is Luthor with Metallo as bodyguard and really the only villain for Batman has to be Joker.. so yeah gonna be an interesting cast.


----------



## masamune1 (Jul 30, 2013)

androidmuppet said:


> The villains they should atleast use are Mongul, Metallo (If Luthor made him), Livewire, or Ultra Humanite.



I think Mongul and Humanite can really carry their own movies. They'd probably not want to go with Mongul because doing another alien movie just after MoS is a bit soon, and Humanite hasn't really been a Superman villain for decades.



James Bond said:


> I'd be okay with Metallo being made from the wrecks of Kryptonian ships therefore being able to do damage to Kal-El but not turn him into a little bitch like Kryptonite does.
> 
> My hope for World's Finest is Luthor with Metallo as bodyguard and really the only villain for Batman has to be Joker.. so yeah gonna be an interesting cast.



I actually wouldn't mind if they don't use Batman villains at all, or at least keep the focus off of them. I really wouldn't mind if this was basically MoS 2 and Batman was just a supporting character.

Batman beats up some Gotham gangster (Penguin, maybe?) and finds a link to Luthor or Metropolis, so he goes to Metropolis to investigate. Runs into Superman and discovers Luthor is a major crime lord (on top of a fellow billionaire-genius-playboy-philanthropist) and is plotting against the Man of Steel. And there is the story.

Maybe have the link be that Penguin has a superpowered Mook who comes from the other city, and Intergang has a bunch of such goons, all of them classic Superman street villains. Batman is looking for the source, and discovers its Luthor. And he is selling superpowers to criminals worldwide, setting up the rest of the DC movie-verse). By the end, he and Superman foil Luthor's A-plot, but are unable to bring him to justice.


----------



## Jimin (Jul 31, 2013)

I took out some the villains in the live actions movies already, but let's see:



Perverted King said:


> Superman has plenty of villains
> 
> Doomsday
> Mongul
> ...



WOW! I completely forgot about Brainiac. He should probably be the next live action villain. He's powerful enough to be a threat but not such a threat that the entire Justice League needs to be involved. I also think most casual fans will probably be familiar with Brianiac too. He's been in the animated series and in Smallville. No one else really stood out besides Doomsday, but he hasn't been around as long as Brianiac IIRC. I suppose they could do Darkseid, but if his minions got involved, they would probably be a Justice League level villain as Superman taking them down alone seems unrealistic.


----------



## gumby2ms (Aug 1, 2013)

what i was thinking masa. cobblebot industries with luther corp. batman beating luther because superman wouldn't do so, maybe to get control of metallo who supes is tooling about.


----------



## masamune1 (Aug 1, 2013)

I think the plot of Superman / Batman should be that Luthor has discovered the metagene and is selling superpowers, to criminals.


----------

